The Philosopher's Bathroom

When I came out of the changing room in Virgin Active today I was confronted with a large poster advertising L'Oreal Men Expert "Hydra Energetic" skin care products. I couldn't miss it because it was right bang in front of me when I came through the door and I had to turn left to get past it. I gawped for a little while because I honestly couldn't see any difference at all between the two featured pictures that I imagine were intended to represent some sort of before and after syndrome. Can anyone enlighten me?

My personal hygiene regime doesn't really extend beyond shaving, brushing my teeth and showering regularly enough for folk to be able to stand downwind without risk. Moisturising and exfoliating are not for me I'm afraid.

Coincidentally, when I was over in Whitton for the Twickenham Beer Festival a couple of weeks ago, Bondy asked me if, in my newish single status, I had reverted to Wright's Coal Tar soap. I have of course, but I was amazed that he would enquire. Apparently - back in the 90s - I had told him that it was back in my life as one of the few small positives in the fallout from a previous romantic implosion.

Reassurance: friends that know you well and a handy lump of yellow carbolic that evokes a lost world of old school, uncomplicated, Alf Tupper masculinity.

Women in my life have gone for things like Dove. Well the reason that the "Dove beauty bar with 1/4 moisturizing lotion doesn't dry your skin like soap", is because (despite comprising Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Stearic Acid, Sodium Tallowate, Water, Sodium Isethionate, Coconut Acid, Sodium Stearate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Cocoate or Sodium Palm Kernelate, Fragrance, Sodium Chloride, Titanium Dioxide, Tetrasodium EDTA, and Trisodium) it doesn't contain any soap.

For me, the nihilistic negation of Dove - a bar of soap with no soap in it - is intellectually untenable.

The Hegelian dialectic (thesis - coal tar, antithesis - soap, synthesis Wright's) implicit in my favourite surely offers more to the philosopher's bathroom.

"Read the orange handbook, love"

I remember back when I was doing my MBA, we had a guest lecturer from the personnel department of IBM who told us about their incredibly arcane and inflexible manuals and procedures as if Moses had brought them down from Mount Sinai engraved on tablets. I knew from that moment that the 80s and 90s would be as tough as they did in fact turn out for Big Blue.

Two decades later I'm trying to work with UK Police on IT development and I am currently at such an exquisite peak of frustration - balanced between derision and despair - with two individuals in two different forces hiding their incompetence behind a wall of bureaucracy that only with Pete and Dud's immortal "lengths" can I hope to restore my equilibrium.

As we meet our heroes, they are surrounded by colour-coded telephones, all part of an incomprehensible complicated communications system. One of the phones is buzzing ........

Peter: (as George) Someone comin' though on green, Reg.
Dud: (as Reg) It'll be Alan from Sales if it's on green, George...
Pete: Alan, Sales? D'you want to talk to him?
Dud: No... that bloke gets up my nose.
Pete: Have a word with him, otherwise he'll hang up - you know Alan.
Dud: Yeah...
Pete: Hello... George here... Hullo Alan!
Dud: Who is it?
Pete: It's Alan, Sales, on green.
Dud Oh... I'll have a word with him...
Pete: Reg is just comin' through on green, Alan
Dud: Uh.... hello Alan... its, uh, Reg here... yes, I'll just hand you over to George, OK? George, it's Alan...
Pete: Hullo - Reg has just handed me over, on green... No, no, we've not got 'em. You haven't got the lengths? (to Dud) He hasn't got the lengths.
Dud: Oh, Gawd...
Dudley: Reg is just coming on green, Alan...
Dud: Alan - I'll be very brief, look, the lengths go through to you direct via Admin, not via us. Read the orange handbook, love.
He hangs up.

