CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING
Why are the Norwegians so good at cross-country skiing? In the recent world championships, by coincidence held on home turf in Oslo, they dominated.
In the women's competition, they won five of the six events, with Marit Bjoergen taking gold in the sprint, 15 km pursuit, and 10km classic, and a silver, behind teammate Therese Johaug, in the 30km freestyle. They were also both part of the winning 4 x 5km relay team, and Johaug won a bronze elsewhere. The only event not won by Norway was the team sprint, where they came third.
In the men's competition Petter Northug won gold in the 30km pursuit and 50km freestyle, and silver in the sprint, while other team members were second and third in the 15km classic. Norway were always going to win the 4 x 10km relay; they also came second in the team sprint.
It must help if there are 100,000 compatriots camping out overnight in order to cheer you on as you glide past. But this was a phenomenal all-round performance. I know that there are lots of hills and snow in Norway, which must breed cross-country skills at an early age; but there are also lots of hills and snow in other countries, next door Sweden for example. One can only admire.
Walter Blotscher
Monday, 7 March 2011
Sunday, 6 March 2011
MOLE WARFARE (6)
In an earlier post, one commentator asked for more details about the various battlegrounds with the Mole Army, including a map. So, here they come.
Here is the house, as seen from the road, with the newly roofed middle building and the big beech tree in the background.
And here is the Mole Army's view from the compost heap, looking north east to the barn, the back of the middle building, and the big beech tree.
Last summer I cleared the area between the house and the wood on the right of trees. Between now and 1 May, a man will come with a machine and chew up all the ground, together with the remaining tree stumps and tree roots. I will then sow grass and perhaps a couple of cherry trees.
This is looking from the north east towards the back of the barn (the big beech tree is on my right). As part of the Smug Builder project, I have bricked up the four outlets, where the pigs used to run in and out, and have built a door opening. You can also just about see the foundation, which I rendered yesterday afternoon. Later this year, I will paint the barn, so that it is the same as the middle building on the right.
This is the edge of the cleared area, looking south west at the compost heap, Mole Army HQ. The orchard is off to the left, and the fallen apple tree and paddock are in the background.
Note the evidence of warfare in the foreground, the front line of trenches.
The rather Somme-like ground in amongst the orchard.
I have beaten a tactical retreat here, while I sort out the cleared area closer to the house.
The fallen apple tree, and the Mole Army's supply line up from the paddock into the compost heap on the right.
This is low-lying and swampy, which is why the tree collapsed. Perhaps I should break up the supply line by building a pond?
The flat area in the near background is where I am going to build the kitchen garden, this year's new project. But I have to clear out the moles from under the compost heap first.
Walter Blotscher
In an earlier post, one commentator asked for more details about the various battlegrounds with the Mole Army, including a map. So, here they come.
Here is the house, as seen from the road, with the newly roofed middle building and the big beech tree in the background.And here is the Mole Army's view from the compost heap, looking north east to the barn, the back of the middle building, and the big beech tree.
Last summer I cleared the area between the house and the wood on the right of trees. Between now and 1 May, a man will come with a machine and chew up all the ground, together with the remaining tree stumps and tree roots. I will then sow grass and perhaps a couple of cherry trees.
Note the evidence of warfare in the foreground, the front line of trenches.
I have beaten a tactical retreat here, while I sort out the cleared area closer to the house.
This is low-lying and swampy, which is why the tree collapsed. Perhaps I should break up the supply line by building a pond?
The flat area in the near background is where I am going to build the kitchen garden, this year's new project. But I have to clear out the moles from under the compost heap first.
Walter Blotscher
Saturday, 5 March 2011
RITTERSPORT
Rittersport chocolate bars, made by Alfred Witter GmbH in Waldenbuch, south of Stuttgart, are in my view the best chocolate bars in the world. The 4x4, 16-chunk, square bars are made in a lot of different flavours; but the best are the ones in the brown wrapper, milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts.
I was reminded of this today when I bought one this afternoon at the local supermarket. It was a beautifully cold but sunny spring day, and I was rendering the foundation of the barn. A whole Rittersport was just what was needed to keep my spirits up.
Walter Blotscher
Rittersport chocolate bars, made by Alfred Witter GmbH in Waldenbuch, south of Stuttgart, are in my view the best chocolate bars in the world. The 4x4, 16-chunk, square bars are made in a lot of different flavours; but the best are the ones in the brown wrapper, milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts.
