Hospital 25th January 2012
Off out around the park, three other joggers all women getting gloriously wet in the rain.
Yes there is a video recorder going on Freecycle, so we are off out to fairest Bramhope. We don’t get lost we find the house right away and bingo I am the proud new owner of one elderly video recorder.
We go on to Harrogate where Mary is having a check up. The car park is closed, the overspill car park is full the third car park I manage by squeezing into a very tight gap.
Harrogate has a WVS Women’s Voluntary Service, cafe. The WVS have been going since the first World War, they were usually the first in after the bombing in London during the Second World War, supplying hot food to the bombed out residents, and the emergency workers.
I get what is supposed to be a cheese and bacon, pastie. The nice lady calls me My Darling and heats it up for me. It major attribute seems to be that it comes from Cornwall. It tastes of potato flavoured with cheese, not a trace of the promised bacon.
We wait and wait with what seems the most difficult crossword in the world. Finally Mary is called in and is led off she is soon back,, it was only to be weighed. Then she is seen, we go to Blood and make another appointment, back in the end of Feb worse luck, then home at last.
Lamb with Garlic and Rosemary we watch Dentist on the Job, no its not as rude as it sounds its early 1960s. Bob Monkhouse and as two young dentists, endorsing some dodgy toothpaste. I don’t know what its like, as I fell asleep half way thorough but Mary says it was not very good and I’ll take her word for it.
Scrabble today I win and get over 400, again, all without thinking about it, poor Mary, but I am sure she will get a suitable revenge.
Fave Letters:
The profit-growth imperative now dictates that the Enlightenment, entitlements, democracy, peace, science and decency are dispensable, to be discussed only in “quiet rooms”. There is plenty of available money and ignorance to implement the dictatorship of capital – fascism. Keep your mouth shut and keep shopping.
Greed, however, cannot stop the laws of physics forcing the planetary chemistry to devastate the biology. The rest of this century will be quite a show. Defending the Enlightenment is not enough; rebel to win.
Richard Blackburn
Coogee, NSW, Australia
A joke doing the rounds goes like this. An investment banker, a Daily Mail reader and a benefit recipient are sitting round a plate with 12 biscuits on it. The banker takes 11 biscuits, then turns to the Daily Mail reader and says: “Watch out – that scrounger is after your biscuit.”
At first reading, Mary Ann Sieghart’s discussion of “fairness” (Opinion, 23 January) is sweetly reasonable. Of course nobody should receive lots of money for doing nothing, should they? Especially when decent working people are taking pay cuts. But these are the wrong questions. Why doesn’t she ask where the rest of the biscuits went?
Yes, there are households where for two generations nobody has held a job. But for two generations our national economic policy has been to export jobs to places where labour is cheaper, leaving a shrinking pool of real work available in this country.
No wonder that those who still have a job are prepared to accept cuts rather than risk losing it to one of the growing mass of unemployed; and no wonder that some of the long-term unemployed recognise the inevitable and accept welfare as a way of life. Meanwhile the rich get richer on the profits of cheap overseas labour, and encourage the “squeezed middle” to look on the unemployed as the biscuit thieves.
Sarah Thursfield
Llanymynech, Powys
What the human rights court is for
The President of the European Court of Human Rights is correct to suggest that the Prime Minister is, to a worrying extent, pandering to the whims of certain elements of the tabloid press (“Britain should be defending European justice, not attacking it”, 24 January).
And it should also be pointed out that those newspapers that have consistently sought to both discredit the court and to denigrate its very existence have forgotten completely the reasons it was set up in the first place. Its place is not to dictate to sovereign governments on matters of either national security or indeed criminal law, but rather to ensure that the rights of all of Europe’s citizens are both protected and guaranteed.
Moreover, the same tabloid newspapers, and David Cameron as well, should remember that the right to freedom of speech, a civil right that both of them hold in high regard, is one that the European Court of Human Rights shall always seek to defend – no matter who decides to criticise it.
Ronan Byrne
London SW11
SIR – As a shy applicant to Imperial College London, the first culture shock was in the lavatories, where there were graffiti in Latin. During the interview there was a technical inquisition on jet engine design, followed by a discussion about Dostoevsky. I had read enough of The Idiot to know that some Russian towns had boardwalks.
Having taken up my place at Imperial, I went to dinner in Hall. Only once, because the red wine was straight out of the fridge, which gave me a stomach ache. I probably wouldn’t have learnt that at Oxford.
Christopher May
Weston-super-Mare, Somerset
Obituary:
The band, named after a song by Frank Zappa, was founded a few weeks after the Russian invasion that crushed the Prague Spring in 1968, though its identity was poetic rather than political. Jirous, a sometime art historian and hard-drinking free spirit, acted as the band’s inspiration and publicist in a role not unlike that of Andy Warhol to The Velvet Underground — albeit in circumstances where the stakes were a lot higher.
Their early concerts were like Western “happenings” — multimedia events that included outlandish psychedelic costumes and props. Had the communist authorities not been paranoid about such things, it seems that the band would have been remembered, if at all, as “loud, surreal, irreverent and not very good” (to quote Frank Zappa’s biographer Barry Miles).
The authorities, however, took a dim view of the group’s popularity among Czechoslovak youth. In 1970 their professional performing status was revoked and their instruments confiscated on the grounds that their music would have a “negative social impact”. But they continued playing . Under Czech law couples getting married could book their own wedding entertainment, so the early 1970s saw a flurry of marriages as friends and fans tied the knot in order to put on concerts.
These were repeatedly busted by police, and, early in 1975, fans heading for an unofficial music festival, headlined by the Plastics, at Ceske Budejovice, were beaten and arrested. In the wake of these events, Jirous wrote a manifesto entitled A Report on the Third Czech Musical Revival : “The aim of the underground here in Bohemia is the creation of a second culture, a culture that will not be dependent on the official channels of communication, social recognition, and the hierarchy of values laid down by the establishment.”
In early March 1976 Jirous met the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel for the first time and played him some of the Plastics’ music. Later they adjourned to a bar and drank all night long. Havel agreed to come to the next festival at which the Plastics intended to play. But it never happened. A few days after their meeting Jirous was arrested, along with 26 other members of the musical underground.
Havel immediately rallied his fellow dissidents and launched an international campaign to free them. Though they could not prevent Jirous from going to jail — he was sentenced to 18 months for “organised disturbance of the peace”— all but seven were released. That success led, on January 1 1977, to the Charter 77 petition that began a decade of resistance that culminated in the bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989.
Havel, who became the country’s first post-communist president, recalled that the trial of Jirous “was something that aroused me, a challenge that was all the more urgent for being unintentional. It was the challenge of example.” The story of the Plastics was also central to Tom Stoppard’s 2006 play Rock ’n’ Roll. Stoppard regarded Jirous as one of the most interesting men in recent Czech history.
The son of a local official, Ivan Martin Jirous was born in Humpolec, central Bohemia, on September 23 1944, when Czechoslovakia was still under Nazi occupation . He studied Art History at the Charles University in Prague, where he moonlighted writing reviews for a visual arts newspaper. But after seeing the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night, he became convinced that music offered a more powerful vehicle for change than written words, and in 1969 he joined The Plastic People of the Universe as their “artistic director”.
Jirous’s approach to cocking a snook at the authorities was simple, but extremely brave. He was often to be found in the thick of pub brawls, and the first of many arrests came in 1973, after an incident in a Prague drinking establishment during which he insulted a retired secret policeman (“baldheaded Bolshevik” got him 10 months); sang a satirical anti-Soviet song; and ate the front page of Rude Pravo, the state newspaper.
Altogether he served more than eight years in communist jails. In 1988 he was sentenced to jail for sedition, after organising a petition demanding the release of political prisoners. He was released under a political amnesty in November the following year.
The Plastics broke up in the 1980s, though surviving members got back together in the 1990s, at Havel’s suggestion. Although he remained a crucial figure in the band’s history, Jirous had not been artistic director since 1977 “because he’s spent more time in jail than with us”, as a fellow bandmember explained.