Pete: Alan I appreciate your position, of course, but it's not really our pigeon. No... well I'll get on to it for you, and get back to you on blue, OK? No, I can't really talk, 'cause he... he's here... Yes, I love you too...
Dud: Huh! How can he have not got the lengths?
Pete: I dunno how he hasn't got them, but he hasn't got them - I'd better get on to Bernard right away.
Dud: I bet Daphne's fouled the footpath here.
Pete: A weak link, you know, that Daphne. (On phone) Sylvia, would you get me Bernard, please? Yes... Bernard! um - sorry to trouble you, but I'm ringing up re some lengths which are missing, I've got Alan on my back, and the whole office is going mad up here. Yes Bernard, there's no trace of dockets - I've been right through to Roneo.
Dudley: What are you on, George?
Pete: I'm on yellow, er - Reg is coming on yellow...
Dud: Hello Bernard, Reg here, sorry to interrupt...
Pete: It's Reg on yellow
Dudley: Bernard, I've just had a look through the files, but there's no trace of a docket. Unless we have your docket, love, we can't move - no can do.
Pete: Can't move - not without the docket, love... No, our hands are tied ... hmm yes, well I'll get on to Dorian in Maintenance, all right?
Dud: Bernard, George is getting on to Dorian, Maintenance.
Pete: Er, Sylvia - would you get me Dorian on grey, please?
Dud: Did you really? What, Daphne? You randy old toe-rag!
Pete: Hello, Dorian... Dorian, it's George here, ringing up re some lengths which haven't been Roneo'd, and we've no trace of docketing from stereotype or YOP control. Yes, it does put us in a bit of a mine... so if you could pull out all the stops your end, I'd much appreciate it.
Dud: Yes, I know Bernard, it's not fair on us, it's not fair on you, is it? Anyway, I can't talk to you, 'cause he's here... Yeah, I love you too...
Pete: I'm on here... I'm on to Dorian... No, Dorian, look if you could do that for us I'd very much appreciate it. (snigger) Yes... that's what I told him.
Dud: Hullo? Oh, hello Barbara! How are you? It's Reg here - yeah - er, George - it's Barbary, on red.
Pete: Er - Barbara who?
Dud: Your wife... you wanna talk to her?
Pete: Ummmmm - no. Tell her I'm on to Dorian, on grey.
Dud: All right... Barbara, love ... George can't talk to you - he's out. Um - I can't talk 'cause he's here... I love you too.
Pete: Is that Barbara?
Dud: It's Barbara, on red...
Pete: Dorian, hold on, I'll call you back on blue, right...
Dud: You wanna take it?
Pete: Hullo, Barbara... love, you've come through on red again. Yes, how many times do I have to tell you not to come through on red? We're up to our eyes here, we've got lengths missing ... my position. Well, untie him, and replace the strawberry jam... And you! (hangs up) That was Barbara, just come through on red!
Dud: Barbara on red?
Pete: Yes - I can't understand it.
Dud: You know, I think Daphne's the weak link in the chain here.
Pete: D'you know what I think, Reg?
Dud: What?
Pete: I think.. sorry, I'm talking to Reg... I think Bernard is mixing business with pleasure.
Dud: Yes...
Pete: I mean a 48-inch bust is all very well, but it doesn't get the dockets in.
Dud: Certainly doesn't... Hullo? Yes... Hullo? Look, Alan, don't keep badgering, it's bloody murder up here - I've only got one pair of hands...
Pete: Alan, I can confirm that - I've double-checked - he's only got one pair of hands...
Dud: Alan, I didn't invent the bloody rules - read the orange handbook!
Pete: Look, Alan, love, if you're going to take that attitude I'll check again by filing control, but it's water under the bridge... hold on, Just checking, Reg... (filing drawers opened and shut) ... let's see... wait a moment... Alan I've just double-checked and there's no trace of docketing... yeah, I'll call you back on blue. Bu-Bye! Hullo? Sylvia... I've just blown my nose... would you get that Roneo'd, docketed and stereotyped... we don't want any more mistakes, do we? Bye.
Dud: Yes, hullo?
Pete: Who's that?
Dud: It's Sybil.
Pete: Sybil who?
Dud: Sybil Thorndyke.
Pete: What does she want?
Dud: Well, it's about the cider commercial.
Pete: Stall her...
Dud: Sybil, love, been looking through the file - I'll have to be brief, we're in a bit of a pickle up here... we'd love to use you for the cider promotion, but we can't really promise anything at the moment... wouldn't be fair to you, wouldn't be fair to us, would it love? No... very best of luck with St Joan, dear... OK?
Pete: Hello, Fernando?
Dud: Yes, but I can't really talk to you, 'cause he's here... I love you too...
Pete: Fernando, I can't hear you, this is a very bad line. Call me back on blue, would you love? There's a sweetheart... Just been on to Fernando, it's a very bad line he's got down there.
Dud: Yes, it's always bad there, isn't it?
Pete: Always bad with Ferdy, and he's got no trace of dockets, and there's no sign of lengths.
Dud: It looks pretty dicey, doesn't it?
Pete: I suppose I could just try getting on to Lengths...
Dud: We-e-erll, it's a chance in a million, isn't it?
Pete: A shot in the dark, but give it a whirl... Sylvia would you get me Lengths, please?
A pause... then a phone buzzes

