Nothing Happened Again Today

You may be wondering what's been happening since my shock announcement that I'm to become a Magistrate. You might imagine lots of training, loads of paperwork. Maybe even a Magistrate Boot-Camp where all the rookie JPs get together to do lots of chin-ups and use bayonets on straw dummies while yelling a lot.

Actually nothing of the kind. The whole process takes place at a maddeningly sedate pace with months and months of nothing-at-all-happening. At the start of June I got the nod, sent back the paperwork and not much happened since. I've been reading everything I can find on the web and watching box-sets of "The Bill" but apart from that I'm as unprepared to become a cog in the criminal justice system as I ever was.

So nothing continues to happen. I'll let you know when it stops happening.

Update : Criminal Records "Disclosure" form came back today confirming that I have lived a blameless life. Either that or I've been 100% successful in hiding my criminal empire. Either way, another baby step forward.

Bonfire of the Banalities

Usually, when you bring the Nazis into any argument you're getting lazy and are probably well on the way to losing the argument.

This is a well-documented feature of post-war rhetoric : e.g

* Godwin's Law states that "As a (Usenet) discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one"
and also
* "Reductio Ad Hitlerum" states that "Hitler (or the Nazis) supported X, therefore X must be evil/undesirable/bad". It has the corollary "Hitler (or the Nazis) were against X, therefore X must be good".

As far as I can remember I've kept Nazi references out of this blog, except where Darfur is concerned and I still say that's totally justified.

A less justified example is the owner of a Lap Dancing Club in West Sussex that burned down under suspicious circumstances last week. Now, I certainly would love it if all Lap Dancing establishments were to vanish, however setting them on fire is a step too far. I almost started to feel for the owner but then I read the following quote:

"Personally I think they did it because they are anti-lapdancing. With some people it runs to a high passion. I compare it to the book burning in Berlin in 1939."

Where to start with a comment like that !

For starters there weren't many books left to burn in 1939 - the major burnings were in 1933. But more importantly, isn't there a difference between the freedom to pay £500 for a bottle of naff champagne and a bump 'n' grind and the freedom to read Hemmingway, Freud and Brecht?!

Cretin.

Things that go Splat

Myself and Mrs Stan did some painting today and made a discovery. Cheap paint sticks to everything apart from the wall you are aiming it at. And there are parts of the wall that appear to eat paint. I slap it on like cheese and then I turn round and look back and it's gone. Eaten by the Paint-Eating Magnolia Beast.

So most of my possessions and some hard-to-get-to parts of my body are now splattered with paint. Needed Mrs Stan to rescue me.

And that's just one small room. Can't wait until I can afford someone Polish and competent to do it for me.

Meanwhile I'm telling anyone that will listen that the grey streaks in my hair are actually paint and not signs of ageing. No-one is buying that.

Anti-Depression

A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.

A depression is when you lose your job.

The above is an example of Economist humour. Ha ha.

Before the 1930s Great Depression, every period of "negative growth" was referred to as a "depression" but after that the term "recession" was coined to distinguish between a mere ill wind and a hurricane.

There's no currently agreed definition of an economic depression, but the definition I like best is where the country's GDP (Gross Domestic product = the sum of everything "made" by the country) declines by more than 10%. Between 1929 and 1933 the US economy declined by 33%.

Debt was a major cause of that depression also - but in that case it was coupled with radical deflation (40-60%) in raw material prices that meant that businesses couldn't afford to service their debt and went bust. This led to a painfully massive 25% unemployment rate.

By contrast the bad years ahead (2008-9) are estimated in the UK to involve a 1% GROWTH in GDP and the chances of a literal economic depression after that are unlikely.

Business isn't going to be easy that's for sure, but let's get a bit of historical perspective here. It's been worse and it always gets better eventually.

Ecce Homo

I was all set for a big, long, bitchy blog about the Church of England last week and you know what happened ? They only went and did the right thing on women Bishops, which shut me up good and proper.

I suspected at the time that it wouldn't be long before something happened to upset me again.

Today the openly gay Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, was speaking at a church in West London and was heckled by a protester. His sermon was on big world problems and how tragic it was that the Anglican church concentrated so much of their energy on sexuality when there was so much more important issue they should be addressing.

I'll not get into the arguments from both sides, I just want to make one point.

26 Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords. This means that one Christian sect is absurdly over-represented in our second House of Parliament, but I'll let that pass for now.

My point is that access to the House of Lords should not be restricted by racial, gender, sexual or other affiliation. As the Church of England is providing 26 members of the House they should, if they want to represent the population as a whole, be providing 13 women and an absolute minimum of 3 gay people.

So, if the Church of England is determined to remain a homophobic members-club, that's a matter for them. But the Lords should represent society as a whole. Homophobic members-clubs should not be given any representation there.

I do look forward to seeing the first Woman Bishop taking her seat in the Lords - I do however suspect it'll be long after I'm gone.