Jirous — nicknamed “Magor” (“Loony”) by friends — wrote poetry in prison. His first major collection, Magor’s Swan Songs, published in samizdat editions, won him the Tom Stoppard Prize, awarded each year to an author of Czech origin.
Ivan Jirous, who was twice married, is survived by his partner, Dása Vokatá, and by a son and two daughters.
Ivan Jirous, born September 23 1944, died November 9 2011
Full Text:
Guardian:
Polly Toynbee (Now they are slamming the door on the truly desperate, 24 January) is correct on two accounts: the very desperate financial situation of the poorest people and the increased difficulties that they face after the social fund is replaced by localised services. She is wrong, though, to use these to argue support for the social fund which, through its cash limit, discretion and loans, has left needs unmet and benefit recipients impoverished since its introduction in 1988. The shortcomings of localised support may act to make the social fund appear like a beacon of good social policy. However, perhaps now more than ever, it is time to look at increasing benefit levels and making payments a right in the circumstances that Toynbee focuses on, rather than looking for a way forward in a policy that has failed over the past two decades.
Dr Chris Grover
Senior lecturer in social policy, Lancaster University
• To say the social fund is set to be abolished is completely false. We are reforming the social fund because the current system of loans and grants is failing those it is meant to help the most. We are replacing a remote system of over-the-phone applications with local services, where vulnerable people can get individual support. People who may be struggling with debt, substance abuse problems or domestic abuse need support that Jobcentre Plus (who administer the scheme) cannot provide. The system now is acting as a sticking plaster, and we need to change it.
The funding going to local authorities to deliver elements of the social fund is not being cut. And some elements of the social fund – such as those payments that cover a missed or late benefit payment – will still be administered centrally.
The introduction of universal credit will provide a better, more streamlined service with payments on account supporting many people in need of short- and longer-term credit. But local authorities are better placed to determine and support the needs of local vulnerable people than the current, central system. We have been made aware of various innovative ways in which local authorities plan to use this funding, such as furniture re-use schemes, working with credit unions, investing in existing projects or joining up with other organisations in the area. It is right that we ensure individuals get the support they need and that the system does right by them.
Steve Webb
Minister for pensions
• Reading Polly Toynbee’s piece at the same time as listening to a spokesman defending the government position, I am also hearing my grandparents’ proverb: “Workhouse to workhouse in three generations.” That was intended as a comment on families. I never thought it would mean that, three generations on from closing those appalling (and local) solutions to the workless, we would find a government racing pell-mell towards providing even less for the desperate. I believe some of the buildings are still available, though they may have been converted to high-value apartments.
Penelope Stanford
Longfield, Kent
• Government plans to abolish the social fund and transfer the responsibilty for crisis loans and grants to local councils (Shredding the ultimate safety net, editorial, 23 January) are not the only example of regressive and damaging changes to what has been a national benefit system. Council tax benefit is also being localised and cut by 10% for all claimants except pensioners, with councils having to decide who will receive, and in what proportions, what remains. In the year of the Dickens bicentenary we are witnessing the revival of 19th-century poor law with a patchwork quilt of key benefits varying according to where people live.
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords
• Readers can act to mitigate the demise of the social fund while still working for the reversal of this most cruel cut. Saving even a small amount with your local credit union makes more funds available for those in desperate need to get a “hand-up” loan on affordable terms. It’s your chance to subvert the government’s rhetoric on the “undeserving poor”.
Ruth Windle
Frome, Somerset
• Especially in this Dickens anniversary year, it’s a shame that TV isn’t able to dramatise for popular consumption the dismal lives of the sorts of people Polly Toynbee spoke to in the social fund section of a Jobcentre. Unless they see it on the telly, few “citizens may yet be horrified when” the benefits cuts bite. There’s little chance they’ll read about it objectively in the popular press; tabloid editors seem keen to keep the allegedly squeezed middle as envious of those on benefits as they are of people getting the sorts of salaries and benefits that tabloid editors enjoy. Labour seems to have won few votes by rescuing more than half a million children from poverty; the coalition parties must be pretty confident they’ll lose few if a similar number now slip back.
Brian Hughes
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
• It was a delight to see the Guardian taking such a strong and consistently well-argued line in its leader in favour of the discretionary social fund in the face of the government’s heartless decision to abolish it, which served as a timely reminder of why I have bought the paper for so many decades. It was thus a pity the article had to end with an appeal to the Liberal Democrats to join the opposition to the measure on the basis that “this week’s divisions provide a desperately needed chance for them to rescue a few progressive credentials”. It struck me that this looked more like a “desperately needed” justification for the Guardian having supported the Lib Dems at the last election.
Giles Oakley
London
• Your editorial’s plea for the social fund misses out one of its main advantages. In its original form, claimants whose application for a grant or loan was refused could appeal. One abused woman was put with her children into a flat with little furniture. Her initial application for funds was turned down and I accompanied her to the appeal which we won. Otherwise she would have turned to the loan sharks. Now there will no fund, no appeals. Many will fall into the hands of the sharks – and so boost private enterprise.
Bob Holman
Glasgow
The business secretary claims greater transparency will contribute to curbing excessive top executive pay (Report, 24 January). This is yet another triumph of hope over experience, of fantasy-based policy over evidence-based policy. Extensive increases in mandatory disclosure of information about such pay in the US led not to a decrease but to an enormous and accelerating growth in such pay. More information fuelled even greater executive cherry-picking as well as macho “uber-leadership” signals to irrational financial markets. Greater transparency, of itself, is not merely ineffectual but counterproductive.
Brendan McSweeney
Professor of management, Royal Holloway College, University of London
• Please can some of the City’s top 1,200 (average pay £1.8m) make a donation to the address below, as we try to keep our home and ebusiness afloat.
D Ballantyne Director
VA Goodhead Director
Amirill Ltd, Melksham, Wiltshire
Philip Inman (Business analysis, 17 January) claims Unilever workers are “crazy to strike” over their pensions, suggesting they should be grateful they are not losing more and that many other workers are worse off than themselves. The truth is that Unilever employees have been paying 2% more since the scheme was closed to new starters three years ago on the understanding it would continue in the future.
Inman should be criticising the Unilever management for reneging on their promises, before condemning the employees, most of whom have worked for decades with Unilever, without ever even contemplating industrial action. Unilever is an incredibly wealthy consumer goods company, the third largest in the world, making billions of dollars in profit every year and with executives ranking among the highest paid in the corporate world. Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman last year pocketed a massive increase of nearly 50% in his remuneration package – about 285 times that of his average worker. Affordability is not an issue, something that Unilever senior management conceded more than once during the consultation period, openly admitting that there was no financial imperative for the change.
Yet the changes will mean a reduction of around 20% – and for some, up to 40% – of the pension employees have worked so hard for over their many years. Management has stated that nothing would persuade them to change their minds, with the prospect of no compromises being reached. Only after weeks of attempts to get the company to continue to talk with their unions did the workers eventually ballot for industrial action. With management refusing to talk, even through conciliation service Acas, it is hard to see what will resolve the current dispute. But one thing is clear: Unilever workers would be crazy not to fight back for a pension that can clearly be afforded by this hugely profitable multinational; the overwhelming support received from the public would seem to bear this out
Jennie Formby
National officer, Unite the Union
The National Audit Office’s report on the work programme indicates hundreds of thousands of people will not find jobs who could have done so if this programme had been designed and contracted differently (Report, 24 January). This confirms all the fears of people like myself, leading welfare-to-work organisations at the front line of unemployment. The people who will lose out, inevitably, will be those furthest from work, who will go on to cost the country millions of pounds more in benefits. As a result of their increasing isolation and social exclusion, they will also cost us millions as a result of their deteriorating health, because their children will underperform at school, and because of their increased chances of involvement in crime, either as perpetrator or victim.
