From today’s BBC website:

Whisky hangover 'worse than vodka', study suggests.

Drinking whisky will result in a worse hangover than vodka, according to research by US scientists.

No shit, Sherlock! I could have told them that, and for half the price. And during a controlled (-ish) experiment lasting decades I betcha I’ve done more practical research, than they have.

For another large wodge of greenbacks I’ll happily affirm that vintage Port gives you a far worse head than either of them.. And if (because it might seem a good idea at the time) you get stuck in to the Taylor’s 1960 on top of half-a-bottle of Bells, you’re topping the Premier League, hangover-wise. That’ll be loadsamoney, please, Brown University. Cash in a Brown Envelope will do nicely.

I can’t help wondering how many zillions of dollars this ‘research’ actually cost. And more to the point, why it was carried out in the first place. After all, it won’t make any difference to anybody’s drinking habits. Thems that have been hacking into into the Famous Grouse since it was an Unknown Egg will keep doing just that, while the Smirnov Brigade, having no doubt noted the pseudo-research, will neck an extra couple of large ones with a sigh of relief, a feeling of moral superiority, and a mixer to mask the taste.

As my Grandmother Pearl used to say (in Yiddish) – “Only in America!”.

A Well-spent Age.


What is it with doctors?

I went to see mine the other day, – I say ‘mine’, but round here we don’t have personal medics these days – the Surgery - sorry – Health Centre - consists of two Principal Doctors, with a consulting room each, (but to see either of them you need to book an appointment a month before you fall ill,) plus several part-time registrars box-and-coxing it in the third consulting room, with the result that you never know which one you’re going to get, until you’re told by the touch screen computer they’ve just installed just inside the door in order to book you in. This is presumably to save the Receptionists having to put their conversation on hold in order to talk to you, although this isn’t a bad thing, in practice – the computer has far more warmth and personality then the Receptionists ever managed to muster, and doesn’t look down on you like you were something it had just stepped in.

After the usual 25 minute delay, sat on what must be the most uncomfortable seats this side of Death Row, the computer paged me to go into the consulting room. Today’s incumbent was young, female, and pleasantly ethnic. I’d not seen her before.

I was there not because there’s anything particularly amiss – I’m in rude health, other than the usual list of minor ailments and annoyances that septuagenarian flesh is heir to, but because they’d asked me to come in for what they call ‘a medication check’. I don’t know why they couldn’t just look at their own notes, and read the list (unchanged for the last ten years at least) of pills they prescribe me. These must be working – I’m still here.

Anyway – the consultation consisted of a blood pressure check (passed with flying colours) and a two minute conversation to establish that the prescription needed no re-adjustment , and as far as I’m concerned was a complete waste of time, both mine and hers. But I suppose it keeps the paperwork straight and the NHS computer up to date. So that’s alright then. Admin, having stolen an hour or so out of my day to no purpose, can breathe easy.

But, seeing as how doctor’s appointments are supposed to last the full ten minutes, regardless of how many people are kicking their heels in the waiting room outside, I then had to be treated to the statutory inquisitorial lecture to fill the time in.

“Do you smoke, Mr James? “

“Omigod – here we go again”, I thought, and pointed out that her colleagues had asked me that question every time they’d clapped eyes on me over the last twenty years, and by now it must be engraved ineradicably on just about every page of my notes. Unclean! Unclean!

“Yes”, I said. “not cigarettes any more, though. I smoke a pipe.”

“You really should think of cutting down an bit,” she said, in her best headmistress to recalcitrant schoolboy voice (and of course without taking the trouble to enquire as to the level I was expected to cut down from, or for that matter to inform me as to how much I should cut down to. The theory presumably being that no matter how little I smoke, the Nanny State still requires a decrease.)

I pointed out that over the last decade or so I had voluntarily “cut down” dramatically, from the 4 packs of Benson and Hedges a day which was my norm for about 40 years, to about an ounce-and-a-half of pipe tobacco a week. That’s what I’d call fairly serious pruning, but somehow she seemed less than impressed. “Sniffy” comes to mind. “Did I want a leaflet?”

