And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

When Dr Matt Taylor gave the good news about the Rosetta mission, and with every right to be proud of his achievement in space exploration for the European Space Agency,  there was a disastrous failure of PR which nearly wrecked the project. The project that day was not space exploration. That's what they do on all other days.  The job that day was to engage the public to gain support so that  funding remained and might be increased.

Dr Taylor walked into the world media's eye in a graphical shirt made by a friend and Twitter went kaboom.  The component which failed was the head of public affairs. Instead of insisting that the Mission was the star of the show and that a key presenter would be wearing a plain, comfortable, casual shirt with long sleeves, Dr Taylor was allowed to toddle out eupohric in his party wear.

The public face of the European Space Agency (ESA), at the point it was talking to the people who pay the bills, had accidentally fallen in to the hands of a kindly tattoo artist's wife in Chelmsford, and she  had chosen a fabric design based on popular cover art for classic science fiction. 

Amongst friends, at a barbie, maybe at the gala session of a professional conference, or all day at a comic con, that shirt is OK.  But it was wrong in the context of the job to be done that day, which was to represent the ESA to the public. 

Women who deconstructed the theme of the shirt shirt were immediately accused of being too fugly to understand the science and anyway, how come they had judged a man on his clothes? To which the reply was 'Welcome to my world'.

The vituperation ramped up with the usual cries of  'it's all the fault of the feminists' but, as with the rape threats against Jessica Ennis-Hill in a separate context, the purpose was to attack any woman who voiced a criticism, how dare she.  Women complain they are attacked for voicing an opinion, and thousands of people leap up to patronize and threaten them for saying such a thing. Or telling a man what to wear in a professional context, the bitch.

Like yelling 'raaayyycist', a quick shout of 'feminazi' is used to marginalize the criticism to lazily avoid having to face it. The point is not whether some people were offended, but whether they are right about the message which goes out if you turn up to a major PR event wearing a softporn-themed shirt. There is little to argue about in PR terms; that was no way for the ESA to present itself. To be fair to the ESA, they made him change his shirt in later segments, so somebody was trying to get a hold on the bolting story as it galloped off with real science story clinging on to its back like a terrified monkey.

Provided Dr Taylor had not ignored dress instructions (we do not know if he was ever told what to wear) it was cruel of the ESA to require him to make the apology; somebody could have done it for him in a simple statement, but the criticism stands. The point of the day was the Landing, and a shirt has no business undermining that. 

The moral of the story is that if you ever wondered what use a PR is, this is what happens when PR fails.

If you must do retro ironic print shirts, please follow the master:

Who writes these adverts?

The Story of  Heston's Marvelous Mince.

After that 'magic bean' recipe with the cockerel's gonads, I'm not sure I want to know this.

Oh well, if you insist.

Careers Advice for Under-cover Operators

PC Huggable

 As the row over under-cover police having sex with activists rumbles on, the Usual Caveats says

prosecutors would decide whether operatives who had sexual relationships were breaking the law.

(source: Daily Mail Tuesday, Jun 25 2013)

This is worth watching because a series of recent cases has shown that obtaining consent by deceit may render the consent ineffective and leave the convicted person open to sanctions such as being on the sex offenders' register.   

The deceit in these cases was of a particular kind: pretending to be male to obtain sexual contact.

First a Scottish case in June 2013, that of  Christine Wilson.   Don't get side-tracked by the age- differences or  the gender identity disorder.  Both of these facets are important but what is being examined here is what constitutes deceit such that it can give rise to a criminal prosecution and conviction.

At a previous hearing, Wilson pleaded guilty to two charges of obtaining sexual intimacy by fraud and was put on the sex offenders’ register. This is a fraud case as it is Scottish law.

An earlier Scottish case in 2010, against Samantha Books was eventually dropped  by prosecutors when a witnesses refused to cooperate, leading another complainant to criticise the prosecutors.

Moving south of the border, in March 2012, Gemma Barker in Surrey used false male identities to have sexual encounters with girls.  She admitted two counts of sexual assault and one charge of fraud. 

Finally, in June 2013 the sentence against Justine McNally was reduced as she admitted six counts of sexual assault by penetration. Her listing on the Sex Offenders Register was reduced to ten years. (McNally is Scottish but the offence was in London, so the case was heard in Wood Green under English law).

As these last two are English law cases, they were tried as sexual assault.  Defendants have usually chosen to plead guilty so the points of law are still open to interpretation if another case happened to go to appeal.  Justine McNally's conviction was upheld but her sentence revised.

.......

Back to the police. I'm going to assume most of the personnel involved are men although there might well have been female under-cover(s) operators.  It is alleged that some of them engaged in sexual intimacy under false identities and for purposes other than those they claimed at the time.

The gender misrepresentation cases put down one marker for what will be regarded as making consent defective because it has been obtained falsely. Another is already unambiguously covered in legislation.  If the complainant had a mental disorder impairing choice such that they can be brought within the definition of  s.34 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, then the person who deceived them can be prosecuted.  
 
A further restriction was defined in 2007 when Giovanni Mola was unable to argue he had consent in order to avoid a conviction based on reckless conduct (Scottish case).  He failed to inform a lover that he had HIV, thus impairing her ability to make an informed decision whether to have sex with him.  A summary of other cases is here

Prosecution of cases around transmission of HIV have abated as a matter of public policy; the emphasis has gone on to prevention as it was feared that the prosecutions were deterring people from seeking treatment. The policy remains controversial.  Opinion is split on whether agreeing to sex means agreeing to factors unknown, or whether it is a conditional consent depending on what is disclosed at the time.

Consenting to sex does not mean consenting to everything even in the ordinary course of events. There is a point at which an act may become abusive and outside the scope of consent.  Normally this is thought of in physical terms but it could be psychological.  But for ignorance that the person was married/had a disease/was a paid infiltrator, the complainant might not have agreed to sexual intimacy.  

It is argued that deception is justified in order to infiltrate organisations "such as environmental groups".  Fat lot of good that did.  Mark Kennedy should have been putting it about in the Climate Unit of UEA, or at least offering Chris Huhne a ride. He has failed to prevent the country being peppered with taxpayer-subsidised bird-mincers. 

As David Morris of the McLibel trial said when it emerged the co-writer of the leaflet which caused all the trouble was Bob Lambert, an undercover policeman, 

"All over the world police and secret agents infiltrate opposition movements in order to protect the rich and powerful...."

Look how well that went. McDonald's ended up paying lawyers millions of pounds, only half-winning a technical case and smashing their reputation.  Whether they asked for the Metropolitan police to act as political agent provocateurs has yet to be examined.  

Wanna buya Peter Oborne nuddy calendar?

Clutching a lace hanky and smelling salts, Peter Oborne launches in to Prince Harry on the basis that he shouldn't be having all this FUN with a willing young woman in case it fuels the fires of Republicanism.

