When the year ends in one

Remember Chas & Dave? You'd have to be of a certain age. Purveyors of a musical style called rockney - cockney rock. You can imagine. In the late 70s and early 80s. According to Mr W Pedia "their major breakthrough being "Gertcha" in 1979, which peaked at No. 20 in the UK Singles Chart". So not rock royalty.

Anyway, they are perhaps best known for their football music. As supporters of Tottenham Hotspur, they were the backing musicians on When the Year Ends in One, a single featuring the Spurs football team, celebrating their success in winning the 1991 FA Cup, which reached number 44 in the charts:

It was nineteen hundred and one when Tot'nam first got there
They were in the final, it was a grand affair
Sheffield United scored a goal but finished runners up
Cameron, Smith and Brown scored three as Spurs took home the Cup

It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
They first won the Cup when the century begun
It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
So this is the year for Spurs

Then in nineteen twenty one again was Tot'nam's year
Jinkin' Jimmy Dimmock scored the winner 'ere
Wolver'ampton Wanderers never scored at all
Spurs 'ad won the Cup again by playin' good football

It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
They first won the Cup when the century begun
It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
So this is the year for Spurs

In the sixty one Cup Final, first time on Wembley turf
Damn near proved to ev'ryone they were the best team on Earth
They won the Wembley final, and they were the first to do
the Double, 'cos they ended up League Champions too

It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
They first won the Cup when the century begun
It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
So this is the year for Spurs

Now it's nineteen ninety one but let us not forget
ten years ago, who won the Cup in eighty one, you bet
It was Tot'nam 'otspur, when Ossie's dream come true
Now it's nineteen ninety one the Spurs know what to do

It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
They first won the Cup when the century begun
It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
So this is the year for Spurs

Altogether now,

It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
They first won the Cup when the century begun
It's lucky for Spurs when the year ends in one
So this is the year for Spurs

Now there are some flaws in this notion. Tottenham also won the Cup in 1962, 1967 and 1982. And they didn't win it in a number of "ending in one" years, including most recently 2001 and 2011. But nothing will stop their fans living in hope every ten years. So I invite all my readers to sing along with Chas & Dave at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ddjdlqf7vo&ab_channel=sunderlandspur

Art it's not, but it's a jolly song.

UPDATE: I tried embedding the video; hope it works:

Spurs start their campaign to win the 2021 FA Cup on 10 January, away to the lowest ranked team left in the tournament - Marine, a Merseyside club that currently plays in the Northern Premier League Division One North West. I think that's six leagues below Tottenham. Will it be the year ending in one, or January ending in the biggest shock of all time?

I feel a Zoom singalong comin' on...

Don't cry over spilt milk

You may have noticed my fascination with language, in particular the origins of strange childhood aphorisms. "Don't cry over spilt milk" was not invented by my mother, or yours. No. it's down to James Howell in his Paramoigraphy of 1659.

I'm not even sure that paramoigraphy is a real word. But Howell used it to describe his book of proverbs, so that's good enough for me. There's a suggestion that the original (which sadly I couldn't find) read "no weeping for shed milk".

Also in 1659, Henry Purcell was born. He died in 1695, which is a numerical anagram of his birth year.

My birthday, in DDMM format, which is 1601, is a numerical anagram of 0611, which was the DDMM birthday of Suleiman The Magnificent in 1494.

Suleiman, as the Ottoman Sultan, conquered the island of Rhodes in 1523. Cecil Rhodes, former Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and after whom Rhodesia was named, founded the Rhodes Scholarship scheme in his will. The most recent Rhodes Scholar is Madison Tung, first female wrestler and wrestling national champion at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Another USAF Academy graduate Heather Wilson was a Rhodes Scholar at Jesus College, Oxford in 1982. Which was where James Howell was elected to a Fellowship in 1623, 36 years before he wrote his Paramoigraphy.

It's a small world.

Code of Hammurabi

Hammurabi was King of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 B.C. He is best known for issuing the Code of Hammurabi. This code of laws is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. A partial copy exists on a 2.25-metre-tall (7.4 ft) stone stele, which is today in the Louvre.

The code contains 282 laws. You can see a list of all of them in the Avalon Project of the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University. For those of you without that much time, here are a few pertinent examples.

3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.

I guess that gives you a flavour of what is to come. However:

2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.

So what's so special about a river?

I guess rivers were important in ancient Babylon.

5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgement.

Now there's a thing. Judges are accountable for their actions. I can think of a few authoritarian leaders who would love that.

21. If any one break a hole into a house (break in to steal), he shall be put to death before that hole and be buried.

Harsh.

65. If the gardener do not work in the garden and the product fall off, the gardener shall pay in proportion to other neighboring gardens.

That reminds me of my getting warned off because I allowed my allotment to grow an impressive array of weeds.

109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.

That's one for lockdown rules.

195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.

196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.

200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.

You get the message.

226. If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign of a slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be cut off.

There's a lot more about slaves, tenant farming and adultery.

Nice chap, Hammurabi. Good job there are no statues of him around. However, it should be remembered that he was - as we all are - a man of his time, and this codification of the rule of law is remarkable.

I wonder whether students are taught this as part of the history of laws in a law degree course. I have a son who could answer that.........

Rudolph won't be coming

But Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner (or Dunder) and Blitzen will.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
with a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer, and Vixen!
"On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Dunder and Blitzen!

[A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement C. Moore, 1823]

Rudolph is a fake, invented in 1939 as a marketing gimmick for the Montgomery Ward chain of department stores in America. Shame.

