BBC: Blair admits resignation mistake:

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has acknowledged it may have been a “mistake” to announce he would not be serving a fourth term in office.

“People kept asking me the question so I decided to answer it. Maybe that was a mistake,” he told Australian radio after attending the Commonwealth Games.

Later Downing Street said what he meant was it was a mistake to expect the announcement would end speculation.

I can see a couple of possible reasons why this might be newsworthy: Downing Street can’t help living up to their reputation for spin, backtracking what Blair said; and the sheer idea that Blair has admitted to a mistake about anything.

But this off-hand, drowned out comment doesn’t affect public policy one jot. It also doesn’t even have an implication for the increasingly tedious and over-written “will-they-won’t-they” question about when Gordon Brown – John Major to Blair’s Mrs T. – will take over. So why is it the top story on the BBC, the front page story in theguardian, and all over Sky?

Apropos of nothing, I thought I’d mention one of those passing (and very tenuous) Doctor Who/Liberal Party connections that one comes across from time to time.

Henry Ainley was well known on the London stage at the beginning of the twentieth century. He made a few early ilms, including a silent version of The Prisoner of Zenda and As You Like It in 1936 (pictured right), his final film, which starred a young Laurence Olivier (with whom, it’s been claimed, Ainley had a brief fling) and John Laurie, who would later join Dad’s Army. Ainley grew up in Morley, Leeds and had several children, one of whom was Anthony Ainley, best known as the Master in 1980s Doctor Who (and was the first panellist I ever saw at a Who convention).

Also from Morley was sometime Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. Asquith lost his East Fife seat in the 1918 General Election but returned to the Commons in a 1920 by-election in Paisley. After that victory, Ainley sent him the following note:

This letter needs no acknowledgment please; it is merely a thanksgiving of congratulation from one Morley man to another; “the Lord hath wrought great glory.”

Google tells me the quote is from Ecclesiasticus, chapter 44. Ainley also performed a poem by Asquith’s son Herbert on BBC Radio in 1931.

Today, I am mostly channelling Jonathan Calder.

I was flicking through one of our journals at work – Computing, I think – and noticed a reference on the contents page to an article about the IT implications of police force mergers was accompanied by a photo of John Nettles captioned “Mergerac”.

When I got to the article in question, the same photo had been used again – captioned “Midsomer Mergers”.

You, er, probably had to be there…

Another smoking-related incident, which I omitted to mention in my previous post. On the way in to Haymarket station, I was handed a card advertising a “smoking cessation” service. This card apparently entitles me to £20 off my first session, which made me wonder how expensive a session must be if they can afford to knock £20 quid off the price. A check on the website tells me that the usual price is £220! Maybe that’s a good deal if you’re currently buying several packets of fags a week. We can add quit smoking services to signwriters as an industry that will benefit from the ban.

I also received an email yesterday advertising a sports centre and telling me that:

New legislation requires everyone to stop smoking in enclosed places.
As an alternative to smoking why not try exercise.

Yes, instead of stepping outside for five minutes to have a ciggie, why not travel across the city to the sports centre for some circuit training. In other news:

New legislation requires everyone to stop glorifying terrorism.
As an alternative to glorifying terrorism why not try knitting.