Really? There has been comment about what we pay for the Prince, but then there would be anyway even if Harry was a cross between Cliff Richard and Mother Theresa. Even the staunchest anti-monarchist I know doesn't think that a young man doing something legal with a consenting adult in the privacy of his own hotel room should be pilloried because a scumbag took photos they should not have.

But since they did, let's be clear: this is a PR triumph.

The overwhelming response has been "Yaaaayyy, go for it Hazza" with a muttered side order of "Lucky sod, he even photographs well".  See our Prince? That one, the one who has plenty of blood in his veins, enough to raise a flagpole, well, that's how a Tudor prince is supposed to look. That's how we like 'em, as if they can kiss and fight and have a go at a serenade.

Of course, this would look saddo if he were still playing strip billiards in ten years time and begun to look as if his skin needed ironing, and the pretty girls exchanged for hanging about with creepy-looking ladyboys the way his great-uncle went over  the late Wallis Simpson, so he shouldn't make a life-long habit of it.

But right now the wisdom of Max Bialystock applies:  When you  got it, baby, flaunt it.

A cheery picture

Saw this down at the tip, lurking at the bottom of a skip.

Didn't rescue it. 

Five Rings to Rule Them

Amazon is carrying the Official Olympic Wenlock Police Figurine

You may care to read the reviews.  

I DON'T KNOW WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS TALKING ABOUT, THIS IS A GREAT TOY, IT IS FUN TO PLAY WITH AND MAKES ME FEEL help me PROUD TO BE BRITISH. IT IS MODERN IN DESIGN AND it's watching me REPRESENTS ALL THAT IS GREAT ABOUT OUR COUNTRY AND THE OLYMPIC GAMES WHICH WILL BE GREAT please THE IOC ARE DOING A FANTASTIC JOB AND OF COURSE SOME PEOPLE ARE GOING TO MAKE SOME MONEY OUT OF IT, BUT THAT'S FINE BECAUSE it's going to take my pets away THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD THESE DAYS. WHAT'S SO WRONG ABOUT MACDONALD'S I SAY AND COKE THEY i don't want to die ARE TASTY. IN CONCLUSION YOU SHOULD BUY ONE. 

........................

 After purchasing this toy I was surprised that it unpacked itself and it's surface to air missile system in my back garden. After a test firing of the missile (which passed through my kitchen, down the hall, through the open front door before slamming into Mrs Greyson's house at number 17) all I can say is that a single eye must clearly hamper effective depth perception. I am inclined to think the toy is unsuitable for small children and neighbours opposite. 

.............................
 

By 

peculiar "andrew_eccentric"

 This toy is worse than masturbating to a picture of Lord Coe, official overlord of the 2012 Olympics. And believe me, I've tried.

Update:  some commenters have noticed that Wenlock reprises that masterpiece of the 20th Century, Francis Bacon's "Three Studies for Figures for the Base of a Crucifixion."  Especially the middle one.

A bouquet of prime ministers

There have been twelve prime ministers since Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne.  Churchill was in office when she got there.

In order (source: Wikipedia):-

Winston Churchill  - Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
Anthony Eden -   Bailliol, Oxford
Harold Macmillan - Bailiol, Oxford
Sir Alec Douglas-Home  -   Christ Church, Oxford
Harold Wilson  -   Jesus,  Oxford
Edward Heath        Bailliol, Oxford
James Callaghan - Took the Oxford entrance exam, but didn't have the money to attend.
Margaret Thatcher -  Somervillle, Oxford
John Major -     didn't go to university
Tony Blair - St John's, Oxford
Gordon Brown - Edinburgh
David Cameron - Brasenose, Oxford.

Of that twelve, eight went to Oxford. It was nearly nine but for Callaghan taking civil service exams instead. None went to Cambridge, although it depends on if you include Nick Clegg who was at Robinson, Cambridge.  He's not prime minister but that might depend on whether Cameron has a bizarre accident with a windmill and a bicycle.

Oxford has also supplied us with the current back-ups. Boris Johnson (Balliol ) and both of the Milibands (Corpus Christi) and Ed Balls (Keeble) and Osborne (Magdalen). It's a very long shot indeed, but if you fancy Louise Mensch's chances, she went to Christ Church, which would nudge that college up in to second place behind Balliol, while Michael Gove would be a first showing for Lady Margaret Hall. Probably not in the running, but Theresa May went to St Hugh's and Hague, like Osborne, went to Magdalen.

If BoJo ever gets through the magical door, it will take Balliol's score to 4 which will be very difficult for any other college to match unless Balliol is disqualified for the next sixty years. Yvette Cooper (Mrs Ed Balls) is also Balliol, so the college is uncannily good at spotting potential contenders.

Looking at the two who didn't go to university - Callaghan and Major - the lack of an Oxford degree doesn't seem to have made a difference to their performance as PM.  Both took other professional exams, both were wrong about a significant number of  issues and lost office as a result.

Winston Churchill doesn't really count in this sequence. Since he passed out of Sandhurst 20th in his year of 130, he was no slouch. Luckily for us, since he didn't go to Oxford his idea was to fight Germany rather than defend ourselves by being pre-emptively invaded by Soviet Russia. Sadly, he eventually lost that half of the war but not for want of trying.  Baroness Thatcher went to Oxford but gets a special pass because she studied a proper subject: Chemistry.

Outside of No 10,  a mention must be made of Baroness Shirley Williams (Somerville) and Baroness Mary Warnock (Lady Margaret Hall), architects of the worst aspects of the education system which, sadly, was signed in to existence by Mrs Thatcher who was rather trusting in those days and thought the teachers and civil servants knew what they were doing. Perhaps they did.

So let's hear less about "Oxbridge" as if they were both equally culpable. It's incontrovertibly Oxford which has landed us with the majority of front-rank noodles.  

Or maybe not. 

Part II -  A bouquet of Chancellors

Update: Helen Mirren has read for the part of the Queen, again, in a drama which follows the relationships of the monarch to her prime ministers.

A little more about the ASA

Cranmer has published the response he has given to the ASA.

The ASA has issued a pompous statement which seems to miss the main point: they haven't got any grounds to investigate and even if they had what they think of as a right to investigate, they still haven't got any power to do anything except, maybe, to hand it to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) who are most unlikely to want to tangle with this one. The EHRC prefer to stick to beating up fond old couples such as Mr and Mrs Bull down in Cornwall (and then claiming they didn't mean to launch a second attack for more money), and calling Christianity an infection.

We can all investigate. A little more about the ASA is useful to collect.

Firstly, it's not an "authority". It's a company as registered at Companies House, specifically:

ADVERTISING STANDARDS AUTHORITY LIMITED (THE)
MID CITY PLACE
71 HIGH HOLBORN
LONDON
WC1V 6QT
Company No. 00733214

The members of the council are all listed on the website with short clickable biographies.  The best known are Lord Smith - that's Chris Smith who, although gay, has never made any secret of it and has never allowed it to be an issue in any of his work, at least as far as I know, Professor Andrew Motion best known for his poetry (some of which is OK but not as good as Pam Ayres), and Martin Narey, best known for heading up Barnardos and signing-off the sort of ads which stigmatize white men as child beaters. 

