DUFF & NONSENSE!

Mr. Grumpy cracks a smile!

I have just listened to 'Call me Dave' Cameron giving a speech to the CBI. I hadn't intended to but I couldn't find the 'do-flicker thingie' to change the channel.  I was making some tea and trying to ignore it but gradually I began to listen, and the longer I listened the better I liked what I was hearing. In essence, he was admitting that the days of big government and its even bigger bureaucracy had reached their 'sell by' date. He insisted that he would get government and much of their fiddling, piddling, irritating, useless regulations out of of our lives. I shivered with pleasure!

But then the kettle boiled and I came down to earth.  Could you trust him?  When the howls of outrage and pain rise up from the Quango-crats and their serfs who depend on them, will 'Dave' have the stomach for the fight. Because there will be very real pain for many people when 'Granny government' walks out of their lives.  Does he, like 'that woman', have a deep and fundamental belief in small government and the eventual benefits that will flow, particularly when he realises that the pain will last through at least a couple of parliaments before the benefits kick in?

To put it crudely, are his balls as big as Maggie's?

He'd lower the tone of life in a pond!

Lift any sewer-cover in Westminster and you will stand a very good chance of spotting the slimy creature known as Dennis McShane MP, but you would have to be quick before he slithered away from the daylight which he abhors through the murky mix of faeces, sanitary towels and used- condoms in which he feels so very much at home. Regretably, I have just caught a glimpse of him being interviewed by the normally urbane Jeremy Thompson of Sky News, who could barely suppress the curl of his lip, on the subject of the Labour party receiving back-handed bungs from, of all people, a property developer.  That is the equivalent of the Tory party trousering a few hundred thousand quid from George Galloway! So, what did this miserable specimen have to say for himself and his party?  Well, it was blindingly obvious, but still enough to make you reach for a sick-bag.  What he said was that it made clear the urgency of instituting a policy of  financing political parties by tax-payers!

"I hereby declare that if any government forces me to pay for political parties from my tax I will withhold that sum from my tax return and refuse to pay it even if they send me to jail." D. L. Duff, 26.11.07.

Finally, I hope that Dennis McShane, an example of everything that is rotten in the political classes, develops a truly dreadful, incurable disease and dies in agony! Over several years!

Additional, 1 hour later: Further to my slow, painful death-wish for Mr. McShane, may I now add the name of the Right Dis-honourable Jack Straw MP?  This unspeakable speck of effluent has just been interviewed on Channel 4 and my rage and impotent fury now knows no bounds. His smug, smiley, you-can-all-fuck-yourselves countenance had my fingers curling in anticipation of throttling the life from him. 

He knows, People, that you are all wankers and that whatever you do, he, Jack Straw MP, will sail through it all without a stain on his character, and very much more important, without a dent in his wallet.

If I state the bleedin' obvious, that you can expect no better from the 'Cameroons', let it stand as one last, sad, bugle call from a once proud nation that is decomposing in its grave.

Fuck 'em all, I hate the bastards!

Lop-sided lamentations from the Left

Lefties, and it must be admitted, other sillies, are in a terrible strop because the Oxford Union has invited a couple of Fascists to speak in a debate.  According to the normally more sensible 'David T' of Harry's Place, "The poisonous, absurd, and thankfully marginal views of fascists are not within the boundaries of sensible, mainstream debate." That is patently untrue as I suspect a visit to any pub in the vicinity of Millwall football club would prove.  Unfortunately, I fear 'David T.'s' definition of "sensible, mainstream debate" is likely to be more accurately described as 'refined and exclusive and as indulged in by intellectually, high-minded chaps like me', thus taking it to the point of being, dare I say, undemocratic in excluding the voice of the man in the Public Bar!  Also, when it comes to "poisonous, absurd, and thankfully marginal views", I would include anything emanating from the Muslim Council of Britain, the SWP, 'Respect', the current British government, the legal profession, global warming fanatics, 'Green War', 'Enemies of the Earth', and so on, ad nauseum.  Regretfully, I am forced to listen to them all for as long as it takes to reach the TV/radio 'do-flicker' and change channels. So, thanks, 'David T.', but I think I can cope with a couple of nutters from the extreme Right without swooning away.

Oh, the sweet joy of being right: Part II

Nothing quite like it - the ineffable joy of saying, "I told you so."  When, faced with the prospect of an election,  'Hash' Brown folded whilst holding 3 aces it began the disintegration of his regime.  However, as I said at the time, it wasn't just the fact of his surrender, but the manner of it that would double his troubles.  If you remember, he decided to announce his ignominious retreat, the biggest political story in years, to just one journo', Andrew Marr of the 'Baghdad Broadcasting Company'.  At a stroke (where have I heard that expression before?) he made instant enemies-for-life of a dozen or more print and broadcasting editors.  That 'disgraceful' bean-spiller, Guido Fawkes, tells us all of a dispute between Andrew Marr and the Sky News-room in which Marr claims that an exceedingly rude, not to say downright obscene, cartoon is pinned up for all to see and laugh at.

These editors now have all the time in the world, well, another two years, anyway, to utterly demolish 'ur wee Gordie', and they will, oh yes, they certainly will. By the way, can you hear it? No, honestly, it's there if you turn the radio down and listen very, very carefully; away in the distance - a ghastly cackle of pure, unadulterated, malicious joy emanating from 'Tony' Blair's new office!

A gutless Aussie!

Normally you would think that the term "gutless Aussie" was an example of an oxymoron, but not in the case of Mr. Tim Lambert, the proprietor of 'Deltoid' (and, no, I have no intention of linking to it), a blog that amongst other follies acts as a cheer-leader for the HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics).  Needless to say, I have been causing them some grief recently by pointing up one or three blooper's in their reasoning, but all done in my usual jokey style.  The result?  I was called a liar, and when I expressed my surprise at that sort of language being permitted, I was censored.

Why do people like Lambert bother to have a site? As a blog-owner, of course, it gives one the opportunity to voice one's own views, but surely part of the pleasure is the ensuing debate in which opposite views are argued back and forth. I love it when people debate with me because it tests my opinions in the fire and whilst I usually put up a bold front, in fact, I am not nearly as certain as I make out.  From time to time, a commenter will rock me back with a point I had never considered, or perhaps, in researching a reply to some one else's argument I might come across facts that are new to me.  Throughout my life I have been forced to change my mind on some fairly large issues because I do listen and read other people's opinions.  What is the point of running a blog for like-minded people so that you all line up like so many nodding dogs in the back of an old Cortina?