But it did spawn the famous song. Nobody ever sang "Dasher, the prancing reindeer". To my knowledge.

There's more. L. Frank Baum's story The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902) includes a list of ten reindeer: Flossie and Glossie, Racer and Pacer, Fearless and Peerless, Ready and Steady, Feckless and Speckless.

St. Nicholas himself was a real person of course, a monk supposedly in (what is now) Turkey in the 3rd century A.D. (or C.E. as we woke people say). I could find no record of reindeer sightings in Turkey. Or turkeys in Lapland, for that matter.

The first known reference to Santa Claus coming down a chimney is in a version of Knickerbocker’s History of New York by Washington Irvine in 1812: "St. Nicholas rattl[ing] down the chimney”.

Americans, have you nothing better to write about? And are Americans that gullible?

So kids, please stop singing about Rudolph and memorise Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. I'll test you!

A very merry Christmas everyone.

A shout-out for Premier Inn

I had booked four nights at the Premier Inn in Whistable for Christmas, when the government announced the relaxation of the Covid-19 restrictions (at the time Tier Three in Kent). I chose the cheapest rate, which did not allow cancellation or amendment, because it was significantly lower than the more flexible rates.

Then the Christmas rules were changed. Kent went into a new Tier Four, not allowing mixing of households or travel into or out of the Tier Four region (Cornwall is in Tier One). So I am resigned to losing my £150; no worries, I always  knew it was a possibility. BUT - I received an email from Premier Inn, saying that, as a "goodwill gesture", they would allow me to cancel without penalty. Which I did.

Well done Premier Inn! Thank you.

I will still miss Dan, Gabby, Elias and Isaac but we'll have a kind of Christmas in a few months, hopefully.

There are good people in the world.

Initials quiz - answers

IKB Isambard Kingdom Brunel

HRC Hillary Rodham Clinton

LBJ Lyndon Baines Johnson

DLG David Lloyd George

ALW Andrew Lloyd Webber

CZJ Catherine Zeta Jones

EAP Edgar Allan Poe

GBS George Bernard Shaw

MLK Martin Luther King

UBL (or OBL) Usama (Osama) bin Laden

A more humorous take on faithless electors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COmW6r23zas&ab_channel=CGPGrey

Faithless electors update

There  were no faithless electors in the Electoral College for this year's US Presidential Election. 

Vote totals were exactly the same as were certified after the vote on December 3rd:

Biden - 306

Trump - 232

The only hurdle remaining to be overcome is the joint session of Congress on January 6th, at which it is theoretically possible for there to be challenges to the results in certain states. That possibility has receded significantly with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's acceptance of, and congratulations to, Biden as President-Elect yesterday. Apparently McConnell is also advising his fellow Republicans not to challenge any results on January 6th.

If there are any recalcitrant Republicans still wanting to appease President Trump - or shore up their voter base ready for a 2024 challenge, perhaps - they will be swiftly shot down [probably not literally, I'd guess] and Joe Biden will be finally confirmed as the winner of the election by Congress on January 6th.

Phew!

Join me again in 2024.

Faithless electors

Did you think that the votes had been cast in the US election? Well not quite. As I write this, at least a day before you read it, the members of the Electoral College are meeting in each state and casting their votes for President and Vice President. If you were a voter in Tennessee, you would have cast your vote for your preferred candidate; the party with the most votes in Tennessee then nominates its electors to the Electoral College and they will today cast all their votes for the candidate of that party.

States have a number of Electoral College votes equal to the number of members of the Senate and House of Representatives that state has. Each of the 50 states has two Senators. The number of Representatives for a state is based on its population, as a % of 435, the total number in the House. The District of Columbia (home of Washington D.C.) has 3 Electoral College votes. So a total of 538. California is the most populous state and has 55 Electoral College votes. Wyoming is the smallest and has 3. Tennessee has 12.

These electors are supposed to vote for the candidate of the party which received the most votes in the election. Donald Trump won 60.7% of the vote in Tennessee and so should receive their 12 votes to the Electoral College. They will do so because Tennessee state law requires them to do so. As do a further 28 states and the District of Columbia.

Which leaves 21 states where there is no legal obligation on the electors to cast their votes according to the "result" of the general election in their state. Which leads us to: Faithless Electors. Phew, got there!

It should be said that is normal and entirely conventional for those votes to be cast as though they were mandated by law. Each election year though, there are seem to be a few mavericks (my word, not a term recognised in US electoral law) - the faithless electors. So, given that Joe Biden won 306 electoral college votes and Donald Trump 232, it is not certain that those will be the final numbers. What is certain, however, is that they will be as close as doesn't make any difference. There has been no election when the winner was changed by faithless electors.

In 58 elections since the drafting of the US constitution, there have been just 165 instances of faithlessness, 63 of which occurred in 1872 when Horace Greeley died after Election Day but before the Electoral College convened. So ignoring 1872, an average of around two per election.

In 2016, there were seven faithless electors:

• Texas (Trump won): one vote for John Kasich, one for Ron Paul
• Washington (Clinton won): three votes for Colin Powell and one for Faith Spotted Eagle (a member of the Yankton Sioux Nation, an activist and politician and the first Native American to receive an electoral vote for President of the United States)
• Hawaii (Clinton won): one vote for Bernie Sanders

(in the same cases, there were faithless votes for the Vice Presidential candidates)

So although the "result" of the 2016 election, in terms of electoral college votes, was Trump 306, Clinton 232 (the exact reverse of the 2020 election), the final vote was respectively 304 to 227.