The providers of this programme carry an immediate risk of business failure. The risks to society as a whole are extraordinarily significant. The minister responsible, Chris Grayling, has rejected this detailed report as guesswork. Yet he steadfastly refuses to publish any performance data. He won’t tell us how many people have started on the programme and how many have found jobs. He won’t tell us how this compares with what the providers promised to deliver or what it is costing. Ministers have been heard say they used such data to beat up the incumbent when in opposition and have no intention of giving Labour the same opportunity.
Name and address supplied
• Nick Bailey (Letters, 14 January) identifies concerns over the operation of the work programme, which is undoubtedly pretty unfriendly to smaller local providers. However, to say that this “could not be anticipated” is disingenuous. The terms of business were trailed well in advance and many organisations declined to bid precisely because they are so harsh. Sadly, the world does not owe charities a living and in these tough times it is hard to argue against the principle of payment by results. We hope we have gone into the programme with our eyes open. Six months in, it is too early to say whether our gamble is paying off.
The real problem is outside our control. The programme was a (quite intelligent) response to the 2008 labour market. Three years later, there are 2.6 million unemployed, and only around 450,000 vacancies. Unless we think that George Osborne can produce 2m new jobs in the next 18 months, we are looking at very large numbers of unemployed people for the foreseeable future. This has three consequences.
First, either charities like mine and Nick Bailey’s will not get people into work and go out of business, or we will achieve the outcomes and get paid. In the current labour market, this will merely displace other claimants who might have got those jobs, negating the welfare savings supposed to pay for our services.
Second, work programme providers are now in direct competition with each other and with Jobcentre Plus for the few available vacancies. Much patient work on co-ordination and partnership is being undermined.
Third, we need an intelligent response to the numbers who are simply not going to get jobs in the next two to three years. Intermediate labour market programmes like the much-mourned future jobs fund need to be reinstated as soon as possible.
In times of growth, charities are key in bringing marginalised groups into the active labour market to meet demand. In a recession, it may be even more important to keep people active and in touch with the world of work so that when the economic miracle finally happens, the UK is not yet again held back by a dysfunctional labour market.
Jonathan Cheshire
Chief executive, Wheatsheaf House
A coherent and sensible approach to sentencing those guilty of drug offences is welcome (Report, 24 January). But our justice system also needs to realise that so much low-level crime is committed by offenders with drug problems. Too often they are given costly and ineffective short prison sentences which do nothing to address the causes of their behaviour. Effective community sentences, which can combine punishment with services such as drug treatment, are cheaper to deliver and more effective at addressing reoffending. Only then will there be fewer victims and less crime.
Roma Hooper
Director, Make Justice Work
• Someone needs to tell Andrew Lansley that it not a sign of weakness to seek – and act on – a second opinion on medical matters (Report, 24 January). How many more opinions are needed before the prime minister taps him on the shoulder and instructs him to drop the bill, and deal with the problems his reforms claim to be addressing?
Les Bright
Exeter, Devon
• Bernard Naylor asks: “Why it is OK for foreign governments to control important UK assets, but not OK for the UK government to do so?” (Letters, 23 January). The answer is simple. We are selling off the family silver to pay off the massive debts accumulated over the past 15 years.
Michael Power
Ascot, Berkshire
• President Correa had better look out (Could Ecuador be the most radical and exciting place on Earth, 20 January). Remember Mossadeq (and Allende)?
Ron Houghton
London
• The obvious solution for nuisance dogs is to bring back licensing, for a significant payment (Report, 19 January). After all we manage to license TVs and vehicles without too much trouble.
Jenny Bushell
London
• In 1964-65, Tottenham Hotspur’s league record at home was W18 D3 L0 (Sport, 21 January); away record was W1 D4 L16. Has any other team ever demonstrated such extreme differences between their home and away records?
John Gillam
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
The revelation that News of the World journalists focused on “getting a scoop” rather than helping police with their inquiries (Report, 24 January) is shocking but not unexpected. We believe illegality and cover-up at News Corp, and the failure of politicians to investigate it, is an indication of structural flaws in the regulation and ownership of the UK media that must urgently be reformed.
As with many other areas of endeavour where risk-taking is endemic, regulatory frameworks are urgently required that enable and foster a greater sense of public responsibility while, at the same time, ensuring that journalists are free to investigate wrong-doing.
The Co-ordinating Committee for Media Reform (www.mediareform.org.uk), a new alliance of civil society groups and academics, has developed proposals that include a right of reply mechanism to address media misrepresentation, a strengthened public interest test for media mergers, a more robust approach to media concentration in order to secure media pluralism and diversity, and the fostering of a range of alternative models (both in terms of organisational structure and revenue generation) that will help to sustain the news on which real democracies depend.
We hope that these principles, designed to maximise protection of the public interest, will not be absent from any proposals adopted by the Leveson inquiry and the forthcoming communications green paper.
Prof James Curran Goldsmiths, University of London
Prof Natalie Fenton Goldsmiths
Dr Des Freedman Goldsmiths
Dr Jonathan Hardy University of East London
Prof Julian Petley Brunel University
Angela Phillips Goldsmiths
Dr Damian Tambini London School of Economics
It is good news for humanity and the planet that global clean energy investment is increasing, despite the financial crisis (Green input soars to $260bn, 20 January). Australian physicist David Mills is developing large-scale pollution-free solar thermal electricity (STE) plants in California, estimated costs being less than imported oil. With only 16 hours of storage capacity, STE can supply the great majority of the US national grid over the year, with hourly solar radiation data including typical cloudy weather patterns.
Mills calculates that the total land requirement to supply the US national grid amounts to the equivalent of a square with 153km sides. If the US transport vehicle fleet were converted from oil to electricity, the land area required for solar energy capture and storage would increase to between 182km and 211km on a side.
In 2006, the US department of energy calculated that total vehicle emissions amounted to 2bn metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent, which is close to the annual US electricity generation of 2.3 metric tonnes of CO2. It is technically, if not yet politically, feasible to replace fossil-fuelled energy generation with clean solar power, not only in the US but also in other big polluting countries.
Since Jenny Goldie informs us that the world is running out of oil (Reply, 20 January), sun-drenched Middle Eastern suppliers could convert from ancient polluting stored solar capital to clean STE currency and export power to European and African grids, thereby saving their economies and delaying the worst scenario of global heating.
Bryan Furnass
Canberra, Australia
Enlightenment values
There is much one could take issue with in Will Hutton’s article, since much of what he is rallying against is a reaction – often overreaction – to political correctness gone mad (Blood, faith and tribal bonds will not save us, 13 January). There is one specific reference in his argument that is totally incorrect, grossly unfair and exceedingly insulting to Hungary. Viktor Orbán, the much maligned Hungarian prime minister does not “propose to offer ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring countries Hungarian citizenship”: that option has been available to those Hungarians for some time now and many are taking advantage of it.
It is questionable if Hutton knows, or indeed cares, how those ethnic Hungarians came to be living in neighbouring countries. They are not some huge emigre diaspora. They are people living where their ancestors lived for over 1,000 years within the borders of historical Hungary, brutally carved up by the victorious allies after the first world war at the infamous Treaty of Trianon in 1920. The disgraceful mutilation of historical Hungary as the result of that treaty robbed that nation of more than 70% of its territory, containing most of its mineral wealth and 60% of its population.
Many of the allied leaders expressed their disgust at the falsified information on which they relied when formulating the treaty, provided to them by leaders of minorities living in Hungary and seeking self-determination. Sadly, the Depression and the second world war prevented any remedial action.
Now Hutton has the temerity to criticise Orbán for enabling the descendents of people who found themselves on the wrong side of arbitrarily drawn borders to regain the citizenship of their birthright.
Bill Martin
Valentine, NSW, Australia
• The profit-growth imperative now dictates that the Enlightenment, entitlements, democracy, peace, science and decency are dispensable, to be discussed only in “quiet rooms”. There is plenty of available money and ignorance to implement the dictatorship of capital – fascism. Keep your mouth shut and keep shopping.
Greed, however, cannot stop the laws of physics forcing the planetary chemistry to devastate the biology. The rest of this century will be quite a show. Defending the Enlightenment is not enough; rebel to win.
