It’s a tough time to be a whale. The world’s navies are upgrading their high-powered sonar to operate at lower frequencies than present; frequencies to which whales are particularly sensitive. Increased testing has seen the number of whale strandings and otherwise unexplained deaths increase substantially. And evidence that sonar kills whales goes way beyond coincidence. Beached whales’ symptoms include, amongst other things, haemorrhaging in the lungs, larynx and brain (with a path direct to the ear). Laboratory animals experience similar trauma when blasted at the right frequencies.

The Ministry of Defence complains of a lack of research pointing out that, ‘there is considerable uncertainty [as to where whales are to be found], particularly for the rarer species, as numbers are so low… The research is limited in content… as it is considered impractical and unethical to put marine mammals into cages or laboratories and subject them to potentially fatal, harmful or even stressful conditions. It is also unacceptable to kill and dissect mammals that have been exposed to such conditions’. So if the MOD is to have its way, we’ll only know for sure after the deed’s been done. If you’d rather they played safe, IFAW has an e-mail campaign going.

Meanwhile, Norway, Iceland and Japan’s plan to increase whaling has, thankfully, been condemned by Britain in run-up to next month’s gathering of the International Whaling Commission. But hosts, South Korea, will propose a resumption of commercial whaling at the same meeting. Greenpeace has an innovative campaign to project images of protestors onto the building in which the meeting is to be held. Yours truly has submitted the above pic for this virtual march. Why not do the same?
Hat tip to Lotus in the Mud re. IFAW campaign

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The 22.6 per cent rise in shoppers at Bluewater is not to be sniffed at and looks certain to cement the hoodie ban. Manchester’s led the way with a ban on hoodies at the Trafford Centre (only slightly smaller than Bluewater) for seven years. Putting up your hood in air-conditioned shopping centre doesn’t prove criminal intent, so I’m not at all comfortable with the ban, but I don’t think it’s entirely misplaced.

I had the misfortune to leave London for a village near Cardiff in my early teens and suddenly found myself out in a small provisional city with nothing much to do. From the mid-1980s and into the late ’90s Cardiff topped league tables for nighttime violence, but you were okay if you avoided groups of lads in shiny Burton suits. The thugs’ grannies thought their grandkids ever so smart and, ironically, were far more likely to cross the street on seeing my more grungy, but perfectly harmless, friends.

It’s silly to pretend that the fashion kids adopt isn’t a product of the subculture in which they find themselves. Some subcultures are more tolerant of anti-social behaviour, petty theft et cetera than others. While shiny Burton suits slipped under the older generation’s radar, hoodies have not. And this time they’re right.

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No great surprise that wrestling fans don’t seem too bothered by Celebrity Wrestling’s demise, replaced with Star Wars four weeks into a planned eight week run. While it may be a shame analogue-terrestrial viewers won’t get to see who won, it’s a good thing this flopped, not just because the idea was so obviously inept, but because failures like this send the right sort of message to bosses at the deservedly declining ITV.

Pseudo-boffins at the station have devised a system for predicting ratings success based entirely on the celebrity count. Sign up Robson Green and they’ll throw money at you. On this basis they presumably expected Celebrity Wrestling to overpower Doctor Who based on the sheer numbers of z-listers.

ITV needs to learn that there’s much more to TV success than the faces actually on screen and every celebrity based failure is a step forward on that learning curve.

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Post-election is so much more interesting than the run up with all its populism, needless stress (like the Tories ever had a chance) et cetera. And that’s how it should be. It’s not about three long campaign weeks, but the years in between them. Immediately post-election is when the parties can be most honest in their self-appraisal, safe in the knowledge that a gaff today will be well forgotten when next time comes.

Yet, I’m pleased to say, many Tories and supporters are as self-delusional as ever. An ex-Thatcher advisor pushes the one more heave school of thought, mourning Howard’s departure, despite his raising the vote just 0.6 per cent and whinging about winning in England (not that the last Tory governments ever won in Scotland or Wales) as if that means something and claiming the voters are moving rightward. That last point’s the most serious mistake, but also the easiest to make. We tend to surround ourselves with like-minded souls and that makes it too easy to assume our views to be in the majority.

Reactionary blogger Laban Tall, nearly voted UKIP and blames them for splitting the Tory vote. He’s the kind of voter the ‘one more heaves’ want to keep and build upon. But Laban’s not known for checking his facts, he always writes nonsense from the gut. Had he checked Labour seats won adding Conservative and UKIP votes together (and making the big assumption that every UKIP voter would otherwise have voted Conservative) Laban would have discovered that just thirteen results would change. Labour would be down to 343, Tories up to 210 and with 92 seats for