tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61480422011-07-30T19:11:40.903ZA blog operated by Francis Bennion in conjunction with his website www.francisbennion.com*noreply@blogger.comBlogger1251100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1140179143876318272006-02-17T12:15:00.000Z2006-02-20T13:40:31.026Z

On 20 January 2006 I emailed the following to Polly Toynbee about her Guardian column-You say today that the Social Democratic Party (which I joined at the outset) ‘was crushed by the first-past-the post system, without a fair share of seats’. Please note that the italicised words are untrue, as I could show at length if you wish. Furthermore PR inevitably produces coalitions, where no elector

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1138018903938593922006-01-23T12:08:00.000Z2006-01-23T12:31:06.110Z

In an article in the Guardian (26 November 2005) titled ‘We have a responsibility to look out for all children – not just our own’ Jenni Russell said man cannot now communicate in any way with a strange child, even if it is in distress, for fear of being mistaken for a paedophile. She adds: ‘This is a historically unprecedented way for children to be brought up – leaving the job exclusively to

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362574349700633799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1124978554940901542005-08-25T13:49:00.000Z2006-01-23T12:29:27.126Z

In previous blogs (see FBBB51 and FBBB077) I attacked the movement described in Julien Benda’s 1927 book La Trahison des Clercs (translated by Richard Aldington as The Betrayal of [it should be ‘by’] the Intellectuals), which attacked treachery by European intelligentsia towards the values in which they were reared. It is otherwise known as fouling one’s own nest. In particular the intellectual

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1121075882388403152005-07-11T09:32:00.000Z2006-01-23T12:28:42.016Z

According to the Sunday Telegraph (10 July 2005) Tariq Al-Humayd, editor of Al-Sharq Al Awsat, a leading Arab newspaper, has attacked ordinary Muslims in Britain for funding terrorists. He said that collections are frequently held in Arab areas of London for jihadi causes disguised as charities. He wrote-‘In London we have seen, and are seeing, the money being collected in the streets, and the

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362574349700633799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1118318053989506682005-07-08T10:30:00.000Z2005-07-11T10:01:24.873Z

While a vestige of freedom of speech remains in Britain before the Government forces through its religious hatred Bill, I want to speak out about the Islamic origins of the bomb attack on London which occurred on 7 July 2005, coinciding with the opening of the G8 Summit. As I write on the day following that event it is reported that 52 people were killed and 700 injured in the attack. No doubt

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362574349700633799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1120815171776413062005-06-09T10:40:00.000Z2005-07-08T09:49:10.253Z

On 6 June 2005 the BBC Radio Four Today programme came up with another of its rather absurd stunts. It published the following-We’ve asked Conservative MP David Heathcoat Amory to come up with an alternative text. Mr Heathcoat Amory was a British representative on the convention on the future of Europe, which drew up the constitution.He opposed the final version and helped produce a minority

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362574349700633799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1118135139276279292005-06-07T09:04:00.000Z2005-07-08T09:37:02.150Z

I used to think of the BBC as Auntie, and treat her with affectionate respect. Then Mr James Naughtie said on the Today programme just before the 2005 general election the he hoped ‘we’ would win (meaning the Blairites). This confirmed me in the view that BBC now stands for Blairite Broadcasting Corporation. Hence the rather abrupt terms in which I sent a message to the Today programme on 26 May

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362574349700633799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1110199219160990632005-03-07T12:38:00.000Z2005-06-08T09:19:07.376Z

That right-wing softy Douglas Hurd (who scarcely deserves the honourable epithet right-wing) made the mistake of reviewing a book by the late Paul Foot in the Sunday Telegraph on 20 February 2005. This is the third time I’ve had a go at Foot since his welcome decease (the others were 2004.013 and 2004.015) . I’d better stop or it will begin to look like necrophilia (necrophobia more like).Hurd

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1108123667603419142005-02-11T12:07:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:04:57.563Z

Channel Four’s Brat Camp is the best thing currently on British television – for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. It tells us a great deal about what, before we went non-judgmental, used to be called delinquent children. It links to that unfashionable and difficult concept known to the Christian church as original sin. It also links to a news item in The Times for 9 February 2005-A father

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1103112841615675182004-12-15T09:28:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:48:08.160Z

Football commentator Ron Atkinson, universally known as ‘Big Ron’, was manager of Coventry City football club in 1995-96, a period when they won only 14 matches out of 64. I remembered this when on 13 December 2004 I watched a fascinating programme on BBC One television about how Big Ron has been sent to Coventry for uttering the forbidden word ‘nigger’ when he thought the microphone was switched

Geoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362574349700633799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1102328601289658382004-12-06T10:16:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:00:38.813Z

This is about what is called Netiquette, or manners on the Internet. There are different views about this. One guide I found advised the following-To keep messages short, use some common abbreviations:(BTW) means ‘by the way’.A (G) enclosed in brackets indicates grinning.A good one to keep handy in case you’re worried about offending someone is (IMHO) - In My Humble Opinion.One of our favorites

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1100259087325784422004-11-12T11:30:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:00:05.483Z

