That is the question I asked yesterday. I'm sure my loyal readers are already aware that Jakartass is always on the ball, but newcomers may be interested in this article in today's Jakarta Post.
... when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pronounced a series of new measures in the past week to strengthen his campaign to fight corruption, the same question popped up: "So, what else is new."
Another follow up to my post yesterday comes from ex-expat Aangirfan who has given updates and further links to the news of the sentencing to life imprisonment of the alleged killer of Hilda Murrell.
Former MP Tam Dalyell still maintains that Miss Murrell was the victim of a botched government operation which had gone "hideously wrong".
He suggested the official story did not add up. He said it stretched the imagination to breaking point to suppose that the body, dumped on the Wednesday, could have lain undiscovered until the following Saturday despite a search of the copse on the Thursday by a farmer and his dog. "The two would have had no problem finding a dead rabbit, let alone the body of Hilda Murrell," he said.
In the context of this story, it isn't important, but was it Miss or Mrs. Murrell?
In 1977, as a then local resident, I was an objector at the Application by British Nuclear Fuels Limited for outline planning permission for a 'plant for reprocessing irradiated oxide nuclear fuels and support site services; at their Windscale and Calder Works, Sellafield, Cumbria, commonly known as the Windscale Inquiry.
My thesis was that far from reducing local unemployment, the smokescreen of Cumbria County Council, the skilled workers to be recruited would inevitably have dependent families who would actually add to the local labour pool. Mine was one of only seven points accepted by Judge Parker but you won't find it mentioned here unless it's filed as 'Files 300 & 301: Questions asked, with replies, during the Inquiry', or simply 'Not present'.
What is mentioned in Box 3, File 30, No. 277 and Box 31, File 326 and elsewhere is the 'Voluntary whole body monitoring subsequent to the consumption of local fish'. My then family and cat named Mouse ate very well for six weeks. And my level of Caesium 137 rose significantly.
Yes, the biggest fear locally was the potential for radioactive leaks. And what's a big story today? What else but Huge radioactive leak closes Thorp nuclear plant.
Ho hum. Been there, said that.
Finally, I commented last month on the pleasant connotations of the word 'buttercup'. You may not know that it is a wild flower. What you and I don't want to know is that the warm glow of the corn buttercup and the scarlet dazzle of the prickly poppy, which have illuminated the British countryside since Roman times, could be in danger of fading for ever.
Apparently ex-dictator Suharto is also in danger of fading forever, but don't expect a picture of him.
