Incommunicado

My trip ‘up North’ went reasonably smoothly, all things considered, and am hoping that I’ll be able to say the same after my trip to London on Thursday.  It’s certainly shaping up to be a busy week as we’re picking the new house keys up on Friday and moving the bulk of our stuff on Saturday. I’ve got to get the 6.30 train on Thursday morning so expect to have the energy levels of a torpid slug by the time we reach the weekend. Perfect timing as ever, of course.

After Friday, I expect to be incommunicado for the next couple of weeks while my internet account gets transferred to the new house.  Quite why it takes so long is beyond me; it would probably be quicker to tie a reel of new cabling to a mouse and let him scurry off laying new fibre optic as he went.  The last time I was without the internet for any length of time was in June 2008 and I remember remarking afterwards that I found being internet-less for a fortnight or so somewhat trying. I guess I’ll have the net at work this time so will swing by Google Reader in my lunch break now and then to keep abreast with developments in the blawgosphere.

Anyway, to paraphrase the great Murray Walker, “I’ll make no apologies for my absence, but I’m sorry I won’t be here”.

New Month, New Job, New House,

This week has marked the first working week of my ‘proper job’, which probably explains my lack of blog posts. I’m not that optimistic that I’ll be throwing many more posts up in the immediate future either, as I’ve a spell of business travel coming up next week before our impending house move next weekend.

My new job has, for the most part, been an enjoyable, if challenging, experience although the daily commute of a bus and 2 trains has been killing me. The fact I’ve got an absolutely terrible sense of direction and managed to get on the wrong train on Monday evening which took me back to the station I’d just travelled from, just rubbed salt in the wounds.

As ever, the frustrations seem to be coming thick and fast at the moment. For example, we were warned yesterday of a couple wanting to come around and view our property this afternoon around 4pm ish, only to told about 4.15 that they cancelled at the last minute. The fact that the estate agent had walked down from their offices half a mile away (and looked thoroughly miserable when he broke the news to me) was of little consolation.

More bizarrely, it seems the world is in the grip of a global shortage of parcel tape at the moment. This week I’ve called into two branches of Tesco, one Sainsbury’s and even an Aldi – and all are out of stock completely. Apart from Aldi, of course, who don’t stock it any of the time. Par for the course with them I guess.

Strawberry Fields Forever? Think Again!

From This is Cornwall 03/06/09:

One of the traditional Westcountry summer's simple pleasures is under threat from health and safety rules which have already forced the closure of pick-your-own fields at one of the region's best-known fruit farms.

For more than 40 years, the Boddington family has thrown open the gates of their farm near Mevagissey, Mid-Cornwall, for the public to pluck succulent strawberries fresh from the plant.

But after being told to install safety features including handrails on drainage ditches and to cordon off potholes in the field in case errant pickers fall in, the family has decided it cannot afford to let people on to the farm.

Phil Boddington, whose grandfather set up the farm 60 years ago and whose father helped pioneer pick-your-own in Cornwall, said it was a sad day.

"Unfortunately, it is seen to be a risk to let the public onto what's deemed to be a strawberry factory in the eyes of the insurers and the health and safety people," he said. "It's just a sign of the times.

For the last three generations, the family has welcomed pick-your-own customers.

Mr Boddington said that, during those decades, just two people had been injured in the fields while gathering fruit.

However, last year, one of them, an elderly woman, filed a claim against the farm's insurance for injuries she suffered after a fall. The claim is currently being processed, but Mr Boddington said it had caused their insurance premiums to more than double.

The family was told that if it wanted to continue with the pick-your-own element of their business, they would have to make "radical" and expensive alterations.

Mr Boddington said the alterations would have cost more than any turnover generated.

I meant to blog about this earlier in the summer, not least because the Boddington strawberry farm in Cornwall is just a stone’s throw away from where I grew up. In fact, I remember several visits to farm as a kid and the fact that they have been forced to abandon their much-loved PYO experience strikes me as a real tragedy.  As any personal injury lawyer will tell you, though, you can’t contract out of negligence.

Whenever the public are let loose in an area, of course, accidents will always happen - irrespective of how ‘safe’ it is made. While the legal mechanisms in place to allow injured members of the public to claim redress are important, they can also prove something of double-edged sword. It’s a tragedy that an unfortunate slip, trip or fall by one person can go on to deprive everybody of the chance experience the simple joys of picking your own. Children particularly love the PYO experience which, for them, typically becomes a strawberry fuelled pick-one, eat-three summertime bonanza.  I guess I should consider myself one of the lucky ones.