Private Eye’s Phil Space has cousins working for every newspaper’s features department. They are on the payroll, and are what I call churners. They are paid to churn out a piece every week, whether they have anything to say or not. Usually they have nothing to say because they have no experience of working life beyond what used to be called Fleet Street.One of these churners is Jane Shilling of

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1100173839018155462004-11-11T11:47:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:59:25.546Z

He was a sincere believer, though many disagreed with his views. He took seriously the biblical injunction to spread the gospel (meaning ‘good news’). He thought the gospel taught that homosexual practice was sinful. His name was Harry Hammond, and he lived and practised his faith in Bournemouth. Here is a Times news item about him from 25 April 2002-Preacher fined for anti-gay sermonA PREACHER

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1100042136300313392004-11-09T23:06:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:58:47.400Z

The Dean of Leicester, the Very Rev. Vivienne Faull, has ambitions to be the first woman bishop of the Church of England. She had an article in the Sunday Times for 7 November 2004 headed ‘Women bishops are good for you’. Is this true?I have to say the article made me squirm. Its author came across as self-satisfied, not to say smug. It was also theologically unsound. The Dean says: ‘If the

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1099924883927852492004-11-08T14:39:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:58:15.646Z

Currently there is a furore because midwives have been officially instructed to ask every pregnant woman they encounter professionally whether, while pregnant, they have suffered physical violence at the hands of their husband or male partner. Apparently there are proportionately many more cases of such abuse on pregnant women than on women who are not pregnant. No one asks why this should be so.

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1083583781737382112004-05-03T11:29:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:57:31.753Z

Today Richard Harries, the Anglican Bishop of Oxford, was interviewed by John Humphrys on the BBC Radio Four Today programme. The Bishop said that the media, in reporting current worldwide Al Queda suicide and other bomb outrages, should not say they are committed by Islamic terrorists. Instead, the Bishop maintained, the media should say they are committed by anti-Western terrorists. The reason?

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1083251874226844282004-04-29T15:17:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:56:57.540Z

I want to talk about a certain kind of journey. If you look at a beautiful youth or maiden, say in a swimming pool, you will see smooth, tender flesh covering an attractive slim body. Let us concentrate on the trunk of such a person, which is divided into the chest or thorax, and the belly or abdomen. The external trunk of one of these young creatures (let’s say it is a youth called Daniel) is

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1082817243840390702004-04-24T14:34:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:56:02.763Z

Two items on the same page of the Times for today [page 47] draw attention to an age-old problem very much troubling us still, the clash between Islam and Christianity. Geoffrey Rowell reminds us that 800 years ago to the month the city of Constantinople (now Istanbul) fell to the forces of the Fourth Crusade, designed like the other three to wrest Christian holy places in Jerusalem and the Holy

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1082563568013018962004-04-21T16:06:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:55:26.620Z

The third edition of the HMSO official publication MI5 The Security Service has the following to say on Peter Wright’s ‘Wilson Plot’ allegations-In his book Spycatcher, the former Security Service officer Peter Wright claimed that up to 30 members of the Service had plotted to undermine the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. This allegation was exhaustively investigated and it was concluded, as

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1082456274373965752004-04-20T10:17:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:54:38.033Z

I hold every man a debtor to his profession, said the sixteenth-century lawyer and philosopher Francis Bacon. Many people have been rude about the law, not least Charles Dickens. Famously, he made Mr Bumble say the law is an ass, and remarked sourly that the one great principle of English law is to make business for itself. But then Dickens was not a member of the learned profession of the law.We

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1081164247414062582004-04-05T11:24:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:54:01.673Z

In the hope it might cheer up people who are naturally worried about the current terrorist threat, and as a form of Easter greeting, I reproduce below an item about William Michael Rossetti (WMR), brother of Dante Gabriel Rossetti the painter. It reminds us that throughout history since the invention of gunpowder in AD 850 people have been trying to blow up other people – and often succeeding.WMR

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1081085639043509752004-04-04T13:33:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:45:44.563Z

On 3 April 2004 Adrian Turner, editor of the weekly Justice of the Peace, wrote a wise editorial headed CRIMINALIZING THE YOUNG. He started by referring to his editorial of the previous week in which he wrote approvingly about ‘lifestyle punishments’ for delinquent youths, such as confiscating their mobile phones. These punishments would not criminalize them, while still hitting where it hurt.Mr

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1081009402529817602004-04-03T16:23:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:52:41.470Z

One of our current masters, Mr Trevor Phillips of the Commission for Racial Equality, today decreed that multiculturalism in England has ended and that we are to return to being a monoculture. I rejoiced at this news, as I was taught in Sunday School that there is more joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons (Luke xv 7).In 1989 I wrote an article which

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1080924344530446662004-04-02T16:45:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:51:59.130Z

Politicians tend to be very bad at justifying their existence to the voters. I was reminded of this when on All Fools Day 2004 I watched the leader of the Liberal Democrat Party Charles Kennedy making of himself what the day rendered appropriate. This distressing exhibition was broadcast on the BBC2 television programme Newsnight, and took place at Chatham before an audience of about thirty

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1080245424854089502004-03-25T20:10:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:51:18.640Z

I hereby make an award for the stupidest journalistic remark of 2004 (so far). The Times has acquired a brand new columnist for its T2 tabloid-sized insert. His name is Robbie Millen, and his first puerile effort appeared today under the heading Proud, passionate and pointless. The last word was certainly appropriate. Judging by the accompanying drawing of Robbie’s head, he is aged about fifteen.

