Good joke from Wicked Uncle

I mixed up “Jacuzzi” and “Yakuza” by accident. Now I’m in hot water with the Japanese Mafia.

😜

No more Warwick Drive

The Queen's Speech included a proposal to 'allow' residents to choose the name of the street on which they live.

What could possibly go wrong?

I'll tell you what could go wrong. Boaty McBoatface.

You'll recall that, in 2016, the great British public was given the opportunity to choose the name for a new polar scientific research ship. They chose Boaty. The Government said "not on our watch" and named the ship Sir David Attenborough. Now, there are those who believe that the honourable thing for Sir Dave to do would have been to have said "no thanks, McBoaty will do just fine". There is actually no record that he actually cares one way or the other.

I live on a street called Warwick Drive. To my knowledge, this little part of Cornwall has no connection with the town of Warwick, nor the Earl of Warwick, nor Jeffrey Archer's William Warwick books, or Warwick Davis, so how this came about is unknown (at least to me). Perhaps there was an online poll and my co-residents - or their ancestors - chose this name. Maybe one of them had just been to Warwick Castle. Anyway, we shall have to endure this inappropriate name no longer. Campaigning will soon begin to choose a better name. I'm lobbying for Just Chilling and I have my social media campaign all ready to go. No Drive, Avenue, Road, Street, Gardens, Grove, Highway or Strip. Just Just Chilling. Get ready for a surge in readership!

It has to be said, in the interests of accuracy,that the proposal actually promises local people “more of a say over changing street names”. So not quite full control to the citizenry. And how frequently can we change names? If we choose Donald McTrumpFace and he goes to  jail, can we change please? Estate agents will be licking their lips at the prospect of new attributes for their properties: "large mansion in St Austell with three street name votes".

Perhaps the UK Government could reflect on the possibility that "levelling up" might just as easily result in levelling down. And stop pandering to the populace! Get on with important things like sending refugees to Rwanda, building new nuclear submarines and declaring war. On second thoughts .........

I don't get it

I try hard to avoid football content, so as not to halve my readership. Well, not that hard, truth be told. And we are in the season 2021/2022 end game from tonight onwards. Despite Wycombe Wanderers amazingly and brilliantly getting through to Wembley for the League One playoffs, my focus is on Thursday's Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal game.

Arsenal are 4 points clear of Spurs and both teams will have 2 games to go after this North London Derby. One of them will end up in 4th place in the Premier League table, earning for themselves the riches of the Champions League next season. The other will end up 5th and have to suffer the ignominy of Thursday evening Europa League consolation.

If I were a neutral, the expectation would be that Spurs win the NLD - they are in good form and at home - followed by their winning their two extremely easy games against already-relegated-and-on-their-holidays Norwich City and truly-awful Burnley. You - the neutral observer - would expect Arsenal to drop points in at least one of the remaining games against rejuvenated Newcastle and also-truly-awful Everton. All of which suggests it's all on a knife edge. A real 50/50.

Yet the bookies' odds make Arsenal 2/7 favourites to get that 4th place, with Spurs around 9/4 against. I don't get it. Nevertheless I have a dinky little £50 bet on Spurs to make it, although I only got just under 2/1 at the time. Should that happen, it would buy me a few beers to drown my sorrows.

There is also the delicious, if unlikely, prospect that both could overtake Chelsea and force the latter out of next season's Champions League. The odds of that happening are around 50/1 against. We can hope. Watch this space.

Tomorrow - Leeds v Chelsea.

Thursday - the Big One. I would be behind the sofa if I had one. I'm already a bag of nerves, two days out. Time for a drink..........

Glory Glory

Yesterday I wrote that the Metropolitan Police and Durham Police had hardly covered themselves in glory in pursuing lockdown-deniers. But to be fair the police forces of this country were given a poisoned chalice by Parliament [And by Parliament I mean not only the Government but also the far-too-compliant OINO (Opposition In Name Only)], which gave the police new laws to enforce without any new resources with which to do so. I think we can assume that police officers up and down the land were not just sitting around with nothing to do, just waiting for some new laws to enforce. We can probably assume that they were quite busy doing proper policing - catching criminals, for instance. So it was entirely reasonable for them to be circumspect in how enthusiastically to chase people who were meeting 'illegally' in groups of six or more people. My impression is that they mostly focussed on particularly large gatherings of people egregiously breaking the rules.

I was always against criminalising lockdown rules, not only on the resource issue, nor the likelihood or otherwise of people being willing to follow man-made laws as opposed to what we might call guidance on civilised norms, e.g. respecting our fellow citizens, but also as a simple matter of personal liberty. If you are thinking this makes me a libertarian, right-wing lunatic then I readily confess to two of those. Free speech and free action, within unarguably fundamental law, are to me values of a democratic society which we should not be too ready to dilute. In this I am pretty much a fundamentalist: I cannot condone social media companies imposing their own judgments on what should be published on their sites - within the law, obviously. Twitter should not have banned Trump from tweeting, for instance. Are our democracies so fragile that we are frightened of the power of contrary views? Perhaps we have to work harder to build civilised consensus.

The UK Government's Online Safety Bill, currently progressing through Parliament, includes a proposal for online providers to remove “legal but harmful” content. Who says what's "harmful"? If it's harmful, pass a law against the specifics. If not, keep your nose out of my business.

I'm not by any means diminishing the importance of holding politicians to account for their actions but my guess is that public outrage would have been just as great against government (or opposition) lockdown gatherings if those were against the spirit of guidelines rather than specifically breaking (clearly ill-defined) laws. Because of those laws, we (inflamed by the media) are spending months debating whether obviously arrogant behaviour was illegal, the extent to which a Fixed Penalty Notice is a criminal offence and police forces are having to divert resources from crime busting to pseudo political decision making. Are we collectively insane?

That's it for now. Very few people read this any more. Sometimes I just have to let off steam, though. Is it the end? Who knows?

Be brave, Kier

Forget the Daily Mail. Forget the wailing Conservative MPs. Forget the Durham Police who, following in the footsteps of the incompetent Metropolitan Police, have hardly covered themselves in glory. The only fact that matters is that, if you are given a fixed penalty notice for that glass of beer, you will have to resign as Labour party leader. If you did not, and you tried to weasel your way out of it, the public would never believe any of the words you will have to say when the inevitable further fines and the final Sue Gray report emerge over the next few weeks and months.

So you should get out in front now. Immediately after reading this. State unequivocally that, f you are given a FPN, you will resign. Distance yourself from our weaselly PM and make the stand for honesty and decency in politics. After all she has said on this subject, Angela Rayner should do the same. There is no wiggle room.

Labour would survive your departure, even be enhanced by its setting a standard for integrity.

This is your test. Don't fail it.

1 in 13

1 in 13 people (adults? not sure) in England now have covid. Which is the same ratio of people wearing masks in the crowded indoor Exeter services this morning. Connection? Who knows. tbh I no longer have any idea where or when I should wear a mask or, given I had my Spring Booster yesterday, what my chances of catching or surviving the virus are. Sore upper arm today. Three Pfizers previously and now a Moderna in my collection. The nurse explained the relative efficacy and sustainability of various vaccines but (a) I wasn't really listening and (b) it was the only option available anyway. 