2020? Wait and see, but expect some shenanigans.

So will that be the end? Technically no, because the electoral college votes have to be certified by a joint session of Congress on 6 January. This is a formal reading of the votes, followed by the final declaration of the winner. It is pertinent only if there is an indecisive election, in which case Congress can decide the winner. This happened only in 1800 and 1824.

Rest easy, folks.

Civics lesson over; back to your comics.

Is this the most beautiful fish?

The giant manta ray is an endangered species.

This beautiful fish is on the Red List of threatened species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. As of 10 December, there are now 128,918 species on the IUCN Red List, of which 35,765 are threatened with extinction. These are extraordinary and frightening numbers. Their latest newsletter lists 31 species now declared extinct. They include the Lost Shark and three Central American frog species.

The giant manta ray has a wingspan of up to 29 feet, which is bigger than any bird. Although only half the size of a Quetzalcoatlus. The largest population is in Ecuador, particularly in marine reserves. Global populations are declining, partly due to the Chinese belief that the gills have medicinal benefits. Also due to the fact that they give birth to one pup only every two or three years. According to oceana.org:

"Mantas have huge brains — the biggest of any fish — with especially developed areas for learning, problem solving and communicating. The giant rays are playful, curious and might even recognize themselves in mirrors, a sign of self-awareness [Only a few species, including great apes and bottlenose dolphins, can recognize their own reflections, rather than attacking or ignoring a mirror]. A manta’s brain can be ten times larger than a whale shark’s. Not only is the brain physically big, it’s also large relative to the ray’s body. That’s another sign of super smartness, true of elephants, dolphins and people too."

If you want to know where you can see one of these magnificent fish in an aquarium, mantarayadvocates.com tells us:

"We know of four places around the globe that have mantas in huge aquariums:

Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, GA, USA

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa, Japan

Atlantis Resort, Paradise Island Bahamas

S.E.A Aquarium in Singapore"

When Covid-19 is done, I'll be off!

Ethiopian calendar

It's 2013 in Ethiopia. For some reason, their calendar operates seven years behind our (Gregorian) calendar. Which is proof that time travel exists; on your next trip there, you will travel seven years back in time: Lily Allen is top of the charts, Barack Obama is US President, there has been no Brexit referendum, Britain has just exported pig semen to China. There's a chance to change the future!

Wait! You can't book your emigration flights on that flimsy evidence. It's not as simple as that.

theculturetrip.com tells me "Owing to its complexity, Ethiopians call the method used to calculate the calendar Bahere Hasab, or ‘sea of thoughts’. The calendar system starts with the idea that Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden for seven years before they were expelled for their sins" [justice was slow in  those days]. So they date their calendar from the end of that seven years, whereas Pope Gregory XIII went for the earlier date.

The only other countries which do not use the Gregorian calendar - at least that I could discover - are Afghanistan, Iran and Nepal. Countries which use their own calendars alongside the Gregorian calendar are Bangladesh, India, Israel, Japan and Thailand. These have the same dates as the Gregorian calendar with different religious holidays.

North Korea and Taiwan seem to be, along with Ethiopia, outliers in the world's calendar fraternity.

The North Koreans date their Juche calendar from 1912, the year of Kin Il Sung's birth. Of course. Thankfully they also recognise the Gregorian calendar. uritours.com tells me "For any date including or after 1912, the date must be written in either of two formats: May 22, Juche 109 (2020), or simply as May 22, Juche 109. There is no Juche 0. Years prior to 1912 (Juche 1) continue to be written as per the Gregorian calendar, there is no ‘before Juche’ or similar concept.".

I'm glad we sorted that out. I hope you're still awake.

I'm told that there will shortly be a new calendar in use in half of the United States. The Trump Calendar dates from 1946, the year of Donald J. Trump's birth. For any date including or after 1946, the date must be written in either of two formats: May 22, Trump 74 (2020), or simply as May 22, Trump 74. There is no Trump 0. Years prior to 1946 (Trump 1 [as distinct from "Trump won"]) continue to be written as per the Gregorian calendar, there is no ‘before Trump’ or similar concept.

In Taiwan the Minguo Calendar has one thing in common with North Koreans - it begins in 1912, in this case because that was the year of the establishment of the Republic of China. Similarly the days of the calendar match the Gregorian but are referred to as 民國元年 (Mínguó Yuánnián) for 1912 and 民國一百零九年, 民國109年 for 2020, the "109th year of the Republic", or simply 109. Simples.

Check out forvo.com to hear these Chinese words pronounced.

The first day of the Ethiopian calendar year is September 11. Or September 12 (in  the year before the Ethiopian leap year). Back to theculturetrip.com for the final, encouraging word: "The calendar offers foreign travellers the perfect excuse to hold two different celebrations for New Year’s and Christmas."

Do you feel you need two Christmases every year? Kids, you know what to do.

We are known by our initials

Everyone who is anyone now refers to Her Excellency Mrs Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the EU Commission, as VDL. Apparently. You heard it first here (I pick up these titbits hanging around Brussels in these heady days).

There are numerous examples of famous people commonly referred to by their initials. Among those most well-known are US Presidents FDR and JFK.

Less familiar, perhaps, is Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince MBS - Mohammed bin Salman.

Personally, I often thought of myself as NFG. Not so famous, obv.

I thought it might be time for another quiz. It's been a while. So how many of these can you identify? I'll give you one clue: their most familiar names include a middle name (hence three initials). I suppose that's obvious but a little help goes a long way. Some middle names are maiden names. It's possible some should technically be hyphenated.

