Oh Great!

BBC

Make no mistake, this is going to be catastrophic. Already a couple have written to the BBC saying that their account had been emptied of £2800 by someone pretending to be the wife of the household and using child benefit information to convince the bank. Both the customer and the bank were at a loss as to how anyone else could be in possession of this information. There is no doubt that the government have been negligent as the Badger has effectively admitted this today in The Commons and the floodgates will open for claims. The chances of sifting the real from the fraudulent claims are remote and this is going to cost all of us a great deal of money (on top of bailing out Northern Crock).
If the data has made it's way to the criminal element, the real damage will be done by the issuing of ID documentation such as driving licences, passports and the opening of bank accounts by the invisible immigrants. Pandora's box has been opened and as the legend goes, the only thing that didn't get out was Hope!

A patent up for grabs?

Sometimes you almost don't notice... you sort of shrug with resignation at the announcement of another 'ban', but today I did a double-take at the radio.. The Flawed One in Downing Street has said that he wishes to ban "plastic carrier bags which are not re-usable".
You see, you almost let it go and then you hear it again...
Not "Recyclable" but "Re-usable". So the 'great' initiative will not actually prevent the production or use of a single carrier bag, as I don't believe anyone has actually designed one that isn't 're-usable'. You open the bag, put things in it, take them home and then take the things out of it and hey presto - the bag can now be re-used.
Why don't the idiots on BBC News add the words "not re-usable - whatever the fuck that means" to their reports instead of regurgitating the crap they are fed by this pointless administration.
Fuckers all.

'A' Level Time Travel

Look there's a perfectly simple way to answer the 'debate' about whether or not A Levels have become easier.

Take 1000 of this year's A level students and ask them to sit the exam papers that were set 20 years ago. Mix their answers in with those submitted at the time (I'm sure they've been archived somewhere) and look at the results.

My suspicion is that a statistician will not be required to validate the significance of the results - I doubt that the current bunch will break the half way mark.

I don't blame the students by the way - they have been let down and betrayed by the political meddling in education.

"Children living in poverty"

What the fuck does that mean? (and WHY doesn't anyone in the media ask?)
Presumably no one is suggesting that there are children living alone in poverty, or that there are poor children living with parents who are not poor?
So what we are talking about is poor families.
And poverty is defined as having an income of less than 60% of the average wage.
So if the average wage goes up so does the number of people defined as poor.
And if they have more children there will be more children in poor families (see above).
And the answer is - spend more money propping up poor people who want to have more children. The message is 'have as many children as you like - the productive tax-paying members of society are only too delighted to pick up any extra costs you might incur.'
I don't fucking think so.

Who made you fucking God Almighty Jan?

Jan Moir has wound me up.

How dare she patronise Kelly Taylor with this disgusting piece in The Telegraph today? With the headline

Kelly Taylor deserves pity, but not euthanasia

she wastes no time in presuming to know what this woman 'deserves'. How in the name of hell would you know what she deserves? What she most certainly does deserve is to be spared your righteous, cruel brand of pity that does nothing to alleviate or end her suffering but presumably helps you to sleep at night (God knows how you do) by lecturing us and her about what she deserves.

Kelly Taylor wants to die. Last year, she tried to starve herself to death, but after nearly three weeks found it too painful to continue. She still wants to die, but is she right to demand that doctors kill her? It may be unpalatable to some, but the only civilised and sane answer is "No".

Of course she demands no such thing. If you had listened to the interview with her devoted husband you would have learned that she has no shortage of doctors who respect her judgement and wishes and would administer the necessary dosage of morphine to put her in a coma. She wil then be in a similar position to other people who have stipulated that they should not be nourished or hydrated while in that condition, and thus be allowed to die. What she is demanding is that these compassionate professionals should not be prosecuted should they carry out her wishes.

Oh and wouldn't the fact that she kept going for three weeks starvation in an attempt to end her own life and gave up because it was too painful be just a teeny weeny clue to the magnitude of what she is suffering? My God, anyone who has the strength, courage and determination to come out of that hell and then say "Right, now I'm going to take my case to the High Court and battle all the arrogant pricks who will tell me that my end is not my business but theirs", has my admiration in spades. You, on the other hand, have my contempt in whatever beats spades by a bloody mile.