Richard Blackburn
Coogee, NSW, Australia
Help for rural farmers
The article (Why food prices keep surging, 30 December) points out that last year the global price of food was higher than ever and thus it was a great year for the traders. You also reported that in France for half the crop species it is forbidden to use your own seed (French farmers have to pay to use their own seeds, 6 January). This increases dependence on seed manufacturers, as it seems food producers are getting squeezed at both ends by agribusiness.
French farmers who enjoy subsidies and access to large urban markets may well cope; those who will struggle will be the large populations of rural poor in the developing world. Alina Paul-Bossuet’s article (Little things make all the difference, 6 January) offers some solutions for our rural food producers to dually contribute to world food supply and to their own livelihood. This can be done via “selling small, affordable amounts of seed, fertiliser or other products” .
With the world population growing and becoming more urbanised, by 2030 70% of earth’s population will be urban and will need to be fed. There is a need to think creatively and constructively on how to make this work for food consumers and producers.
As Paul-Bossuet explains, “specifically tailored advice is needed to help farmers make informed choices”: whether it is by NGOs or government extension officers, this advice should benefit the producers. This in turn will stem the tide of urban drift.
The dependence of rural food producers on agribusiness has not delivered better livelihoods for them and has had negative effects on the environment; let’s hope this can be turned about before the masses depart from the rural areas to the big smoke.
Liam Golding
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
Is it really a Stradivarius?
It is well known than anyone can make a study that will prove their point, however wrong that point may be, and the study by Claudia Fritz is a perfect example (Stradivarius? You don’t say, 13 January). The modern violins were chosen from a pool of instruments for their impressive sound quality – they had their qualities optimised – whereas the old instruments were on loan and did not have any soundpost or bridge adjustments after the flight to Indianapolis, nor did they have new strings.
We don’t know if the old instruments were in use or if they had been sitting on display in a case, which is more likely. Instruments are living breathing things that need to be played. Whenever an instrument is out of use the sound dries up, and the longer it has been out of use the longer it takes for the sound to come back. I have known instruments that took well over a year of consistent playing to regain their quality of sound because they had been out of use for so long, and unfortunately people have a habit of putting Strads in museums, as if they were made to be looked at.
If you want to know what really happened at this “study” then go to Laurie Niles’s blog at violinist.com.
Sarah Westwick
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Inelegant words multiply
In Jonathan Yardley’s review of Joseph Epstein’s new book Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit, he quotes the author: “…part of the delight of gossip, after all, is, to use an old-fashioned word, its naughtiness” (6 January). And then Yardley himself writes “Another good old-fashioned word for it is mischievousness”. Well, I beg to differ: the old-fashioned word is mischief.
One can’t help but notice the propensity in recent years for writers to add the suffix “-ness” to adjectives that are derived from nouns, so as to make yet another noun, and one that would be as awkward to use in speech as it is unseemly to use in writing, compared to the old-fashioned noun. I can think of several other rather egregious examples, like obliviousness, zealousness and – get this one – honestness.
I know that one can find examples of this practice in older writings, even in Shakespeare, but none quite so ridiculous as the examples that I’ve given. I’m not about to condemn this practice, but I ask this: why use an awkward word when a word that’s much more direct, not to say much more euphonic, is right at hand?
Charles Hannan
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Briefly
• Can Paul Harris please cut the crap? (13 January). Focusing on the “good looks” of the Romney family and quoting outrageous tweets about the Huntsman girls needing to breed with the Romney boys is not good journalism. This is the Guardian; save it for the tabloids.
While I realise that family plays an important role in US elections (which probably in many people’s views, shouldn’t), there are more important issues (eg policy positions, campaign financing) worth focusing on.
K Keizer
Huntington, New York, US
• The village market scene in rural Burma (13 January) looked unreally upmarket to me.
Grahame Wise
Vaucluse, NSW, Australia
Independent:
Mary Ann Sieghart quotes the case of a family living in rented accommodation worth £2m as if we’ve handed them this in cash. We haven’t; the property is only worth that to the landlord, not the tenants.
The system is unfair, but not because it allows the unemployed to live in mansions, but because it has evolved into a wealth transfer from taxpayers to landlords who can effectively set a rent at whatever level they like.
If the Government really did want to reduce the cost of housing benefit for private tenants then it could easily reintroduce rent control, as enjoyed in New York and many other cities. No one would have to move and the bishops could sleep easily at night.
Of course it won’t happen, because at least one section of the Coalition Government is funded by the likes of wealthy landlords and many MPs earn a tidy sum by renting out properties themselves.
Mark Blackman
London SE14
***
On TV news I heard a young single mother living on state benefits complain: “Why should I be made to give up a good standard of living?” Perhaps she, and those others who feel they have the right to live off the state, should remember that the benefits system is a safety net that prevents them from falling too low. It is not a bouncy castle from which they can rebound to a level of affluence that they happen to consider their right.
John Wells
West Wittering, West Sussex
What the human rights court is for
The President of the European Court of Human Rights is correct to suggest that the Prime Minister is, to a worrying extent, pandering to the whims of certain elements of the tabloid press (“Britain should be defending European justice, not attacking it”, 24 January).
And it should also be pointed out that those newspapers that have consistently sought to both discredit the court and to denigrate its very existence have forgotten completely the reasons it was set up in the first place. Its place is not to dictate to sovereign governments on matters of either national security or indeed criminal law, but rather to ensure that the rights of all of Europe’s citizens are both protected and guaranteed.
Moreover, the same tabloid newspapers, and David Cameron as well, should remember that the right to freedom of speech, a civil right that both of them hold in high regard, is one that the European Court of Human Rights shall always seek to defend – no matter who decides to criticise it.
Ronan Byrne
London SW11
Resist the charm of Oxbridge
I believe Philip Hensher’s judgement about Oxford and Cambridge universities (20 January) may be clouded by his having spent so many years there, succumbing to their undoubted charms. I speak as someone who declined the opportunity to study at Cambridge.
At the time, my teachers all thought me insane. I’ve kept an eye on the progress of four classmates, all of whom accepted places at Oxbridge, and all of whom had invariably trailed in my wake at the termly form orders. I think it fair to say that I’ve held my own and more since leaving school, whatever measure you take, whether wealth or fulfilment.
Last year, my son applied for a place at Oxford. It was at the commencement of the interview, as the interviewer was introducing his teddy bear, seated beside him, that my son decided that there were probably other institutions better placed to oversee his development. I regard this as the sanest decision my son has ever taken.
My advice to any bright young student is simple. First of all, decide which course is likely to form the best platform for your further education. Then go about finding out which institution offers the best teaching, providing the most rounded education that will develop you as a person and stimulate you to a lifetime of learning. If that’s Oxbridge, apply there. If it’s not, then look elsewhere.
If you’re bright and your thirst for knowledge and self-improvement is insatiable, you’ll succeed in life, wherever you choose to study.
Richard Hill
Nottingham
***
I am somewhat depressed by the writings of Elly Nowell, who has described Oxbridge as a “symbol of unfairness”, run by a “self-selecting élite”. To describe an institution that is based on meritocracy as unfair seems contrary to the whole idea of modern Britain, and to see interviewers as “self-selecting” is just bizarre. Unsubstantiated comments like this seriously damage the good work (which can be improved) that Cambridge and Oxford do in promoting access to the institutions countrywide.
As internationally top-rated universities, perhaps we should stop doing them down, and focus rather on ensuring children leave our school system on a more equal footing, allowing anyone to attend who has the grades and the ability.
Charlie Bell
Queens’ College, Cambridge
***
I disagree with Philip Hensher. If the precipitate action of Elly Nowell in rejecting Magdalen College makes for fewer feather-bedded imbeciles asking interview questions about candidates’ motives for wearing a watch, she will have done a great service to British society.
Thomas Gibson
Leicester
Corners of a foreign field
I was disturbed by Mary Dejevsky’s comments (18 January) regarding the burial of dead soldiers. To suggest that we should bury our war dead where they fall suggests that she has no sympathy towards the families of fallen servicemen.