We live on ... stay safe everyone.

Cosmic Girl

The Cornish are going to space!

Cosmic Girl is a modified Boeing 747-400, which will take off from Newquay Airport this summer, in the UK's first ever space launch. Under its wing will be LauncherOne, a Virgin Orbit rocket, with a payload of small satellites, which are used for tracking shipping and other (undisclosed) things. LauncherOne will be released at 35,000 feet and fire its booster to zoom the satellites into orbit.

The fact that the operations team includes the Ministry of Defence, the Border Force and the National Crime Agency leads us to suspect that the satellites may be above our heads but not necessarily above board. Rumours that the People's Front of Cornwall are planning a second launch, PeFroCorn, to track LauncherOne have not been denied. As have suggestions that one of the satellites will be in a geostationary orbit above an asylum seeker processing centre in Rwanda. And another that one of the satellites will be targetting [did I mean tracking?] vulnerable people crossing the  English Channel in small boats.

Cynicism aside, we should perhaps celebrate Cornwall's entry to the twenty first century - skipping the twentieth, obviously - and watch the skies this summer. Perhaps.

Ask the Swiss

The Swiss system. I'm trying to understand it. Invented by Julius Müller for a chess tournament in Zürich in 1895, it provides a (perhaps optimal) solution to the problem of having a number of competitors too large for them to all to play each other in the time available. I'm interested because UEFA's Champions League format from 2024-25 will use it.

There will be 36 teams competing in the Champions League and they will all be within one league table. Clearly it's not possible for all to play all, particularly as the tradition is to play home and away ties. Hence the Swiss system. In round 1 there is a completely random draw. In the second round, each team will play another team with a similar record. Thus if Real Madrid wins their first match, they will then play another of the first round winners in the second round. If they win again, they play another team that has two wins and so on. You can see how eventually all the teams get sorted by their results, the cream rising to the top and Tottenham Hotspur trending to last place. Just kidding, Spurs fans! You won't even be in it.

For 36 competitors, a number of matches around 10-12 will be deemed mathematically to be optimal: at that point the Champions League system will move the top 8, plus 8 more from playoff games, into the traditional knockout phases. It feels like a system designed to please everyone - traditionalists and radicals - although it's arguably also a solution in search of a problem.

I seem to remember playing something like this system in croquet tournaments. I'm told it is widely used in Scrabble. Wikipedia tells me the system is used for the selection of the English national pool team. [Who knew that even existed?] Also Pokémon championships. And the World Universities Debating Championship. And ... you get the gist; it's widespread. I'm not aware of any blogger tournaments though.

If you're playing in a chess tournament, where all players are gathered in the same venue at the same time, waiting to find out who your next opponent is is not a problem. For football teams, playing their matches in different countries, hundreds or thousands of miles apart, I think it's a major disadvantage for logistics such as travel for clubs and fans, interacting with domestic match schedules and so on. I guess there may will be a sense of "let's see how this works" in the first year.

I'll get back to you around Christmas time in 2024.

Unpredictable Humans

In the kind of computer games where you, the human player, compete against the computer's artificial intelligence (AI), you have a huge advantage: you're human. Humans are unpredictable, unlike the predictable AI. In Civilization VI, on the highest difficulty level - Deity - playing single player against computer (AI) opponents, you can still beat the AI even with the huge advantages they are given by the game. Defending your city against massed ranks of AI units, you can predict what they will do but you - the unpredictable human - can outwit them by doing something crazy. City nearly dead to an AI unit? Send out a builder to distract the unit; they will take the builder, I will then attack and they have gained a builder but lost the war. The AI doesn't think strategically.

Which is my problem with driverless cars. I was driving out of Tesco this morning, about to turn right. Being careful. Car approaching from the right. Signalling left, to go into Tesco. That's OK, I can go .... whoa! The other car is going straight on, not into Tesco! Still signalling. Screeching of brakes, near collision. OK, exaggerating a little. No actual collision although a few words exchanged. I assume that the driver wasn't aware that their indicator was still on but maybe it was just a last minute change of plan.

How would my (mythical) driverless Tesla deal with this unpredictable behaviour? I imagine the Tesla AI can see the flashing indicator and assess the probability of the car behaving as expected, i.e. turning left. Of course, my Tesla doesn't know whether the other car is also driverless - therefore predictable - or human. Therefore there is a knowledge gap, which is a problem for an AI. My guess is the Tesla would sit there waiting for a gap in the traffic. This is the ultimate safety play but this is Tesco, so it's possible that there's a long stream of traffic, all turning left and with their indicators on. Because they are human, some might not be indicating but still intend to turn left. We'll be there for ages.

Then there's the potential moral dilemma. I read a really interesting article on this on the BBC's Science Focus website, positing for instance the decision making a driver might have to go through in a situation where every possible decision will result in potential death but the lethalities are unequal - adults vs children, ten passengers vs one, others vs me. For humans the speed of the situation is too much for us and means we react purely on instinct, with decisions which will not be the same for all of us; we are unpredictable. But the driverless car AI can process all possible outcomes virtually instantaneously and make a 'moral' decision to pursue one (probable) outcome.

When driverless cars were first mooted, my reaction was "terrific, I can read a book while my car takes me safely and speedily to my destination". I still think that, but with one proviso - that all the other vehicles on that particular stretch of road - perhaps a specially built highway - are also driverless and (preferably) powered by the same software (or industry standard algorithms). While we are (for my lifetime and for decades after, I suspect) in a hybrid situation where some cars could be driven by predictable AI and others by unpredictable humans, I'm against the idea.

What do you think?

Onshore Wind Farms

I'd have one in my garden if I had room. A wind turbine. I most definitely would not have a mini nuclear reactor.

I read recently that the UK government's energy review might include a proposal for people willing to live within sight of a wind turbine to get reduced, or free, electricity. I'm up for that; where do I sign up? Many people (mostly Conservative MPs) regard them as unsightly [UK transport secretary Grant Schapps yesterday: "eyesores"] but I actually think they are rather elegant. If a wind turbine were a sculpture, we'd all admire the beautiful lines with their slow, soothing rotation. There are a couple close to the A390 near me and when I see them as I drive through, it lifts my spirits. Could I have one with built-in calming music, please? And in pale green.

Ed Miliband, shadow climate change secretary yesterday described onshore wind as the "cheapest power available" but the government has had a moratorium on it since 2015.

Whereas the UK's nuclear reactor builds in recent decades have been disastrous in terms of cost overruns and poor price deals, and a full-scale conventional reactor takes years to build, the prospect for small modular reactors (SMRs) to provide power cheaper and sooner is apparently promising.

Our country's energy policy is frankly a mess. I am viscerally against nuclear power, because of the potential for catastrophe

but maybe SMRs (which presumably, being smaller, are potentially less catastrophic) could persuade me that the trade-off in terms of viability vs safety is worth it. One thing we should never be doing, in my opinion, is outsourcing our infrastructure ownership or operation to foreign companies. Not just Russia and China but France too. And new energy generation sources are now urgent.