Doctors and medical workers spend a lifetime learning how to cure and heal. To ask them to administer lethal injections, not dissimilar to those given to dying household pets by kindly vets, is not only unethical and unlawful, it is morally wrong. Yet many people do not believe this to be the case; they are putting pressure on the British Medical Association to ensure that just such a provision is available in this country - and sooner rather than later.

These doctors and medical workers also presumably learn how to care for people in the event that healing and cure are no longer possible. They no doubt agonise over the moral boundaries between ignoring patients wishes and striving to prolong life at any costs, despite the agony inflicted on the person in their care, and the provision of pain management therapies that require larger and larger, and possibly finally fatal, doses of drugs. How dare you presume to be the only one who knows where these boundaries lie!

This week, Mrs Taylor has taken her fight to die on demand to the High Court, with all the usual media barrage and hysteria that sad cases such as hers now routinely attract. On the courthouse steps, pressure groups such as Dignity in Dying miss no opportunity to highlight Mrs Taylor's intolerable and painful condition, while the Care Not Killing alliance advocates better palliative care for those, such as her, who need it.

Of course her application to the courts, and the media hysteria (your article included presumably) would not be necessary if we had the courage to put in place a sensible structure to allow people in her condition to request fatal treatment rather than forcing each brave individual to re-run the arguments and be forced to die in agony by arrogant cunts such as you. Do you think these organisations exist for their own amusement? They are there because we are cowards and the people they seek to help are brave. We avoid the question, dither, delay and avoid responsibility while these brave people fight for others who may follow them. My God you do seem so small in comparison with them!
By the way, why is it that I find the slogan "Dignity in Dying" so much more symapthetic that the dictatorial "Care Not Killing"? Perhaps because the former is simply asking for something which we would all hope to have but is being denied to this person, and the latter is presuming to tell that same person what we 'know' is best for them.

For her part, Mrs Taylor insists that her husband and her parents support her in her decision to end her life, but one can only guess at the long nights of anguish and tears that are behind that statement, and the unshed tears that lie ahead, whatever the outcome.

Again you presume to know what the relationship is between husband and wife in this situation, instead of considering (not that it's any of your business) that her husband supports her position because he loves her and cares what happens to her.

There is no doubt that Mrs Taylor has suffered from terrible illness. Her body has been twisted and racked by two debilitating syndromes - Eisenmenger's and Klippel-Feil - and she has endured much pain and disability.
For this life, she deserves much sympathy, although she does not ask for it; all she wants now is an opportunity to end it. Yet I fear she will not be successful, for no enlightened country could ever be allowed to finish the job she started with her self-imposed hunger strike.

If she isn't asking for sympathy then don't give it (and certainly not the pity you mention in your headline), but don't presume to tell her how and when she can end her suffering.

I wouldn't normally wish suffering on anyone, but I truly hope that one day you find yourself in her position and this still unenlightened country will force you to endure an agonising, drawn out, desperate death.

I am my own employee!

For a long time now the tax laws have meant that contractors are deemed to be earning a salary, rather than a fee if they only have one client at a time. This was to stop the practice of contractors evading income tax by providing their services through limited companies, paying themselves small incomes and taking the rest in dividend payments from the company. Debatable but let's go with the flow for the sake of it...

So.... Contractors now use umbrella companies, who's only task is to receive the money paid by the client, run a payroll calculation and pass on the net pay to the contractor. Since I am anxious to pay all my dues and sleep soundly at night, this is what I do and I pay about £60 a month for this company to run the payroll.

And here comes the clever bit....

Because I am technically employed by this company, and they have to pay an employer's NI contribution in respect of my salary, I pay both employee's and employer's National Insurance payments on my gross income!!!

That's £287.92 National Insurance because I earned some money and an extra £643.35 because the chancellor reckons that I employ myself. Nearly a grand a month of Treasury revenue that isn't even called tax.

What the fuck is all that about?

The Bexhill goose step

Rother District Council plan to introduce 'Control Orders' (what the fuck are they anyway?), to prevent people letting their dogs off a lead in a public place, oh and forbid them from walking more than 3 dogs at a time. A 'spokesman' said "It's only possible to control a dog when it is on a lead.". Oh really? Perhaps they should widen their consultation to include visiting any of the numerous shoots in the area where they may see teams of gundogs being handled at considerable distances without the use of a lead. Alternatively they could just perforate their 'control orders', roll them round a tube of cardboard and put them to better use.

Fucking jumped-up little control freaks.