Dud: Hello. Reg Lengths, here...
Pete: Hello Reg, it's George here.
Dud: Hello, George!
Pete: Long time no - er - ... long time no talkee-talkee!
Dud: Certainly not-ee not-ee! How are you, Squire?
Pete: All right! I'm sorry to trouble you at this late hour of the afternoon...
Dud: Not at all...
Pete: I realise you must be up to your eyes down there...
Dud: Oh, we've got our headaches, I'm sure you've got your share...
Pete: I'm sure you have, but I'm ringing you up on the off-chance, re some lengths, which Alan has been on to me about...
Dud: Yes?
Pete: The Montevideo lengths - are they by any chance down your way?
Dud: They most certainly are, yes! We've had the Montevideo lengths here for four weeks, I was waiting for Alan, from Sales, to pick them up personally.
Pete: I see, so you've got the lengths down there...
Dud: Yes...
Pete: Well this is much as I expected, Reg... um - if you could get them up to me via Transport, and through Central Docketing, we can have them pooled and sent off to Roneo by Tuesday.
Dud: Only too pleased to oblige!
Pete: Very nice talking to you...
Dud: And... by the way, I can't really talk, 'cause he's here... but - er - you know how I feel.
Pete: I love you, too.
Phones are hung up and filing drawer closed

Pete: I've just been talking to Reg, down at Lengths...
Dud: Yeah?
Pete: ... and apparently the lengths are down there.
Dud: You're joking...
Pete: No, they've been down there for a while now...
Dud: (irritated) Why didn't he send them straight up to Alan?
Pete: Well if you ask me it's Daphne who's the weak link in this whole chain...
Dud: (back on phone) Hello, Florrie, hold on darling...

Tom Yum Goong

Warrior King, the new Tony Jaa DVD has arrived from Amazon so I'm going to sit down and watch it to see if I can't work out an edit that will make it accessible to my own little six year old Muay Thai exponent.

Even though Ong Bak- Jaa's breakout movie - was rated 18 in the UK just like Warrior King, I managed to develop a real-time remote-control driven version of the DVD that I was happy to busk as I watched the film with my boy.

Ong Bak has a classic action fim scenario in which dastardly big city villains steal a MacGuffin from a bucolic village, and the village in turn dispatches an innocent, good hearted representative with a convenient aptitude for bone-crunching violence to get it back.

I found that if I removed the subplots about drugs, and a couple of the more violent encounters such as Ting finishing off Big Bear in the night club with a double elbowed Muay Boran technique and Humlae being crushed by the statue in the finale, what was left need be no more disturbing than an episode of Power Rangers. Brilliant scenes like the market race and the tuk-tuk chase are spectacles that raise the spirits and are fun for an audience of any age.

