GOOGLE is developing software for the first phone capable of translating foreign languages almost instantly — like the Babel Fish in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
By building on existing technologies in voice recognition and automatic translation, Google hopes to have a basic system ready within a couple of years. If it works, it could eventually transform communication among speakers of the world’s 6,000-plus languages.
[...]
However, some experts believe the hurdles to live translation remain high. David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor University, said: “The problem with speech recognition is the variability in accents. No system at the moment can handle that properly.
“Maybe Google will be able to get there faster than everyone else, but I think it’s unlikely we’ll have a speech device in the next few years that could handle high-speed Glaswegian slang.
“The future, though, looks very interesting. If you have a Babel Fish, the need to learn foreign languages is removed.”
In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the small, yellow Babel Fish was capable of translating any language when placed in the ear. It sparked a bloody war because everyone became able to understand what other people were saying.
Some people, David Crystal included, may actually wish to learn foreign languages, and possibly for pleasure rather than profit. Let's have a look at this "automated translation" by running the last couple of paragraphs of the Sunday Times article through Babelfish. Here they are, translated into German and back into English:
„The future, although, looks very interesting. If you have a Babelfish, the necessity to learn foreign languages removed.
“In the leader of the Trampers to the galaxy, the small, yellow Babelfish was capable of of each possible language of translating, as put into the ear. It transmitted a bloody war, because everyone became able to understand what other people said.
Times reader Patrick Routley points out a misprint with regard to that newspaper's religious affairs correspondent Ruth Gledhill:
Last word to Patrick Routley: “ ‘Expert analysis on the latest religious issues in Ruth Gledhill’s bog’ (January 29, page 21). I suppose it’s as good a place as any.”
The writing is on the wall.
Talking of bogs - do Americans use the word like that? - I get a bit irritated when people talk about things that "boggle the mind". The mind boggles of its own accord; it is not boggled by some transitive boggler.
Ms Luscombe, a friend of Ms Hirsi Ali, said: ‘I think that is where they met for the first time. In all the years I have known Ayaan, she’s never had a boyfriend. She’s gorgeous, but with a fatwa, it’s tricky to find guys.’
Yes, as Hugh nearly said, will the real Akbar Zib please stand up. Hugo Rifkind in The Times:
[W]hy is it, do you think, that Silvio Berlusconi of Italy is an international joke, but Jacob Zuma of South Africa is not?
Silvio just stares at bottoms and cops off with the odd prostitute. Zuma has four wives, and he’s just had his 20th (official) child with somebody else entirely. According to a spokesman from the ANC, his party, this relationship wasn’t adulterous because a polygamist such as Zuma could have married the mother of his latest child, even though he actually didn’t. Magnificent logic. It’s like stealing a car and pleading innocence on the basis that you could have paid, but just didn’t want to. Apparently he even got divorced once. You wonder why he felt the need.
“That’s my culture,” said Zuma himself, of his polygamy, when asked about it (for some reason) in Davos. “It does not take anything from me, from my political beliefs and everything, including the belief on the equality of women.” I wonder if Zuma has misunderstood the word “equality” in the phrase “the equality of women”, and just thinks it just means “interchangeability”. That would explain a lot.
Zuma, of course, is the man who once famously tried to avoid HIV infection by taking a shower. In South Africa, the media lampoons him to hell and back, to the extent that he has tried to stop them, through the courts. Over here, we’re far more wary. He makes us uneasy, dancing in his leopard skin and singing that lovely song about his machinegun. It’s like we’re scared of mocking any part of him, for fear it might look like old-school, broad-brush racism.
Pull yourselves together, satirists of the First World! The guy’s got four wives, and he still can’t keep it in his trousers. What more can he do to get us sneering?
Well at least he doesn't eat people, at least not as Idi Amin did.
Turning through ninety degrees, I really like the French term grande horizontale for the female equivalent of Zuma. I believe this translates as Frenchwoman.