Bad Noose

I feel that I should organise a whip-round to raise an internet subscription for the Iraqi Judicial service. They obviously don't have access to this table of drop distances for use in efficiently killing people by dropping them on the end of a rope. The level of incompetence of these people is pitiful, but doesn't really come as a surprise.

What I can't really get my head round is the indignation being spouted by all and sundry about the 'manner' of the executions. There seems to be an abhorrence of anything which might affect the 'dignity' of those who are about to be killed. I'm sorry but I just can't see that putting a rope round someone's neck and dropping them through the floor so that their neck is broken (or severed) is perfectly acceptable behaviour but taunting them is somehow deplorable.

*Sigh*

Who knocked the wall down?

I've always thought that we were going to hit the wall we have been backing up to all these years, the old bulldog spirit would suddenly appear and there would be civil disobedience throughout the country until our sovereignty was restored, but I now suspect that someone has knocked it down when we weren't looking and we have to decide for ourselves when to stop taking this shit.

This from the Englishman. It makes me weep.

When is someone in that rat's nest at Westminster going to have the balls to stand up and say ENOUGH is ENOUGH?

Apologies, I think I have to publish the original article in full...

A grim legal first killed this firm
By Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:37am GMT 11/12/2006

Members of the House of Lords were shocked last Wednesday to hear, from Lord Willoughby de Broke, the extraordinary story behind the closure in October of a Lancashire cheese firm, employing 26 people.

John Wright had built up Bowland Dairies in Nelson into an £8-million-a-year business making curd cheese, mostly exported to five EU countries, including France and Germany, for use in quiches and flans. On June 12, inspectors of the European Commission's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) visited the plant for 90 minutes, looked through the paperwork and, after misinterpreting one document, issued a "rapid alert notice" that its products were unsafe. The milk in the cheese, they claimed, broke EU rules on antibiotic residues.

On June 20, after thoroughly inspecting the plant, Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) strongly disagreed. It recommended one or two minor changes in procedure, and allowed production to resume.

On July 4 the commission repeated its claim that the milk did not comply with EU rules. The FSA responded that the FVO inspectors seemed to be confused over the type of milk the firm used. Telling the European Standing Committee on the Food Chain that "no evidence was found that contaminated milk was used", the FSA issued a notice to all EU member states that Bowland's cheese was entirely safe and fit for market. The commission appended its own negative comments to this notice, effectively maintaining the ban.

Black propaganda began to appear, claiming that the firm had been selling cheese contaminated with cleaning fluid and sweepings from the floor. Bowland took the commission before the ECJ and, on September 8, Judge Bo Vesterdorf, president of the Court of First Instance, having reviewed the case legally and scientifically, found unreservedly in the company's favour.

The commission was ordered to withdraw its notice and its comments about the firm. Twice it refused. On September 12 Vesterdorf ordered it to "stand aside". The commission tried to add a statement to the court order, claiming that it had lost on a mere technicality. The judge ordered this to be removed, observing: "It is sad that a company is dying while giants fight it out".

On September 27 the FVO returned to Bowland, this time for an exhaustive two-day inspection, but could find little wrong. (Any findings, the commission's chief inspector told Mr Wright, would be "non-emergency".)

However, on October 4, the commission asked its standing committee to approve a commission decision banning Bowland from further trading. The 25 members present were not shown the court's judgment or any technical evidence, other than a defence of the new procedure for testing antibiotic residues – from the firm which had devised it. Twenty two countries voted for a total ban, with Britain abstaining.

The commission announced that it would seek to have the UK food safety authorities fined for failing to protect consumers against contaminated milk (despite the court ruling and the lack of any evidence of contamination). Furthermore Britain was warned that the FVO was about to carry out a full audit of Britain's £5-billion-a-year cheese industry.

Despite the FSA's solid support of Bowland and its insistence that no rules had been broken, the Department of Health bowed to the commission's diktat. On October 16 it rushed through a statutory instrument, the Curd Cheese (Restriction on Placing on the Market) Regulations 2006, to take immediate effect. Section 3 read "No person shall place on the market any curd cheese manufactured by Bowland Dairy Products Limited".

Never before, it is believed, has a statutory instrument been issued in Britain directed at closing down a single named company (breaching the ancient principle of British law that "the law must be blind", i.e. it must be general in application, not directed at any specific individual or body).

