I didn't quite catch that...

Hi, and welcome to this edition of Silly Buggers Monthly. This weeks featured silly bugger is none other than a health expert from Nuffield, aided and abetted by the BBC.

And the reason that he’s managed to get himself featured is this:

Overweight celebrities such as Gavin and Stacey star James Corden are making dangerous weight gain appear normal, a medical expert is warning.

Professor Michael McMahon of Nuffield Health says fat stars are seen as role models, helping to make being overweight acceptable.

He says it is akin to the dangers of skinny media images and anorexia.

No, no and no, mein Herr Professor, you are all wrong. Anorexia is a defined psychological condition, and is directly responsible for people dying. And yet, we’ve all gone too far in persecuting images of it.

Fatness, in the style of the celebs mentioned, is not as clearly defined, and you’ll find that while it may indirectly lead to death, it doesn’t do it directly.

Plus, fat folk have been around for rather a while. I remember reading my dad’s Billy Bunter books, and they were hardly new when he got them… So to say that James Corden is ‘normalising’ obesity, you’re actually talking complete codswallop. Fat existed before Eamon Homes even, and has been normal for literally millennia.

But don’t worry, the occasional fat bloke may be normal. But they’ll also be torn down and victimised by the nannies amongst us. For their own protection, of course.

If someone uncovers wrongdoing in an organisation, who is responsible for the damage done to that organisation – the organisation, the wrongdoers or the someone who uncovered it?

To my mind, the blame lies with the wrongdoers, and with the organisation if the wrongdoing is shown to be widespread or long-standing.

I think that certainly holds for parliamentry expenses.

The editor of the Daily Telegraph has defended his coverage of MPs’ expenses, saying suggestions it had irreparably damaged Parliament were “rubbish”.

Will Lewis told the BBC his paper’s reports about MPs’ claims would make Parliament more “open” and allow a “new generation” of people to be elected.

The coverage led to several MPs resigning and prompted major reforms.

But former Tory leader Michael Howard said some of the paper’s coverage had been “inaccurate and unfair”.

If any of the coverage can be shown to be inaccurate, then those who have been the target of it can get legal redress in a court of law – on Parliament’s watch the libel laws in the UK have become among the strictest in the world. So that is a nonsensical claim, since no writs have been issued.

Anyway, the evidence for the entire long running saga has been drawn from one source: the claims that MPs put in. There is nothing in there that they didn’t put in themselves – the only thing that the telegraph has done is structure it and then release it in a frankly textbook example of Chinese water torture.

They’ve released enough every single day for over a month to keep the story in the headlines. In my memory, there has been nothing that wasn’t being pushed by a politician that kept the headlines for that long; it’s still going on, and there is no way that Brown or any of his friends can act that will stop it, short of just cancelling each and every expense opportunity.

This is what the media is meant to do – not act as spinmeisters for individual parties, not ignore coups and stolen elections to show the still warm corpse of dodgy popstars. So for Mr Michael “I thought of the bastarding ID card, so I did” Howard to claim that the papers have damaged parliament in this, the only time they’ve done their job properly in years, is somewhat rich.

Stolen from Mr Free Market, it’s time for another random political alignment quiz! Everybody say yay!

My Political Views
I am a right social libertarian
Right: 5.79, Libertarian: 4.74

Political Spectrum Quiz

And that’s all as per usual, really. About where I’d expect.

And how about something termed as the Culture War? Well it seems that the same quiz produces a graphic for it as well.

My Culture War Stance
Score: -0.39

Political Spectrum Quiz

Personally, much as I detest the middle ground, I can see how I ended up there. However, it gets more interesting. Apparently, there’s something similar done for foreign policy.

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: 2.2

Political Spectrum Quiz

And that confuses me. If neo-con is one side of an axis, the other end is not “non-interventionist”. Hell, if “non-interventionist” is an end, then clearly it’s opposite is “interventionist”.

At any rate, I am not a neo-con. I may have agreed with them in the past, but I have also disagreed with them. Largely because, under neo-cons, the United States have become much more inward looking, considerably less free and their government has gotten considerably bigger. All of which counteracts with my little red X being so far towards “Libertarian” on the first graph up there…

I was looking through some old storage boxes t’other day, as you do, and I found something from the dark days of 1999: an old PTQ magazine.