It seems that I'm not the only person to think about repurposing movies like this. I learned from Robert Scoble, that a guy called Evan Krauss is launching software called Cuts to do exactly that. I've signed up for the Beta but not received anything yet.

From another viewpoint, in this digital age it's surprising that content providers aren't addressing the issue and providing different versions for differerent audiences. Maybe it relates to the cost of having multiple versions classified.

Anyway, enough of my yacking, I am going to open a fresh can of Stella and then watch Tony Jaa open a fresh can of whup-ass.

Context Insensitive

I've finally got Amazon's context sensitive ads working so I've put them at the top of the page over the google text ads to see how they react to my writing.

As I type the banner is advertising "World of Warcraft" products, which seems a reasonable reaction to my stream of consciousness recently.

The turn of the month inspired me to put Amazon on my October 2005 archive as well. That is producing ads for New Orleans music, in response to my brooding over the fall out from hurricane Katrina I suppose.

In a crunching gear change, it also saddened me to reread a post about Darfur in the year old archive. Nothing has improved in the last 12 months, the self congratulation of Live8 notwithstanding.

Last year I read Robert B Kaplan's Surrender or Starve: Travels in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritreato try and get some perspective on what is going on in Western Sudan. This year it looks like I am going to need to read his Soldiers of Godto try and develop a better informed view of the trials of Afghanistan. Kaplan is deeply pessimistic about the 21st century, but his work appears more and more prophetic as we unravel, reminding me of Yeats' formulation:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Ring any bells? I wonder what October 2007's archive will look like?

Money Money Money

Jason Calacanis' post suggesting that Wikipedia could deliver $100 million a year to charity by accepting unobtrusive advertisements and donating the income has been generating a lot of heat but little light in the blogosphere.

I've nothing to add to the controversy, but it has inspired me to ponder a parallel micro-initiative. I run Google ads and Amazon associate links here on A Welsh Born Icon.

I seem to recall that I decided to take the plunge with Google ads when I saw how they were working on both Chris and Kali's blogs because I enjoyed both the relevant ads and the apparent non-sequiturs. Chris's context sensitive ads, as I write for example, proffer:

English Medieval History Learn About 11th Century England at the Home of the Domesday Book
The Battle of Midway 1976 epic of conflict and life during battle.

I am bemused as to the relevance but still entertained.

I don't know about Chris or Kali, but I have made a grand total of $5.28 out of my Google ads; not even enough for it to make it worth their while actually paying it out to me.

As I wrote on Saturday, I've actually been paid £10.42 by Amazon for business I have sent their way. I wish I could get Amazon's self optimising ads to work because I think that the biggest customer for books, DVDs, and CDs relevant to my screeds would be me.

In summary, it seems to me that the affiliate schemes run by Google and Amazon can enhance both my own blog and those of my peers but, let's be frank, it ain't gonna be enough to help us pay off the mortgage.

If I had a simple option when signing up for Google or Amazon to donate my earnings to charity I would take it like a shot.

My contribution wouldn't even get into three figures, but what if we all did it? It could raise millions.

Shake Your Money Maker

When I moved to Whitton in the mid Eighties there was a slim, but real chance of running into either Peter Green or Pete Townsend in the street in Twickenham. A deeply trivial observation of which I was reminded last night when - having finally invested in a freeview decoder - I dragged myself away from "The Kids are Alright" on ITV4 to go along the 60th Birthday Tribute to Peter Green at with the Robin Bibi Band at Bob Brunning's Sunday night blues club which is hosted at GJ's.

I may be in the minority here, but I have always been unimpressed with Pete Townsend. The genius of The Who - if genius it was - lay in the front man and the rhythm section. I think that they could have propelled any spotty Herbert's angst ridden adolescent jottings to a world wide audience, but "Rock Operas", God help us. I've got room in my life for the soundscapes of "Baba O'Riley", but the rest of Townsend's music and lyrics seems clumsy to me.

