What bemused you today?

[donoreo]

Take out once a week is it.  Usually that would be pizza. 

[ABERS]

A remark by Brian Moore the rugby commentator during the England v Wales match.

England had just scored their second try and the Twickenham crowd were giving "Swing low" a wholehearted rendering and he said "Who said the middle classes couldn't show emotion". Giving credence to the widely held belief that it's a posh boys game.

[Graham]

A remark by Brian Moore the rugby commentator during the England v Wales match.

England had just scored their second try and the Twickenham crowd were giving "Swing low" a wholehearted rendering and he said "Who said the middle classes couldn't show emotion". Giving credence to the widely held belief that it's a posh boys game.

  What a strange thing for an experienced commentator to say!

[jinky]

Had to take the p*** out of an ebay seller just then. I bought a pair of Big Apple cuff links for my daughter`s wedding next year as she has a New York theme (don`t tell anyone or I am dead!) Cheap enough for a little joke at £7.99 inc postage but when they came today one has a bubble in the paint and the other has not been pressed properly with a bit of metal extra I`ll need to file off. Also the paint finish looks bloomed and inconsistent. Being a bit of a stickler for QC I emailed saying they had faults and could I return for a replacement postage free. They replied that I could return at cost if I wished for a refund but they had no others and in any case did not consider the products as faulty as I described! I`ve replied saying that as I want then for a private joke I suppose I`ll keep them (despite their faults) but will not keep them as a favourite seller. I`ve also sent some some dictionary definitions of "faulty" and a suggestion to improve their customer service work whilst they await my negative feedback! Unbelievable!

By the way I managed to get an alternative date for the murder mystery date cancelled ( different company / offer at the same hotel in August) and have been sent a refund for my hospital TV adventure I mentioned the other day. All in all a successful Victor Meldrew / consumer rights week

[Oldboy]

By the way I managed to get an alternative date for the murder mystery date cancelled ( different company / offer at the same hotel in August) and have been sent a refund for my hospital TV adventure I mentioned the other day. All in all a successful Victor Meldrew / consumer rights week

[ABERS]

This

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment_and_arts/

Go to 'The Big Picture' and click on reveal to see what lies beyond!

Won't fall into the trap of making the age old remark about being a load of pollocks.(oh dear I have) 

Can you image that greeting you in some room or other in your house.

[jinky]

Dear me - smaller version better but still...Reminds me of a basically sad story made the worse by art. A friend of my wife`s over in Epinal in the Vosges of France tragically lost her husband when he committed suicide after being forced to do his 2 years military service some years ago. He left behind a wife and 2 small children ages just 2 and 3. Callous I may be but I could never see how such a selfish act was justified , pacifist or not, when it was military service in peace time. Anyway the worst thing he did was to also leave a huge (half the wall) anti war painting part abstract, part graphic war specific that always reminds me of the hero patient painting a war picture in hospital with the one legged / mutilated patients posing in front of him in the ward. Just as bad as a Pollock!

[ABERS]

Strange goings on. I sometimes felt a bit depressed doing national service, but not to that extent. 

When I showed my wife the picture she smiled and reminded me of when my father-in-law painted his kitchen. He went all arty and used the old sponge dabbing technique, combining green with a sort of purple colour. That was when I realised that mum in law had quite a colourful and wide vocabulary, gawd bless her.

Perhaps dear old Albert was a repressed Pollock fan. I'm sure I heard him mention his name a few times especially when using a hammer and he hit his thumb.

[Hinfrance]

So, if a region of country has a referendum for secession in which only the people resident in the region vote it's considered illegal; unless the region in question is Scotland, in which case it's self determination.

I think I'm getting the hang of international politics.

[Reinardina]

So, if a region of country has a referendum for secession in which only the people resident in the region vote it's considered illegal; unless the region in question is Scotland, in which case it's self determination.

I think I'm getting the hang of international politics.

I wonder if we are going back to medieval times, when, especially on the Continent, there were numerous independent states. Always trying to enlarge their fiefdoms.