I'm still not having one anywhere near me, though.

Omens Good and Bad

The football World Cup will be held in Qatar in November and December this year. England are in a group with Iran, the USA and the winner of the European play off between Wales, Scotland and Ukraine - delayed, for obvious reasons, until at least June.

England play Iran on the opening day,  21 November. The last time that we played on the opening day was in 1966. And we all know who won the World Cup that year, don't we?

France however have their own omen. In the two World Cups that France have won (1998 and 2018), they were drawn into the same group as Denmark, whom they will meet in Group D. And three of the past six World Cup champions came out of Group C: France in 2018, Brazil in 2002 and France in 1998. That's good for Argentina, Mexico, Poland and Saudi Arabia.

At the draw the Iranians were proudly announced as "The Islamic Republic of Iran". The Americans, also in our (England's) group and the opponents in our second group match, were rather less proudly announced as "the  USA". You'd have thought that, given the possibility of meeting Iran, they would have stated "we are the Democratic Republic of the United States of America". Although that might be stretching it if Donald Trump returns to the White House in 2024.

England, of course, is not exactly a country, just a constituent nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. We don't enter a UK team because for grandiose historical reasons the four football federations of the UK nations comprise 50% of the The International Football Association Board (IFAB). Which makes the Welsh, Northern Irish and Scots feel more important in the football world than they actually are. We may well be reminded of this when England play their final group game against Wales, Scotland or Ukraine, who are competing in those delayed matches in June. Ukraine are the lowest ranking of these so, unless the UK government insists on giving the Ukrainians a three goal advantage in these matches (a cute variation on 'taking the knee' as 'giving the war-support goal'), we should end up playing one of the Home Nations. Letting Ukraine beat us might stop a war, playing Scotland may well start one.

Lest you feel like mocking the chances of any of these teams beating England, the USA are ranked 15th in the world, ahead of such luminaries as Croatia - who beat us in the semi finals of the last World Cup - and Sweden.They are also unbeaten in their two previous World Cup matches against England. So not mugs. Fortunately we won't be playing their women's team, who are World Champions. Iran are 21st, ahead of Japan, Poland and the Czechs. We are 5th.

It's a long time until November but something to look forward to. If we turn out to be the only team taking the knee, and win the tournament, then inevitable conclusions will be drawn by the hysterical British media. Don't worry, the tournament only lasts 4 weeks and then we - winners, plucky/unlucky losers and agnostics - can enjoy Christmas.

Another Shot in the Dark Answers

1. How many Brussels sprouts are sold in UK supermarkets each year at Christmas time? 750 million

2. In what month was the famous Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street first released in cinemas? May

3. What percentage of British adults aged 25-49 say that they make a list of presents that they ask for at Christmas? 26%

4. True or false: if you ate your Christmas tree, you would become seriously ill? False

5. What percentage of women say they prefer giving rather than receiving Christmas presents? 72%

6. What profession are most likely to have to work on Christmas Day? Priests

7. If Santa has a mince pie and a 200 ml glass of milk at each house (s)he visits to deliver presents, how many calories would (s)he eat on Christmas Eve? 150 billion

8. Of those cooking on Christmas Day, how long does the average Brit spend preparing Christmas dinner? 4 hours 16 minutes

9. In degrees Celsius, what is the highest temperature ever recorded at the North Pole? 13 degrees C

10. In Poland, which of the following is a common Christmas tree decoration: (a) Polish sausage (B) turnips (C) spider webs or (D) a rabbit foot? Spider webs

Too many questions

 Once upon a time, if you needed to see a doctor, you phoned up or called in at the surgery and made an appointment.  Not any more. Now you can only make an appointment on the same day.  And you have to phone at 8,00 am when the lines open.  Purportedly.  But they don’t.  They are always engaged.  And when you finally get through, all the appointments have gone.  ‘Try again tomorrow’ they say cheerfully.   After four days of this my dear husband was so enraged, I feared for his mental health.  Then someone said to try something called econsult.   

First of all you need a computer.  And you need to know how to use it so that excludes the poor and those who do not have a computer as they've lived perfectly well without one for 80+ years. 

But, no matter. Husband dies have a computer and some rudimentary knowledge.  After half an hour and much cursing I am summoned to assist.  I don’t know much either.  But between us we find the relevant pages and supply all manner of information.   They want a passport or a driving licence photo too.   Now 44% of Londoners don’t have a car and only 76% have a passport.  Excluding again.  

But husband does and after another forty minutes of photographing and uploading we are in.   And then begins the box ticking.  Completely irrelevant matters such as how much alcohol do you drink for example.  Then you asked to describe the problem.  A small lesion on his scalp.  But that won’t do.  Size, colour, texture, edges, height, and on and on.   

Then they demand a photograph of it.  He has to kneel down so that I can photograph his scalp.   The cat wonders in and gets in the photograph too.  (They didn’t ask if there was a cat in the household). Then the photo has to be cropped.   And then, having uploaded this photograph there appears a box where you asked to describe the lesion.   

I wrote that bit.  ‘Precisely as described and photographed above’. Finally, after over an hour it’s finished.  We click submit.  And then it asks How did we do? Perhaps it’s just as well that he clicked off before I wrote my furious response.   

And then, at 6.45 a doctor telephones.  ‘You need to come to the surgery tomorrow so that I can see it’.  

So, there were appointments after all.  And it did need to be seen.  

And some outsourced group of teenagers commissioned by our now privatised NHS had a load of fun wasting patients’ time and excluding great swathes of the population.   

I asked my computerless 88 yr old neighbour what she does.   Oh, she said ‘I just turn up and sit there until they get so sick of me I get seen.  

My friend E says she handwrites a letter addressed to the Dr and gives it to the receptionist.  

There must be better ways.   Like a phone call and an appointment.  

Is this worse than a disappearing electrician?  The jury’s out.  

Too much to ask?

I like order in my life. It's my balance, the other side of my chaotic, enquiring brain. So, if an electrician says he'll come between 8 and 9, I mentally prepare myself, because I know that his visit will disrupt the order of my life, even if only for a few hours: the electricity will be off, so no WiFi, no TV, no kettle, boiler or cryptic crossword on the Times app. No shopping or coffee shop, as I have to be en casa. And my house is small, so he'll be invading my space. Whereas I am generally easy about whether I get out of bed at 7:45, 8, 8:15 or whatever, now I have to be precise and make sure the alarm is going to work. Which means I wake up much earlier, in order to check the alarm does its (now unnecessary) job. Disorder. Stress.

So when the electrician I had booked for 08:30 yesterday didn't tun up, and didn't contact me except to answer my "where are you?" message 2 hours after it was sent, I was ticking. However, "mañana" he said [he's Manuel, from Barcelona]. Tomorrow. "Between 8 and 9". OK, reset alarm for Tuesday. More sleep deprivation stress. Today. 09:30. No sign of electrician. I've had enough and fire him by text. Don't mess with me.

Which leaves me looking for an alternative. We'll see how that goes.