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1080034537595058652004-03-23T09:35:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:50:46.696Z

Sign-language-assisted performances of opera for the deaf, says Sir Max Hastings (Spectator, 20 March 2004), are a travesty of political correctness. Opera for the deaf, what is this? One can no more have opera for the deaf than one can have piano playing for the armless or soccer for the legless. Opera is a matter of sound, glorious sound. That is what it is all about, its be-all and end-all.

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1079947009138379492004-03-22T09:16:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:50:04.400Z

I once had my hair ruffled in the Mansion House by the late Mervyn Stockwood, then Bishop of Southwark. The year was 1970. I was chairing a charity dinner and he was standing on my right making a speech as guest of honour (the Lord Mayor of London was sitting on my left). I was fashionably slim, with freshly washed abundant long hair. I was wearing a brand-new mulberry dinner jacket, with

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1079695521813207482004-03-19T11:25:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:49:31.283Z

I wrote in FBBB65 and 68 about the right to be let alone. Now here we are again, this time in Nevada. The United States Supreme Court has announced that on 22 March 2004 it will hear oral arguments in a Nevada case that will determine whether or not states can criminally punish persons who refuse to identify themselves to the police. People in Britain will watch with interest. What America does

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1079630806643329802004-03-18T17:26:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:48:54.803Z

When in FBBB91 I remarked that the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, had been patronisingly referred to by his Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, as a ‘cheerful chappie’ I was unaware that two days earlier Lord Woolf had uttered no less than 355 words in the chamber of the House of Lords in a vain attempt to convince their Lordships that he did not really mean what he said. The speech

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1079525280160164022004-03-17T12:08:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:48:19.166Z

Mass murder is the description attached by Henry Laycock to the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima. In a letter in today’s London Times this man, writing from the Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, equates that act by President Truman to the Madrid bombing earlier this month which killed 200 innocent civilians and injured more than 1,000. The latter attack, he says,

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1079433117736423132004-03-16T10:31:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:47:34.950Z

We have all written things we later regretted. Here is an example I have just come across. On 19 March 2000 the Sunday Times News Review published an interview by Eleanor Mills with Bernie Ecclestone, the billionaire Formula One motor racing boss. She wrote-Bernie's latest political crusade is to back Jeffrey Archer to run as an independent candidate for mayor of London. I look a little aghast at

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1079347517207826682004-03-15T10:45:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:41:34.586Z

The Guardian is a respectable newspaper, so why did it publish a blatant lie about Peter Hain? So far as I know, Kevin Toolis is a respectable journalist. Why then did he compose this blatant lie?The lie was published in February 2001, but I have only just found it on the Internet. A lie is still a lie, even though it is three years old. As it concerns a matter over which I suffered much, both

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1079113650957142622004-03-12T17:47:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:46:18.206Z

The Tory MP Ann Winterton entered the House of Commons in the same 1983 election as my old friend Gerald Howarth. She has twice been in trouble over her sense of humour.In May 2002 Ann was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet after making an obscure joke in an after-dinner speech to the Congleton Rugby Union club in Cheshire. The joke was about a Pakistani being thrown from a train because Pakistanis

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1079021993750400822004-03-11T16:19:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:43:14.660Z

I am quite strong on the importance of emotions, of which it has been said that we don’t have them, they have us. E. M. Forster mysteriously wrote that the artist aims at the truth, and succeeds if he raises the emotions while the orator aims at raising the emotions, and succeeds if he does so. Robert Graves called poetry the transformation into symbolism of some disturbingly emotional crisis in

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-107894814546308812004-03-10T19:49:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:21:58.076Z

Tony Blair’s Government is currently proving pretty clueless when it comes to acting with awareness of the legal framework within which they operate. Not surprising when you consider they have thoughtlessly sacrificed the one state official who kept them on the right lines in Cabinet discussions. I refer of course to the Lord Chancellor.Until the present one Charlie Falconer, patronisingly

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1078506449376628942004-03-05T17:07:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:20:57.920Z

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than write for the public and have no self. Thus said Cyril Connolly (1903-1974). He founded and edited the literary monthly Horizon, which was published from 1939 to 1950. Today I received a box containing around eighty copies of various dates. Why have I bought these at a cost of £230? I will tell you.I was seventeen when Horizon began to come

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1078422650794649242004-03-04T17:50:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:20:13.260Z

The judiciary, through the mouth of the Lord Chief Justice of England And Wales Lord Woolf, have hit out against Mr Blair’s dismantling of the constitution. In a speech yesterday which annoyed the Home Secretary Mr Blunkett, Lord Woolf levelled sweeping charges against the Labour Government.Our ability to manage very well, thank you, without one of those written constitutions which we so

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1078328156610861552004-03-03T15:35:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:19:39.380Z

