A Delightful Ambiguity

In a BBC news broadcast this afternoon, there was a reference to a football team with the nickname 'The Cottagers'.

I didn't spot what team it is, but one doesn't need to know who they are to enjoy a snigger.

Since I wrote this blog, one of my readers has given me a link to an explanatory list of football club nick-names.

His attempt to put it in a comment to this message was defeated by his inability to prove he isn't a robot by deciphering some particularly illegible text, so here it is

Thank you Mark.

In Defence of Strip Billiards

The game might encourage embarrassing double entendres involving the word 'balls', but the opportunities it would offer outweigh that small disadvantage many times over.

Had I a body as glorious as Prince Harry's, and access to a secluded billiard table, I should seriously consider playing strip billiards myself.

The delectable prince has nothing to reproach himself with, except perhaps his injudicious choice of friends.

On the other hand I find the false friend who put the pictures in the public domain contemptible. His or her name, address, place of work, photograph, mobile number, home telephone number, email addresses and full medical history should be publicised as widely as possible.

The remarkable Correspondence of Railtrack Limited.

I strongly recommend this link

It contains some of the correspondence that followed a sentimental railway enthusiast registering Railtrack Limited as a company, following the demise of the old Railtrack PLC. Many solicitors and public servants were confused, with amusing consequences.

The Ruler as Impotent Deity: a Strange View of the Cosmos

In a recent BBC news broadcast a correspondent described a conversation with a Russian farm worker. Asked if he blamed President Putin for the hard conditions of rural life, he said no, Putin was like God, too far away to help someone like him.

I suspect that many who would be classed as religious believers are similarly eccentric in their theology.

I must think of a questionnaire to apply to religious folk I encounter. Suggestions of promising questions woukld be very welcome. Please include them in comments to this blog.

Safeguarding State Secrets

Now Ecuador has give Julian Assange diplomatic immunity, I assume that that state's secrets will be safe from exposure by Wiki-leaks.

The Extraordinary cost of Corned beef

130g packets of corned beef cost £3-00 in the local Sainsbury. In my youth corned beef was a cheap substitute for 'proper' meat; now it's about the same price as fillet steak!!!

A Puzzle for the Economists

While browsing through the kitchen gadgets in a local department store, I spotted empty jam jars for sale, presumably for people who make their own jam.They cost £1-59 each.

For less than that one can buy similar jars already filled with jam.

Perhaps there is scope for arbitrage - buying jars of jam from a supermarket, eating the jam, and then re-selling the jars at a profit.

I wonder what the economists would say about it.