Letters to Nobody 6

I can't face the prospect of reading school history textbooks, but I expect they probably are full of guilt and angst. I suppose I will find out when my children bring them home.

I think the House of Lords has kept its power but changed its make up. I heard on the radio that soon everybody is going to be invited to apply for a place. Send in a form with two nominees and you get considered. I wonder if I will stand a chance? It is an interesting idea, a variation on the old Labour jibe that the House of Lords was, or should be, just a thousand men selected at random from the unemployed.

As to your history being re-assessed I think it is about time. The genocide and eco-cide of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries needs to be addressed. I struggle to think back across American history to think of anything good or noble in it, the only thing that does you credit is the Civil Rights movement and the space program. Much of the rest of it is either shady, evil or simply based around economic growth and self interest. Oh yes, I almost forgot about you saving Europe's ass in the forties.

I suppose that's not much of a different pattern to most nations; a few military victories and defeats in wars that need not have happened and the rest is all about people trying to get rich and stay in power. Unless you happened to get conquered in which case all your previous history is about how wonderful and peace-loving you were before the evil English/French/Germans/Yanks/Russians/Spanish etc. came along and spoiled everything.

You obviously get your autumn before we do. The leaves are all green but old, maybe 5% are starting to turn yellow. My back garden is full of beech masts but the conkers are still on the trees. Looking across the back garden it looks like the first thousand leaves have yet to fall. The drifts of giant hands of the horse chestnut leaves are still in the future. If they happen to fall when the weather is dry I will be out in the garden burying myself and the children in them. The colours we get are but a pale imitation of yours, yellows and browns, only a tiny handful of reds.

I know exactly what you mean when you say you prefer nature to art. I have never felt any work of art move me like nature can.

Good luck with Gore, but I really think you have a classic case of the evil of two lessers. Or is that just a sign of growing old? All the politicians seem lightweights compared to how they used to be. I suppose it probably is.

Just a quick one. I will send a fuller message soon.

Nader.

I know of him. The guy who wrote “Unsafe at Any Speed”. I was vaguely aware he was standing but I hadn't really taken much interest. He might make a bit of ink in the newspapers but his chances of denting the two party machine are roughly the equivilent of those of a cricket denting the fender of a Mack truck. (Did that sound authentic yank speak?)

My interest in the election is frighteningly low. I guess I just think that it doesn't really matter much either way, which is not saying much for Gore.

The Middle East. I am not sure, I don't trust any of them. Fancy a laugh? Check out my trolling exercise on alt.smokers. They are a weird bunch. Trailer trash and psychos mostly but a few are a bit more with it, but nobody seems to see that I am doing it for the laughs, even when I tell them I am.

Is it me or were you on something when you wrote that last e-mail? I got the impression of somebody on Ecstasy, I don't have any direct experience of mild hallucinogenic stimulants but the friendly babbling style seemed to fit the pattern. Short lines, long paragraphs, switching subjects, very jolly. That is one of the drawbacks of electronic text communication, the reader has to choose a voice for the words, if they choose wrong the wrong impression is received. Anyway, after that personal attack I will move on.

The Middle East.

A dirty business in every respect. Religion, extremism, survival politics, dirty American electoral politics, racism. It's all there. I have a natural hostility to stone throwing rabbles of any persuasion. I also am deeply suspicious of the motivations in the setting up of the state of Israel. I don't like the idea of racially defined states, if you are of Jewish ancestry you are welcome to Israel. The same thing still happens in Germany. I don't like it at all. I am deeply suspicious of settlers with Bronx accents telling Arabs to get off the land God gave to Israel. But I also know that I know next to nothing about the issue so I will not comment beyond expressing my disquiet and distaste.

I am amused by the idea that I must know more about Yugoslavia because I am nearer. It might be only a few hours away by 'plane but it is very foreign. I suppose in a way I must know quite a bit about it because I am not American, but that is a cruel stereotype. I am sure at least 10% of the American public could pinpoint Belgrade to within 1,000 miles ;-)

I am glad another European country is beginning to see the fruits of democracy. I do not believe that democracy is the be all and end all in politics but it does tend to reduce war and oppression, on the average at least.

