Even in Death, You're Not Safe from the Police

I am dismayed by the latest outbreak of investigation of the long-dead, the case of Cyril Smith. The political motivation of Mr Danczuk (Labour MP for Rochdale) who initiated the affair, is obvious. He is trying, successfully, to deflect attention from more current cases, which fall closer to home. Why are the police pandering to him? It is obvious that it is too late to prosecute Mr Smith, and that he is not in a position to defend himself. At the time of the accusations, they were dismissed as 'uncorroborated'. Why should this conclusion have changed? There is no valid reason. Spurious ones have been invented by the police, which merely illustrate their lack of any genuine concern for justice, and their indifference to the correct use of public funds.

     In another news story, this time from London, we are told that: "The Met chief also told MPs that the investigation into the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal had so far cost about £2m." Another easy smear campaign against the long dead. Surely the Met chief should  be asked to refund the taxpayer the cost of this pointless 'investigation'. Aren't the police complaining that budget cuts are forcing them to reduce essential services?

     Shortly before all this nonsense broke out, the media were highlighting a failure to investigate widespread current child abuse in the North of England. How easily they have allowed themselves to be deflected! It's all very sad.

Dark Disdain

Why do cyclists show no lights,

Even on a wet dark night?

They whizz right through the murk and rain,

Treat their safety with disdain.

For sparkly belts they do not care,

To be unseen seems like a dare.

They're happy in their gloomy clothes,

To blend right in to the shadows.

They'll be OK for quite a while,

But then they'll greet Grim Reaper's smile.

No matter how they twist and writhe

He'll hack them down with his sharp scythe.

Smoking

Smokin' gies ye cancer,

It won't make ye a dancer.

Ye'll cough and choke,

And maybe boke,

And go tae Hell much faster.

It makes a rotten stink,

Sae foul ye cannae think,

It's CO2

Just goes right through,

And turns yir blood tae blue.

A while since I wrote this, I wasn't sure whether to put up something written in the Lallans, but here we go. Must be feeling bold.

The info about high Co2 levels in smoker's blood comes from a crime novel by Patricia Cornwell, in which autopsy results are discussed, and it is unclear whether the vic was asphyxiated or had just been having a smoke!
Don't remember the name of the book.

'Boke' is the Scots equivalent of 'puke'.

On a related theme: 
http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/smoking-joy-for-life.html
http://stephen-wylie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/smoking-in-rain.html

Unearthly Glow

I swoop 'cross a land that's glowing strange,

Unlike the world I've come to know;

The normal scope of greens and greys

Filled out by yellow, orange, and brown;

An alien planet named November.

Even in mist and pouring wet,

This world shines with beauty quite unearthly.

Behind my glassy shield I mellow

And enjoy this 'horrid' day

In an unexplainable way.

These yellow leaves so luminous,

They almost mesmerise;

I know they are soon to blow

Across the cluttered ground,

Their brilliance sadly fleeting.

What fortune to see what so few will,

Penned as they are in office or home,

Or harried by delivery schedule;

For soon the gathering dark and cold,

Will take stark and lingering grip.

Best make the most of now,

In an alien dissonant glide;

'Stead of whingeing 'bout the rain,

So as to British 'style' maintain.

Sheer luck I'm not soaking at the bus stop.


I hope it's clear that this glowing rainy day is being enjoyed from behind the windscreen of the unsought company car I commute in. I am lucky enough to have a late start, hence drive in light traffic at a bright time of day, round 10:30. It's been a remarkably beautiful Autumn, due to the absence of high winds, which usually blow the leaves away.
My route up the A50 is fast and picturesque even in winter, very different from commuting across the city to Narborough as I used to, which was a hard grind of endless gear changes and red lights.
I'm actively working at being 'in the moment' when I drive, rather than engaging in unpleasant rumination, as was my former habit. This is in the spirit of The Weight of the World
an earlier effort, which represents the result of many years deliberation.
It's a strong tendency in this country to complain about rain as though it was some ghastly ordeal, even if we've only been exposed to a few seconds of it.
Not a good idea, as you can talk yourself into a blue mood by such habits.

The Cretinising Influence of Snobbery

Few things have been more pernicious and corrosive in our era than the explosive growth of snobbery. As economic inequality has increased, more people have had the opportunity to look down their noses at others, and have usually taken it.

      If there is any group more toxically insecure than the newly rich, it is the newly middle class. Desperate to cling to status, they despise those whom their grand-parents would have seen as neighbours, though not necessarily as friends. This process has been analysed in a popular book “Chavs – the Demonisation of the Working Class”. Of course, in reality it is the non-working class who have suffered the most. Computers and automation have rendered the services of the less intelligent surplus to requirements, and they have been demoted from working class to drongos and layabouts.

       Social snobbery has multiplied, but its damaging effects are possibly less than those of intellectual snobbery. Purely social snobbery mainly affects what parties people are invited to. It's probably true that it has less effect on occupation than it used to. Few jobs are now reserved exclusively for Oxbridge graduates, or the children of Guards officers. The pervasive intellectual snobbery, on the other hand, has serious effects on important decision-making. Quite often, the two will occur together, and are hard to separate.

       In particular, the perception that the less educated are culturally inferior has affected immigration and unemployment. The chattering classes prefer to employ a foreigner, over one of their own countrymen. It isn't only that foreigners are cheap, though that is a factor. It is also a matter of having contempt for the minds of the lower orders, from whose ranks the contemptuous have so recently sprung. The drunkest of Poles is seen as a better worker than a poorly educated English person. He does not carry uncomfortable associations the way a native poor person does. There but for the grace of God go we, but we don't want to think about it, so push them out of sight. Weirdly, in England it is politically correct to have race hatred for your own race, or at least the lower orders of it.

      Snobbery has had an extremely destructive effect on the arts, in a way which is relatively new. About twenty years ago, I saw a TV interview with Margot Fonteyn, in which she said that her favourite dancers were Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. It's hard to believe that a contemporary ballerina would say such a thing. The Great Caruso used to perform at the Hippodrome, along with jugglers and the like. Afterward he would enjoy a game of cards with them. Those days are gone. I saw an interview with an orchestral conductor in which he was asked what type of music he preferred. He said that he liked all types of music, and then reeled off a list of subdivisions of classical Western music. It's become fashionable for those in 'high-brow' arts to pretend that popular art simply doesn't exist, or even foreign arts like gamelan or Indian music. In so doing they cut themselves off from much that is brilliant and beautiful, but gain the vast consolation of looking down their noses at the rest of us.

       Intellectual snobbery affects decision-making at the highest level. It distorts the perceptions of and evaluations made by the powerful. Government ministers are prone to this, as they desperately seek 'intellectual respectability'. All such considerations detract from the objective weighing of the merits of an idea. Ironically, this reduces the quality of decisions to the same level of functionality as those of a stupid person. The effect of a lack of objectivity, i.e. the taking of incorrect decisions, is externally indistinguishable from that of a lack of intelligence. All forms of snobbery are cretinising influences, reducing bright people to the same level of effectiveness as oafs.
      For example, if an Army officer promotes a complete twerp to a captaincy, does it matter if he does it because:
   a) He is a nitwit himself, and doesn't know what he's done?
Or because:
   b) The promoted man 's great-grandfather was at the battle of Omdurman, and his sister is married to an equerry?
      The effect will be the same in either case, enhanced casualties.