Storm in a teacup / rat in a risotto

From BBC News 06/12/09:

I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! winner Gino D'Acampo and Stuart Manning face charges of animal cruelty after cooking and eating a rat in the show.

The RSPCA in New South Wales, Australia, said it was "not acceptable" that a rat had been killed by the pair as part of a performance.

Police confirmed they had issued court attendance notices for 3 February 2010.

The Italian chef and actor ate the rat after they were "exiled" and reduced to rations of rice and beans on the show.

D'Acampo, 33, told the show's video diary room, the Bush Telegraph: "I saw one of these rats running around. I got a knife, I got its throat, I picked it up."

The "exiled" group, including 30-year-old Manning, ate the rat as part of a meal.

Ch Insp David Oshannessy, from the RSPCA in New South Wales, told BBC Radio 5 live there was a "code of practice" which dictated how animals could be used in theatrical productions and films.

"The killing of a rat for a performance is not acceptable. The concern is this was done purely for the cameras," he said.

This strikes me as utterly ridiculous. I would actually contend that the rat wasn’t killed ‘purely for the cameras’ but rather purely for sustenance.  But oh well.  As well as complaining about cockroaches being ill-treated, Australian animal rights busybodies are also grumbling about horses getting their hooves wet in a river.

If you want to see an example of genuine animal cruelty, see this.

Annoying new verb for office-based communication

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed a rather disturbing new trend in everyday office-speak. It seems that a new verb has descended into common parlance over the last few weeks to describe the sending of emails and faxes and making phone calls - 'to drop'.

I realise that the phrase to 'drop a line' has been around for decades to describe the act of writing a letter but the fact that it seems to have been now rolled out to cover all other forms of communication strikes me as a touch grating.  I have to endure the increasingly stale expressions, "Oh, I'll just drop you an email", I'll drop them a text now", "I'll just drop you a voicemail later on" countless times each day.  And of course, being the habitual contrarian that I am, I make a point of never using the phrase. 

I’ve heard it muttered recently on the train, too, but I’m curious to know whether it’s more of southern thing or if it’s spread across the UK like a killer virus.

… I hope the ‘sphere doesn’t mind me dropping everyone a blog post, just to highlight this annoyance.

Sigh.

Poole’s Christmas Tree / Astroturf Cone

From the Times 27/11/09:

Shoppers stared in bemusement at the mysterious object that landed in a shopping precinct in Poole, Dorset, this week. Some compared it to a giant traffic cone, a witch’s hat or a cheap special effect from an early episode of Doctor Who.

The 33ft structure turned out to be their Christmas tree, designed according to the principles of health and safety, circa 2009.

Thus it has no trunk so it won’t blow over, no branches to break off and land on someone’s head, no pine needles to poke a passer-by in the eye, no decorations for drunken teenagers to steal and no angel, presumably because it would need a dangerously long ladder to place it at the top.

Last year Poole boasted a Norwegian fir draped with strings of coloured lights. It cost £500 and continued a decades-old tradition. The replacement, which is constructed on a metal frame overlaid with what appears to be artificial grass, cost £14,000 and comes with built-in fairy lights and hidden speakers to play Christmas tunes that will put shoppers in the festive mood. But the only mood apparent among shoppers who saw the tree yesterday was a bad one.

Seriously? This just looks terrible and at a cost of £14K, this pathetic excuse for a Christmas tree is probably worse than no Christmas tree at all. Maybe it’s just me but shouldn’t the fact that this ‘tree’ lacks branches, pine needles, decorations and  and angel on top be regarded as a bad thing?

It just looks like a cone of Astroturf pointing towards the sky. I don’t know why they bothered.

A Problem in Briefs

From The Times – Garry Slapper’s Weird Cases 6/11/09:

In Florida, Judge Patricia Kinsey ruled recently in the case of Albert Freed who sued a men’s briefs manufacturer claiming he was injured on holiday by their badly designed underwear.

In a judgement she probably did not anticipate making while at law school, Judge Kinsey was required to engage in a detailed analysis of the relationship between male anatomy and male underwear. An alleged design defect supposedly exposed Freed to beach sand that had accumulated in swimming trunks he was wearing over his briefs. Judge Kinsey doubted the contention that the briefs had opened “whereupon the edges of the opening abraded his penis like “’sandpaper belts’”.