Answers in the Comments, please (even those who rarely comment - I'm begging here). There is no prize, other than the honour of seeing your winning name in lights.

IKB

HRC

LBJ

DLG

ALW

CZJ

EAP

GBS

MLK

UBL (or OBL)

I'll post answers in a week - unless someone has the lot, in which case I'll just congratulate you and move on.

Pluto

Many years ago, when I was at school, I was taught that there are nine planets in our Solar System.

One day, slightly fewer years ago, the Interplanetary Council met. On Jupiter, not because they are the biggest but because it's their turn. A motion was presented by the Chairthing, to the effect that "Pluto is too small to be part of our club. Our next meeting is due to be there and it's just too cold. They should  be relegated to the Second Division". "And it is 3,638.5 million miles away" piped up the little Mercuryling "and I wouldn't get back in time for Neighbours". "Best keep quiet, little Mercuryling" croaked Saturnbeast, "you'll be next in line".

"Wait a minute, we orbit the Sun don't we?" spluttered the Plutothing. "Once a day [that's a Pluto day; 248 earth years]. That's what planets do, isn't it? In any case, it only took us 20 earth-minutes to come here today." Now Pluto is the only one of the planets with teleport technology, so that's why they got there quickly. You might have thought to ask "how did you get here so fast" but the real question is "why did it take you so long?"

You would have thought that the other planets would have cosied up to the Plutonians, to do a trade deal - maybe some of our nice plutonium deposits in exchange for your teleport tech? "Don't be silly, we have our own plutonium - why do you think we are called Pluto?" "I thought you were named after Mickey Mouse's dog" whined the Marsling.

"Enough; we should vote" the Earthling intoned. Of course, ever the diplomats of the Solar System. They voted: 8 to 1 for the relegation of Pluto. Now there are only eight planets. But who will be next? The Mercuryling is keeping quiet on that one.

The Second Division is now a club of five planets - Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake [that's a name? Did someone makemake that up?]. They are known as dwarf planets. I don't think that's a politically incorrect term, as dwarfism is a known medical condition. Except for Ceres, which lies in the main asteroid belt, these small planets are located in the Kuiper Belt. That's just around the Kuiper Waist and holding up the Kuiper Pants.

Pluto is not even the biggest of these. That's Eris, whose diameter is 1,445 miles against Pluto's 1,430. Close.

Space.com tells me that the debate over Pluto's status continues:

The debate started anew after the New Horizons mission passed by Pluto in 2015, revealing a world of surprising geological complexity. As of 2017, delegates from the mission [wait! They've travelled more than 5 million km to get here? Wow] are trying to get Pluto's planethood status back. 

The primary concern stems from the requirement for a planet to clear out its local neighborhood [ah, those pesky plutonium dealers on the street corners, that's the problem?].

'In no other branch of science am I familiar with something that absurd," New Horizons principle[sic] investigator Alan Stern told Space.com in 2011. "A river is a river, independent of whether there are other rivers nearby. In science, we call things what they are based on their attributes, not what they're next to.'

Yep, I'm with you, Al. #GetPlutoBack

How does a mere blogger know this esoteric stuff? Research, mate, that's how. With a bit of help from NASA.

John C. Breckinridge

John C. Breckinridge was the youngest ever Vice President of the United States. He served from 1857 to 1861 and was 36 when he was inaugurated. After his vice presidential term, he became a general in the Confederate Army in the Civil War.

At the other end of the spectrum, Joe Biden will be by far the oldest to be inaugurated as President at 78 when he takes office in January.

No doubt you think that it has always been the case that US Presidents can only serve two four year terms but not so. This was established in the twenty second amendment to the constitution in1951. Previously, Franklin D. Roosevelt served three full terms and two months of a fourth term before his death in office in 1945.

By the way, the two terms do not have to be consecutive, so it's possible for a President, who served one term then lost his re-election bid ,to serve his [it's always been a male so far] second term subsequently. Grover Cleveland is the only one to have done this in,1885 and 1893. So far... So, although Biden will be the 46th President, he will only be the 45th person to be President. Remember that for your pub quiz.

It's not necessarily a good thing to seek a second term. I browsed and analysed some polling data from Gallop and discovered that the majority of Presidents for whom they conducted opinion polls of approval ratings showed a significantly lower approval in the second term than the first:

So maybe think again, Donald.

The Boys are Back in Town

As Thin Lizzy sang:

Guess who just got back today
Them wild-eyed boys that had been away
Haven't changed, hadn't much to say
But, man, I still think them cats are crazy

In this case, the boys were 22 young men, four officials and numerous coaching and support staff. Most importantly, two thousand football fans.

Last night's match at the Emirates Stadium in North London between home club Arsenal and visitors Rapid Vienna marked the first post lockdown match involving a Premier League team. London is in Tier 2 and so 2,000 fans were allowed in. Fully socially distanced and ultra-cautious monitoring.

The teams ran out to the strains of Thin Lizzy's song. The fans cheered, booed when necessary (when Vienna scored a goal) and their rabid influence caused Arsenal to be well, most unlike Arsenal recently, scoring four goals.

On Sunday the Gunners move across London to Tottenham for their next match. While Arsenal were hammering Rapid last night, Spurs struggled to a 3-3 draw against a different Austrian team LASK, in the historic city of Linz. Their most recent, and iconic signing, Welshman Gareth Bale, on loan from Real Madrid, suffered the ignominy of being substituted by .....no, not Harry Kane, not new striker Vinicius.... journeyman trundler Serge Aurier. Spurs will have their own 2,000 fans to help but Arsenal fans in front of our TVs will be singing the latest epic I have penned:

Gareth Bale
You've gone all stale
Nothing is sorrier
Than giving way to Aurier

I don't think Thin Lizzy still perform so I'll have to get someone else to record it.