As I tried to tell Lambert, when this global warming frenzy began I was neutral but suspicious.  (I am always suspicious of anything that the political classes, of all colours, start to embrace because I know from bitter experience that it will cost me money and they will almost certainly be wrong.  However, and despite my ignorance on scientific matters, I have tried to investigate the pros and cons of the matter and I am forced to say that one of the things that pushed me the hardest towards the doubters was the fanatical (I use the word deliberately) attitude of the Believer's. Like so many Gauleiters or Commissars, they will brook no dissent.  Now, I may not be a scientist but I know a little of the writings of Popper and Kuhn, certainly enough to treat all scientific pronouncements with caution, especially when they are in the area of what I would term quasi-science, of which climatology is a perfect example. But people like Lambert have certainty, almost as thought their very being depended on it.  Like creatures of the night, they cannot permit the slightest chink of light to enter their closed minds. Why?  Because, in the words of that woman, "They're frit!".  Like I said, a gutless Aussie!

Oh, the sweet joy of being right!

If you live long enough, and if you are as intelligent, wise and knowledgeable as me - stop giggling, 'Teabag'! - you will eventually find yourself proved right and a bunch of con-artists and mugs proved wrong. Was it the 1980s or the 1970s that AIDs first appeared?  I can't remember exactly but it was certainly a hell of a long time ago.  Do you remember the scare stories, the 'Great & the Good' telling us all never on any account to dip our wicks without at least two condoms and a woolly sock for protection? And do you remember how they howled their outrage at the merest hint that it was only druggies,  poofters and prostitutes who were at real risk, despite the excellent Michael Fumento writing a book at the time which comprehensively showed that, apart from the constant needle use of drug addicts, it was  abrasions to the anal passage, and to vaginal linings, of mostly prostitutes, which were subject to wear and tear, that were the means by which the infection was passed? And do you remember the zillions and trillions of dosh that disappeared down the greedy gullets of UN so-called scientists who kept forecasting the end of the world? And were you one of the mugs who contributed to their enrichment?  And do you ever dwell on the thought of, say, how many African villages and South American shanty towns could have been provided with fresh water for the same money and thus saved the lives of too many children to count - and still have change left over?  Well, if you did, and you didn't, then you should!

Today, it was announced that the UN, at last, has had to revise its estimates of AIDs drastically downwards. For example, in India they reckoned there were 6m sufferers, that has now been halved - and my guess is they could halve it again and they would still be over!  Apparently, only a year ago some conman, oops, sorry, some cove called M. Peter Piot, a Belgian scientist(!) and boss of the UN AIDs agency since its inception in 1995, warned that the AIDs "pandemic and its toll are outstripping the worst predictions". Can we look forward to M. Piot's resignation on the grounds of either gross mendacity or gross incompetence?  Don't hold your breath!

One prize prune pulled this plum from the pudding that constitutes his brain: "Daniel Halperin, an AIDs expert(!) at the Harvard School of Public Health, said Governments face a dilemma. "On the one hand, it would be a mistake to radically decrease funding for HIV. But on the other hand, why not put more money into family planning or climate change?"  That's the sort of decisive, clear thinking one would expect from Harvard/Yale/Oxbridge, take your pick! Climate change, so dear to the hearts and wallets of yet another bunch of alarmists with an eye on relieving you of your hard-earned money whilst promising to save you from Armageddon. Their great-grandfathers sold snake oil!

A quick prayer to the Intelligent Designer, or Incompetent DIY-Man: Please, please, please, let me live long enough to see the HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) similarly shown up.

A gleam of pure gold amongst the dross

I confess to producing my fair share of dross in 'Blogdom' so my special thanks to Malcolm Pollack for finding this gem from 'YouTube'.  Only 10 minutes worth, and unfortunately it starts in mid-sentence, but 10 minutes of Richard Feynman is worth a week of David Duff, or just about anyone else I have ever read on the net.

A pox on both their houses!

Faced, as I have been all day on TV, by a re-iterated news story showing Japanese whalers and 'Green War' activists, I can't help half-hoping that they chase each other down to Antarctica, collide, and go down with all hands! Or, better still, get eaten by Hump-Back whales, or should that be humped by man-eating whales? Whatever ...

Plucky Little Israel!

Let's hear it for the Jews! I was going to offer them three cheers but they always want a third off everything so here's two cheers for 'Plucky Little Israel'! Now, all that our collection of rich, pampered, big-girls-blouses have to do next Wednesday is crush little Croatia*, otherwise they won't have a single thing to talk about on the thinking-man's radio station - 'TORKSPORT'.

*But not too hard because I am rather fond of Croatia - a very beautiful and interesting country.

For the benefit of my foreign readers, girlies, girly-men, 'NIB' and anyone else who hails from another planet, all of the above is to do with 'footie', because, you see ... oh! ... it's too complicated ... find out for yourselves!

Additional 18/11th:

From the bolshie, Geordie tyke: What do Gus Hiddink and Hamas have in common?

They both lose to Israel!

Go figure these figures!

At the end of a long comment thread to a post below, Larry stated reasonably that "I am not persuaded that the death penalty reduces the murder rate. OK then, it is because I have never seen any convincing statistical evidence to that effect." This is intended to help him, and others.  You will need to link to this site which is a copy of a Parliamentary research paper produced under the aegis of the Home Office and is dated 1999.  It will probably be helpful for any reader to have that site opened in tandem with this post so that you may click from here to there as you read. (Alas, I haven't a clue how to copy and paste Adobe graphs, so that is all I can suggest.)

It is obviously difficult to compare murder stats country to country because of the 'noise' of cultural differences. There are I think two nations in which useful statistics might be found applicable to this debate. Naturally, we should start with our own country which began running down the number of executions in the late 1950s until the last hangings in 1964.  It was officially abolished in 1965.

Please scroll down to p.10 on the other site and look at the graph which shows the number of homicides in England & Wales.  I would appeal to any fair-minded reader to deny the significance of the huge rise in the graph from 1964 onwards.  Still, to be fair and as accurate as I can be, I should ask if there were other conditions at work.  Again, I would suggest that since the 1950s, what was a relatively disciplined society has been 'liberated', or 'degenerated', I leave it to you to choose the word, but unquestionably social mores become increasingly lax.  Towards the end of the period covered, the increasing use of, and trafficking in, drugs, plus the rise in race-related clashes has certainly added to the violence in society.  However, anyone wishing to depend on those social factors needs also to take into account the very large improvements in medical A&E procedures by which increasing numbers of wounded survived injuries that would have killed them in earlier times.  I would tentatively suggest that these 'opposite' factors, roughly, cancel each other out.  Thus, we return to that graph and the incredible co-incidence, if that is what it is, that from abolition, the murder rate climbed like a rocket!

If you then scroll down to the next page 11, you will see the number of homicides per million of population, which in:

1965 was 325 equating to 6.8 per million

had risen in 1997 to 738 or 14.1 per million

in 2004/5 the number had risen to 839 or 15 per million (1)

And remember, the population had increased by millions from what it had been in 1965, so the number of individual victims was growing enormously.