Canadians. Most of us can't tell the difference in accents. By that I mean not that we can't detect a difference, just that we don't spot the significance. Less snooty? I'm not sure about that. Perhaps we just have fewer negative stereotypes. I couldn't begin to try to impersonate a Canadian low-life but with Americans there are so many stereotypes to choose: Detroit homey, Mississippi boy marrying his cousin at 13; Alabama trailer-trash on the Jerry Springer show; New York taxi driver (cheating, that's hundreds of stereotypes!); Mid Western farmer on his holidays with Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt and six cameras; Bible belt adulterous Tele-evangelist... Compared to you lot Canadians are boring. Safer, less threatening, dull.

History.

The history that I studied was British. The Empires of Rome, Egypt, Persia and so on were studied briefly. The curriculum was followed chronologically. So as a young boy I drew pictures of Romans with leather skirts. By fourteen I was looking at the triangular Atlantic trade in slaves, tobacco, sugar etc. At sixteen I was getting third hand references to the work of Engels. Scotland was mentioned a bit, when they had a bit of a war or were involved in the succession to the English throne. The French and American revolutions were studied briefly. Your Civil War was mentioned only in passing, as it affected the cotton trade. Our history curriculum was probably as narrow as anybody's. At University I did European Social history, but that was a very wide canvas to cover in one fifth of my first year's studies. I also touched on political history through my studies of European and American politics. Much of the history I am familiar with was learned myself from television and other less direct sources. I have the kind of mind that absorbs this kind of stuff well, but perhaps not well enough to make me an expert on anything.

I want to see cannabis fully legalized. Decriminalization is a nonsense, it does not even do what the word suggests, making possession legal but trading illegal just means there is no legal safe trade conducted by people you can sue for shoddy or adulterated product. Who else could supply the users except criminals?

Ideally I would like to see the government (singular, only a single government) get no special revenue from any drugs. No special taxes on tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol or anything else. Just a simple sales tax on all products traded. That way the government would be free to tell us what is not good for us without any hypocrisy. (By the way, no need for another Boston tea party, tea and coffee taxes are a historical note only.)

I think cannabis smoking is dangerous, more dangerous than tobacco smoking, puff for puff. But as tobacco is far more addictive and ubiquitous it is causing and would always cause more disease than cannabis. Cannabis is also dangerous for some people with personality disorders. But we are at far more risk from the nutters with personality disorders who drink ten pints of strong lager and then smash glasses into people's faces.

If it was legal I am fairly sure that I would use cannabis a little. Probably not smoked. I fancy the idea of brewing my own beer and then adding finest hemp flowers to the finished ale instead of hops. I used to brew my own beer a lot a few years ago when I could carve myself out a bit of spare time to invest in a satisfying craft. The satisfaction was immense. To be able to say with all honesty that the finest beer I ever tasted was my own is some claim. (Maybe I am biased because it works out about a fifth the price of similar stuff from a shop.) I did the full mash process, I bought the same malted barley that Robinsons, the local brewery, use. I mashed it in equipment of my own design and modification. I didn't weigh much and made few notes as to method, never following anybody else's recipe, perhaps you may have noticed that is my way of working. Some of it didn't work out as well but it all ended up being drunk, as did I.

Have you ever read The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics? My brother in Law bought the full set. (He has a book fetish, not a drug habit). I found them excellent reading material. About this time my sister and brother-in-law lived in Nottingham and I used to go and stay with them quite often. They had a small house with a garden. One day I was in the back garden when I chanced to look over the wall into the next garden. I did a double-take. I was staring right at a five foot high mature cannabis plant, no doubt about it, I had seen enough pictures. I harvested by moonlight. I dried it out with a hairdryer and rolled some in a single cigarette paper. I smoked the whole thing and thought it did nothing for me, harsh tasting, no effect. Then I tried to roll another, just to be suuuuuureere, oooo! Maybeee it did wurk afterallll. So I pulled up a bit more.

