The resignation speech of the Conservative Treasurer Cruddas uses a technique fashionable among the PR and customer care community
He apologises for an "impression of impropriety".
It is the same formula used by those who write and say "We are sorry that you found our service less than satisfactory"
In both cases it restates the specifics of a charge into an abstraction (e.g. "late train" becomes "service below the standard you had expected" just as "selling access to the Prime Minister" becomes "an impropriety" AND it seems to apologise, because it uses some of the diction of apology, but is in fact expressing regret for the complainant's state of mind.
It distracts you from the crime and from the culprit. The expression of concern for the complainant -- I am sorry that you found our service to be below standard -- is just a mild form of locking up dissenters in the asylum: you disagree with us, therefore you are wrong / mad.
It is a further dishonesty.
Francis Maude's suggestion on Sunday -- some or other radio programme -- that Cruddas resigned because he had boasted and said things were not true is a further dishonesty. He resigned because he was recorded being perfectly honest, though we might well consider his proposal, that about which he spoke with candour, to be dishonest.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Monday, 19 March 2012
Dungheads at ASDA
Five days on, I have just been emailed
BUY DISNEYLAND ADVENTURES AND SUPPORT MAKE-A-WISH
but nothing else
BUY DISNEYLAND ADVENTURES AND SUPPORT MAKE-A-WISH
but nothing else
Leveraging
I've noticed this word coming back in the last few days. It means or meant, as far as I can tell, using the same money over and over so that it bubbles and persuades you that it is worth much more than it is, beyond all standard, even the shit standard. Jugoslavia did that through the eighties -- Serbia lent to Croatia who lent to -- all the way round, till say Slovenia lent to Serbia who lent to Croatia.
Then the USA did it in a much more er leveraged way.
Now it is being used widely, a very fashionable idiocy.
One gets letters that initiate discussion with the words "I can confirm" though nothing has been mentioned before; because confirm is thought posher and more impressive than tell you.
And many other words. That one just occurs to me.
Now it's leveraging.
On Today (R4) today it was leveraging the costs of improving roads by tolls and other scams. Leveraging? Like what brought about the collapse of faith in the money system? But what does it mean here?
None of the famous Today interviewers asked.
Nor did they challenge an assertion that improved roads will get us out of the recession.
I thought the recession was a product of loss of faith in money due to leveraging, not because the roads are so narrow they need leveraging.
Oh and the Post Office needs modernising. That'll be good, won't it. Well... it depends what modernising means. No one asked.
Then the USA did it in a much more er leveraged way.
Now it is being used widely, a very fashionable idiocy.
One gets letters that initiate discussion with the words "I can confirm" though nothing has been mentioned before; because confirm is thought posher and more impressive than tell you.
And many other words. That one just occurs to me.
Now it's leveraging.
On Today (R4) today it was leveraging the costs of improving roads by tolls and other scams. Leveraging? Like what brought about the collapse of faith in the money system? But what does it mean here?
None of the famous Today interviewers asked.
Nor did they challenge an assertion that improved roads will get us out of the recession.
I thought the recession was a product of loss of faith in money due to leveraging, not because the roads are so narrow they need leveraging.
Oh and the Post Office needs modernising. That'll be good, won't it. Well... it depends what modernising means. No one asked.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
The story of my misfortunes 5
The first thing that happened was that all sorts of demands arrived via my solicitor while "friends" passed on the information that she was still trying to think about what to do, after all this was a very serious matter and she had a duty to other women to protect them. Clear blackmail.
When I didn't respond, it went quiet for a while and then the police arrived and arrested me. They had a photograph of her covered with bruises. They were impressed by that.
They didn't tell me it was taken about a month after the attack.
My difficulty was that I didn't know where she had gone that night. One possibility was that she had gone to the man with whom she had hoped to live; and it seemed entirely possible to me that he had beaten her up. I knew that he was wearying of her. Most people did. I told her he would.
Later, at the trial that followed he said she had turned up and he wasn't best pleased because he did not want to be involved in anything any more.
That was one of her witnesses. The pekinese, asked to clarify an answer, shouted "Don't you call me a liar!"
Her doctor, when pressed, admitted that she had not actually carried out an examination and unfortunately couldn't find any notes; but she was sure that her report saying that MW was the victim of domestic violence was accurate.
The MW herself responded to questions with "How can you do this to me, as a woman" and then turned her back on the court and refused to speak.
Among the things she was declining to comment on were copies of correspondence between her and me which contradicted her evidence and a map of the house showing the impossibility of her account -- the police had not thought it necessary to visit the scene of the crime.