Sing loud, fellow Gunners fans!

Pickles and beetroot

It's all about Scotch eggs. Not a question of whether they are in fact Scotch, nor whether they really are eggs (perhaps laid by Scotch hens). The issue, for us febrile Brits, is: do they constitute a 'substantial meal'? If they do, all you people in Covid Tier 2 will be able to get a pint in the pub - if you also order the afore-mentioned Scotch egg.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove says that in his opinion it is a starter. He's obviously going for the Cameron Prize for foodie pretence - "I once ate a Scotch egg in Aberdeen". In any case Michael, the concept of a starter is that a main course will follow. Otherwise it's a stopper not a starter. And are you saying that, if you order a starter, you can't get a glass of wine until you order your main course? That's mad; what happened to "can I get you a drink while you're deciding, madam?"? (Two question marks definitely looks odd but I had it checked out by a grammatical pedant and he gave me five stars) (And I'm not suggesting that females are the indecisive ones, so don't troll me)

The Scotch Egg Mealers (i.e. Conservative backbenchers) are relying on a court judgement that the inclusion of pickles and beetroot in a sandwich makes it a substantial meal. In Timmis v Millman, 1965 the judges ruled that the sandwiches that Millman and his pal were eating (with a drink after pub closing time but during supper extension time) "were so substantial, and assisted by the pickles and beetroot so as to justify that it was a table meal and not a mere snack from a bar". 

I could find no record of whether there was cheese in the sandwiches. Just pickles and beetroot would be odd.

I like cheese and pickle sandwiches. Also cheese and beetroot - my favourite childhood snack.

The Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick ("you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours") said that a Cornish pasty would be substantial "if accompanied by chips or a side salad". My friend, you're havin' a larf! Who eats a side salad with a pasty? Everyone knows that the only accompaniment to a pasty is...another pasty. Chips are for curries.

Lawyers for my local tapas bar are revving up for.........oh, this is bonkers. The world has gone mad.

We Brits, eh? We do the weirdest things.

Hunahpu and Xbalanque

I have recently become a bit of a mythological heroes geek.

Hunahpu and Xbalanque are twins in Mayan mythology. The Popol Vuh, a book of myths belonging to the Quiche Mayans of highland Guatemala, tells us that the twins outwitted the lords of the underworld in many ways, primarily by saying they would bring them back to life after killing them. And then they didn't. One lord's hero is another's reneger.

Anansi is a spider-trickster from West African mythology. His speciality is telling stories. One story goes that he tricked the sky-god Nyame into giving him all his stories, by performing impossible tasks, mostly involving deceit such as persuading a python to lie down alongside a tree branch to prove he was the longest animal, then capturing it.

Himiko, the Queen of Yamatai, in present-day Japan, may even have been a real person. She reigned over a matriarchal court and possessed shaman abilities. She is still today revered by some in Japan. I suppose their equivalent of the scientologists.

Sun Wukong is the Monkey-King of Chinese legend. He wields weapons that he stole from the dragon-king of the sea, including a golden staff so heavy that no other being can wield it, but capable of shrinking down so small that the Monkey King can store it in his ear; flying boots; and magical armour. Take that, dragon-king!

It's clearly not the case that, to be a hero, you have to be squeaky clean and a do-gooder. Stealing, lying, deceiving. Life involves compromises, doesn't it?

1,689 light bulbs, and why you should read this on Black Friday

It's not often that I give my readers the answer to a quiz question before stating the question.

Those 1,689 light bulbs? That's how many were installed in The Church of The Saviour on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg when it was completed in 1907. The spilled blood refers to the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. On 1 March 1881, Alexander was returning to the Winter Palace after a military inspection when he was killed by the second of two bombs. His son, Alexander III, the new Tsar, decided to build a magnificent church in his memory and on the exact spot where he been mortally wounded (he was taken back to the Winter Palace but died there).

Devastated by world wars and the revolution, the church was nearly demolished but restoration began in 1980 and it is today a museum.

The quiz question?

Which was the first major church in the world to be designed to be lit by electricity?

Remember that when you're designing a Christmas quiz.

I discovered this initially from an offhand comment in the latest Reacher book: The Sentinel. Which I have just finished. Reacher is a character created by Lee Child. This is the latest in the series - Jack Reacher 25 - and the writing has now been taken over by Lee Child's brother, Andrew while Lee concentrates on Reacher movies. Reacher is an ex military policeman, 6ft 5ins tall with "hands the size of dinner plates". In Never Go Back (Jack Reacher 18), he is described as having "a six-pack like a cobbled city street, a chest like a suit of NFL armor, biceps like basketballs, and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue." So who did they cast as Reacher in the movie? Tom Cruise, who is 5ft 7ins tall. Hollywood eh? Everyone makes mistakes.

If you need escapist fiction with intricate but entertaining plots, and a good guy hero, try the Reacher books.

Myself, I've just bought Standing Our Ground: The Triumph of Faith Over Gun Violence: A Mother's Story by a US Congresswoman, Lucy McBath, whose 17 year old son was gunned down in Florida on Black Friday 2012. Since then she has campaigned for gun control.

But what struck me most when I heard her story was that every year on Black Friday (today) she writes to her deceased son, sharing her life with him.