Compare and contrast Mr Green, who gave us prime candidates for the 60s' best:

• instrumental - Albatross
• pop song - Black Magic Woman
• wig out - Oh Well
• ballad - Man of the World

No contest. Speaking as someone who has never heard any difficult music without wishing it was impossible, another great thing about the Green oeuvre is that you can make a fairly decent fist of it without being a fantastically accomplished guitarist. Once you get your head around hammer-ons and pull-offs for example, the central riff of "Oh Well" is pretty much available to you regardless of the fact that the pyrotechnics of - for any local readers for example - Papa George's version are beyond you.

I had a chat with Bob Brunning late last year, and I was pleasantly surprised today to find that he has a Wikipedia entry. He was persuaded last night to man the bass for "Shake Your Money Maker", and said that he had invited Peter Green to the gig, but that he could not be tempted from his Swedish fortress of solitude. Someone also passed along to him a signed and dedicated copy of Precious Little, Jeremy Spencer's first new album in 35 years.

'Twas great just to have been there.

Virtual Worlds: Real Taxes

LONDON (Reuters) - Users of online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft transact millions of dollars worth of virtual goods and services every day, and these virtual economies are beginning to draw the attention of real-world authorities.

"Right now we're at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind of public policy questions virtual economies raise -- taxes, barter exchanges, property and wealth," said Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.

"You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there's no mechanism by which you're taxed on this stuff," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
...........

My peers and I remain agnostic about Virtual communities like Second Life, but maybe we are swimming against the tide. When the taxman starts dreaming up new ways of fleecing something, you know that it has arrived.

I've got a niggle in the back of my mind though that makes me wonder if Second Life might not be where the real action is.

World of Warcraft is an order of magnitude bigger than Second Life, and I was dumbfounded this week, when my six year old told me that his character was up to level 6 in it. I didn't even know that he was playing, but it turns out that he has been logging with his 16 year old half brother - my erstwhile stepson - when he is at his Mum's.

His brother actually made a point of thanking me for paying his World of Warcraft subscription - something that I've done since he started in happier times - the other day. Something that is so precious to a standard grunting teenage boy that it inspires him to a gracious unprompted gesture, must really have its claws in him.

I should really check it out for research but it is difficult to generate any real enthusiasm - Ben and I are getting Raybs World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Expansion Pack for his birthday - here's the pitch:

Several years have passed since the Burning Legion's defeat at Mount Hyjal and the races of Azeroth have continued to rebuild their once shattered lives. With renewed strength, the heroes of the Horde and Alliance have begun to explore new lands and broken through the Dark Portal to investigate the realms beyond the known world. Will these heroes find friends or foes? What dangers and rewards lie in wait beyond the Dark Portal? And what will they do when they discover that the demons they thought vanquished have returned to renew their terrible Burning Crusade?

Don't really float my boat these days I'm afraid, but each to his own. (I'm glad I looked my pre order up on Amazon again this morning because the expansion pack seems to have been put back from next month to 2007, so we are going to have to dream up a different present.)

Amazon

Out of the blue, I've got an email from Amazon saying that enough purchases have been made from this site via their affiliate programme for them to pay me the princely sum of £10.42.

I'd pretty much got out of the habit of putting appropriately configured Amazon links into posts here. Maybe I'll start again. I certainly get more than £10.42's worth of a kick from the idea that people have put their hands in their pockets after reading my ramblings.

Speaking of Amazon, I think that their S3 and EC2 initiatives are two of the most interesting things that are happening online at the moment. I noticed on the Amazon Web Services Blog last night that Jeff Barr was saying, "if your US, European, or Japan-based group or event would like to hear about the Amazon Web Services (lots of technical information, lots of demos, some code, and plenty of Q&A) sometime soon, send an email to awseditor@amazon.com and we'll do our best to be there", so I've contacted Ian, and he is going to try and get them along to one of his shindigs.

