I, Grandfather

A woman recently sued her employer for age discrimination. One of her colleagues at the publishing company, road testing a car, commented in the review that the car had "comfy wheels for a grandmother".

She is 62 and ... a grandmother.

She complained to a tribunal that it had been "a dig at my age".

The tribunal threw the case out, So far so good.

The Tribunal Judge, however, ruled that the words in the review amounted to "detrimental treatment" and was therefore "direct discrimination" under the law. Idiot.

I have instructed lawyers to write to my sons regarding their frequent use of the phrase "old man". Boys, please desist. Further, in emails to my grandsons my lawyers say that the use of "grandad" and "grandpa" is no longer appropriate and that I must henceforth be referred to as "bro" or "dude".

What a strange world we live in.

Self-identifying

According to the Office of National Statistics in a report published on Monday, white people born in the UK in the period covered: 2011-2014 had a lower life expectancy than all other ethnic groups. Black African women, for instance, had a life expectancy of 88.9 years; for Asian (other: excluding Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi) men the figure was 84.5 years. For white women life expectancy was 83.1 years, for men 79.7 years. You can download the data here.

Which leads me to wonder whether, in this post-binary world, I could identify as a black African woman and live for an extra nine years. And what would I do with those years?

Three questions:

1. Are there cultural reasons which I have ignored? Probably.

2. Am I trivialising a number of issues in an offensive way? I hope not, but maybe.

3. Why am I blogging only 164 words when there is so much else to write about? You're right, I could just have tweeted.

Spotto

When I was last in Australia visiting Son #1 and his family (an almost extinct activity which many of you will remember in the olden days), his children introduced me to the game of Spotto. It's customarily played on a car journey and involves the participants saying (it's usually yelling, actually) saying "Spotto" when they see a yellow car. The first to say it for a particular car gets a point and the player with the most points at the end of the journey wins.

You have to say the word in an Aussie accent, with the "tt" very soft and the final "o" more like "ao".

A simple game, you might think. But, as you can imagine, it leads to much controversy. Most obviously there are questions about the "shade" of yellow. "No, that's gold!" is a frequent cry. Marginal calls can be made on cars that have some yellow in their livery and adjudication is then called for. Did I mention that you lose a point if your claim is disallowed? Then there is the question whether buses count or does it have to be a car? Experienced players will sneak in the odd yellow road sign when attention is elsewhere, and caravans definitely engender debate. Ties (half a point each, which is awkward for three way ties) can be allowed, although loud shouts often win over equally well-timed but timid ones, unless you have a strong and well-respected adjudicator - normally the driver to make sure (s)he concentrates on all other road users not just yellow ones.. Familial respect can go out of the window.

When I returned to the UK I introduced Spotto to Son #2 and his family. So the game is no longer unique to the Aussies. As with the latter, daughters-in-law prove particularly pugnacious in playing the game. We have explored alternative versions such as Grotto for grey cars and Blotto for blue ones, and also (since they live close to the sea) inclusions of boats and garbage trucks. It whiles away the time on long trips.

If/when I buy a new car, I am considering getting a yellow one. I'd climb in it every morning and claim my Spotto point, almost always winning the day's competition. But would that be cheating? It's a moral dilemma that I may need help with. Let me know.

Heritage

Do you know how many World Heritage Sites there are? Have a guess before you read on. No Googling. My guess was ... around 40.

Nope. There are 1,120 sites listed by Unesco, under whose auspices the sites are chosen. And sometimes unchosen. 868 on the list are cultural sites, such as Angkor Wat and Auschwitz Birkenau, 213 are natural, e.g. the Giant's Causeway and the Kilimanjaro National Park, and 39 are both - the Tasmanian Wilderness and Meteora, for example.

The United Kingdom is a State Party of the World Heritage Convention, which enables a state to identify and nominate properties in their national territory to be considered for inscription on the World Heritage List. In order to be a State Party, you have to agree to adhere to the World Heritage Convention which defines the kinds of sites eligible for inclusion and the responsibilities of the State Party in terms of conservation and other criteria.

Being a State Party provides access to the World Heritage Fund but also the Party contributes to that fund. A report commissioned for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2007 on the costs and benefits of World Heritage Site Status in the UK is so opaque and unhelpful to the casual reader that I gave up after 20 pages of what I can only describe as pure management consultancy speak. It describes benefits such as tourism, civic pride and social capital in terms that a sixth former could have done and is clearly a copy and paste job, for which the PWC partners were undoubtedly rubbing their hands with greedy glee. If you want your garden to be recommended for World Heritage status, don't read this report, ask me.

Of the 1,120 sites on the list, three are shown as Delisted. In other words, booted out:

• The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary
• Dresden Elbe Valley
• The City of Liverpool

The Arabian oryx, a kind of antelope,

was declared extinct in the wild and reintroduced, after a captive breeding programme, in 1982, in an area of Oman known for its unique desert ecosystem and protection of other endangered species. The site was delisted in 2007 after the government of Oman reduced the size of the conservation area by 90% amid "plans to proceed with hydrocarbon prospection". I take this to mean that digging for oil was more important than protecting the remaining 65 oryx (down from a peak of 450).

The Dresden Elbe Valley was originally listed for "outstanding cultural landscape with ... exceptional testimonies of court architecture and festivities". It was delisted in 2009 "due to the building of a four-lane bridge in the heart of the cultural landscape which meant that the property failed to keep its 'outstanding universal value as inscribed.'".

Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City was originally listed as a World Heritage Site in 2004 for demonstrating "Outstanding Universal Value in terms of innovative technologies and dock construction from the 18th to the early 20th century and the quality and innovation of its architecture and cultural activities are contained within the boundaries of the six areas forming the property." Subsequently the city was placed on the "List of World Heritage in Danger" in 2012 following concerns about the proposed development of Liverpool Waters. When the residential development went ahead, the city was delisted this year and is no longer a World Heritage Site.