And it had something that I think we should all note: the list of country music songs that should be in every household.

• Get your tongue outta my mouth cos I’m kissing you goodbye
• I hate every bone in your body except for mine
• I still miss you baby, but my aim’s getting better¹
• If I’d shot you when I wanted to I’d be out by now
• Mama get a shovel (there’s a fly on Papa’s head)
• My wife ran off with my best friend, and I sure do miss him
• She got the ring, I got the finger
• You’re the reason our kids are so ugly

I think I should head off in search of this works of modern art…

–
¹ – I’ve been paraphrasing this one in romantic situations for years…

… startled by indifference, and feeling sorry for poor Farah Fawcett, relegated to the middle pages after someone more famous popped clog just after her.

Is it wrong that the idea of stoned wild animals both entertains me and annoys me?

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”, a government official has said.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.

Entertains for … duh, it’s stoned animals doing silly things. What’s not to like?

And annoys because there is no security camera footage. Dammit, we live in a world where millions of cameras monitor us all day for no reason and not one captures such a wonderful sight. That just ain’t right.

For most of my adult life, I’ve been classed either as very nearly overweight, or just as overweight, as I’ve had a Body Mass Index of 24 or more – at the minute it’s around 25.8, and it has been for four or five years.

However, it should also be said that for most of my adult life, I’ve been an absolute beanpole. Yes, over the years I’ve gone from needing 30 inch waists to needing 34, but the impact on my BMI has been negligible. In fact, any time I’ve actually dealt with a doctor in their professional capacity, they’ve been fairly happy with me.

Which has led me to the inescapable conclusion that the BMI is a crock of shite, and isn’t worth the thought it takes to compute. Hell, when you look at it it deals with squares – what use is calculating the square of anything when you’re talking about three dimensional objects?

It would now appear that, instead of just me thinking this, there is actual science to back me up.

Cheerful news for those whose Body Mass Index (BMI) falls into the “overweight” range today – you will probably live longer than a person whose BMI is “ideal”. Boffins in Canada and America revealed the new findings following a study of over 11,000 Canadians covering the last 12 years.

Unsurprisingly, people whose BMI showed them to be “underweight” or “extremely obese” died sooner than those in the more middle-of the-road brackets. But the medical community’s consensus that anyone with a BMI from 25-30 is “overweight”, whereas 18.5-25 is “ideal” has been undermined by the fact that survey subjects in the former, heftier band actually lived longer than the lightweights.

You read it here first second: those who are in the BMI band 25-30 live longer than those in the state sponsored ideal band of 20-25. Which is very nice.

Don’t think that it will stop the government from pushing us to go to the lower band though. No, they’ve taken their bad science, cemented it in place and it will shape policy for the next few decades. It’s standard operating procedure, after all…

There’s a thought in High Fidelity that we can all appear to be total assholes if some of our actions are taken on their own, without context. Context, in other words, is everything.

For some reason, that thought occurred to me just after I’d written a message to TLG that contained the somewhat unexpected

I’m currently sampling some organic beer and listening to Radio 4.

Immediately I’d pressed send, I wondered what the hell was happening to me. TLG would be confused about things that completely out of character for me; organic produce is often an object of derision in my little loveable rants, and Radio 4 is the leftiest outpost of the lefty organisation that is the BBC.

But, as I’ve mentioned, context is everything. For the organic beer was something from the Highgrove estate, and it was heavily discounted in the offie. Poor Charlie McBigears needs all the help he can get just now, and the spiel on the back of the bottle made it look promising¹.

As for the Radio 4, it was the internet replay of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, and I will make no apologies for listening to it.

So, having provided the context, do you think that I’m still the loveable and slightly barmy ranter that you all know so well?

–
¹ – and it lived up to the promise. Very tasty.

Because it’s only showing a sample in Google Reader, and that just ain’t right.

Things that I expected to go on over the last weekend:

• Visit to London;
• Spending some time with TLG;
• Food with a mate.