If you're thinking I need a therapist rather than a builder, you're probably not wrong. Although both would be best; just turn up on time. Is that too much to ask?

Another Shot in the Dark

1. How many Brussels sprouts are sold in UK supermarkets each year at Christmas time?

2. In what month was the famous Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street first released in cinemas?

3. What percentage of British adults aged 25-49 say that they make a list of presents that they ask for at Christmas?

4. True or false: if you ate your Christmas tree, you would become seriously ill?

5. What percentage of women say they prefer giving rather than receiving Christmas presents?

6. What profession are most likely to have to work on Christmas Day?

7. If Santa has a mince pie and a 200 ml glass of milk at each house (s)he visits to deliver presents, how many calories would (s)he eat on Christmas Eve?

8. Of those cooking on Christmas Day, how long does the average Brit spend preparing Christmas dinner?

9. In degrees Celsius, what is the highest temperature ever recorded at the North Pole?

10. In Poland, which of the following is a common Christmas tree decoration: (a) Polish sausage (B) turnips (C) spider webs or (D) a rabbit foot?

Answers in the Comments below, please.

Answers will appear on 28 March.

Acknowledgement to @ShotintheDarkGames (FB) shotinthedarkgame.co.uk

Back to Tesco

A couple of years ago I switched from Tesco to Asda. Tesco has the advantage of being within walking distance of my house but I got fed up with their frequent moving around of the stock. I don't imagine I'm alone in wanting to know where the tea bags are or what aisle the washing up liquid is in. Don't mess me about! So I decamped to Asda, which is a five minute drive. During the first Covid lockdown, when home delivery was difficult to access, I used Lidl a lot and still do, although they have no café and a limited range of some items.

I know, this isn't my most promising post. Stay with me though.

A year or two ago I began to experience some soreness in my knees (I know, even less promising). After a couple of years I decided to get checked over by my GP, who sent me for an X-ray and subsequently to a physiotherapist. The first physio, a young man, gave me so many different exercises that I didn't know which to do, meaning I did none. He then told me he was going "back to uni" (was I fobbed off with a student?) and I saw a young woman. One of my most supportive readers told me that, in her experience, physios were generally 'posh girls', but when we're both (me and the physio, not me and the reader) wearing masks, it's hard to tell. Anyway, she gave me one exercise. Excellent, I can remember that and, more importantly, believe in it.

So I do the exercise reasonably regularly but, for normal health reasons, also try to do as much walking as possible. Which I hate, but brings me back to Tesco. Half a mile there and back. Manageable. If the weather permits I'll be doing this every morning: walk, shop, coffee (egg, bacon, etc twice a week), stagger home. My experience of walking (and the given exercises) is that my knees are sore while I'm doing it - and for 24 hours after - and then back to normal. 'Normal' meaning not getting any better but also not any worse. Maybe I'll lose a smidgen of weight though.

I'll let you know how well this goes. Bet you can't wait.

Charitable Choices

The other day, at the checkout in Tesco, I was given a small purple disc. What's this? Is it a bitcoin? One of those thingies that go in the trolley to make the pound coin spit out at you? A reward for good behaviour? I have no idea so I ask the checkout person [typically I would call her a checkout lady but I'm not sure women like being called ladies any more]. Apparently it's for voting which charity should be supported by Tesco this (next?) month. "How do I do that, friendly checkout person?" "You put the disc in the vote slot you see by the exit".

I've not had one of these before so it's either a new scheme or, more likely, you need to have spent more than a certain amount that day. I tend to shop frequently in small batches rather than the reverse. Anyway, I carried the disc around for a few days, because I kept forgetting to look for the voting machine. I am generally in a hurry to leave because supermarkets are ghastly places.

But today ... I remembered.

Here am I facing the machine. With camera for blog purposes. So: middle class kids learning ballet, kids gardening instead of being in the classroom or feeding a starving family. That's a choice? It's like choosing between Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn and Mother Theresa.

But hang on a minute. What if the food charity is run by that woman from Kids Company? What if teaching the kids to grow vegetables means they will feed their families when they grow up (the kids not the vegetables)?

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for his life time.

(Not just men obviously. Thought I'd better say that)

What if a young ballerina/o grows up to be a star and host a Dance Aid performance which raises millions of pounds for poor kids all over the world?

It's tricky. I can't get my head round it so my mind wanders ...

Maybe we could use this system for other important votes. Like Brexit. Or the new President after the Queen dies. Boris Johnson, Nick Clegg or David Attenborough. And instead of queuing at polling booths at election time, we could all decamp to the local supermarket or corner shop and cast our vote with a purple disc. None of those party poopers asking who you voted for - they can see! No electronic voting machines, so no Russian hackers. Put a scale up the front and you wouldn't need all those polling companies. And there's only room for three choices, so no Monster Raving Loonies or idiots wearing clown costumes or funny hats. Or Farage. What's not to like?

I don't have time for the necessary research. I  cast my vote .......

Shocking and Hilarious

Can a movie, or a TV series, be shocking and hilarious at the same time? For me Yes but does that make me weird?

On that point, I'll be blogging about Squid Game in a few days.

Meanwhile I've watched a couple of feature length Netflix sports-related documentaries in a series called Untold. Last night was Untold: Crime & Penalties and tells the story of the Danbury Trashers ice hockey team. The previous episode Breaking Point I watched was about the tennis rivalry and friendship between Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick and, ultimately, Fish's anxiety and mental health problems. There's an episode about Caitlyn Jenner who, as Bruce Jenner, won Olympic gold for the decathlon, one about an 'infamous' (I'd never heard of it, so relatively infamous) NBA brawl, another about female boxer Christy Martin.

In each case the central structure features a defining moment, which we see at the beginning, an examination of why this happened and finally an assessment of the outcomes.

The Danbury Trashers came about as a result of mob boss (if he was one of the ubiquitous Dragons' Den dragons, he'd be "trash disposal mogul") Jimmy Galante, who bought his 17 year old son A.J. a UHL [United Hockey League, a minor league one level below the NHL] ice hockey franchise, making A.J. President with carte blanche to hire whomever he wanted to play in the team. What could possibly go wrong? In true Dirty Dozen style, he recruits a bunch of the best and the worst - the best players with the worst (most violent) temperaments, setting them the goal of terrifying their opponents into submission. I am not really familiar with ice hockey but it has always seemed to me a sport flirting on the edge of violence, so none of this is surprising. The central moment occurs when one of the team's players has his leg broken by an opponent - and you can easily imagine what follows.

There's a subplot with the FBI investigating, and eventually indicting, Jimmy. He is acclaimed as a hero for creating this sporting monster, with the Danbury locals fully in tune with the macho  approach of the team. The players give extended interviews and the director makes a good stab at humanising them. To the extent that there are definitely hilarious moments to go alongside the gut-wrenching barbarity of it all, yes, my central premise is proven.