When Lord Willoughby de Broke recounted this chilling story last week, eloquently supported by others, including Lord Greaves, a Lib Dem who lives near Mr Wright's plant, peers were visibly horrified. The only defence that Lord Warner, as junior health minister, could muster (apart from seriously misrepresenting the terms of Vesterdorf's judgment) was to plead that failure to implement the commission's decision "would constitute a serious breach of the UK's obligations under the EC Treaty". For truth, justice, the rule of law and Britain it was a black day.

See the post below Drip, Drip, Drip...

Turkish Delight

Can anyone enlighten me? I have a vague feeling that I heard the Foreign Secretary blathering on about why we should paper over the cracks (Cyprus illegally occupied and territory stolen for Turkey - which no country recognises), and welcome Johhny Turk into the EU. In particular there was a moment when she had to correct herself after saying Turkey was an energy supplier to an energy corridor. See here and below.. This is of course the real reason why we are being persuaded that Turkey is somehow European and not Middle Eastern.
She also said that Turkey had huge economic potential. Of course it does. Any third world country about to get their hands on our contributions to the Euro-trough have that.
Do they think we're fucking stupid? (Rhetorical)


By the way (thanks Wiki contributors)..
The Cyprus government filed applications to the European Commission on Human Rights on September 17, 1974 and on March 21, 1975. The Commission issued its report on the charges made in the two applications on July 10, 1976. In it the Commission found Turkey guilty of violating the following articles of the European Convention on Human Rights:
1.. Article 2 - by the killing of innocent civilians committed on a substantial scale;
2.. Article 3 - by the rape of women of all ages from 12 to 71;
3.. Article 3 - by inhuman treatment of prisoners and persons detained;
4.. Article 5 - by deprivation of liberty with regard to detainees and missing persons - a continuing violation;
5.. Article 8 - by displacement of persons creating more than 180,000 Greek Cypriot refugees,and be refusing to allow the refugees to return to their homes.

Drip, drip, drip.....

Let us consider, my lords, that arbitrary power has seldom or never been introduced into any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step, lest the people should see its approach. The barriers and fences of the people's liberty must be plucked up one by one, and some plausible pretences must be found for removing or hoodwinking, one after another, those sentries who are posted by the constitution of a free country, for warning the people of their danger. When these preparatory steps are once made, the people may then, indeed, with regret, see slavery and arbitrary power making long strides over their land; but it will be too late to think of preventing or avoiding the impending ruin.

- Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, to the House of Lords in 1737 (though reported rather later)

Hat tip Samizdata

Not a lot..... but I like you

Many thanks to my current hero Richard Dawkins for this little gem...
I vaguely remembered the story of Lot and his wife from those dark Catholic days in various nunneries and monasteries where, despite the lunacy, I managed to find an education. Wasn't he the only one worth saving in Sodom, so God told him to leg it just in time? What I didn't realise was the shenanigans that went on before and after his departure.
So anyway...
Two chaps turn up in the town and Lot offers to put them up.

Gen 19-1 "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning."

So far so good. Then the good ol' boys of Sodom surround his house and demand he hands the two men over, for a bit of the local rough & tumble...

Gen 19-3 "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."

Ooh er... Then comes the really choice bit. So loyal is Lot to his new-found pals of a few minutes that he offers to throw his two virgin daughters to the mob!

Gen 19-8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.

Then.. well to cut a long story short.. Lot and his daughters ended up living in a cave (it isn't really clear why), and the daughters obviously felt they had missed out not being thrown to the mob (albeit a rather disinterested Sodom one) and hatched a plot of their own...

Gen 19-31 to 38 One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father." That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I lay with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

You couldn't make it up could you? Oh, wait a minute...

Oh, and the footnotes?

Moab - Sounds like the Hebrew for from father
Ben-Ammi means Son of my people

rotflmao

Friday Feeling

The Nameless One with a couple of wonderful links to people with WAY too much time on their hands...

One down...

An update from Jackie Danicki about her assailants. One has apparently been arrested. No confirmation of charges yet, but let's hope the other will be nabbed soon and they will be handed some justice. Will be very interested to hear if either of them are on parole or 'being supervised' or have asbos. Fuckers.

L'Agneau Mort

Mr Dale has a preview of Girlie Dave's speech to the EU today, which he interprets as Dave 'Lambasting' the EU. As if.

"Last year the EU made helping lift Africa out of poverty a priority. But many of the EU's policies are making poverty in developing countries worse. The EU remains committed to a largely unreformed CAP, an economic and humanitarian disaster which pushes up food prices for the poorest people in Europe and helps lock the developing world in poverty. And the EU still has higher trade barriers against poor countries than it does against rich. That's not good enough and it needs to change."