Ten thousand Tracey Emin tents have today arrived in Haiti in the latest bid to provide the country’s earthquake victims with vital Brit Art aid. But the tents, embroidered with the names of every Boy Scout Emin has ever slept with, have received a cool reception from aid workers on the ground.
‘They’re a bit on the small side,’ said a spokesman for Oxfam. ‘You couldn’t get a Margate tart and a Boy Scout in here – not standing up anyway.’ But Emin – who denied she might move to Haiti for tax reasons – said she hoped to teach Haitians how to exploit their predicament as performance art. ‘We might wrangle Arts Council funding,’ she said, ‘if I can persuade them to stay in their air pockets long enough for me to do a few sketches.’
Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, who has taken his installation ‘Work No. 227, the lights going on and off’ to Haiti, complained that thousands of Haitians have stolen his idea. ‘There’re lights going on and off all over the place here,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d brought my ‘Work No 79, some Blu-tack, kneaded, rolled into a ball and depressed against a wall’ instead.’
Also in Haiti is ‘Angel of the North’ Antony Gormley. ‘I’ve got a brilliant idea involving a plinth if I can only find something still standing in Port-au-Prince. Christ, this place looks like bleedin’ Gateshead,’ he said.
Three Labour MPs and one Tory peer will face criminal charges over their expenses, Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer has said.
MPs Elliot Morley, Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Lord Hanningfield will be charged under the Theft Act.
In a joint statement the MPs said they denied any charges and would "defend our position robustly".
Revelations about MPs expenses emerged in May last year with the police going on to investigate a handful of cases.
Labour peer Lord Clarke will not be charged but a sixth case remains under investigation, said Keir Starmer.
Announcing the Crown Prosecution Service decision, Mr Starmer said: "In four cases, we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges and that it is in the public interest to charge the individuals concerned.
"Accordingly, summonses in these cases have been obtained from the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court and will now be served on the individuals in question."
[...]
Former minister Elliot Morley, MP for Scunthorpe, will be face two charges in relation to a total of £30,000 of mortgage interest claims on a property in Winterton, Lincolnshire between 2004 and 2007.
The charges allege he made claims "in excess of that to which he was entitled" and - for part of the period when "there was no longer a mortgage on that property".
David Chaytor, MP for Bury North, is accused of "dishonestly claiming" £1,950 for IT services and further sums of £12, 925 and £5,425 relating to rent claims on properties which he and his mother allegedly owned.
Livingston MP Jim Devine is accused of "dishonestly claiming" money for cleaning services and for stationery using false invoices.
[..]
Paul White - the Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield - is accused of "dishonestly" submitting claims "for expenses to which he knew he was not entitled" - including overnight stays in London.
That there are three Labour MPs to one Tory is no surprise. Labour MPs, who preach redistribution of wealth, are usually caught with their hand in the till, while Tory MPs, who preach morality, are usually caught with their trousers down.
I suspect there were others equally criminal, but there was insufficient evidence to nail them. Shahid Malik, for instance, described rather too kindly as a "crafty bugger".
No doubt Muslims will point to the prosecution of these MPs as evidence of the West's corruption, when in fact it is the opposite. Of course, it would be much simpler if leaders just took one fifth of the booty, as Mohammed did.
Will the Honorable Member for Karachi please rise?
With his unassuming face, who could tell that this man is a big nob at the Pakistani High Commission? Salem News reports:
(SALEM, Ore.) - A high level Pakistani diplomat has been rejected as Ambassador of Saudi Arabia because his name, Akbar Zib, equates to "Biggest Dick" in Arabic. Saudi officials, apparently overwhelmed by the idea of the name, put their foot down and gave the idea of his being posted there, the kibosh.
Akbar Zib is no newcomer to politics, in fact you could say he's a pretty big deal. This long-ranging high level diplomat has worked with some of the largest members of world governments, players charged with negotiating the outcome of the world's current events.
He most recently served as High Commissioner Designate of Pakistan to Canada, and prior to that he was the ambassador of Pakistan to South Africa,. He also served in that capacity in Washington from 1983-87, and New Delhi from 1994-2000.
