normblog

Justice for Leeds

Because of where I was yesterday, my journey home included a brief sojourn on Leeds station. This is a place about which I have expressed certain criticisms in the past; and so, conscious as I am of my reputation for scrupulous fair-mindednss, I feel duty bound to tell of something I encountered there, which I had come to believe did not exist: I mean an air-gushing hand-dryer that does actually dry the hands in less than the time it would take to run out to the shops and buy oneself a towel. Every one of these machines that I've ever come across shares the following two properties: it has a hole from which the warm(ish) air comes out on to your hands; you need a lot of time if you're to witness it getting to the end of the process for which it was supposedly made. In one of the gents' toilets on Leeds station, they now have something different: this has a space which encloses your hands; and the air comes out hot and fast. It dries them in a matter of seconds. Whaddya know! Next up, a cure for the common cold.

10 from 17

Apologies for yesterday's radio silence. I was on the other side of the Pennines, and then, when I got home, I had to take time to savour the details of United's clinching of the Premiership title. Bolton's late equalizer against Chelsea was an especially pleasing aspect of the afternoon. This seems like a good time to update the following table - being, now, a tale of 17 seasons for the four top clubs:

Manchester United: 2/1/1/2/1/1/2/1/1/1/3/1/3/3/2/1/1 (= 1.6)

Arsenal: 4/10/4/12/5/3/1/2/2/2/1/2/1/2/4/4/3 (= 3.6)

Liverpool: 6/6/8/4/3/4/3/7/4/3/2/5/4/5/3/3/4 (= 4.4)

Chelsea: 14/11/14/11/11/6/4/3/5/6/6/4/2/1/1/2/2 (= 6.1)

See if you can spot the odd one out there. Yes, it's easy isn't it? Liverpool. In the last 17 seasons they haven't managed to finish top even once, occasional anticipations of impending greatness notwithstanding.

I don't buy it

Via Fiction Bitch (and intermediate links), I found this from Jeanette Winterson, on the subject of book-swapping:

Of course I want people to read my books, but I also want people to buy my books. I am not exactly sure why it is all right to expect writers to work for free, or why the swap it site is seen as such a great idea because a guy was 'moaning about how much he spent on books', and realised that other people must feel similarly hard done by.

I have every sympathy for writers, and I even know where a few such people live, but gimme a break. The writer isn't God. What'll be next? You shouldn't give away that garment you don't like? Don't help your neighbour; better she should have to pay for whatever it is she needs. Winterson knows this in fact, going on to explain that she lends books to her friends and buys from second-hand bookshops. But she, it seems, is thereby contributing to 'the passion for books'. Quite so. Swap away, book-swappers.

The Heinz US of A

What? Only 57? Just like the varieties? It's been going on that long, the race, I thought there must be at least a hundred of them.

Warlike Afghans to defeat the US?

This is do or die... I will throw myself in the Atlantic if we lose.

That's the coach of the Afghan cricket team, talking about getting to the Cricket World Cup in 2011.

The Momma 'n' Daddy Collection 99

Today, and as previously signalled, the Momma 'n' Daddy series visits the dark side. Iris DeMent with 'Letter To Mom':

I wrote my mother yesterday
Cause I had some things that I had to say
And I know that when she reads them she's gonna cry
In the end I hope she sees
That I'm just trying to break free
Cause I've been walking round with secrets now too long

Back when I was barely ten
Mom brought home a new boyfriend
And I know that times were bad and he made her feel good
But one night he climbed into my bed
And he left me wishing I was dead
And I've been walking round with secrets now too long

Chorus
You say I'm digging up the past
And it's not wise to go back
But for me it's just as close as yesterday
And I'm not the kind for breaking rules
And I'm not wanting to be cruel
I've just been walking round with secrets now too long

All my life I've felt ashamed
Cause I thought I was the one to blame
And I vowed to God that no one else would ever know
How he crushed my childish pride
And he left me tears that never dried
And I've been walking round with secrets now too long

Repeat chorus
I've just been walking round with secrets now too long

[The Momma 'n' Daddy Archive, containing all the details of the series, is here.]