Ouch! More intriguingly:

Why had Freed spent two weeks on holiday aggravating the problem without reporting it to his wife? He said he was so excited about this holiday to Hawaii – which he had won – that he did not want to complain about his debilitating pain until they got home. [Edit – there’s a first time for everything, I guess!! --]. Asked in cross-examination why he had not inspected the problem early to assess the possible dangers, he replied that he was a “belly man” and could not see his penis.

Wow. Still, Underwear injuries seem to be more common than you might think.

According to official data on accidents, underwear injures many Britons every year. In 2002, for example, 369 people were caused serious injury by underpants or knickers.

All of these underwear mishaps remind me of watching a spoof scene based on the old BBC show 999, in which a middle-aged chap did himself a mischief pulling on a pair of underpants. I think it essentially involved him putting his left leg into the right pant hole and, well, you’ve guessed it – disaster ensued. The Fire Brigade has quite a time cutting him out of them as I recall.  Not pretty.

A gritty problem: motorist sues Highway Agency

From the Telegraph 10/11/09:

A motorist who spent two days on a life support machine after crashing on black ice is suing the Highways Agency for failing to grit the road properly.

The 47-year-old man, who is a member of the Royal Navy, sustained serious injuries after his car was involved in a three-vehicle collision at Trewint, near Launceston, Cornwall on Jan 21.

He spent three weeks in hospital and is still suffering health problems as a result of the crash.

The victim, from Liskeard, Cornwall, was one of 30 drivers whose cars crashed on a 40-mile stretch of the A30, which runs running from Okehampton in Devon to Bodmin, Cornwall.

No motorist has mounted a successful claim against the agency.

While minor roads are the responsibility of local authorities, the burden of maintaining trunk routes rests with the Highways Agency.

The accident took place more than a week before Britain was hit by the worst blizzards in decades, which led to a shortage of grit and salt throughout the country.

A Highways Agency spokesman said salt was aid on the road earlier in the day, it was washed away by showers. Then the temperature dropped freezing the surface water.

"We can't predict what the weather's going to be like just after it's been gritted, that's life. And even when roads are gritted, it's not magic - drivers still need to take a great deal of care."

While road users all owe a duty of care to one another, there is also little doubt that those responsible for maintaining the safety of roads owe a similar duty to those who use them. Both rock salt and grit are fickle substances and although excellent at preventing the icing-up of roads, are highly susceptible to being washed away by a simple rain shower.

Localised squalls which can wash away certain patches of laid salt makes the decision to re-grit very difficult – particularly within the confines of a tight budget. The salt can also be worn away by unexpectedly high levels of traffic on certain stretches of road and suggesting that all roads must remain perfectly gritted at all times during cold weather is simply unrealistic. That said, major trunk roads should always be treated as a priority in respect of gritting and a cautious, ‘better safe than sorry’ approach is far better than a laissez-faire one.

Should the claim succeed of course, it could pave the way for further action against the Highways Agency. Whether, though, within the confines of limited budgets, inaccurate weather reports and good old mother nature at her unpredictable best, the nation’s roads become any safer as a result of a humble personal injury case is another matter all together.

The ethical lawyer: a contradiction in terms

From the Law Gazette 23/11/09:

The earliest surviving records of medieval principles of ethical conduct for lawyers concern the advocates and proctors who appeared before the church courts. One very early record is a book written in 1239 by William of Drogheda, an Oxford priest and lawyer, advising the reader how to be a successful advocate. The text reveals something of an ironic disconnect between the ethical standards of these two professions on the important subject of remuneration: the author recommends that advocates should ensure payment in advance – 'Get your money while the patient is ill.'

For those who mistakenly thought that the legal profession has only recently given cause for garnering a reputation of consisting solely of ruthless, money-grapping, Machiavellian chancers.

Tech Support Cheat-Sheet

I found this brilliant flowchart via Digg a few weeks ago and what with the house move, limited internet connectivity etc. I hadn’t got around to posting it. 

 

So true.