Coming to a Cinema Near You – Law Student 2

 

Inspired by one of my oddest keyword searches yet, “law student 2”, I quickly found a film idea emerging in my mind. After all, I don’t think there are enough violent action movies featuring law students. :D

The plot:

A small group of law students with superhuman powers enrolled at law school in 2007 and formed an alliance. They were called by a mysterious voice and were drawn from the far reaches of the UK to form a team combining the best superhuman strengths that a fictitious law student could possess. (Think a grown-up version of Captain Planet’s helpers, just without the environmental stuff)!

During their first year they secretly upheld order and civility around campus using their mystical powers and superhuman strength. Known only as “the law students”, their identity was a closely guarded secret but could be relied upon to come to the aid of stricken law students. As well as porting answers to difficult questions via telepathy into the heads of students in seminars who hadn’t done the required preparation, they could also be found providing freshers with something to vomit into after yet another heavy night’s drinking in the student union.

Then disaster struck. During fresher’s week in 2008, “the law students” met their fiercest match yet in the form of an evil bunch of power-hungry fresher’s and were very nearly defeated in one of the most gruesome battles ever witnessed in a UK university during peacetime. (Think of the early scenes of ‘Demolition Man’ and you’re somewhere close to the carnage).

Most of “the law students” perished with one notable exception. A second year student known only as ‘Vontona’ somehow eluded a terrible death involving petrol bombs and a torture device resembling a high-voltage pair of hair straighteners. She was driven underground for a year during which time she re-grouped and plotted how best to avenge her fallen comrades.

Vontona’s secret weapons are her bionic limbs, quick wit, rocket launcher which fires statute-book-shells and her unparalleled knowledge of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

And now she’s back, hell-bent on avenging the former members of “the law students”.

What the reviewers thought:

“Discard all prior perceptions of a UK law student” – the Observer

“It’s Nancy Drew meets the Terminator as a kind of vigilante crime fighter … on campus!” – ‘The Bizarre-Comparison-Maker’s Monthly.

“More shoot-‘em-up scenes than you can shake a statute book at” – The Law Gazette.

“If Arni was a student, even he might have met his match here” – The Cinema-Goer’s Weekly

“Holy Moly!!!” – The Student Bulletin

“Sweet Jesus – Hold on to your case books!” – The Young Lawyer Quarterly

I think I’ve got a real winner on my hands with this one! :-/

Putting the Letch in Lecturing

From The Guardian 23/09/09:

We've had a week of sex scandals in schools. Now Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, seems intent on stirring things up on the academic front.

Female students, he declares, are a perk of the job for male university lecturers – though they should look, not touch.

In an article for the Times Higher Education magazine on lust, part of a feature on the seven deadly sins of universities, Kealey wrote: "Normal girls – more interested in abs than in labs, more interested in pecs than specs, more interested in triceps than tripos – will abjure their lecturers for the company of their peers, but nonetheless, most male lecturers know that, most years, there will be a girl in class who flashes her admiration and who asks for advice on her essays. What to do?

"Enjoy her! She's a perk."

Flashing a few literary allusions, he continued: "She doesn't yet know that you are only Casaubon to her Dorothea, Howard Kirk to her Felicity Phee, and she will flaunt you her curves. Which you should admire daily to spice up your sex, nightly, with the wife."

Wow.

Unsurprisingly, Kealey’s comments have gone down very badly in some quarters, with his message being labelled as deeply misogynistic:

Kealey's comments were attacked by Olivia Bailey, women's officer at the National Union of Students.

She told the Telegraph: "I am appalled that a university vice-chancellor should display such an astounding lack of respect for women.

Human nature being what it is, I think it’s safe to say that a certain degree of surreptitious ogling goes on everywhere, not least by academics in lecture halls and seminar groups. What’s astounding here is that Kealey has come out and voiced – even encouraged his peers – to engage in a bit of rubbernecking over their more prepossessing students.

Several years ago during my first year at university, I personally witnessed certain females using their, ahem, charm to their tactical advantage.  This included one instance of a girl encouraging the course coordinator to allow them to transfer to the LLB once enrolled on another (lesser) legal course when she did not meet the pre-requisites to get onto the LLB.

