Dams And Rivers

There is a fuss about the fiftieth anniversary of a speech given in the West Midlands by the Conservative politician, Enoch Powell, in April of 1968.

In this period many speeches were given by a horde of politicians but he made this one with TV cameras present and not only was it recorded but saved. He warns of the risks of uncontrolled migration in florid terms.

It did not go down well in Westminster and other parts of London or the media. But in Wolverhampton when he turned up in the Director's box at the football ground, the fans on the South Bank gave him a cheer.

Powell was a highly qualified academic, the Classics, a Professor at 25, who had strayed into the upper reaches of the Tory Party, partly by force of intellect but more perhaps due to his ability to get the punters going and bring in the votes. He had a remarkable military career during World War II.

For ordinary people who puzzled over which bunch of grasping charlatans to vote for in this period of the 1960's he was different, a one off as we say today. His classical background had taught him how and where to put the boot in. See Shakespeare's "Coriolanus", show me your wounds.

This did not make him any better, or for that matter, worse. In a time when we were struggling to maintain a new peoples welfare state on the basis of a collapsing industrial structure there were many questions and few sensible answers.

There are things in history which we forget. Enoch Powell had a problem with being taken seriously and may explain his need to take the high ground and play the heavy man. It was the name Enoch.

For the key voting generation at the time there would have been vivid memories of the famous comedy act of earlier years, "We Three In Happidrome, Ramsbottom, Enoch and Me (Lovejoy)" see Youtube. Enoch was the daft one always getting it wrong and a hopeless case.

It explains why that first name dropped off the lists of first names chosen for new males born to proud parents. But poor Enoch Powell was stuck with it.

He really did have a problem of being taken seriously notably with his ideas about the USA being our enemy. So he laid it on like a trowel, as the saying goes.

Try this choice example at two minutes if you want a Labour parallel of sorts, but you may not last.

Paying For Crime

It is being said that the rise in crime, especially those of violence is entirely due to the reductions in numbers of police officers in the various constabularies. 'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's all this then? Come along to the station with me and explain.

May I confess that I have missed the boat there. Not realising that there may have been a reduction in the number of squealing police cars belting up the road to the motorway or if not then that is at the expense of feet on the ground in the streets.

The trouble is that here the scope for robbing and attacking shopkeepers is much reduced because so many of them have closed. One would have to go to centres which therefore attracts all those with inclinations to crime. Add to that they will go for the shops which do more business in cash that most.

Another issue is that of the gangs, who they are and where they came from. This is nothing new, it can be seen down the centuries. The famed London Mob of the 18th Century was largely made up of contingents of gangs who at times appeared as one.

With the age of film and TV one of the staples of production have been crime films in which often gangs have been at the centre. Al Capone eat your heart out, or somebody else's. The effect of these has been to glorify this activity to an extent with its appeal to rebellious youth as well as men on the make.

Again down the ages a feature of the composition of gangs has been rival groups of young men. Those who promote migration in principle often do not look at the facts of the figures. A good many migrants, past and present, have a high proportion of young men looking for work and money, and some money without the tiresome work.

Where one culture does not have freedoms of certain kinds, for example the women folk and another does, given the natural propensities of young males with the fare in their pocket, then off they go to places where they hope or think their wildest dreams will be fulfilled. In the 19th Century there were things you could do in Manchester or Manhattan that you could not do in County Mayo.

In the 21st Century, times and peoples have moved on so in our urban areas in the UK the young men are from different places but nowadays we are supposed to welcome all according to the new norms of political correctness. The trouble is that those at the wrong end of it want to know where the police are and what are they for?

In the last few days the failed robbery and the death of the thief at the hands of a very elderly man have produced some interesting questions. Mine is that there were two people being robbed and why have we forgotten the lady. She was also elderly and very frail and obviously her life at serious risk.

So the man is arrested for coming to the defence of his wife and doing unto a robber what the robber was doing to her and him? It is likely he was not charged because I could not have imagined any jury finding him guilty.

But what if we were in a legal system where the judge was bound by the rules that the government had laid down? I wonder if we are not far away from a system where in a similar situation the elderly lady was put to death and her husband also and their estate handed over to the family of the robber?

Your Descent Is My Ancestry

Back to facts, theories and opinions again. Today, Saturday 7th, the Mail featured a story about how learned scholars had discovered that Her Majesty our Queen has among her ancestors The Prophet Muhammad who died in 632 CE. The Mail claims that it is news.

It is not, this one is something I came across decades ago in a journal specialising in genealogy and pops up every now and again since. The original article had a number of ifs and buts that the regular readers would have been aware of but suggested there was a degree of probability.

There are two different but related matters here. One is the actual trace from parents via all the successive parents before over many generations to see just who is there. Life is full of surprises and many of them are not wanted. The other is demographic statistics, about which I want to keep it very short and simple.

In the parentage the theory is that what is in the records is accurate. But if any other suggestions are true then they may not be the facts. For example, was Queen Victoria the child of The Duke of Kent, or was it one of the footmen? Only DNA can tell and it is possible we will never have that.

The same applies to a number of other monarchs etc. down the ages. I have opinions about Caroline of Brunswick, for example. And many historians have suggested big ifs and buts from a number of parents of the past. Who knows and does it actually matter much?

With the Germanic kings, princes and other elites that we have especially among our Royal's they had extensive connections to the East, especially the Kingdom of Kiev. In turn these go back to strong links with the Byzantines of Constantinople who in turn transacted with Islam in war, business and women.

So a few hundred years of these connections with the rulers of parts of Islam, some of whom were descended either from the Prophet or any relations meant that descent from the Prophet and family could and did happen in the East of Europe and thence to the West.