It seems that this bureaucratic organisation is flexing its muscles - "don't take us for a ride". Now there is concern that the proposed tunnel replacing the A303 near Stonehenge

will jeopardise that site's World Heritage status. Unesco has advised the Department of Transport that it would have an "adverse impact" on the site's status. The site will be placed on the "in danger of delisting" list if the project goes ahead.

I should declare that I have an interest in this. The A303 is my primary route from Cornwall to London and Kent, a journey I drive on a regular, albeit not frequent, basis. The part of the journey past Stonehenge is always extremely slow as two lanes merge into one from both directions. At times it can delay the trip by an hour or more. I believe that the argument against the tunnel by Save Britain's Heritage and others is that the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites' "Outstanding Universal Value" could be affected by the "adverse impact it may have on the landscape, archaeological remains, hydrogeology and ecology of the site".

Now I am supremely unqualified to make judgements on hydrogeology, whatever that is, but I am instinctively suspicious of the "numerous messages from citizens from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" that Unesco's World Heritage Centre claims to have received on this issue. OK, it's a lobbying campaign and that's how pressure groups go about things but surely there is a balance here to be had. One the one side the undoubted benefits of removing a severe blockage of the flow of traffic from London to the South West; on the other, the potential damage to the site. I say "potential" because as far as I can see the archaeological damage is unspecified - there might be artifacts below the surface of the land to be removed in order to build the tunnel.

Of course there is often a balance to be had between development and conservation. But the World Heritage Convention has all the hallmarks of a huge bureaucratic leviathan, gobbling up money from contributor countries and, after deducting substantial management costs, giving it back to those countries. And taking upon itself to decide what is of "universal" cultural value and what is not. Is any of that really necessary or desirable?

I don't argue against the notion of heritage, nor that cultural sites can have historic, social and civic value. No nation claiming to be civilised would destroy sites such as Stonehenge. I do question whether there are sites of such great "universal" value that need protecting from rapacious, uncivilised governments. Who are we to judge whether the Pyramids should be protected? In any case, there is no serious danger of the Pyramids or the Parthenon being destroyed. And if they were, the World Heritage Convention would have only one sanction available: "you're no longer on our list, so there!"

My problem is that the World Heritage monster has grown out of control - 12 sites in its first year of existence, now over 1,100 - and needs to add more sites every year in order to justify its existence. In doing so, it seems to have broadened the definition of sites included and diluted the significance of "world heritage".

The UK has 32 World Heritage sites. In what way is "Dorset and East Devon coast" of "universal value"? Sure, we'll protect our coast but that's a choice we make as a nation. And have the means to decide whether to do so: elections. There is nothing an international quango can contribute.

The origins of the concept of shared international cooperation to protect historic sites - such as the campaign to dismantle and move the Abu Simbel temples in Egypt, so that they weren't destroyed by the construction of the Aswan High Dam in 1959 (50 countries contributed money) - are worthy of acknowledgement. But not as a precursor to an unnecessarily grandiose bureaucracy. 

Breaking news! Since I started writing this, five more sites have been added to the World Heritage list, including "the great spa towns of Europe". Including Bath.

Which was there before being listed and will still be there if it is no longer listed.

I instinctively felt that "world heritage" sounds like a good thing. Not so sure now. It didn't help the poor oryx.

Words of the week

Luthier. A craftsperson (horrible, ugly word) who builds and repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. In case there are other species in the universe which use "person", I prefer craftshuman.

Evazoum. A Late Triassic archosaurian ichnospecies. A four year old girl in Wales discovered a large Evazoum footprint on a beach. Her name (the girl, not the dinosaur) is Alice and she was walking with a White Rabbit Lily.

Pingdemic. The NHS Covid-19 app telling you to stay at home (but you don't have to).

Limbic. The limbic system is the part of the brain involved in our behavioural and emotional responses, especially when it comes to behaviours we need for survival: feeding, reproduction and caring for our young, and fight or flight responses. Word courtesy of Follower Dan.

Nudiustertian. Relating to the day before yesterday. I came across this in a cryptic crossword. From the Latin nunc dies tertius est (“now is the third day”). In some ways the opposite, or mirror image, of ...

Overmorrow. The day after tomorrow.

Cheers!

I fell out of love with the Olympic Games when Ben Johnson cheated his way to a Gold Medal in the 1988 Summer Olympics. Having read The Rodchenkov Affair recently, it's clear that, if you can't be certain the athletes competing have not been taking performance enhancing drugs, what's the point in watching? So I don't.

For the next Summer Olympics in 2024 in Paris, cheerleading may make its debut, having been granted full status as an Olympic "sport", along with lacrosse, kickboxing, muay thai and sambo. Ski mountaineering has been added to the 2026 Winter Olympic list. This year (actually last year because the current event is the postponed 2020 one) the new sports are baseball/softball (previously dropped from 2008), surfing, karate, skateboarding and sport climbing - wrestling was removed.

In case you don't know what muay thai is, it is sometimes called Thai boxing, a martial art characterized by the combined use of fists, elbows, knees and shins. I was once required, at school, to enter the boxing ring and attempt to pummel some equally inept pupil to death - or at least that was what it seemed like. We declined the invitation to hit each other which, as you can imagine, didn't go down well. I didn't care since I hated the school. So quite why an event dedicated to "friendship and respect ... with a view to building a better world" should promote violent activities is beyond me.

The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. [article 2 of the Fundamental Principles of Olympism in the Olympic Charter]

Sambo is another martial art, a form of wrestling which Wikipedia describes as a "Soviet martial art", so not only violent but also representing a decadent, obsolete nation. Like gladiator fighting - now there's a suggestion for the next Olympics.