Before that, though, came my police interrogation. Off the record they virtually said they thought she was making it up. The sergeant explained that he couldn't be seen to be doubting a woman accusing a man and was greatly offended when I told him what I thought of him ethically for charging a man he thought innocent. He didn't quite say "but what about my pension". Then they drove me home in case she was there and told me to take care.
CPS decided to prosecute and increased the charge to ABH, thereby guaranteeing a jury trial.
In the interrogation, they kept waving their photo of MW covered in bruises. I explained that I did not consider that to be evidence against me and I am sure they were genuinely confused. "But look at the photo."
If her new man had hit her, he was hardly likely to say so. I was in trouble.
In fact, when the forensic scientist testified, he said that none of the injuries was serious and none inflicted by another; and that those which were not the kind of accidental injuries we all incur were self-inflicted. She seemed to have hurled herself against a vertical surface that night, he said; and indeed she had, as I had testified; and the rest she had done to herself a couple of weeks later.
No one had punched her in the stomach though she said I had. No one had karate chopped her, though she said I had.
And thus I was acquitted. An estimate of 50000 pounds cost to the public was made. She was not charged with perjury.
On the way to that situation I changed solicitors. The first ones had told me to plead guilty and that forensic evidence was not available. The police refused to release the tapes of my interview saying the law wouldnt let them. When I complained to the Metropolitan Commissioner of Police, he referred it to the local plods; and the local plods wrote to me "I advise you not to write aggressive letters to the police".... and then sent me the tapes.
The first item in the defence testimony was a playing of those tapes i.e. the tapes that had decided CPS to prosecute me were the first evidence offered of my innocence.
Perhaps the CPS were impressed by the photograph; they certainly fought tooth and nail to stop them being examined forensically.
When the police admitted how long it had taken them to take their photographs and were asked why they said "I don't know" and that seems to have been considered adequate.
When I didn't respond, it went quiet for a while and then the police arrived and arrested me. They had a photograph of her covered with bruises. They were impressed by that.
They didn't tell me it was taken about a month after the attack.
My difficulty was that I didn't know where she had gone that night. One possibility was that she had gone to the man with whom she had hoped to live; and it seemed entirely possible to me that he had beaten her up. I knew that he was wearying of her. Most people did. I told her he would.
Later, at the trial that followed he said she had turned up and he wasn't best pleased because he did not want to be involved in anything any more.
That was one of her witnesses. The pekinese, asked to clarify an answer, shouted "Don't you call me a liar!"
Her doctor, when pressed, admitted that she had not actually carried out an examination and unfortunately couldn't find any notes; but she was sure that her report saying that MW was the victim of domestic violence was accurate.
The MW herself responded to questions with "How can you do this to me, as a woman" and then turned her back on the court and refused to speak.
Among the things she was declining to comment on were copies of correspondence between her and me which contradicted her evidence and a map of the house showing the impossibility of her account -- the police had not thought it necessary to visit the scene of the crime.
Before that, though, came my police interrogation. Off the record they virtually said they thought she was making it up. The sergeant explained that he couldn't be seen to be doubting a woman accusing a man and was greatly offended when I told him what I thought of him ethically for charging a man he thought innocent. He didn't quite say "but what about my pension". Then they drove me home in case she was there and told me to take care.
CPS decided to prosecute and increased the charge to ABH, thereby guaranteeing a jury trial.
In the interrogation, they kept waving their photo of MW covered in bruises. I explained that I did not consider that to be evidence against me and I am sure they were genuinely confused. "But look at the photo."
If her new man had hit her, he was hardly likely to say so. I was in trouble.
In fact, when the forensic scientist testified, he said that none of the injuries was serious and none inflicted by another; and that those which were not the kind of accidental injuries we all incur were self-inflicted. She seemed to have hurled herself against a vertical surface that night, he said; and indeed she had, as I had testified; and the rest she had done to herself a couple of weeks later.
No one had punched her in the stomach though she said I had. No one had karate chopped her, though she said I had.
And thus I was acquitted. An estimate of 50000 pounds cost to the public was made. She was not charged with perjury.
On the way to that situation I changed solicitors. The first ones had told me to plead guilty and that forensic evidence was not available. The police refused to release the tapes of my interview saying the law wouldnt let them. When I complained to the Metropolitan Commissioner of Police, he referred it to the local plods; and the local plods wrote to me "I advise you not to write aggressive letters to the police".... and then sent me the tapes.
The first item in the defence testimony was a playing of those tapes i.e. the tapes that had decided CPS to prosecute me were the first evidence offered of my innocence.
Perhaps the CPS were impressed by the photograph; they certainly fought tooth and nail to stop them being examined forensically.
When the police admitted how long it had taken them to take their photographs and were asked why they said "I don't know" and that seems to have been considered adequate.