W.R. Endean handled ball 3

When the M.C.C. arrived to begin their tour of South Africa in 1956, I was much looking forward to the Test series. In England in 1955, the Springboks had lost by three Tests to two, but they had come back from 2-0 down to level the series 2-2, before losing at The Oval. My hopes for them were therefore high. The first two Tests gave me an early education in sporting disappointment, to which I put down my robust temperament in these matters nowadays. One curiosity of those two Tests was that South Africa each time posted the same score in its second innings - this score being, I'm sorry to have to report, 72. Another curiosity was Russell Endean's dismissal in the 72 aforesaid of the second Test in Cape Town. These excerpts give you some picture of what happened:

After defending dourly for 40 minutes without adding to his score Endean played a ball from Laker with his pads. It spun upwards, some feet above the stumps[,] and subconsciously, as if to arrest its progress towards the wickets, Endean put out his hand and allowed the ball to fall into the palm. An appeal followed and for the first time in the history of Test cricket a batsman was given out "handled ball". - South African Cricket Annual 1957

Endean, the ball gone, did not immediately drop his right arm. He stood half bemused, as though aware that something had gone amiss, if not entirely sure what it was. Laker, equally, was momentarily at a loss. Then slowly, and, I am quite sure, somewhat unhappily, he turned to umpire Costello and very quietly asked his question. - Charles Fortune, The M.C.C. Tour of South Africa 1956-1957

Of course, Endean could have kicked the ball away, or breasted it, or even headed it. One explanation offered was that he instinctively reacted as a hockey player, a game at which he has captained South Africa. - E. W.Swanton, Report from South Africa

Evans and Laker appealed, and Endean was rightly given out 'handling ball' [sic]. For some obscure reason, it does not count to the bowler. - Alan Ross, Cape Summer

Endean, curiously, was concerned in the previous strange Test dismissal, being the wicket-keeper when Hutton was given out "obstructing the field" at The Oval in 1951. Endean might have made a catch had not Hutton knocked away the ball when trying to protect his wicket. - Wisden 1958

I was batting at the other end and realized that for the fraction of a second Endean did not realize what had happened to the ball... This appeal at Newlands, as the other at the Oval [in 1951], was perfectly in order and wholly justified. It just happens that these things don't often happen. - Roy McLean, Pitch and Toss

So much detail about the trajectory of a ball, a man's reaction to it and the reaction to his reaction by those around him. It makes you think: no wonder the universe is of infinite magnitude. How else could it accommodate everything?

[For links to the other posts in this series, see here.]

Democratic self-determination and nationhood

James Grant is aiming to disengage the principle of self-determination from the idea of nationhood. The context of his argument is Scottish nationalism, to which he is opposed; but I won't be dealing with that specifically in what follows. I want to examine the general arguments he makes for thinking it might be time 'we abandoned claims to national self-determination'. I think Grant is wrong on three counts.

1. He says that there's 'no single, common will of the Scottish people, only a multitude of individual wills'. Whatever may be true about the state of Scottish opinion, it is not true that a multitude cannot have a common will. The members of a bridge club, for example, may be united in the common purpose of playing bridge on a more or less regular basis, so that it makes perfect sense to speak of them having, in this regard at least, a shared purpose or a common will. It can even make sense where a small minority of club members aren't particulary interested in playing bridge but belong to the club for social reasons: getting out of the house, spending the evening in company, etc. If the great majority of members are there primarily for the bridge, there is, meaningfully, a common will. This doesn't mean, however, that there is some metaphysical entity 'higher' than the people who make up the club - hovering somewhere above the building in which they meet. Their 'common will' is just another way of describing the fact that there is a purpose that most of them share.

2. Grant writes as if, for democratically-minded individuals, membership of humanity might suffice; for he counterposes our common humanity, our human dignity, to more particularist, national allegiances, which divide us. But this is - empirically - a false counterposition. It is false even for those of us strongly wedded to universal and humanist values. Nobody is satisfied with being part of the human race, as good as this is. It can still feel rather impersonal when the collectivity in question is numbered in the thousands of millions. So we have friends, families; looser affiliations with people of like mind in one matter or another; and ethnic or national identities. Of course, particularist memberships can take ugly, exclusivist forms, but they don't have to. A person can have friends without this implying any contempt towards those who are strangers; he or she can feel attached to the fact of being French or Norwegian without disparaging the culture or identity of Italians and Danes.

3. Finally, not only does the democratic self-determination of rationally autonomous individuals not rule out the idea of nationhood, it actually allows it - its procedures accommodate it. National divisions may well be 'accidental by-products of human history', but that doesn't mean they are of no significance to the people they affect. (It is an accident of history that you grow up speaking English or Greek or Swahili. That doesn't mean it's of no consequence to you that that is the language you know, as becomes apparent to anyone who is forbidden the use of their own language.) If rationally autonomous individuals have rights to act collectively in certain ways, as they do so long as they respect the democratic rights of everyone else, one of the things they may legitimately decide on is to associate with others in ways that mutually suit them. This doesn't require the coincidence of nations with states but it does permit that - subject to the proviso (protecting minority rights) just registered.

Pressure point

Here's a report by Polly Curtis on the latest effort within the UCU: a motion for the upcoming annual conference, to 'consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions'. Curtis fills in the background:

Previous attempts at a boycott have caused international outcries, especially in Israel and the US.