Why do I report this if I don't care about the Olympics? I guess because I question the purpose/point of the Olympic Games. If I were the head of the IOC, I'd sub divide the Games. After all, the Winter Olympics (which take place during the Southern Hemisphere summer) are separate. You could have all the violent sports in one Games - the Savage Games (to include archery and the women's 10m air rifle) - and all the sports with endemic drug cheating, e.g. cycling, weightlifting, sprinting, into the Counterfeit Games. You would be left with all the harmless sports which promote genuine world values and encourage the youth of today to undertake healthy, pure, honest endeavour, such as sailing, crown green bowls and pasta making. The Universal Games. I might even watch.

The cheerleaders could be employed on the sidelines of all the events. That's what they do. The New Olympism.

Breakfast Music

I was quietly eating my breakfast in Asda and was disturbed by frenetic music being pumped through the store's speakers. It's Asda Radio, which plays continuously. Generally, whilst wandering the shopping aisles and filling my trolley, I don't notice the music. Sitting still, even though reading my newspaper, the music is intrusive.

Why do supermarkets play music? I read one article claiming that stores played "calming music" during the first lockdown; remember the loo roll wars? I'd bet that (a) they didn't analyse the outcomes and (b) it made no difference. Apparently one branch of Morrisons played Roy Orbison’s ‘Anything You Want' at the time; particularly clumsy.

A retail consultancy LS Retail gave "7 reasons why you should play music in your store":

1. Create and differentiate your brand

Are you a carefree, laid back brand? Do you run family-friendly stores with a warm atmosphere? Are you edgy, vibrant and energetic? The tempo, loudness, style of the music you play can help communicate your brand’s personality to customers.

2. Build the right atmosphere

Analyze your store's ambiance, what kind of atmosphere do you want to establish? You could for example create a playful space with high-key pop music, or use slow rhythms to build a relaxed, pensive environment. [ideal for breakfast, I'd say]

3. Create a private space

By masking the sounds of voices and movements, background music helps create a personal space for customers, giving them privacy as they walk around the store, browse the products and make comments to friends or family. [and have breakfast]

4. Set the shoppers’ pace

Studies show that the speed, rhythm and volume of in-store music affects the pace of customer flow through the store. When calm music is playing at a low volume, people tend to wander around the aisles slowly; on the other hand, when energetic, loud songs are playing, people tend to accelerate their pace through the store. Interestingly, the pace of customer flow doesn’t appear to affect sales. [so why are you doing it, exactly?]

5. Shorten waiting times

Music can affect people’s perception of time. A long queue will feel shorter if there is good [?] music playing in the background.

6. Encourage people to shop

Research shows that music can influence what shoppers choose and how much they buy. A 2005 study revealed that people tend to spend more on impulse buys when pleasant music is playing. [I can understand that; punk rock might make the customers run away quickly]

7. Increase productivity

In-store music is not only for the customers, employees and managers benefit from it too. An effective music strategy can be a great tool to boost staff morale, concentration and productivity. In a 2013 research by DJS, 77% of businesses agreed that their staff is more productive when music is playing.

I'll leave you to reflect on this and whether that's a load of old ............

Also this morning and on the same subject, I received the following email from Ipswich Town Football Club:

We've created a page where supporters can vote on the walkout music, the pre kick-off track and the song played when Town score

The options are as follows:

Walkout music

Faithless - Insomnia
Arcade Fire - Wake Up
Lux Aeterna
Kanye West - All Of The Lights
Blur - Song 2

Pre kick-off music

Singing The Blues
Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline
The Beatles - Hey Jude

Goal music

The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Kungs Vs. Cookin' On 3 Burners - This Girl

Under each section there is also an "OTHER" option, so you can let us know a track suggestion if it is not on our list.

This is definitely in my playground; I've blogged about it before. Let's consider the rationales.

Walkout music - this is for the players, to set the tone of their play right from the start: slow, methodical, patient possession-based buildup or gung-ho attack? I'm pretty sure the fans want the latter, the coach probably the former. I created a Spotify playlist with all the suggested options and here are my opinions:

Faithless - Insomnia: this is from a genre I call "dull rap", not wild or shouty, no effect on the players.
Arcade Fire - Wake Up: much more like it, strong rhythm, however the vocals too passive IMO.
Lux Aeterna: this seems like a misprint.
Kanye West - All Of The Lights: driving rhythm, mixture of modern pop and rap, it's quite possible this would drive my team on, if there's nothing better.
Blur - Song 2: oh yes, this is the one!. Lots of screaming drive. We'll be two goals up after ten minutes. Wait, won't the opposition be stimulated by this too? Mm...

Pre kick-off music: this is just to keep the fans happy while they're waiting for the match to start.

Singing The Blues: this is the classic Guy Mitchell/Tommy Steele 60s song but I'm assuming this is the version sung by the Ipswich Town squad of the Terry Butcher "Golden Era" (FA Cup winners 1978). Forget the rest, this has to get the vote.
Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline: ugh.
The Beatles - Hey Jude: not the Fab Four's best

[On reflection after re-reading the email, this might be the track played as the teams are lining up, awaiting the ref's whistle but I'm still going for option 1]

Goal music

Not relevant, rarely necessary. I'll put Barry Manilow's "Miracle" in the OTHER box:

It's a miracle
A true blue spectacle
The miracle come true
We're together, baby
I was going crazy
Till the miracle came through

Terms of Venery Quiz #1 Answers

I suspect there will be a number of correct answers, probably with justifications. I'm giving those that appear in the book, with some acceptable alternates.