[Andrew]

So, if a region of country has a referendum for secession in which only the people resident in the region vote it's considered illegal; unless the region in question is Scotland, in which case it's self determination.

I think I'm getting the hang of international politics.

It's not the vote that is the problem, it's what happens when the vote is to secede. You have borders, government etc to sort out. I don't think the world has an issue with Crimea wishing to be independent or autonomous - they would like to have it happen with out Putin telling them how to vote.

And there lies the difference with the Scottish Vote. The outcome may well be independence - but without Cameron/ Clegg/ Miliband telling them how to vote - and being ready to help with the issues of seceding from the UK.

If Hitler had had the nuclear arsenal that Putin has, and operated with Putins strategy of grabbing small chunks at a time, Europe would be a very different place. And we would not have a dispute between Palestine & Isreal! 

[Hinfrance]

The Crimea was only merged into the Ukraine on 19th February 1954, until then it had been one of the soviet republics in its own right. It had been part of Russia since 1783 when it was annexed by Catherine. More than 65% of the population are ethnic Russians (although according to the press a lot of Ukrainians have left since the Russians rolled in a few weeks ago, thus increasing the already significant Russian majority). The vote to rejoin Russia doesn't have to be subject to any coercion or in any way rigged, it's a foregone conclusion, with a resentment that goes back to the enforced merger with the Ukraine in 1954. The borders are easily established; just what they were 60 years ago, and the government and currency (from Moscow) are already in place.

Yes, Putin may very well enjoy gunboat diplomacy, but the western powers walked right in to this one by legitimising revolution (for the umpteenth time this century, hardly a difficult call for Putin to expect them to continue in the same vein), so it's not hard for Russia to step up and say "what about democracy?" I see that China, with no doubt one eye on Tibet and Xinjiang, abstained on the UN security council vote condemning Russia's recent actions.

So really there are two points. Firstly, there is no significant difference between the Crimean and Scottish ballots, except that as has been pointed out in the case of Scotland there are a whole load of ifs and buts over currency, borders, and EU membership to name but three. My perhaps obscure point about nationalist referenda is that secession affects the country of which the region is a part as a whole; it cannot be desirable or democratic for only one interested set of citizens to be enfranchised to the exclusion of the others. And this is rather more the case with Scotland as the political and economic integration goes back to 1707.

[donoreo]

The difference with Crimea right now is they are not going to independence, they are voting on joining Russia. 

We have had the same thing with Quebec.  Voted twice and both times voted to stay in the country.  One thing that may be different is that with Quebec both times the question asked on the vote was so vague and unclear that some people voted for it not really understanding what it meant.  Seriously, what the hell is "Sovereignty Association"? 

[Andrew]

So, as this discussion starts to appreciate the broader points of historical association - at what point do we accept the locals have a claim for getting their land back?

Shouldn't the Tartar really be the ones asked about the Crimea's future?
Should the Aborigines have some say in the outcome of Australia?
Maybe even the native Indians have a call on certain parts of the US (not the peacemeal parks they are given)?

And then of coourse we could come to the Irish question - and the awful deeds of Oliver Cromwell. Or the Spanish impact on South America and Mexico - places already inhabited...

At tthis point, i'm not even going to visit Africa - way too much to sort out in the 'developed' world.

Anyway - the vote is over - the result is roughly what was expected. The Russian forces will shortly be moving in to start building another wall (they're good at that and they do provide tourism and paranoia for those in the vicinity) and then they can start 'protecting' all the others around the Black Sea who know a few words of Russian. 

Think I'm starting to become a tad flippant - I have doubt that the East and West are as guilty as each other, with Asia, Africa and the Middle East all busy sorting out the mess we left them in!

[Hinfrance]

There's the rub Andrew - the chain of causation. I reckon as a rule of thumb you can't go back further than one human lifetime, because there is no-one alive after that who could possibly be held responsible.

Meanwhile, back in Crimea Russia the spinelessness of the rest of the world is all too plain to see. I suppose that even though Ukraine is only 3 countries and a narrow strip of water away the UK tends to look west, not east.