I have considered a book but I doubt that I could generate enough interest or sales. A few thousand hits on a website is not really going to whet the appetite of many mainstream publishers, is it? Maybe I will be able to think of some profitable spin-off in the future but at the moment I will stick to doing my own thing. I agree totally with your theory of the DEA. No explanation required of those initials, my background reading filled me in. By the way, the surest way to crack me up is to utter the phrase “wait till he puts on his stereo headphones...”

All bureaucracies' principal aim is self-justification. Universities decide what they could teach, put the teachers in place, then they make up the justification as to why it would be useful.

If you wanted to speed up alien contact I suggest appointing a commission for interplanetary contact, within the year they would be having talks with somebody or coming up with scenarios to show how vital their preparatory work was at the very least.

Are Americans stupid?

Do bears shit in the woods? I suppose the reason why so much of the rest of the world sees Americans as stupid is down to your open culture, you don't need to be bright to be noticed. Americans have by far the highest penetration across the Internet and that tends to work from the top down, rich and smart people go online before poor and dumb people. As your net penetration is higher you have more stupid people online, that coupled with Americans' natural diffidence (sarcasm) and your population size means that there are millions of US citizens out there destroying your pretensions to being a civilized and educated nation. In contrast the other nationalities have much lower profiles and you only notice the smart ones who have good English skills. Dumb Poles, Greeks, French and Italians aren't noticed or aren't online at all.

Asians are beating you in education? I don't know, none have been smart enough to reply to my site. Of the smart people I have contacted through the web I would say that 6 out of the top ten were Americans. But for the top ten stupid people it is USA all the way. In a way it is a credit to your open society, your democracy, your pluralism, your lack of effective mental health care... ;-)

Seriously, I am sure the picture the foreigner receives about the intellectual ability of your countrymen is biased by the high profile the less intellectual have achieved. Your media panders to the sensibilities of the mob and the lowest common denominator more than most European media. Your lower orders see the light of day more, especially through the Internet. You have a more powerful anti-culture anti-intellectual movement, perhaps the simple fact that your market is bigger means it has become a viable proposition to make films and TV shows for, about and featuring such people.

Middle and high life Americans? I have not had much experience of the very top of your society, I am not sure I would know who they were. I like Americans, especially those not damaged by life, so middle class middle income middle Americans are good people. Yes they have faults, but everybody does. The people I met and spent time with when I was over in 1984 were good people.

“Please to remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
We know no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.”

Traditional rhyme on the Gunpowder Plot (1605)

Off to see my sister and posse over the weekend. My mother has, for once, come up with a good idea for a Christmas present, a weekend's car hire so we can exchange presents without the nightmare of carrying stuff on a train. The weather has been diabolical recently, major flooding. That has come on top of major problems with emergency track repairs, the prospect of train travel this weekend would have been dreadful.

I have got seven big rockets to take. It should be fun.

We will have a big bonfire. No Catholics to burn :-(

The bonfire part actually goes back to pagan times, celebrating some old start of winter stuff. Halloween / All souls day and bonfire night rituals have sanitized it, removing the pagan links. But I think they all stink; pagan, early Christian, anti-Catholic. I'm just going to enjoy lighting a bloody great big fire and setting off some fireworks. The children provide a good excuse. My two have needed scraping off the ceiling today, they are really excited. Me too.

The site has just crossed the 3 MB level recently as I have been at home, with mumps, infectious but not really suffering much.

Halloween

Halloween had always been the lesser celebration to bonfire night until about 20 years ago when the American habits started to be imported/re-imported. Trick or Treat has obvious appeal to children but there is a great reluctance to let it establish itself in this country. You can only persecute a minority, you cannot play tricks on most of the street, that is not a harmless cultural practice, it is vandalism and creating a public nuisance. I think we older fuddy-duddies have won on this. Trick or Treat only survives in pockets. In my part of CH they wouldn't dare.

Thanksgiving is obviously a uniquely American tradition. Do you feel guilty when you think about the settlers, pioneers and the natives? If such a genocide was as close to home and as close in time I am sure we in England would be uncomfortable about it. In England any genocide is lost in the mists of time. The way the Celtic languages survive in English only as place names and not as common words or grammar tells a big story. That is the same kind of pattern seen in Australia, place names, the odd noun. It is a pattern that is consistent with genocide or replacement, not with intermarriage and dilution of genetic and cultural difference. The classic example is the River Avon, afon is the Welsh/ancient British word for river, just what you might expect.