Of course, I don’t know that it was because of her open flirting with said lecturer or whether he would have transferred her in any case. Either way, it’s an interesting strategy to get on the LLB if your A level results aren’t quite up to scratch.

Returning to the article, maybe Kealey just wanted to stir up a storm by writing a tantalising article or he was simply trying to be facetious. However you slice it, though, he’s certainly got attention, if that was his ploy. In any case, his candidness is definitely a bit of an eye-opener and however you feel about the thrust of his sentiment , I’m not sure his ‘look but don’t touch’ policy is enough of a sugar coating to appease the more easily-offended out there.

Lily Allen calls it a day (… fronting filesharing debate)

From The Guardian 24/09/09:

Just hours after saying she has no plans for a new album, Lily Allen has closed down her blog on music piracy, saying the "abuse" received had become too much to bear.

The singer posted messages on Twitter saying she was not going to attend an emergency meeting of music artists this evening to hammer out a unified position on illegal filesharing.

The star says: "Hello, there is a meeting today in London where artists are meeting to discuss Piracy. My job done.

"I wont [sic] be attending the meeting because it's going to be a press frenzy and I don't want to detract from the issues. I'm proud of the fact that I've been involved with this debate but I'm passing the baton on to other artists.

"And I've shut down the blog, the abuse was getting too much."

Allen had set up a blog "It's Not Alright" (in reference to her first album Alright, Still) collating the views of artists after her comments that "filesharing is a disaster" for new talent.

I’m fascinated to see what kind of deal can be thrashed out in the coming weeks. Inevitably, some form of compromise must be reached – to give consumers a fair deal, to preserve the sustainability of an important sector of the economy and protect and encourage the quality of creative energy out there.

Ultimately, though, record labels need to give more than take on this one, quite frankly, and for the creative industry to have half a chance at organically reducing copyright infringement and stop alienating music lovers the world over, the idea and extent of royalties is in dire need of being reconceptualised. The premise of gluttonous middlemen milking their cash cows for all they’re worth at the consumer’s expense is anachronistic and should be treated as such.

Sadly, I’m not at all confident much is going to change, not least by the close of play at tonight’s meeting. And what change does occur, I can’t imagine will involve much in the way of capitulation and compromise on the part of record labels; I’m having terrifying visions that Mandelson’s fatally-flawed 3-strike policy might actually come to pass.

Finally, as an aside, well done to Lily for snubbing wordpress, squarespace, typepad and all the other ‘pro’ solutions by going with blogger to host her now defunct blog!

Oh Crumbs: Is it Time for Biscuit Injury Lawsuits?

From The Daily Record 08/09/09:

Custard creams are Britain's most dangerous biscuits, it was revealed yesterday A study claimed an estimated 25million people in Britain had been injured by biscuits.

Hidden dangers included flying fragments and daredevil dunking in scalding tea. And custard creams were the worst offenders, posing the biggest risk to innocent dunkers.

Around 500 people a year need hospital treatment because of biscuit injuries.

The study by Mindlab found 29 per cent of adults had been splashed or scalded by hot drinks while dunking or trying to fish the remnants from hot tea.

They also found 28 per cent had choked on crumbs and 10 per cent had broken a tooth or filling biting a biccy.

More unusually, three per cent had poked themselves in the eye with a biscuit and seven per cent were bitten by a pet or "other wild animal" trying to get their biscuit.

Personally, I would have thought that Ginger Nuts would be the most dangerous biscuit owing to the hard and crisp nature rather than the humble custard cream. News stories like this one make it easy to lose whatever sense of perspective the average adult has these days and feel the ‘compensation culture’ taking over.

A Canadian author, Bob Beers, picked up on this story:

Liberal culture has brought us to the point where personal injury lawyers essentially run our economic system. What, you say the coffee was too hot? You say the fourteen signs warning you about the fact the coffee was hot weren’t enough? You say you bought that coffee at an evil corporate franchise??? We have got to sue!!!

Steady on, Bob. While England and Wales can’t claim to have never seen a frivolous claim or two, I don’t think anyone is suggesting that it’s time to bring civil actions against biscuit manufacturers or negligent biscuit crunchers for causing lethal shrapnel in the form of crumbs to invade the personal space or others. As I previously said, perspective is key here; properly used negligence claims can play a useful and important role in modern society to provide redress and improve standards of behaviour and safety. But I don’t think anyone is suggesting that it’s time to bring an action against a custard cream. Nor a Bourbon, Garibaldi or Hobnob, for that matter.