The people who run the organization day to day include 
Miles Lockwood, Director of Complaints and Investigations

Miles joined the ASA in September 2010 and is responsible for leading the complaints and investigations teams, the core function of the ASA, who dealt with over 28,000 complaints last year. He studied History at the University of Nottingham and then obtained two post graduate certifications in Law at Nottingham Law School. Qualifying as a solicitor in 1998, he worked in commercial legal practice and specialised in general litigation and dispute resolution matters. 

Lockwood's top-class biography continues. It is hard to believe that he signed off a poorly screened complaint which is not within the scope of their own code, so perhaps he didn't know about it.

It isn't the first time that the ASA has had a spat like this with Christians.  At the end of March 2012, the ASA took issue with a standard  Christian leaflet where they offer to pray over you in the belief that this can promote healing.  The group who gave out the leaflet also included a sensible health warning about visiting your doctor.  There was no suggestion that they tried to coerce belief, cozen money out of people or prevent people getting proper medical attention.

This didn't stop the ASA sticking their noses in, attempting to make themselves arbiters of the printed material which barely qualifies as promotional.  There's nothing unusual about healing services; the ASA appears to be trying to claim the right to tell churches they can't use the word 'healing' at all.   

Since Christians have the unfortunate trait of often being irritating they don't get the support they deserve when their right to freedom of expression is infringed.  Blogs which should have known better failed to identify this as an freedom of speech and religious expression argument, thinking this was about a literal interpretation of what everyone with a scrap of education knows is poetic language and religious belief, both of which are entitled to protection and are matters of opinion, not fact. Why isn't Andrew Motion doing something brave like protecting freedom of speech?

The ASA used its considerable industry funding to lean on a bunch of harmless street pray-ers whose earnest desire is that my knee will be fixed without surgery by divine intervention.  Let 'em try, I say.  If it works, I'm better off, if it doesn't I'm no worse off and I'm still on the waiting list.  How strange that the hedge-witches, shamen and priests all accept that it is my choice whether to go for surgery or not but the ASA thinks it knows what is best for me.

The disputes over faith healing and what can be said about it stem in part from the antagonism in the alternative health-care field.   This was foolishly increased when the chiropractors decided to try to use lawfare (good word, I just heard it) to silence their critics. 

They attempted to sue Simon Singh for libel and such is the state of our laws that they were able to be a significant nuisance until finally dropping the case in April 2010.  It went all the way to the Appeal Court, though, before they were told that Singh's original article was comment, not fact, and that he was entitled to express his opinion.

There is a suggestion from one blog campaign that the ASA isn't up to much, but  it is confusing because it attempts to be over-clever and simply does not understand the ASAs limitations.  Then again, the ASA doesn't understand its limitations.

The website asa-rocks.org  has a series of pages expressing its rage over quackery and the apparent inability of the ASA to do anything about it.   I share some of their anger but they don't seem to understand how difficult it is to draw that line, especially since some medical doctors have engaged in quackery and misrepresentation, often in places which do matter such as when they are expert witnesses in court.

In climate science we've had the epic quackery of Global Warming but so far the ASA hasn't sent any letters to UEA asking them too explain themselves or tear out pages of their undergraduate prospectus which presents them as having a science faculty.

The bugaboo of asa-rocks is asa-sucks, the defunct campaign which noticed that the ASA was not sticking to the process of receiving a complaint and investigating, but instead had got in bed with another campaign, the Nightingale Collaboration, to systematically challenge the alternative services sector.   When this was revealed, the ASA dropped the association.

The Nightingale Collaboration makes some good points, but as it was fuelled by reasonable outrage at the use of the libel laws against Singh, its main  purpose was to return-volley lawfare against the Chiropractors by finding something they can't substantiate then reporting them to the Trading Standards which does have some legal standing, unlike the ASA. This summary gives a fair over-view of both sides.  The chiropractors should not have played rough if they didn't want the same level of response.

The other alternative care providers generally took a robust attitude to the ASA, advising that on receipt of a letter you should consider binning it as junk mail or perhaps making a complaint to the ASA that you have been contacted by an organization which misrepresents itself as having legal authority.

Technically, the ASA could take issue with every beauty parlour whose facials claim to rejuvenate the skin. That is an impossible claim to substantiate for prior reasons based on entropy.  However, the ASA would find itself even less popular if it decided to go after Madame Rene; do they seriously think her customers expect her to do miracles?  Her customers are not interested in hearing they look like WH Auden and there is little she can do about it; they expect Madame Rene to get on with the aromatherapy massage and for the ASA to mind its own beeswax.

I will decide for myself what I think of god-botherers and beauticians.  

Update:  In which Cranmer fisks the ASA interim statement and it emerges that the group who were supposed to have complained are very cross because they didn't, although one of them complained about about a separate magazine.


Update: Bucko points out that the ASA fail to comply fully with company law.

8 out of 10 cats prefer Cranmer

Do 70% of people think marriage should be left as it is: one of each sex?

A ComRes poll said so, and that's what the Coalition For Marriage (C4M) are quoting. 

This took approximately five minutes to find out, but rather than exercise their fingers and brains the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) have written pompously to Archbishop Cranmer demanding that he explains it all to them as they are far too fick to bother to to check out a complaint about whether that figure could be substantiated.  It's not secret - the source is listed on the advert.

This, they think, shows them doing a good job.  I think it shows people whose jobs can be cheerfully cut. Luckily, it looks like the public aren't paying for once, so it's up to the advertising industry if they want to keep funding these idlers to provide free copy for bloggers. 

As His Grace politely points out, it isn't up to him to evaluate the original research. If the ASA want to challenge that, they must go to ComRes and C4M.  But we all know it isn't really about the opinion poll. Rather, it's an attempt to control what can be said politically in the context of an advert.

In this case, it is a Christian-led resistance to the re-definition of marriage which some people find  objectionable. They roped a trade-body in as arbiters of what can and cannot be said publicly.

I don't like C4M and Andrea Rose Minichiello Williams. I don't approve of the way the groups to which she is connected allow ordinary people - such as Mr and Mrs Bull of the Chymorvah Private Hotel - to get in to fights where the law is already weighted against them.  There are civilians and combatants, and you should be wary of  encouraging the former to become the latter.  Luckily the ASA have picked on someone their own size in Archbishop  Cranmer, who knows what he has signed up for.

This illustrates the point which Christian groups and Cranmer have previously claimed: that when a Christian expresses a view, not only can they expect that view to be challenged rightly in debate but that law, or quasi-law such as trade bodies claiming 'codes', will  try to stop them expressing a view at all.  