It has always seemed to me that one of a person’s chief duties is to respect and take care of his or her body. It’s obvious really. That is the one true possession we have. We live in it and out of it every day of our lives. So we had better look after it.That is why occasionally in these blogs I have criticized the practice of anal intercourse, whether engaged in by a heterosexual or homosexual

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1078250300304449482004-03-02T17:58:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:19:05.096Z

Broadcasting, newspapers, journals – nowadays collectively known as the media - have a reputation for arrogance. This simply means that the journalists working in the media collectively have a reputation for arrogance, and it is well deserved. Nowhere has this unattractive trait been more conspicuously displayed than in the case of the Secretary of State for Defence Geoff Hoon. Since the days

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1078180045720566622004-03-01T22:27:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:18:27.420Z

Today’s Times is rather hard on my wife Mary’s home town Limerick, saying it has the reputation of being ‘a violent and impoverished city’. The item recalls the so-called Limerick pogrom of 1904, when a Limerick priest denounced the city’s small number of Jews from the pulpit as ‘rapacious usurers’ and they were driven out.I have made many visits to Limerick since I met and married Mary in 1977.

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1078057728390423962004-02-29T12:28:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:17:52.476Z

Kenneth Grahame’s Mr Toad from Wind in the Willows is the paradigm of the foolish, vain motorist. Some wise words were uttered about our present-day Mr Toads in a Times leader on 28 February 2004.As a culture, we react with horror to rail crashes while accepting the far higher number of motoring casualties as a price worth paying. There is an inherent casualness in our driving culture – we are

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1077971838376265032004-02-28T12:37:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:17:14.036Z

In a Times letter today Miss Mary Ellen Synon writes from leafy Hampshire with sickening inevitability: ‘Slavery was a shame shared by all the colonies, and by Britain . . .’ What she should have written was: ‘Slavery was a shame shared by all the colonies, and by Britain, and by the African chiefs who sold their people into slavery in the first place . . .’ (See Blog FBBB56.)What is more, while

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-107790035788601852004-02-27T16:45:00.000Z2005-05-06T10:16:37.193Z

It is now politically incorrect to use the language of command. This even applies to the most commanding entity in our constitution, the Queen in Parliament. Formerly if there was to be say a new Supreme Court the Act would say in commanding tones ‘There shall be a Supreme Court’. Today’s equivalent is illustrated by the Constitutional Reform Bill introduced into the House of Lords on 24 February

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1077353686897154052004-02-21T08:54:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:58:18.546Z

The Government have taken up a new human rights term: sexual autonomy. OED2 defines autonomy as ‘liberty to follow one’s will, personal freedom’. It is good that we should have that liberty officially acknowledged in the sexual field, but does the acceptance go far enough? I suggest not.Oliver Phillips of the University of Westminster points out on the Internet that the July 2000 Home Office

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1077266250630063112004-02-20T08:37:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:57:12.723Z

I am writing again about what I call Police stroppiness towards respectable middle class people who pay their wages. In previous Blogs I have described the following-· Cambridgeshire Police being stroppy towards Professor Stephen Hawking over injuries they suspect to have been inflicted on him by his wife (FBBB68).· North Wales Police impudently questioning BBC Director-General Greg Dyke about

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1077178416058601502004-02-19T08:13:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:56:18.090Z

Can we still have what we are accustomed to think of as impeccable fair trials when the person tried is a suspected terrorist suicide bomber? The Times published the following letter from me on 13 February 2004-The letter signed by members of the Bar (7 February) refers to three fair trial principles: a public hearing by an impartial judge and jury of one’s peers, proof of guilt beyond reasonable

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1077093295683880532004-02-18T08:34:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:55:42.570Z

I'm sorry to have to return to the dreaded subject of edspeak (see FBBB20) but it is unavoidable if I am to do my duty. The education of the nation’s children is in the hands of people who are unable to use the English language, and it is an alarming situation.Yesterday a Government department calling itself the DfES (Department for Education and Skills) published what it called the Interim

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1077008229397992212004-02-17T08:57:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:55:07.513Z

I call it Lovers Lane, though its real name is Blackall Road. For me it is now Exeter’s most romantic street. It goes along the edge of a deep chasm through which runs what was once called the London and South-Western Railway, and has Exeter Prison at one end. Not perhaps where you would look for romance, but that can pop up anywhere.There is a low brick wall along that side of the road. Attached

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076918771497618092004-02-16T08:06:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:54:32.983Z

Roger Scruton has written a new book, The Need for Nations. Judging by an article in the Sunday Times for 15 February 2004 based on the book, many of his themes have already appeared in these Blogs. He argues that the secular nation state is necessary for democracy and the rule of law. Opposed to it is the theocratic whole-life dominion of the Islamic creed. This leaves no room for the state to

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076834150098458032004-02-15T08:35:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:53:38.713Z

I am on Day 49 of The Cambridge Daily Reading Bible (see FBBB25). The language is everyday modern English, with only occasional faint reminders of King James. This indicates that it means business, and must be taken seriously as today-speak (even though there are many obvious absurdities). The old tales, learnt in childhood Sunday School, are in modern dress stripped of most of their mystique.