That is what made me order the book. When it arrives and when I have finished it - and passed it on to whoever is interested - I will review it in this blog.

Eat your heart out, Columbus

"Nearly 500 years before the birth of Christopher Columbus, a band of European sailors left their homeland behind in search of a new world. Their high-prowed Viking ship sliced through the cobalt waters of the Atlantic Ocean as winds billowed the boat’s enormous single sail. After traversing unfamiliar waters, the Norsemen aboard the wooden ship spied a new land, dropped anchor and went ashore." This is what history.com tells me.

Fake news? Apparently not. Remains of Norse buildings were found in the 1960s in Newfoundland. An 11th century Norwegian coin was found in Maine in 1957.

While these are perhaps slightly speculative, there is clear archaeological evidence of a Viking settlement in Greenland. From the 10th century.

The Vikings of course were one of the greatest maritime cultures of all time, so it makes sense that they should have found their way to North America before other European cultures. From Wikipedia, this map shows areas of Scandinavian settlement in the eighth (dark red), ninth (red), tenth (orange) centuries. Yellow denotes areas conquered by the Normans in the 11th century. Green denotes areas subjected to Viking raids.

Why then do we think of Christopher Columbus as the discoverer of America? Doesn't Canada or Greenland count? Are the Viking Embassies asleep on the job?

Interestingly, 9 October is Leif Erikson Day in the USA [for balance, they also have a Columbus Day]. Eriksen was that Greenland guy and may indeed have been the Newfoundland discoverer. President (1923-1929) Calvin Coolidge apparently gave recognition to Leif Erikson as the discoverer of America.

I guess those Iberians just have better PR people.

Aliens in Georgia

Today's Times reports that "Alien worms spread terror in Georgia".

I know, you'll think I'm on one of my politician-mocking shticks. Not so. This really is about worms. Nothing to do with the fact that Georgia stole millions of Trump's votes. Nothing to do with Rudy Giuliani. Real, animal worms. To be precise, the Hammerhead Worm. Yes, even more opportunities for poor taste jokes.

The hammerhead worm, so called because of its distinctive shape,

is a member of the Bipalium genus of large predatory land planarians. What is a planarian? It's a flatworm of the class Turnbellaria. For those of you who have long forgotten your biology lessons, here are some reminders of biological classifications and rankings:

• A class contains orders
• Orders contain families
• Families contain genuses - correct plural but more usually genera
• Genera contain species
• The Bipalium genus contains approximately 50 species

I researched a number of reports of this but sadly none of them identified the species of the individual in question. Shoddy journalism; do your research, people!

Anyway, these guys are only "alien" in the sense that a gardener in Georgia said "it looked like an alien". I could find no information about what actual aliens have been seen in Georgia, to enable our gardening friend to make his judgment.

[fans of The Mandalorian will be particularly delighted to see this little guy]

The worm, however is indigenous to the USA.

Hammerhead worms are carnivorous and prey mostly on other worms, particularly earthworms. They produce tetrodotoxin, the same deadly neurotoxin produced by pufferfish, according to a study from Utah State University.

The Times reports that James Murphy from the University of Georgia "emphasised that there were only a few of the worms. As long as you are not eating numerous worms it is not something to be concerned about."

Wait, who are you talking to? There are people in Georgia who eat worms? Are you serious? Maybe he's from the University of Georgia Department of Comedy. Here we were, having serious discussions about biology, and you lower the tone? Come on! Be serious.

No animals were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

Turkey revenge

In the United States, a fluffy white turkey called Corn refused to pardon a fluffed up orange turkey called Donald, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE FIRED!".

What kind of a name is Corn anyway? That would be like me calling my sons Fish and Chips. There are in fact plenty of people called Chips but I couldn't find any named Fish. Although there is a character called Fishcake in Philip Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles.

In Russia, a tiger called Buffalo refused to pardon a steroid-enhanced balding tiger called Vlad, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE RETIRED!"

In Belarus, an ostrich called Lizard refused to pardon a marmite-enhanced red ostrich called Alex, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE UNHIRED!"

In Cornwall, an old man refused to pardon a pasty called Pete, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE TIRED!"

In better news, an old lady pardoned a flirtatious fly called Felicity, which she had swallowed. I don't know why.

The fly pardoned a gangling spider called Sid, who had been hired to eat her.

The spider pardoned a pretty little bird called Betsy, who flew threateningly close.

The bird pardoned a snooty cat called Clarence, who was jumping up trying to catch her.

The cat pardoned a menacing dog called Dennis, who growled at him.

The dog pardoned a lumbering cow called Cordelia, who was a bully.

The cow pardoned a handsome horse called Hezekiah, because he was kicking her.

And they all refused to pardon the old lady for starting the fake news story in the first place, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE WEIRD!"

Horses, Lego and Darwin

Horses to helicopters. That's evolution. Horses are, at least were, cavalry. Fast moving units.

⇉

Elephants not so much. They evolved to tanks.

Pterodactyls to birds to Spitfires to drones. That's evolution.

Canoes to triremes to battleships to...the Millennium Falcon.

Mules to buses to bullet trains to teleporters.

Apes to humans to...Arnold Schwarzenegger. The archetypal cyborg.

We have a great deal to thank Charles Darwin for.

Where will it all end?

Flags and anthems

I recently gave some examples of national flags and commented on their attractiveness (to me). Also I enjoy listening to, and talking about, national anthems. I grew up in a post war generation which was beginning to question issues of patriotism and reverence. I was always amazed in the cinema when people stood up for the national anthem. That seems odd nowadays but the country had recently fought and won against a terrible enemy and there was much communal pride.