He earlier worked at the Pakistan headquarters as section officer from 1982- 83, director from 1987-94 and director-general from 2000-2003.
Miangul Akbar Zib, also whose name news agencies sometimes refer to as Zib, was born on 15 February, 1954. He holds a Masters degree.
I was saying only yesterday that we hadn't heard much about Cherie Blair recently. Cherie Blair is, of course, the grasping and rather common wife of one of the worst Prime Ministers Britain has ever had. And up she pops, in her professional capacity, behaving unprofessionally in showing favouritism to a Muslim. From the BBC:
A secularist group has lodged an official complaint against Cherie Booth QC after she spared a man from prison because he was religious.
Shamso Miah, 25, of Redbridge, east London, broke a man's jaw following a row in a bank queue.
Sitting as a judge, Ms Booth - wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair - said she would suspend his sentence on the basis of his religious belief.
The National Secular Society claims her attitude was discriminatory and unjust.
Inner London Crown Court heard that Miah, 25, of Redbridge, east London, went into a bank in East Ham and became embroiled in a dispute with Mohammed Furcan about who was next in the queue.
Miah - who had just been to a mosque - punched Mr Furcan inside the bank, and again outside the building.
Ms Booth told Miah that violence had to be taken seriously, but said she would suspend his prison sentence because he was a religious person and had not been in trouble before.
She added: "You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour."
The National Secular Society has complained to the Office for Judicial Complaints, suggesting that Mrs Blair acted in an unjust and discriminatory way, and suggesting that she might have treated a non-religious person less leniently.
Since the religion in question is Islam, violence is indeed "acceptable behaviour". On the other hand, this appears to be violence against a fellow Muslim, judging from the name, which would make it unacceptable. And what were those infidels doing making him queue?
The Prince of Wales has never been a man to suffer from a lack of enemies, from modern architecture to intensive farming. Yesterday, however, he declared war on a new — but also ancient — adversary: the Enlightenment.
Even by the Prince’s standards, his opposition to the system of beliefs that came to dominate thinking in the 18th century and has held sway ever since is an ambitious one, if a little tardy.
Long regarded as the foundation of contemporary political and intellectual culture, by way of influences ranging from the American Declaration of Independence to the scientific method as embraced from Isaac Newton on, the Enlightenment was based on the belief that all society’s ills could be vanquished by the application of reason.
Its seminal figures included the likes of Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Voltaire and Rousseau. To Prince Charles, however, it is old hat. “I was accused once of being the enemy of the Enlightenment,” he told a conference at St James’s Palace. “I felt proud of that.”
“It might be time to think again and review it and question whether it is really effective in today’s conditions, faced as we are with huge challenges all over the world. It must be apparent to people deep down that we have to do something about it.
About what, exactly?
On a dinner date in “The Jerk”, the Steve Martin character demands a new wine, and won’t be palmed off with one of those old wines. Quite right too. New is better. Euston Station is better than St Pancras. The New English Bible is better than the King James Version with its incomprehensible “thees” and “thous”. New lamps are better than old - usually. As for new wine, under the progressive religion, it is neither here nor there; forward-thinking Mohammed banned it altogether rather than merely commanding, as fuddy-duddy old Jesus did, that you put it in new bottles.
As for the Church of England, of which Charles, if he reigns, will be head - out with it. Let's try Islam for a change.
On a different note, what's so good about Rousseau? The "Noble Savage" is surely one of the stupidest ideas since Islam.
Hello dear lovely friend and I am introducing myself at you as Dr Jericho Kwantana Pot MD.
Most recently since birth I have been leaving Nigeria to start my new life in Canadia but due to and because of international bank lawings and English Cesspits, good Nigerian doctors like I and myself are unable to be allowed to make huge and large inter-continental money transferings to the Bank of Torontoro.
Dearest lovely friend, I have in a prized Zurich account-hole waiting 21 billions dollar money. I am able and ready to transfer this cash bomb to you and if able to hold and send to my wife in Canadia, I will make the kind offer to you of full 10 percentage of totals.