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076744631147164882004-02-14T07:43:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:52:59.180Z

I have received another email from Iftikhar Ahmad of the London School of Islamics (for the first see FBBB37). It is again full of unverified assertions.Iftikhar Ahmad says the West as it exists today is the product of Islamic science, civilisation, culture and learning. He alleges that one of the teacher’s unions, ATL, regards Muslim schools as Osama bin Laden Academies.The ATL is the

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076661678853067292004-02-13T08:41:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:51:55.773Z

The Blairite demolition of the British constitution continued with the publication on 10 February of a report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs. This followed the Government's announcement last summer of proposals for a new Supreme Court and a new Judicial Appointments Commission and for the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor. I responded to that

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076574664173976602004-02-12T08:31:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:51:22.903Z

I have been reading the House of Lords debate on 4 February concerning Lord Hutton’s report on the death of Dr David Kelly. I myself took an extreme view about the behaviour of the BBC, sending the following letter to the Times on 1 February (which was not published).I suggest that the time has come for the Government to advise Her Majesty to revoke the royal charter establishing the British

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076487355821676482004-02-11T08:15:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:50:44.063Z

When asked by a kind friend the other day how dry I liked my Martini I replied that the question does not interest me. It has not interested me since the day in August 2003 when for medical reasons I gave up alcohol. Before that it would have interested me a good deal, just as it did Dorothy Parker. She said-I like to drink Martinis:Two at the very most.Three, and I’m under the table;Four, and I’

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076400471884491872004-02-10T08:07:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:50:06.440Z

Arising out of my attacks on police impertinence in FBBB28, 68 and 69 my attention has now been drawn to a further example, that of the Cheshire Police in presuming to question the Lord Bishop of Chester about obviously harmless remarks made by him concerning medical help for homosexuals. The BBC website reports that the Bishop said-Some people who are primarily homosexual can reorientate

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076314906257293872004-02-09T08:21:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:49:19.103Z

In FBBB25 I said that 'agnostic' was the name demanded by the Victorian Professor T. H. Huxley for those who disclaimed atheism and believed with him in an unknown and unknowable God. Atheism on the other hand is the faith of those who firmly believe there really is no God of any description (it must be a matter of faith, for that proposition certainly cannot be proved).Around 25 years ago I

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076228787903269802004-02-08T08:26:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:48:36.990Z

I promised in FBBB67 to return to the attack on the North Wales Police, which I began in FBBB28. There is plenty of material.I start now with how they questioned Greg Dyke about Anne Robinson's 2002 anti-Welsh rant. Anne upset some Welsh people when she told Paul Merton on Room 101: ‘The Welsh are always so pleased with themselves. I've never taken to them. What are they for?’ The BBC website

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076142509630927432004-02-07T08:28:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:48:01.393Z

I wrote in FBBB65 about the right to be let alone (or left alone – same thing). By coincidence Mick Hume was writing on that theme in yesterday’s Times. He told of the strange case of the injuries inflicted on the severely disabled physicist Professor Stephen Hawking. Apparently the Cambridgeshire Police suspect that the professor’s wife is inflicting the injuries. The professor contradicts this,

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1076056145383370512004-02-06T08:29:00.000Z2005-05-06T12:55:58.650Z

Googling today for references to myself I came across the American academic website http://wings.buffalo.edu/law/bclc/bclrarticles/5(1)/Roberts.pdf.pdf. This contains the following-Commentators, too, were broadly in favor of the enterprise, and impressed by the Code team’s achievements. Bennion’s evaluation could speak for many: ‘That a criminal code of the right kind is much needed there can be

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075970045146139072004-02-05T08:34:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:46:26.130Z

Some very stupid things are written in newspapers, even the respected London Times. Yesterday’s issue had a goodly crop on the main editorial pages.Magnus Linklater wrote a facile pack of nonsense about the language of the law, fully justifying his opening statement that he gave up reading law at university because it made his brain hurt. He criticised our legislative language by reference to an

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075881644502062422004-02-04T08:00:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:45:04.476Z

The year was 1928. In the United States, Prohibition was in full swing and Roy Olmstead was a suspected bootlegger. Without judicial approval, federal agents installed wiretaps in the basement of Olmstead's building (where he maintained an office) and in the streets near his home. Olmstead was convicted with evidence obtained from the wiretaps. In subsequent judicial proceedings it was said that

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075795264678452062004-02-03T08:01:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:44:21.510Z

In FBBB8 I reported that the Home Secretary David Blunkett is calling on British parents to teach their children respect for all religious groups. How can anyone have respect for a religious group that organizes the ridiculous system of poles and wires I reported on in FBBB50? Now we have another religious idiocy, the throwing of pebbles at pillars in a place called Mina during the Muslim

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075709852674608602004-02-02T08:17:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:43:43.400Z

This is the third Blog where I report the results of trawling Google for references to my books or myself. The previous two were FBBB36 (Freedom Under Law) and FBBB43 (PROFESSIONAL ETHICS). This one is concerned with my book THE BLIGHT OF BLAIRISM.Ann Lyon is a lecturer in the Department of Law at the University of Wales Swansea, with a particular interest in constitutional law and constitutional

