'Nother Solent

Subversive Candy.

Alex Bensky writes:

I'm just curious--how many of the people who are appalled that Kellogg's has promoted candy by a campaign that flies under the parental radar approve of allowing underage girls to have abortions without parental consent?

Reminds me of the point made by Eugene Volokh and picked up by Instapundit that people who'd choke on their muesili rather than recommend "abstinence only" sex education are happy to recommend "abstinence only" firearms education, or self defence education. Of course this applies to the US, where firearms education is at least on the radar. Over here Eddie the Eagle means him.

Because they know it teases.

The Guardian is shocked to learn that Real Fruit Winders were successfully marketed to the bairns by a campaign that made a virtue of "not letting mum in on the act."

...the agency says it "spread the word about the brand virally" - by word of mouth - following an "initial underground communication" campaign.

It managed to "seed" the characters and a secret language at concerts, in magazines and cinemas. It also used clothing to place the characters with children's celebrities, gaining exposure on TV shows and music channels popular with children.

"We have a clear indication that it infiltrated kids' conversations," the ad agency's submission boasts. It quotes typical responses from children in its research: "It's cool" and "It is more secret than text messaging - my mum wouldn't know what was going on."

In other words what made these sweets popular with children was that they were linked in their minds with cocking a snook at authority.

Most authorities think we should counter this dastardly strategy by involving parents, teachers, youth leaders, advertisers and the government in presenting a unified message to children that they should eat more healthily.

UPDATE: The Daily Ablution comments on the same Guardian story.

This searchlight does not illuminate.

Wednesday's Indy contained an article by Johann Hari (not available online so far as I know) warning us against voting UKIP because some of the candidates have racist connections. Some of his charges struck home, but I was surprised to see him quote as an authority the "anti-fascist" magazine Searchlight.

I remember Searchlight when it was mimeographed, yes mimeographed, on yellow paper. Like Oliver Kamm (scroll down to see why the link is relevant) I used to go to Anti-Nazi League demonstrations in the late 1970s and early 80s, and I often picked up a copy from the vendors who moved through the crowds. I thought the tone was a bit odd, even then; sort of messianic. If I didn't immediately figure out that it was an unadmitted organ of the Socialist Workers Party that's only because I was a sweet little kid who didn't dream of such sneakiness.

Let me put it this way. I have it from sources at least as authoritative as Searchlight itself* that the only members of Searchlight's staff who can spell are the MI5 agents. While it ought to be reassuring that the extreme left, like the extreme right, is heavily penetrated by the sterling boys and girls of our intelligence and security services, I can't help remembering that Hitler first joined the Nazis to spy on them on behalf of the Weimar authorities.

A LATER THOUGHT: I went home from those Anti-Nazi League demos more sceptical than when I arrived. My desire to be anti the Nazis was unshaken, but I couldn't help noticing that nearly all the posters were made by the Socialist Workers Party, and what I read of the literature that the ever present SWP members handed out did not impress. Northern Irish issues were big then, and they were into redefining the Irish as "Black", on the grounds that they were oppressed. Naive though I was I had a feeling that neither real blacks nor real Irishmen would see this analysis as a useful contribution to debate. In addition, at these demos people would pass round buckets collecting for various causes, including pro-IRA organisations. Most people did not contribute but the buckets were not empty, as I damn well thought they should have been. These days the Stop The War coalition fills the same role as the ANL did then. The effect of the vast anti-war demos may not be quite what the organisers expect.

*Perhaps it'll keep me out of the libel courts if I concede that that ain't saying much.

Bismark sunk, Britain doomed.

On 24 May 1941 the Bismark sunk the Hood, before being herself sunk on 27 May. Photon Courier imagines how today's media might editorialize upon these events:

All of these disasters and failures were a foreseeable consequence of the policy of military adventurism pursued by Mr Churchill..a policy very different from the diplomatically-based policy that had been recommended by Lord Halifax. It cannot be stressed enough that this is a unilateral policy--other nations do not seem to share Mr Churchill's obsessions. The United States, although happy to sell us military supplies, has been most unwilling to commit forces. Even the Communists in Russia have had the sober judgment to come to a diplomatic modus vivendi with Germany, rather than pursuing a military solution.

