'Nother Solent

A journey interrupted.

I'm busy today and don't have much time to blog. But to say that is to remember that no one knows how much time they have left to do anything.

Rachel from North London writes:

It feels like a lot longer than a year. I wish I could turn back the clock, that I had never got on the train, that the bombers had changed their minds and decided not to go through with it. I wish.

(From this entry. Via Iain Dale.)

China to ban news reports of major disasters because telling angry, grief-stricken people that the mine collapse never happened makes them like you better.

In Russia, back in the old days, they never admitted to air crashes. I heard of a couple who waved goodbye to their daughter who was flying off to start a course at Moscow University. After a while they started to wonder why she hadn't written. They were left to wonder.

Even then, with tighter control of communications than the Chinese government will ever have again (God willing), the Soviets couldn't get away with it forever. Word of mouth grinds slow but it grinds exceeding small.

Revisionist indeed.

A letter in the Guardian from PJ Lewis says,

Interesting to note that the revisionist view of the Battle of the Somme being peddled in some of the media did not appear until practically all the survivors had passed away. Now the view is that the Somme was necessary and led to victory in the end. You can be sure such rubbish would have been quickly put in its place by the men who fought and survived.

One of the comments to this BBC column by Peter Caddick-Adams points out that 200,000 men who fought in and survived the Great War attended Haig's funeral.

Mr Lewis's letter continues:

... To wait until the deaths of the last survivors until expressing this view is not only offensive, but also cowardly.

While Googling for when Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier came out (it was 1963), I found this essay by John D Clare. He attempts to come to a synthesis between pro- and anti-Haig views, but along the way lists some of the dozens of historians who have been arguing this question for more than four decades.

All Greek to me.

JEM writes

After Chaucer's blogge, this had to happen:

Commentarium meum

Any day now, this guy Iosephus is going to get Chinese spam.

Crack Is Found In Shuttle's Foam Insulation, reports the NYT.

These drug smugglers go to extraordinary lengths.

Gotta, gotta do some work.

The only real person in the universe, continued.

Michael Jennings quoted my earlier question (Is it just me or does anyone else worry that they may be the only real person in the universe?) and replied:

Yes, of course I do. But you could be just imagining that I am
saying that to make yourself feel better of course.

Another reader writes:

This is one of the reasons why I remain fiercly agnostic. I can't believe in the whole 'big beard in the sky' thing. If God's up there watching over us and occasionly intervening, I can think of a few things He could be intervening in right now. (In fact, I sometimes while away my time thinking up a few divine interventions I'd like to see.)

But there are several reasons that atheism doesn't cut it for me. While I can just about accept that chemistry might turn into biology, the Big Bang bit where nothing turns into everything is impossible to accept. I mean, are they seriously suggesting that there is no space, no time and no energy, then all of a sudden there is the whole of space, the whole of time and all the energy that ever will exist. (All right, space is very small and time is very short, but it's all there in potential). And saying "all of a sudden" is nonsense because that implies time which implies a before which couldn't be because time doesn't exist. Too weird, God's easier to comprehend.

But the main reason I can't be an atheist is the dying thing. If I die, the whole Universe goes with me. I mean if I'm not there to experience it, then it ceases to exist and that would be a waste. But if some part of me, (call it a soul if you like), carries on, (changing planes, after a suitable wait in the terminal), then the universe can carry on as well. Which is better for everybody, God included.

ps I can't remember who said it but this defines Agnoticism perfectly for me.

"I don't know the face of God and I don't believe you do either"

(Apologies for wasting your time with this nonsence. Blame a particularly stupid Oracle data model that has me looking around for an easier brick wall to bang my head against.)

You are not wasting my time. I liked reading your email plenty better than the brick-wall bashing I am meant to be doing with this computer, I assure you. When I enter my last hours and the curtain around my personal universe starts to tear I don't think I will begrudge time spent thinking of such things.

But, um, guys, did anyone get my joke?

UPDATE: The second reader, now revealed as Kevin B, writes:

Of course I got your joke^. I was the one making it.

*(Well, not untill I cleared my mind of Oracular garbage and cotemplated the real meaning of life etc.)

Insha'Allah.

JEM is doing most of my blog today, which is good because I'm busy. What follows really ought to be issued as part of a textbook for Saudi students of English. JEM writes:

When, some 20 years ago, I was for my sins working on a project in Saudi Arabia, the Most Important Single Event was getting on the plane to go home on leave -- and in Saudi nothing was ever certain to happen until it actually did happen.

(a) At the travel agent:
You: "Right. So my flight to London next week is fully confirmed?"
Agent: "Absolutely. There is no doubt; you have a fully confirmed reservation."
(five seconds of silence.)
Agent: "Insha'Allah."

(b) At the airport:
You: "OK. So I've now got a proper, valid boarding pass and confirmed seat allocation?"
Agent: "Absolutely. There is no doubt; you have a valid boarding pass and confirmed seat allocation."
(five seconds of silence.)
Agent: "Insha'Allah."

But is was not just when you were heading home:

(c) At the Chinese restaurant:
You: "That's all. So to confirm, we've ordered a 23, a 43, a 17 and a 44."
Waiter: "Yes sir. I confirm you've ordered a 23, a 43, a 17 and a 44.."
(five seconds of silence.)
Waiter: "Insha'Allah."

(d) At the bank:
You: "Very well then. So you can confirm the balance in my account is x,xxx Saudi Rials."
Bank Clerk: "Yes sir. I confirm the balance in your account is x,xxx Saudi Rials."
(five seconds of silence.)
Bank Clerk: "Insha'Allah."

(e) At the supermarket checkout:
You: "All right. So that comes to xx Rials?"
Checkout Clerk: "Yes sir. I confirm that comes to xx Rials?"
(five seconds of silence.)
Checkout Clerk: "Insha'Allah."

It really got very depressing.

"Carpe Diem!"

says JEM in response to this post:

The most successful constitution, most reckon, is the American one -- which after all was written in or just after pretty 'dismal times'.

If today is not ideal and in the absence of a time machine we cannot go back, the only alternative to acting now is delay.

However delaying a British one now is, as we sink deeper and deeper "... into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science*" likely to be a worse option than acting now, despite all the risks.

It could have been better phrased, but by "dismal times" I had in mind not times when dismal events occur but times in which a dismal and socialistic spirit reigns. O tempora! O mores!

Is it just me

or does anyone else worry that they may be the only real person in the universe?

This, that and benignancy.

Via Tim Worstall I came across an FT essay to bookmark, posted by blogger "the New Economist": The truth behind the top Five trade myths. One of the comments to the New Economist's confidently argues that myths one, two and three are not myths at all.

Again via Tim Worstall, but this time from the Britblog roundup, comes this little post about how a difference between British and American English caused mass blanching on the part of plane passengers.

(I heard that when pilots from Arab countries announce landing is imminent they say, "We shall be landing in Dubai in five minutes, if God wills it." ... And some of the passengers are thinking, er, is there some doubt about this?)

One of the other pleasures of Britblog roundup is following the links from above and below the links. A million blessings upon the f-word via whom I came to find ... Benign Girl.

Before I came to my senses I had actually handed over Benign Girl as a birthday gift and I knew immediately by Billy's reaction that I had been right about Benign Girl which he now keeps in a sealed plastic bag.