Checking the ASA's own code, it appears they don't have any remit to deal with editorial content so the following is run in the context of editorial material to further inform public debate about what it is attempting to suppress as offensive.

No permission has been sought from the originators nor has payment been received.

I 'ad that Barbara Streisand in the back of the cab once.

Update: Linkage -
Ministry of Truth - best formal analysis (as ever)
Ambush Predator
The Engineer
Peter Ould
Dr Jim West
Max Farquar  - best graphic
Anna Raccoon
Tim Worstall
Longrider
Orphans of Liberty  
Samizdata
Raedwald

Boiling Frog 

Counting Cats 

Harry's Place 

Dinosaur farts

Everyone, even the normally open-minded Longrider,  is poo-poohing  this idea for why the climate changed but they haven't looked at the evidence.   I've seen filums with dinosaurs and they are always growling as if their bellies hurt, which is only to be expected if you try to eat whole trees, other dinosaurs and ladies wearing fur bikinis. 

It's all true and here's the film to prove it.  Note they have actually photographed the gas.  This explains megafaunal extinction.



Please can I have a PhD from UEA now for this valuable piece of conclusive research?

Are you looking at my bird?

Police are arranging protests about cuts to the front line which they say will make their job impossible because they already have far too much to do.  Strange then that two uniformed persons - thought to be officers - were dispatched from Harrow police station for a word with a gallery owner.  (Note: contains an image some people may find shocking. Report: Evening Standard)

An officer happened to see a picture he disapproved of - apparently while he was on a bus - and was able to divert two of these furiously busy personnel from their normal work of catching murderers to argue about classics, or rather, to lean on the gallery owner to take down a picture of Leda and the Swan.  As it happens, they were packing up for a new exhibition anyway.

If the gallery manager, Jag Mehta, gives an accurate account, the visitors claimed that 'condoning bestiality' was illegal, which sounds more like a PCSO making something up on the spot. 

In general, you can condone what you like, providing you don't mind what people think of you. What you can't necessarily do is is carry it out (Sexual Offences Act 2003), distribute it (Obscene Publications Act 1959), or possess a depiction (Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008) without the law imposing a penalty. 

The legislation is dotted about rather than consolidated, but luckily the Crown Prosecution Service has written a  useful guide to these offences.  However, there have been cases which alter the matter, which means their guidance cannot be a definitive. Also, the 8 page pdf the Ministry of Justice wrote has vanished, or at least the online copy has. [Update: having trouble with this link which worked for a while and now does not:  Here it is,  maybe it will come back.  Many thanks to the researchers at Backlash.]

The following relies on the CPS guidance on extreme pornography.  They know all about Leda and the Swan

The painting "Leda and the Swan", another example raised during debates in Parliament, would also not be caught by the new [2008] offence, because it would not meet the "explicit and realistic" test.

Established photographer Derrick Santini was sailing very close to the wind under this definition.  His portrayal of the myth may explain why somebody going past on a bus may have got all hot'n'bothered.

Santini’s use of the lenticular process involves photographing a sequence of still images, using live models, which are layered and printed using a special technique, under a ribbed plastic sheet acting as a lens.  This results in a hologram-like effect where the figure within the frame moves as the viewer passes, although not an actual hologram, it is a form of animation where an illusion of depth is created.

Makes a change from those old nudie cards where if you tilt the picture, the lady's clothes jump off.

I'm assuming that the swan and the woman were photographed separately otherwise the RSPCA might have something to say about it - and I'm guessing that what is depicted is impossible. You try training a swan to land in that space.  There isn't a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Models. It says something that given a picture of a naked lady and a migratory bird, apparently in the act of congress, the police are worried about the one with feathers.

If you want to see the full set of pictures, they are on page two of Santini's gallery under the heading "lenticular artworks".  The website is full of slow-loading animations.  It might not be easy to explain them if somebody were to ask so they shouldn't be regarded as safe for work, which is a different question from whether they fit within the definition of an offence.

There are plenty of legal disputes to be had here; for example can a theme such as Leda and the Swan come within the second CPS heading?

 That the image is extreme namely grossly offensive, disgusting, or otherwise of an obscene character;

A little offensive, yes, particularly if it is the rape version of the myth but in general the theme of humans and swans getting it on is common. But one of them is only disguised as a swan i.e. at various times in the past it is more acceptable to show a human and an animal rather than two humans.  There are always  people who worry about the sexual nature of the motif in showing any intimacy but only the ignorant have ever misunderstood that it is about sex with animals.  

Besides, it is neither reasonable nor possible to go back through the museums demanding that all the Leda and the Swan versions are hidden in the archives, trying to decide which ones are merely ecstatically affectionate. 

In addition, it was only in January 2012 that a conviction was denied by a jury in R v Peacock.  The material being supplied by Michael Peacock was nasty and fitted within the guidelines of what could be regarded as obscene, so the CPS brought the case under the Obscene Publications Act. The jury did not accept the prosecution case.  Since we can never see in to the jury room, we don't know exactly why, but we do know that this signals that the CPS are mistaken in what the public are prepared to regard as likely to deprave or corrupt.

However, Alex Antoniou of the City Law School points out that all this means is that the Obscene Publications Act may be undermined.  The CPS now uses the newer extreme pornography charges as these are about possession of an image rather its than publication:

prosecutions under the new sections introduced in January 2009 (ss 63-7 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008) related to extreme pornographic images have dramatically increased in the last two years: according to the CPS, in 2009-10 prosecutions were brought in respect of 213 offences, whereas in 2010-11 the number of offences reached 995. It is noteworthy that these latest figures released relate only to possession of extreme pornographic images portraying bestiality.

A prosecution under s.63 requires the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions.  An officer could be in a great deal of paperwork if they didn't check first that the CPS wanted to use a classical theme as a test case - especially the exact one which was quoted in Parliament.  This artwork tests the boundaries of realism by using photography but on the other hand, a moment's thought about swans tells you that you can't be looking at something realistic.

It is reassuring to know that when the Home Secretary cuts the number of police officers, it won't matter because we can just get rid of the two spare ones who go round wrangling with art wallahs. Until then, don't tell them about Europa and The Bull.

Here is a Leda and the Swan pas de deux. There are two things to note: firstly that the male often holds his arm in a swan form. This is to signify that Leda sees a swan but we all know he's really supposed to be a god in disguise.  Secondly, that the bodies echo each other the way birds court.

Cluck cluck CL*CK

That's what the noise was about.

Sinister plot.....

....discovered in supermarket.

Galliano, Galliano, Galliano let me go-oh-oh-oh

John Galliano is a gifted designer of frocks who, if we had any commercial sense, would be doing business here - like he once was - and helping to make us rich, rather than having to go to Paris to get the world recognition he deserves and generating all the money for LVMH. He'd be living in a small castle in the Cotswolds, have an atelier in Kensington and a factory in East Anglia which would put Paris couture to shame.