I hope with sincerity and much enthusiasms that you are able to look kindly upon my Canadian ambitions. One last and final pleading to you: In order for transactions to overtake speedily, I require that you send to me very kindly the sort code and account number of every Person and Kettle in the Cesspit of England.
Israel behave[s] considerably better than other Middle Eastern countries, even when it is behaving badly.
It was The Times that first reported the use of white phosphorus shells while Israel was conducting Operation Cast Lead into Gaza at the beginning of last year. Having initially denied using the shells at all, and then having subsequently insisted that they were only used for cover, the Israel Defence Forces have now reprimanded two senior army officers for “exceeding their authority in a manner that jeopardised the lives of others”.
The reprimand relates directly to the shelling of the United Nations headquarters in Gaza, in which more than 700 Palestinians were sheltering. For all those interested in Israel’s relations with the rest of the world, it brings two lessons. The first is that, unlike many of its neighbours, Israel has a strong domestic desire to hold itself to account. The second is that, in this most fraught and nuanced of regions, condemnatory megaphone diplomacy does not work.
For an example of such ineffective megaphone diplomacy, consider Judge Richard Goldstone’s report into the Gaza conflict for the UN, released last September. Both dangerously and unreasonably, Judge Goldstone implied an equivalence between the indiscriminate rocket fire with which Hamas bombarded Israel and the steps that Israel subsequently took to defend itself. While he alleged war crimes on both sides, he reserved his strongest ire for Israel’s “disproportionate” use of force and its “deliberate targeting” of Palestinian civilians.
Faced with such provocative bias, a country might be expected to slam down the shutters and turn away. Instead, the Middle East’s only functioning democracy quietly continued to conduct its own investigation into the conflict, which it has now submitted to the UN. The censure of Brigadier-General Eyal Eisenberg and Colonel Ilan Malka, a brigade commander — the first high-ranking officers to be named as having been at fault — is an indication that this is no mere whitewash. True, Israel’s process is far from flawless. The deployment of white phosphorus shells over a heavily populated area is an horrific act. When such shells explode, they shower sticky and flaming pieces that burn and burrow into clothing and flesh. A “slap on the wrist” (to quote one senior Israeli official) is an indefensibly cursory punishment for those responsible. Even so, it should be seen for what it is — a clear acknowledgment by Israel that, during the conflict, it behaved in a manner in which it should not.
For obvious reasons, Israel is a country deeply uncomfortable about criticising its own military. But those who cry “war crime” and seek to paint Israel as a pariah do diplomacy itself a disservice. They make it harder, not easier, for that country to behave as it should. Contrary to the impression some would like to give, Israel is not a rogue state with good PR, content, like Shakespeare’s Claudius, to smile and smile and be a villain. It is an accountable, democratic, transparent nation, and fighting to remain one amid challenges that few other nations ever have to face.
Any chance that the "Palestinians" will be held to account for their permanent jihad against Israel, and their use of civilians as human shields? What do you think?
It's a Management Tool. Saltham Sangera in The Times pointed out one of the most banal blogs in the .... oh what the hell, call it the blogosphere. Take a break, have a coffee and read The Coffee Cup as Management Tool:
One of your best management tools may be a coffee cup. The simple act of taking someone to coffee gives you an opportunity to sit with them, listen, and learn. That kind of a conversation can be powerful employee motivation. It can head off conflict and violence. Just sharing a cup of coffee gives you a great chance to learn important information about yourself, your employees, your company, and even your competitors.
[...]
One place I worked had a coffee shop in the ground floor of the building and another across the street. There was also a breakfast restaurant half a block away where you could get coffee. One supervisor I know, however, would just sneak off to the employee lunch room. He would "buy" a cup of coffee for the person he was meeting with and they would sit at one of the tables and talk. No phones, no cell phones, and they ignored the pagers.
[...]
