My JDOCD suffering wife can not, of course, resist anything connected with Johnny Depp which includes the rather second-rate movie The Astronaut’s Wife and I stumbled upon the book (pictured) this morning, obviously picked up second hand when she was in town yesterday.

Leaving aside the story and the quality of the prose – which as I have no intention of ever reading it will always remain in doubt – the book really does have a somewhat miraculous genesis. On the front cover, which you may just be able to make out, it claims:

Based upon the motion picture…

On the back cover however, are the words:

Now a major motion picture…

A bit of a paradox then this book.

Cos I never ‘ad no proper educashion I am often fasin.. facinat… intrested in fings that I find everyone else already knows all about.

If any of the teachers in my school knew any Latin they were either Catholic or had strolled into the building by mistake and were being held captive by a headmaster with aspirations. My good wife, who did have a proper education, will already know that the ampersand was not invented by Linus Amper. This is something I did not know but there again, I hadn’t heard of old Linus either.

If asked to guess, I might have said that it came into being along with movable type and I would, of course, have been wrong by at least a couple of thousand years. Which is why I found this potted history of the umble ampersand fasana… facsanait… fascinatin.

Sitting on my desk is an interesting calendar which was a surprise pre-Christmas gift from a good friend. It is a calendar that offers for each day of the year an old, largely forgotten English word of which, of course, there are hundreds. English, as a language, is somewhat ancient, remarkably resilient and quite stunningly adaptive, absorbing into its lexicon new words, constructs and spellings on a continual basis. And it has been doing this for well over a couple of thousand years.

Every invasion, whether of military conquest or peaceful mass immigration has seen the language twist and turn to accommodate new words, phrases and pronunciations to the extent that there are probably few core languages in the world that English has not borrowed from at one time or another. English is a true mongrel. The word of the day for January 1st was truly apposite – ‘crapulous’ – and defined in an 1897 dictionary as:

Sick by intemperance connected or associated with drunkenness!

I’m sure that many of us suffered from this or witnessed the suffering in others as we did when our youngest son came home at 2 in the afternoon from a new year party that had started at 6 the evening before. He was most definitely and quite clearly crapulous indeed.

Sacked Conservative candidate Nigel Hastilow may, for all I know, be a thoroughly decent chap or he may be a raving right-wing BNP sympathiser. Either way, the moment he invoked the name of Enoch Powell and uttered that taboo phrase “Rivers of Blood” his fate was irrevocably sealed. There was, let’s face it, no possible way that the modern Tory party or our lame, pathetic media, steeped as they are in the fear of political correctness, could tolerate this reawakening of such an embarrassing skeleton in their collective cupboard.

The real truth, of course, is that I would take bets that almost to a man every member of the Tory Party along with the vast majority of their constituents across the country, cannot but agree with Hastilow’s assertion that Powell was at least correct in his prediction that unchecked immigration into the UK would change the face of our country beyond recognition. They agree but they are unable to publicly say this because they fear the consequences. Hastilow was, on one hand, foolish in the extreme. On the other hand, he was totally honest and spoke the mind of the average Englishman.

I was just 16 when Powell made the famous speech that both shot him to enormous and unprecedented popularity (surprisingly so amongst the traditional left wing working class) and blighted his future political career. Any review of this man’s life reveals many things. He was a brilliant scholar with an immense intelligence; he was a fierce defender of his country; he was politically astute. He was, above all, perhaps the most honest politician you could hope to find who steadfastly refused to place party considerations above those of the people he represented. One thing he clearly was not was racist. Lost in the furore his speech caused amongst the small but growing first generation of PC advocates, was the reason he gave the speech in the first place. It was true that he was appalled at the apparent unchecked immigration that was taking place and feared for the fabric of the country he loved beyond all else. But the real target of his speech was the introduction by the Labour Government of anti-discrimination legislation that was the first Race Relations Act. He foresaw the approach of such policies as positive discrimination and a future where today’s failed and disastrous policy of multiculturalism could take root.

But as other people have later found to their cost – the latest being Nigel Hastilow – once the apologists and PC crowd shout ‘racist’ the term sticks and everyone else becomes too frightened to simply say – “no he isn’t”. Powell was, perhaps, the first victim of political correctness. Hastilow is the latest. It is just another dark and sad day when our politicians bury the truth and their beliefs because they fear the consequences of stating them. They are cowed by the beast of PC which they themselves allowed to get loose in the first place. The Conservative Party, had they supported Hastilow, would have at the very least earned some respect from the people of this country. Instead they have shown they are scared of their own shadows.

Footnote: I was quietly pleased to read respected and Right Wing ‘blogger’ Iain Dale make the following comment today:

The Party acted quickly and Caroline Spelman summoned him (Hastilow) for a meeting yesterday . Whether he jumped or was pushed is immaterial. The fact is he is gone. There will be two side effects from this. Firstly it sends a signal to all candidates that their public utterances will be scrutinised as closely as those of MPs, and secondly it may well inhibit them from saying anything at all which can be considered as deviating even slightly from the party line. If that is indeed the effect, it may well give CCHQ fewer sleepless nights, but it will mean we are developing a factory line of androgynous politicians.

Leaving aside the questionable use of the word ‘androgynous‘, I have to take him to task on his fear that we “are developing a factory line of androgynous politicians”. Sorry Iain – this process started a long time ago. Today’s clutch are the result.

Following a case where legal adviser Shabnam Mughal refused to remove her head-wear during an immigration tribunal in Stoke-on-Trent and the judge adjourned the case because he couldn’t hear her speak, guidelines have been established by immigration tribunals chief Mr Justice Hodge.

Legal advisers and solicitors may wear the Islamic veil in court unless it interferes with the “interests of justice”. The judiciary were told to use their discretion to interpret the temporary guidance, which covers all courts.

There is another consequence of this ‘veil question’ which I have not seen mentioned anywhere but seems to me of utmost importance. A court of law, just like the school classroom (the subject of a recent dispute on this issue), is a place where people communicate with each other.

According to research by Professor Albert Mehrabian:

Only 7% of meaning is in the words that are spoken. 38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said). 55% of meaning is in facial expression and body language

Much, if not the bulk, of ‘involuntary’ body language is conveyed through facial expression and the use of the eyebrows. We may not know we are doing it but we are extremely well attuned to ‘reading’ and understanding it. Place what is, in effect, a hood over someones head and not only does the speech get muffled and the subtleties of ‘tone’ and nuance of expression become retarded, but the entire set of signals that we rely on to convey meaning and clarity are removed. This may not be that important at a supermarket check-out or a corner shop counter but in a place where communication is key, such as a court of law, a school classroom, a hospital or doctors surgery, then those lost signals can take on an important significance.