1. A Shock of Corn. 'Sheaf' not acceptable; that applies to Wheat.

2. A Murder of Crows.

3. A True Love of Turtle Doves. 'Pitying' an acceptable alternate.

4. A Murmuration of Starlings.

5. An Ostentation  of Peacocks. 'Muster' acceptable.

6. A Trip of Goats.

7. A Sloth of Bears.

8. A Mutation of Thrushes.

9. A Swarm of Eels.

10. A Deceit of Lapwings.

Levers of Power

I don't know Latin. At school, I (or was it my parents? I don't remember) chose Spanish and German as my two foreign languages to study, abandoning Latin (nobody speaks that) and French (only weird people speak that). It was a good choice in some respects: Spanish is easy, particularly to pronounce, German the way of the future. In the sixth form I added Russian, on the advice of a science teacher following my choice of Maths, Physics and Chemistry at A Level. "If you want to be a future scientist, you need to be able to speak Russian". I didn't really want to be a scientist, I just wanted to leave school as soon as possible; maybe even formal education, although later life choices would seem to contradict that. In any case, that (fellow travelling?) teacher obviously didn't accurately predict the declining cultural and scientific influence of the Soviet Union and subsequently Russia. At the time, however, it felt like the Russians and the Germans would come to rule the world and I preferred to be on their side.

Really the only bit of Latin I know is primus inter pares - first among equals, particularly as applied to the British Prime Minister in our parliamentary democracy.

However, news of a prospective constitutional change which might make the PM primus inter dispares connectantur - which is the best I could come up with to indicate first among unequals. If I knew Latin I'd maybe have understood its equivalent of the 'un' prefix; but bear with me.

The report from the Commission for Smart Government, launched on Monday, has a major recommendation for the creation of a "prime minister's department", in order to give more power to the governmental centre to direct departments of state over policy implementation and monitoring.

It sounds dangerously like a move to a more presidential system of government to me. As an antidote to the apparent inability of prime ministers to work through the departmental system and "get things done", it seems to me to miss many points. One of which is that the model, the White House, famously has a constitutionally inbuilt inability to get things done, as a result of the separation of powers and a President's reliance on (a possibly opposing) Congress to pass legislation.

A British prime minister actually has hugely more power than a US President has over domestic policy, to get legislation passed, as a result of having - by definition of our electoral system - an inbuilt majority in the House of Commons and a constitutionally-impaired House of Lords. The report suggests that the problem, once policy is passed into law, is that the governmental system is ill equipped to put that law into effect. Partially because departmental ministers are often incompetent and sometimes recalcitrant. Well, duh, appoint better ones!

I've been mulling this over for five days, trying to decide whether my opinions are worth sharing. Then I read a comment piece in yesterday's Times on the subject by Anthony Seldon and, since many of his views chimed with mine, I decided to publish.

On the "centralisation of power" issue, Seldon tells us "the proposal for a prime minister's department, an old chestnut, ignores history. The best two PMs since 1945, Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher, had very small No 10s but used cabinet and the Whitehall system to stunning effect." He follows with "the last five prime ministers didn't fall short because they lacked firepower ... they came to No 10 not knowing what they wanted to do."

Let's look at the problems for good government to which an administration can give birth: a weak cabinet of ministers appointed as rewards for past endeavours and support, a PM who surrounds himself with only those who are unlikely to contradict him [herself/her], a disdain for parliament by announcing policy in media appearances and ministers sending underlings to answer Urgent Questions in the House of Commons and a willingness to flout the law and challenge the courts. You think I'm referring to our present government? It could apply to every government of the last 24 years.

The report proposes a "solution" of recruiting "expert" ministers - business leaders who can "get things done" - but does not tell us how these unelected people would be accountable to Parliament. James Forsyth in the Times last Friday says "a lack of outside expertise is one of the biggest problems that the British government faces." That's almost certainly an exaggeration but, if it is a problem, there is no reason not to bring in experts from time to time to undertake specific tasks - such as Kate Bingham's excellent management of the vaccine taskforce. But such appointments - and their performance - should be scrutinised by the responsible minister accounting to the House of Commons. Seldon's take on this is "bringing in ministers from outside politics would erode democratic accountability and overlooks the hugely capable potential ministers regularly sitting idle on the back benches." I'm not sure who or where these people are but I guess there are always those who have blotted their copybooks in one way or another, probably by disagreeing with the PM at the time; I think it's true of opposition front benches too.

Despite my scepticism, there clearly are problems of government effectiveness in the UK. Which may be true of all parliamentary democracies, for all I know. The report starts from the premise that the problem is systemic, whereas what I perceive (as an informed citizen) is a lack of quality in our political human resources. In a business context, a company would soon look for better staff to replace those failing to "get things done". If prime ministers and their ministers are not good enough, the question is how to get better ones? It's worth reading Why we get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman, a very good and interesting book. Its central theme is the cultural and economic barriers to entering politics. She discusses the selection of electoral candidates by parties and the likelihood that those chosen will be "conformers" - "one of us". We subsequently see examples of deselection of those whose views do not chime with their party's.

It seems to me that the report provides solutions to the wrong problem; it seems to accept that there is nothing to be done about the standard of our elected politicians and to propose ways to get around that - in effect, to take power and influence away from them with the sole exception of the prime minister of the day, who will be shielded from making errors by the "Number 10 machine". To accept a fundamental failure of our democratic system - to bring in good people - and, rather than seeking ways to reform that system, to denude it. It's a depressing analysis. The headline on Forsyth's article is "It's time to give No 10 real levers of power". Which sounds dangerously Stalinist. No thanks, it's not for me. I prefer the humility and collegiality of primus inter pares.

I'll give Seldon the final say:

Prime ministers ... underachieve because they cocoon themselves with like-minded figures. They should celebrate diversity of perspective, background and expertise ... let's fix what is broken or redundant and make work what is proven.

Why is a Raven like a Writing-desk?

Riddles: impossible to dislike. In Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter poses the riddle to Alice: Why is a raven like a writing-desk?