Instead, after years of boiling his brain to meet the cut-throat promotions schedule of international fashion houses and the rip-off merchants of mass fashion, including the vampires on all the magazines who rely on him to generate their images and having not a thousandth part of his talent, Galliano hit the bottle and began to mouth-off at gawpers in bars and, allegedly, physically attacked at least one woman. (This charge does not appear to have been pressed).

Where were the friends, the entourage, hangers-on who are supposed to at least pay court to the gifted? What was he doing huddled alone in the corner of a bar, trying to make a home of it? No law against that and where better than Paris for an artist to have a drink and collect the vibe of the streets as it comes up to inform haute couture. Even so, a designer with that much potential wealth creation in his knobbly skull should have had a permanent walker if Dior had cared about its talent. Leaving it to the chauffeur to call a lawyer wasn't the close protection he needed.

Obviously the artistically driven can be difficult to love even when they are sober - and that's putting it mildly - but somebody should have been there to scoop him in to a clinic. John, love, let's go home, let's have another drink, don't talk to them, the taxi is here. It's just another blood-sucker who wants to sell a story about you, lalalala, yes, that's right, let's have a sing-song.

That Dior had to dismiss him after the fracas was inevitable for brand-protection. If you are flogging expensive perfume, cosmetics and diffusion ranges, you really cannot have people who get in to fights with the potential customers. As Simon Doonan points out:

Without the passionate and genuine support of style-obsessed Dior-loving Jewesses, Galliano might be stitching frocks for City Girl Jennifer.

What Galliano said was racially offensive and the judges will be ruling on precisely where those statements stand in French law. But in the general sense, millions of offensive things are said every day. In some mouths it matters, but in Galliano's irrelevant gob it was only significant in that it betrayed that the wicked old idea is still blowing round the French fashion industry. Like we didn't know. People like John don't sit around crafting insults; they copy them from their mates. You might as well blame a weather-cock for the wind.

He could as easily have told the unwelcome strangers to get lost but the half-Spic Gibraltarian from Sarf Lunnon (so not even a proper Cockerney, the mischling) had been in France for so long he forgot he wasn't French, just like he temporarily forgot he was gay and where the iconography of the pink triangle comes from.

What he was aiming for was offensively hip with a hint of Parisian Fuque-vous , a la Sex Pistols 1976, which he might have remembered from when he was a teenager. This is difficult to pull-off when sober, which is probably why it is usually only attempted by the bladdered. They are normally protected by incoherence. Sadly, Galliano had not quite reached that level of inebriation so it was still possible to make out what he was saying.

Note that the video provided via the Sun (who must have paid a pretty penny for it) is not of the incident which the court is ruling on, but an earlier ear-bashing he gave to an Italian pair of women. If it is his usual behaviour, he used English but in a cod French accent, following the convention set by Croft and Perry in 'Allo 'Allo. That's how drenched he got; his mouth spoke English and his brain heard French. Good Moaning.

Ask yourself: if you meet a drunk, do you insist on asking them questions and video it, or do you go away to get on with something more rewarding. I suppose it depends on if you think the poor bastard is good for a bob or two, or if you can sell the pictures.

In the bar-room squabble at issue in court, Galliano acted as if he owned the bar. The bar owner, in deference to a good customer, asked the other customer to change seats, just leave the pissed Brit alone. The customer declined - althought she also didn't own the bar - and instead engaged in a 45 minute slanging-match which ended with Geraldine Bloch being told she had "low-end thighs" (ouch) and her manfriend Philippe Virgitti offering to re-arrange Galliano's head with a bar-stool. Charming, the lot of 'em.

This week they are having another go at humiliating Galliano in court. Bloch wants want one symbolic Euro and an apology printed in the world's leading fashion titles (presumably saying that her derriere is second only to Pippa Middleton's) , while Virgitti, having been all matey earlier on, has now decided that his feelings are so terribly hurt that only money, lots of it, can assuage his flustered honour. A third person is also claiming to have been hurt, but this may be a more complex charge and possibly out of time due to limitations on delay for bringing a complaint. They've already had him sacked and made him grovel. He already apologised, weeks ago. Here, luv, have a Euro from me. Mind you don't spend it all at once, there are Greeks desperate for that much money.

A de-toxed Galliano presented himself to court to show respect rather than sending a sick-note via his lawyer, but wisely determined not to speak French (surely he must have picked up a few words by now) and used an interpreter to make sure that what ever he said this time, it wouldn't upset any one. Vogue is covering the trial, although you'd think they'd take better fashion notes than he was "dressed conservatively". The best trial coverage to date comes via the Daily Beast on Powerwall.

Obviously, there's a great deal of crow pie to be eaten. Never mind the dodgier statements; the French prosecutor has suggested that in France it is a crime amounting to assault to criticise the size of a woman's thighs and the condition of her hair. A damn serious offence, if you ask me. This could be the greater problem for Galliano because the citizens of Planet Fashion don't really care or understand about race or religion but they mind very much indeed if they are accused of having a big fat bum.

For proof of this, look at Cecil Beaton. David Noh recounts that Beaton was being a frightful lovey in 1938 and thought he was pulling off a wizard jape when he included in a sketch in microscopic writing:

"Mr. R. Andrew's ball at the El Morocco brought out all the damned kikes in town."

The editor warned him to remove it, but he threw a hissy fit and somehow it made it in to print, in to the pages of Vogue. But Beaton had enemies and they made sure that journalist Walter Winchell was tipped-off to examine the illustration with a magnifying glass. In the resulting row Beaton was forced to resign. Explanations for his behaviour don't really stack up and he doesn't appear to have made the obvious defence that this merely held up a mirror to what people, fashionistas, were saying when they got together. Despite his public school and Cambridge background, he was gifted artistically rather than intellectually and failed to see that a fashion mag can never risk portraying its customers in anything other than a pool of golden light.

Despite the lull Beaton's career went in to, he emerged triumphant later when he produced the costumes for "My Fair Lady". Beaton collected a CBE in 1956, was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1960 and was knighted in 1972. He didn't get those by calling the gentry a bunch of lardy old trout, which would definitely have seen him skinned. He survived his publishing faux pas because it was only about politics, dahlink.

Politically Galliano can recover if he stays away from subjects he doesn't comprehend and off substances which overwhelm him. He already has a CBE and is a member of the Legion of Honour, so if he stacks up 20 years more of solid job creation over here, he could end up as Sir John of Streatham. Artistically, it may be harder to find his way back to the effortless distillations which mark out his creations at their very best, but I hope he'll try. The reports of his closing collections were sympathetic - there was nothing wrong with the quality of his artistic vision. I hope he sends me a ticket for his show.



Update 28 June: Vogue have published the account of a witness who is claims to have seen the whole argument unfold. Felicitas Michel's telling of it does not involve anti-semitic opinions. The French court allowed the video in evidence which refers to separate event and is NOT the subject of the complaint.