That is the case for our country but now I switch to the USA because they are the only sophisticated western state to have abolished capital punishment but then returned to it.  It almost goes without saying that to take the USA as a whole is never going to be totally satisfactory because of the sheer size and diversity of the place and its people.  Also, of course, there are very many variations in state laws and procedures which will muddy any statistical details.  However, for a very broad brush look at the overall murder rates in America scroll down to p. 34 which is a graph showing the number of executions and a line showing the number of homicides.  Again, like the UK, as the executions tailed off in the early '60s, so the murder rate climbed, but as the executions began again and increased in numbers from the mid '80s, so the number of murders fell. However, that is across the whole of the USA which might contain a great deal of noise.  So let us concentrate on individual states.

Please scroll down to the bottom of p.34, then scroll down through the next three pages below which contain Table 13, a state by state analysis of the murder rate from 1977 to 1997.  The areas shaded blue indicate that the state concerned had sanctioned capital punishment in principle, if not necessarily in practice.  The years surrounded by a box indicate that they were years in which people were actually executed. I did a little exercise and looked at the 37 states who for the vast majority of the years 1977 to 1997 put capital punishment back on the statute book whether or not they used it.  The change in murder rates per 100,000 of population over 20 years from 1977 to 1997, were:

Down: 28 states   Unchanged: 7 states   Increased: 2 States

Then I looked at those states which, for most of the time, refused to put capital punishment on their books:

Down: 6 states    Unchanged: 4 states    Increased: 4 states.

Before Larry and others become too excited at the 6 states whose murder rate fell without capital punishment, I should point out that in four of those cases, the fall was a single digit, for example, Kansas fell from a rate of 7 murders per 1oo,ooo of population, to 6 murders.  The two exceptions were Hawaii (7 down to 4) and Alaska (11 down to 9).

Perhaps the most startling of the 'risers' was the District of Columbia, in effect, Washington, which refused to sanction the death penalty and which saw the rate begin at 28 murders per 100,000 and hurtle up to 57 murders - in 20 years!

Turning to those states who had the death penalty on their books, although not all of them used it, 14 of the 28 states who saw a drop in their figures, began in 1977 with murder rates in double figures, so one can imagine the imperative to accept a reversal of the law.  Only 2 of these states saw a rise in their murder rates, Arkansas (9 up to 10) and Maryland (8 up to 10).  Interestingly, if you look at the columns that refer to them you will notice that both states had the death penalty but refused to use it until they saw a rise in the rates in the early '90s when they then began to execute people.  In both states the rates then started to fall back!

As I warned Larry in an earlier thread, there can be no 'Eureka!' moment of scientific proof in this matter which is all too human and therefor all too muddled and confusing. Reasonable men and women needs must use their best judgement.  Mine is that here in the UK we should bring back hanging for all homicides in which there is any element of previous intent - which includes carrying weapons - and also any assault resulting in death which was continued over a period of time.

(1) This stat from: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb0206.pdf

One Jock worth preserving in aspic, or pickling in a single malt!

I am often rude about Jocks.  You may have noticed.  It's alright because I have a licence. You see, I'm half Jock myself.  And of course, my rudeness disguises a fondness. Whilst they may be, on the whole, as thick as the neeps they fill their ghastly haggis with, the fact is that in a close fight you couldn't do better than have a few of them alongside, er, once you'd stopped them fighting each other, of course.  Also, they have a habit of throwing up (yes, an unfortunate turn of phrase but I cannot be bothered to correct it) a series of great men.  Such a man is Kirk Elder of that Ilk. His post on the subject of Scotland celebrating(!) its acquisition of the Commonwealth Games had me crying with laughter.  It was only afterwards as I remembered that we English had the Olympics to pay for, that I started to cry for real.  Anyway, go read him and enjoy!

Murder Inc. #22 (Nov 07)

• My amateur effort to keep track of the murdered body count in this "scepter'd Isle" since July 3rd 2007, as the government and the liberals insist that crime figures are falling and there is no need to look again at sentencing policy. 

In 1960 there were approximately 250 homicides a year.  This year, in only 4 months we have already exceeded that total, and done it despite huge improvements in A&E that have saved many lives that would have been lost 40 years ago.

My sources are the BBC News sites which do not necessarily report every homicide on the main regional bulletins, so this is not an exhaustive list. For my purposes, men and women are 17+ years and children are 16- years.

TOTAL SINCE 3/7:  204 men:  60 women:  29 children: 

CODES: EN= England, SC=Scotland, NI=Northern Island, WA=Wales.

Thu 15th - Tue 20th Nov

On Tuesday last, a young man shot dead in the street, or the Queen's highway, as it is amusingly known by the terminally old-fashioned, became the 23rd young man to die by bullet or blade in London this year.  And two old ladies aged 80, died of shock and fear after burglars made forced entries to their homes.  So, nothing to worry the liberal conscience then!

• EN: Stoke Newington: Man shot dead in street, no further details
• EN: Liverpool: Man following assault in street
• EN: Fallowfield: Woman 80, died after burglar forced entry, man arr
• EN: Walsall: Man dead in street, police treat as suspicious
• SC: Motherwell: Man 54, dead after assault in his flat
• SC: Inverclyde: Man 38, assaulted, man 38 arr
• EN: Chilham: Man 41 shot dead in street, man 48 arr
• EN: Coventry: Woman 46, arson attack on house, man 22 arr
• EN: Canning Town: Man 17, assault in street, 2 youths arr
• EN: Liverpool: Man 56 shot dead at home, man 29 arr
• EN: Wythenshawe: Man 25 stabbed, 3 men, 1 woman arr
• EN: Orpington: Woman 80, died after 2 burgalrs forced entry
• EN> Hartlepool: Man dead in  house, Man 18 arr
• EN: Mirfield: Man 22 attacked by gang, 2 arr, one 18 the other 15
• WA: Location unknown: Man 47, boy 15 arr
• EN: Warrington: Man 20, stabbed in street, 2 men/2 women arr
• EN: Doncaster: Man 57 died in hosp. after arson attack, 6 days ago, 3 youths arr

Fri 9th - Wed 14th Nov

In the last few days, two boys, 14 and 16, have killed two men. Also, given the number of murders committed in the execution of burglary, is it not reasonable for all householders to assume murderous intent by any burglar and thus be justified in taking extreme measures to protect themselves and their families?

Additional: A family of seven, mum, dad and five children, were killed in a fire at their home in Omagh on Tuesday 13th.  The police now say it was murder by arson. Accordingly, I have altered my figures above.

• EN: Swindon: Woman 44, dead in house, man arr.
• EN: Bristol: Man stabbed, man arr.
• EN: Ossett, Yorks: Woman dead in house, man arr.
• EN: Hornchurch: Man 33, dead in hotel, 2 men, 22 & 23, arr.
• SC: Johnstone: Man 39 killed in attack, man arr.
• WA: Merthyr Tyd: Man 50, dead in house, 2 arr. 17 and 16 yrs old
• EN: Wakefield: Woman 70s dead in house, man 40s arr.
• EN: Speke: Man shot dead in street
• EN: Luton: Woman 26, head injuries, man 32 arr.
• EN: Balcombe, man 20 killed in car driven by 14 yr old who died
• NI: Carlow Tn: Woman 22, stabbed, man arr.
• NI: Omagh: Man, woman and 5 children killed by arson at home

Thu 1st - Thu 8th Nov

Not a good start for the ladies this month, especially if you were old and in hospital which used to be thought of as a sanctuary.  Anyway, 5 of you were 'offed' in the first week! Also note, a 13-yr old was charged with murder after bashing a man on the head and burning him in a bonfire - 13 years old!

