On the move . . .

I'm in the process of moving 'mad dogs etc' to a new home. The job may take a a few days and but I hope the end product will be a bright and shiny new blogsite for mad dogs and Englishmen [and anyone else who cares to visit].

UPDATE the new site is now ready for viewing. Click here for the new mad dogs . .

Fairy Tales are good for kids?

If you think fairy stories are just harmlessly entertaining tales which are ideal for teaching children good wholesome moral values take a look at this posting on the mental floss website. Here are the summaries of a few medieval fairy tales with their original plots and endings. Some are quite well-known in their modern format, such as 'Cinderella' and 'Snow White', and others are less well known, but what they all have in common is that these are the original stories which abound with murder, treachery, incest, cannibalism, torture and, this is bad news for those who like a neat and tidy ending, there are very few 'and they all lived happily ever after' conclusions.

Click here and enjoy, but don't read them to your kids.

I'm swimmin' in the rain, just swimmin' in the rain . . .

If you want to go swimming in Sunderland [Wear] you can can go and splash around in their spanking brand new rain puddle. It has taken a a few years to build and a few million pounds in bottle tops and washers to pay for it, but Sunderland now have the only 50 metre swimming pool in the North East of England [apparently Berlin has 11 of them]. It's a truly modern construction with movable booms and floors so it can be adapted for almost every water activity, diving. competitive swimming, synchronisd swimming and a bit of good old-fashioned fun.

It's quite a lavish creation but also very 'green' in that it has been designed for maximum fuel efficiency and minimum waste of resources. The water is collected from the roof, treated and cleaned in the downstairs water plant, so every time you jump in you are swimming in the rain . .

Darwinism

It’s uncertain which of the three schools of thinking, creationist, intelligent design or natural selection, if any at all, would claim John Darwin, the undead canoeist, as the final proof of their theory, maybe no one at all, as he doesn’t seem to do much credit to any of them.

It is a while since we last heard of Mr. and Mrs Darwin but on Thursday, 13^th March 2008, a hearing was held at Leeds Crown Court at which they both entered pleas to the various charges brought against them. Mr Darwin pleaded guilty to seven charges of obtaining money [possibly as much as £250,000] by deception and one of obtaining a false passport and not guilty to nine other charges. Mrs Darwin pleaded not guilty to all of the charges brought against her. That's the dry bit of the tale over with, and summarised here in this article on The Times website.

There has been much speculation about the whole story but in particular around the possible motivation. As might be expected, the investigative journals of the world have been digging deep to see what insightful nuggets of muck can be found. One novel theory as to why he gave himself up to the police is that by so doing he would force his wife into giving herself up, but this has is its variations - and drawbacks. The first story, posited by the Glasgow Daily Record, is that he believed his wife was being unfaithful to him but The Sydney Morning Herald goes further than this saying that Darwin believed his wife was about to leave him for another man and leave him penniless, further details here. While this may be plausible, doesn’t it seem a little OTT to put yourself at the mercy of the fuzz, especially after committing a string of frauds, just to stop your spouse having an affair? Would this fit in with Darwin's previous patterns of behaviour? If other stories are to be believed he regularly indulged in affairs himself so would he be bothered if his wife did the same. Maybe, but maybe not. Does this fit in with the initial story heard last December when he entered a London police station? To all intents and purposes he seriously expected to get away with his amnesia story, although a moments serious thinking might have told him otherwise.

The News of The World has another story to tell, not of any planned scheme but of a penpal affair between Darwin and a female prisoner – someone had to find a seamy element to this sooner or later. How he met up with someone else while behind bars is left unexplained but if this is correct it will not be the first time he has been involved with other women or confused reality with fantasy as shown in this article in the the Daily Mail.

Guessing from these stories and allegations it would seem that John Darwin is more comfortable in a fantasy world than in the real world. Maybe he himself realises this and is looking forward to a long stir of porridge, it could be just what he needs to avoid getting himself knotted up in further harebrained antics. Or perhaps, as an ex-prison officer, he is feeling a little homesick and wants to return to more familiar quarters. Who knows?

But to return to the initial question of this article, if JD were presented as the ultimate proof of the theory of life then intelligent design would come a very poor third in the race JD having displayed a total absence of IQ, natural selection staggers home in second place after failing miserably to do its job in eliminating a seriously weak link from the gene pool and on the basis of all the stories and fantasies involved in this tale Creationism wins by a mile.

Crime doesn't pay.

This is topic close to the heart of many people, money and what happens after someone steals, embezzles or obtains it in a dishonest fashion and is subsequently caught. It seems that there is no simple answer to this; how society responds depends on a lot of rather complex, largely unwritten, rules. For instance, the type of crime you commit and how much you have stolen both have a bearing on the outcome but also where you have stolen it from, who you are and who you are connected with.

Take the recent case of the MP who allegedly misused Parliamentary allowances to feather his nest, reported here in The Times and here in The Independent. Over a period of 3 years he paid his eldest son, Henry, a salary as a research assistant, while he [Henry] was studying at Newcastle University. More recently he entered into the same scheme when his second son, Freddie, went to university. After the second time around someone blew the whistle and it was claimed that the money was being paid for no real purpose whatsoever. An enquiry was held into the matter and the committee could find no evidence of any work being done. The only supporting evidence was the say-so of the Conway family members.

Reports are a little fuzzy and confusing regarding how much money was involved, a lot depends on which newspaper you read, but so far as I can gauge the figures below are somewhere in the region.

HC £11,773 per year for 3 years, plus 4 £10,000 bonuses. Total £75,319
FC £10,000 per year for 3 years, plus pension contributions. Total £45,000

For siphoning off a sum of money in excess of £120,000 from public funds Derek Conway was suspended from Parliament for 10 days, must repay £13,161, and has now lost his place in the Conservative Party. No prosecution, no instant dismissal from employment, none of the of the penalties which would have applied automatically had a canteen worker or cleaner stolen a few supplies from the storeroom. Apart from the loss of party membership and the 10 days lost pay, it is now back to 'service as normal' for The Honourable Derek Conway, having made a net gain for his offspring of over £100,000.

A few articles covering this . . . . .
The Daily Telegraph
Guido Fawkes' blog
The Guardian