Reasons To Be Cheerful 5

Census: Less religion, more educational qualifications, vast majority of us in good health, more inter-racial partnerships. Broken Britain? (Dan Snow/‏@thehistoryguy, 11 Dec 2012)

313 Edict of Milan legalises Christianity

1561 In 1561, unless you were the son of a knight, wearing a silk cap carried a prison sentence of three months and a hefty fine. (@DaintyBallerina)

1821 Mexico gains independence from Spain
1829 Suttee banned by the British in India
1830 Canada rebels against Britain
1856 Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act legalizes the remarriage of widows

1909 Lloyd George’s People’s Budget taxes the rich to provide social care for the sick and infirm
1910 Lloyd George’s Parliament Act asserts the supremacy of the Commons over the Lords

1938 It becomes legal to talk about contraception in the US (outlawed by the Comstock Act of 1873)
1938 Church of England fudges concept of original sin (and quietly drops it)
1939 Cancer Act prohibits advertising cures for cancer

1946 Randomised controlled trials are introduced to medicine, 3,000 years after they were described in the Book of Daniel.

1965 The Supreme Court makes contraception legal for married couples in the US; in 1972, it gives access for single people.
1967 Scolding and eavesdropping are legalised in England
1969 Germany legalises bestiality

1971 Same-sex relationships become legal in Sweden
1977 Last person is guillotined in France

1980 Selling contraceptive devices legalised in Ireland (outlawed 1935)
1981 Capital punishment is abolished in France
1988 The Lambeth Conference of Anglican and Episcopalian bishops condemns the death penalty

1992 Boris Yeltsin announces that Russia will stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons
1997 Marital rape becomes illegal in Germany

2003 Germany outlaws cannibalism
2003 Sodomy laws invalidated in all American states
2003 UK changes sentences for bestiality from life to two years
2006 Pakistan votes to amend rape laws. “Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery.” BBC

2010 The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee concludes that "the NHS should cease funding homeopathy”.
2012 The Leander Club, which attracts rowers from Berkshire, elects its first female captain in its 194-year history. (BBC)

LESS THAN CHEERFUL

We did not have full adult franchise till 1928. We decriminalised most homosexual acts only in 1967, and a year later we abolished theatre censorship (ie, some chap telling us what we could watch on stage). Four years earlier the last men were hanged in Britain; 20 years later we stopped corporal punishment (ie, sanctioned physical abuse of children) in schools. Four years ago – four years! – we abolished the crime of blasphemous libel. And though Sweden effectively outlawed it in 1966 and Albania and the Congo by 2010, we still allow children to be physically abused, or “reasonably chastised”, at home. (David Aaronovitch, 2013-01-23)
1873 The Comstock Act criminalises any and all forms of contraception in the US
Child labour still legal in India
Church of England’s absurd fudge over gay bishops
1576 In 1576 the age of sexual consent for women was set in England. It was set at ten. (@TourGuideGirl)
Bullying is still legal.

Reasons to Be Cheerful 4
More Reasons to be Cheerful here.
Yet More Reasons to Be Cheerful.
More Reasons to Be Cheerful... ish.
More Reasons to Be Cheerful here, here and here.

Unserious Limericks

A wolf-pack residing near Berlin

Objected to being called vermin:

They said "Our aversion 

To eating a person

Applies from this burg to Dunfermline!"

Steve Terry/LF

Anon., Idem, Ibid. and Trad.

Wrote much that is morally bad:

Some ballads, some shanties,

ALL poems on panties –

And limericks, too, one must add.
via Andy Giddings

The Catholic church has some jobs that
Knock diplomacy into a cocked hat.
There's some bloke who looks
Into new-published books –
If they're clean, then he writes "Nihil obstat".
LF

In Spain there once lived one Bernarda
Who told all her daughters "Try harder!
Keep men from your doors
Or I'll beat you, you whores!”
And what did it get them? Well, nada.
Anon

A lewd dude was doing quite well
Till a stone guy told him “Go to hell!”
His man had to log
All his chicks in his blog.
I’ve been Don Giovanni, farewell!
LF/@Mischa

There was an old man of Khartoum
Who kept two black sheep in his room
'They remind me,' he said,
'Of two friends who are dead,
'But I cannot remember of whom.'

A mosquito was heard to complain
That a chemist had poisoned his brain
The cause of his sorrow
Was paradichloro-
Diphenyltrichloroethane.

There was a young lady called Bright
Who travelled much faster than light.
She set out one day
In a relative way
And came back the previous night.

There was a young lady of Bude
Who was horribly bored by a dude
She gave him a hint
That was plainer than print
And a desperate silence ensued

There are folk in the village of Erith
Whom nobody seeth or heareth
And look, there afloat
On the river, a boat
Which nobody roweth or steereth

From the elephant paddock one day,
They took Barbara Woodhouse away;
There's no harm, in the least,
Shouting 'Sit' to the beast,
But she should have got out of the way.

Poor Ophelia sighed: 'I deplore
The fact that young Hamlet's a bore.
He just talks to himself;
I'll be left on the shelf,
Or go mad by the end of Act IV.'

Once a Raven from Pluto's dark shore
Bore the singular news 'Nevermore'.
Twas of fruitless avail
To ask further detail,
His reply was the same as before.
Anthony Euwer

In a piano concerto in A
The cadenza went sadly astray.
Coming home via China,
F sharp, B flat minor
And stations from Slough on the way.

Serious limericks
More serious limericks