• EN: Chilwell: Man 40s, assaulted, died.
• EN: Plymouth: Man 90, assaulted over parking place
• EN: Horsham: Boy 15, attacked at party, man 18 arr.
• EN: Soton: Man 32 stabbed in fight, 2 men arr.
• EN: Reepham: Woman 80, man arr.
• EN: Helston: Woman 39, man 64 arr.
• EN: Lewisham: Woman 84, killed in hosp, man 85 arr.
• EN: Leeds: Man 20/30s found dead by canal
• EN: Hull: Man 20s, stabbed, man 22 arr.
• EN: Sheffield: Man 46, woman 34, dead in house, man arr.
• EN: Wirral: Man 34, head inj, burnt in bonfire, 13-yr old charged
• EN: Bolton: Man 34, hit and run
• EN: Runcorn: Boy 2, man 24, woman 22 arr.
• EN: Leics: 2 elderly women, in nursing home, man arr.
• NI: Dungannon: Man 20, beaten to death, 2 men arr.
• EN: Stourbridge: Man 24, 2 men arr.

By providing these bare details I hope to impress on you that these are not just statistics but were real human beings with families, friends and a future before them - just like me and you, really!

• My amateur effort to keep track of the murdered body count in this "scepter'd Isle" since July 3rd 2007, as the government and the liberals insist that crime figures are falling and there is no need to look again at sentencing policy. 

And another myth bites the dust!

If, like me, you are addicted to American crime fiction, or Crash-Bang-Wallops as I call them, or if, like the little 'Memsahib', you enjoy crime drama on the 'telly', then you will be aware of that ubiquitous character who now seems to have a part, if not the leading part, in every crime story - the criminal profiler.  I have always gone along with the concept - in books and films, that is - because, of course, I suspend belief. However, watching them on the 'telly' makes it that much harder to overcome my inbuilt scepticism.  I realise that these days, with our quaint, old-fashioned belief in psycho-analysis, such practitioners are used in real life by the police forces of the world, well, the English-speaking world, that is. In such cases I just hope the perp has dropped a ton of DNA because I have always suspected that you would catch a cold quicker than you'd catch a villain using profiler techniques.

So, the other day I was happy to have my cynicism confirmed by an essay in the New Yorker - how appropriate,  New York, the spiritual home of gangsters and psycho-analytical quacks! Written by Malcolm Gladwell it tells of the infancy of criminal profiling in the 1950s when New York's Finest were under huge pressure to catch a repeat bomber who had started his campaign in the '40s.  In desperation, and, boy, they must have been desperate, they approached James Brussel who was - yes, you guessed - a psychiatrist, and a Freudian, to boot! Anyway, from there the whole thing boomed and bloomed with the FBI spending huge amounts on setting up a profiling centre at Quantico.  Gladwell, with the precision of a brain surgeon deftly wields his scalpel to expose the whole exercise as being akin to astrology and soothsaying.

So, that's one down, next ... Anthropogenic Global Warming!

Personal, profound and hideously difficult

For once I am not looking for an argument, but the outcome of the recent Molseed murder trial raises questions that I, as a supporter of capital punishment, must face up to.  I am sure most of you know the facts but for my foreign readers suffice to say that 30-years ago a little girl, Lesley Molseed was abducted, raped and fatally stabbed twelve times.  The police quickly descended on a local man, Stefan Kiszko, who was of limited, not to say retarded, mental abilities. Under fierce, and by today's standards, illegal, questioning they induced him to sign a confession. He served 16 years in jail until his sentence was overturned but he died shortly after his release. Yesterday, another man, Ronald Castree, was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to 30-years.  One of the clinching bits of evidence was that the DNA in the semen found on the little girl's clothing matched his.  It is a grim irony that the fact that Stefan Kiszko was unable to produce sperm was known to his defence counsel, David Waddington, an incompetant of Olympian standards, who subsequently went on to become Home Secretary and support the return to capital punishment! With a defence counsel like that, who needs a prosecutor? Oliver Kamm, from the standpoint of a convinced and total abolitionist, points this sorry tale up as an example of the horrific mistakes that can be made, but never unmade if the hangman acts.

So, faced with this, how do I plead? Well, first, let me make clear that rather like my views on Darwinism, I have changed my mind.  There was a time when I would have cheered Oliver on for his humanitarian stance.  I do not now denigrate his humanitarianism, but I do disagree with him.  Thus, you are reading a man who has delivered arguments from both sides.  I did not change my mind quickly, indeed, the slow, gradual erosion of my conviction that capital punishment was wrong took place over many, many years, and the imperative behind it was quite simple - the ever-growing pile of the innocent dead, that is, the victims of murder.

I began this post by stating that I was not looking for an argument.  Decisions on such a terribly difficult issue are always going to be personal, and each individual will find their own way to a conclusion.  Thus, anyone who simply affirms that under no circumstances should the state ever take the life of one of its citizens as an absolute moral principle, is in much the same tradition as those absolute pacifists who refuse to take life in any circumstance whatsoever.  I was not as absolutist as that, but I did recognise that the Law makes mistakes and that if the result was an innocent person being hanged, then that was too high a risk to take.

But I thought like that back in the 1960s when the body count of murder victims was only around 250 -300 a year.  Gradually, over the years, I kept noticing the sheer number of murder reports on TV and in the papers.  To begin with I simply put it down to the increase of media outlets, but then, as the constant reports of savagery swelled, I realised that something was going wrong in our society.  The numbers to day are roughly three times those of the 1960s.  In other words, each year an extra 500 or so, totally innocent people die at the hands of murderers, and at long last, I reluctantly decided that my finer feelings could not be sustained in the face of such a slaughter. Of course, I realise that even in this scientific age of DNA, mistakes will almost certainly occur and that if hanging is returned, some innocents might swing.  But I also believe that hanging would sharply reduce the murder rate.  It would not return to the levels of 1960, given the changes in society, but let us say it reduced it by 15% p.a.  That would mean some 112 people a year would live rather than die.  Do I believe that there would be anywhere near 112 innocent accused hanged in error?  I do not! I confess that this is a crude utilitarianism of the sort that I would normally avoid like the plague, but on this subject, it must be deployed.

Now, I have faced squarely the hideous possibility that innocent people might be hung, but those who support the continuation of abolition must also face squarely the fact that they are condemning innocent people to death by murder.

Please, no knock-about stuff, if you wish to comment, state your case politely.