Lewis Carroll doesn't provide an answer in the book and it was never his intention that there should be an answer. However, he later wrote that the answer is, "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!" Carroll also wrote never as "nevar," which is raven spelled backwards but the clever pun was erased by a proofreader. Frankly it's a pretty weak answer anyway. In my opinion, he should have let it remain unanswered, like the writers responding to "what happened to Tony Soprano at the end?" with "It’s for people to decide for themselves."

Want some more riddles?

I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with wind. What am I?

You see a boat filled with people. It has not sunk, but when you look again you don’t see a single person on the boat. Why?

An 18th century classic:

As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits:

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were there going to St. Ives? 

In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Oedipus must answer to the Sphinx to save his own life and continue his journey to Thebes. The Sphinx asks: "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?" If Oedipus answers incorrectly, she eats him. Fortunately he gets it: “Man: as an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult, he walks on two legs and; in old age, he uses a 'walking' stick.” Honestly, that's an unsatisfactory literary trick.

I'm re-reading Alice, as a contrast to some heavy stuff I've been ploughing through recently, such as Mao's Great Famine. A bit like relaxing to a Beatles song after listening to Mahler's 2nd Symphony.

Wait, you want answers? OK:

An Echo.

All the people were married.

One.

Terms of Venery Quiz #1

Following my post about An Exaltation of Larks, here is the first quiz. All these terms of venery originated centuries ago, so no modern examples from the 'game of venery'. We start with some animals. Let me know how many you know or can guess correctly. Answers in a week.

1. A ..... of Corn [the number of dots does not necessarily equate to the number of letters in the word]

2. A ..... of Crows

3. A ..... of Turtle Doves

4. A ..... of Starlings

5. A ..... of Peacocks

6. A ..... of Goats

7. A ..... of Bears

8. A ..... of Thrushes

9. A ..... of Eels

10. A ..... of Lapwings

Good luck.

Shrewdness

How many apes can you see from your bedroom window? More than one? That's a Shrewdness of Apes apparently. No doubt at least some of my readers will know this already but do you know how the term came about?

In the Middle Ages, shrewd was a synonym for depraved or wicked, which evolved first to mischievousness then to benign cleverness. It seems the English aristocracy used flowery language partly to distinguish themselves from the peasants and developed an etymology relating to groups of animals - many of which they hunted. It's not clear how many apes there were in England at the time - my guess would be none - but doubtless there were adventurers who came across some of these beasts somewhere.

In my usual spirit of thorough research of my topics, I purchased a used copy of An Exaltation of Larks; the Ultimate Edition written (the original edition) by James Lipton in 1968. It's an intriguing compendium of such weird and wonderful collective nouns and, more importantly, their origins.

The late James Lipton is best known as the host of Inside The Actors' Studio, a TV show where he interviewed actors, directors and producers of movies for 23 years. He was Dean at the Studio for 12 years and wrote books, lyrics and screenplays.

This book is the most exquisite you could imagine. Witty writing and charming engravings. As soon as page one, The Beginning, the author acquaints us with the subject, quoting from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's historical novel Sir Nigel: an old knight tells Sir Nigel, as he instructs him on manners and etiquette "it is sooth for every collection of beasts of the forest, and for every gathering of birds of the air, there is their own private name so that none be confused with another." And: "no man of gentle birth would speak of a herd of swine; that is the peasant speech. If you drive them it is a herd. If you hunt them it is ... a sounder of swine." In 1486 The Book of St. Albans, printed by the St Albans Press in England and also known by titles such as "The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms" had a section on hunting, which contained many such collective nouns and thus has served as source material for this and many other books.

The chapters are organised by context. So Low Life gives us a Phalanx of Flashers; Sports - a Cuss of Coaches. To find Shrewdness, I needed the excellent index, which provides all 1,182 examples organised by descending alphabetical order of group, from Aardvarks (an Aamory) to Yuppies (a Trip). The entry for Apes leads us to pages 5 and 61, where we find Shrewdness, with the etymology referred to above. Lipton groups the examples into six families:

• Onomatopoeia, for example a Gaggle of Geese
• Characteristic: a Leap of Leopards
• Appearance: a Parliament of Owls
• Habitat: a Nest of Rabbits
• Comment: a Cowardice of Curs
• Error (e.g. from transcription): a School (originally shoal) of Fish

The eponymous Exaltation of Larks occurs in a list of such terms in the Egerton Manuscript of 1450, a source of 106 such examples.

The author clearly loves language and I learned words I had never (as far I can remember) come across, let alone used: belletristic, historiology, venery, logophobia, antilexic, synechdochic, quiddity, solatium .......most of which exceeded the ability of my spellcheck too. He invites us to engage in the "game of venery" and invent our own collectionments (there, I decided enough of static language, I'll increase the dictionary content by one [it should have a French pronunciation] - the author uses 'terms of venery' rather than 'collective nouns'). He himself played the 'game' and many of the examples are his or from others who responded to a request in previous editions of the book.

I discovered there is no index entry for Bloggers, so I invite your first entry in the game of venery to be just that.

Meanwhile for cat lovers the book offers us a Pounce of Cats, with no derivation (one of the modern ones, I imagine); I'd offer a Cuddle of Cats. For writers, a Worship of Writers, a reference to the reverence shown by writers for their patrons; I'll offer a Wrestler of Writers, in honour of our struggles to string more than two words together.

This is the most marvellous of books. It will sit on my bedside table and give me (possibly literally) endless pleasure. I wouldn't be surprised if I shared some of it with you from time to time. A quiz, maybe?

All or Nothing

Amazon have announced the latest in their All or Nothing sports documentary series. These series follow a sports team through a season, with substantial behind the scenes access. They began with a number of NFL teams in the US - Arizona Cardinals, Dallas Cowboys, Carolina Panthers, Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams - from 2015 through 2019. The New Zealand rugby union team - the All Blacks - followed in 2018 then they switched to football (soccer). I watched the series on Manchester City and, most recently, Tottenham Hotspur; today Amazon announced that Tottenham's North London rivals, Arsenal, will be the next subject. Filming will begin shortly, continue through the 2021-22 Premier League season and launch probably in late August 2022.

