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12 August 2011

Posted by DMC on 13 August 2011 in Diary |

The rioting and looting seems to be over, now for the inquest. No doubt a Commission of Enquiry will be set up and then in a year or so will report back to the government. I can predict that their findings will be: youngsters from deprived homes having nothing to do; no jobs for the young (and we know that not to be entirely true-see my 8 August entry) criminal gangs being opportunistic having nothing to do with the original reaction to the person shot by the police;the failure of families to instil discipline into their children; the failure of the police to get stuck in at the early stages instead of just standing by and letting them get on with it; in some instances an element of racism, and so on. What is far more important is what can be put into place now to try to avoid this form of anarchy occurring in the future. First of all forget all that about the miscreants coming from deprived homes. The first person to be prosecuted was a lecturer in primary school and there are other examples of well healed middle-class teenagers acting in the same appalling fashion as children from deprived homes. Yes, to the lack of parental control and role models. One father said that once he had gone to bed how can he possibly control his 13-year-old. It was no good locking him in as he would find some way out, so he effectively he washed its hands of the whole affair. Parents of such children should certainly be made personally liable for any damage caused and if that were so I’m sure this father would find some way of controlling his 13-year-old. I believe the task of educating the next generation will be a long and painful one but had the government taken up my proposal for national mentoring, engaging the services of the millions of retired people, I believe that would at least be a step in the right direction.

Still no resolution or my Dragon-voice activation problems-despite this now being under the eagle eye of the most senior technician. I rang again this morning to be told that the matter was being looked into and they would revert to me when they have a solution. Bearing in mind that I could be totally reliant on voice activation, if it were not for my one splintered finger, for all they know I could have been virtually incommunicado these past few weeks. Which does not say much for the Nauance organisation.

I only had a short while watching cricket this morning as my friend and solicitor Dr James Barnett came to see m e – driven by our mutual friend MC (MC Patel) – with the contract for my next book and then onto lunch at the Cricketers. MC excelled himself on the caring front including feeding me’ to the manor born.

As to the third test, England soldiered on batting on for the best part of the day waiting until Cook reached 300. Sadly he was caught at 294 when England declared, 710/7, then being 486 ahead. India were put in for the last 13 overs or so and lost Shewag on the second ball. With no further dramas the day ended with India 35/1 giving England 2 days to bowl them out and claim the prize of being number one in the world

For today’s light relief, this video is well worthwhile looking at. It is a first time, to my knowledge, that anyone-in this case the Germans-have made a machine that can simulate a bird

http://www.flixxy.com/airplane-flies-like-a-bird.htm

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