I was reminded of this today when I bought one this afternoon at the local supermarket. It was a beautifully cold but sunny spring day, and I was rendering the foundation of the barn. A whole Rittersport was just what was needed to keep my spirits up.
Walter Blotscher
Friday, 4 March 2011
CONTINENTAL TEA
This is going to irritate some people, but the fact of the matter is that continentals just don't know how to make tea.
Continentals. What a wonderfully pejorative English word, summing up a millennium of island prejudice! A famous, though probably apocryphal, 19th century newspaper headline was "Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off". That gives a good idea of where British people view the centre of the European land mass. It's an open question whether Ireland, another island on the edge of Europe, should be lumped in with the continentals or not. If tea is anything to go by, probably not, since they make it as we do.
As I say, tea is not good on the continent. How many times have you been in a cafe or hotel, even good or very good cafes and hotels, and been presented with a cup of hot water with a tea bag hanging miserably over the edge? In Denmark they use a big long thing that looks remarkably like a condom, and which is just as yukky after use. My wife, a big tea drinker, has accepted after years of badgering from me that this object is not a good idea, and now religiously buys vast quantities of Yorkshire tea (fresh from all those Yorkshire tea estates?) whenever she visits the U.K.
The proper way to make tea is to start with a proper teapot. Teabags are OK, but fresh tea leaves are even better. One teaspoon per person and one for the pot is the saying from my childhood ringing in my ears. Then you let it brew. Meanwhile, you prepare a separate pot of hot water, which will top up the tea after the first round of pourings. If you don't like tea leaves getting in your teeth, then you can pour the liquid into your cup through a tea strainer. Personally, I like using my teeth, since you end up with a pattern in the bottom, which can be "read". My Aunty Betty, not a real aunt but my brother's godmother, used to read tea leaves, one of the reasons why visiting her was always quite exciting.
I don't know why this is so difficult for continentals, since they have no problems with coffee. Like the absence of Marmite and Branston Pickle, it is all a bit of a puzzle.
Walter Blotscher
This is going to irritate some people, but the fact of the matter is that continentals just don't know how to make tea.
Continentals. What a wonderfully pejorative English word, summing up a millennium of island prejudice! A famous, though probably apocryphal, 19th century newspaper headline was "Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off". That gives a good idea of where British people view the centre of the European land mass. It's an open question whether Ireland, another island on the edge of Europe, should be lumped in with the continentals or not. If tea is anything to go by, probably not, since they make it as we do.
As I say, tea is not good on the continent. How many times have you been in a cafe or hotel, even good or very good cafes and hotels, and been presented with a cup of hot water with a tea bag hanging miserably over the edge? In Denmark they use a big long thing that looks remarkably like a condom, and which is just as yukky after use. My wife, a big tea drinker, has accepted after years of badgering from me that this object is not a good idea, and now religiously buys vast quantities of Yorkshire tea (fresh from all those Yorkshire tea estates?) whenever she visits the U.K.
The proper way to make tea is to start with a proper teapot. Teabags are OK, but fresh tea leaves are even better. One teaspoon per person and one for the pot is the saying from my childhood ringing in my ears. Then you let it brew. Meanwhile, you prepare a separate pot of hot water, which will top up the tea after the first round of pourings. If you don't like tea leaves getting in your teeth, then you can pour the liquid into your cup through a tea strainer. Personally, I like using my teeth, since you end up with a pattern in the bottom, which can be "read". My Aunty Betty, not a real aunt but my brother's godmother, used to read tea leaves, one of the reasons why visiting her was always quite exciting.
I don't know why this is so difficult for continentals, since they have no problems with coffee. Like the absence of Marmite and Branston Pickle, it is all a bit of a puzzle.
Walter Blotscher
Thursday, 3 March 2011
INSURANCE AND GENDER
Every now and then courts deliver a bombshell, that affects all of our lives. This week the European Court of Justice did just that.
The ECJ held that insurers cannot by law charge different rates for men and women, since this is discriminatory under E.U. law. This ruling, which takes effect from 21 December 2012 so that the insurance industry has time to adapt its pricing models, will have at least two wide effects. The first is that car insurance premiums, which are generally higher for men than for women, will equalise, either reducing for men and/or rising for women. The second is that annuities, a sort of pension, where, in return for a fixed sum of money, the pensioner receives a guaranteed income for the rest of his/her life, will also equalise, in general through giving men a lower annual income (since men live shorter lives, a lump-sum payment of £xx,000 currently gives them a greater annual income than women in the same position). These changes will affect milions of people across the whole of Europe.