Things that did happen:

• Visit to London;
• Spending some time with TLG;
• Food with a mate.
• Being in the presence of a South African while SA walked all over the Lions;
• Seeing Silverstone on the flight over; bloody massive campsite it was;
• Seeing some silly Navy fool in a Merlin flying over the centre of London. Whyfor?
• Seeing the England Ladies Twenty20 team hanging about City Hall talking to various media folk about some silly game whose rules I don’t understand;
• Seeing Boris J talking to some very senior looking General folks, and not fluffing his lines at all, despite the presence of the aforementioned Merlin overhead;
• A random geek celeb moment;
• The eating of dead kangaroos;
• The spending of bit of Monday in London, which was entirely unexpected.

So, I had a bit more on that I thought I would have. Which is generally a good thing, yes?

Despite having been living in Belfast for the entirety of the big wheel being there, and despite being interested in lesser spotted views, I haven’t been up in said wheel yet. Part of that is a lack of time spent in town during the day, for which I am thankful. And part of it is the way that I’d much rather see the view from 1000ft higher and significantly faster…

But another reason not to bother going on the wheel has been made clear: it’s boring. Why bother going round in a rather sedate manner, when you could do it in a much more interesting and headline grabbing way?

See? Sitting in a little cab would be well boring compared to that.

For they shall inherit their small part of the earth.

Yesterday, myself and TLG went walkabout in London. And one of the things we did was to meet up with an old friend from uni and his girlfriend; we went and ate a bit of kangaroo and talked a little about what each of us was doing with our lives and how we were getting on. Turns out that this fella has recently had his first book published, for the Games Workshop telling people what some new figures can do to other figures. As he says, he’s changed around his hobby and made it his job. So he’s basically landed on his feet, and is as happy as a pig in poo.

The four of us then went for a little wander through the fair centre of London, and TLG spotted a Games Workshop. And she thought that it would be fun to go in and see if we could see this new book. Lo and behold, it was there. And the author went in the door, had a look at it, and the men in GW t-shirts fell to the floor and kissed his feet, proclaiming to the heavens the excellence of his work, the timeliness of it and the gaping hole in their world that it had filled.

In other words, the man is now a mini-celeb. Turns out he’s even had to do little signing tours.

Which is rather cool, if a little unexpected for someone who spent a lot of time and effort getting a PhD in some really deep science…

For the record, I was a fan of Ronaldo’s work on the pitch. And I wish him all the best with his transfer. But it would have taken a bit of effort not to slightly dislike someone who kept acting the way he did. So this picture amused me.

• The ongoing F1 shenanigans. Sueing, contrats being declaring void, people threatening to go home and take their hundred million dollar ball with them… Now if they could get a fraction of that drama onto the track, F1 would be back in the big time.
• Iran deciding that the best way to deal with dissent at home is to blame the UK. Don’t get me wrong; I’m fairly convinced that Gordon’s government is evil, but I’m fairly sure that myself and the good Ayatollah have differing reasons for reaching the same conclusion.
• The police investigating MPs for fraud and other naughty things. Oh, how my heart sings with joy.
• The Lions test series starting. Which should be fun.

Of course, only one of these will be able to get anything like the attention that it deserves. Because I’ll be out and about in Laaandan town with TLG, which is much more deserving of my attention…

Diplock trials made for a fair whack of dodgy justice over here over the years. They also spread a fair bit beyond their initial propose of dealing only with the worst terrorist offences, and they definitely lasted beyond their initial “emergency” concept, or the “temporary” status that they were given for the quarter century that they were (officially) about for.

In short, they were not really a good thing.

None the less, the rest of the UK as led by NuLabour decided that they were a good thing, that they should be spread nationwide, and that they should be occasionally used for things that had nothing to do with terrorism.

Lo and behold, it hath been begun.

The Court of Appeal has ruled that a criminal trial can take place at Crown Court without a jury for the first time in England and Wales.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, made legal history by agreeing to allow the trial to be heard by a judge alone.

It’s all coached in terms of protecting the poor jurors and ensuring justice. And you never know, in this single case that may make sense. But for all the other cases that will follow this precedent, will that hold? I’ll wager not. And lots of people will be denied the right not to be taken, imprisoned or deseized without first facing a jury of his peers.