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075626726512940142004-02-01T09:12:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:42:54.850Z

The sort of English that is spoken by Indians in India was once unkindly known as Babu English. The OED2 describes this as the ornate and somewhat unidiomatic English of an Indian who has learnt the language principally from books. Arthur Mayhew, author of The Education of India (1926), said-The [Indian] matriculate’s mastery of English, despite all the ridicule unjustly bestowed on Babu English,

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075537824661023402004-01-31T08:30:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:42:03.583Z

Greg Dyke, on resigning as Director General Of the BBC on 29 January 2004, sent an email to his staff which included the following-In four years we’ve achieved a lot between us. I believe we’ve changed the place fundamentally and I hope that those changes will last beyond me. The BBC has always been a great organisation but I hope that, over the last four years, I’ve helped to make it a more

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075450431138987932004-01-30T08:13:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:34:22.933Z

No, I refuse to cavil because Mr Lishman did not sign the letter personally (see yesterday’s blog). And I have not been able to think of an address term that is more acceptable from a complete stranger than ‘Dear friend’, which denigrates the nobility of true friendship. In the old days one would have said ‘Dear Sir or Madam’, but that is now regarded as too formal. Now we must have first names

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075363982225588862004-01-29T08:13:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:33:43.850Z

Yesterday I set out a letter I sent to Gordon Lishman of Age Concern. Here is his reply.Dear Mr Bennion,I see you disliked us addressing you as ‘Dear Friend’; I am sorry for the annoyance this caused. Whilst we personalise the survey for delivery purposes, in order that we keep costs as low as possible we were unable to personalise the letter. If you could let us know of a term that you feel is

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075279569162142162004-01-28T08:46:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:32:53.863Z

In FBBB52 I wrote about the absurd fuss made by some Scottish doctors about a road sign that suggests old people tend to have things wrong with them, and to look hunched and frail. Now I am on a similar tack, the politically correct urge to say ‘older person’ rather than ‘old person’. Here I would like to pay a tribute to Mr Gordon Lishman OBE, Director General of Age Concern England. I recently

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075193429329920682004-01-27T08:50:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:32:07.293Z

I wonder how many Times readers took seriously the article on farting by Sam Shuster, Emeritus Professor of Dermatology in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (Review, 24 January 2004). It was presented po-faced (if I may put it that way), with all the paraphernalia of pseudo-scholarship. However the opening sentence is an indication of satirical intent: ‘I’ve not watched much television lately

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075106036048959492004-01-26T08:33:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:31:29.836Z

I watched a most moving TV programme on 22 January 2004. It was Motherland – a Genetic Journey (BBC2). 229 African Caribbean volunteers from all over Britain took part in a survey. The only criterion was that they had four grandparents of African Caribbean origin.The BBC website tells us that modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged little more than 100,000 years ago. There has been small opportunity

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1075019394410783322004-01-25T08:29:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:30:37.416Z

A headline in the Daily Mail (23 January 2004) shrieks ‘Lesbians and the Internet baby born into a storm’. Jaime Saphier, a security guard, gave birth to a boy on Tuesday, says the paper, and plans to bring him up with her 31-year old partner, Sarah Watkinson, described as a care worker. They bought the sperm through a website called ManNotIncluded.com for £1,500 (the Times says £1,285). The

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074932684030287862004-01-24T08:24:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:29:57.056Z

I have resigned from the Institute of Ideas after a membership lasting ten days. The reason? Mainly that endemic fault of carelessness, particularly common among young people.In Blog FBBB47 I mentioned that I watched Question Time on 15 January 2004, adding: ‘The admirable Claire Fox, who established the Institute of Ideas, explained to the dreadful Shirley Williams exactly what free speech means

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074845459136164612004-01-23T08:10:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:29:23.673Z

Among much that is lamentable today is the tendency to abbreviate forenames (I must not say Christian names). Noble names that have been proudly bestowed at christenings for centuries are crudely curtailed. Edward becomes Ed. Francis or Frances becomes the ugly Fran. And so on. Essentially, this is demeaning.The lady who was the official Labour candidate for London until Ken Livingstone was

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074759132103100212004-01-22T08:12:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:28:44.080Z

My wife Mary and I have a combined age of 158 years. We are both fond of that warning traffic sign which depicts an obviously-devoted, hunched old couple tremulously crossing the road. We think of it as ‘our’ sign, and rejoice when we see it.An article in the British Medical Association Journal (20 December 2003) presents a different view of this much-loved sign-It portrays a silhouette of a man

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074673180805148482004-01-21T08:19:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:28:06.903Z

Theodore Dalrymple is a hospital doctor who treats prison inmates. He tells us about it in a weekly column I always enjoy reading. It seems that his constant contact with these unfortunates has got him down. He says he is fed up with England and is emigrating to France (Daily Mail, 17 January 2004). Well I’m not sure that’s wise. Will he find it any better? My wife and I emigrated to Cyprus ten

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074588170173131072004-01-20T08:42:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:27:30.913Z

