The National Rail website has vastly improved its journey planner.
Blog
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Jack Lang & the French constitution
Socialist and presidential outsider Jack Lang has published a book (Changer), with his proposals for (among other things) political and constitutional reform in France, including 4 year terms for public office, renewable once, and the end of the cumul – the practice of multiple office-holding. Le Figaro discusses.
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European constitution, RIP
And so, like a fairly distant relative who’s been ill for a long time, the European constitution project is dead. Has to go down as one of Europe’s many wasted opportunities, and it won’t be the last.
Link via Fistful of Euros.
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Purcell and doggerel verse
I was listening to Henry Purcell’s Odes and Welcome Songs on the way home. They’re worth a listen if you haven’t – various songs for birthdays, arrivals or general celebrations of the monarchy, plus some for Saint Cecilia’s Day (22 November). As always with Purcell, the English is set beautifully, with accent and quantity always absolutely right. The thing that really strikes you, however, is the ghastly doggerel verse he had to work with – presumably provided by some grovelling royal acolyte.
The most tortured and implausible brown-nosing surely comes in the Ode The Summer’s Absence Unconcern’d We Bear, one chorus of which ends with the lines:
Then would we conclude that our Isle,
Which of old was “the Fortunate” call’d,
Had her name but foretold
By some learned bard, who in times past foreknew
How in ages to come, she’d be happy in you.What can you do with that? But Purcell sets it absolutely beautifully – what an artist!
Amazon link: Purcell: The Complete Odes and Welcome Songs
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38% of Americans want creationism taught instead of evolution
The Enlightenment has ended in America. It was nice while it lasted.
Why? Take a look at the depressing and astonishing results from a survey on creationism, reported in the New York Times today.
In brief, 64% of Americans are open to the idea of teaching creationist pseudoscience alongside established science, while 38% don’t want evolution taught at all. 42% believed in strict creationism – that current living things have existed in their current forms since the beginning of time.
One of the researchers involved in survey is quoted in the NYT, saying that the results on the education questions are “a reflection of American pragmatism”. That just won’t do. It’s a reflection of American stupidity, or perhaps irrationality, but it’s about as far from pragmatism as it’s possible to get.
There is, of course, no science in support of creationism, and lots of science in support of evolution. Evolution is only semantically a theory – in practice it is self-evidently, obviously true.
The last comment on this – another disheartening statistic for fans of democracy – is that 41% of respondents wanted the parents to decide on what science was taught to their children. At last, a chance for the Flat Earth Society, not to mention the eugenicists. Perhaps the next step is going to be parental choice in the field of history.
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Scumbag of the week…
…is Sam Pennington, from Hastings, who was convicted today of dragging a badly-injured friend a mile cross-country to try and pretend that her injuries weren’t caused by his driving at 65 mph down a country lane and crashing into a bank. The friend died in hospital the following day.
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iTunes for stattos
I never knew till just now that you can copy the contents of your iTunes library view (or any other view) to Excel using copy and paste, on a Mac at least. This enables you to do all sorts of statto-ish calculations. For example, it turns out that since I bought this laptop (about 18 months ago), I’ve listened to 26,644 tracks, with a total playing time of just over sixty-five days. And subtotals? Don’t even get me started on subtotals.
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Solidarnosc
Norman Birnbaum remembers Solidarity on the 25th anniversary of its founding.
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Tory leadership election
Ken Clarke has announced that he’s going to stand for the Tory leadership.
I lost a lot of respect for him a few days back when he pandered to the sceps by saying that Britain won’t join the euro for at least ten years. It seems to be playing well with the Tories, though. Norman Lamont was just on Newsnight gloating about the ‘failure’ of the Euro (a popular meme – apparently the euro was designed to solve every economic problem in all of Europe, but sadly, it’s only succeeded in creating a new international reserve currency and bringing ten European countries into a stable currency union).
But for all my frustrations with the knee-jerk scepticism of the British political signoria, I can’t see it as a good sign for the Tory party that the only candidate with well-known views feels he has to jettison them to have a chance of success. Again, the question arises – just what are the Tories for, Mummy?
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Valencian metro
Jane and the kids are off to Jávea at the end of next month. Valencia, the nearest city, is a wonderful place, and I’m sorry not to be able to head over there with them. One of the best things on the web about Valencia is the website of its Metro, with a nifty interactive map that even gives details of station exits and their opening hours. It’s a really well-designed site as well.