I've also posted the Beta code for Amazon self optimising links below, but it doesn't appear to be doing anything. Maybe something will appear in time .....

Martial Art

Here are my six year old and Kru Johnny - his Muay Thai instructor - posing at the Jackapong Gym with a picture of a Thai boxing bout that Benny painted at the ArtTess 4 Kids Arts and Crafts School and Gallery.

Squaring the circle in Colliers Wood.

XBOX 360

The profit burglar and I spent yesterday evening playing around with the XBOX 360 trying to get our heads around its multimedia and online features.

We didn't include online game playing, but my main conclusion is that while the implementations are competent enough, they're dull.

There's nothing very interesting to see in the Live Marketplace, and while you can watch videos and recorded shows from your Media Center PC, you can't stream a DVD over the network.

In general I am too disappointed with it to feel that it is worth writing any more.

the weekend has landed

For the sexiness of Wales, an idea that I acknowledge has taken some getting used to, is becoming almost an orthodoxy.

Michal Gove writing in The Times.

In time honoured fashion, however, it degenerates into a scuffle between Swansea and Cardiff:

But there is an undeniable strain of loucheness in the South Wales air, and one that I think is even more pronounced if one goes a little farther west, to the city that even more than Cardiff is Britain’s most Mediterranean — Swansea.

Some things never change.

OPML Kaizen

I have just noted a Dave Winer post saying that Google Co-op supports OPML for "annotations".

Here is the relevant Google page. What this means in English is that it would be trivial to produce a custom search engine based on my blogroll - as I speculated minutes ago - because my blogroll is available from Newsgator in OPML formal.

When I think that Winer to all intents and purposes gave us RSS, podcasting and OPML, I am amazed he is not lionised more. I must write a post on him one day.

(Clue: he is a hedgehog rather than a fox. The "one big thing" that Winer knows is that standards and ideas can be important because they are simple, not despite being simple; a modest insight that continues to elude everyone at Microsoft. More power to his elbow, his contemporary influence is extraordinary and - which is more, and though I disagree with him politically - positive for both technology and the broader culture.)

Kaizen

It turns out that the custom search engine that I have created on Google for the blog has its own Google Co-op - Home Page.

It has struck me that I could also create a custom search engine for my blog roll. That might be interesting.

I have also just thought of a better way to display search results. I created a dummy post for back in January 2005 and put the result display code there. I think that works better than pasting it over the homepage.

Search Me

By a remarkable coincidence Google Co-op has been launched just as Chris was asking me to help him with adding that sort of functionality to some projects of his own.

Harness the power of Google search to create a free Custom Search Engine that reflects your knowledge and interests. Specify the websites that you want searched - and integrate the search box and results into your own website.
Build and customize your own search engine
Specify the sites you want to include in searches.
Place a search box and search results on your website.
Customize the look and feel to match your website.
Invite your community to contribute to the search engine

I've done a quick job - which I intend to polish over the next week or so - of installing it here in place of the technorati search code that I have featured for a long time.

I'd be delighted by any feedback on how it looks on different platforms and resolutions. At the moment, touch wood, it seems to work and it wasn't hard to set up, but I think the appearance needs polish to blend with the site.

The search box may be a bit wide and pumping the results into an iframe that obscures the original content may be confusing. What do people think?

My overall first impression is that it is better than what I had before, though.

Tip Topper

I was surprised to read on the BBC website this morning that Terry Chimes - the drummer in the Clash - has become a chiropractor.

I wasn't so much shocked by the career change, it was just that I had always thought that Topper Headon was the drummer in that famous band.

It turns out that Chimes was the drummer on the UK version of the first LP but Headon was on the drum stool from the "Give 'em Enough Rope" album through to "Combat Rock" after which he was sacked because of his heroin addiction, and at which point Chimes rejoined the - by now - sinking ship.

A pebble this has dislodged with me however is that I remember - back in the early 90s I think, when we were working in Hammersmith - Neil MacPherson told me that Topper Headon had been driving the taxi that picked him up when he got a cab home after one of our many nights drinking after work.