Anyone know the Sheriff of Nottingham?

For a reason which I will only disclose after the event, I shall be gracing the city of Nottingham with my considerable presence over three weekends, the first being just before Christmas. As this breaks the ASBO conditions which the little 'Memsahib' has sentenced me to, she insists on accompanying me.  Apart from wearing my bullet-proof vest, Nottingham being, so I understand, the gun-fighting centre of England, I know absolutely nothing about the City or the area that surrounds it.  On the Thursday, we intend visiting the new National Memorial, but after that it will be a matter of exploration.  Any ideas, anyone? Also, and very much more to the point, can anyone recommend any good restaurants in the City centre where we will be staying?

A trivial pursuit!

Regular readers will know of my generosity in passing on totally useless pieces of information under the heading of "Not a lotta' people know that".  Now, the benefactor begs! Having just watched Portsmouth play Manchester City on the TV, my peanut brain cannot stop wondering how Portsmouth obtained the nickname 'Pompey'. Any (informed) answers gratefully received.

Additional 13/11th: My commenter, 'Rumbold', pointed me in the direction of a site that contained this information:

More substantive evidence records a group of Portsmouth-based sailors, who scaled Pompey's Pillar near Alexandria, Egypt, in 1781 and became known as the 'Pompey Boys', while others claim the name originates from a French battleship La Pompée, captured in 1793 and which eventually became the guardship to Portsmouth Harbour.

This, I feel, is the closest we will get to an answer and my thanks are due to 'Rumbold' for, as it were, scratching my itch!

Does Dawkins sing in his bath, and if so, why?

My question is prompted by the good Dr. Dalrymple who has reviewed a book by Oliver Sacks in this week's 'Speccie'. Sacks, as many of you will know, is an eminent neurologist who has written several books on the tragic sufferings of those whose brains are damaged. In his book, Sacks points out that only humans possess the ability to understand music, a trait that we seem to be born with.  As Dalrymple asks, "How and why is it that combinations and series of sounds, that are inherently abstract and without propositional content, have the power to move us so deeply, to shake us to the very core of our being?" Indeed, and he goes on to point out that "There is a difficult philosophical question lurking here, one which Sacks does not broach, namely: what would count as an explanation? No doubt you could show with the new technology what parts of the brain were stimulated or were active when a person was moved by music, but would this, or any similar information, cause you to think that now, at last, you had understood?"

I would go further. What explanation can the likes of 'Archbishop' Dawkins offer as to why the stern task-master of natural selection has not only permitted this trait to exist in the first place, but also allowed it to grow to its current level of importance to Mankind? Remember that according to the 'neo-Darwinistas', we, and every aspect of our being, are subject to the remorseless drive to live longer and breed more. Quite what part music plays in this, I cannot imagine, unless it is to be found in Shakespeare's poetry, "If music be the food of love, play on".

"At the going down of the sun ..."

It's odd the way tiny, incidental facts stick in your memory. Each time Remembrance Day comes round I think of a report I read somewhere, probably in The Spectator from years ago, concerning just such a minute detail from the vast panoply of World War Two. It was from a man who had served on escorts to convoys in the north Atlantic and tells of one of their destroyers being hit and sunk.  Their first duty was to reach the enemy sub and attack it but that meant ploughing at high speed through the survivors bobbing in the cold waters.  Their wash alone would be enough to swamp and drown most of the men.  All this man could do was watch helplessly as they steamed past and as they did so, he remembered seeing a man in the water waving his arms and shouting "Taxi ... taxi!"  Such an example of witty, insouciant courage in the face of a certain and dreadful death is extraordinary.  I shall remember him!

Two Lords a-leaping!

Indeed, two Lords are a-leaping but in opposite directions. To be accurate, Lord Malloch Brown has not exactly leaped but, slug-like, has slithered his way into the pig trough where he now splashes happily at the public expense, or, our expense, or, as I always prefer to think of it because I always take these things personally, my expense! This week The Spectator attempted, not so much a hatchet job as a Texas chain-saw massacre of the ghastly old creep, but it must be admitted that they failed to find the unkindest cut of all. A few gripes concerning his Lordship's ability to leap over contending cabinet ministers and grab a spectacular 'grace and favour' residence is not likely to raise an eyebrow in a nation used to watching its leaders act like Gaderene swine. Even his breathtaking hypocrisy whilst serving as Deputy Secretary General at the UN, during which he assured everyone that UN officials would in future be transparent in their financial dealings, is not likely to produce more than a cynical shrug.  In 2006, with much trumpeting, the UN launched a new form to be filled in by every senior UN official disclosing their financial arrangements. Hoorah! But then it transpired that, under UN rules, it was not actually required that the forms be published for public consumption.  To be fair, this year the current Secretary General and his deputy volunteered their forms to made public.  Lord Malloch Brown declined.

In The Mail, Peter Oborne points to a dangerous trait in 'Hash' Brown's management technique, that is, his policy of belittling and humiliating his cabinet ministers.  I suppose he got used to it when he was Chancellor because he held the purse-strings and could cut them down to size if they got uppity.  Alistair Darling has already been made to look a fool (and perhaps he is) but, according to Oborne, David Milliband is the next in line for the 'treatment'.  One can hardly shed any tears for a so-called Foreign Secretary who dumps his duties in order to fly to America to witness the birth of, er, 'his' child by adoption.  Somehow I can't imagine the late Lord Grey doing such a thing but in those halcyon, Edwardian days, 'duty' was a four letter word of supreme importance.

However, one Lord has leaped in the other direction. Lord Drayon, who miraculously and, I'm sure, co-incidentally, received his elevation to the Lords  a few weeks after donating several thousand quid to the Labour party, has resigned 'to spend more time with his motor racing'. You what?! I remember when I first read this I wondered what was going on behind the scenes, and now, thanks to the scurrilous Daily Mail, I know.  Apparently, Lord Drayon, a self-made millionaire was in charge of Defence procurement and undoubtedly turned his considerable energy and acumen to improving a department whose shortcomings are reported daily from Iraq to Afghanistan.  However, the prime minister's office with the servile acquiescence of  'Des' Brown, the Defence Secretary and a man generally reckoned to be as effective as Sgt. Wilson of Dad's Army, has ordered the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation without informing Lord Drayon. He, at least, has had the decency to walk, an activity Lord Malloch Brown would find as impossible as the slug he so much resembles.

Justice Cocklecarrot has moved to Preston

A 28-year old man has just stood trial at Preston Crown Court for stabbing his half-brother to death near his home. He was charged with murder.

Yes, you've guessed it, well you would have done if you had read my previous Cocklecarrot cases; he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, a device condoned by the Crown non-Prosecution dis-Service who can thereby tick another box to keep their 'lying liar' political chief happy, and also condoned by Mr. Justice Silber who described the action of the accused as "appalling" (not big with words, is our Mr. Justice Silber) and handed down the derisory sentence of 5 years and 3 months - that'll teach him! He'll be out in 3 years, only 31 and the rest of his life in front of him.