I don't know whether flies sit on walls and ceilings watching human behaviour but the phrase 'fly on the wall' is ubiquitous. phrases.org.uk tells me "This is an American phrase that originated there in the 1920s. The first citation of it that I can find is from The Oakland Tribune, February 1921: 'I'd just love to be a fly on the wall when the Right Man comes along.'" I do remember Eye in the Sky, an excellent movie starring Helen Mirren in which an insectothopter drone (disguised as a dragonfly) is used for surveillance. Now, a dragonfly is not technically a fly but note the following from Clegg's Termite and Pest Control:

In old Romanian folklore, the dragonfly was actually a horse ridden by Saint George. St. George rid the mythical town of Silence of the dragon that lived in the town’s pond and poisoned the town. After wounding the dragon, he leashed the dragon and gave it to the town’s princess. Saint George’s horse became a giant flying insect when cursed by the devil. In the Romanian language, the word for dragonfly translates into Devil’s Horse or Devil’s fly. The Romanian word for devil is drac, which can also indicate dragon. In English, it translated to dragonfly.

When I worked at the Royal Ballet School, many years ago, we were once approached by a TV company (I don't recall which one) with a request to do one of these documentaries. Once we realised that we would have zero editorial control, it was an easy No Thanks. The classic "stern ballet teacher bullies pupils" meme could be too much of a temptation for a producer to manipulate. It was pitched as "this will help your recruitment of young dancers". Our reply "we don't have any problem recruiting dancers and it's possible [not necessarily likely] that whatever you come up with would make that worse rather than better" made our case. Why take a risk when you don't need to?

And that's the dilemma for these football clubs - what exactly do they gain and what might they lose? Manchester City's Abu Dhabi owners probably thought it was a perfect fit for their reason for owning a football club - image burnishing to counteract the poor human rights image of the emirate. Tottenham's Chairman, Daniel Levy, never shies away from an opportunity for publicity - and, indeed, is a major actor in the drama [in his contract?]. The Spurs manager at the time, Mauricio Pochettino was apparently not particularly enamoured with the idea - and got himself sacked in episode 1.

I couldn't find any viewing/streaming figures for any of these but critical response to the Tottenham series was generally uncomplimentary: "show ends in a no score bore" (Financial Times), "boringly sanitised" (The Guardian"), "almost a glorified puff piece" (The Daily Telegraph). I do remember enjoying watching it although that was very much as an Arsenal fan watching a car crash.

So to Arsenal. As with Spurs, it's unclear whether rookie manager Mikel Arteta had an input into the decision. Probably not; it's hard to imagine any manager being happy for all his decisions and conversations to be scrutinised and preserved for posterity, and this coming season will almost certainly be 'make or break' for Arteta as manager as he rebuilds the squad and attempts to reverse recent decline; his future career may well be influenced by it. Money? Tottenham were apparently paid £10 million, so for post-pandemic cash-strapped clubs that might be a reason to go ahead but Arsenal's search for a new right back is unlikely to be influenced by such a trivial sum.

One of the questions is whether the presence of cameras (many of them remote controlled, so perhaps the players are supposed to forget they are there), influences behaviour. The "performances" of Pep Guardiola, manager of Manchester City, and Jose Mourinho, the new manager [at the time - since sacked] of Tottenham Hotspur, were certainly characterised by almost continuous foul-mouthed tirades. I don't think we'll be getting such behaviour from Arteta but you never know. As an Arsenal fan, I hate the idea but the current demand for "reality TV" is huge and, who knows, it could be a great success if the Gunners win the Premier League. And I'll be watching it in a year's time.

The next time I see a fly on my wall, I'll chase it away before it reports back to base.

Will I never go bald?

I'm 77 with a bald spot and receding hairline. Although not receding fast enough to predict any ultimate baldness. In fact maybe receded rather than receding.

I quite like the idea of going completely bald although it's obviously out of my hands; genetics have to take their course. It would mean a saving on hairdresser appointments and shampoo but more than that it would look cool.

Patrick Stewart is the iconic bald guy.

Ryan Reynolds (he of Wrexham F.C. ownership fame, as previously recorded in this column) has claimed that Stewart (Professor X), even at 80, is the 'real sexiest man', although that may be an attempt to monopolise the annual award by the X-Men cast, having been a winner himself (Deadpool) as well as Hugh Jackman (Wolverine).

Someone once asked Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, why Stewart's Captain Picard character was bald, as "surely by the 24th century they will have cured baldness". Roddenberry replied "in the 24th century no-one will care".

I think the man I am closest to in the degree of hairline recedence is Vladimir Putin.

He comes from a long line of bald or balding leaders, including Lenin, Khrushchev, Andropov and Gorbachev. Interestingly the alternating leaders - Stalin, Brezhnev, Chernenko and Yeltsin - has good heads of hair. If you are interested in betting on the identity of the next Russian President, make sure he or she is hairy.

The most recent leaders of UK political parties who were bald are Conservative leaders William Hague and Ian Duncan Smith. The former lost a general election to Tony Blair; the latter resigned before he could do so. Which may explain why we currently have a Conservative Prime Minister who looks like an upside down mop.

I'll post an update in a year's time, if you remind me. And if you care.

UPDATE from valued commenters (see Comments): 

Farming news

Clarkson's Farm: I don't much like Jeremy Clarkson, or his alt-right libertarian spoutings. However, Richard Wagner was probably an unpleasant man, with anti-Semitic leanings, but I enormously enjoy his music and I approached this TV series with a similarly open mind. Not a fan of Clarkson's petrolhead stuff, I thought perhaps he couldn't murder farming and, in this eight episode 'account' of a year on his Cotswold farm, he doesn't; at least not all the time.

