Aberdeen Man Lost at Sea

Since moving to Glasgow I have frequently complained to those members of my family fortunate enough to still live in Northern Ireland about the Scottish newspapers. In particular I am incredibly annoyed by their desire to link everything of global significance somehow to Scotland. For example an author who won an impressive book deal had spent two years studying in Scotland, was described as a 'Scots-educated author'. Growing up in Northern Ireland I was subjected instead to the English and hence anglo-centic editions of the newspapers. Which smacks of less desperation than the, sometimes incredibly, tenuous connections Scottish newspapers use. Today I learnt that this is by no means a new phenomenon. I was reading a book on Globalisation and it mentioned that a Scottish newspaper reported a major maritime tragedy with the headline 'Aberdeen Man Lost at Sea'. The maritime disaster in question was noneother than the sinking of the Titanic.



Honestly.

Dreadnought

I am no shipping expert. I could not distinguish between, say, the different types of battleship. Until today I had no idea that there was such a thing as pre-dreadnought battleships. Which made me wonder what precisely is a dreadnought? Well dreadnoughts take their name from the HMS Dreadnought of the British Royal Navy. HMS Dreadnought was built in 1906 and she revolutionised navel power because she had an all-big-gun armament and steam turbine propulsion. The ships that came before the HMS Dreadnought tended to have a main battery of very heavy guns in turrets, supported by some secondary batteries of lighter guns, they were also powered by coal-fuelled triple-expansion steam engines. The HMS Dreadnought made these ships obsolete and they became known as pre-dreadnoughts. HMS Dreadnought saw action in World War One and managed to sink the German submarine U-29.

Goodbye Social Life

The University which I attend has just published its Honours examination exam timetable. I say just published but I cannot swear to this, they could have been published earlier this week, suffice to say that it was only today I bothered to check after a friend told me that the timetable was up. I have two exams and they are quite well spaced, however, one exam is quite early on in the diet two days after the deadline for two essays and seven days before another essay deadline. So I am going to chain myself to my books from now until that first exam, then I can have a wee breather. I am also waving goodbye to my social life for the next four weeks.

Although I think we both know that is highly unlikely.

A Continuing Theme

Those friendly folks at the Advocates' Library very kindly provided us all with a wee leaflet about themselves. While reading it I could not help but notice that they were keen to emphasise how Advocates come from all walks of life. This year I have studied the history of the Advocates and such social inclusiveness is a very recent phenomenon. In fact there was a major debate about whether the Faculty should admit the son of a cobbler but that was several hundred years ago. Now the Faculty of Advocates is keen to inform the world that among their ranks that have a QC who was once a merchant seaman, a former DJ, and that one of their members trained for the priesthood.



Although I could not help but notice that there were no shoemakers. Old prejudices die hard, eh?

Keep walking

Yesterday I went on a class trip (it has been my first and will be my only class trip of my degree) to Edinburgh. Being a group of law students we called in at Parliament House. This should not be confused with Holyrood or the actual Scottish Parliament. Parliament hasn't sat at Parliament House, when it would sit in Parliament Hall, since the Act of Union in 1707. Nowadays Parliament House is used by Advocates (the Scottish equivalent of English barristers). Advocates can frequently be seen pacing up and down Parliament Hall discussing their cases. The reason they pace is to reduce others' ability or opportunity to overhear the details of the case that the advocate is discussing. It would become obvious quite quickly if you were following an advocate around trying to eavesdrop on their conversation.



It's one way of getting exercise I suppose.

Bethnal Green Tube Station

During the Second World War inhabitants of London would frequently shelter in the extensive underground rail system during the air-raids. However on this day in 1943 a crowd of people attempting to gain entry to the Bethnal Green Tube station suddenly surged forward leading to a crush that killed 173 people and injured a further 90. Many of the victims were women and children. Very little is known about the incident as the government censored it. Even those who were already in the station as the crush was occurring were not told of the event, they only discovered the truth when they emerged the following morning.

Governing through crime

Way back in the heady days of September I attended a seminar given by an American academic about how the USA has a tendency to govern through crime. Basically the way the USA deals with problems is to criminalise those causing them or involved in them (see Hurricane Katrina reactions for evidence of this). This might help explain why the US prison population has almost trebled between 1987 and 2007. In fact at the moment 2.3 million Americans are behind bars. That is more than 1% of the adult population of America. America has 750 prisoners for every 100, 000 people (by way of comparison China has 119 prisoners per 100, 000 which actually works out as 1.5 million prisoners out of a much, much larger overall population).



Governing through crime indeed.