Friday, 16 March 2012
Wealth creation
Wealth creation is what I intended to write about this morning.
It is a technical term in much the same way that Liberalism is. "Liberalism" is good, people think.
Uh no.
But even in its technical use it's barking.
Creation is something out of nothing. In Pauline Christianity, God thinks the universe into existence.
No one else can do that. Nothing else. The rest of us, the creatures, can only copy.
So "creation" and "creative" are metaphors, at best a suspicion that the "creative person" participates in some way with God's work.
And then we are told that x is created by y, to give it a sound of class. Hogwash created by Laboratoire Clochemerle for you.
Nowadays, of course, this is lost behind careerism and charlatanism, the resultant philosophy being best summed up by an advertisement for some kind of programmed knitting system a few years back: IT'S SIMPLE TO BE CREATIVE
Simple if you hope to live by it.
The words are not thought about. Like "inspiration". How many are really inspired? None? Anyone saying yes must explain the mechanism implied by the etymology.
Now "wealth". This is a slippery one in its use. I'll keep it simple.
Rome became wealthy when it had stolen a lot of stuff from other people. Britain too. USA etc. Methodologies may have changed a bit; but not much. China now. India. Ethical problems may have been hidden by exceptionalist claims. But wealth means basically a lot of stuff grabbed. Include in this the money people pay for crap.
So wealth is stolen from other people, making the thieves wealthy; and economics is the sum of the set of the stories told as the thieves explain away their crimes or others doing the task on their behalf: wealth, they say, is created from nothing by the abilities of exceptional people like us. Hence the Americas and Australia being empty because the first peoples didn't count cf Palestine in the twentieth century ongoing.
But the ab nihilo bit of creation is no such thing because it came from God. There always has to be something there. You just take it. The Greeks' creation consisted of doing a bit of improvement work on what pre-existed. One of the pre-Colombian systems, I forget which, had everything arising from some deity's semen. (And what does "banker" rime with?)
So wealth creation is nicking something and conning somebody. But most of it is nothing to do with making anything useful. It is -- sorry to repeat -- like Douglas Adams' fools who put themselves on the leaf standard to become rich in the spring. At best.
It is a technical term in much the same way that Liberalism is. "Liberalism" is good, people think.
Uh no.
But even in its technical use it's barking.
Creation is something out of nothing. In Pauline Christianity, God thinks the universe into existence.
No one else can do that. Nothing else. The rest of us, the creatures, can only copy.
So "creation" and "creative" are metaphors, at best a suspicion that the "creative person" participates in some way with God's work.
And then we are told that x is created by y, to give it a sound of class. Hogwash created by Laboratoire Clochemerle for you.
Nowadays, of course, this is lost behind careerism and charlatanism, the resultant philosophy being best summed up by an advertisement for some kind of programmed knitting system a few years back: IT'S SIMPLE TO BE CREATIVE
Simple if you hope to live by it.
The words are not thought about. Like "inspiration". How many are really inspired? None? Anyone saying yes must explain the mechanism implied by the etymology.
Now "wealth". This is a slippery one in its use. I'll keep it simple.
Rome became wealthy when it had stolen a lot of stuff from other people. Britain too. USA etc. Methodologies may have changed a bit; but not much. China now. India. Ethical problems may have been hidden by exceptionalist claims. But wealth means basically a lot of stuff grabbed. Include in this the money people pay for crap.
So wealth is stolen from other people, making the thieves wealthy; and economics is the sum of the set of the stories told as the thieves explain away their crimes or others doing the task on their behalf: wealth, they say, is created from nothing by the abilities of exceptional people like us. Hence the Americas and Australia being empty because the first peoples didn't count cf Palestine in the twentieth century ongoing.
But the ab nihilo bit of creation is no such thing because it came from God. There always has to be something there. You just take it. The Greeks' creation consisted of doing a bit of improvement work on what pre-existed. One of the pre-Colombian systems, I forget which, had everything arising from some deity's semen. (And what does "banker" rime with?)
So wealth creation is nicking something and conning somebody. But most of it is nothing to do with making anything useful. It is -- sorry to repeat -- like Douglas Adams' fools who put themselves on the leaf standard to become rich in the spring. At best.
Idiots certainly
I just tried to leave a comment on Steve Hanson's blog. It's something I have done without difficulty.
I finished and pressed the key. It THREW AWAY what I had typed and said "That email address is associated with an existing WordPress.com account, please log in to use it."
There is an answer to that
I finished and pressed the key. It THREW AWAY what I had typed and said "That email address is associated with an existing WordPress.com account, please log in to use it."
There is an answer to that
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