No – I Bloody Didn’t! Why is it that everybody in a position of little brief authority these days thinks that every problem can be solved by stating the obvious in a turgid multilingual folded a4 pamphlet?

“And I really do think you should start losing some weight”, she went on, waving a diet sheet under my nose. A diet sheet, let me tell you, describing meals of such an awful grey, puritan bland institutional dullness that I wouldn’t impose them on my worst enemy. Not even on the local VAT inspector. Not even on Wee Gordy McBroon, although he’d probably think them irresponsibly hedonistic. No fats, no sugar, no starch, no alcohol, no red meat, no dairy products except the abomination known as skimmed milk, no chocolate, no biccies, no salt, no nothing. No nothing, indeed, in several languages, including Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic, Polish, and various scripts I didn’t recognise. I thought of asking for one in Hebrew, but bottled out.

“I want you to stick rigidly to this for a month, and then come and see me again”.

It was at this point that all diplomatic niceties deserted me.

“For God’s sake, woman! I’ve been fighting my weight since I was fifteen. I’ve tried more diets than you’ve had hot dinners. I’ve variously starved myself, purged myself, bored myself titless, and stressed myself out. And my weight hasn’t altered a jot.

Just answer me one question. To quote the Good Book, the days of my age are threescore years and ten. So at what point will the National Health Service say to me “Phil – you’ve reached a ripe old age – now eat what you like, smoke when you want to, have a few drinks if the mood takes you, sprinkle a bit of salt on your veggies, in fact stop trying to give up, or feeling guilty about not giving up, all the things you enjoy.” Against all the odds, I’ve reached seventy, for God’s sake. What age will I have to achieve to be allowed to do as I please, without having somebody haranguing me on the supposed evils of all the minor pleasures of my life? ? Eighty? Ninety? A hundred? “

And do you know – she had no answer to that.

By any other name……..


We were in Sainsco’s – not our local bandits as it happens, although I guess they’re probably all much of a muchness, but another example further afield. We only wanted a couple of bits and pieces rather than the customary over-indulgent truckload, and it happened to be on the way back from where we’d been to pick up a load of books.

The store was quite busy – it was after all Saturday lunchtime - but we weren’t that fussed – grab a basket - nip round – pick up the few odds and sods, and straight to the quick checkout..

Except.

Except why is it that supermarkets – they all do it, no matter which flavour – why is it they always station the slowest dimmest, most gormless checkout girl, or the one who speaks the least English, on the quick checkout line?

And why is it that there’s always some female (they’re always female – it’s obviously a Girl Thing.) in front of you with about forty money-off vouchers to be fed one by one through the system, whereafter she’ll check her bill, item by item, with Ms Dimbo Snailspace al Raschid at the till, and then, and only then, she’ll spend ten minutes going through all her various pockets, handbags and shopping bags trying to find her purse, thereafter counting out the cash, more often than not in large quantities of coin. Grrrrr!

So I’m standing at the checkout behind her, with thoughts of slow torture and bloody homicide running through my head, and the Tannoy erupts into life.

“This is a Colleague Announcement. Would all checkout colleagues please assemble at their checkout points. “

“A Colleague Announcement” ?

A What????

Why, for God’s sake?

Is plain English really no longer good enough? OK – “workers” is probably pushing the Trades Descriptions Act envelope a bit, but why is the word “Staff” suddenly unacceptable? And why do they have to “Assemble”? A simple “All staff to the checkouts, please” would be so much easier to understand, and so much less intrusive to pedantic Linguaphiles like wot I am. Besides, who do they think they’re trying to impress? The place is almost entirely staffed by ethnic minorities, most of whom wouldn’t know a colleague from a cauliflower. And as far as the customers are concerned, providing there’s somebody they can ask where the Orange Squash lives, or if they sell paper plates, couldn’t give a toss whether they’re speaking to staff, colleagues, workers, esteemed employees, the Board of Management, the Archangel Gabriel, or the Great Panjandrum Himself.