This seemed desperately unlikely at the time, and I would certainly have taken it with a pinch of salt if any one of numerous other acquaintances had told me such a tall tale, but Neil is a South London boy of the right vintage to recognise Topper and not known as a fantasist.

I've googled it today and it seems plausible, so chalk that one up for Mr. MacPherson. It just goes to show how low smack can take you I guess.

All together now, "everyone knows someone who knows someone who's famous."

Maybe I've still got a chance of that Diana Ross pizza.

You're a better man than I am

And who so will, from Pride released;
Condemning neither creed nor priest,
May feel the Soul of all the East.
About him at Kamakura.

I want to recommend two articles I've read today:

1. At War With Himself - Griff Rhy Jones on Kipling from the Sunday Times.
2. Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching - Terry Eagleton on Richard Dawkins in the London Review of Books.

I've thought for a long time that Kipling (and especially Kim) has a lot to teach us and it is good to see that Jones gets it.

The essence of Kipling is to get under the skin of other men. He inhabits them. “He does the voices.”
.............
Like all good writers, he doesn’t take sides. His characters do.

Kipling's protean facility reminds me of Shakespeare. You feel as if he can't help but create rounded human beings regardless of his advertised prejudices. Mahbub Ali, Hurree Babu and Teshoo stand out in this regard in the immortal Kim, but what about Father Victor the Irish priest in the same novel? Kipling was no supporter of Irish Catholics, yet in the novel, the omniscient narrator says of Bennett, the Anglican Chaplain:

Between himself and the Roman Catholic Chaplain of the Irish contingent lay, as Bennett believed, an unbridgeable gulf, but it was noticeable that whenever the Church of England dealt with a human problem she was very likely to call in the Church of Rome. Bennett's official abhorrence of the Scarlet Woman and all her ways was only equalled by his private respect for Father Victor.

One of the things I love about Kipling is that his empathy is entirely free of the taint of self congratulation that - for me - cheapens any mention of tolerance and respect in the global dinner party that passes for our culture's debate with itself. He accepts that his protagonists have prejudices, and that is a lot more honest and valuable than the New Labour chatter in which prejudices are never held by people like us - perish the thought - but by a boorish underclasss who feed their children fried food through railings and against whom any calumny may be uttered with impunity.

Come to think about it, Marx and Engels were forever slandering the lumpenproletariat as well, so maybe it's not that new a development. Give me Tommy Atkins any day.

Moving from Marx to a Marxist, I never thought the day would dawn when I would be praising Terry Eagleton to the skies, but he does give Richard Dawkins a very thorough shoeing in the LRB and for that we are forever in his debt.

Let us acknowledge our prejudices; I admit my Dawkism. Richard Dawkins is a proficient writer, but his fulminations on religion and philosophy strike me quite frankly as puerile and I am amazed that more people don't point it out. Reading them is like reading music criticism written by a tone deaf reviewer.

For me Dawkins is the last representative of an arrogant and daft intellectual movement in the first half of the last century that gave us dead ends like logical positivism in philosophy and behaviourism in psychology by announcing that the "life, the universe and everything" questions that had fascinated the brightest and best for millenia were in fact meaningless.

You just can't move the goalposts like that; so goodbye AJ Ayer, and goodbye BF Skinner. I am sure that Dawkins R will be joining you in obscurity soon.

Not Fade Away

We seem to have run into a vein of form with old photos since I posted a shot of my father in action from the 56/57 season last week.

Chris has posted a picture of his Dad digging the foundations for the Swansea Uplands Rugby Football Club at about the same time. (This also contains a link to a history of the club contains the strangely inspirational fact that "the club played its final pre war fixture on tour against Old Whitgiftians in Croydon on 10th April 1939 and following a meeting held on 18th April 1939, the club enlisted en-bloc forming a “sportsman’s platoon” in 5th Battalion The Welsh Regiment".)