"Grabbing a cup off coffee together" doesn't have to only mean coffee. If you or the person with whom you are meeting doesn't care for coffee, or just wants a break from it, there are plenty of alternatives. Tea and cocoa are a couple of other alternatives that come to mind. In fact, in many countries, tea may be the preferred alternative. However, it doesn't have to stop there. The whole point is to get away from the distractions for a little while, so the beverage really doesn't matter. Bottled water may suit. Sports drinks, fruit juices, and sodas are all acceptable. It only needs to be something relatively inexpensive that is readily available, can be served quickly, and that you can linger over while you talk.
I'd like to hear this chap on the subject of etchings.
I tend to say "a cup of coffee" rather than "a coffee", but I would happily talk about "a beer". Nobody says "a wine" or "a tea", so I strongly suspect that "a coffee" is an Americanism.
I heard somewhere that the Chinese find it hilarious when the English, and presumably other "foreigners" ask for "a ticket" or "a pen" or "a biscuit" or whatever in Chinese. The Chinaman apparently doesn't see items in the singular, but as lumps of some great big abstraction. What we're supposed to ask for is "a piece of ticketness", "a portion of penhood" or "a bit of biscuitude". So if you asked for "a tea" you'd get all the tea in China.
If this is true, it's very weird, and may explain why they can't shake off communism.
Ibn Abbas said: "The asking (of any du'a should be accompanied by) raising your hands to the level of your shoulder, or around that level. The seeking of forgiveness (istighfar) (should be accompanied by) pointing with one finger (i.e. the forefinger). Petitioning (is done by) stretching forth your hands totally (above the head, such that the armpits are exposed)".
Wash first, that your armpits may be your charmpits. Then you do the Hokey Hokey and you turn around.
Hokey Cokey is what I call it, but some people call it the Hokey Pokey. More at Wiki-Piki:
According to one account,[1] in 1940, during the Blitz in London, a Canadian officer suggested to Al Tabor, a British bandleader of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s that he write a party song with actions similar to "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree". The inspiration for the song's title, "The Hokey Pokey", that resulted, came from an ice cream vendor whom Al had heard as a boy, calling out "Hokey pokey penny a lump. Have a lick make you jump". He changed the name to "The Hokey Cokey" at the suggestion of the officer who said that 'hokey cokey', in Canada, meant 'crazy' and would sound better. A well known lyricist/songwriter/music publisher of the time, Jimmy Kennedy, reneged on a financial agreement to promote and publish it, and finally Al settled out of court, giving up all rights to the number. There had been many theories and conjectures about the meaning of the words "Hokey Pokey", and of their origin. Some scholars[citation needed] attributed the origin to the Shaker song Hinkum-Booby which had similar lyrics and was published in Edward Deming Andrews' A gift to be simple in 1960: (p. 42) .
" A song rendered ("with appropriate gestures") by two Canterbury sisters while on a visit to Bridgewater, N.H. in 1857 starts thus:
I put my right hand in,
I put my right hand out,
I give my right hand a shake, shake shake
And I turn myself about.
As the song continues, the "left hand" is put in, then the "right foot," then the "left foot," then "my whole head."
...Newell gave it the title, "Right Elbow In," and said that is was danced " deliberately and decorously...with slow rhythmical motion."
Before the invention of ice cream cones, ice cream was often sold wrapped in waxed paper and known as a hokey-pokey (possibly a corruption of the Italian ecco un poco - "here is a little")[2] An Italian ice cream street vendor was called a hokey-pokey man.
What's a nice cream vendor like you doing in a street like this?
[B]y and large you cannot escape the conclusion that the most repulsive invasions of human rights that we see in the world today take place in countries where the national ideology is devolved from Islam. And the more directly or purely it is so devolved, the more primitive and savage it is.
No "by and large" about it.
"Primitive" and "savage" are good words and should be used more often to describe the savage and the primitive. Islam is both.
Update: "primitve" and "savage" are good words, but "devolved", as Hugh points out, is not.
And always will be, Christina Lamb fails to add. As long as Pakistan remains Muslim. FromThe Spectator:
Only a Pakistani journalist could have linked a New Jersey school’s decision to cancel its Christmas concert because of head lice with the American conspiracy to subjugate Islam.
