Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Yesterday, Mr Donal Blaney, a solicitor and political commentator, was granted permission by the High Court to serve an injunction by Twitter – the first time this has ever been done.  The injunction required an unknown Twitter user to stop posting under Mr Blaney’s identity and to identify himself.

Today, I received from Twitter notification that Mr Blaney was following me, which I thought a bit of a coincidence.  In fact, given the particularly revolting content of the follower’s postings, it was pretty obviously the individual Mr Blaney is gunning for, who is self-evidently in flagrant breach of the injunction.

I have blocked Mr Blaney’s persecutor, who is clearly severely disturbed, from following me and wish Mr Blaney every success in suing the pants off him.

To St Asaph, and a lunch party in honour of my good friend Gwyn Davies, Clocaenog, who has achieved the tremendous feat of losing over 14 stone in just nine months.

Gwyn would be the first to acknowledge that his weight was severely endangering his health; he decided last year that enough was enough and, with the help of his personal trainer, embarked on a rigid regime of exercise and controlled diet. 

He also obtained the generous sponsorship of his friends and colleagues for his weight loss programme, and today presented cheques of £2,000 each to Macmillan Cancer Care and Clawddnewydd community shop.

Gwyn is an inspiration;  he has shown that it is possible to improve your life beyond recognition if you take  control of  it.  I am very proud of him.

The Bulgarian sports minister has ordered an inquiry after the same six numbers – 4, 15, 23, 24, 35 and 42 – were drawn in consecutive rounds of the national lottery.

The BBC news website reports:

 A mathematician said the chance of the same six numbers coming up twice in a row was one in four million. But he said coincidences do happen.

Exactly; and, of course, the whole basis of a lottery is coincidence: the coincidence that your ticket bears the same numbers as those drawn in the lottery.

Mathematically, the odds against the same numbers being drawn on a second occasion are precisely the same as those against any other numbers being drawn, i.e., astronomically high.  So why do we humans express surprise when the same sequence – or, indeed, any particular sequence – is drawn?   And would we express similar surprise if the numbers drawn were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, rather than 4, 15, 23, 24, 35 and 42?

I don’t know what, if anything, has happened in the world of politics today and, for once, I don’t care.

Sara and I took the dog for a walk around Llyn Crafnant on what must surely be the best day of the summer.  It was absolutely wonderful and if anyone can tell me of a finer place than North Wales on such a day, I’d love to hear it.  But I wouldn’t believe it.

The John Lewis Partnership has hit the headlines today with its “modern reworking” of the 1943 Ministry of Information booklet Make do and Mend, updated for the benefit of contemporary credit crunch victims.

The 2009 version not only repeats the wartime advice to use raw potatoes to revive scuffed shoes and toothpaste to remove scratches from jewellery, but also tells you how to prolong the life of your iPod and save money on recordable CDs by reusing memory sticks.

The Evening Standard also offers the fascinating information that:

The guide was written after the department store consulted 28,000 staff, some of whom John Lewis says were working in its stores when the original pamphlet was issued.

Given that in 1943 the school leaving age had just been raised to 15, this means that some JL partners must be at least 81 years old – surely an example, if one were needed, of the firm’s own sensibly frugal approach when it comes to personnel management.

A brief housekeeping note: from time to time, readers post comments asking where I stand on this, that or the other issue.  There has been a flurry of such posts recently.  These are by nature off-topic and are consequently deleted, in accordance with my comments policy.

If you are a Clwyd West resident and want to write to me about such matters, you are welcome to do so. My contact details may be found on my constituency website.

A case reported in today’s Daily Post illustrates how truly appallingly some people can behave toward their fellow-creatures.

A number of illegal Vietnamese immigrants paid large fees to a criminal gang to bring them to Britain in the hope of finding a better life.  Instead, they were virtually enslaved in an operation that forced them to cultivate cannabis in houses across North Wales.  They were incarcerated in their dreadful places of work and given food and a bed, but nothing else.

Twelve Vietnamese were imprisoned for periods of up to four and a half years, after which they will be deported.

Whilst acknowledging that they had to be given deterrent sentences, it is hard not to  feel some pity for them, and real anger toward those who treated them with such contempt and estimated their lives so cheaply.

I have just renewed my tax disc online, and a pleasantly straightforward procedure it was, too.

However, on entering the DVLA website, I was surprised to be informed:

If you tax or SORN on-line or by phone this month you will be entered into a FREE prize draw for one of three brand-new SEAT Ibiza Ecomotive cars.

I’d be delighted if I were a lucky winner, of course, but, given the current fragile state of the UK motor manufacturing industry, I wonder why the DVLA decided not to offer British cars as prizes.

I am grateful to the Western Mail website for drawing my attention to the US Library of Congress photostream of images of Wales from the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  The photograph above, of Colwyn Bay’s Station Road circa 1890, is of particular local interest.

The pictures were originally published by the Detroit Publishing Company and the slideshow is very well worth viewing.