This is not the first time that the ECJ has dropped a bombshell like this. Its 1990 ruling, in the famous case of Barber v. Guardian Royal Exchange, had similarly dramatic effects on occupational pension schemes. GRE ran a typical scheme, in which men retired at 62 and women at 57. On redundancy, scheme members could obtain an immediate pension income at 55 for men, and 50 for women. Mr. Barber was made redundant at the age of 52, and obtained normal statutory benefits; but, as a man, not the immediate occupational scheme income. He said that this was discriminatory, and went to court. The ECJ agreed. Although statutory schemes run by the Government, in which there was legislation and an element of compulsion, were held to be outside the relevant part of E.U. law, occupational schemes set up by companies were not. The consequence of the ECJ's ruling was the equalisation of retirement ages and pension benefits for men and women.
Which, on the face of it, is fair enough. Pension benefits such as the above are a part of worker compensation, and there is no reason why men and women should receive different compensation, if they do the same job. However, there is a big difference in my view between that position and the new ruling. Because it is demonstrably the case that men (particularly young men) are, on average, involved in more car accidents than women; and it is also demonstrably the case that men, on average, do not live for as long as women. Taking account of those facts gives more accurate pricing of car insurance and annuities for both men and women.
The ECJ has now rejected that argument. What this ultimately means, I feel, is that the easy parts of "equality" legislation have already been introduced, and that future changes will inevitably be more controversial. Equality, it turns out, is a slippery concept.
Walter Blotscher
Every now and then courts deliver a bombshell, that affects all of our lives. This week the European Court of Justice did just that.
The ECJ held that insurers cannot by law charge different rates for men and women, since this is discriminatory under E.U. law. This ruling, which takes effect from 21 December 2012 so that the insurance industry has time to adapt its pricing models, will have at least two wide effects. The first is that car insurance premiums, which are generally higher for men than for women, will equalise, either reducing for men and/or rising for women. The second is that annuities, a sort of pension, where, in return for a fixed sum of money, the pensioner receives a guaranteed income for the rest of his/her life, will also equalise, in general through giving men a lower annual income (since men live shorter lives, a lump-sum payment of £xx,000 currently gives them a greater annual income than women in the same position). These changes will affect milions of people across the whole of Europe.
This is not the first time that the ECJ has dropped a bombshell like this. Its 1990 ruling, in the famous case of Barber v. Guardian Royal Exchange, had similarly dramatic effects on occupational pension schemes. GRE ran a typical scheme, in which men retired at 62 and women at 57. On redundancy, scheme members could obtain an immediate pension income at 55 for men, and 50 for women. Mr. Barber was made redundant at the age of 52, and obtained normal statutory benefits; but, as a man, not the immediate occupational scheme income. He said that this was discriminatory, and went to court. The ECJ agreed. Although statutory schemes run by the Government, in which there was legislation and an element of compulsion, were held to be outside the relevant part of E.U. law, occupational schemes set up by companies were not. The consequence of the ECJ's ruling was the equalisation of retirement ages and pension benefits for men and women.
Which, on the face of it, is fair enough. Pension benefits such as the above are a part of worker compensation, and there is no reason why men and women should receive different compensation, if they do the same job. However, there is a big difference in my view between that position and the new ruling. Because it is demonstrably the case that men (particularly young men) are, on average, involved in more car accidents than women; and it is also demonstrably the case that men, on average, do not live for as long as women. Taking account of those facts gives more accurate pricing of car insurance and annuities for both men and women.
The ECJ has now rejected that argument. What this ultimately means, I feel, is that the easy parts of "equality" legislation have already been introduced, and that future changes will inevitably be more controversial. Equality, it turns out, is a slippery concept.
Walter Blotscher
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
FRENCH DIPLOMACY IN AFRICA
North Africa is pretty much France's backyard. Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria are all former French colonies, as are states to the south such as Niger and Chad. France has also had a long-standing relationship with Egypt, dating back to Napoleonic times. Only Libya is outside of its natural sphere of influence.