As for ... oh, what's his name ... you know ... the other one ... his brother ... well, shit happens, dunnit?  Yes it does, and much of it happens in our Courts of Law.

Lest 'Ratty' comes over all tearful and whining that they do their best, I had better tell you that some Jock MacCocklecarrots have at least, and at last, taken a step in the right direction. Today in the Court of Appeal they increased an 8 year sentence to 10 years on a young scrote who killed another man with a knife and who, having been found guilty of culpable homicide, was chancing his luck by claiming the sentence was too severe!  Of course, it should have been 28 years in the first place but that will never happen as long as the loonies run the asylum.

Present laughter!

I have let drop recently the fact that I am a regular subscriber to The Spectator in the hope that readers will gain (the entirely spurious) impression that I am something a Westminster sophisticate.  Alas, the fact is that I buy it mainly for the laughs.  Here are two examples from this week's edition.

The first by this week's diarist, Barry Humphries.  He relates the story of a recent visit to Darwin in the Northern Territories of Australia.  Arriving late he attempted to order from 'room service' receiving this reply:

"There's only soup and sandwiches".

"What kind of soup?"

There was a loud sigh on the other end of the line and the clatter of a telephone impatiently dropped on to the reception desk.  I heard the sound of retreating footsteps.  He was away for a very long time while I listened to a phone ringing plaintively in the distance: no doubt an importunate guest. But I was hungry so I hung for what seemed like 15 minutes.  Finally I heard the shuffle of approaching footsteps, and the concierge at last came back on the line:

"It's soup of the day!"

The other one comes from 'Taki' and concerns the Clintons when they were younger.

"Apparently Bill was driving a white pick-up, and on a muddy path late at night ran over a skunk family trying to cross the road.  Hillary screamed at him to stop, which he did.  When she went back she found papa skunk and mama skunk very much dead but baby skunk still alive but barely so.  She picked it up and got inside the car.  Bill faked compassion but even he came around when the baby skunk began to shiver with shock and cold. 'Keep it warm,' he told Hilary.  So she put it gently in her lap and tried to keep it warm between her legs. 'But what about the smell?' she asked Bubba. 'Oh, just put your handkerchief over its nose,' answered the future 42nd President of the United States."

All quite disgraceful, of course, but I still haven't stopped laughing.  Talking of which, my title for this post, of course, comes from Twelfth Night and was used by 'darling Noel' as the title to one of his most successful plays, currently revived in the West End. It reminds me to tell you, especially any of you within spitting distance of Twickenham, that our Christmas show this year is a medley of 'Coarse Acting' plays.  The "onlie begetter" of Coarse Acting was, and happily still is, Michael Green, now in his 80th year and a member of the Richmond Shakespeare Society. The only way to describe a 'Coarse Acting' play is that it contains within it everything that can possibly go wrong in an amateur production - and then some you would never have thought of!  The titles of the four playlets concerned give, I think, the flavour of the enterprise which has been titled: COARSE ACTING - THE REVENGE!

Present Slaughter; The Cherry Sisters; Henry the Tenth (Part Seven) and A Fish in her Kettle.

Not to be missed between Dec 6th to the 16th if you want to start the turgid, festive season in the right hysterical mode!

"Not a lotta' people know that!" #7

I have joined a club.  Given the range of possibilities and that London is, more or less, just up the road you will be disappointed to know that it is my local PROBUS club.  I confess that until I retired down here I had never heard of PROBUS, an acronym whose meaning I am still not absolutely certain of but which means, in effect, retired old farts with nothing better to do than meet once a fortnight. Each club has different ways of arranging their meetings but ours I think is the best. We meet around 10.15 in the local hotel, in time for coffee (always an essential for me mid-morning) and begin at 10.30.  A few club notices are followed by one of the members acting as a warm-up man and telling a few jokes.  We used to have a splendid old codger (now, alas, too ill) who broke every rule in the stand-up comics rule book and who delivered his jokes in a frightfully up-market English drawl irrespective of whether the characters in the joke were Scots, Irish, American or anything.  His timing was atrocious and he frequently lost his way in the delivery.  He was weepingly funny!  Anyway, after that, we have a guest speaker, and if I tell you that a fortnight ago we had an ex-Brigadier of Ghurkas, and today we listened to a lady wig-maker, you will have some idea of the breadth of subject matter we get to hear about. Occasionally I have given talks myself - yes, you ungrateful wretches, there are people out there who pay for the privilege of listening to me!

Anyway, from today's speaker I learned what "not a lotta' people know that" in olden days gentlemen would never, but never, remove their wigs unless forced to do so and that such events were often the precurser to fisticuffs, hence the saying when attempting to calm some one down, "Keep your hair on!" Similarly, in the 17th c. when wigs were de rigor for gentlemen, and the bigger and more ornate the better, the expression "big wigs" arose as a description of gentry.

You know, you can read all those other intellectual blogs, like Oliver Kamm's and Norman Geras's but they'll never tell you really important things like that!

SELL - but BUY!

I mentioned below my recent past-time of playing the markets.  I hasten to make clear that I do not sit here in my dressing gown tapping away buy and sell orders on an hourly basis like those courageous day-traders, that's much too much like hard work, and even worse, high risk. However, in the last 3 years I have used an on-line dealing service here which allows one to buy or sell as much or as little as you like at the flat rate of £10 a deal.  They provide an excellent back-up service of files that show all your dealings plus dividends or interest received so that end of year results can easily be printed off for the tax man. Regrettably I am not on a commission basis for selling their service so I can tell you that there are many others doing the same thing. Also I should make clear that I have only been doing this for 3 years so I am very definitely not an expert!

Happily, not being an expert has never stopped me from voicing an opinion, so here are my thoughts on the current situation - SELL! Or to be more precise, SELL NOW! Of course, you should have sold at least a week or more ago (as I did, he remarked smugly!) because shortly it will be time to BUY!  Don't bother asking how long or short "shortly" is because I haven't a clue.  What you need to do is read the financial pages daily and if you have satellite TV tune into the Bloomberg financial station and leave it running with the sound off, just keeping an occasional eye on it and turning the sound up if something looks interesting.  Gradually you will get a feel for how the market is moving and come to a tentative conclusion whether or not it is the right time to BUY.  For what it's worth, in my opinion it will be next year before the time is right to for me to go back in.  I would like to have at least two quarterly reports from our High Street Banks showing exactly how much bad debt they own before I commit to anything.  Also, in Q1 (see, I'm beginning to learn the lingo!) next year we should have a better appreciation of the American economy whose strength should never be underestimated, but just at the moment, should not be wagered on with the deeds of the house!