I can't recall ever standing up for the national anthem. A young man has to make a stand, yes? I know, always a rebel...

Anthems have two aspects - music and words. Who can fail to be stirred by the music to the Welsh anthem (Gwlad, Gwlad)? Or La Marseillaise? In comparison, God Save the Queen is turgid. No, I'll go further. It's a dirge. Imagine trudging through mud. Thomas Arne's Rule Britannia is at least uplifting.

But here's the thing. We come to the words. "Britannia, rule the waves" is so meaningless that it can't be sung with any conviction. We don't even patrol the English Channel effectively, let alone rule any waves. So are we hooked on nostalgia? Obviously yes; but maybe all countries are.

But no, there are examples where a nation's anthem looks to the future:

Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

Or elysian glories, as in this from Bangladesh:

My golden Bengal, I love you.
Forever thy skies, thy air set my heart in tune as if it were a flute,
O mother! The aroma of the mango orchard in Falgun drives me crazy,
Ah, what a thrill!
O mother! In Ogrohayon time sees sweet smiles all through mature fields of paddy.

Spare a thought for the Spanish, whose anthem has no words. Aha, no hostage to future fortune, then. Do their athletes hum their way through it? I checked on YouTube; their footballers just look embarrassed.

Which leads us back to the tunes. How many of us have fidgeted for what seems like hours hoping for the end of the Italian anthem, a symphonic movement of nearly two minutes. Nothing beats the  Uruguay anthem though (6 minutes). Thank goodness. At least God Save the Queen is over quickly.

But I digress; what about the flags? I previously lauded the flags of Kiribati

and Seychelles.

They are colourful and expressive of sunshine, expansiveness and hope.

To those I could add:

Belize

 Brazil

South Korea

Guatemala

They are at least interesting. Otherwise it's uninspiring stripes, crosses and blobs. I'll leave it to you to decide which you like best.

More countries I had never heard of

Following my discovery of São Tomé and Príncipe - see my recent post on that - I thought it would be revealing to check out the list of UN member states to see if there were any others of which I was unaware. Turned out there were.

Comoros - a volcanic archipelago off Africa’s east coast

not many national flags have four colour stripes - in fact I could find only one other, that of Mauritius

Eswatini - a landlocked country in Southern Africa

an interesting flag

Kiribati - 32 atolls and one raised coral island in the Pacific Ocean. Two interesting facts:

• the International Date Line goes round Kiribati and swings far to the east, almost reaching the 150° W meridian. This brings Kiribati's easternmost islands, the southern Line Islands south of Hawaii, into the most advanced time zone on Earth: UTC+14
• Kiribati is one of the few countries in the world to be situated in all four hemispheres

(must have info for pub quizzes)

 a nice flag*

Palau - an archipelago of over 500 islands in the western Pacific Ocean

not such a good flag

Interestingly, Kiribati and Palau are two of a small group of countries with no reported Covid-19 cases, as of 16 November, according to statista.com

Timor-Leste - turns out this is East Timor (leste is Portuguese for east) so, as I knew of this, it doesn't count.

Check them out at https://www.un.org/en/member-states/ to see if there are others you didn't know. None of us should remain ignorant throughout our lives.

Here's an odd one: Bolivia (Plurinational State of). What does that mean? Wikipedia tells me "a plurinational state is the existence of multiple political communities and constitutional asymmetry". OK but that applies to pretty much every country in the world; why feel the need to state it in your nation's name?

I contacted the Bolivian Embassy in London. Yes I actually did; it's not one of my windups. Bloggers need facts (no offence, Mr Wiki). As of this moment, I have had no reply. If I get one, I'll post an update. [My Spanish O Level didn't prepare me well enough for a telephone conversation about plurinationality]

* on the subject of good national flags, check this out from the Seychelles:

 bold, yes? Very Mondrian.

Stiffrumps

Stiffrump is an 18th century word meaning an obstinate or haughty person. Thanks to Susie Dent on Twitter for that. It translates very obviously and literally into a modern, derogatory two syllable word, which I'll leave you to figure out.

Thanks also to Ann Treneman for quoting these from a book review of The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain yesterday:

Windsucker - a bore
Gullgroper - a moneylender
Slubberdegullion - a dirty, nasty fellow

Next time you meet one of the these, you'll have a smile on your face!

Add your own as comments, please....

Is this the best website ever?

Do you like watching paint dry?

If so, you will love https://www.worldometers.info/

Check out that page and marvel at the live data flashing past your astonished eyes. You'll be bowled over (no folks, not about cricket)

Get over your sporting hangups!

Here is an example from today - emails sent today:

15:00 GMT: 166,600,000,000+ (I can't give an exact number as the numbers are changing too fast)

15:05 GMT: 167,500,000,000

That's over 900 million emails sent in five minutes; three million sent every second. That's insane! What are all these people saying?

How do they know? They're watching us........

I could watch this all day! Wait, there have been 4,610,789 blog posts written today. Here we go, there's one more!

São Tomé and Príncipe

I had never heard of São Tomé and Príncipe, until yesterday.

Turns out it is a small island nation off the west coast of Africa. São Tomé is one of the main islands, Príncipe the other. Population of 220,711 currently, according to my favourite site worldometers.info

The islands' economy is based on plantation agriculture and the main crop is

cacao, ready for your bedtime drink.

Colonised by the Portuguese in 1470 and previously uninhabited - at least by humans - they gained independence in 1975 and became a member of the United Nations in September of that year. They are included in the UN's Least Developed Country category, although scheduled to graduate to the next level in 2024. 