Mark yesterday on your calendar folks; it’s the day another ancient freedom disappeared.

My opinion towards tax: make there be less of it, make it be less confusing, and make it quick.

The less of it bit is fairly self explanatory. The quick bit, also – it’s something of a pain for people to have to set aside cash during the year to pay a poorly calculated amount at the end of the next year.

The simple bit is the real problem though. Nobody I know, and I know a few, can say that they really understand what tax they need to be paying. I know tax specialist accountants who are constantly arguing amongst themselves about what a particularly badly written law means, and I know people with next to no income who are terrified that what little they do earn is going to be taxed into oblivion because they don’t know what they’re liable for.

In a sensible world, tax would be a set percentage of income over a certain level, and that would be it. Say 20% of everything over 20 grand. Nice round numbers, and it has the added advantage of being understood by all.

However, that’s not likely to happen. No tax ever gets simpler; more and more loopholes are opened and closed with every budget, and the accountants start going all gooey eyed at the though of the fees they’ll get to charge.

But wait, apparently that’s not true. For the first time – ever – a major government is just going to get rid of a stupidly complicated tax.

The US revenue service has made clear it is binning a controversial tax on personal use of employer supplied devices such as cell phones and BlackBerries.

The law was introduced in 1989 and meant that personal use of mobiles provided by employers would be taxed as a benefit. Last week, the Internal Revenue Service asked for ways to better enforce the law, which has tied people up trying to work out which calls were for work and which were private.

Now if only other countries would follow suit…

An immense amount of damage was done to Gordon Brown with the simple sound bite about him being less like Stalin, more like Mr Bean. Clinton never manager to leave behind the simple sound bite about it depending on what is is.

And I don’t think that the ID card will survive the leader of the Opposition bringing on the German accent.

As polished as ever, Mr Cameron answered each question with barely a hesitation but he continued the debate on ID cards and adopted a German accent. It prompted some laughter but also raised eyebrows. He had added that the only way identity cards would work is if people had to carry them all the time – but said it would be un-British for someone to be stopped and asked for their papers while walking the dog.

It’s very true. The ID card is very un-British; it would give the state a control over our identity that they do not have, and never have had in this country. Long may that continue.

And if it takes the Tories to descend to sound-bites, then that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

I’ve already mentioned that violence against the BNP ain’t the way to go. But the British Legion – a group that, to be fair, knows a little bit about violence – seems to be mining a slightly better vein of opposition.

Dear Mr Griffin,
…
You wore a Poppy lapel badge during your news conference to celebrate your election victory. This was in direct contravention of our polite request that you refrain from politicising one of the nation’s most treasured and beloved symbols.
…
The Poppy pin, the Poppy logo, and the paper Poppy worn during Remembrance are the property, trademark and emblem of The Royal British Legion.

For nearly 90 years, The Royal British Legion has pursued a policy of being scrupulously above the party political fray. It is vital that everyone – the media, the public and our beneficiaries – know that we will not allow our independence to be undermined or our reputation impaired by being closely associated with any one political party. This is more important now than ever.

Short and simple, and pointing out that young Mr Griffin was claiming a symbol that he shouldn’t, and make sure that his core demographic knows it.

That’s how you do it. At this stage, anyway.

Looking back, it might appear that I get a tad worked up and more than a little bit angry on these pages. That might be a good thing, it might not be, but today it is not the case.

No, I have to say that things are well in my world just now.

I have an LG that spends a little of her time calming me down every day. I have a good book that I’m working through at the moment. I have a good DVD boxset that’s nearing finishing. And the highlight of the radio calendar has just passed.

Yes, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue is back for its 51^st series, the first series post-Humph. And it was good.

So, I’m happy just now. Don’t expect it to last, obviously, I’ll find something to rant about any day now…

If you only keep an eye on one website this year, make it this one.

I could say that you should continue to read catchthat.net, but that would just be to stoke my own ego.

I could say that you should just read your RSS aggregatior, but that would be cheating.

No, what you need to read, what will affect you the most, is the simple one word to be found at

Is Gordon Brown Still Prime Minister . com.

Let us pray that that one word changes soon.