One of the ironies of the recent murder of the abortionist George Tiller is the description of the anti-abortion stance as being pro life.

I heard one of the main anti-abortion campaigners on the radio news saying, “He was one of the most evil men on the planet. He deserved a legal execution.”

After searching on the internet I found a reference to this in this article.

Tell me. How can you possibly be pro life and yet at the same time be in favour of execution?

Among the leaflets we received was one from the No To EU party.

At least I think it’s from the No To EU party.

What the leaflet actually says is no²eu – all in lower case! – which I read as no squared, eu; or perhaps n, o squared, eu. Of these, I only recognise N as an SI unit. (Even then it would have to be a capital letter.) The remainder are gibberish.

I suppose it’s meant to be text-speak (no2eu) – which is a less than serious way to communicate with voters I’d have thought – but this mob can’t even get this right as the 2 is superscripted, thereby becoming the mathematical symbol not for the number two but instead the indication that the preceding symbol is to be multiplied by itself (squared.)

So, mathematically, we have no x no x eu, or n x o x o x eu which (expanded) become n x o x n x o x e x u and n x o x o x e x u.

What a glorious example of shooting yourself in the foot. I didn’t bother reading the rest. If they’re not prepared to engage with me as a literate and numerate adult I’m not going to treat them with respect either. I’ll just take the piss.

They do, however, give the lie to Nigel Farrage (whose surname is only its final vowel away from an apt description of the man) of UKIP who said in their PPB that UKIP was the only party standing for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Well, what do you expect from someone who looks and sounds like a sinister double-glazing salesman?

The Labour and SNP leaflets barely mentioned the EU at all, the Tories only to bash it in derogatory language. The Lib Dem leaflet was the only one that came anywhere near a programme for engagement with the EU.

There was nothing from the Greens. That’s my vote sorted then.

No, it bloody isn’t. Not in a UK parliamentary election, anyway.

Most of the time it’s nearest the post or, more often, quite-a-long-way-from-the-post-actually.

I happened to catch last week’s Question Time on the TV and some punter in the audience was banging on about how it gave us strong government.

Oh, yeah? Like the Major administration, or our present incumbents?

And strong government isn’t necessarily a good thing. A dictatorship is strong government after all. Don’t forget strong government gave us the depredations of Thatcherism.

I wish all politicians, punters, pundits, psephologists and the like would stop using this lazy, misleading description.

Or, better still, the former should give us some form of PR.

Any form of PR would likely be better than the present farrago where MPs and Governments regularly get elected on less than a quarter of the vote, never mind of the total electorate.

I was at work today.
And so was the rest of Scotland.
(Those of us with jobs still left, that is, in these credit-crunched/recessed/depressed, pick your description of choice, times.)

The first disruption came when my usual signal to get up (Terry Wogan) failed to appear on tbe radio.

After a full day I’d forgotten of course. When I got home and was about to sit down to eat I switched on the TV at the usual time expecting to catch the news. It wasn’t on. Instead there was some stupid film. And the so-called British media keep on referring to “the holiday.”

Well it wasn’t. Not for the whole of the UK, anyway.

Only one of the many annoyances perpetrated by the majority in ignorance of the quaint customs of the northern part of these islands.

The worst ramification of this nonsense came when, quite a few years ago now, Scottish banks decided to take English – and Welsh, I suppose – Bank Holidays. This meant that Scottish bank customers and businesses which were open as usual on Good Friday, Easter Monday and the last Mondays in May and August, couldn’t access their normal banking services and on Jan 2nd the banks were (uselessly) open even though the rest of Scotland was shut.

I suppose most shops etc. down South now open on these days, though, so not much difference in that regard.

Being interested in both Science Fiction and history I just love that sub-genre of SF which comes under the description of Alternate History but I must say I dislike the term itself.

Alternate of course means “by turns.” Alternate History ought, then, to mean history that occurred, changed, then reverted to its first course, then back to the second, etc. etc.

Alternative is no use either as it means “the other of two” – of only two; and of course there are myriad possible scenarios for history as it wasn’t, not merely two.

Proper [ie serious] historians denote Alternate History speculations (in which they do indulge themselves from time to time) by the term counterfactual history which, while being correct in essence, is a bit Latinate and unintuitive, not exactly snappy.