Another thing I didn't know! Least developed countries (LDCs) are low-income countries confronting severe structural impediments to sustainable development. They are highly vulnerable to economic and environmental shocks and have low levels of human assets.

There are currently 47 countries on the list of LDCs which is reviewed every three years by the Committee for Development (CDP).

LDCs have exclusive access to certain international support measures in particular in the areas of development assistance and trade. [source: un.org/development]

There is a triennial review of graduation thresholds, establishing minimum criteria for an LDC to graduate to a Developing Economy category. The next review is in 2021 and the thresholds for that are:

Gross National Income (GNI) per capita: $1,222 or above
(Income-only: $2,444 or above)
Human Assets Index (HAI): 66 or above
Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI): 32 or below

If anyone is still reading at this point, here are some of the other 46 LDCs at the moment and their scheduled graduation dates:

Vanuatu (2020)
Angola (2021)
Bhutan (2023)
Solomon Islands (2024)

There's so much more to this; I'm still learning.

So how did you come across São Tomé and Príncipe yesterday? I hear you ask.

It's about football. Isn't it always. I was looking for a long odds bet for the weekend and there they were, playing away to one of the strongest teams in African Cup of Nations, South Africa. At odds of 35/1.

Boa sorte meus amigos!

Dudes

Do you call anyone "dude"? Me neither. Of course not. I certainly don't think of my readers as dudes.

I thought it was a modern, American word, used by internet streamers and teenage drug dealers. However, Mr Wiki Pedia tells me it was a common nineteenth century word meaning a dandy or city slicker. Maybe derived from the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy, spelt by less educated Americans as Hinky Dude Led Andy to sing and dance. Maybe.

Much more recently, dude is commonly used by amongst the young, hip crowd. Whoever they are. Generation something or other. Originally referring uniquely to males it is now used for males and females. And others. I haven't heard dudette used in a while, probably because that's not the crowd I mix in. Obviously.

In Australia, the equivalent word is mate. It's ubiquitous. I've even heard married couples addressing each other as mate. No names, no pack-drill. I have no idea what a pack drill is - or indeed whether it should be hyphenated - but my military adviser Tony (RN retired) will surely know.

What do we Brits use? Mate, buddy, pal. For a certain class of Brit perhaps fellow, as in "hail fellow well met". Sounds Shakespearean but I couldn't find any instance of the use of it in the bard's output. Used in Jonathan Swift's poem My Lady's Lamentation:

Hail, fellow, well met,
All dirty and wet:
Find out, if you can,
Who's master, who's man;
Who makes the best figure,
The dean or the digger;
And which is the best
At cracking a jest.

The rhythm and cadence of this reminds me of the Interrupters' song Take Back The Power which I referred to in an earlier post:

What's your plan for tomorrow
Are you a leader or will you follow
Are you a fighter or will you cower
It's our time take back the power

Eighteenth century satirist meets twenty first century ska punk. Who knew?

Movie buffs amongst you will know the Coen Brothers film The Big Lebowski, starring Jeff Bridges as "The Dude". I was going to include an image from it but I couldn't find anything copyright-free, so you'll either have to take my word for it, or check it out. It's a movie I haven't seen; perhaps I should. On the list.

OK my dudes, a coda:

On 23 July 2019 Boris Johnson popularized [among the chattering political classes] the word "dude" as an acronym for his Conservative Party leadership campaign. In his leadership speech he explained it as referring to Deliver Brexit – Unite the country – Defeat Jeremy Corbyn – Energize the country. Scorecard: 2/4.

Back to normal

I spent the last four days glued to CNN. I am an election junkie. Always have been. The joy of Clement Attlee in 1945.

Wait, Nigel. Weren't you just a year old at the time?

Ah yes, maybe it was Attlee in 1950, with a wafer thin majority.

When you were six.

A very precocious six.

(and so on...)

Anyway, four late nights (why can't the Americans use GMT?). Immersed in the minutiae of mail-in ballots, absentee voting, the effects of Venezuelan immigrants in Florida and a general geography lesson on American states (not forgetting that Pennsylvania is a Commonwealth not a state) and counties. Directed by the superbly professional CNN anchors, reporters and analysts - although with little pretence of balance in their anti-Trump stance.

It was gripping, waiting for the latest updates from Georgia: Trump's early lead (from on the day voting) shrinking as the mail-in ballots are counted later and eventually disappearing as Biden narrowly overtakes it. It was like watching the final day singles in the Ryder Cup - the to and fro as one side then the other is ahead and the tension when the camera zooms to a reporter in Clark County with the latest batch of votes in Nevada, or to the 17th green as Rory McIlroy lines up a vital putt.

Now I'm back to normal life. CNN will have to wait four years, perhaps for an all-female presidential contest between Kamala Harris and Ivanka Trump (you heard it here first). Back to football, computer gaming, catch ups with the latest episodes of The Mandalorian. The Starry Night jigsaw. And blogging.

Somehow British elections seem mundane. Certainly less drawn out: I can usually get to bed by 6am at the latest, confident of knowing the broad outcome, and that's it. No four day torture, no legal challenges, no town by town numbers. Guys, we need to spice it up!

I'm scouring the world for the next election. There's a Presidential election in Burkino Faso on 22 November. Do they have CNN in Burkino Faso? Ghana 7 December. Indonesian local elections 9 December. Nigeria 27 December (seriously? no Christmas?).

I'm getting the popcorn in. And doing my 30 seconds of Calm.