nostrum \NOS-truhm\, noun:
1. A medicine of secret composition and unproven or dubious effectiveness; a quack medicine.
2. A usually questionable remedy or scheme; a cure-all.

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Nostrum is also Latin for 'ours' - and was applied by Mussolini to the Mediterranean Sea, which he called Mare Nostrum. This image, however, relates to the second meaning above. Now, since I am still in ranting mood, let me tell you that I am getting heartily sick and tired of all of the lazy journalists and politicians out there who are being a bit too free and easy with the word 'anarchist' just now. Apparently, all of the trouble that has been, or ever will be caused in Edinburgh or elsewhere, from the dawn of time to the Day of Judgement is down to the 'anarchists'. They are all bad, therefore they are all 'anarchists', because - as we all ought to know - 'anarchists' are bad people who want to abolish society and social order and establish a Hobbesian nightmare in which the strong lord it over the weak (perhaps the commentators could explain just how that differs from what we already have). 'Anarchists' just want to destroy and dismantle all of the things that make us feel safe and comfortable, like the government, banks, the police, the armed forces, schools, hospitals, Macdonalds, Starbucks, windows, park benches, police truncheons and night-sticks. 'Anarchists' are against everything - violently against everything - and they have nothing constructive to say about anything. Apparently you can identify 'anarchists' by their baggy, dirty and colourful clothes (to match their hair), their body piercings, their penchant for recreational drugs, their general unkempt appearance, English public school accents, Benefit Agency payment books and their body odour. You can also recognise them by their habit of carrying placards proclaiming their opposition to anything and everything, from nuclear weapons to animal testing. They roam the country in groups, often travelling in old buses, ambulances and VW camper vans (at least during university holidays), and appear wherever there is a demonstration or a music concert (but the Levellers must be playing, man). Another thing that apparently marks the 'anarchist' (apart from an aversion to soap) is their desire for violent confrontation with the forces of law and order. Let's just get this straight, though, these people may be many things - and some of them may even profess to be anarchists - but for the media and the politicians to simply apply the label 'anarchist' to them because some of them might carry black flags and take direct action is not only an easy way for them to reinforce negative stereotypes, but it also displays their own complete lack of understanding about what anarchism is. To say anarchism is simply lawlessness and violence is a gross misrepresentation of the theory. In modern times, capitalism and liberalism have been the harbingers of death, destruction and misery on a scale that is unprecedented in human history. Communism was and is a bloody disaster wherever it has been attempted. In earlier times, feudalism and mercantilism resulted in bondage, slavery and death for millions. So which of them has the right to condemn anarchism when they don't know what anarchism is, and while they defend a system that relies on the persistence of human misery, inequality and exploitation in order for it to exist? These lazy journalists and career politicians whose positions depend on the continuation of the status quo? Really? Rather than bandy the word 'anarchist' around as if it is shorthand for 'dirty, smelly, middle-class university student professional protesters' and with little regard for the rich theory behind it, perhaps those who are dismissive about something they obviously don't understand ought to read a bit of Winstanley, Godwin, Morris, Stirner, Fourier, Proudhon, Bakunin, Tolstoy, Kropotkin, Whitman, Thoreau, Malatesta, Goldman or Ghandi. After that, they might care to read about Nestor Mahkno in the Ukraine during the Bolshevik Revolution and Buenaventura Durruti in the Spanish Civil War. But then again, I suppose it is much easier for them to stick with their simplistically ignorant prejudices - and blame all the trouble on 'anarchists', rather than on the 'dirty, smelly, middle-class university student professional protesters' who could be their own children.

Last year I thought that dishes in the drainer were interesting