Which leaves us with what?

I know it’s probably too late now, but can I make a plea that we start calling the stuff Altered History?

When did this phraseology start to get muddled up?

It seems few people now use the term “on so-and-so’s behalf” in what I persist in thinking of as the correct sense. Instead they appear to use it to mean so-and-so did it (whatever it was.)

But “on so-and-so’s behalf” of course means “for so-and-so.” It means someone else did it; as an agent for so-and-so.

Something done by so-and-so would be done “on so-and-so’s part“, not on their behalf.

I heard Kirsty Wark use the phrase “all is not lost” on The Book Quiz this week.
Oh, Kirsty.

You see: all is lost (semantically) if the phrase is taken to mean “there’s some hope, still” because what all is not lost actually means is everything is exactly as it ought to be and therefore there isn’t and – never has been – a problem.
“All isn’t lost” can only mean nothing is lost; hence everything is fine. (Either that or all does not mean all.)

The phrase that really does mean “there’s some hope, still” is slightly different and would more accurately read, “not all is lost.”

Consider an equivalent construction to “all is not lost;” the statement “all policemen are not six feet tall.”
This means no policeman can be six feet tall, because all are not that height; hence every policeman must be some other height than six feet.

Whereas, to say “not all policemen are six feet tall” means that some- perhaps even most – may be six feet tall but others can be of a different height.

It is “not all is lost” that means some is lost but not that everything is. Not all.

Hope that’s cleared things up.

Nice to see it’s not only in the Scottish Third Division you get some bizarre refereeing decisions.

I refer of course to yesterday’s Liverpool-Chelsea game.

No more than five or so yards in front of the referee’s eyes Steven Gerrard made a dangerous, studs-up lunge on a Chelsea player, made firm contact with that player’s shin and then had the effrontery to complain about the consequent free-kick. He didn’t even get booked! The moaning git ought to have been sent off – for the dissent as much as for the challenge (which itself merited the sanction.)

Frank Lampard then challenged for, and got, the ball, was clattered by a Liverpool player (Alonso?) coming in late, but it was Lampard who was sent off.

Bosingwa assaulted a Liverpool player – his studs straight into the back of his opponent – right in front of the linesman (assistant referee? I think not) and hee-haw happens.

The second of these decisions arguably changed the game. The first could have done if the ref had been brave enough to send Gerrard off; as he deserved.

Some of these high profile players seem to think the laws of the game do not apply to them.

As for the refs: at least be consistent, eh? Anything Lampard did, or the ref might have thought he did, was no worse than Gerrard already had.

What cloth-eared, pea-brained, lazy thinking numpty ever came up with the monstrosities “should of, would of” and “could of?” I’ve even seen them on the printed page as if they are legitimate usages. (This was in books published in the US.)

Who on Earth can possibly think “of” is a legitimate auxiliary part of a verb?

Has anyone ever said something like, “I of started, so I’ll finish?”
I very much doubt it.

It only takes a moment’s thought to realise that the proper formulation of these three phrases is of course could have, would have, should have.

The fact that they can be contracted to could’ve, would’ve and should’ve doesn’t change their essential nature. And the pronunciation of the “‘ve” part ought to be more like “ff” than “of.”

So for those who do this I say, “Eff of; it’s “‘ve.”

An incursion.
Doesn’t sound so terrible does it? It’s as if it describes something inadvertent. (Oops, I strayed over a border. I didn’t mean to do that!) It’s almost cuddly.
But my Chambers gives it only as:- a hostile inroad: the action of running in: a sudden attack, invasion.
Not so cuddly after all.
It is in fact an act of aggression.
So why is the news being so mealy-mouthed about this?
Why, even before it happened, was the Israel move into Gaza being called by this less emotive word?
To ask the question is to get the answer. It makes an act of war seem less than that. It defines that act as more acceptable. It attempts to legitimise the bloodshed.
My opinion is that bloodshed is never acceptable: no matter who sheds it. Bombs and tanks in Gaza, rockets on Ashkelon, air strikes on Baghdad; all are equally immoral.
Call a spade a spade.
It’s war. Nothing less. It doesn’t deserve to be sanitised.