Anyway - eventually, we manage to dump some of our hard-earned on an undeserving Sainsco, and head for the exit. I’m surprised they don’t call it an egress – it sounds so much more superior. Except that the customers (how long will it be before we’re “clients”, I wonder) probably wouldn’t recognise it, and they’d spend all afternoon asking some ‘colleague’ or another for the Way Out.

On the wall above the door to the Car Park I noticed the following rubric:

“Sorry you have to go. Come again – see you very soon. Drive safely.”

So not only have I spent half-an-hour buying such comestibles as would have taken me five minutes in an old-fashioned grocer’s shop, but now I find I’m being commiserated at for leaving their premises, being ordered when to report back, and by implication having my driving criticised.

By a Wall, no less.

Sorry, Sainsco, I shan’t be coming again. Soon or otherwise. On me, you shouldn’t rely, if you aren’t prepared to eschew all this fake posh and verbose rubbish and tell it like it is.

Or in the case of the Wall, preferably not at all.

Babes and Sucklings………..

This morning, I find myself at a loss. I don’t know whether to be amused, amazed, embarrassed, or just plain touched. All of them at once, probably.

We have, included in the eight lovely grandchildren Susie and I share between us, a little lad called Rhys. Second son of Sharon, Susie’s younger daughter, and her husband, Mark.

Rhys is about 18 months old, and at that fascinating stage where he’s beginning to turn from a mere blob, noisy at one end and insanitary at the other, into an individual person in his own right. He’s quite articulate for his young age, but he obviously tends to think in generics, rather than specifics; for instance to him all dogs are called “Gemma”, after our younger rough collie, with whom Rhys has an ongoing love affair. Which is mutual - they adore each other.

Now, as anybody who knows me will attest, I’m not exactly noted for a slim trim figure. Lithe, I’m not. I have an extensive (and expensive, come to think) tum-tum. “Stout” will cut it. Or “Corpulent”. Or any other euphemism for “fat” you can think of. I don’t mind. I like me as I am.

But why am I telling you all this?

Because Sharon has just texted, to tell us that young Rhys has taken to pointing at a statue of the Buddha that she has on her shelf, and proudly declaring “Grandad”.

Just wait till I see the little sod. I’ll give him “Grandad”.

Missing the point.

I was speed-reading the headlines on the BBC website over coffee the other morning, and had almost reached the end when I realised that I’d glossed over something interesting.

“ASDA sees total eclipse” impinged on my early morning half-consciousness.

Bloody recession!” I thought. “Bloody Gordon Brown……..!. ”

And clicked on the link.

Then realised that it wasn’t about my favourite( ie nearest) supermarket going down the tubes, but an astronomical phenomenon in the Far East.

I really should get a life.

Why did the Chicken Cross the Road

I have been giving some thought to this age-old question, aided and abetted by (and with apologies to) the following:


John Wayne
A bird’s gadda do whadda bird’s gadda do

Inspector Morse
Don’t be silly, Lewis. Get another pint in and stop worrying about chickens. This is a murder enquiry.

Dylan Thomas
Morning. On the side of the tar-black, car-black road Dai Dungheap dreamed of his wives; feather-arsed, feather-brained, clucking and pecking their way through mindless, worm-important lives. Blind Captain Cat, sitting at the window of his snug cottage with his early morning tea-and-rum, bible-dark, treacle-thick, half-heard the ‘Cockadoodledoo’ as the fowl fluffed out his sleek, green-necked, sheen-necked plumage, self-important and shiny as an admiral’s hat, and crowing loud as a travelling preacher, began to cross…………..

William Shakespeare
Thus do I cross here, as the plot doth thicken:
In sleep an eagle; waking, a mere chicken

Jane Austen
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a chicken in possession of a good road must be in want of a reason to cross it.

Rudyard Kipling
If you can cross each unforgiving highway
With sixty seconds-worth of distance run
You’ll earn the right to crow “I did it my way”-
And what is more, you’ll be a chook, my son.

Tony Blair
I must tell you - New Labour – new chicken – new road. That’s what we mean by a caring society, a society where a chicken doesn’t need to give a reason for crossing a road, a society where we the Government have earmarked billions of pounds over the next five years to provide a new road system for our chickens – yes – our chickens - to cross………….