Mr Churchill seems to have a personal vendetta against the German nation and a strong personal desire to wage war, possibly as a result of his need to recover the prestige he lost in the failed Gallipoli campaign, which he instigated during the affair of 1914-1918. Or possibly (if we may be a bit psychological), the roots of Mr Churchill's combativeness may go back even further, to his frustration with the inattentiveness of his parents. Whatever the cause, British seamen...and British men and women in all walks of life..are paying the price for Mr Churchill's obsessions.

No nipples, please, we're Scots.

Concerned about increasing brazeness and immodesty in our society? All is not lost. These sun-worshippers buck the trend.

Scroll up for lots more recent stuff about the ever-entertaining saga of the Scottish Parliament building, too.

Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

Cast your mind back. When the schools' league tables of raw results were introduced by the Conservatives the big beef against them was that they did not measure value added by individual schools as they took no account of what sort of intake a school had.

Now these New Labour tables claim to do exactly that. And, surprise, surprise, head teachers have called for the "value added" league tables to be scrapped.

What absolutely terrifies state schools is not that the tables will fail to measure school performance accurately but that they will succeed.

I rather think that the line of argument in the initial complaints, back in the days of raw results, was selected in the confident expectation that, for reasons of politics or technical difficulty, no one would ever work out a metric for value added. That made it safe to complain that the tests were unfair while not looking as if you were objecting to being assessed per se. Teachers rightly sensed that your average salesman or bank employee isn't going to weep over teachers having to undergo performance assessment when it is routine in his or her own job. Anyway, now it turns out that it was not a safe line of argument. Someone has bothered to work out a means of measuring value added. Oh sheesh kebabs.

The slower-moving members of the teaching establishment have not cottoned on and are still complaining that the tests are insufficiently "contextual." The brighter sparks are saying, shut up you fools or some git in the DfES will contextualise us where the sun don't shine.

Don't get the impression from this that I am in always favour of testing or publication of league tables. All the arguments against tests are true sometimes. In my ideal world each school would decide for itself - and parents would draw their own conclusions if a school declined to state its results. These conclusions might be positive or negative.

Perhaps it's my criminal tendencies

coming out, but I often find myself thinking not "why are criminals so wicked?" but "why are criminals so stupid?"

(Explanatory Note for non-British readers: it's currently Hate The Post Office Week in the British media. All media, left, right, tabloid and quality. Fine by me. Bring on privatisation.)

The Telegraph's contribution to HTPOW is this story about an elderly couple who received a card to thank them for giving a talk to a church group. Upon opening the card they discovered that it had been opened by the postman who had added an abusive note complaining that the card did not have money in it for him to steal and then helpfully sent it on.

The Royal Mail. Getting the job done.

A spokesman said,

"Tampering with mail is a criminal offence and every appropriate action will be taken against those responsible if identified."

If identified - How can he not be identified? Surely the field of suspects is small?

What intrigues me is why the postie didn't just throw the letter away. It's not like anyone would have been particularly amazed to learn that a card had been sent but not received.

Framing the discussion.

"We are particularly interested in views on whether any other types of firearms should be moved into the prohibited category."

- From the Home Office Consultation Paper "Controls on Firearms", pub. May 2004.

Views on whether any types of firearms should be moved out of the prohibited category do not interest the Home Office and are not sought.

(There claims to be a link to the Consultation Paper here but I can't make it work. Send off for a copy if you're interested.)

For various reasons

I ended up taking an unscheduled break from blogging and the internet last week. I'm back now, but I have a lot of catching up to do.

Email is French for enamel. I am very highly enameled.