During major conflicts when thousands were dying every day, it was impossible to repatriate every single body. As a result the practice of war graves for the fallen began. In conflicts such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where thankfully, our casualties have been at a much slower rate, it is perfectly logical to bring our dead home.
Every year, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, along with numerous services charities, spends thousands of pounds helping the relatives of fallen servicemen visit the graves around the world. Does Mary Dejevsky suggest we provide airline tickets to Helmand or Basra for families of more recent casualties?
Richard Haddon
Bristol
***
I’m pleased that Mary Dejevsky has addressed the cessation of the repatriation of dead soldiers through Wootton Bassett.
I visited a Commonwealth war cemetery in 1962 while driving along the North African coast with three friends, all of us aged 20. I did not find it austere; there were flowers blooming in the desert. All ranks and races were buried along side each other. It was deeply moving and I agree that those who died in that campaign might well feel honoured by the fact that the cemetery is still well maintained.
I’m afraid there is something rather jingoistic about Wootton Bassett.
Nick Thompson
Taunton
Money and happiness
Dominic Lawson (17 January) concludes that more money makes us happier. It is true that most evidence finds a correlation between income and wellbeing, but correlation does not imply causality.
In fact most research suggests that at an individual level the causality is likely to be from happiness to income – happier and more functional people earn more money. One study shows that students who are smiling in their college photos earn more in 10 years’ time than their dour colleagues. Many factors could be involved in financial success.
Nic Marks
Fellow,
New Economics Foundation,
London SE11
Don’t fight melancholy
Under the heading “Could magic mushrooms help the fight against depression?” (24 January), nowhere in the story is there a mention of a fight, just an interesting discovery.
If we frame it as “fight”, we are losing, as the incidence of depression goes up. Wouldn’t it be better to accept low mood or melancholy as part of our lives, just as January is? We may as well try to get rid of the night-time. But if we did that, there would be no northern lights. So I applaud the useful research into psilocybin and psychotherapy, because it opens a new angle on the cycle of our moods. If it’s a battle, none of us will win, but if it’s an inquiry, we might all get somewhere
Chris Payne
London NW1
Listening City
Now that the City of London Corporation has won the first stage of its legal battle to remove the residents of “tent city”, it might like to consider an alternative to a potentially violent confrontation.
From its vast property portfolio, it could provide accommodation to the Occupy London movement in recognition that there are other views as to how the City might best serve the nation. These views cannot be expressed in the Corporation, since it is not run along democratic lines.
Nigel Wilkins
London SW7
Larkin’s lines
In her review of my edition of Philip Larkin’s complete poems (20 January) Fiona Sampson cites among “some of his most memorable lines” “What remains of us is love”. But Larkin’s line is “What will survive of us is love”. Among his slighter verses she cites “Well, I must arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, / Where I have heard it rumoured you can get Guinness for free”, and complains “Even the scansion of this annoys”. It does; but Larkin wrote “Guinness free”. And he did not rhyme “Whitman” with “not a titman” but with “no titman”.
Not finding something memorable is one thing; misremembering it, another.
Archie Burnett
Boston University Editorial Institute, Massachusetts, USA
Quiet time
I share Ramji R Abinashi’s concern over the long-term effect of excessive sound levels on cinema-goers (Letters, 23 January). I fear the damage has already been done; I recently went to see The Artist and couldn’t hear a word they were saying!
Ed Thompson
Southampton
Telegraph:
SIR – With the Costa Concordia having run on to rocks, similar large vessels will, I hope, now be prevented from entering areas of historical significance. The powers that be in the Venetian lagoon now have the most valid reasons for banning such ships.
Damage to St Mark’s Square or the Doge’s Palace would be horrendous. Clearly, our heritage needs to be safeguarded as much as possible.
Some of us find them eyesores, too.
Paul Cooper
Thirsk, North Yorkshire
IR – I work for an aerospace company at its north Devon site. At least 300 of its 400 employees, many the sole earners in their families, are paid less than £26,000 a year, the Government’s proposed cap on benefits for one family. From that sum, income tax and National Insurance contributions are deducted, so that our take-home pay is less. From this we have to fund our living and housing costs and our journeys to and from work.
Not surprisingly, many of us feel that capping benefits at £26,000 is generous. If, as earners, we can’t afford to live in more expensive areas, then why should we pay for non-earners to do so?
Michael Hailstone
Braunton, Devon
SIR – Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, and his team have done an impressive job getting to grips with a major problem in society. Their recommendations should be introduced as soon as possible.
Related Articles
Cruise ships should steer clear of historic ports
24 Jan 2012
In too many families, having children becomes the main source of income. Child benefit should remain a universal benefit, but for the first child only, irrespective of income. If people want to have more children, they should first consider how that child will be paid for.
Too many people still believe the state owes them a living; it doesn’t. Generally, there is work out there for those prepared to look. But we have too many workshy individuals who find it too easy to claim benefits. They, like the occupants of our prisons, enjoy a higher standard of living than many of those in low-paid jobs. That is fundamentally wrong.
Many of those who claim to be looking for work have a very narrow view of what they are prepared to do, whereas many migrants are more willing to work. This was the case in the Fifties when people came from the West Indies to seek work, and it has been repeated over the years.
Roy Aylott
Peebles
SIR – Is it not time to re-state all benefits paid to working-age recipients gross of the income tax and National Insurance that they would have to pay if the benefits were income? This would make the proposed £26,000 benefits cap equivalent to £35,000 a year gross of tax, which even Liberal Democrat peers might regard as acceptable.
David Young
Shotteswell, Warwickshire
SIR – As a supporter of the Shelter housing charity, I have always assumed that to be homeless means having no fixed abode. But I understand from yesterday morning’s Today programme that if two children share a bedroom then they are classified as homeless.
If that is true, then my brother and I and my two young sons led a very under-privileged childhood. Where do we go for counselling and where can we apply for compensation?
David Miller
Maidenhead, Berkshire
Iran’s empty threat
SIR – The idea of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz is absurd (report, January 23). At its narrowest point, the strait is 13 miles wider than the Dover Strait. With its small naval resources, Iran may disrupt shipping for a short time, but with US, British and French warships in the area, even that is unlikely.
I served in the area in the Eighties during the Iran-Iraq war. Even during the “Tanker War”, and despite threats from Iran, the Strait of Hormuz remained open.
Captain John Maioha Stewart (retd)
Breisach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Don’t close our deli
SIR – As customers and supporters of Gaby’s Deli in Charing Cross Road, we ask the landlord, the Marquess of Salisbury, to reverse his decision to evict Gaby this summer, which would end more than 45 years of serving delicious falafel and salt beef to Londoners and tourists alike.
We ask Lord Salisbury, in this Olympic year, to champion the diversity of small and thriving restaurants and family-run concerns that bring visitors to London.
Eve Best
Howard Brenton
Colette Bowe
Nica Burns
Simon Callow
Rev Richard Coles
Sean Foley
Henry Goodman
Haydn Gwynne
Jenny Jones
Toby Jones
Ken Livingstone
Roger Lloyd-Pack
Michael Maloney
Miriam Margolyes
Dennis Marks
Hamish McColl
Brian Paddick
Mary Portas
James Purefoy
Michael Rosen
Mark Rubinstein
Val Shawcross
Dame Harriet Walter
Sam West
Timothy West
London W3
Sick notes
SIR – Those who miss medical appointments (Letters, January 23) should produce a letter from a doctor to prove that they were unable to attend.
Michael Cooper
Ashcott, Somerset
Un-knighting Sir Fred
SIR – The hounding of Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of RBS, led by the Prime Minister, is deeply unedifying.
Sir Fred is not solely responsible for Britain’s parlous financial position. Many share that responsibility, including politicians who continue to squander billions of other people’s money, those in charge of financial supervision and the leaders of other rescued banks.
He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone. None of the above qualifies.