“what did they call this river Horsa?”

“Err, I think they said it was called Avon, Egbert, by the way nice axe work.”

There is no history of genocide in the sense of records, but it does seem odd the way that Welsh people look different and the way that early Celtic artefacts used to be found across what was to become England, but soon the culture and the language became decidedly English.

Smoking

Of course the taste of cigarette smoke is part of the mechanism. When you cannot taste the smoke you may get less of the overall package.

This has reminded me of a lesson I learned a long time ago. My mother was making jam. In order to sterilize the jars she put them in the oven, she had wrapped them in newspaper to guard against any broken glass going in the oven. So the kitchen smelled of warm newsprint. I came home and sniffed, "chips! Terrific!" Chips wrapped in newspaper smell of warm newspaper. See the lesson? Association. I don't actually like warm newspaper, but the smell reminded me of what I do like; chips. Cigarette smoke is very similar. The taste is distinctive and it is easy to think that you actually like it, like I like the smell of warm newsprint.

Your lack of decent healthcare does seem barbaric. I am not so concerned with capital punishment. I believe that it can be a reasonable punishment, when somebody is so damaged that they are a danger to society death is the best option. It must be coupled with efficient justice and a coherent penal system. I suppose I should say that I support it in theory but oppose it often in practice. Certainly the way it operates in the USA seems very barbaric and inefficient in equal measure. Constant appeals, a gravy train for lawyers and a football for politicians.

The Election

So Gore wins in PA and in the popular vote too. I suggest that there should be a new constitutional convention established in which the loser in the popular vote concedes defeat and asks his electors to vote accordingly in the electoral college. But your written constitution could never cope with anything as utterly sensible as that, could it?

I think the one thing the British Constitution has going for it is flexibility. By being unwritten it can evolve, slowly at times, but it can evolve to met the needs of the day.

If you are serious about emigrating you can pitch a tent in my back garden.

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Shooting a fox takes some real skill, they are so wary when they live in the country, but they are smart enough to know that in town they are safe. But in this country shooting a fox is not seen as sporting. You are supposed to chase it with a hundred dogs and horses instead. This is a weird sport.

There are hundreds of different and perfectly good reasons to think that fox hunting is wrong. It is certainly a terrible way to die, being chased to exhaustion then torn apart. It is unnecessarily cruel to foxes, hounds and horses, in that order. It is also a an example of class warfare. The aristocracy show off their position by riding around the countryside as if they own it all. While they own a lot of it they don't own it all. I was brought up to despise hunting as an affront to the peasantry, my grandfather was a small landowner, I suppose he qualifies as either a large peasant or small yeoman however you want to define it, in any case a landowner of modest means. He hated the arrogance of hunts that chased over any land as if they owned it. I am quite sure he would have shot a few hounds if they came his way. Good for him. If my grandfather had a problem with a fox he would either shoot it or put the word about that he wanted it shot and it would cease to be a problem. Foxes are vermin, but better than mounted aristos.

In many parts of England hunts actually help to breed foxes to keep their numbers up. Madness. Like a sheriff from Hicksville County putting up the prize for a road race so he can show the townsfolk how busy he is catching those out of town folk speeding in his here county.

You never will get time in perspective will you? And the planet will suffer as a result. Your genocide was not back in the mists of time, it was only two average lifespans ago. That can never be considered a long time ago unless you are surrounded by people who re-inforce that view. But surround ourselves with people that reinforce our view is what people like to do. So we find no difficulty in accepting anything as normal; dragging black men behind pick-up trucks, putting twenty five heavy rings round our necks or eating the bodies of our relatives. People can find anything normal. Is there any hope for us? I often think about what would happen if an intelligent alien species found us, I can't help thinking that they would probably leave us alone and fake the star maps so that nobody else stumbles across us either.

