Shakespeare's Birthday - Hurrah!

I hereby declare this to be the first British Literature Day, celebrating the vast literary legacy these islands have bequeathed to the world, meaning not only the creations  of the bard, but such characters as:

Peter Rabbit, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes,  Biggles, Harry Potter, Jane Eyre, Becky Sharp, Sweeney Todd,
Just William. Tristram Shandy, Evelyn Hope, Robinson Crusoe, Long John Silver, Oliver Twist, Doctor Syn, Raffles, Alan Quartermain, Jeeves and Wooster, Sexton Blake, Hercule Poirot, Mr Polly, Sadie Thompson, James Bond, Flashman, Cathy and Heathcliff,  George Smiley, Lucky Jim, Mr Pooter, Fu Manchu....
Complete the list yourself - if you can!

And as for that non existent buffoon St George (blows raspberry).

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?

Recession extends its unwelcome tendrils into many strange places. Now apparently even dwarfs have priced themselves out of the shrinking market.
  The Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, will no longer be hiring midget actors for this years pantomime
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Says executive producer Jonathan Kiley: "Dwarfs are very, very expensive". Instead, children, fitted with rubber masks, will be used.
   Is anybody safe in the current climate?

A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of nationalism. All but dead twenty years ago, nationalism, which used to be the reserve of racist cranks, is now a rising force in euro politics. Its latest manifestation is the success of the True Finns party. What has caused this resurgence? I believe it is a reaction to the European Union project. Paradoxically, a scheme which originated after World War II to destroy European nationalism, has had precisely the opposite effect.

Manson Joins the Warmies

Look out, Climate change deniers! Step aside, Al Gore! Famed psychopath Charles Manson has gone green! According to Fox News:

Tell it like it is, Charlie!

Repeal the Climate Change Act!

A campaign is underway to repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act. You may be forgiven for not knowing about it; media coverage has been scanty. I only discovered it thanks to a Greenpeace Guardian article bemoaning the fact that the government appears to be classifying environmental laws as 'red tape'.
The article mentioned the campaign (which began in March) in passing.
 Their site contains a short, pithy explanation of why the carbon panic is balderdash. It also reminds us that the carbon act will cost the UK £734 billion pounds (the national debt is already £900 billion pounds).
If you care about rationality, and the economic survival of the nation, add your signature NOW.

Bring on the Micropub

So Punch Taverns is to dump 2,200 of its pubs. It says that there is 'no future in the traditional drinks led pub'. Well, not the way Punch runs them, there isn't. Looking back on my youth, when there seemed to be a pub every thirty feet or so, the one thing most of them had in common was their size; few of them were much larger than the average living room. And the beer was normally cheap enough to please the customers and make a profit for the licensee. So  I think that, for the British boozer, the battle cry has to be 'Back to the Future'. Make 'em smaller, cheaper, and offering a shorter range of products. Have pubs specialising in lager, pubs specialising in wine, and so on.
  Slowly, the change is already coming. In my own home town of Wolverhampton we have one pub in a back alley which the owner built himself out of breeze blocks. It is tiny, but always packed.
  A few weeks ago there was an excellent article on the subject in The Mail. Read it and ponder.

Goodbye, Kakapo

Millions of dollars have been spent in New Zealand saving the Kakapo, a flightless, burrowing, nocturnal parrot. Now an Australian professor has caused upset by suggesting that the creature's extinction is unavoidable, as its population has dwindled to a level where any chance event could wipe it out. What is interesting is the response to the Prof's opinion. Those in charge of conservation seem to take it for granted that extinction is a) unnatural b) disastrous and c) harmful to humanity.
 There is nothing more natural than extinction; it is the driving force behind evolution. Species, like individuals, are mortal. Most of the animals we treasure today exist because the species that were their rivals have died out. The Kakapo contributes nothing to nature that cannot be duplicated by other, more vigorous life forms. Let it go gently.

According to the Mail, a third of job vacancies are being filled by over 65s. This, says the mail, is because they cannot afford to retire, or to manage on their pensions. Fair enough; but what is the motivation for the companies who hire them? Surely younger people would be be more energetic, and have years more usefulness ahead of them.
 Can it be that the older people are more literate and numerate than the young? I wouldn't be surprised.

New Scientist wimps out

A radical departure from the greener-than-thou New Scientist magazine. It reports on a new paper by Alex Kleidon of the Max Planck Institute which states that, in order to gain the equivalent energy from wind and wave that we do from fossil fuels, we would have to deplete the atmosphere of energy to the extent that usable portion would decrease steadily- a kind of 'diminishing returns'. Moreover, the amount of free energy converted into waste heat would create a atmospheric warming equivalent to doubling atmospheric CO2. So far, so scientific, but apparently the biomass has been hitting the fan at the NS offices, for today the title of the article has been changed, and - but read the new version for yourself:

So now we must all sit back while various panic-stricken greenies try to refute the reasoning or (more likely) smear the author. Watch this space.