Breaking Point is set around Mardy Fish's sudden withdrawal before a match against Roger Federer, using this to probe his life of intense pressure to succeed from a very young age, a breakdown, recovery and his final decision to retire as a player and subsequently, amongst other things, his being open about his well-being issues and his campaign for awareness of mental health issues for sports stars. An extended interview with Fish himself frames the documentary and, as with Crime & Penalties, there are interviews with key people - particularly Andy Roddick in this case. It's neither shocking nor hilarious but a worthwhile and sensitive examination of a familiar sporting issue. I'm looking forward to seeing the remaining three in the series.

Arsenal notes

Those of my readers who hate football probably don't know what an Arsenal is. Apart from: a repository for weapons or even a collection of those weapons. As in Woolwich Arsenal. A recent definition of an Arsenal would be along the lines of "a collection of over-paid, under-performing old actors chasing a ball". Current definitions, however, include "a well-rehearsed collection of hungry young men with a common goal". This is the Arsenal we fans have come to know in recent months.

I'm struggling here to keep the non-footy readers engaged.

I want to comment on some under-mentioned aspects of Arsenal's victory over Aston Villa yesterday. The Gunners got their goal in the first half and looked pretty comfortable, although without creating too many chances for a second, until the 70th minute. At that point Arteta decided - entirely reasonably - that his young charges were looking tired and brought on Nicolas Pepe and, ten minutes later, Eddie Nketiah. Now, you two guys, you have just one job: hold on to the ball and keep it as far away from your own goal as possible. Preferably around the opposition's corner flag. These two were completely unable, even unwilling, to do this simple thing. To the extent that, in the final minute of added time, Pepe gave away the ball, and committed a rash foul, just outside his own penalty area, giving Philippe Coutinho, an excellent free kick taker, the opportunity to get an undeserved draw for Aston Villa. Only the alert Bernd Leno in the Arsenal goal prevented this happening.

Frankly guys, that was unacceptable. And for me you have forfeited the right to come on as a sub for the rest of the season. And beyond.

I get that Arteta maybe thought a second goal was the best way to confirm the victory, but Pepe's record in 75 Premier League appearances for Arsenal is just 16 goals. So the probability of his scoring in 90 minutes would be 16/75 = 0.21. In 15 minutes that would be 0.035, i.e. almost in miracle territory. If you want to guarantee keeping your one goal lead, get one of your young summer recruits on - Sambi Lokonga or Nuno  Tavares. They will (a) put in the effort and (b) do what their manager says.

Which leads me to summer recruitment. Obviously this is heavily dependent on which - if any - European competition Arsenal qualify for but let's put that to one side. Nicolas Pepe has only one attribute to act as an able deputy for Bukayo Saka as the right sided attacker: he plays in that position. No-one is going to give Arsenal anything like the £70 million they paid for Pepe but they should move him on. And bring in a young live-wire wide player such as Olise or Eze from Crystal Palace or Trincão from Barcelona.

As for Nketiah, he's out of contract and off. As is Lacazette. There has been talk of offering Laca a one or two year deal but that ignores two key points: (1) he will want to play every game in order to maximise his (admittedly minimal) chance of being in the French squad for the World Cup (2) he doesn't score goals. Yes he works hard, is a good example as captain and links play, but that lack of goals (4 this Premier League season) could easily cost Arsenal that precious 4th place in this season's Premier League. Arsenal need to bring in two strikers. Because strikers are generally the most expensive players to buy - and pay - one should be an established goalscorer in a top European league (i.e. not France) and the other a 22/23 year old with huge promise. More in future blog posts of who they could be. Talk of Calvert-Lewin has me aghast. I just don't think he fits either category.

Finally, a midfield partner for Thomas Partey. We can't continue with Grant Xhaka. There are better midfielders around. It looks like 4-3-3 is here to stay so a creative midfielder who doesn't have a frequent flier plan for yellow cards, early to mid 20s, would fit the bill. The top two in this season's Premier League midfielders yellow card list are Ruben Neves (9) and Yves Bissouma (8). Surprisingly Xhaka has only 6! We want someone less ill-disciplined than Granit, not more. Douglas Luiz and Youri Tielemans are worth a look. Tielemans has 10 through balls this season - Odegaard has 18 (!) and Partey 9. But the player I would like to see in that position is James Ward Prowse. If Arsenal need more goals, he's your guy, I reckon.

Let me know, in the comments below, what your thoughts are.

Dog Lodge

I was having a pub lunch with my friend Tony - and his giant dog Jasper - and our meal was constantly interrupted by dog-lovers, coo-ing and ah-ing at the aforesaid Great Dane. Not at Tony, obviously. Or me; I was a non-person in the interaction. Apart from the comfort which Jassie brings him, Tony loves the camaraderie of the doggie fraternity. A couple of days ago, on a walk, I heard someone saying to someone else "I love having a dog because people come up and talk to you".

Wait! You can talk to other people, you know. Is this some kind of quasi Masonic secret society? And I don't have the password? Come to think it, when I first met Jasper I was impressed that he would respond to "Sit!" even from me, a stranger. "He'll shake your hand, you know" said Tony. Aha! The Masonic handshake. I was right.

I declined.

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member [Groucho Marx]

Why Are We So Angry?

We seem to have been living for years in a state of anger. Looking at the USA political scene from the outside, the country appears not only divided but in a particularly bitter and angry way since the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. At home in the UK, the 2016 Brexit referendum stirred a great deal of acrimony and that state persisted perhaps longer than it should have. This is not the usual partisan politics, it's a cacophonous battleground.

We seem to be permanently angry. With Downing Street parties, Prince Andrew, a footballer kicking a cat, John Bercow, Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion protests, footballers who take the knee, others who don't take the knee, statues, immigrants....... now Vladimir Putin is centre stage in our anger universe. And his oligarchical cronies who have the nerve to buy a mansion in Kensington or a football club in Chelsea. 

It's exhausting. And, I would argue, debilitating. Any psychologist would warn us, on a personal level, of the harmful effects of anger - whether momentary or permanent - and the need to deal with it. It feels obvious to me that it's the same on a national level. By which I mean that an angry country - and its citizenry -  is likely to be unhealthily divided, unproductive, displaying low self-esteem and confidence, and lacking clarity and focus. It's a recipe for stagnation at best, decline at worst.

I can't watch the TV news bulletins......yesterday's Times had its first 13 pages devoted to the war in Ukraine. I'm not for one moment denying the seriousness for that country; my issue is that the populace of Britain is being wound up to be angry. By the media, almost as an arm of the state. "People of the United Kingdom, you must be angry!". We've had it before: most recently those parties, endlessly, day after day. 

I don't want to be angry, and I don't welcome the suggestion that I should feel anger. Maybe I should build a calming playlist on Spotify. That might do it.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” [Mark Twain]

“Angry people are not always wise.” [Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice]

I like the Sea

I feel fortunate to live near the sea. I love the sea. Obviously not being on it; I get seasick in the bath. Or in it; certainly not in English coastal waters in winter. Or Australian shark-infested seas at any time. 

I just love the look and sound of the sea. It can sometimes be angry - aren't we all? - but mostly it's a calming solace in troubled times. As with these from Charlestown yesterday.