I find people's need to find a worthy ancestor quite amusing and saddening. If your mother was Jewish you are Jewish. If you have one black grandparent you are seen as black. If you have one Irish great grandparent you are proud to be Irish. If you have one great great grandparent in the right tribe you open a casino or mail order tobacco business. Nobody ever falls over themselves to claim to be English unless there is a title at stake.

Don't have a go at Mick Jagger. He is what he is, a middle-class mockney kid who would rather have been born black. ( Mockney is mock cockney). On British TV recently there was a program showing the earliest known footage of the stars; Michael Jagger was a very smart middle class schoolboy. He knows his whole life is an act.

I can never understand why so many English kids like rap music. I can only presume that they don't and it is really just an act to appear to like what appears to be popular. Whatever is cutting edge and extreme has to be good, the emperor's new clothes are without doubt the coolest and radest duds ever seen, man. British youth culture is shallow in the extreme. The really sad thing is that whatever is faked in London is then copied, with errors, across the rest of Europe too. But what is genuine culture? Surely the whole essence of culture is copying and posing? It cannot be rational for everybody to decide that one tempo, beat or chromatic scale is suddenly better than all the alternatives. Culture and fashion are erratic society-wide phenomena. Sopranos warbling one year, low down dirty rhythm the next, then deep throbbing bass. It does not make sense to suggest that this is rational. We are seen to like what is perceived to be popular because we want to be perceived as perceptive. It is like judging which stocks to buy, don't buy what you want, buy what you think everybody else will want. Don't marry a woman who is attractive to you, marry one who is attractive to them. I want what they want. I want to want what they seem to want. And or course, so do they...

Have you ever been on a busy road and all the traffic comes to a halt, then travels slowly, then starts going faster again and you never see the reason? That is anticipated reactions and the snowballing effect. One car brakes a little harshly, the car behind brakes harder still, a wave of braking spreads and three lanes of traffic can come to a total standstill for twenty minutes for no reason at all. Culture is like that. The trendy people determining the culture are in fact shallow and fickle people trying to copy other people they respect, but they keep changing their minds about who to copy. The trend-setters all copy each other and they drop in and out of favour as they anticipate each other's reactions to each other. New people enter the culture quickly and become icons. A few, like Madonna or David Bowie, can keep that status for a long time. Most have at best four years to ride the wave of popularity before they have to do something to justify their position. The Spice Girls are now in terminal decline. Warhol's idea of fifteen minutes of fame was cute but stupid, fame needs months to achieve and months to shed.

Northerners.

The North of England used to be terminally unhip. But now things have changed. Manchester has established itself as a major cultural centre. It is full of night clubs, music acts and students. The old stereotypes don't fit so well. London will always be the capital of everything but the age of the Internet and a much wider spread of University education across the whole country has lessened the gap. Also the decay of old traditional town-dominating industries like coal, shipbuilding and steel has lessened the gap. The North will never be the same as the South but there is no widespread feeling of resentment over it as there was, even in the recent past.

While the British view of American intelligence was never as high as you would have liked I think it has plummeted recently. There are several reasons for that. Jerry Springer and the Internet are big factors. We get to see quite a lot of the worst part of your culture. I strongly suspect if you asked a typical cross section of British people to give a list of ten attributes of Americans you would get ignorant and arrogant from most of them. I take Americans as I find them, varied.

I think Christianity and smoking *in public* are incompatible. How can you be acting in a truly Christian way if you inflict your habit on people who find it repellent? I think it will be part of my next trolling campaign, a cross-posting, smokers and Christians for the same price. This could be the start of something big. As to smoking in private I can't see how it can be anybody's business, even the Almighty's.

Don't worry about the Bush regime. This too will pass. We in Britain had to cope with 18 years of Conservative governments, but we survived and now the Labour party is looking as strong as ever. Don't give up hope.

I recently came across this piece on a site called Fade To Black.

http://www.fadetoblack.com/discussions//Forum8/HTML/000320.html

In fact, it wasn't until I came upon a site created by Martin Willett that I truly understood evolution. He can explain it much better than I can but the just of it is this...

And further comments

It's a fantastic site so be sure to check it out.

Oh I think I am in love with Willett!

What a man!