In her ‘View From US’ column in the Dawn newspaper, Anjum Niaz, one of Pakistan’s leading journalists, quoted the letter to parents. ‘Although the likelihood of spreading lice by attending the concert is near zero, we feel that this is an appropriate precautionary measure at this time.’ In the same way, she complained, ‘peace-loving Muslims across the world are getting the flak’ as ‘the Americans are taking “appropriate precautionary measures” against the mother of all lice, al-Qa’eda’.
Over at The Nation, Ahmed Quaraishi had even less love for Washington. ‘The US design to destabilise Pakistan is becoming clearer by the day, even for the most blinkered Pakistani,’ he writes. ‘Now it is evident that the US is seeking to engulf the whole of Pakistan in an asymmetric conflict, which will eventually pit the people against the state, especially the military.’
From the daily diet of anti-American vitriol in the Pakistani media, you would never for a moment guess that the US is pouring in billions of dollars of aid to the country every year, not to mention $300 million for education and $20 million alone in Fulbright scholarships to American universities. Instead you will read about US plans to seize Pakistan’s nukes and to colonise the country with agents from Blackwater, the notorious private security company, accused of involvement in a deadly killing in Iraq. When Congress approved a $7.5 billion five-year aid package, Pakistani media accused the US of trying to interfere in its internal affairs.
The French always have to go one up. From Fox News:
Less than a month after British researchers said a woman’s G-spot may not exist, French doctors are saying the erogenous zone is not a myth after all, London’s Daily Telegraph reported.
A study from King’s College London, which was published earlier this month in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, included 1,800 women, who were all twins (some identical, some not). The researchers believed if one identical twin reported having a G-spot, this would make it far more likely that her sister would give the same answer. But no such pattern emerged, suggesting the G-spot is a matter of the woman’s subjective opinion.
However, French experts disagreed with the British experts.
"The English study is barking up the wrong tree," said France’s most popular gynecologist, Sylvain Mimoun. "It’s not a question of genetics, but of use."
Was he speaking ex orificio or on a French frolic of his own? Either way, he’s not France’s most popular gynaecologist for nothing. Most scientists wouldn’t touch the area with a barge pole.
While we’re on the water, it’s worth pointing out that the French have form for imagining things that aren’t there - a victory at Trafalgar for instance. Then, as now, they claimed that able seamen hit the spot, but I suspect rigging.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire (From Gates of Vienna).
Ooops! If this were QI the "klaxons of ignorance" would be sounding, signifying an obvious but wrong answer. Voltaire never said that; it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall. In any case, I'm getting bored with reading it. It has become a cliché
I disapprove of people saying it, but I will defend .. etc ...etc...
I read Khilafah.com, a taqiyya-free website, to learn about Islam. It was there that I picked up the invaluable Hadith about the shoelace of fire, and its flaming evil twin of twine. Today I read of the Ahkam Sharia, a "toolkit", as management consultants might say, for categorizing one's actions:
1. Fardh (obligatory): The one who performs the action will be rewarded by Allah and the one who neglects it will be punished. Example: the five daily prayers, fasting in the month of Ramadan and paying the Zakat.
2. Mandoob (recommended): The one who does the action will be rewarded and the one who neglects it will not be punished. Example: praying the Sunnah before Dhuhr or fasting on Mondays and Thursdays.
3. Makrooh (undesirable): The one who refrains from the action will be rewarded and the one who does it will not be punished. Example: drinking water while standing and eating onion before coming to the masjid.
4. Mubah (permisable): An action that does not incur a punishment or earn a reward. It is neither encouraged, nor is it discouraged. Example: sitting, standing, walking, and so on.
5. Haram (prohibited): The one who performs the action will be punished and the one who refrains from doing it will be rewarded. Example: murder, dealing in riba (interest), adultery, drinking alcohol and gambling.
I am intrigued by Number 4 Mubah, which is neither good nor bad. Beg leave to stand, sit or walk, and Mohammed (SAW) and Allah (SWT) would shrug their (SWT, SAW) shoulders and say "Whatev-ah".