Cinderella

I've been missing from my blog, largely due to lack of inspiration. Feeling guilty, and alarmed at how angry the world (at least as reflected in the media) is, some puns to entertain you. Some of these may have been borrowed or, in a reflection of world events, stolen.

Why is Cinderella so bad at soccer? Because her coach is a pumpkin.

Why did the chicken get sent off in the football match? For fowl play.

What did the cat call her blog? A pawedcast.

Why is my cat so ornery? He has a bad cattitude.

When I was a kid, my teacher said, “Name two pronouns.” I said, ‘Who, me?”

I decided I wanted to write a memoir but I couldn't be bothered, so I hired a ghostwriter. I haven't seen him for ages.

Why was the cartographer grumpy? He had a bad latitude.

In the kitchen, the Italian said "I'm Hungary". The German replied "Czech the fridge".

Please get your kids/grandkids to add more ...

How many of the Seven?

I fell to musing about the Seven Deadly Sins and how many I am guilty of - or, at least, just guilty enough to admit to.

Lust. “Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love [and] peace...”

There are things - not people, you'll be pleased to know - that I would rather like to have. A private plane, to visit my Australian family and friends. A television with decent sound. A magic weight loss formula. But probably not to the degree that Lust implies. So No. Anyway, "youthful" counts me out.

Gluttony. “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Oh dear, if this means eating and drinking too much of things that may not be good for me - burgers, cream horns, Armagnac - and for my sake, rather than God's, then this is a definite Yes.

Greed. “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have."

In the sense that I want more than my fair share of the pie, or a richer lifestyle, definitely No. 

Sloth. “Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise.”

That's me. I'm the sluggard. Yes

Wrath. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”

I consider myself a courteous driver, maybe even very much so, but on occasion I might get angry - and shout extremely loud - when someone does something very stupid and dangerous on my piece of road. Does this count? I definitely leave it to the wrath of a Higher Being, so I suppose this is a Yes.

Envy. “A sound heart is life to the body, But envy is rottenness to the bones.”

This is a No. Can't say more than that.

Pride. “...Let not the mighty man boast of his might"

This is the most solid Yes. I generally believe I am the cleverest, most intelligent person I know. Brain the size of a planet. A view which takes a constant hammering when playing my son at Connect 4 sadly.

Total: 4/7. That's bad. Maybe I should repent and become a monk.

The Spell of the capital

Capital cities cast a spell over their countries. They are magnets, drawing to them money, culture, tourism, commerce and, in the case of London, Russian oligarchs and their 'unexplained' wealth (see Catherine Belton's Putin's People for her explanations), houses, yachts and the GRU. And now sanctions. Because of a country whose capital city's name has undergone a makeover. All my long life I have known that Ukraine's capital is Kiev. No longer. It's now Kyiv. Why?

I learned in school that the capital of China was Peking. We had to start using Beijing as its name in about 1979. I know, that's a post-colonial transliteration thing but worth mentioning. Maybe Kyiv is too.

Ho Chi Minh City used to be known as Saigon until the locals heard the musical Miss Saigon and hated it. Claude-Michel Schönberg flatly refused to rename it Miss Ho Chi Minh City. OK, it's not the capital; just thought you'd like to know.

I'm tempted to sneer at the fact that New Delhi is no longer new but it appears that ND is a district within what Wikipedia calls the 'megacity' of Delhi.

Capital cities seem to be a root cause of inequality within a country. What if we (the UK) declared that from now on Middlesbrough is our capital? Would that city shoot from #1 in the 'most deprived places in the UK' list of the highly esteemed Daily Mirror right up to #1 in their 'least deprived' list? Surely worth a go. If it works, we could move the capital around the country every ten years [this happens in Dido's Phoenicia in Civilization VI] and reap the benefits of capitalisation. Memo to Michael Gove, Secretary of State responsible for the government's 'levelling up' strategy.

Anyway, I'm off to the opera in Middlesbrough, followed tomorrow by a visit to the Middlesbrough Tate and dinner at the Middlesbrough Ritz. See, it's working already.

Oh and no, I'm not meaning to make light of the lot of the people of Ukraine - or those of other currently war-torn countries: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar (let me know if I have omitted your country).

Federalist Paper No. 9

The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection is the title of No. 9 in the series of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, eventually titled the Federalist Papers and setting the foundation of the United States constitution. In No.9 Hamilton argues "A FIRM Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection", interpreted by some as an argument against political parties. P. J. O'Rourke [see below] claims that Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, presages the 'tyranny' of today's two political parties in the US. Madison wrote ("with eerie prescience ... [describing] our Democratic and Republican presidential primaries and caucuses 228 years into the future", according to O'Rourke):

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

It seems the Founding Fathers were generally not in favour of political parties. According to history.com, in an essay by Sarah Pruitt entitled The Founding Fathers Feared Political Factions Would Tear the Nation Apart, Alexander Hamilton once called political parties “the most fatal disease” of popular governments. According to O'Rourke, Thomas Jefferson claimed to oppose political parties and George Washington "detested political parties and didn't belong to one". 

I learned all this from a book I'm reading entitled How the Hell Did This Happen? by the afore-mentioned P. J. O'Rourke, of whom I hadn't heard until he died recently. Whereupon a number of political columnists whose writings I enjoy lauded him and quoted from his works. O'Rourke was a "political satirist" who wrote pieces - of a style of mini essays or (as I would say) blog posts - for various American publications.

How the Hell Did This Happen? - subtitled A Cautionary Tale of American Democracy - is a collection of 30 such pieces on the subject of the 2016 Presidential Election, from the early primaries until the election itself. This was the Trump vs Clinton election, which both candidates won - Hillary simply got more votes than Donald but apparently that wasn't good enough.

O'Rourke himself is a Republican supporter, although from what he describes as the "sane and moderate" wing of the party (In a later book he talks of being, politically, of the 'far-middle'). He mercilessly mocks the candidates of both parties who line up to attempt to win their party's nomination. As far as the Republican candidates are concerned, it's a bit like Jeff Daniels mouthing Aaron Sorkin's anti Tea Party rants in The Newsroom.

Perry, Santorum, Walker, Webb, Chafee, Pataki, Huckabee, Jindal, Graham, O'Malley, Paul, Fiorina, Biden, Bush, Christie, Carson, Rubio, Cruz, Kasich, Sanders, Clinton and Trump. That's not a list of presidential candidates. That's the worst law firm in the world.

Rubio is the least insane candidate (low bar) with the best chance (faint hope) of actually beating Hillary.

... typical of modern Americans is Trump's bad taste ... he puts his own individual stamp on gaucherie.

... the candidate who was so far ahead of Hillary that we didn't know who it was yet was the screwy-kablooey commander of the Vermont-Cong, Senator Bernie Sanders.

Claiming, as [Mike] Huckabee did on July 26, that the president of the United States "will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven" is not a cogent critique of the Iran nuclear deal however bad the deal is.

[Biden] told the House Democratic Caucus, "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30% chance we're going to get it wrong".

Maybe Carly Fiorina could run America the way she ran Hewlett-Packard ... Between July 1999 and February 2005, when Carly was CEO, H-P's stock price fell 65 per cent.