Voltaire
Dans ce pays ci c’est necessaire qu’une poule traversait la rue de temps en temps, pour encourager les autres.


Genesis, 1
In the beginning God created the Road. And the Road was without form, and void.
And God said ‘Let there be chooks: and there were chooks.
Male and female made he them. And God saw that it was good
And God spake to the chooks: Thus spake the Lord God:
O chooks – eat not of the Tree of Knowledge which groweth on the other side. Cross thee not the road, for the wrath of the Lord thy God is mighty
But the chooks did cross the road: And the chooks did eat of the Tree of Knowledge
And The Lord God spake thus unto the chooks, saying:
What is this that thou hast done?
In sorrow shall thou bring forth eggs, and the extra large ones thereof shall make thine eyes water, yea verily.
And thou shalt peck about in the ground for evermore, and feast on worms, thee and thy children and thy children’s children, yea even unto the lands of Colonel Sanders………………….

John Betjeman
Mrs Partlet crossed the High Road,
Back to comfy flat in Sheen;
Frozen chicken in her basket,
Safely wrapped in polythene.

G.K. Chesterton
Before the Romans came to Rye or out to Severn strode
The rolling English chicken crossed the rolling English Road.

Cole Porter
Hens do it; Cocks do it;
Even Orpingtons or Wyandottes do it
Let’s do it;
Let’s cross that road

Each batt’ry hen, now and then, does it
If let out from its bed
A bantam cock, if in shock does it
And a Rhode Island Red

You’ll find a point-of lay pullet does it,
Even Chanticleer like a bullet does it
Let’s do it!
Let’s cross that road!

Robbie Burns
Wee cluckin’, feathert cacklin’ Beastie
O what a panic’ s in thy breastie
Thou need tae start awa sae hastie
Tae cross yon street.
Aye, me, I’ll gang tae rin and chase thee,
Thee for tae eat!.


Geoffrey Chaucer (from the Cackleberry Tales)
And smale foweles maken melodye
That slepeth all the nyghte wyth open ye
So makyth them nature yn hir corages.
Thann longen hennes to goe on pilgrimage,

Winston Churchill
Some chicken! some road!

Anne Robinson
You are the weakest chook. Goodbye.

Margaret Thatcher
This chicken’s not for turning!

Ogden Nash
I am often asked for a reason as to why the chicken crossed the road.
I wish I knowed.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
WATSON “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention.”
HOLMES “To the curious incident of the chicken.”
WATSON “But Holmes - the chicken wasn’t there. It was across the road”
HOLMES “That, my dear Watson, was the curious incident.”

Albert Einstein
e-mc2
Where e = the energy used in crossing the road, m = the width of the road in metres and c = the circumference of the chicken.

The EU Agriculture Commission – Directive EU/7/1995/D24T99XK/EL56 Part 67SD3 Section 21
A summary of rules concerning the crossing of roads by chickens. For the full directive see Publication EU/12/2000/495720937/fr/645/ay (HMSO 6 languages 1854 pp price £1450 inc VAT)

A chicken (henceforth known as the appellant) shall be defined as any live fowl of the genus cluckus domesticus indigenous to any sovereign member state or colony protectorate commonwealth dependancy or satrapy thereof(for non-indigenous fowls and other feathered livestock see Section 37) over the age of six weeks and either male or female (for capons see section 132 clause 544a) whether in the food chain or no subject to its meeting all requirements contained in Directive 272/ SDFVW723/RVWEKJ4W3RWJ section 27 clause 533a and regardless of whether or not the appellant aforesaid has an egg-laying capability within the meaning of Directive 164A235M 2E43/2HH/128 part3 but excluding in all cases domestic fowls other than ducks geese swans larks orioles and other edible avia imported to or exported from the United Kingdom and its colonies dependencies and protectorates due to the veto imposed by the government of Her Britannic Majesty and any emergency directives currently in force under the Salmonella Protection (eggs) Scheme and also pigeons whether wild or domesticated but it should be especially noted that a parrot is not a chicken within the meaning of this Directive

