Comforting when worn close to the skin

Nimbos got me two books for my birthday in June, a proper reading book and one for the toilet.

The latter, Nicholas Hobbes's England - 1000 Things You Need To Know is a whole mash up of facts and figures, and quite a lot of lists. The lists - of English Nobel prize-winners or bridges by Brunel - are a bit... lacking in excitement. But there's plenty of top facts and insights along the way, too.

For example, I already knew that wool had been such a major part of the English economy that the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords sits on a comfy woolsack. These days the woolsack is stuffed with wool from all across the Commonwealth.

But I didn't know this little gem:

"Under a statute of 1556, anyone caught 'owling' - smuggling wool to France in the night - would have their left hand cut off and nailed up on display in a public place. Under George I, in the eighteenth century, this was changed to seven years' transportation."

Nicholas Hobbes, England - 1000 Things You Need To Know, p. 355.

Annoyingly, sources for this stuff are rarely given, and I'd also have liked some kind of "Further Reading" section, to help follow up on my favourite morsels. But it's a great toilet book, just as Nimbos thought it might be. And full of top facts I can pinch for my own writing.

I've set myself the target of writing a complete first draft of a short story today. It currently consists of several pages of notes in my notebook, so I should probably get on with it now...

Not all of it reliable

"Counterterrorism measures ought not to be extraordinary measures in a special category of their own but as far as possible part of the ordinary criminal law of the land."

Baroness Stern, House of Lords,
[Official Report, 8/7/08; col. 708.]

I was reminded of that comment while listening to Night Waves last night, in which my chum Matthew Sweet interviewed Christopher Hitchens on the subject of waterboarding (available on Listen Again for a week).

It has been claimed that 'waterboarding' is an extreme interrogation technique rather than torture - which is of course against American and international law, so not what 'we' would ever do at all. The argument goes that in difficult circumstances against terrorist aggressors this kind of thing is necessary.

Vanity Fair dared Christopher Hitchens to undergo waterboarding (in controlled conditions where he could stop it by saying a word). His article, "Believe Me, It's Torture" is available on the Vanity Fair website, along with a short video.

Hitchens explains the physical and pyschological effects in the short and longer term. He is careful to put both sides of the argument yet clearly feels, as a result of the experience, that waterboarding crosses a line. Waterboarding used to be something American soldiers were trained to resist, and for which other people were punished. And the evidence obtained, even the CIA admitted, was "not all of it reliable". There's something chilling about that grudging acknowledgement.

In the Night Waves interview, Hitchens denied that the experience changed his own views, but also detailed some of the continuing psychological hangover.

In her speech on the Counter-Terrorism Bill on Tuesday, Baroness Stern also quoted an earlier speech by Lord Judd:

“We must remember that those cornerstones of British justice which have been so admired throughout the world did not come lightly; they came from decades and centuries of struggle and rugged determination to make the law a civilised example ... Part of me recoils at the concept that, however frightening the terrorism with which we are confronted, we should by the presence of that danger begin to dismantle or erode what we have seen as fundamental to our system of justice”.

[Official Report, 27/2/08; col. 729.]

Music to wash hands by

Nimbos, the Dr and I went to Westminster Abbey last night. Sat on uncomfortable chairs in front of a memorial to MARTHA to hear St John’s Passion sung, along with several hundred other people.

The singing was good and the acoustics authentic, though I thought it lacked the polish of some other versions I’ve been to. Think I prefer the Matthew one anyway, which is more widescreen and special effects. The John one seems less epic, and more matter of fact about (SPOILER!) the death of God.

But fun, and good for people watching. There was a lot of milling about immediately before, and also during the interval-that-wasn’t. Nimbos felt it might help to shout “Runaround!” – a reference the Dr didn’t get.

One gaggle of ladies felt they had paltry seats so decided to move them. They then did their best to ignore the badged gentleman explaining they’d blocked up a fire exit.

Afterwards the Doctor led us down a gale-force Whitehall to a new good pub discovery. But it had stopped serving food an hour previously, so we schlepped into the place next door and ate gratefully their microwaved fodder.