But if standing, sitting and walking are neutral acts, what about lingering and loitering? Keats' knight at arms loitered palely to no purpose, but these days loitering is usually done with intent, sometimes near public lavatories. Is loitering mubah, or is it haram?. Lingering must surely be haram, since it is the domain of lovers, poets, dreamers and artists.
Muslims sit - in cafés or in "government" offices - doing nothing, but lounging, is, I suspect, an infidel pleasure. And Muslims walk, cetainly, widdershins round the black stone. But do they saunter? Sauntering seems to me a most un-Islamic way of getting from one place to another:
I enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye when I was fifteen, so fair play to J. D. Salinger. However, I have no truck with this "recluse" nonsense. For famous people to say that they hate fame is as much of a cliché as for them to say that they used to be an ugly duckling or geek. It's disingenuous attention-seeking twaddle. Some time ago Times leader put the recluse in the spotlight, where he is happiest:
Greta Garbo so craved anonymity that she became a Hollywood movie legend. Had Howard Hughes confined himself to making money instead of becoming an eccentric recluse, who might recognise his name today? The fastidiously reclusive Lucian Freud is Britain's most famous painter. Stanley Kubrick was as well known for shunning publicity as for making 2001: A Space Odyssey. Would Thomas Pynchon, never photographed or officially interviewed, be so renowned as the author of V and Gravity's Rainbow were he not such a legendary recluse? Pynchon is so famous he has made appearances on The Simpsons; albeit with a paper bag over his head. The reclusive J.D. Salinger, not a word in print in four decades, is nearly as eminent.
Joe Klein did the sales of Primary Colours, his roman à clef about the Clinton presidency, nothing but good by signing it “Anonymous”. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis flaunted her appetite for anonymity by marrying, in turn, a future American president and a Greek shipping magnate.
And the moral? That some are born famous, and some achieve fame; but in order to have stellar fame thrust upon you, just shun it vigorously.
For the benefit (geddit?) of our American cousins, the giro is a colloquial name for what you probably call a welfare check. And it's unfair to the welfare chick. From Newsbiscuit:
The results of a new Government-commissioned inquiry have revealed that women benefit cheats are still earning less than their male counterparts. Despite a dramatic rise in the numbers of people claiming benefits in 2009, the figures show that the average female malingerer is still getting only 89p for every pound a male fraudster hoodwinks off the state.
The report recommends that more be done to create ‘Dole Models’ for young women to aspire to, and for a network of ‘drop-out’ centres to be established, where girl grifters can learn how to forge a dead relative’s signature or pull off a convincing limp.
Convicted fraudster Michelle is one of those helping to inspire the next generation of ‘ladybouts’. Michelle was nicknamed Miss X by fraud officers until they realised that she was using that name to sign on as well.
[...]
Welfare campaigner Wilfred Perch believes that social security needs to be extended to prevent women spongers being discouraged by the perceived ‘glass giro’, which stops them rising to the top of the earners league. He says, ‘Women fraudsters are still being pigeon-holed into Housing and Child Benefit claims, but what’s wrong with them having a punt for traditionally male swizzles like Income Support or a Community Care Grant?’
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) denies that she manipulated the figures in the report. She says, ‘What the report doesn’t address is how many male fraudsters are actually being sent out ‘on the swindle’ by their wives and female partners. The figures aren’t as clear cut as they first appear, especially if you muck about with them a bit.’
Shadow minister for women, Daphne Crisp says, ‘Too many women are being discouraged from going ‘on the fiddle’ by a perception that they won’t be able to pull off as convincing a con as a man. This is patently rubbish. After all, women have been successfully faking it to men for generations.’
Oooh, how can you say that? Oooh ....aaaah.....aaaaah...aaaaah.......baby!!!
Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a film to conjure with. The plot involved sitting on a bed, rubbing a knob until one was taken to the blackout and beyond. Here is a little ditty, involving going down, bottom, bobbing and (hob)nobbing, all well-worn English traditions:
There'll always be an England, while there's a double entendre. (The French don't do 'em - they have l'esprit which is pretty limp.)