Some commenters on the fashion blogs have pointed out that the rant tape was not saleable or perhaps even useable under French law, which currently takes a wider view of privacy than English law does (or did until recently). The complaint to the police made it possible for News International to risk publishing the video clip.

....

Update 10 September 2011

John Galliano appeared in court in Paris, which imposed a suspended sentence of a fine of £5,300 on a conviction for "casting public insults based on origin, religious affiliation or ethnicity". This establishes that the bar-room exchange was in what has now been defined as a public place for these purposes.

Galliano was also ordered to pay a symbolic 1 Euro compensation to his victims. Make of that what you will under French law. In English terms it means the judges accept the complaints and that the State has made its case, and mean him to apologise, but don't think much of the complainants. Note, however, that this was precisely what one of the complainants asked for.

The court rejected Galliano's denial that he had said any such thing , although other witnesses backed his version of events.

The Sun - on behalf of News International which paid out for the video of a previous beasting where a pissed Galliano was goaded in to forgetting that he wasn't French and wasn't an edgy intellectual - said, in its print editorial:

"So much for France's pious grandstanding as the champion of decency and human rights"

Les Rosbifs never miss a chance to rag the Frogs, but if that doesn't make you laugh you must have had your funny bone surgically removed.

Every google tells a story

Click in the box for proof

Google says I'm not the first person to wonder if Pippa is spoken for. From the automatically offered search terms it looks like Harry and six million others may have already enquired:

pippa middleton
pippa middleton dress
pippa middleton arse
pippa middleton boyfriend I'm Feeling Lucky »

Kung Fu Fighting - subjective and objective

The Mail carries the serious case of a pub singer who now has a recorded arrest for a racially aggravated public order offence. The arrest will show up on an enhanced CRB check if he wishes to work with children; for example, becoming a music teacher or a volunteer. It could damage his chances of being employed by other holiday operators. No charges have been brought as the police have snottily accepted that "There was not enough evidence to prove a criminal offence had been committed". For Simon Ledger an arrest is not much less serious than a conviction and amounts to oppression where the process is the punishment, regardless of any finding of guilt.

Ledger, a seasoned popular entertainer, said he hadn't done anything except sing the the 37-year old pop song, Kung Fu Fighting - as he regularly does. It's older than he is. Ledger was playing the song when two tourists walked past the Driftwood beach bar in Sandown. This is the Driftwood website and Simon's is the first video on the left, "Duelling Organs".

One of the guests - a young man - objected loudly, abusively, giving him hand signals and shouting that they were wankers. The BBC implied that the tourist then claimed to have been subjected to racist abuse in return and subsequently complained to the police. However, Ledger claimed that the complaint is about the song, not anything else. As he has been an entertainer for over a decade - nearly two according to friends - it would be surprising to find him getting in to a slanging-match with a heckler who didn't care much for his choice of music.

After the 5.30 set the Hampshire police (presumably the Sandown team) traced Ledger to a local Chinese restaurant - which must have taken some doing rather than identifying him and visiting him at home in Shanklin - arresting him at 10pm. A spokesperson for Hampshire police said:

"a 32-year-old man of Chinese origin had claimed he was subjected to racial abuse.

He added: ‘If a victim believes that an alleged crime is racially aggravated, the police will treat it seriously. Investigations into this incident are continuing.’

The spokesman said a 34-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of causing harassment, alarm or distress under section 4a of the Public Order Act 1986"

It is now apparent the police arrested Ledger on the basis that a Chinese person didn't like the song a white man was playing. let's have a look at s.4A to see what it says, edited for the clauses which apply here:

4A Intentional harassment, alarm or distress.

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he—

(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or

(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,

thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

(3) It is a defence for the accused to prove—

(b) that his conduct was reasonable.

(4) A constable may arrest without warrant anyone he reasonably suspects is committing an offence under this section.

6 Mental element: miscellaneous.

(3) A person is guilty of an offence under section 4 only if he intends his words or behaviour, or the writing, sign or other visible representation, to be threatening, abusive or insulting, or is aware that it may be threatening, abusive or insulting.

From the top: it was obvious that there was no intention (4A1) to cause offence because it is objectively impossible to cause offence by singing a 37 year old song which generally praises the cats for being as fast as lighting with expert timing. Whether it is about a fight or a martial arts display, it acknowledges the innate superiority of oriental technique over Yardie hack and slash thuggery. Or it might just be a damn good disco tune. Here's a live performance to a German audience, which accounts for them looking baffled:



If Simon Ledger had wanted to cause offence - which he didn't- he chose the wrong song to start with. You can't commit this offence by accident; you have to have the intention to abuse or insult or be aware of the potential to cause it. There might have been an intention to amuse, but that's not a crime. The CPS advice makes this clear in their own stumbling language:

Section 4A .... is intended for the more directed and persistent type of behaviour required to prove the elements of intent and causation.

In this case, it isn't even possible to accidentally cause offence. No reasonable onlooker could regard the words or actions as abusive or insulting in the context of a beach bar. This isn't an abusive or insulting song and it is incapable of causing harassment, alarm or distress in normal play. (1a). Perhaps if it was on a continuous loop it would become distressing.

However, the viewer claims he was caused (1b) harassment, alarm or distress. How was he caused it? There is no causative link between the song and his reaction. He may have experienced harassment alarm or distress, but that's only because he appears to have completely misunderstood the song. Any causation is in his own mind, nowhere else. This is completely subjective. That cannot be the yardstick for a criminal offence - although the police keep misunderstanding this - because people subjectively believe all sorts of things which are not objectively true.

The song is internationally famous for having topped both the US Billboard and UK Singles charts in 1974. As a result, the story of the arrest has been picked up around the world. Singing the song was reasonable. (3b). This is a complete defence. If Hampshire police are so bothered about it, perhaps they should raise an international arrest warrant and go after Carl Douglas, who now runs a publishing company in Germany. They can take in to consideration his follow-up "Dance the Kung Fu".

Given the above, the police did not have reasonable suspicion (4A4) for an arrest. All they had was the inexplicable reaction of somebody who was 'of Chinese origin'. So what? There is no shortage of upset people of every hue. Last week I met a person who was sincerely convinced that their enemy was harassing them by going down the street and switching the D-lock on their bicycle to an identical one for which they didn't have the key. This is not grounds for arresting an ex-lover. It's grounds for checking that the keys and locks are properly matched and that the medication is not over-due. There is not automatically a crime, no mattter how upset the complainant is.

The mental element of intention is so important that it is repeated at 6(3). To be guilty the accused person must have intended offence, or at a minimum been aware of the ability of a song to be insulting. This song in the context of a beach bar is not distressing to anyone except those who are allegic to disco.

This would be funny but for three things:

1) Simon Ledger now has a file which could be used against him in the future.