I have been sent a leaflet asking me to donate money to a North-West London body called the Forum Against Intrusive Eruvs (FAIE). This discloses an extraordinary state of affairs.What, you may enquire, is an eruv? Ask any Jew and he or she will tell you. Saturday, the day Jews call Shabbat (Sabbath), is a day set apart by Jewish law from the working week. Family time and spiritual pursuits are

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074499468091493192004-01-19T08:04:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:26:55.330Z

What follows leads up to a vital conundrum, which will be found at the end. I will call it the big question.Under the Children Act 1989, section 4, the father and mother of a child may make a parental responsibility agreement relating to the child. This says: ‘We declare that we are the mother and father of the above child and we agree that the child's father shall have parental responsibility

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074419741737249622004-01-18T09:55:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:26:12.130Z

The year was 1978. Two Bank of England officials were drafting a letter which was to be circulated internationally. One printed the first draft, which he passed to his colleague for comment. It contained the phrase ‘in good standing’. The colleague wrote against this: ‘A bit of Bankese which might puzzle the odd wog?’ (London Times, 17 January 2004).Last week the draft letter was put up on a

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074332490443412032004-01-17T09:41:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:25:27.806Z

On the Internet some American called RageBoy says: ‘So of course sex was always a big deal. I remember from when I was maybe about four years old my mother saying, “Just wait till sex rears its ugly head!” She really said stuff like that, all the time’. RageBoy stops, thinks a second, then adds: ‘Hell, I didn't even know what sex was back then. All I knew was that it had an ugly head’.Sex was

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074241035795236342004-01-16T08:17:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:24:53.033Z

I have just been sold a pup. Between You and I: a little book of bad English is a very little book indeed; but that is only part of my complaint. The author is James Cochrane, who we are told has worked in publishing since 1961. There is a foreword by John Humphreys. The publisher is Icon Books. Their website gives a solitary review: ‘Authoritative, funny and always completely correct’: Good Book

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074179755855473492004-01-15T15:15:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:24:20.493Z

I was enraged when the absurd Lord Howe of Aberavon said on the BBC Radio Four Today programme on 23 December 2003 that we British have far too much legislation, and that on that aspect he is now ‘a repentant sinner’.Howe is 77, so it is rather late in the day for him to make a proclamation of this sort. He should have seen the light well before now. As a Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer he

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1074068199148732812004-01-14T08:16:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:23:13.840Z

I am interested in communication between persons, which takes many forms. I was astonished to learn that one form of communication consists of whistling like a bird. It is the Silbo Gomero language of La Gomera island, which has recently been in the news. Appropriately, the island is in Spain’s Canary Islands group off West Africa. According to Jeffrey Henning its whistling language has four

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073985904500322072004-01-13T09:25:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:22:26.926Z

FBBB36 was the first of a series of Blogs in which I muse on the result of doing searches for my own name on Google. It’s called ego searching, but what the hell. We all have one.This time I am featuring my book Professional Ethics: the consultant professions and their code. This book is not limited to my own profession of the law, but applies generally. It was written while I was chief executive

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073896371467978062004-01-12T08:32:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:21:41.160Z

Trevor Phillips, Chair of the CRE, did not respond to my Open Letter (FBBB14). Now he’s at it again. His official response to Robert Kilroy-Silk's notorious anti-Arab article in the Sunday Express for 4 January 2004 is-This article is indisputably stupid and its main effect will be to give comfort to the weak-minded. However, given the extreme and violent terms in which Mr Kilroy Silk has

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073814738845190232004-01-11T09:52:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:31:39.066Z

In FBBB13 I presumed to criticise the Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks for justifying what he calls the guilt culture. I drew attention to my poem ‘Genetic Engineering’ and sent him a copy of the book containing it, Poemotions. The key stanza in the poem, which is very long, is-Plunge it to the hilt(unflinchingly, be bold!) -it’s a killer now, that knifeturning, turning inwards,killing to save life,

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073725590048120282004-01-10T09:06:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:20:08.253Z

I wrote about Jane Austen and the class system in FBBB21. Now I have just discovered a letter about class that I sent to the Spectator on Christmas Eve 1995 (not published)-Just having called the ‘middle classes’ (her term) infuriating, Dot Wordsworth (16/23 December 1995) told us she doesn’t believe in class. What nonsense is this?Not believing in transubstantiation or reincarnation might be

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073638552981453012004-01-09T08:55:00.000Z2005-05-06T09:19:19.233Z

The hon. sec. of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association sent a round-robin email on 6 January 2004 which read-‘Re the Bishop of St Alban’s [sic] insulting remarks about Humanism on Radio 4 which I posted a while ago, the BHA [British Humanist Association] has received the following response to its complaint: “Let me make it clear. I do respect ethical humanism - and if I suggested otherwise, I

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073550469650781712004-01-08T08:27:00.000Z2005-05-06T08:55:23.973Z

In 1975 Father Dan Delaney invited 15-year old Rob Scarmodo to attend a Roman Catholic convention in San Antonio, Texas. When the boy arrived at the hotel he found he had not been allocated his own room, or even his own bed. Instead he was sent to Father Delaney’s room.‘When I came into the hotel room’, says Rob, ‘there was only one bed. It struck me as strange, but the thought that something bad