Why then has it made such a mess of things lately? A mess that finally resulted in the resignation of France's Foreign Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie on Sunday night. The answer lies in the way that France does diplomacy in Africa. First, find a local strongman, that is reliably pro-French. Secondly, back the strongman to the hilt, with armed force if necessary, particularly when he first seizes power. Thirdly, manage the relationship on a personal basis, strongman to Elysee Palace, bypassing normal diplomatic channels. And lastly, ignore said strongman's rigged elections, venal corruption and acquisition of foreign assets (often chateaux in France), if the quid pro quo is French influence in the country and contracts for French firms.
That strategy sits ill with the current demands across the region for democracy and freedom, particularly freedom from the domestic oppressions of the various strongmen. In the first days of the Tunisian uprising that sparked off the whole wave of protests, Ms. Alliot-Marie was holidaying in the country. It turns out that she took free trips in the private jet of a local business tycoon with extremely close links to the (now deposed) President. When she returned to France, she then offered the services of the French secret service to the Tunisian police force, who were in the process of killing demonstrators. It's hard to think of a more gaffe-prone performance.
Ms. Alliot-Marie has been replaced by Alain Juppe, who did the job before from 1993 to 1995, and was Prime Minister under Jacques Chirac from 1995 to 1997. This is a major rehabilitation for Mr. Juppe, who was convicted in 2004 of abuse of public funds, following the use by his political party of employees of the city of Paris, long run by Mr. Chirac, and given a suspended prison sentence. However, Ministers with scandal attached to them are also common in France. It remains to be seen whether that policy is as ill-advised in the long run as the way that France has managed its clients in Africa.
Walter Blotscher
North Africa is pretty much France's backyard. Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria are all former French colonies, as are states to the south such as Niger and Chad. France has also had a long-standing relationship with Egypt, dating back to Napoleonic times. Only Libya is outside of its natural sphere of influence.
Why then has it made such a mess of things lately? A mess that finally resulted in the resignation of France's Foreign Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie on Sunday night. The answer lies in the way that France does diplomacy in Africa. First, find a local strongman, that is reliably pro-French. Secondly, back the strongman to the hilt, with armed force if necessary, particularly when he first seizes power. Thirdly, manage the relationship on a personal basis, strongman to Elysee Palace, bypassing normal diplomatic channels. And lastly, ignore said strongman's rigged elections, venal corruption and acquisition of foreign assets (often chateaux in France), if the quid pro quo is French influence in the country and contracts for French firms.
That strategy sits ill with the current demands across the region for democracy and freedom, particularly freedom from the domestic oppressions of the various strongmen. In the first days of the Tunisian uprising that sparked off the whole wave of protests, Ms. Alliot-Marie was holidaying in the country. It turns out that she took free trips in the private jet of a local business tycoon with extremely close links to the (now deposed) President. When she returned to France, she then offered the services of the French secret service to the Tunisian police force, who were in the process of killing demonstrators. It's hard to think of a more gaffe-prone performance.
Ms. Alliot-Marie has been replaced by Alain Juppe, who did the job before from 1993 to 1995, and was Prime Minister under Jacques Chirac from 1995 to 1997. This is a major rehabilitation for Mr. Juppe, who was convicted in 2004 of abuse of public funds, following the use by his political party of employees of the city of Paris, long run by Mr. Chirac, and given a suspended prison sentence. However, Ministers with scandal attached to them are also common in France. It remains to be seen whether that policy is as ill-advised in the long run as the way that France has managed its clients in Africa.
Walter Blotscher
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
KARL-THEODOR zu GUTTENBERG (2)
I predicted last week that Germany's Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg would eventually bow to pressure and resign before the summer holidays, after he had been stripped of his law doctorate for plagiarism.
I was wrong in the timing, since he has just resigned. The tipping point appears to have been the fact that yesterday, more than 20,000 academics wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel, complaining that he was still in his job.
It is possible that Herr zu Guttenberg could return to politics. However, he may - understandably - not want to. And even if he does, it won't be for some time.
Walter Blotscher
I predicted last week that Germany's Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg would eventually bow to pressure and resign before the summer holidays, after he had been stripped of his law doctorate for plagiarism.
I was wrong in the timing, since he has just resigned. The tipping point appears to have been the fact that yesterday, more than 20,000 academics wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel, complaining that he was still in his job.
It is possible that Herr zu Guttenberg could return to politics. However, he may - understandably - not want to. And even if he does, it won't be for some time.
Walter Blotscher
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