Channel 4 documentary on John Harris

It seems that the son of the deluded Johannesburg bomber John Harris was left in blissful ignorance of the crime until he came across his father's stored belongings. Channel 4 have taken the opportunity to make a documentary about the man. It will be shown at 8 p.m. on 27th August. We are assured by the producer that it will be even-handed and not seek to excuse the crime. The choice of title does not bode well, but the programme-makers did take the trouble to interview as many of those involved who are still alive, including the victims.

My compilation of reports of the events of 24th July 1964 is here.

Threat to critical Companies House data

The current Private Eye magazine has a worrying report in its In the City column. It seems that the management of the Gwent-based Companies House wants to purge records of companies which have been dissolved more than six years. Since the database is now computerised, it is hard to see what this move would save, apart from a few hundred pounds for disk storage. This would be lost many times over by victims of rogues who would gain anonymity by the move. The victims would include not only ordinary investors but also the exchequer.

As the Eye report states, the magazine has "often relied on the story told by Companies House records of long-dissolved comanies to dig out the truth." The writer lists such chancers as Dominic Chappell of BHS infamy, Craig Whyte (Glasgow Rangers), Brian Leigh, and Sam Gyimah, whose failed business ventures would all have vanished without trace under a six-year rule.

The article concludes: " What Companies House is proposing is not the right to be forgotten but the right to rewrite history for the benefit of those with something to hide - and where the public has a clear right to have that history remembered."

Mrs May has shown herself to be generally in favour of good company governance and of cracking down on tax avoidance. It is to be hoped that she will pass the message on to the BIS minister that nothing should be done to make it easier for con-men.

I would like the government to be more proactive, and pursue companies which break the law by, for instance, not filing returns on time or having clearly phony directors, both of which software is capable of detecting. However, not opening the six-year loophole would be a good start for a clean-hands May administration.

Global warming deniers have gone quiet*

Anti-scientific campaigners are quick to point to any anomalous downturn in temperature or inconsistency between the data provided by the various research institutions. However, they have had very little to get their teeth into for over a year now, and the figures for July 2016 tend to confirm the long-term trend. As Discover magazine's Tom Yulsman reports:

Even though the El Niño warming episode is over, Earth’s heat streak is continuing. Big time.

Both NASA and NOAA have released their verdicts for global temperatures in July (NASA’s here, and NOAA’s here). And both concur that it was the hottest such month on record.

Since July is typically the warmest month of the year globally, that means it was the hottest of all 1,639 months on record.

Let us count other ways in which July 2016 was noteworthy:

• It marks the 15th straight month that the global temperature record has been broken.
• This is the longest such streak in the 137-year record.
• July marks the 40th consecutive such month with temperatures that were at least nominally above the 20th century average.
• The last time July’s global average temperatures were below average was back in 1976.
• Last month also was the 379th consecutive month with temperatures at least nominally above the 20th century average.

*many of us suspect that they re-directed their energies into rubbishing the European Union, with rather more success

Stuck in a rut

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/08/19/8112/ refers. So now I have a better excuse for failing to deliver a report on time: "I was in a temporal metastate".

Toc Ack for the memory

A contemporary wrote recently on Facebook: "we had a physics master called Alec Dumbill (he was far from dumb). One of his favourite put-downs was: '[whoever], you're as dim as a Toc H lamp'. Never knew what it meant and still don't."

This struck me as disingenuous. John was not trying to conceal his age - he actually dated the exchanges (1956, if you must know) within his FB message - so I can only think he was pretending to appear less knowledgeable than he is, but I have no qualms about showing off. When we were growing up, there were still remnants of the Great War phonetic alphabet around. I can distinctly remember ack-emma and pip-emma, (a.m. and p.m.) being used in films and radio programmes. References to ack-ack (anti-aircraft fire) would have been understood almost into this century, even if the original derivation had been lost. A grammar school lad with any curiosity would have wanted to find out more, and I did.

The progress of phonetic alphabets is interesting. The clearest exposition I have seen is here. Being an army brat, I was fairly familiar with the Interservice set. The NATO alphabet, now in common use across public services as well as the military ("Juliet Bravo", anybody?), is clearly an advance in using names which are internationally recognisable, but some of the historical resonance has been lost in its adoption.

And Toc H? It stood for Talbot House, the brainchild of an Anglican clergymen, "Tubby" Clayton and named in memory of the nephew of a fellow-chaplain, Neville Talbot, during the 1914-18 war. It was intended as a club house open to all ranks and conditions of men as an alternative to the numerous bars and brothels in the town of Poperinge. For many, Talbot House became a home from home. Its symbol - guiding light, perhaps? - was an Aladdin-style lamp to which the cross of Ypres was attached (the "Lamp of Maintenance"), seen dimly burning through the window of an upstairs chapel.  The house's modern-day embodiment is described here.

Two years after the war, Clayton developed the concept of an international, interdenominational, association for Christian social service and, as we would say now, used an established brand name to give it instant recognition. Toc H continues to use the Lamp of Maintenance as a symbol. So the saying was probably originally "as dim as the Toc H lamp" and it was only later that the indefinite article came to be common.

Corbyn the Russia-lover?

Jeremy Corbyn has lived down to the media stereotype of the Labour-lefty fellow-traveller with his failure to confirm that he would honour the NATO pledge to defend another treaty member. It was a Labour prime minister, Clement Attlee, who promoted the treaty organisation and defended it against attacks from Moscow. Successive Labour leaders have stood by the pledge, and quite rightly, too.

From 1949's USSR until today's Russia, Moscow has proved very willing to proclaim its willingness to sign up to peace agreements while deviously pursuing its own interests regardless of its public stance. There are current examples in the Ukraine and Syria. It is nibbling away at Georgia and stands ready to regain control of the Baltic states if we forgo our readiness to defend them. If Mr Corbyn seriously believes we can rely on diplomacy alone to constrain Russia's expansionism, then he is as useful an idiot as Donald Trump.

Owen Smith has shown himself equally credulous when it comes to Daesh. It is clear that the UK would not be safe in the hands of either of these men. Can Labour produce another candidate for leader, please?

There is never a time to talk to Daesh

Owen Smith seems to have been reading my old posts. At one time, I felt that the organisation which then saw itself as the new caliphate could be negotiated with. At least, the Sunni tribal leaders who were attracted to ISIL as a defence against the perceived threat from Shia forces could have been given concrete reassurances and turned away from violent revolution. However, that was before I learned of ISIL/ISIS (now known by everyone outside the BBC and Saudi Arabia as Daesh) embarking on its gruesome and barbarous career, putting itself beyond civilised discussion.

Nobody should be lending the leaders of Daesh any shred of credibility.

It''s what Wales voted for, part 9

BBC reports:
UKIP Wales leader Nathan Gill has announced he is leaving the party's group in the Welsh Assembly to sit as an independent AM for North Wales.

But he said he was not leaving the party and would remain a UKIP MEP.