Which brings us to the stat's. Theoretically, by the 1300's CE the number of child bearing females in the population is less than the total female ancestry of anyone in the UK and Ireland. In short there have to be others and in many cases a lot of them. Add to that the extensive North Sea and Baltic trading of the past etc. and this means that we are not Poles apart.

By the time of Prophet the potential figures are then very big. When this coincides with the growing numbers of his descendants and of his family, there you go. There are now a lot of them about one way or another, possibly most of us, perhaps almost all.

So much for the news, now back to the football, are you related to Albert Stubbins?

Sweet And Sour

In the UK media there are many sources who make you wonder whether they fail to understand the planet they are on and literally seem to be in a world entirely of their own. One such source is The Guardian, aka Grauniad because of its many errors of the past.

There was a time before finance and emotion took it over when it was The Manchester Guardian and a useful counter balance to the stuff that came out of the old Fleet Street. Then it was taken over and moved south to London.

The lengths of idiocy it will go to be seen to be on the side of individuality and personal preferences are extraordinary at times but today, 6 May 2018 they have almost literally taken the biscuit and a very sugary one at that.

Ella Risbridger in the Opinion section has a piece "Hospitals Are Bleak Enough Already. Banning Sugary Drinks Is Just Cruel". Yes, they are bleak because they have to be clean, very clean and with only the necessary kit to fulfil their critical tasks.

The same applies to the food and other intakes patients need to sustain them for the time they are there. Haute cuisine it isn't, basic nutritious and calculated to serve the particular needs of a patient it has to be and that is difficult enough.

Two major departments to be found in hospitals are oncology and gastro-intestinal, that is the inner bits dealing with input and outputs of the body. But the body is a whole. What goes in can get all over because of the blood stream etc. and the way the internal chemistry works.

There is the medication required for the person and other chemicals needed related to the function of the hospital. In recent decades these have been transformed following research and the discovery of new chemicals and combinations. They have to be carefully balanced in any treatments.

If Ella or any of the sub-editors could have spent ten minutes on the web they would have been able to see the chemical composition of many of the "sugary drinks". These too are now are the products of the synthetic chemicals industry that are very different from the original products of the past.

They are to do with taste and flavours, colour, impact and often designed to be addictive. A large dose of caffeine can be found along with other substances. Moreover, give the price competition and costs of sale, supply, manufacture etc. the contents have to be cheap. So it is a case of consumer beware.

People are different. Some can manage to drink a good deal of this stuff without much evident effect other than the caffeine hit etc. Others do not and again it can hit the brain as well as the system. One way to be affected is to be in a hospital with all of its chemistry.

Another is to be on strong medication following treatment whose function is adversely affected by such drinks with the risk of permanent damage in the case of either an overload of one or another or reactions from one or other of the many chemicals being put into the body.

But for Ella and The Guardian all this is as of nothing.

Singing For Suppers

Yesterday Liverpool played Manchester City in a Euro semi-final match. It was quite like old times. Their fans attacked the City bus, there was sundry fighting and during the game The Kop was bellowing out it's chants and songs, notably "You'll Never Walk Alone" from a musical of long ago.

A couple of days ago we put up the musical "Carousel" on our TV for a bout of nostalgia and a change from sport. It is dated from 1945 stage in New York, stage in London in 1950 and the film 1956. There have been recent revivals. It is Grade A sentimental but with a lot of songs. See Wikipedia for the complicated tale.

So, slumped in my chair, when did the Liverpool fans take up this song and why? It became an exercise in facts, opinion and theories. Liverpool had won the League in 1947, were relegated to the Second Division in 1954 and after eight years of near misses for promotion regained the First Division in 1962, won it in 1964 and then won the FA Cup for the first time in 1965.

It appeared therefore that those years of the 50's were a bad time, followed by the good times. Ergo Cogito Sum the Kop took the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" up during the dark days of the 50's becoming an anthem in the 60's.

The football facts were facts, the theory was based on facts and it was my opinion because I was in the Kop a handful of times in the 40's and 50's and was of the opinion that it had been sung then.

Then I look at the net and Wikipedia that fount of learning. This they say was not the case. A Liverpool pop group, Gerry And The Pacemakers, released a version in 1963 that hit the top of the charts and the fans on The Kop were encouraged to sing it to beef up the media coverage of games.

But indeed I might well have heard it sung. When football matches were played on Saturdays at 3.00 p.m. many of the fans had refreshed themselves in public houses to withstand the rigours of the terraces. They were singing all sorts of things and rival groups (gangs?) had differing favourites, anything for a punch up.

The TV people, however, preferred to keep it simple and to show what appeared to be a communal jolly and stadia by then had better and louder sound systems. The old rivalries born out of religion or politics were not for Match of the Day.

So the chosen one for Anfield was the song from Carousel. The different voices of any fans trying to sing something else were drowned out, it was either to sing the song of choice or shut up.

Harold Wilson, the Labour Leader and later Prime Minister was all in favour of this state rationalised improvement. Some of the fans were his constituents. Visualise it if you can, a leading politician apparently singing for his supper in the Director's Box.

How very different from the ways in which we conduct our politics these days and discussion about matters of history and the rest.

Where There's A Will

The Labour Party is promising £10,000 smackers to people at age 25 as an Inheritance Fund to set them up to meet the expenses of adult life.

This could mean 15,000 bottles of Carlsberg Export at a nearby supermarket.

The 25th birthday parties to come will surely live in the memory.

Perhaps these occasions could be called Jeremy Days because they will truly be out of their minds.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Little Bang

Is it a case of Monday morning blues or can there be another reason? 

According to The Mail our universe has begun the slide into a vast field of negative energy, so in the future end of story.

It will take a little time, so continue to be worried about the state of your debits and credits.