Short Thoughts On Nothing Much In Particular

It has been the settled law of Scotland since 1987 that contra mundum injunctions issued in other jurisdictions are not recognised here. If you don't believe me, ask Mahzer Mahmood.

In his book 'My Trade', published in 2004, Andrew Marr heaps copious praise on Mahmood, a journalist, for his ability to get the story. In the same book, Mr. Marr also states that he once suppressed a story that would have affected a friend. Mr. Marr has recently said that he didn't go into journalism to censor journalists. One wonders how suppressing stories can be deemed to be any different from censoring journalists. Perhaps this is precisely what Chesterton was describing when he wrote that the United Kingdom not only had freedom from censorship of the press, but also freedom of censorship by the press.

The person in the public eye for whom I feel most sorry at the moment is Mrs. Gabby Logan. Untrue allegations circulated by certain irresponsible users of electronic social media, in the mistaken belief that she has either been granted a 'super-injunction' or has engaged in a relationship with another person who has obtained one to prevent details of a relationship becoming public, have required her to state publicly that she has never been unfaithful to her husband. This is an appalling position for a faithful and loving wife and mother to find herself in.

I have three views on this. The first is that if those who hold super-injunctions had the slightest shred of personal honour, they would all out themselves immediately, perhaps to the permanent harm of their own reputations, or brands, if you prefer, in order to help preserve the integrity of Mrs. Logan's. This only seems fair, as hers has been sullied on account of the existence of the course of action that they have all taken, when she has never done them any harm and has never had reason to use it.

The second is that those users of social media who have spread lies about her should out themselves and face the consequences, wherever they might lead. Users of social media have to appreciate that they must comply with the law of the land. That there is no particular anti-blogging law at the moment doesn't mean there won't be one in the future. What is more likely than anything else to bring one into being is precisely the sort of impossible situation which Mrs. Logan has found herself in, through no fault of her own. It will be irresponsibles such as those who have put her in that situation, and not any totalitarian from the fevered ravings of Friedrich von Hayek or Ayn Rand, who will be responsible for having our freedom to blog being taken away from us.

The third is that if Mrs. Logan elects to take action against those who have spread lies about her, she will find and cite every holder of a super-injunction as a witness to her virtue. While some of them might no doubt consider this to be an impossible intrusion upon their busy schedules, they owe it to Mrs. Logan to help her innocence be written into the law of the land. If they will not do so willingly, they should at least be capable of being compelled to attend court and give witness to that fact. Whether that would be possible under the current law would be a very interesting topic for Parliament to address.

A small person of my acquaintance is due to have their MMR jab very soon. The empirically fatuous link drawn by the now discredited Andrew Wakefield between the MMR jab and autism remains potent in the public mind. Wakefield should properly be considered a charlatan who helped put public confidence in vaccination back two centuries, someone who projected an image of benevolence to a trusting public which their actions did nothing to deserve. Before he was discredited, I remember watching a docudrama about MMR in which he was portrayed by Hugh Bonneville in an almost heroic light. Wakefield's subsequent fall from grace is just another example of how those who court fame and reputation can crash to Earth very quickly.

I have never had much time for Irish anti-clericalism, and as a result couldn't really get into 'Father Ted'. In particular, the character of Mrs. Doyle was an extremely annoying portrayal of what its Irish writers thought would be a caricature of a particular type of elderly Irish lady that an English audience would split their sides laughing at. It was like watching 'Old Mother Reilly' as imagined by Frankie Boyle. To my mind, Mrs. Doyle was a low point amongst a continuous series of low points.

We have a better class of charity shop where I live, with some classic books ripe for the picking. Although I really shouldn't have, I recently treated myself to 'The Count of Monte Cristo'. This once-Indexed classic of world literature seems to be a particularly difficult one to film. Having seen three versions, I retain a soft spot for the first one I saw, the 1977 one starring Richard Chamberlain as Dantes and Trevor Howard as the Abbe Feria. As difficult as it must be to film, it must be virtually impossible to stage. I recall reading of a version put on at the National Theatre, I think it was, many years ago now, which starred David Threlfall as Dantes, that furious and lifelong rager against the injustice done to him by a capricious legal system, and which, if memory serves, had a running time of 19 hours. Such a performance must require enormous degrees of stamina and athleticism, attributes which demand preservation with age.

Being unable to drive any more, I pay no heed to motoring journalists at any time. The little of their ramblings that I have sullied my eyes with have reeked of the saloon bar bore.

In his 'Daily Life in Ancient Rome', Jerome Carcopino records how one of the signs that second century Rome was on the slide was the rise of the celebrity chef. Carcopino's standout recipe was dormice rolled in honey and poppy seeds, to which one can only say Thank God for those food hygiene laws which prevent our own celebrity chefs from inflicting something similar upon an unsuspecting public. However, the commanding heights of Roman culinary nuttiness were held by Domitian, as recorded in Suetonius I think, who once held a banquet the theme of which was the colour black. The room was black, the guests were dressed and painted black, the table was black and the food was painted black.

My own approach to food has always been quite simple, and, after a bout of food poisoning, is now even simpler - as Our Lord says, it is not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him pure, but what comes out of it.

And thank goodness the end of the football season is almost upon us. We've seen enough own goals in the past few weeks to last us all a lifetime.