So we (the UK) are harming poor countries by enacting harmful policies because being in the EU means we can't do otherwise? And Dave's solution to that problem is to try and change the policies of the EU - which presumably suit all of the other countries just fine as they dreamt them up? The simple answer, of course, is to leave the EU and then we could trade with these countries as we see fit. Or if that's a step too far for poor Dave, then let's indulge in a bit of unilateral action and change our trading terms with the poor countries on our own and break EU rules (ooh er!). They would either try and punish us or be shamed into following suit. Sounds fun and principled doesn't it?

The EU has not had its accounts signed off for 11 years in a row. The Commission continues to use an accounting system that the EU's former Chief Accountant says is wide open to fraud. If a company director failed to sign off accounts for 11 years, they would probably be heading for jail. It's not good enough and it's got to change."

Oooh I bet they're scared now. That's twice you've 'lambasted' them and told them it's just jolly well not good enough and it's got to change. You sound like one of those schoolmasters who got jolly cross with us and we all desperately tried to keep a straight face during the 'telling off' and then burst into hysterics the moment he left the room, marching about being 'jolly cross' at each other. Do you really think the rest of the snouts in that rich steaming trough give a rat's arse what you think about the accounts, so long as we all keep pouring an ever-increasing supply of gravy in? And if you are serious, then we are one of those jail-dodging directors too by participating in this giant fraud. The only honourable action is to resign and tell the shareholders why you can no longer be part of such a corrupt organisation. And save us all a bloody fortune in the process. Do you have a particular aversion to being lifted on people's shoulders and being carried through the streets of London to tumultuous applause?

Europe's Kyoto target is to reduce carbon emissions by 8 per cent by 2012. But with just six years to go, carbon emissions are down by less than 1 per cent. Twelve member states have actually gone backwards and increased their emissions. The EU is set to miss its Kyoto emission targets. That's not good enough and it's got to change."

Now you're just getting tedious. The class are going to tell you to fuck off to your face in a minute. Even if the science of global warming wasn't completely half-baked, the only certainty is that the developing countries of the world are not going to stop the rush to embrace our lifestyle (and why should they?) and the actions of the EU won't amount to a gnat's fart in the overall scheme of things. But that won't stop you forcing us to pay over and over again so that the Chinese can all have mercs and air conditioning. Fuck you!

In 2000 Europe's leaders said they would make the EU the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. EU politicians repeated their call for economic reform in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. But since 1998 new EU regulations have cost business £37 billion.

And your point is? Oh, I see. EU's politicians have 'called for' something every year since God knows when, but now it's you 'calling for' it, it'll happen. Of course. Why didn't we think of that before? You complete and utter prat. Just get the fucking £37 billion back and refuse to hand over another penny and we might stop flicking ink bombs at each other and start listening to you.

"We will be the champions for real change in Europe. We are a new generation. We have no time for the culture of hopelessness that has plagued the way the EU has often attempted to address the big global challenges we face. It's because we want to see a future for the EU and believe in a strong Europe that we want to make the EU confront its failings. The next generation of Europeans wants a continent to be proud of. They want Europe to be a force for good, to lead by example, to be a shining symbol of progress.

Blah blah...Champions..blah blah...new...blah.. generation...blah...big global..(as opposed to small global?)..blah..challenges...blah blah.. future ...blah.. strong....blah...next generation...blah...proud...blah..force for good...blah blah... shining... blah blah... progress...blah blah....reach out.... blah blah..

Ooh I just ticked off all the words on my management consultant-speak bingo card.

Fucking HOUSE!

And they want to reach out with enthusiasm to the countries that aspire to join
the EU."

No they fucking don't! They want to confront them as they step off the ferry at Dover with sharp farm implements and tell them to get fucking back on the boat, or start fucking swimming back to where they came from.

Keystone Cops

Update on the story below here.
Jackie has been contacted by the Met's Head of Marketing and Media.
What, WHAT, WHAT THE FUCK!
Who the fuck would that be and why hasn't the officer attending contacted her to give her an update on the investigation, or even to ask for a copy of the photograph of the alleged perpetrator?
Shotgun - you were right - They won't fucking do anything and this P.O.S. will get away with it (again probably)
I think I'll pass this one on to the dead tree press.
And people wonder why vigilantism happens!

