Training | 2009.07.11
Hugh Muir's diary
He fought the law and the law won. Maybe he needs another lawyer
So without the salvation of a successful appeal, Ronnie Biggs will die in jail, having never fully expressed remorse for the Great Train Robbery. He said in his autobiography that the violence was "regrettable". Was that not enough? This is a travesty. What we know is that the old villain had admirable legal representation, for he took as his advisor, Giovanni di Stefano, friend to Saddam Hussein, adviser to Slobodan Milosevic, admirer of Osama bin Laden, trusted advocate for Nicholas van Hoogstraten. That Jack Straw chose not to listen to such a man sails pretty close to outrage, but it\'s no surprise in itself. Shows they\'re not listening to anybody.
• The vital thing, with swine flu taking a grip around the country, is to stay calm. Keep it in proportion. We will all get through this. The risks, as we know them, seem small. Each of us must take the lead, and so we cannot commend the approach of Lord Redesdale who spent much of yesterday wandering the corridors of the House of Lords informing anyone who might listen that someone at his son\'s school has the virus and that he might have it too. This sort of thing will cause panic. Take a Lemsip, my noble lord. Stay warm. Drink fluids. Chill out.
• With so many threats to free speech, we thought we should side with the angels and so the Guardian published a map enabling people to track the spread of censorship on the internet around the world. And well received it was too. Except perhaps at the Welsh assembly, where we learn from assembly member Leighton Andrews that the filtering system was calibrated so it censored our map of internet repression. Freedom\'s enemies are everywhere; Iran, China ... er, Wales.
• As we said yesterday, jobs will be hard to come by in the future. Some say they do not wish to work as Boris Johnson lookalikes - the job we flagged up yesterday. Beggars reborn as choosers. Shona McIsaac, MP for Cleethorpes, is looking for someone to do "dull but essential day-to-day stuff". There is some constituency casework, she says in the job ad, "but not a lot - unless all the constituency staff are struck down with swine flu". A bit of writing, but be warned: "I\'m very fond of punctuation." Desirable but not essential that the candidate should have some interest in Labour, but what would help is "an ability to express endless enthusiasm for Humber Bridge tolls, the A180, saltmarsh invasion, strikes at oil refineries". And let\'s face it, you get to work for Shona. Money too.
• We end with thought for the day, and it concerns the Very Rev Colin Slee, dean of Southwark Cathedral, who purchased, during a trip to Woolworths in South Africa, a biscuit recipe. How much does it cost, he asked the assistant. "Two fifty," she told him. "Two rand fifty, he thought. That\'s reasonable. Twenty pence. And these biscuits, they are delicious." And they were. But the Lord works in mysterious ways - rivalled only in this respect by Woolworths in Johannesburg; and so it was that on inspecting his credit card bill back home in London, Rev Slee found the upmarket store had charged him 250 rand for the recipe. About £20. That\'s ridiculous, give it back, he thundered down the phone at them. No chance, "you have already seen the recipe," the store said. "We absolutely will not refund your money." OK then, said the Rev, for he is a man of righteous anger, why don\'t I just stick your recipe on the internet so everyone can have it for nothing. "I wish you wouldn\'t do that," said the lady from Woolworths. But by then it was too late. And so it is that the Rev sent the Woolies cookie recipe far and wide with the instruction that each recipient "pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of". He baked them, in a batch of 112, and reflected that these people will think twice in future before they mess with a man of the cloth.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/03/hugh-muir-diary-biggs
