Comments on: Fancy lunch?

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:22:38 +0000

Agreed re: the abuse of authority, Gaw – though from what I’ve heard, Rennard’s behaviour sounds lecherous. I guess a lecher would hump anyone – help or non-help, so it’s not just about power or control? And the lure of power can also be very seductive… It’s funny how many underlings end up in relationships with their master – thinking of the secretary (or PA or whatever they’re called these days) and boss scenario – a fair few of whom no doubt end up happily married. Or the female diva and her ‘dancer’ (like Madonna etc)

By: Recusant

Recusant — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:42:07 +0000

No, Mahlerman, you’re not. Especially when you consider that the BBC seems to believe that it is more important than a hospital – and we know that one hospital is the tip of a very large iceberg – killing 1,200 of its patients.

By: Gaw

Gaw — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 07:19:18 +0000

I may be getting this wrong, but I don’t think it’s the alleged footsie per se that’s the problem in the Rennard situation. It’s the alleged footser proferring his footsie to a person whom he had power over – in some cases he was in the position to give the footsee what they most wanted in their career, such as a parliamentary seat. The substantive problem is one of abuse of power rather than lechery.

This may also be the most serious aspect of the Scottish former Cardinal’s alleged lechery, i.e. the abuse of his position of absolute authority over junior priests.

I think these grounds provide an interesting insight into our approach to morality nowadays.

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 21:17:04 +0000

I've no idea how £28 billion crept in, George! I meant to say £28 million... it must have been a slip of the finger - here is a link to the original article. However, if I'm not mistaken, I did hear something on the news today about diabetes care now costing the NHS £18 billion a year. Talking of Victorian physique, Queen Victoria wasn't exactly slim either...

By: George

George — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:47:28 +0000

As for the skinny Victorians, I once noticed in an American medical reference (The Physician's Desk Reference) something called "Dickensian syndrome" or "fat boy syndrome", after the fat boy in The Pickwick Papers, namely obesity that causes drowsiness because of the burden on the cardiovascular system. And some of the Victorian rich got hefty, too--the Prince of Wales, for example.

By: George

George — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:42:39 +0000

O’Leary’s fame has reached the US. Do his customers want to use a “reformer machine” on the fat people in their row?

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:21:28 +0000

George, I think that figure must include the cost of all the dieticians, consultants, counsellors, activists, educators and bureaucrats we pay to tell them over and over and over again that salad is better for them than deep-fried Mars Bars.

I realize this is a serious problem, but must the sinners all be frogmarched to boot camp? The zeal of some of these helpful fixers who clearly can’t wait to beat down doors to police other peoples’ kitchens is scary.

By: Mahlerman

Mahlerman — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:19:21 +0000

In the grey days of the mid to late 50′s when I was in short trousers, the first pots of yogurt arrived at the Co-op, and my mother decided to take my sister and I to look at this stuff from another civilization across the sea. She didn’t want to buy any (after all, who would want to eat rancid milk), just look at it. On the way back she went into Mr Harris’ butcher’s shop and bought some horse. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do, and when we got home, I guess because we didn’t have a fridge, she set about cutting and pulverizing this pink flesh (could it have been pony?) into something we would soon be expected to eat, and did. Interestingly (I hope) Mr Harris was by some measure the most affluent gentleman around our area, and as a result had a 14″ (careful!) Echo TV on which we saw the Coronation a few years earlier, Mr Harris being a sharing kind of person.
Later at ‘big school’ we were regularly given horse and venison (yes Fidel, it wasn’t Bash Street) and I can’t remember thinking it was odd; it was probably cheap. Am I alone in thinking that the present furore has become a big silly?

By: Worm

Worm — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:36:48 +0000

George, we have an airline boss over here (Michael O’Leary of Ryanair, who is famed for his abrasive outbursts) who said of obese passengers: “Nobody wants to sit beside a really fat bastard on board. We have been frankly astonished at the number of customers who don’t only want to tax fat people but torture them.”

By: George

George — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:57:20 +0000

28 billion quid / 7000 hefty recipients is 4 million quid per person. I’m thinking that maybe I shouldn’t be restraining myself at the breakfast and lunch buffets where I am this week, though I suppose a transatlantic flight would be uncomfortable at the target weight.