Still, the important point is that some one else's loss is possibly your gain.  For example, I sold Lloyds bank at 525p on Monday 29th and bled on the floor, but today they were down to 497p and with all the bad news surrounding Banks they could go even lower, at which time I will buy and with a bit of luck and a following wind they will rise again taking me with them.  I should stress that it is impossible to guess the bottom, or the top, of a market but you can take a reasoned view as to which way the arrow is pointing.

I have developed a policy of building my little portfolio - and it is little, £10k max - with a mixture of FTSE 100 shares in good, solid sectors like Oil, Banks, Utilities and Pharmaceuticals, and in companies that pay good dividends which I tend to treat as the bunce which helps to pay for the dealing costs of £10 in buying or selling the shares.  In addition, I like to have a punt on small and more speculative shares and for that purpose I subscribe to a monthly Share Tip magazine, Momentum Investor, which, whilst it hasn't always been right, has been right a lot more often that it has been wrong.  You can make some spectacular gains with these - I still think fondly of Peter Hambro Mining whilst kicking myself for selling too early - but you have to be ruthless in selling if things begin to go downhill - as they did with an outfit I nicknamed my 'Spanish grocers' which cost me double dear!  Once things begin to slide, SELL, swallow the loss and use the money elsewhere to BUY and hope to make back your losses.  This year the stock markets of the world have become increasingly volatile and the gaps between the volatility shorter and shorter thus requiring me to watch my stocks on a daily basis.  However, in smoother times (and provided you are not heavily into speculative shares), you can cruise along checking in every few days. Frankly, the waters are too choppy for my taste at the moment but next year - who knows!

Incidentally, I would add this piece of advice.  My hobby, for such it is, is suitable for a retiree with time and a little bit of spare cash. However, if you are young with many years in front of you, then I would urge you to seek good advice in choosing an investment fund - or three - or more - which will work your money for you in the markets over the years.  They will charge a commission but if you buy them via a money-supermarket like the one I use then at least you will avoid the extra commission demanded by an IFA.  If you can invest like that for 20 or 30 plus years you should enjoy an excellent return even if (in fact, especially if) the markets see-saw up and down, as they always do. Early next year, when the markets are likely to be down, would be an excellent time to start!

As for my own credentials, I can tell you that in almost exactly 3 years I have made £2,450 employing an average of £7,500 capital.  That's about double what I would have earned if I had put it in a savings plan at 5%.  And I am a rank beginner - and dim, as well! Anyway, who else has a hobby that makes a profit?

Murder Inc. #21 (Nov 07)

My amateur effort to keep track of the murdered body count in this "scepter'd Isle" since July 3rd 2007, as the government and the liberals insist that crime figures are falling and there is no need to look again at sentencing policy. 

In 1960 there were approximately 250 homicides a year.  This year, in only 4 months we have already exceeded that total, and done it despite huge improvements in A&E that have saved many lives that would have been lost 40 years ago.

My sources are the BBC News sites which do not necessarily report every homicide on the main regional bulletins, so this is not an exhaustive list. For my purposes, men and women are 17+ years and children are 16- years.

TOTAL SINCE 3/7:  183 men:  51 women:  24 children:

CODES: EN= England, SC=Scotland, NI=Northern Island, WA=Wales.

Thu 1st - Thu 8th Nov

Not a good start for the ladies this month, especially if you were old and in hospital which used to be thought of as a sanctuary.  Anyway, 5 of you were 'offed' in the first week! Also note, a 13-yr old was charged with murder after bashing a man on the head and burning him in a bonfire - 13 years old!

• EN: Chilwell: Man 40s, assaulted, died.
• EN: Plymouth: Man 90, assaulted over parking place
• EN: Horsham: Boy 15, attacked at party, man 18 arr.
• EN: Soton: Man 32 stabbed in fight, 2 men arr.
• EN: Reepham: Woman 80, man arr.
• EN: Helston: Woman 39, man 64 arr.
• EN: Lewisham: Woman 84, killed in hosp, man 85 arr.
• EN: Leeds: Man 20/30s found dead by canal
• EN: Hull: Man 20s, stabbed, man 22 arr.
• EN: Sheffield: Man 46, woman 34, dead in house, man arr.
• EN: Wirral: Man 34, head inj, burnt in bonfire, 13-yr old charged
• EN: Bolton: Man 34, hit and run
• EN: Runcorn: Boy 2, man 24, woman 22 arr.
• EN: Leics: 2 elderly women, in nursing home, man arr.
• NI: Dungannon: Man 20, beaten to death, 2 men arr.
• EN: Stourbridge: Man 24, 2 men arr.

By providing these bare details I hope to impress on you that these are not just statistics but were real human beings with families, friends and a future before them - just like me and you, really!

My amateur effort to keep track of the murdered body count in this "scepter'd Isle" since July 3rd 2007, as the government and the liberals insist that crime figures are falling and there is no need to look again at sentencing policy. 

In 1960 there were approximately 250 homicides a year.  This year, in only 4 months we have already exceeded that total, and done it despite huge improvements in A&E that have saved many lives that would have been lost 40 years ago.

My sources are the BBC News sites which do not necessarily report every homicide on the main regional bulletins, so this is not an exhaustive list. For my purposes, men and women are 17+ years and children are 16- years.

TOTAL SINCE 3/7:  183 men:  51 women:  24 children:

CODES: EN= England, SC=Scotland, NI=Northern Island, WA=Wales.

Bloom is doom but Steyn is fine!

Sorry for the even sillier than usual title but go here and read a superb essay on the sad death of music and culture.

The Monday rumble, or, the Sunday rumble a day late!

After my heroic efforts in the cauldron that is our kitchen on Saturday night (see below) I had an away day yesterday so this rumble through sundry burps and belches is a day late.

Best Science Blog. I have raised the font size to draw attention to this absolutely critical election in which every vote is essential  in order to save the planet ... er, well, not quite ... I'm falling into the HAF habit of exaggerating. However, there is an election to vote for the Best Science blog and I would humbly suggest you place a vote now for Steve McIntyre's blog Climate Audit.  Remember, he was the man who single-handedly forced NASA to revise its temperature records for the USA downwards by dint of dedicated and careful statistical analysis.  He receives no grants or subsidies, he is just a retired geologist and mining engineer with a superb grasp of statistics and a grip like a bull terrier in seeking the truth - where-ever it may lead. Vote now, vote often, here.

Is it time to cull 'Noo Yawk Wimmin'? I have one or two regular American readers whom I have no desire to upset so I should explain.  These days I am rather addicted to the Bloomberg Financial News Station on satellite TV.  This addiction began when I started to play the stock markets - "play" being the operative word!  I will not bore you all with endless tales of my successes because you are all grown up enough to know that gamblers only ever tell of their winners, and seldom mention their losers.  Anyway, this splendid TV station moves round the globe synchronised to the dealing rooms of the world as they open for trading.  Consequently, around midday, they start to move over the Atlantic ready for the NYSE to open.  It is at this point that the dreaded 'Noo Yawk Wimmin' appear, their nasal accents capable of cutting hardened steel, their rate of delivery equalling a Vickers maching gun (and yes, I know that dates me!) and their glossy, reflective couture capable of deflecting missiles.  Turn the sound down, and they all look rather delicious, turn it back on and a pathetic 'Limey' like me can only run for cover.  My idea of culling them is only restrained by my suspicion that the cullers would suffer enormous casualties in the ensuing campaign.

