pumpkinstrokemarrow

Also that a recent boss of OFSTED, a crowd who say that they exist to '... inspect and regulate to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages', was a bouncy looking blonde who was chucked out of her private school at 16 and never made any further progress. She presumably has talent as well as dimlexia to have made it to the top of this particular pole - but it does seem odd that someone without education should have been in charge of those providing the stuff. Was she in charge of punctuating the oddly punctuated mission statement included above? But I suppose it is all OK. I remember being told many years ago that being good at a being a carpenter was neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for being good at being the foreman.

Last week's TLS having gone awol in our postal system, the BH treated me to a NYRB where I read a rather depressing article about how we are getting on with the Somali pirates. It seems that we are getting better at keeping them off our ships but we are still be pretty soft about it. So, for example, if we catch a small boat full of heavily armed young men we don't do much about it. Not illegal to carry weapons on the high seas but it is illegal to interfere with people going about their lawful business on the high seas. Why don't we start getting a bit heavy with these people? The exclusion zone I proposed on November 17 2009? In the meantime the senior service, while not worrying about pirates, manage to run some sodding great submarine aground near Skye, thus conclusively demonstrating their competence to pour billions down the plug hole on our behalf. Why on earth to they think we need such things for any reason other than bolstering their careers? I suppose chasing pirates around in the very hot Indian Ocean is not nearly so much fun as playing around with a £1b toy. Maybe if they were allowed to shoot the pirates they would be a bit keener?

Maybe also, if they were allowed to shoot pirates in the open, that would vent their bloodlust and they would no longer feel the need to more or less torture people on the qt.. Something the Guardian seems to think is routine enough for our army to have a manual about how to do it. Not good. The world might be a rough place but we need to set an example in such matters if we want other peoples to follow our example in other matters. Quibbling that suspected terrorists are not peoples not good enough.

In an effort to find out the reason why we go in for sodding great submarines, I now have my very own copy of the 'The Strategic Defence and Security Review', having found it a bit heavy going on the screen and thinking that printing out the pdf would cost me more in printer ink than the book would. This at a time, maybe two days after the budget statement, when the computer delivering the pdf version was still not responding. Presumably massively overloaded. A state in which it continues as far as I can see. Is it just a snafu or does someone not want me to read the budget statement? So I thought I would try the defence review instead. It turns out to be a rather low key affair, printed in just two colours - green and black - on rather grotty recycled paper. Bad type face. Poor book design generally.

I will report further in due course, but on what I have seen so far, I will be surprised if I am convinced. That we need battle tanks, submarines or aircraft carriers that is.

Revived a camping recipe yesterday. Buy four fat pork chops. Fry some coriander and black pepper in butter. Add finely chopped onion and start cooking them. Add the chops and brown a bit. Add finely chopped green pepper and tomatoes. Add a bit of water. Simmer for a couple of hours, serve the resultant orangey stew with white rice and brussels sprouts. I remember the pork chops being terribly expensive in France and there was a certain amount of muttering in the ranks about cooking them this way. Mutterers not having worked out that one did not have much choice with an entry level camping stove.