2) The police do not appear to understand that 'taking a complaint seriously' may not automatically mean 'arrest somebody'. They first have to establish that there was an offence at all, and the playing of Kung Fu Fighting cannot objectively be one in the context of a beach bar, no matter how subjectively the complainant - who has not been named, unlike Simon Ledger - feels it is. The CCTV footage which they could have examined before jumping in with their size 9s, shows the complainant was the one abusing and insulting Simon Ledger. I doubt the police will be arresting the complainant, though.

3) The only person here who has been a victim of harassment is Mr Ledger. The going rate for false arrest compensation is about £4k plus costs, plus a grovelling apology from the Chief Constable about "lessons learned". Ledger could argue that the arrest itself was racially aggravated since the police thought it was alright to arrest a white man in order to placate someone of a different ethnicity According to the Mail, their police sources kept insisting there was 'more to it'. No there wasn't. That was character assassination in order to try to support the police officers' outrageous behaviour.

Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary Alex Marshall can be thankful that somebody has stopped the stupid case running. Ledger should take advice on claiming for false arrest as the lemon-mouthed "not enough evidence to show an offence has been committed" does not amount to an apology and a public acknowledgment that playing a song cannot be grounds for arrest merely because somebody who is not a white caucasian has complained about it. It leaves the tainted idea that Ledger may have done something criminal but that they just can't prove it. He did no such thing. It also fails to acknowledge the distress which the police have caused him since Sunday night.

Let's have a Spartacus Action down on the beach. Put on an outdoor production of The Mikado and see if Hampshire Plod would like to arrest an entire amateur operatic society for dressing up Chinese-style, and don't forget to arrest Aladdin when he next does panto during the turkey'n'tinsel season. I've got a little list...

Bronte Burghers

To Haworth in West Yorkshire, now known as Bronte Country. The village has done well out of the brilliant but unlucky Bronte babes, selling cream teas and souvenirs to hundreds of thousands of dutiful pilgrims who trudge up and down the viciously cobbled hill on which they lived.

Mobility of the old folk in Haworth is kept up by a death penalty for anybody who can't manage the incline; it's no place for hip replacements and a wheelchair released at the top would hit the bottom doing 120 mph. Most places would put in a funicular railway and be done with it, but in Howarth every inch is a potential gold mine and so it is lined with gastropubs, holiday cottages, cheesemongers, toyshops and galleries. The tourist centre coyly gives the views at the top of the hill which flattens out in to a charming space fronting the church; it doesn't mention the ski-slope just beyond the Post Office. Photos are misleading; it is steeper than it looks.

The Brontes would always have been awkward, clever girls, following the footsteps of their impoverished but cultured Oirish father, but if that was not enough trouble, Haworth brought the strangeness out in them as even they struggled to portray themselves as ordinary genteel women.

It cannot help but do that; Haworth is a place which hums with Gothick presentments, where the everyday objects are caught in slanting light and for a moment look suspicious, as if they have been caught out having secret conversations with each other just beyond the range of human hearing.

A large hat with flowers will suddenly seem to have faces nestling in the petals, a cat walking along a wall seems stripey, then when you look again, it is plain. The Fleece pub has beer garden, but that is at the top of the fire escape above the roof and is built out over a precipitous drop, or what would be a drop if it wasn't filled with lean-to sheds snuggling against a cliff-face. If you could slip through the treads - which you can't, it is perfectly safe - you would crash through umpteen layers of glass in to the hidden crevasse.



Loitering by Spooks at 22 Main Street - Specialist Bookshop for Psychic Phenomena supplies - a vortex of strangeness is there, right on the stone slab by the side window. There is nothing whatever strange about a shop selling psychic accoutrements, books on Dowsing, Clairvoyance, Healing, Reincarnation, Alternative Medicine, Astrology, Local History, Tarot Cards, Crystals, Essential Oils, Incenses, Runes, Pendulums, Celtic and Mythical Pendants. Those are everywhere

What is strange is the planning application. There is a plan to change the ground floor in to an adult entertainment shop and the basement in to booths for private lap dancing. Maybe it's nominative determinism seeping through the stone. The sign on the wall says Purvs Corner and the shop stands on the junction with Butt Lane.



This is West Yorkshire, no more than a longish bus ride outside Bradford. It is moorland. It's not the fleshpots of York or the Dales with their undulating hips and ice cream parlours. It's not even Whitby with its unique approach to diversity. It's Haworth, dammit, where a lady changes her sheepskin mittens for crochet fingerless gloves indoors. The one place where going about in a burkha is considered foolhardy exposure to the weather, unless you can get it on over a hat and coat.

Who exactly is going to patronize this place? The stag party organizers Red Seven may have a point if sloping up and down the street, visiting good pubs and having great food is your thing. No shortage of those. However, as they say:

Boat party, Bobsleigh, Bungee jumping, City break, Clay pigeon shooting, Coasteering, Day at the races, Drive a supercar, Fishing, Fly a MiG jet fighter in Moscow, Football trip, Go-karting, Golf, Horse riding , Horse racing, Indoor skydiving, Kayaking or canoeing, Off roading, Paintballing, Powerboating, Quad bikes, Rally driving, Rock climbing, Skiing or snowboarding, Skydiving, Surfing, Tank driving, White water rafting and Zorbing (or Sphering). Not all of these are available in Haworth so you may want to consider other locations

The plan seems to be that stag parties will drift about the pubs before their booking in to the club. Are there enough stag parties to warrant this optimism? Despite the international visitors and the good value which Haworth offers them, you won't find "raunchy" on a list of the ten qualities people commonly associate with the town. If you are looking for raunch it's best to start in Leeds.

Haworth does a fair line in repressed passion, though. If unattached it is a good place to look for a certain kind of woman i.e. an available one, but a stag party is unlikely to want to settle down for a night of passionate readings no matter how much significant eye contact is involved.

The planning application closed on 20th March and we shall see what happens. The vortex by the paranormal bookshop giggled and determined that the Clerk to the Council be called Gordon Bashami-Ghoulis.

Update: A controversial Radio 3 dramatisation of Wuthering Heights is being aired. It has gone all DH Lawrence and has Cathy and Heathcliff swearing at each other.

Earthly Remains

Anna Raccoon is looking in to the business of earthly remains after cremation; specifically what happens to metallic parts.

A check through the terms and conditions of the city crematorium for Silicon Fen showed they were fully aware of this. If you wish, they can deal with it or you can collect the recovered metals yourself, so long as you pick them up within two weeks. Fair enough.

There are other instructions:

The coffin must only contain the body of the deceased

And nobody else under normal conditions, capice?

All the shrouds and/or clothing must be of natural fibres e.g cotton, wool, silk etc.

If modom does not know the difference between an acrylic ManU strip and a Fair Trade long-staple cotton tee, our fashionistas will check the fibre content for her.

Shoes or any material manufactured from PVC should not be included.

