Mr. Bieber is, so I believe, a successful young pop singer with a large teen following. It neither surprises nor offends me that he likes to think that Anne Frank, should she have lived now, might have been a fan of his. She was a relatively ordinary girl caught up in extraordinary events; why should she not like pop music, along with lots of other girls, ordinary or extraordinary? I suppose there is offence in that his comment is rather me-centric at a time when he should have been she-centric, but to my mind the offence is mild. Pop singers are always going to be rather me-centric. Furthermore, he said what he thought, rather than concocting some solemn sounding banality for the record. Is that so bad?
On the opposite page my eye was caught by what turned out to be a full page advertisement from a large Japanese tobacco company (see http://www.jti.com/: you have to work to find the Japanese connection) featuring a letter from our department of health to the Australian department of health about the costs and benefits of forcing tobacco into plain packaging. While I am rather doubtful about whether such forcing is right, I am even more doubtful about whether tobacco companies should be entering the debate in this way, interested parties as they are, with their track record on healthy matters as it is. Presumably the point from their point of view is not the overt content but that it is a way in which they can advertise in newspapers, getting around the ban on tobacco advertisements?
Sufficiently shocked by all this that I had a senior moment with wet results. That is to say, while putting away the plates and mugs which had been washed up and dried after breakfast, I very nearly put a mug full of water away with them. I stopped myself in time not to put the by-then half full mug into the cupboard but not in time to stop a lot of water getting onto the floor.
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