Frances Dobson
London SW3
SIR – It is completely wrong that consideration is being given to rescinding Sir Fred Goodwin’s knighthood. This would set a dangerous precedent. There are many situations where the Government has recommended a knighthood but, with hindsight, wishes it hadn’t.
Sir Fred has been guilty of horrendous commercial decisions affecting many individuals, but he has not acted illegally.
K. R. Sharpe
Hereford
Paper round profit
SIR – Sir Richard Branson is absolutely right in his assertion that young people need funds to start up a business (Letters, January 20). It is not rocket science, and these start-ups need not be complex.
Until recently, we had daily newspapers delivered in our village by an entrepreneurial individual who has now ceased to trade. No one has decided to take his place even though the sums add up from a business point of view.
If someone were to deliver 200 papers a day and charge households £2 a week for that service, the result would be an annual income of £20,000, plus the margin made on the purchase and sale of the papers.
And all this generated before 10am.
Michael Cattell
Mollington, Cheshire
Universities challenged
SIR — Elly Nowell, who withdrew her application to Magdalen College, Oxford, has described Oxbridge as a “symbol of unfairness” run by “self-selecting elites”.
Comments like this seriously damage the good work that Cambridge and Oxford do to promote access to the institutions. We should stop doing down these internationally top-rated universities, and focus instead on ensuring that children leave our school system on a more equal footing, allowing anyone who has the grades and the ability to attend.
Charlie Bell
Queens’ College, Cambridge
SIR – As a shy applicant to Imperial College London, the first culture shock was in the lavatories, where there were graffiti in Latin. During the interview there was a technical inquisition on jet engine design, followed by a discussion about Dostoevsky. I had read enough of The Idiot to know that some Russian towns had boardwalks.
Having taken up my place at Imperial, I went to dinner in Hall. Only once, because the red wine was straight out of the fridge, which gave me a stomach ache. I probably wouldn’t have learnt that at Oxford.
Christopher May
Weston-super-Mare, Somerset
Chippy MPs
SIR – An MP complained that Commons dining room chips are not piled up (report, January 23). MPs were caught piling their chips too high at our expense a couple of year ago. Will they never learn?
Graham Richings
Guildford
Home-made marmalade without pith and pips
SIR – I’m sure Jeanette Brown’s marmalade is delicious (Letters, January 23), but she must spend forever finding all the pips.
I pressure-cook the oranges whole. When they cool, I cut each orange in half and remove the contents with a spoon into a large-holed sieve. It is easy to press the flesh through, adding some of the steamed juice to collect the important setting properties from the pips.
Then I slice the soft skin, add the sugar and boil in the usual way. Half the work.
Sarah Purssell
Pewsey, Wiltshire
SIR – I follow the recipes in the Women’s Institute Book of Preserves. This year I decided to make jelly marmalade with my Seville oranges, but felt almost unable to cope with the instruction to “remove the pith from the peel”. The pith was very thick and a sharp knife not effective.
Fortunately I have a little gadget called a cannella which proved as good at removing pith from the inside as zest from the skin.
Incidentally, correspondents last year mentioned the difficulty of removing labels from used jars. I recommend Rose’s marmalade: the labels soak off very quickly.
Rosalind Hellewell
Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire
SIR – Having completed my annual marmalade production a week earlier than my previous record, I wonder whether this is yet another sign of global warming.
I like to think it is a sign of the Spanish producers wanting to sell their stock as early as possible.
Claire McCombie
Woodbridge, Suffolk
SIR – Home-made marmalade can be given an edge by stirring in a tablespoonful of Angostura bitters immediately before filling the jars. Whisky or Grand Marnier are optional extras.
For a darker marmalade, a quarter of the sugar should be dark muscovado. But a marmalade recipe in kilograms, such as Jeanette Brown’s? Perish the thought.
Philip Corp
Salisbury
Irish Times:
Dark side of the Northern Lights
Sir, – Spectacular as the Northern Lights seen in Donegal on Monday night may have been (Front page Home News, January 24th), the solar storms that produced these auroral displays can have more sinister effects. During periods of increased solar activity, storms can cause errors in GPS positions, disrupt radio communications, cause instabilities in electrical power systems, and damage electronics on satellites.
These effects are nothing new. Following the great solar storm of September 1st, 1859, daily London stock market prices were not received in Dublin due to a “mysterious atmospheric phenomena” ( The Irish Times, September 3rd, 1859), while telegraph operators in Valentia reported receiving electrical shocks in the course of operating the transatlantic cable between Co Kerry and Newfoundland in the late 1800s.
Of more concern was the March 1989 solar storm, which disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station in Canada, plunging six million people into darkness for nine hours and burning out a power transformer at a nuclear power plant in New Jersey (which is at a lower latitude than Ireland); while very recently, a portion of the GPS network, including a GPS receiver in Shannon, was interrupted for approximately eight minutes following a solar storm in September 2011.
With solar activity expected to reach very active levels in 2012 and 2013, we can expect further spectacular aurora displays and and very possibly interruptions in the technologies on which we depend as part of our everyday lives. Luckily for us though, large geo-effective solar storms and their adverse effects are rare. – Yours, etc,
Dr PETER T GALLAGHER,
School of Physics,
Trinity College Dublin.
‘Touch not a single bough’
Sir, – As George Pope Morris says in his famous poem “Woodman spare that tree,/ Touch not a single bough! /In youth it sheltered me, /And I’ll protect it now.”
The tree now in question is tree No. BNDF025479 at Ballygannon, Co Wicklow. It also applies to 1.2 million native trees planted in the year 2000 for each household in the country, under the People’s Millennium Forest Project, sponsored by Coillte and AIB.
With the present Government’s “flog it” if it’s profitable approach to our State assets, and with Coillte being part of the silverware, are we to assume that the People’s Millennium’s Forests are to be included in the sale, and if so, will the Government have to consult the 1.2 million households to get their consent?
If not, my treasured certificate stating that a native Irish tree had been planted for the Booth Family is worthless, and can be condemned to the green bin.
Maireann an crann – “How are ye”. – Yours, etc,
TOM BOOTH,
Binn Eadair View,
Sutton, Co Dublin.
EU oil embargo on Iran
Sir, – I would like to express my strong protest against the EU oil embargo on Iran, and in particular Ireland’s acquiescence to it (World News, January 24th).
The Western media have conditioned us to believe that Iran is a menace, whereas the opposite is the case, because Iran has not invaded another country in the past few hundred years, which is in stark contrast with the major belligerents for war – the US, the UK and Israel.
We have already had one unnecessary pre-emptive war against Iraq, which never had weapons of mass destruction. We cannot have another pre-emptive war because the Western powers “believe” Iran to be developing nuclear weapons. Having examined the evidence, the former UN inspector Hans Blix believes that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. Pre-emptive wars for alleged good reasons are morally wrong as well as stupid.
We have been fooled once on Iraq. We cannot allow ourselves to be fooled twice. – Yours, etc,
JAMES McCUMISKEY,
Rosetta Park,
Belfast.
First home with a second-home tax
Sir, – I wish to highlight my predicament in relation to the Non Principal Private Residence (NPPR) charge.
With all of the publicity surrounding the €100 household charge, I feel this charge has been overlooked.
I am a qualified solicitor who was made unemployed following the expiry of my training contract in 2009. I went to Australia seeking to further my career in law, but having been unable to find work in the legal profession there I returned to Ireland in early 2011. Unable to find work on my return, I was forced to move back into my family home and lease the house that I had bought as I could no longer afford to pay the mortgage. I am now undergoing an unpaid internship in a company in the hope of gaining enough experience to enable me to get a job.
I was contacted by the council in late October 2011 to inform me of my liability for the NPPR for the previous two years. With a €200 per year payment due, and penalties accruing at the rate of €20 per month per yearly charge, my liability for same is now standing at €920. To clarify matters, I do not own a second home. I own one home. I am informed that I am liable for the charge because I no longer live in it. For economic reasons I was forced to move from it into my family home and I am now being taxed on it at an exorbitant rate. This is grossly unfair. My house is not an investment property, it is a home that I can no longer afford due to the actions of the previous government. I feel that this tax was sold to the public as a tax on “second” homes, with the general attitude being that if you can afford two homes you can afford to pay the charge.