Lil'ole farm bois will have to take off their gumboots. Crocs likewise.

NO GLASS, BATTERIES or MOBILE PHONES.

Where he's going, there isn't any coverage.

The "Can't Do" Culture

MPs famously bought goods from the John Lewis list for the same reason the rest of the Waitrose-classes do; they are supposed to make the whole business of buying homewares very simple. You - or we- pay them, they deliver and set up.

Hoping to experience what life is like in the Nomenklatura, I purchased a washing machine and paid the fees accordingly. Could I have got the machine cheaper by going through the warehouses? Yes, and saved at least £84, but the point about John Lewis is they are supposed to make life like their adverts.




The store offered me a delivery 'slot' of 7 hours, somewhere between 7am and 2pm. Fortunately, I don't have anything else to do but wait for deliveries - it's not like I've got a life or anything - and, anyway, the weather is a reasonable excuse for delay.

At just before 12pm - note, five hours in to the delivery 'slot' - they called and so when they arrived the door was open, the old machine had been drained (as far as possible) and disconnected, ready to go. The space was clear and clean, all the little valves were turned off.

The new machine was brought in, unpacked, the hot-fill pipe capped off with a brass screw-cap (it's all cold fill now) and the cold-fill hose offered up to the opening in the side of the sink unit. Due to an anti-flood device on the hose, the hole was approximately 3mm too small and need to be relieved .



"We can't do that, we aren't qualified" said the man. Things went very bad from there on.

It inspires utter contempt when a grown man says he can't file the edge of a hole in chipboard. It's not cabinet making. It's not even woodwork. It doesn't matter that strictly speaking, it's not their job. I could not hold myself out as a man, allegedly the possessor of a gentleman's plumbing, if I were unable to slightly enlarge a hole in a material which is only one-up from cardboard.

I would not expect to seduce women if I could not do even that. Heck, I would not expect to seduce men if I could not do even that. I would expect even the dogs and sheep to run away laughing, spurning my sexual advances when they found out I could not ease a hole in chipboard in a non-visible part of a kitchen.

We aren't talking about 3ml all the way round or making a hole from scratch; we are talking about nibbling at a couple of points on an existing hole so the anti-flood device - roughly the size of large matchbox on the end of the cold-fill hose - goes through.

"We can't do that" repeated the mis-named installer, sticking rigidly to the John Lewis liability line.

Thoroughly bad-tempered words were had with the customer service moppet at John Lewis, who asked if I didn't have somebody who could help me make holes in chipboard? I told her that as I had been waiting for five hours, if they had said they needed a 7.5mm hole, I'd have nibbled it out ready with a junior hacksaw.

We were talking, I repeat, about removing a couple of millimetres of chipboard on the edge of an existing hole. You could probably do it with determination and steak-knife. A century of feminism and 130 years of public education for all, and somehow it strikes an otherwise capable young woman as inconceivable that a mere female could slightly enlarge a hole in chipboard for herself if given due warning of the necessity of access. No, she must perforce throw herself on the mercy of her saw-bearing male relatives.

Miss Customer Service has probably passed all the customer communication courses but still failed to predict that "Haven't you got anyone who can help you?" is a) beside the point and b) tantamount to calling the customer an ugly old bag who can't get a man. This is unlikely to elicit a warm response, especially if true. We aren't here to argue about how well-connected I am to a tribe of obliging hole-enlargers; that is irrelevant. JLP charged a premium for the machine plus an installation fee then, faced with a few millimetres of awkward chipboard with photocopies of wood on top, gave up and ran off for an early lunch, looking for an excuse to not do their job but still get paid.

I then proposed to enlarge the hole myself and wanted to know when they were sending the installers back.
"They've gone to the next job now" said the woman.
"No they haven't. They are having a shufty fag as they've got some spare time now and I can see them over the road".

The young woman then made an offer she obviously thought was supposed to have me grovelling "Well, provided you can do it Right Now, we'll send them back".

I got the saw from the tool box and set about the nibbling. Thirty seconds later the installer appeared at the front door and asked when I'd be finished. I said - and I accept this was inflammatory - "Between 12 and 2" and told him to wait in the van until I called him. For some reason, JLP does not seem to like waiting for the customer, although of course, it's alright if you wait five hours for them. He very well knew it was about a ten minute job. He was scheduled to run a test wash - to make sure nothing was leaking - so all that stuff about having to go immediately was utter bollocks. He was skiving and was narked about being caught out.

"Well, if that's your attitude, I won't try to help you"

At this point I just stared and said "Help?"

Did this man think was doing me a favour, that he had not in fact been paid the agreed price to install a machine but was here as a voluntary washing machine installer. How he was helping? Helping would have been to whip out a Stanley knife such as they use on the van to slit the packaging (not that he thought to bring in a pair of scissors to cut the polythene) and set to relieving the hole that few millimeters, possibly whilst saying 'This is not really my job, but if you don't tell anyone, I won't'.

Or, if feeling very worried about the company line and possible liabilities, then he could have said 'Look, can you cut out that bit quickly? Only I'm not insured. I'll have a sandwich as it is snap time, then do the installation'. A brave man would have done the former, even a lawyer would offered to do the second.

This was waiting for the customer to sort it out and then trying to act like the big man for finally, finally condescending to do one's job, but only under perfect conditions. This is the Can't Do Culture.

I've known fey gay hairdressers to have more guts. 'Pass me the Big Rasp, Julian, the one we normally use for your toenails, I just have to adjust this access port'.

You wouldn't get a Pole talking cobblers about it not being his job; he'd punch a hole with his bare fist and then shrug: 'You want hole bigger, I make hole bigger. In Poland we have hardwood kitchen, not chipboard, not since Soviets.'

You wouldn't get an Afghan tribesman taking nonsense from a kitchen fitment. Admittedly their standard answer is to shoot the hole bigger with a Kalashnikov and then wonder why the cold water is spraying everywhere, but they would hold their manhood cheap if intimidated and defeated by 3mm of compressed sawdust.

Since I refused to give his ego a blow-job and be abjectly grateful for being allowed a few minutes of his valuable time, the installer flounced off. I'm not really sorry; I didn't trust him to do the job at all.



This is the job being done. I nibbed out the unwanted material, cutting it in little triangles. Following the installation instructions I completed the job (the transportation bolts had already been removed but I found I could have managed it as they give you a special spanner) then called a grown-up plumber who stopped by to check I'd done it correctly. It is three connections, four if you count screwing the cap on to the redundant hot water valve. Anyone can plug in the electricity. Screwing in the cold valve is fiddly, but no worse than a bottle-top. Connecting the waste hose is just pushing a hose on to a tapered pipe so that it fits snuggly. A spirit level helps tell if the feet need to be adjusted. You can tell when it is working properly; the clothes get washed and the floor does not flood.

The most difficult part turns out to be the sheer handling of the weight and tomorrow I will get glides to help move the machine in to its housing.