Waving, Not Drowning

For some reason that isn't quite clear in my mind even now, I thought this morning that I should go for a swim. It's something that (many years ago) I used to enjoy a lot. Somehow, I drifted out of my habit of a weekly visit to the municipal baths.

For once, the thought was midwife to the act, and so I found myself earlier today queuing to pay for a swimming session at a nearby leisure centre. The whole experience gave me pause to reflect on the pace of change in life. I'm not a man who is fearful of change - but I like to know why it's necessary.

What happened to those foot-baths of chlorine we used to have to wade through before we were allowed to get anywhere near the pool? They were designed to promote a proper sense of hygiene, I am sure, and must have done their bit to prevent the spread of goodness knows how many millions of foot infections in their day. Yet now, they are nowhere to be seen.

Was some test carried out that I never heard of, proving them to be ineffective, after all? Or are they just another casualty of local authority cuts: an attempt to reduce the costs of providing much-needed leisure facilities?

I shall be checking my feet very carefully indeed for signs of infection, I can tell you - and I have my solicitor's number to hand, just in case.

As for the introduction of wave machines, I am merely left gasping as to why they are thought a necessary 'improvement' to a swimming pool. If I had not been able to persuade Mrs Blunt to stay at home while I swam, and had she chosen to dive in while the waves were in operation, then the prospect of a mini-tsunami would have been real. And that, I have to say, is something that makes me shudder to think about, even now.

Update on those Pig Tarts

Thanks to the wonderful immediacy of the blogosphere, we are now able to register our disapproval about the Robin Tarts and the Pig Tarts here.
It's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of sitting on the fence on such important matters, so I've already done my bit by signing their petition.

Analyse This!

Thanks to my pal Hackstaple, I was alerted to the story doing the rounds at the moment about the Dorset baker who was hauled over the coals by her local Trading Standards department for selling Robin Tarts. These delicious-sounding, sweet confections have a marzipan effigy of a robin on them, apparently - but not a trace of the bird in the actual ingredients.

Ivan Hancock, Dorset county's trading standards manager, is quoted as saying:

"The fact is that a piece of food needs to be properly described so that the consumer can tell what it is.

There's nothing wrong with using other names but it must be accompanied by the true name of the food.

Consumers have the right to know what is in food."

Personally, I think the same process of labelling should be applied to the brains of (at least some) Trading Standards Officers.

Where will it all end? I was reminded by a post in Crofty's estimable blog, of the delights of the Yorkshire Curd Tart.

When I consumed these in my youth, it never for a minute crossed my mind that they might contain the minced up remains of northern Iraqis who had travelled to our fair county to sacrifice themselves for the good of the White Roser's.

It's political correctness gone mad!

When Moderators Get Mad!

Readers of my recent post on the role of Moderators in internet forums will doubtless be interested in some further developments on the site in question.

To the sound of egg-shells being crushed under size 9 boots, another Caption Competition has been the subject of the Moderators' attention.

I do need to declare an interest at this point, as the photograph was posted in this instance by none other than my brother, Colin Blunt. Those who are aware of the history of our family will know that there is no love lost between my older sibling and myself. Our mutual hatred and dislike has developed over a number of years, and our contact with each other has been very much at the level of the occasional (not always even annual) Christmas card.

Nevertheless, it's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of walking away from an issue. As I am not strictly on speaking terms with Colin, I cannot at this stage say that he knows that his photograph has been 'quarantined' for examination by site Moderators. In that sense, it hasn't been the subject of posts being removed or anything quite so severe. It is merely unavailable for viewing.

So, I can only speculate why this apparently innocuous photograph has been (hopefully only temporarily) removed.



Is it that the hairstyles sported by these dashing young boys are offensive?
Does the policeman's cheeky grin give a less than serious impression of our wonderful constabulary?

There is a suggestion - and it is only that - that this picture of a stadium fire at Leeds United in the 1950's might bring to people's minds the terrible tragedy that happened at Bradford in the 1985, and that it may therefore offend the sensibilities of some people.

I have lived, I must confess, a relatively benign and sheltered life. Perhaps, though, I am luckier than I thought. I have always been able to separate out fantasy from reality: to laugh at things while still showing a proper respect for people who might have been more unfortunate than myself.

And though it may have been a year or two since he sent me a Christmas card, I know the same holds true of my big bro, too.

At the end of the day, it will have to be you, the reader who judges this. But I hope it won't take the wisdom of Solomon to do so.