It's apparent that a great deal of this is staged and scripted (as is the majority of TV), so it's possible that the whole thing never happened in the way that it was portrayed but you either suspend belief and enjoy it or switch off. I chose the former. Clarkson claims that the tenant farmer of his farm decided to retire and so our Jeremy (I can't believe I wrote that, it sounds ridiculously familiar) decided to have a go himself - with, it has to be said, an Amazon film crew in tow. Fair enough, he's a TV presenter by trade so do what you do best.

Did you know that the luxury sports car manufacturer Lamborghini started as a tractor manufacturer? You can buy new Lamborghini tractors today, although they are now made by someone else, albeit still sporting the iconic name. Obviously the first thing Clarkson did was to purchase one. Only around £100,000, I think. I don't know how much tractors cost but I'm guessing that's high end. More expensive machinery follows, as he sets out his initial aim to grow crops. Not surprisingly, he doesn't have a clue how to do that. It's a bit of a soap opera really, but Clarkson shows some empathy engaging with various locals whom he recruits to help. These people form the dramatis personae of the production.

In a way it's a Del Boy epic - grand schemes (such as a rewilding project), flitting from project to project, an inability to be interested in detail (selling spring water in the farm shop before it has been tested - sounding very much as though inspired by the Only Fools And Horses episode Mother Nature's Son) and a propensity to ignore rules (the farm shop stocks pineapples when the planning permission specifies local produce only). It is brought to his attention that, in order to get a government grant available for leaving a field as grass (I'm pretty certain there's a technical term for that), the grass has to be mowed regularly; he opts instead to get a flock of sheep. Which proves to be an economic disaster but, predictably, great television, telling us everything about this show. Clarkson sets himself up as a lovable buffoon, kept in order by his cohorts - and by his Irish girlfriend Lisa who flits in and out of the show, adding colour, from time to time.

It's Laurel and Hardy to an extent but, interestingly, there is a deal of serious comment about the economics of farming today and the mountains of paperwork required. As the year progresses, Clarkson changes: he becomes more serious, engages fully in hard physical work and, with his new mates/advisers, is prepared to work through the night on occasions to get things done. Throughout, and particularly at the end of the year, when all the crops have been harvested, he reflects that these months have been some of the happiest in his life. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. For me, a very enjoyable show.

John Voevodsky

You've heard of Frank Whittle, yes? Inventor of the jet engine. Thomas Edison? Electric light bulb. Leonardo da Vinci? Pretty much everything else. Except ...

John Voevodsky can legitimately claim to have saved hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of lives. He invented the third brake light. Voevodsky was actually a psychologist who studied the effects of driving on attention, testing a small, inexpensive gadget on 343 taxicabs in San Francisco. It turned out that fitting an extra brake light on top of the boot (trunk in some parts of the world) lid, or in the rear window significantly reduced rear end collisions occurring as a result of someone driving too close to the vehicle in front and not being able to see the regular brake lights.

Not to be confused with Vladimir Alexandrovich Voevodsky, a Russian-American mathematician whose work in developing a homotopy theory for algebraic varieties and formulating motivic cohomology led to the award of a Fields Medal in 2002. He is also known for the proof of the Milnor conjecture and motivic Bloch–Kato conjectures and for the univalent foundations of mathematics and homotopy type theory. Got it?

I added that paragraph to show that, whilst a third brake light is a simple, effective and easily comprehensible idea, there are things in our modern world which, like the Schleswig-Holstein Question, are understood by only three people and one of those is dead.

I'm off to do my afternoon motivic cohomology ...

9 degrees North

What is the centre of the universe for our latest circumnavigation? It's the Panama Canal, wonder of the modern world at 9 degrees North of the equator.

There's a lot of ocean to the west so I think we'll go east towards Africa. First we must traverse the northern part of South America: Colombia and Venezuela. The current UK Government advice is "There is a high threat from violent crime and kidnapping throughout Venezuela, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world." And "Despite improvements in security, crime rates remain high in Colombia. Illegal armed groups and other criminal groups are heavily involved in the drugs trade and serious crime including kidnapping (for ransom and political purposes), money laundering and running extortion and prostitution rackets. Street crime is a problem in major cities." So I think there's a case for avoiding those countries and getting on a ship straight away. It's over 3,000 miles to Sierra Leone, 13½ days at 10 knots, so time for a nap.

From Sierra Leone we journey across Africa to Somalia:

It's not as easy as it sounds, though. We have to traverse 13 other countries to get there. I hope it's not going to be as terrifying as Venezuela and Colombia.

Sierra Leone itself is an interesting start. Following many years of bloody strife typical of post-colonial (in this case British) rule, given independence in 1961, today it has an apparently democratic government, although it has to be said that President Kabbah was put in place by the military after a counter-coup in 1998 (having been ousted in a military coup a year earlier); I think I recall British troops were involved in that. Whatever, peace has reigned since then. Polygamy is rife in Sierra Leone but who am I to judge their customs? What I find most interesting is that, unlike many post-colonial African nations, they did not change their name.

We cross the border into Guinea. As another coastal country, like Sierra Leone, the first Europeans there were the great Portuguese explorers but the French were their colonial rulers. Guinea is a traditional name. Another peaceful, democratic country. Moving on, we enter the Côte d'Ivoire, a country of 26 million, another French-colonised, now independent nation with a post-independence history of civil war and despotic leadership. I don't pretend to understand the reasons for, and implementation of, the transitions from colonies to independent nations that these African countries underwent but common sense suggests it could have been managed better; who knows?