When the union backed a boycott in February 2005, the story hit the front pages in Europe, North America and Asia. The debate raged for several weeks when a delegation of Israeli academics put pressure on the union by touring UK campuses.

Run that one again: 'put pressure on the union'? Interesting turn of phrase. A group of Israeli academics stating a view constitutes pressure. What, is it the University and College Union or the Union of Wilting Flowers?

The normblog profile 242: Tim Newman

Tim Newman spent the first 15 years after his birth in 1977 in an isolated farmhouse without a TV, a mile outside Pembroke in south west Wales. At age 19 he was glad that he was at last able to live independently when he went to study Mechanical Engineering at Manchester University. In 2003 he was sent to Oman for five weeks' work, from which he didn't return. After three years of working the oilfields of the Middle East, he got married on the spot and moved himself and his new bride to Sakhalin Island, where they now live. Tim blogs at White Sun of the Desert.

Why do you blog? > I started because I wanted to answer back at what I was reading in the papers. Nowadays, it's because I am living an interesting life which a small group of people seem to like reading about.

What has been your best blogging experience? > Meeting people in Sakhalin for the first time who go on to tell me they've been reading my blog for months.

What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > Stick to what you know, shut up about everything else. Don't post for the sake of it.

What are your favourite blogs? > Oliver Kamm, Tim Worstall, Samizdata.

What is the best novel you've ever read? > Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith. You can smell the atmosphere of a winter night in Moscow rising off the pages.

What is your favourite poem? > 'If' by Rudyard Kipling.

What is your favourite movie? > O Brother, Where Art Thou?

What is your favourite song? > 'Six Days on the Road' by Taj Mahal. [Other versions here - NG.]

Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > I used to be a traditional conservative, but have since become an avid libertarian, meaning I've changed my mind about so much. There was a time when I would have opposed homosexual relationships in certain circumstances; nowadays I couldn't care less.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > The state is not your friend.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > Statism in its many forms.

Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world? > The Forgotten Soldier, by Guy Sajer. It is the account of a young French-German soldier fighting on the Eastern Front. I read it at a time when I was dead set on a career in the military. Once I'd finished reading it, I decided against that.

If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be? > Drastically reduce the areas in which government is involved, most importantly in the provision of health and education services.

If you could choose anyone, from any walk of life, to be Prime Minister, who would you choose? > Perry de Havilland.

What would you do with the UN? > Remove all members in whose country you cannot drink the tap water.

What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > The exerting of excessive political control over the lives of individuals, be it the imposition of Islamic law, adoption of communism, or formation of an EU superstate.

Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? > The best is yet to come.

What would be your most important piece of advice about life? > We are only here for a quick look around, so live life to the full and don't waste a second.

What do you consider the most important personal quality? > Loyalty.

What personal fault do you most dislike? > I'm not sure whether there is a word for it, but when somebody continually takes pleasure in exerting power over those in a weaker position. I had a school teacher who used to do this. I have never seen anything so despicable in my life.

In what circumstances would you be willing to lie? > If the question was grossly inappropriate. If the answer was going to cause deep offence unnecessarily. If I'm negotiating the commercial terms of an oil and gas contract.

What commonly enjoyed activities do you regard as a waste of time? > None. If people are enjoying something, it is almost by definition not a waste of time, or at least not something I should pass judgement on.

What, if anything, do you worry about? > My wife or me losing our health too young. I'm scared stiff of this.

If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything you'd do differently? > I'd treat an former girlfriend much better than I did. I used to be hopelessly insecure, getting very jealous over the slightest thing, and this caused her nothing but misery. Also, I didn't pay her half as much attention as she deserved. Fortunately, we're still friends and I've been able to make amends and apologize profusely, but I still feel extremely guilty about it. The upside is that I have made it absolutely certain that I don't make the same mistakes with my wife.

Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)? > Somewhere in the US: the Pacific north-west, the Outer Banks, southern California. But really, anywhere will seem good after Sakhalin Island.

What do you like doing in your spare time? > Photography, hill walking, mountain biking, snowmobiling, playing computer games, and propping up bars drinking vodka and speaking Russian.

What is your most treasured possession? > My passport. My life would shrink immeasurably without it.

What talent would you most like to have? > To be able to play boogie-woogie piano.

Who are your sporting heroes? > Ryan Giggs and Andrew Ettingshausen for being such outstanding role models.

If you could have any three guests, past or present, to dinner who would they be? > Three close friends of mine: Simon, a Captain in the Royal Marines for whom I was Best Man and vice versa; Jaimie, another Captain in the Royal Marines who recently won the Distinguished Service Order for his actions in Afghanistan; and Kenny, a former soldier who is the most extraordinary man, and biggest idiot, I have ever met.

[The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of all the profiles to date, and the links to them, can be found here.]