Core Blimey!

I see that a campaign has been launched to designate a part of New York City as 'Little Britain'. Apparently, New Yorkers feel they'd like to have an area of their fine metropolis that, in the way their Little Italy has come to be a haven for Italianophiles, will resonate with all things British.

On paper, the idea does seem to have legs. The idea that Brits, when visiting the Big Apple, might find a safe harbour, is a sound one.

I suspect, when our American cousins think of Britain, they imagine a small state where everyone (at least the women) wear the latest outfits designed by Twiggy, we all drive minis and where we drink copious amounts of tea.

The reality, however, is much different. I trust they will not be alarmed to find that the Little Britain they create is merely a microcosm of their own fair nation. So Americanised have we become, that we are now much more likely to be dressed by GAP, to drive a huge 4x4 and to be sipping, even if a little self-consciously, from a plastic beaker of foamed milk and a shot of coffee.

It got me thinking about what 'being British' really means. It's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of not being a patriot, but I fear that any notion of Britishness has long gone - if, indeed, it ever existed.

Still, if it makes them happy, I'm pleased to add my still, small voice to the campaign. I shall have a word with Thomas Hamburger Jnr, too, to see if I can't persuade both him and his fictional creation Harry McFry to lend their support. Harry looks to me like the kind of guy who would look for the first 'British' pub he could find whenever he was abroad.

Understanding the Internet, Part 1

Thanks to the offices of my good friend Thomas Hamburger Jnr, my blog is now well and truly 'up and running'.

I can't pretend for a minute to be an expert on the internet, or even the world wide web. For me, it's a fathomless ocean of storm-tossed ideas, tempting you hither and thither to go down avenues where the outcome is at best unknown, and at worst positively sleazy.

My youngest son, Jasper, seems to be much more clued up when it comes to navigating himself across the vast sea that the internet has become. He's been 'monitoring the stats' as he likes to put it - nosing around on my hard disk to generate a report on who's been visiting my blog since it was launched.

He seemed to quite enjoy the fact that someone apparently came to read my blog after searching on something called Google Blogsearch for the directory enquiry service, 192.com. My recent posting about the Independent newspaper article regarding Swinging comes in at No 3 when anyone searches for 192.com on Google Blogsearch.

It was all a bit of a puzzle to me, until Thomas Hamburger explained that, in posting that piece for me, he'd kindly highlighted the Light of Bengal restaurant by linking it to an online page at 192.com.'

Mystery solved.

However, from what Jasper tells me, the number of readers of this blog has been woefully low. No matter. The voice of Bill Blunt is not easily stilled: and neither is his quill!

It's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of being a quitter. This blog's staying! (And, following Jasper's sound advice, I intend to get more explicit when it comes to labelling my posts!)

That Pencil Tax!

I was pleased to receive a letter today from the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, indicating that HM Govt had 'no plans' to introduce a tax on pencils.

Those who have followed the intricacies of the debate will realise that it has been by no means a foregone conclusion that such an iniquitous tax might be implemented.

Let us, therefore, rejoice! The people have spoken. The HB11, and its slightly weaker brother, the HB5, is safe.

For once, the mighty bastion of the state has taken heed. Let that be a lesson to the Whitehall mandarins. What might seem (on paper) to be a wonderful idea can so easily become bogged in a mire of controversy.

You have been warned!

First they came for the smokers...

Now that the smoking of cigarettes is about to be made close to illegal in the UK (except in other than 'public places'), it's time that right-minded folk came together to oppose the insidious creep of political correctness.

While surfing the internet today, I discovered that Lea & Perrins, that fine bastion of English cooking, has been the subject of intense lobbying by vegetarians to remove all traces of anchovy from their product. Such has been the scale of the problem, that Lea & Perrins have rushed to respond, publicly, via their website, to re-assure anchovy lovers the world over (by which I mean those who love to eat them, not those who 'love' them in the sense of merely wanting to prolong their lives just because they are fish) that they will not be altering their recipe.

I'm with L&P on this one. And I suggest that anyone who shares my views writes, or e-mails, in support of the company.

It's a brave man who accuses Bill Blunt of being stuck in a rut. But Mrs Blunt's toad in the hole would not be the same without a little splash of Lea & Perrins in the mix. Without the essence of dead anchovy, it simply wouldn't be the same.

More on what the world is currently saying about anchovies here.