Ghana is next. I remember the British colonial name The Gold Coast from my youth. I guess that reflects its mining economy. Eastwards from Ghana we have to aim to hit the Indian Ocean in Somalia, although that's rated a "risky country" [my words] by the UK Foreign Office. Maybe we fly over. On the way we visit Togo. govolunteerafrica.org tells me that "Togo offers some extraordinary and interesting sites." For example:

1. Go on a hike. Nope, not for me; it's exhausting enough traversing the world.

2. Spend some time on one of their idyllic beaches. Yep, let's do that.

Benin is next; there's a lot of talk about the Benin Bronzes. Looted by British forces in 1897 and sold on to anyone and everyone. The Germans have given theirs back; the British, not so much.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous country, with 206 million inhabitants. Another country where we should not go (all the familiar stuff about murders and terrorists); we'll pass through quickly and get to Cameroon, where the advice is less stringent, just a bit of "mugging and armed banditry". We'll take precautions whilst enjoying many wildlife experiences, such as the Benoue National Park and the Mefou primate sanctuary.

The President of Chad was killed by rebels in April, which obviously makes me nervous about that country. Oil is Chad's biggest export, however the country - another French colony given independence in 1960 - is poor and struggling to accommodate refugees from conflicts with neighbouring Libya and Sudan.

Only two - of 53 - African countries rank lower than Chad on the Human Development Index (HDI). One of those two is next on our list, as we dip in and out of the Central African Republic - like Chad, given independence in 1960 and engulfed in civil war more or less ever since - either side of a tiny enclave of Sudan, on our way to South Sudan - itself only one place above Chad on the HDI.

I find myself saddened by these countries and their post-colonial histories. Nowadays there is much criticism of European expansion and colonisation of parts of the world, particularly Africa, and I am definitely not competent to judge that history or those judgements but it just seems that the handling of moves to independence may have been hasty and ill-conceived. Without knowing any facts, it sounds to me like "we have got what we needed from you and now we're washing our hands of your troublesome country". I'd like to know more.

We arrive in Ethiopia, one of only two African countries to avoid European colonisation. A monarchy for centuries, the country suffered a Life Of Brian moment in 1991 when the communist People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was overthrown by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front.

Finally we arrive at the coast in Somalia, home to 727 species of birds, according to Wikipedia, which I thought pretty amazing. However the conservation website Mongabay says 570, ranking Somalia just 60th in the number of bird species (Colombia is top with 1,878). Who's counting among friends, anyway? Mongabay also tells us they have 176 species of mammals and 239 species of reptiles. So there are some positive things to be said about Somalia.

[Check out the Mongabay site; it's an interesting resource]

Crossing the Indian Ocean, we just about touch the southern tip of India - the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu - and enter Sri Lanka. I once went to a wedding in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu. It lasted a week. I was invited to give a speech. Thankfully there is no record of this. I absolutely love India and hope to return one day when things are back to normal.

Sri Lanka has 239 species of reptiles, 376 of birds and an urbane, thoughtful cricket star of recent times Kumar Sangakkara, ICC Cricketer of the Year in 2012, scorer of 12,400 runs in 134 Test matches at an average of 57.40 and current President of the MCC:

Incidentally (one of my favourite words) in October 2121 former England captain Clare Connor will be the first female president in the club’s 233-year history. If you don't like football (yes,you) how about cricket?

 

Now a really long sea voyage, over 6,000 km to Thailand's Ko Kho Khao island. I get terribly seasick but it'll be fine, won't it? Anyway the island has some great beaches and I can take a well-earned rest. We then move on to Vietnam, whose currency is the dong and whose government is Marxist-Leninist, deriving that ideology from Ho Chi Minh. Marxism–Leninism holds that a two-stage communist revolution is needed to replace capitalism. I'm not sure where Vietnam is on that journey.

After Vietnam, we enter the South China Sea which has in recent years become a hotbed of claims and counter-claims by China, Japan and others - and US naval patrols - over the sovereignty of a number of lumps of rock, otherwise known as islands. Such as the Spratly Islands, pretty much equidistant from Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines and named after a British whaling captain. A recent report in the CIA World Factbook tells us "all of the Spratly Islands are claimed by China (including Taiwan) and Vietnam; parts of them are claimed by Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines".

The Philippines has over 7,500 islands. I imagine that must be a bureaucratic nightmare. There are two big ones, in the north and south, and a jumble of smaller ones in the middle which is where our route takes us. Palawan is a very very thin straggly thing with a population of just under a million and is our next landfall.

We sail through the Sulu Sea and the Bohol Sea, passing the Philippine Island of Mindanao, the second largest of the country and home to 20 million inhabitants, making it the eighth largest of the world's islands. Filipino is the national language of the Philippines and English is also an official language but dozens of languages are spoken by the various ethnic groups in Mindanao.

Back to sea; 5,200 km to the Marshall Islands across the Pacific Ocean. An independent Micronesian  country of 5 islands, 29 coral atolls and, according to worldometers.info, 59,190 inhabitants, the Marshall Islands derive their name from John Marshall, a British explorer, who visited in 1788. Climate change, leading to rising sea levels, apparently threatens this tiny island nation.

Crossing the International Date Line, more ocean travel leads us to landfall in Costa Rica and finally back home to Panama. Costa Rica is ranked 64th in the HDI. It has the 5th freest press according to the Press Freedom Index 2121 (Reporters Without Borders), it is the 36th most democratic country according to the Freedom in the World index and is the 12th happiest country in the World Happiness Report, the 2020 edition of which quotes "it is fascinating to see that the top ten in terms of optimistic outlook also includes new cities ... in fact, places two, three, and five in terms of future life evaluation are populated by San Miguelito (Panama), San Jose (Costa Rica), and Panama City (Panama)".

We did it! Ferdinand Magellan, eat your heart out.

Did our world tour leave us more or less optimistic about the future for humankind? I suppose a mixture; lots of sadness but also beauty and promise.