I do not know if the legislators intended to include people such as myself within the remit of this tax. It is irrelevant now, as, barring the legislation being repealed, I will have to pay.
I have been informed by my local council that there is no provision for settlement, part-payment, payment by instalment or any exemption for people on social welfare, such as myself, contained within the legislation, so their hands are tied. There must be a huge number of people who are in the same situation as I am, and it is time we spoke out against this unjust and arbitrary tax. – Yours, etc,
BOBBY KENNEDY,
The Rise,
Mount Merrion,
Co Dublin.
Bin there, waiting for collection
Sir, – I read that Greyhound states that it has had no missed collections and if there were any it was due to “customer misunderstanding” (Home News, January 23rd).
Would that it were so. My mother’s bin was put out for collection last Friday as per the calendar delivered to her address on Clonliffe Road; so no misunderstanding there, but it was not collected. Was this the only uncollected bin in Dublin?
Greyhound might devote more time to operating its contract and not exhibiting such hubris. – Yours, etc,
EITHNE BOYD,
Glasnevin Woods, Dublin 11.
Sir, – I am astonished to read that Greyhound insists that all bins were collected last week; this is simply untrue. My black bin has been collected, but not the brown one – without any explanation. An inquiry as to why the collection failed was fruitless as the Greyhound customer service was unavailable early last week.
It is disappointing for a company to blame its customers first instead of itself for failing to organise a professional transfer of bin collection services in all aspects. Even more concerning is that all alternative private bin collection companies do not collect in south Dublin, at least not in my area. This is unacceptable; customers should have a choice in a now fully privatised market.
Preventing competition and creating a monopoly for one company in many areas cannot be desirable. – Yours, etc,
JOERG SCHULZE,
Belgrave Road,
Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Colm Murray shows the way
Sir, – On occasion, in desperate times, somebody notable and extraordinary steps up to the plate.
Like Lou Gehrig before him, Colm Murray, RTÉ sports broadcaster suffering with motor neurone disease did just that ( Mind: the Inside Track, RTÉ 1, January 23rd). The documentary was both an exercise in craft and love of him. It was evident the esteem in which the man is held. He opened by stating he was making the film and participating in medical trials to “Do some public service”. A rare, admirable, and decent individual. – Yours, etc,
PATSY BRADY,
Carrowkeel, Co Sligo.
€423 an hour seems ‘excessive’
Sir, – I almost had an apoplectic fit on reading the headline “Hourly rate of €423 seems excessive” (Home News, January 18th). The amount in question (to be paid to a special manager appointed by the Central Bank to run Newbridge Credit Union in Co Kildare) is almost double my weekly pension of €227. To put it in an even greater context (and basing it on a presumed working week of 40 hours) the gentleman’s weekly income of almost €17,000 is approximately 134 times that of the average old-age pensioner. Enough said. – Yours, etc,
PETER PALLAS,
Beech Hill Court,
Donnybrook, Dublin 4.
Troika troubles
Sir, – Noel Whelan is correct (Opinion, January 21st). We created this mess all on our own. However, those foreign banks who lent to us created their own mess too. Alas, only one of us is suffering the consequences. – Yours, etc,
DENIS MORTELL,
Friarsland Road,
Clonskeagh,
Dublin 14.
No time for ‘Non, non, non’
Sir, – FX O’Brien’s “Non, non, non” letter (January 21st) expressed precisely my own immediate response to the articles to which he refers; I imagine we are not alone.
However, on reflection, I think that these three words are the reaction of my heart. The reaction of my head is to agree with Macbeth: “I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” I trust our Ministers are ready for tough negotiations. – Yours, etc,
KENNEDY P O’BRIEN, SJ,
Gonzaga College,
Sandford Road, Dublin 6.
A sticky encounter at Dublin airport
A chara, – We are very grateful to D Breathnach (December 29th), for his speedy reply to our letter (December 27th) and although his bread and butter letter clarifies one or two points, the jam is still missing and some important questions remain unanswered.
Our client had read the notices at Dublin airport and had indeed consulted its “excellent” website.
There was a comprehensive list of prohibited items for hand luggage which included animal stunners, grenades and harpoon guns. He searched high and low but he did not find jam on the list.
On the slightly more complex issue of whether jam is a liquid or not, our client did not find any specific mention of jam as a liquid or a water-tight definition of a liquid that would satisfactorily encompass country market jam.
Dublin airport website states: “Some things are evidently liquid, like drinks and perfume. Others are less obvious, like gels, pastes, lotions, mixture of liquids and solids and the contents of aerosols. Some examples of these are toothpastes, hair gels, face creams, liquid cosmetics, lip-gloss, deodorants, perfumes and shaving foam.” No mention of jam.
As to the actual consistency of the jam in question: we rely on the author Patrick Quigley of Blanchardstown who bought two jars at the same time. “As to Alan’s jam, I can testify that it’s the real thing with no relation to the watery mess promoted in supermarkets. A mouse or other small mammal could trot across the surface without fear of coming to a sticky end. The apricot has a lovely texture this consumer loves to savour for as long as possible before swallowing. On a dark winter morning it evokes the image of a sun-kissed terrace in Longford.”
We see also from the website that the Dublin airport authorities are abiding by EU Regulation (EC NO 1546/2006) for their rules.
But if you try to find these regulations online you find that the annex, which should have all the details and definitions on it, turns out to be a blank piece of paper. It is a classified secret and is not to be divulged to the general public.
So we all have to abide by a secret EU regulation. How can we know accurately in advance how to interpret the law about airport safety if it is not officially published in the EU journal?
We should point out that my client was only in Ireland for one night and was travelling light. He did not have any hold luggage.
And what, we wonder, would have happened if instead of jam my client had taken through three jars of the very best Irish honey that had set hard and was obviously no longer a liquid? This has all the makings of a Flann O’Brien story, but then again the jam was bought in the Michael Collins Bar of the Greville Arms and Flann O’Brien was no stranger to bars. He certainly knew a liquid when he saw one, and also knew how to down a liquid to fuel his writing. Whether he drank jam is not known.
We would be very grateful indeed for further clarification on these important issues either by Irish Customs, the airport search unit, the airport police or the cosy offices of the EU in Brussels.
Just for the record, our client was not “embarrassed”, as D Breathnach suggests, only “bemused” and curious to get to the bottom of this sticky conundrum. – Is mise,
PÓL Ó MURCHÚ,
Aturnaetha,
Cé Urmhumhan Uachtarach,
Baile Átha Cliath 7.
Sir, – The reason that a passenger at Dublin Airport was not permitted to board an aircraft with three pots of jam (Pól Ó Murchú, December 27th) was because the items in question breached European Union security regulations.
The EU regulations regarding liquids, pastes and gels, which have been in been in place for five years, state that liquids, pastes and gels cannot be brought through the passenger security screening area in containers measuring more than 100ml. To comply with the regulations, these containers must be placed into a re-sealable transparent plastic bag measuring 20cm x 20cm and presented at the passenger security screening area.
As the jars of jam measured more than 100ml they did not meet these EU regulations. Other items considered a liquid, paste or gel include honey, peanut butter, chocolate spread, toothpastes and mayonnaise.
Ideally, to avoid having to possibly surrender an item at security, passengers should if possible, place all jams, conserves, pastes, gels and other liquids into checked-in baggage.
These are EU-wide rules and, contrary to the impression given by your correspondent, they apply in the UK as well as in Ireland. Our security screening staff are audited on a regular basis by officials from the Department of Tourism, Transport and Sport to ensure compliance with these rules and all other current security regulations.
Any liquids or gels surrendered at Dublin airport security that are unopened are donated to charity. – Yours, etc,
PAUL O’KANE,
Public Affairs Director,
Dublin Airport Authority,
Dublin Airport,
Co Dublin.