Members of the electorate would go into the ballot booth, see the two names Clinton and Bush and think to themselves "Gosh, I'm getting forgetful. I did this already".

This is a very entertaining, amusing and beautifully written book. Not a page goes by without a reminder of how witty and insightful the author is. These are pieces I wish I could have written.

In the final pages, The Revolt Against The Elites, O'Rourke discusses how we (it applies not just to the USA) are "daunted at the pace of material change, unnerved over social transfigurations,  fretful about economic instability, and terrified by terrorism." He concludes ...

Fear is a bad schoolmarm. We've got a monster at the blackboard. How can we learn even 1 + 1 when all we can think is, "EEEK! Teacher is huge and slimy and has tentacles and two ugly heads!"

So we turn to the big, stupid bully at the back of the classroom. 

Yats

Apparently there's a new craze. Yats. A Yat is a singular collection of five emojis. A super-emoji. You can choose your five emojis, combine them into a Yat and use it as a social media signature. Or even your username.

Each Yat is unique so, once you have bought your Yat, no-one else can have that combination of emojis. I don't know how many possible combinations are possible because I don't know - or care - how many emojis there are in existence.

Note that word 'bought'. You have to purchase your Yat. And that may cost you tens of thousands of dollars, payable in some kind of cryptocurrency I think. Although presumably you can sell your Yat in a few months' time in the online Yatmarket and make huge profits. Or losses.

It's like going to your local rubbish dump, picking up hundreds of dirty, useless items, packaging them in groups of five items in shiny coloured foil and selling them as unique works of art on eBay. Equally valuable contributions to society.

Compare this with Wordle. I've never used Wordle but it was created to allow people to use the power of the internet and smartphones to simply have some fun - for free. Whoever created Yats - I'm not going to name them because they don't deserve recognition [although, come to think of it, I'm writing about their product] - are guilty of egregious greed, exploitation of the free resources of the internet, creating an unsustainable bubble, you name it, there isn't a cultural crime they haven't committed.

But, if you're rich and stupid, give it a go; have some fun. Yats were designed for you.

And yes, I know, the Wordle creator sold out to the New York Times, so maybe from now on providing people with fun may become less of a priority. We'll see.

Less than One - points don't always mean prizes

When playing Championship Manager - the classic 01/02 version obviously - when your team gets promoted the target for the first season at the higher level is, in my experience, to make sure you have at least the number of points equal to the number of games you've played. If you end up like that at the end of the season you'll generally avoid relegation. In the Premier League, with 20 teams each playing 38 games, you'll mostly be safe when you get to 38 points.

As with all the best simulation games, this reflects real life. In only 4 of the last 18 seasons has that not been enough. In 2002/2003 West Ham were relegated with 42 points so you need to be cautious about applying this 'rule'. Maybe they eased off when they got to 38, or perhaps they were  playing too much Championship Manager. Anyway, I thought I'd check out how this revelation affects teams in the top 4 English divisions at the moment.

In the Premier League there are actually seven teams - all the way up to Brentford in 14th place - with fewer points than games played. Seven struggling teams; I know because I watched some of them this weekend. This should definitely give encouragement to those in the bottom three places.

In the Championship, four teams seem to be battling it out on this basis. It's affected by the fact that Derby County were deducted 21 points, and Reading 6 points, for various breaches of financial rules, meaning their positions are probably not true reflections of their performances. You'd guess this means the bottom two, Peterborough and Barnsley, are near certainties for relegation, even at this stage.

League One (I know, for those of you baffled by almost everything about the noble sport of Association Football, these are prime examples of the weirdness of our national game) has four clubs within the points < games rule but plenty of teams immediately above them who could get sucked into the relegation battle. This league also features four relegation places so maybe this means you need points > games, I'm not sure about that.

League Two has only two clubs relegated at the end of the season (often a relief to CM 0102 players) so I'd guess you could be safe with fewer points than games. There are currently three within the recommended margin but another four very much in the mix. Although this seems like the easiest league in which to avoid relegation - and heart attacks when playing the game - there is going to be a rare old battle in real life this year.

Good luck to all these teams - I'll be following your progress.

Today's a big day for Australia

Australia. My second home. Well, that's an exaggeration but my Son #1 lives there. In Newcastle. Not the cold, windy one up north in the UK but the other in sunny New South Wales. My daughter in law is an Aussie and they moved there, I dunno, about 15 years ago. It's a great country and I have enjoyed many a trip there over the years, particularly at Christmas times.

Australia has had one of the strictest border policies in the world to attempt to keep Covid out - ask Novak Djokovic - but today is Freedom Day. The day when they open their borders to fully vaccinated visitors (again, ask Novak for details). I haven't seen my Aussie grandsons for over three years so am actively thinking about a trip. The temptation is to go sooner rather than later but definitely Christmas is on the cards. We'll see.

Box of Brilliant Beers

I was given a box of zero alcohol beers as a birthday gift. Styled as Another Box of Brilliant Beers. Presented by Beer Hawk.  Just started sampling; over the next couple of weeks I thought you'd be interested in my tasting comments (it'll be the last couple,of weeks by the time you read them).

It's worth noting that up to 0.5% alcohol is defined as 'alcohol free', although supermarket self service checkouts don't seem capable of recognising that and require the same authorisation as full alcohol beers do.

Jupiter 0.0%: A lightish but fairly hoppy Belgian beer. I like it.

Jever Fun 0.3%: This Pilsener is dry and unexciting with not much taste.

Maisel's Weisse 0.5%: A wheat beer that has a very fruity taste - Ocado calls it a banana flavour and I can definitely taste that. I really like it for its flavour but for me it's let down by being excessively fizzy. But another plus in this case is it's a 500ml bottle!

Bitburger Pils 0.05%: A slight pleasant sourness on this Bavarian beer. Perfectly drinkable.

Franziskaner Weissbier 0.5%: A flavourful, slightly fruity beer which is one of the best so far. 500ml!

Wheesht 0.0%: This is the real deal! By which I mean it's very much to my taste. A dark ale brewed at Harviestoun Brewery in Scotland. A great taste with a hint of chocolate. 'Wheesht' is apparently old Scottish slang for 'shh'! I don't imagine they mean to keep quiet about this product! I discovered you can buy a 12 bottle case of this for £12.60, although (a) there's a flat rate £5.95 for shipping orders of less than £50 and (b) the bottles are only 330ml. Needs a bit of thinking about.

Tiny Rebel Clwb Tropica 0.5%: Very fruity and fizzy pale ale brewed in Newport, Wales. A nice light drink for those who like a lager top. Although bubbly out of the can, it quietens down quite quickly.

Ghost Ship 0.5%: A well-known pale ale brewed in Suffolk by Adnams. Pour this into a wide-bottomed glass and you will see the gorgeous amber colour. Matched by the strong, earthy taste.

Lucky Saint 0.5%: I've come across this before. Brewed in Bavaria for Not Another Beer company, it's a light lager very similar to Heineken Zero. Not my favourite.