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073463596972257432004-01-07T08:19:00.000Z2005-05-06T08:54:24.163Z

I have received an email from Iftikhar Ahmad, whom I do not know. He says: ‘Father with strict Muslim beliefs murdered “bright, vibrant” teenager who planned to runaway with Christian boyfriend’. I note a grammatical point I will mention later. The substance of his email is a complaint about the way Muslim girls are educated in Britain.Mr Ahmad says there are hundreds of state schools where

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073377594914411172004-01-06T08:26:00.001Z2011-03-28T10:01:53.991Z

My ISP is AOL, which has just put at the top of its crowded Home Page a Google search facility. So, instead of getting on with using the internet for a proper purpose, when I go online (on line, on-line?) I am now sometimes distracted into trying my luck with a search for my own name. I get different results for ‘Francis Bennion’, ‘F A R Bennion’ and ‘F Bennion’, so have to use all three

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073299006778066342004-01-05T10:36:00.000Z2005-05-06T08:52:18.710Z

My final word on the Honours system is contained in a letter published in today’s London Times Debate:‘We should not try to reform what is a rotten system. Instead we should abolish it.[The honours system is rotten for the following reasons.] It caters to, and inflates, human vanity. It is used to obtain the services of civil servants, members of the Armed Forces and other state employees on the

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073214653147565482004-01-04T11:10:00.000Z2005-05-06T08:51:29.030Z

I dealt in FBBB33 with grammatical aspects of Dr Stuttaford’s remark that‘For some men, their genitalia is so much the core of their identities that once they notice the telltale symptoms of bladder obstruction, they greet the doctor with as much enthusiasm as a turkey would welcome the butcher.’I now turn to the medical aspects. I consider that medically speaking this is a cruel and heartless

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073122277369083082004-01-03T09:31:00.000Z2005-05-06T11:36:36.193Z

Thomas Stuttaford, the newspaper doctor, makes a strange pronouncement (Times 2, 22 December 2003)-‘For some men, their genitalia is so much the core of their identities that once they notice the telltale symptoms of bladder obstruction, they greet the doctor with as much enthusiasm as a turkey would welcome the butcher’.There is a great deal wrong with this observation, both grammatically and

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1073032979450027542004-01-02T08:42:00.000Z2005-05-06T08:49:49.056Z

The BBC Radio Four Today programme scored a triple grammatical whammy within a quarter of an hour on New Year’s Eve 2003. Robin Aitkin, reporting on the escaped prisoner Roderick McLean, spoke of ‘a fellow accomplice’ (pleonasm). Then he referred to something ‘begging several questions’ (misuse of metaphor). The third offence came from the editor of the Idler Tom Hodgkinson, who referred to

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1072946478497350122004-01-01T08:41:00.000Z2005-05-06T08:48:44.153Z

As it is the first day of a new year I thought I would take stock of this blog business and decide whether I ought to continue with it. I started a daily blog on 2 December 2003, and have managed to do 30 blogs so far. The word blog is an abbreviation of web log, or web diary. So far mine is a diary to the extent that each entry is linked to something happening around the time it is published,

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1072860526422499362003-12-31T08:48:00.000Z2005-05-04T12:14:56.696Z

We learn from the London Times (30 December 2003) that British Midland Airways has changed its name to bmi. Not bma you notice (that would have conflicted with the British Medical Association), so we don’t have that logical help in remembering what to call it.The bmi website section ‘About Us’ does not say why the company changed its name in this silly way. It does say- ‘bmi is the UK’s second

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1072783048913525502003-12-30T11:17:00.000Z2005-05-04T12:13:52.516Z

The great interest currently being shown in the honours system encourages me to place on record, in case it is of use in reforming the system, three instances where I have had direct experience of its workings.1. In 1951 I entered what was then called the Office of Parliamentary Counsel to His Majesty’s Treasury, where Government Parliamentary Bills are drafted. It is the custom to make the Head

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1072695231210301192003-12-29T10:53:00.000Z2005-05-04T12:13:19.786Z

Under the headline ‘Police forced to sign “no racism” pledge’, the London Times (24 December 2003) reported that new recruits to North Wales Police will be asked to sign a personal pledge worded ‘I have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own’. On the same day the Daily Mail revealed that this idea is the

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1072610607688433022003-12-28T11:23:00.000Z2005-05-04T12:12:46.096Z

I mentioned in FBBB25 how in the Exeter Cathedral shop I bought a Christmas present for my wife to give me. Now I must tell you about another one I bought there, for the same purpose. The most magnificent book I have ever seen remaindered, it is Keepers of the Kingdom: the Ancient Offices of Britain. The book has many superb photographs in colour of office holders attired in their official dress,

*noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6148042.post-1072519854479715092003-12-27T10:10:00.000Z2005-05-04T12:11:42.273Z

Do you see anything wrong with this sentence from today’s Spectator: ‘They do not know who will be calling in any given test because the caller is picked at random by the throw of a dice’. Is there anything in it that makes you wince? I do hope so.What makes me wince is that reference to ‘a dice’. The word dice is of course the plural of the singular word die. The die is cast, remember? Or as

*noreply@blogger.com