I told you so

The Guardian ^ | Wednesday March 19, 2003 | Rod Liddle

[vannrox]

I told you so

Rod Liddle
Wednesday March 19, 2003
The Guardian

Perhaps it was the interminably pious wittering and the conspiracy theories of the anti-war movement that finally convinced Clare Short that we should, after all, bomb Baghdad as soon as is humanly possible. In which case she should have our sympathy. Maybe she read yesterday's Guardian and stumbled across the full-page advertisement entitled A Manifesto for Peace and Progress, the shrieking hysteria of which will stay with me even as the troops advance on Tikrit.

"All civil liberties, democratic rights and human rights are in danger ... new prison camps and prison ships are being prepared," it said. As Christopher Hitchens once remarked to Martin Amis: "Don't. Be. Silly."

Appended to the acres of guff were the names of about 300 people who presumably agreed with the thrust of the "manifesto" above. Maybe Clare browsed through the list and suddenly realised the company she was keeping. Look, it's the Halifax Branch Fire Brigades Union! And there's Trigger from Only Fools and Horses! And Wenona Crichton, Pete Crichton, Tasha Crichton, Takara Crichton, Emily Crichton and Triniti Crichton! That must be the entire Crichton family - all six of them. Or eight, if you count "Triniti" as being three. Who are the Crichton family, by the way?

Unless you are an unconditional pacifist - which Clare certainly isn't - there are surely no moral absolutes in this horrible debate. I think we shouldn't go to war largely because I am not convinced of the potential threat posed by Iraq. The key phrase there is "not convinced". I can accept that other people are convinced without assuming them to be agents of imperialism, capitalism or Satan.

So maybe Clare genuinely changed her mind. It is an agonising question after all - the more so if the majority of your frontbench colleagues are otherwise resolved. But I doubt that she did. The business with our international development secretary has the pungent whiff of deja vu about it. That's why I risked a tenner on a bet that she wouldn't resign. She doesn't resign, our Clare. The money was, in the end, pretty safe.

Because, if you remember, Clare was unconvinced, at first, of the necessity of bombing the Serbs, but then suddenly became accustomed to the idea. She was opposed to the war in Afghanistan but managed, happily, in the end, to square it with her indomitable and frequently bared conscience. There have been a few other issues, too, where she's spoken out in candour and anger and later shuffled back into line saying that she's been given "assurances" which make everything hunky-dory, more or less.

If I were an aficionado of conspiracy theories, like Harold Pinter and Trigger et al, I might be wondering if Clare wasn't a sort of leftish "beard" for the PM; a cabinet minister who periodically and vociferously breaks ranks whenever the government seems about to embark on something which the Labour party at large will find antithetical, rages for a bit and then miraculously returns to the fold. Whenever she does this it has the effect of either dissolving or diminishing the opposition to the government line - as I suspect it will have done last night.

But it's probably not that either. The real answer is that Short likes being in the cabinet more than she doesn't like bombing Iraq. And of course she has great things to do. She has pledged to eradicate all world poverty absolutely everywhere, for example - and, surprisingly, you might think, after a full seven years in office, her personal mission has not yet been accomplished. Maybe she just needs a little more time. And a bit of leeway for her conscience.

A bemused man's guide to female flirting

There's been some useful stuff in the newspapers about women, recently. More specifically, what exactly it means when they do strange, hitherto inexplicable things, as you're talking to them. At last, we men now know that when a woman tilts her head to an angle of "about 30 degrees" during a conversation about, say, European Union convergence criteria, or the unilateral imposition of tariffs on steel exports to the US, she is actually requesting - subconsciously or otherwise - a bloody good seeing to.

You know, I had often wondered. I had guessed as much, but I didn't know for sure. It seems the head-tilting business is a submissively flirtatious gesture, exposing a vulnerable erogenous zone to the rapacious gaze of a man. Lordy. I never even knew the neck was an erogenous zone. I shall have to apply myself to women's necks with much more vim and vigour in future.

This all comes from the social issues research centre in Oxford. And things get better. If some unidentified woman holds my gaze for "more than one second" it means that she, too, is virtually gagging for it - even, presumably, if her expression while doing the gaze-holding may appear to be one of agitation, or dismay, or contempt, or appalled shock.

There are a few other similar indications: touching; smiling; tenderly playing with their hair (unless they have alopecia, in which case, seductively picking off flakes of skin from the scalp); putting their fingers in their mouths and making extravagant slurping noises; commenting ambivalently about the weather, etc.

All of which is terrific news. Now all I need from the social issues research people is a bit of guidance on the following behaviour patterns which I have recently encountered in women whom I have expectantly, and without invitation, engaged in conversation.

· A frantic scratching of the skin on the lower arm, accompanied by shortness of breath, eyes desperately scouring the room in search of some mysterious object or person, sweat beginning to form on the brow and under the arms.

· Prolonged open-mouthed yawning. Weeping. Mild hysteria. The obsessive grinding or gnashing of teeth.

· Semi-surreptitious mobile telephone call or texting made during the conversation, to friends, relatives, complete strangers, cabinet ministers, the police, the Samaritans.

· Eyes closed; sotto voce recitations of verses from the Bible or sura from the Koran.

· Unsolicited keening or wailing.

· High temperature, nausea, some vomiting; sore throat; small bluish-white spots on the inside of the cheek and the back of the mouth; presentation of raised scarlet rash across trunk during prodromal period; twitching; partial or complete paralysis of central nervous system; coma.

In the past I have been minded to treat these various indications with the strictest neutrality. But now, unless I hear otherwise from the people in Oxford, I shall see them as yet another glorious green light for the pursuit of romance.

[vannrox]

LOL.

[mvpel]

You know, I had often wondered. I had guessed as much, but I didn't know for sure. It seems the head-tilting business is a submissively flirtatious gesture, exposing a vulnerable erogenous zone to the rapacious gaze of a man. Lordy. I never even knew the neck was an erogenous zone. I shall have to apply myself to women's necks with much more vim and vigour in future.

I figured this out in 10th grade (I was a late bloomer, and dated college girls). I guess that's sort of difficult when you're in an English all-boys boarding school with a sadistic headmaster, though.

[DB]

For later read.

[dighton]

Look, it's the Halifax Branch Fire Brigades Union! And there's Trigger from Only Fools and Horses! And Wenona Crichton, Pete Crichton, Tasha Crichton, Takara Crichton, Emily Crichton and Triniti Crichton! That must be the entire Crichton family - all six of them. Or eight, if you count "Triniti" as being three. Who are the Crichton family, by the way?

[fourdeuce82d]

Think this guy is on our side...given that he mentions: "High temperature, nausea, some vomiting; sore throat; small bluish-white spots on the inside of the cheek and the back of the mouth; presentation of raised scarlet rash across trunk during prodromal period; twitching; partial or complete paralysis of central nervous system; coma."

as female responses to his presence,

I suspect he was being series.

[struwwelpeter]

It seems the head-tilting business is a submissively flirtatious gesture

Some are less subtle ;-)

[general_re]

Who are the Crichton family, by the way?

They're the people who signed this thing - the Crightons of Poole, Dorset are on page 21...