Leffe 0.0%: A Belgian brew which has quite a nice sweet taste and very little fizz. I think there is added sugar, as the calorie content is 40 per 100ml, compared with say my favourite St Peters Without at 29. Despite this, I could drink more of it, although it's not as hoppy as I prefer; just different for an occasional early evening drink.

Zero Five 0.5%: Brewed at Thornbridge Brewery in Derbyshire, this is fruity - apple? mango? - and very fizzy. Pleasant enough but not in the Top Five for me.

Hoegaarden 0.05%: A wheat beer brewed "with coriander orange peel" in Belgium. I really like the wheat beer taste and this one is not excessively bubbly.

My top five from these? Not in order, I could happily drink the two wheat beers - Hoegaarden and Maisel's - as well as Franziskaner, Wheesht and Ghost Ship.

I've recently bought a mixed case of my favourite St Peter's Without but I'll be looking out for these five.

Thanks for the birthday present Dan!

Reader suggestions sought

Consider this.

Boris Johnson, an innately radical politician, leads an innately conservative party.

Keir Starmer, an innately conservative politician, leads an innately radical party.

It makes no sense. They should swap. Then what ...?

It's Eunice for us, Dudley for you

Storm Eunice hits the UK's South West. Meanwhile Storm Dudley rampages through the Midlands. What if they meet? Storm Dudnice? Presumably Dudley has alphabetical priority so move over, Eun; your time will come.

I may be the only human on the planet (as opposed to those on the Moon or Mars) who thinks the whole storm naming thing is ridiculous and patronising. Are we so stupid we need everything dumbed down? If the storms keep coming two at a time we may reach Zak by Christmas. Actually that can't happen as there are no Zs in the storm alphabet. Or Ys, so it'll be Willemien - remember the Dutch participate in our naming system. Anyone know why the French don't?

Yep, I do. European nations are grouped for storm naming purposes:

Western Group (United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands)

South-western Group (France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg)

Eastern Mediterranean Group (Greece, Israel and Cyprus)

Central Mediterranean Group (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Malta)

So far we are winning; we're up to Eunice, the Spanish only Blas, the Greeks Elpis (so level with us - come on us Brits!), the others only Apollo (which I thought was Greek so seems like an interloper). If you don't live in Europe, look up your own; I don't care.

I feel I've gone on for too long about this nonsense. Indeed, you may not have got this far; don't blame you. 

Don't Lose Damian

It's a well-known fact (to me anyway) that Homeland lost the plot after Damian Lewis left the cast. I'll long remember that iconic image of Brody hanging from a noose in Iran at the end of season 3; what came after for Homeland is instantly forgettable. Homeland's point was always the question of Brody's loyalty and Carrie's relationships - professional and personal - with him.

Lewis leaves the cast, Homeland dies.

Now there is a repetition of this point with Billions. This excellent TV series hinged around the tense relationship between two protagonists - Paul Giamatti's District Attorney Chuck Rhoades and Lewis's hedge fund billionaire Bobby Axelrod. It was one of those shows where your empathy with the characters constantly shifted. Brilliantly written and acted, it was an outstanding watch. At the end of season 5 Rhoades wins, Axelrod has to sell his company and go into exile in Switzerland; Lewis leaves the cast. In the last few weeks we have seen season 6. What a let down. The new owner of Axe Capital is Mike Prince, who turns out to be ... nice. He is going to clean up the hedge fund, only accept squeaky clean investors (good luck with that) and bid for the Olympics. What? Rhoades is baffled - he hates billionaires and here's an acceptable one!

In the latest episode we, the viewers, are confronted with the strange device of graphic images overlaying the appearance of each character, the graphics showing their clothing and accessories and their valuations. It's like one of those movies where you see things through the lens of a robot or android - I think it may have been Blade Runner but I'm not sure; maybe Terminator or Ex Machina? Anyway, it's a very irritating device for two reasons: 1. There is so much text that you can't read it before it's gone (Louis Vitto Manhattan $10,000, Gucci Jeans $3,100, Gucci Stuart Hughes Bel ... wait, it's gone! I haven't got to the shirt yet!) 2. It's pointless flammery, as if the producers need to remind us of the show's title. Not for me.

Lewis leaves the cast, Billions dies.

If you're thinking of casting Damian Lewis in a TV show, people - make sure he's contracted through to the final episode ever.

How well do I know my sons?

I recommended Money Heist to Dan, my younger son. The recommendation was a success as he rated it "probably in my top 10 [TV series] ever". Which led me to think what the other 9 would be. So I'm going to give it a go and he can tell me my score in the Comments. Maybe he could even take up my offer of a guest blogger spot!

Bear in mind he's 35 years younger than me so I have to avoid some of my own preferences - e.g. Only Fools And Horses - he was 2 at the time. Here goes. No particular order.

The Sopranos

Game Of Thrones

Stranger Things

The Wire

Breaking Bad

Dexter

Friends

The West Wing

For the final guess it's a toss up between Succession, Billions, The Thick of It and Homeland. I'll go for...

Homeland

I eagerly await my score..... 

Other readers can post their top 10s!

The Sinner

I was brought up in an evangelical Christian household and spent my formative years in membership of the Salvation Army. The SA was founded in the east end of London in the middle of the 19th century, where the alleviation of poverty as its central social mission was fuelled by a deep hatred of alcoholism and other vices of the poor. So I had an instinctive understanding of the concept of Sin - the sins of drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco and much more were a fundamental part of the organisation's message and of the prohibitions of membership.

You can imagine the temptations this brought to an inquisitive and intelligent teenager; they were probably the origins of the rebel I became and arguably continue to be.

I pondered this when I started watching the Netflix series The Sinner. It's a psychological  drama covering four seasons, each of eight episodes. The central character, Harry Ambrose, is a detective who appears in all four seasons although the rest of the cast of characters changes for each season. In each case there is a murder and we know the perpetrator straight away. But Ambrose looks beneath the plain facts and seeks to understand the murderer's motivations, believing that there may be ameliorating circumstances which could affect the justice system's treatment of the case. With the perpetrator he acts as therapist as much as investigator.

As the seasons follow, the scenarios grow darker. Season one features a - on the face of it - perfectly normal wife and mother who unaccountably stabs someone to death on the beach. Season two gives us a glimpse into an ugly cult through the eyes of a young boy who poisons two of the cult members.

As things progress, we learn about Ambrose's own background and understand more of why he relates to these abused people whom he sees as victims (of their pasts) rather than offenders. It seems to me that he is the eponymous Sinner.

Season three for me just got too dark. A teacher, husband and father is involved in the death of someone whom he knew and was very close to. As we are shown flashbacks to their relationship we come to see that person as someone very destructive indeed. He came across to me as almost the personification of evil and I simply felt - halfway through episode four - that it was disturbing me too much and I should stop.

So I did.

I spent some time debating whether I should post this. But, if I'm going to describe movies and TV shows which I enjoy and think you might too, I felt a responsibility to mention those which I would dissuade anyone whose sensibilities are similar to mine from watching. It's fair to say that there has been a degree of critical acclaim for The Sinner and it has many good points. It's just that, for me, it went too far into the dark side.