A road shall be defined as any Motorway Autostrada Autobahn Route Nationale class A road class B road lane track public footpath or other highway river canal stream or other waterway situated wholly or in part in one or more member states and used for the transport of persons goods livestock cattle and other commodities always excepting substances prohibited under EU or national law but not excepting the transportation of cannabis within the national borders of Holland

Permitted reasons include any lawful desire on the part of any such appellant(s) as defined above to traverse any road to reach the other side of said road always assuming that any such journey is not commenced during the hours of darkness as laid down by the governments of each member state and that any such journey does not involve or include the crossing of national boundaries within the Union and does not involve any fowls as defined above crossing any boundaries into or out of non-member countries states commonwealths (see Directive 1 – exports section 7 livestock and Directive 2 –imports section 7 livestock and section 23 clauses 678-932 quarantine regulations for non EU fowls) and that any such traverse is conducted in a proper manner by the appellants aforesaid subject to or within local or national traffic rules regulations bylaws and emergency strictures as may then in force and providing always that any licences permits visas permissions passports and other documentation as may be required as laid down by the Commission in Directive 11/2000/549/VFRWEV8ASCQ6567C have been obtained at least six calendar months before the commencement of any proposed journey ……………………..

J.K. Rowling - from Harry Potter and the Chicken Soup of Mama Mephistofiles
The chicken crossed the road to where Harry, Ron and Hermione were standing outside the moonlit gates of Hogwart’s Academy. Harry could clearly see that there was something strangely different about this chicken, but couldn’t for the life of him think what it was. It wasn’t until the bird produced a crumpled cigarette from under its wing, stuck it in its beak, and gruffly demanded a light, that Harry realised who it was. “Cockamamie!” he cried joyfully………………………..

W.S. Gilbert from “The Chikado”
The chicken that crosses the road, tra-la
Has nothing to do with the case.
I refuse to take under my wing, tra-la
A horrible feathery thing, tra-la
With a satisfied smile on its face,
(chorus) With a satisfied smile on its face

And that’s what I mean when I say or repeat
To Hell with the chicken that crosses the street
(chorus) The chicken that crosses, the chicken that crosses
The chicken that crosses the street.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
By the side of Emmi- Leven
By the oil-spattered hard shoulder
Stood a chicken, feathers draggled
Daughter of the far Rhode Island
Far from home was this poor chicken
Far from lovely clean Rhode Island
O’er the shining Big-Sea water.
Standing by the Emmi-leven
Past her roared the mighty diesels
Past her screamed the Ford Fiestas
Middle-management Fiestas
Talking ever on their mobiles
Never seeing a poor chicken
Tired and hungry, heading homeward
Frightened by the Emmi-leven
Frightened by the fox behind her
In the dark and gloomy pine trees
Coming nearer, ever nearer
Looking for a chicken breakfast.
So the chook in desperation
Steps out on the Emmi-leven
On the busy Emmi-leven
Splat! The noise she made when dying.
Swallowed up by roaring traffic.
Chicken flattened by the traffic
On the fearful Emmi-leven
Never more to see Rhode Island ( and so on, interminably)

Samuel Pepys
To Charing Cross to see the new fowl lately arrived from the Indies. These were being driven across the strand and into pens the further side thereof, and looked as cheerful as any fowl could do in that condition. And so to bed.

Another fine mess......................?

Just a couple of amusing little things, but they’ve left me unsure whether to be worried for the future my country, or smug in that my opinions of those running it have been confirmed.

Item: We sold a book this morning. Called “ The Best of Laurel and Hardy” . Nothing unusual in that.

But:

The buyer? HM Foreign and Commonwealth Office.


Item: – I must confess to having a giggle at the headline in yesterday’s Sunday Times, which read “ Gordon Brown wants Balls for Chancellor”.

And Arse for Foreign Secretary, Dick for Minister of Education, and Armpits for Minister of Health, no doubt. Is the man so arrogant that he thinks he can run the whole country on his own?