What an ego!

We should invite him to post here? Or does he already?

You should check out his politics section. The man is frighteningly brilliant.

Well, what can I say? These people have taste and discernment.

I am thrilled to be cited like this, like a real bona fide author. That is a real pay-off. It makes it all worthwhile.

“I must object to your designation of Jerry Springer as US cultural ambassador. No one I can think of watches his show. It's almost as if Europeans use such examples to reinforce their prejudices about Americans.” Wrong. It is not almost as if, it is exactly that.

Jerry Springer, like Baywatch, is much more popular outside the USA. I don't know why. Perhaps part of it is the pleasure of laughing at other people's problems. We see Americans behaving extremely badly and we feel better because we are not Americans. That is probably the reason. We feel a lot of jealousy towards you, your bigger country, higher living standards (for the average and above) and some of the cooler aspects of your lifestyle. Anything that confirms that being an American has its downsides makes us feel better. Only in America, thank goodness!

Do you know about the Australian Cultural Attaché to The Court of Saint James? Sir Les Patterson? A creation of one of the finest comic geniuses of our age. Jerry is an ambassador of the same stature.

Libertarianism

I think the theory is wrong-headed. The basic idea that governments should do as little as possible is wrong. Governments can make a big difference to people's lives through action as well as inaction. One of the best examples of the good that governments can do is national parks. For me your national parks are a better badge of your status as a civilized society than all the opera houses and art galleries combined.

I don't see freedom as being the ultimate virtue, good for us in infinite amounts, but I cannot see the advantage in stifling what are known as self-regarding actions, actions which principally affect yourself. Whoring is an excellent example. The supply and demand for whores cannot be eliminated. By regulating the worst excesses of the trade a government can keep a discreet lid on it and mitigate some of the associated problems. Pimps forcing girls to work the streets and taking most of their earnings is obviously wrong and should be outlawed. But adult women should not be prevented from selling sex or from using reasonable methods to market their services and conduct their business, including paying for male companions to look after their personal security.

Soft Drinks

Vehement opposition to soft drinks? Where did that come from? Because my favourite drink is neither Coke nor Pepsi? I find colas are a reasonable drink but not my favourite. That is hardly vehement opposition. I do sometimes wonder at the suggestibility of the public. It does not make sense to me that the original recipe for the first drink to make the medicine of cola nuts palatable would be the perfect match to the tastes of the entire species and at the same time to be unimproveable. There are better flavours out there, it stands to reason.

Sophomoric. What a delightful word, very much an American dialect word, but worthy of inclusion in world English. An interesting derivation. We in Britain do not use the word sophomore at all, it is impossible to pronounce in an English accent without auditory italics.

So you wanted to say something else but forgot what it was. What do you put that down to? Junk food, grass, mad cow disease, the overstimulation of the MTV culture, CIA mind rays or the stress of modern life? Has that helped remind you of anything?

Martin

I suppose I have talked myself into supporting pimps, at least some pimps. Not the manipulative kind but those that provide companionship and security for working prostitutes. I suppose prostitution is a lot more honest than the activity of most women who provide the lure of sex in return for favours and treats. The dating game as currently played is very dangerous and maladapted to the original purposes.

Why do we allow fifteen year olds to date? It is crazy. The boys are obviously going to try to have sex, and what happens if they succeed? There is no legitimate way for a 15 year old to have a sexual relationship, except with themselves. I addressed this problem myself directly. I had worn down the defences of my 15 year old girlfriend and she agreed (in theory) to let me have sex, NOW WHAT? Eeek! I hadn't expected this. That throbbing erection that had seemed to be my constant companion in the past three years vanished. It was totally different ten years later when I was looking for a wife. Woo, bed, meet her parents and instant betrothal, it happened so naturally, in about a week from start to finish. There has to be a better way to cope with the sexuality of our young people. We cannot just have them having sex against our will and then have them present their pregnancies to us for us to deal with as a social responsibility. Any suggestions?