I've also found two posts on Paul Flynn MP's website that show details of a photograph of the staff and pupils of St Illtyd's in 1947. I can see my Mum's brother Michael Milton on it and I am sure it should feature my father as well but I can't seem to find him.

(The links are: http://www.paulflynnmp.co.uk/hotnewsdetail.jsp?id=496 and http://www.paulflynnmp.co.uk/hotnewsdetail.jsp?id=506).

Finally, another photo of the Old Illtydian's off duty in the 1950s toasting a stuffed wolf. Go figure.

Yesterday's Papers, Yesterday's Girls

SCREENING FOR BREAST CANCER 'MAY HARM WOMEN' screams the front page of the Daily Telegraph:

Breast cancer screening may be doing more harm than good, a new report says yoday.
The research found that for every 2,000 women invited to have mammograms, one would have their life prolonged but 10 would endure potentially devastating and unnecessary treatment.
It suggested that most women having surgery, including mastectomies, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, following screening do so even though abnormalities identified in their cells would not have become a problem during their lifetime.
The research, a major review of studies covering half a million women, is published by the internationally-respected Cochrane Library.
Prof Michael Baum, a pioneer of England's £75 million-a-year screening programme, called for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to investigate whether it should continue.

Let me first acknowledge that we have a little bit of involvement here as we coded the current versions of the PERFORMS and REPORTER systems that radiologists in the UK use to get feedback on their breast screening skills and diagnostic performance, but I think that this is a deeply irresponsible headline. Read it again: SCREENING FOR BREAST CANCER 'MAY HARM WOMEN'.

Balancing the potential harm of false positive diagnoses against potential death sentence of false negatives is a serious business, but no scan means no diagnosis and for lives to be saved breast screening must detect cancers in the early stages.

Over diagnosis may have been a problem in the past, and for all I know - God knows I'm no expert - may even be a problem now, but I do know this; the combination of a growing library of scans for which the ultimate pathology is known, research and improvements in technology, plus the developing experience and skills of radiologists is bound to make diagnosis better.

Loose talk about closing the screening system down does a profound disservice to the future.

It is a bit like proposing that we stop weighing ourselves because the much touted Body Mass Index is such an imperfect indicator of present and future health.

Torchwood

The premiere of a new sci-fi drama, from the same stable as Dr Who, has taken place in Cardiff.
Torchwood - an anagram of Doctor Who - has been created by writer Russell T Davies and will be broadcast on Sunday.
Set in Cardiff, the series stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack - one of the characters from Doctor Who - and Welsh actress Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper.

Torchwood being to Doctor Who as A Welsh Born Icon is to Nicholas Browne (and indeed as The Profit Burglar is to Paul Robert Fright) I must doff my cap.

All hail Swansea's Russell T Davies, hereby elevated to join the elect order of offical Welsh Born Icons that I maintain.

You have to admire the huzpah of the man who previously created 'Queer as Folk' when he announces that his new series will feature "psychotic fairies".

History and the Movies

The comments on my post about 300 suggest that folk are still unconvinced by the prospects for the movie.

Here - the historian Victor Davis Hanson writes graciously about this new film of the Spartans' finest hour. (C'mon Chris, give it a break, it's got a blog.)

Hanson's involvement with the film can't help but remind me of Robin Lane Fox's far deeper commitment to Oliver Stone's 'Alexander'.

You'd think that academic historians would most likely be argumentative, hyper-sensitive, nit picking controversy hounds, but experience suggests that they seem to be generous and indulgent mentors of anyone who is trying to spark interest in their discipline with a movie.

........... or maybe they're just star struck like me.

(It made me smile when Hanson mentioned Steven Pressfield’s novel Gates of Fire in his article, as I am currently holding Chris's copy of it hostage as he his holding my copy of Hanson's own A War Like No Other rather in the way that ancient kings used to keep the children of rivals and neighbours at their courts as guarantees of good behaviour.)