Kamm allows his ideology to rule over the real world - again! Once again, my e-friend, Oliver Kamm, runs amok with stars in his eyes, blinded to the real world that everyone else can see and indeed, some have to live with on a daily basis, that is, the swamping effects of alien cultures inundating the city heartlands of Britain.  He berates a hapless Tory prospective candidate in the Wolverhampton area for quoting with approval a former MP for Wolverhampton, Enoch Powell. Reluctantly, I am forced to get rather 'down and dirty' with Oliver.  He is a Jew who has previously lived in the more civilised parts of London and who now resides in the affluent sanctuary of Brighton and Hove.  Were he a Jew who had lived his life in, say, Wolverhampton, and seen his neighbourhood turned from an Anglo-Saxon area of 'live and let live' to an area of almost total Muslim control, he might, just, have been able to think outside the box of fine, old, liberal precepts handed down since Disraeli was prime minister.  Unfortunately, as it stands on this particular subject, we are forced to watch the painful spectacle of a fine mind running on auto!

More gambling. I took a bet the other day.  Not a large one, only a fiver, but still, real money.  I bet a friend that 'Hash Brown'* will lose the next election. It isn't only the folly of funking the election that destroyed in an instant everything he had built up so successfully; no, it is the relentless sound of beating wings as various chickens come home to roost that will do for him.  First off is likely to be Northern Rock, or 'Northern Jelly' as I prefer to think of it.  The abject cowardice that panicked him into underwriting NR's black hole will only be measured in the coming months as  the exact depth and width of the hole is measured.  It is already measured in tens of billions, and that will have to be paid for by you and me - not Prudence! Talking of holes, there is, of course, the eye-wateringly expensive hole to be bored across London for Tube trains to run late on, the cost of which is yet again underwritten by you and me, but not Prudence.  As I wrote before, the news can only get worse for Labour as the next two years pass by.

* I have, er, 'borrowed'  the nickname "Hash Brown" from another blogger but for the life of me I cannot remember where I read it, but who ever he is, he is a witty fellow.

This cooking lark's a doddle!

I cooked dinner for six yesterday. Well, to be strictly accurate, I cooked the starter and the main course and the little 'Memsahib' produced a magnificent concoction of meringue with a chestnut and pistachio filling that melted in the mouth - but, hey, that's just pud, it's starters and mains that cut the mustard (but for God's sake don't tell her I said so)!

Now to put this in context I should explain that I was once sacked from the job of tea-maker to a bunch of building site workers.  On my first morning they realised very quickly that I was useless so I was dispatched to make the tea.  I found a wood-burning fire in an old oil drum with a billycan suspended above it full of water but with three bits of wood floating in it.  Mentally sneering at these 'Oirish' oiks and their dreadful lack of basic hygiene, I instantly threw the wood out, got the fire going and brewed the tea.  They all trooped in, tasted the tea and proceeded to spit it out along with some deeply offensive comments concerning my family history.  Well, I didn't know that if you boiled water over a wood fire it attracted the taste of wood smoke and that the way round it was to throw in some pieces of wood which attracted the smoke to themselves and left the water tasting clear.

Anyway, since then I have become a very decent breakfast, or to be precise, a 'brunch' chef.  Years of experience in feeding overnight guests suffering with various degrees of hangover has taught me that it is no good asking them what they would like for 'brunch'.  Running through a menu starting with black pudding, fried eggs and so on merely produces a muffled "Nothing for me, thanks" followed by a hasty exit.  However, an hour later, after they have 'abluted' and when they actually smell the grilled bacon, suddenly they rediscover their appetite.

But, when it comes to proper cooking, I must confess that I am very definitely one of life's consumers, not producers.  So, it was slightly irritating when one of my pals who had spent a day at some frightfully smart cookery school run by a 'Telly' chef, insisted on cooking a meal for all of us - splitter! Even worse was the fact that it was, I am forced to admit, bloody delicious! Then another friend did the same thing with equally scrummy results.  You can see, dear reader, that the honour of "Duff & Nonsense" was at stake - or should that be 'at steak'?  Anyway, I determined that I must accept the implicit challenge and last night was the test.

There is, I think, one simple rule to be followed by anyone in the position in which I found myself last night, that is, get your guests pissed as quickly as possibly before the meal! Thus, a jug of home-made, dryer-than-the-bloody-Sahara-desert, dry martini was placed in the deep freeze at lunch time and served to my rival chefs at 7.00 pm in so-called martini glasses that are so enormous they could double for pint pots in the pub except for their shape.  The ladies were plied with gin and tonics - "Only a very, very weak one for me", "Of course, my dear!", glug, glug, glug - so that within the hour no-one was feeling any pain!

Now to the meal. Well, the starter was easy-peasy.  The Little 'Memsahib' had some fish stock to which I added copious amount of wine, some of the milk in which smoked cod had been poached the night before, a dollop of cream plus, the remains of the cod flaked into tiny bits, some pepper, heat, stir and serve in some handy little china cups that 'Mr. Waitrose' had been kind enough to provide earlier in the year when they contained a chocolate pudding.  Cleaned out they make the perfect serving container for what the smarter sort of eating establishment calls a "bouche amusant".

But what about the mains, I hear you cry! No probs!  The truth must be told and so I confess that I am by nature a frier - not a boiler, or a roaster, or a poacher - I am a frier.  So, I made up some good, old-fashioned bubble and squeak with dark green cabbage to give it some colour.  I divided this into little round pat-a-cakes which I fried and then place in a warm oven whilst I did other things.  I cooked a tomato-based pasta sauce using a tin of peeled tomatoes with herbs.  I fine-chopped some onion and carrots, fried them in oil with some garlic sauce, then threw in the tomatoes, simmered them with a good slug of white wine - and a spoonful of sugar!  I am forced, in case she finds out, to tell you that this was the little 'Memsahib's' idea.  Keep it all simmering until the liquid element is reduced such that it will be wet but not runny.  Then, having previously prepared some cherry tomatoes, chopped mushroom and onions and softened them in a frying pan with some butter, then toss in a mixture of bite-sized slivers of sirloin and lamb steak.  Stir fry for a minute or two, then place your pat-a-cakes of bubble and squeak on the plates, a spoonful of the tomato sauce and dish out, what I can only call, modestly, Steak and Lamb a la Duff . But, finally, garnish the meat, mushrooms, tomatoes with some stir-fried bean sprouts.

One final advantage with this clever technique of mine is that because your guests are so pissed before they even reach the table, you can serve all this with the cheapest Chateaux de Plonk which they will all be incapable of discerning.

Cheers!