Habit forming

I see your point about habits and addictions. Just think about wine. All that ritual to disguise the fact that they are drinking alcohol because they like alcohol. Is there any alcohol free wine that comes in corked bottles of marked vintages and particular grape varieties from particular regions? No. At best a brief description of type. Take the alcohol away and there is nothing to develop ritual about, nothing to get concerned by. We have a knack of hiding our motivations well by ritual. Food becomes mealtime ritual not nutrition intake. Marriage becomes about a deal before God rather than showing everybody concerned that these two people are going to be having sex now so everybody had better get used to the idea. Sophomore Interesting word, I like the idea of the wise fool. I may use it in the title of my sequel. ;-)

Syndicated column. I like the sound of that. How do you go about getting into that game?

Apocalypse Now

Never seen it, never felt I wanted to. Maybe one day. I don't really need a film to tell me that war is nasty, and thrilling, exciting and destroying. A useful phrase comes to mind, “You don't need to go to Antarctica to know it's cold.” Wars are terrible, the plot is always the same, only the cast and scenery changes.

Quiz Shows

We had a lame quiz show once that had foreigners on it. Going for Gold, the European quiz championship or something of the sort, but the lie to that boast was given by the time it was broadcast, mid afternoon. The best quiz shows go out in peak viewing. Who Wants to be a Millionaire is actually a major boost for British exports, it makes a lot more than many of our dying industries. The British media always tries to make out that your version is much easier to win than ours. Maybe, and maybe we are just smarter than you lot. I remember playing Trivial Pursuit in 1984 when I was in Connecticut, against some smart-ass Jewish lawyers, I held my own even playing with American questions. No slur against Jewish lawyers, they did a great job in fighting the tide of Reaganism, although, obviously, not quite a good enough job.

Going for Gold was quite funny. Watching Germans and Swedes competing against British and Irish contestants in English, in rapid reaction questioning, as if being a native speaker of English was no asset. There were some smart people on the show but you could see that it was bus drivers and housewives on the British side against Professors and doctors from the continent, but even that stacking of the odds didn't help overcome the basic language and culture advantage of the “home team.”

I like the idea of an update about the Bush regime. Go for it. I still have nearly four times as much free web space available as I have used up to now, and if I run short I can always get some more from elsewhere. I wonder what people need 100 MB of space for, it has taken me 18 months to fill 4 MB. They must be wasting it on multimedia. Who wants to see a load of pictures of somebody else's girlfriend at a party we weren't invited to or a video of their dog?

Snap out of the cabin fever, it's gone Groundhog Day, hibernation's over.

Storms

Tornadoes are rare in Britain. I have never seen one, only the smallest dust devil effects that you could put a bucket over, no towering funnels.

My wife loves storms, I suppose that is because she believes they are not really dangerous. I have no fear of thunder, none whatsoever. Lighting, well, that is an entirely different matter. If you hear thunder you haven't been struck by lightning. When I was passionately into radio I used to sit up on the tops of mountains with huge aluminium (yes that's how we spell it) aerials and I was quite accustomed to being in a car in a storm with cracks of electricity surging down the cable and sparking in front of me. A little disconcerting. As I said, thunder I don't mind, lightning scares the willies out of me.

Punxatawney Phil

I have seen his picture. A real celebrity. That's not a bad job is it? Half an hour's work a year, good food, pleasant living quarters and international fame. I could do with a job like that.

Desensitized to weather? Desensitized to rain certainly. It seems to rain all the time. Surely it didn't used to be like this? Actually that is probably just my impression of the weather because I spend so long out of it, in a building that is exactly the same temperature and light level all year round, looking out of a relatively small expanse of glass at a scene that looks dull even on the most glorious of days. A carpark and a motorway junction, hardly very scenic. In Britain we do have weather, rather than a climate, it can be very cold, snowy, sleeting, torrential rain or baking sunshine; and sometimes on the same day. We don't really get very prolonged bouts of the same weather, we don't get snowed in or suffer great droughts. We get just enough weather to moan about, always the wrong sort, or at the wrong time of the year, or the wrong part of the week.

Was it really true that the departing Clinton White House staff stole all the W keys from the computers when they shipped out? It seems a great story, I hope it is true.

And that's about it. I hoped you enjoyed reading my email.

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