In search of Comdt Edward Daly
Sir, – I am writing a biography of my great-uncle Comdt Edward Daly, of the Irish Volunteers. This is one of a series of biographies of the executed leaders of the Easter Rising, 1916, which are to be published by O’Brien Press between 2012 and 2016.
Aged 25, from Limerick city, Edward Daly was one of the youngest to be executed. The Daly family home, a focus of nationalist activity in Limerick, was raided by Black and Tans in 1920, and its contents burned. There is, therefore, a severe lack of material for Edward’s early years, before he joined the Volunteers. I am interested in personal memoirs or memorabilia relating to him, or to the Daly family. Information can be sent to me C/o The O’Brien Press Ltd, 12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar, Dublin 6, or by e-mail to helenlitton@clubi.ie – Yours, etc,
HELEN LITTON,
Pembroke Gardens,
Ballsbridge,
Dublin 4.
Beethoven’s shopping list
Sir, – I have had a Harty good laugh from your letters. I wonder did Ludwig travel to the Chopin Center by Van or perhaps he took De Bussy? – Yours, etc,
GRAEME GUTHRIE,
Kilmeena, Westport, Co Mayo
Sir, – To be Franck I am browned Orff with all this musical Bolshoi! Our economy is in Verdi deep Strauss and if the Troika Concerto returns, they will tell us we Mozart be so frivolous.
It Beethovens us all to Handel ourselves better and try to Mendelssohn of our economic woes or those guys will be Offenbach. – Yours, etc,
Rev ALPHONSUS CULLINAN,
Rathkeale, Co Limerick.
Sir, – I fear that the composer puns are becoming a little too orchestrated! – Yours, etc,
JOHN HUGGARD,
Moyfenrath, Enfield, Co Meath.
Sir, – Your chorus-pondents are having a Field day passing the Purcell. I want no Moore of it; it’s Pathétique! How about taking a Fauré down their snobby lieder and taking a chanson ABBA et al? You don’t have to be a Lerner to be Lowe! – Yours, etc,
OLIVER McGRANE,
Marley Avenue,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.
Dean MacCarthy steps down
Sir, – Dean Robert MacCarthy (Home News, January 23rd): a case of “light blue touch-paper and retire”. – Yours, etc,
WALTER HESELTINE,
Rosmeen Gardens,
Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.
A hot topic in the vineyards
Sir, – I have just calculated the GDD (growing degree days) of my “Château Garage” 2011 utilising Simon Tyrell’s very helpful guide (January 24th) and using the mean temperatures from the Malin Head Weather Station, April to October 2011. It comes out at 656.1. I have one question: will it improve with age? – Yours, etc,
CORMAC MEEHAN,
Main Street,
Bundoran, Co Donegal.
Irish Independent:
It was last Wednesday morning, after hearing on the radio of the sad passing of Aengus Fanning, that I attended the funeral Mass of a close relative in Clonskeagh and, later, the burial in Glasnevin Cemetery.
The day was mild and bright; encouraging the crowd to linger on, while engaged in chat and reminisces of the deceased. In the meantime, my patience was waning; more absorbed in the historic surroundings, soon I was lost in the midst of the thousands of headstones.
Deciphering the varied inscriptions, I made my way through the 124-acre walled estate, home to the graves of 1.2 million people since 1832.
Historic, famous and infamous names were intermingled with those of rich and poor. The variety, design and density of headstones intrigued me most. O’Donovan-Rossa, Big Jim Larkin, Eamon de Valera, Michael Collins, Maud Gonne, Roger Casement and Cathal Brugha are but a few of the well-known people I came across.
Peculiarly, the last one to attract my attention was the most famous and obvious of them all — the 170ft round tower at the entrance, overhanging the tomb of the Liberator Daniel O’Connell. Despite family tradition he was buried here, while his heart was buried in Rome.
The coincidence of my day’s outing was a report in the Irish Independent that evening. It read: “Descendant of the Liberator, Una O’Connell (85), who was married to the great-great grandson of Daniel O’Connell, is being returned from London, by her relatives, to be buried in the family tomb on Derrynane Abbey Island in Co Kerry.”
In accordance with her wishes, half of Una O’Connell’s ashes were buried in a coffin at the island-graveyard last Wednesday while the other half were scattered on the River Thames.
Her son, also Daniel, remarked of his great-great-great grandfather — the famous campaigner for Catholic Emancipation and the Repeal of the Act of Union — “I wish there were more like him around at the moment. He had more leadership in his little finger than the rest of them put together.”
I thought, what a pity the second half of Una O’Connell’s ashes were not scattered over the Liberator’s famous tomb in Glasnevin Cemetery, some over O’Connell Street and a good sprinkling thrown to the winds over Leinster House. Hopefully, it might act as a liberating relic for the Irish People from current dictatorship and injustice.
James Gleeson
Thurles, Co Tipperary
When the Government introduces the fresh air charge, will people living in the country have to pay more because of the better quality air they breathe?
Edward Ward
Dublin
The year 2012 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great writer and man of social conscience Charles Dickens, who in his novels and in his life tried to champion the poorer sections of society against the relentless money-grabbing of the rich.
I wonder what he would make of the the current woes in Ireland, economic and otherwise.
In the Ireland of today, however, his Oliver Twist seems to be in reverse (maybe he’s gone with Alice ‘Through the Looking Glass’) as everyone seems to want more from us: universal social charge; household charge; bin charge (up front!); breathing charge (no I jest — well at least for the moment!), rather than the other way round.
One of his characters, a Mr Bounderby — “a rich man, a banker and what not . . . with a great puffed head . . . a man with a pervading appearance of him having been inflated like a balloon” — surely reflects the property bubble with its sudden deflation. In our case this has unfortunately burst the bubble not only of our, but also of our children’s generation.
The novel? Yes, you’ve guessed it: ‘Hard Times For These Times’ (to give it its full and oh so relevant title).
Mr Dickens may also be a rewarding source for upcoming events — ‘Bleak House’, with its long-running court case, whose costs eventually consume all the estate of the participants, is surely a shoo-in for the Mahon Tribunal, while “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness” from ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, surely provides the appropriate catchline for our fall from the heights of the C***** T**** to the keening of the Torturous Tab (which must be paid off again and again and again.)
But let’s return to Alice, or more precisely the Red Queen and “off with their heads” — perhaps your readers might want to provide a list for that particular pleasure!
Mark Lawler
Kilmainham, D8
My late mother moved from Gweedore as a “lifestyle choice” to Westland Row, Dublin, aged 18 and without a word of English. Espying a fellow Gweedore friend in the city, they both spoke in excited Irish. Soon a crowd gathered around to listen to them.
That was 1941 and today I suppose I myself would gather around if I heard two people speaking English in the Blanchardstown shopping centre. That’s how far we have travelled on our road to multiculturalism.
Anyway my mother learned English and spoke it with a crispness and respect that few of the native speakers did. She still thought that you could pick an Irish word that was more descriptive than any English word. I wasn’t always as sure.
As I look at our country today one word leaps out and the English language has the perfect description for it. That word is “Cowardice”. It stands alone leaving nobody in doubt of its connotations.
A Government packed to the hilt with “cowards” who said one thing in opposition and practice the worst excesses of the former bogey men once in power.
Cowardice in targeting the one laying hen left in the country: the public service and working class. Tax them until they fall because they are too tired to mount a proper fight. However, go easy on the welfare class, push them into the nettles and everybody might get stung and don’t touch the gilded wealthy whatever you do.
Cowards allow Irish children to go on “lifestyle” jaunts but allow entire EU families to arrive in and take their places, this at a time when my two eldest cannot for love or money get a job.
Cowardice reeks through the nation. The salaries of the ruling class, the professors, the judges, politicians, advisers, the nation-wrecking top bankers, the nation-wrecking developers are all bomb proofed.
Meanwhile, the wages and jobs of the working class are on the line because we have a troika sitting in Merrion Square poking the Government with a tripod telling them who to sack and what to cut in order for big European banks to get their dosh back.
John Cuffe
Dunboyne
Well I must be off
best wishes John