By the way, if you know who this POS is, please contact British Transport Police on 0800 40 50 40. The assault took place last Friday 24th November on the southbound Bakerloo line platform at Baker Street, and the abuse continued from there to Piccadilly Circus.

"Kick Me"

A terrible story from Jackie Danicki about being abused and assaulted on the Tube. But this marvellous woman has a clear as a bell picture of her assailant. And here it is. So this POS now has the blogsphere equivalent of the old playground "Kick Me" sign on his back.

I look forward to hearing that the Met have successfully concluded their investigations and the CPS are busy bees preparing a cracking case for incarceration. This one is going to be SO public and there will be no room for error here.

Yes Massa Minister

Another ghastly exchange on the Today programme this morning.. Some shrill, ignorant, money-grabbing, harpy was bleating on about reparations for Africa and how she wants me (via my government) to pay money (to who?) in some sort of apology for the slave trade. It was not the re-hashing of this ludicrous nonsense...

In Africa, the 2nd self appointed World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission was convened in Ghana in 2000. Its deliberations concluded with a Petition being served in the International Court at the Hague for US$777 trillion (more than ten times the annual world GDP, equivalent to about 250 years' worth of the current U.S. federal budget) against the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom for "unlawful removal and destruction of Petitioners' mineral and human resources from the African continent" between 1503 up to the end of the colonialism era in the late 1950s and 1960s.

..that really annoyed me but the contribution from David Lammy, the Minister dragged out to comment. It was his spineless, pathetic, careful and considered, toe-the-party-line, limp dick response that just makes me despair of politicians in this country. They are so lobotomised by the desperate need not to 'offend' anyone that they are incapable of saying something like "Do you realise how daft it is to suggest that the poor bloody taxpayers in 2006 should hand over their money to you and your fellow crooks for something done by people long long dead. I for one am glad that we won't be doing anything of the sort and will do everything in my power as a minister to prevent this idiocy - so you can just forget it!"

While my guitar

For those who haven't seen this I find it truly amazing. Probably the best version of While my Guitar Gently Weeps played on a ukelele!
While My Guitar Gently Weeps on Transbuddha
Enjoy!

Tagged!

A moment of panic as I wonder what being 'tagged' is, until I de-geek and realise we're playing the playground game and I'm "it".. So on with the game

Ten things I would never do:

1. Let an uninvited official over the threshold of my property
2. Stop standing up for the rights of smokers (especially having recently stopped myself)
3. Allow membership of any organisation/party to suppress my ability to criticise it
4. Buy a horse
5. Pray
6. Give a rat's arse about so-called global warming/cooling/ooh isn't it chilly out
7. Breed
8. Live in a climate without seasons (or California)
9. Let the pursuit of money exclude the appreciation of things that can't be bought
10. Be depressed again

How far back do you have to go to make sure you're not back-tracking? Fuck it - I tag Theo Spark

Ready, Aim...

Oh, I just loved this from The Reactionarysnob

Greg Clark, who is overhauling the party's approach to poverty at the Tory leader's request, will urge Conservatives to look to the Guardian commentator Polly Toynbee rather than the wartime leader.

Join the Labour Party then chumkins. Why would anyone other than a firing squad have a decent reason to look to Polly Toynbee?

Sometimes it's so demoralising trying to blog when others do it so bloody well!

Shuffling deckchairs

The Tories are trying to pull the wool over our eyes with their document of drivel about immigration. The points they are making (and they repeat these a couple of times in case you missed them the first time) are:

• Asylum policy should be separated from policy on economic migration
• Britain benefits economically from immigration, but not all or any immigration

I'm OK with the first one. I am so tired of trying to discuss economic immigration and being countered with points about asylum.

Actually the second one is sound too. Not rocket surgery, but true.

Where the Tories are being arseholes is that they are trying to pretend that the policies that they are proposing do anything to benefit the economy and the reason for this is that they refuse to make clear that we are not allowed by the EU to restrict immigration from other EU countries. Given that there is (of course) a limit on the total number of people that we are capable of absorbing, and we don't know how many EU citizens will turn up, we will be forced to prevent some non-EU citizens from entering the country - without assessing whether they would have been of more benefit to us than the EU dross we are forced to take.

It's a fiasco and the only way out is to leave the EU. Duh!

Nice but Dim

I'm sure all the people who paid money to this Christmas Hamper outfit which recently went bust are lovely people. However, what they certainly aren't is bright. Let's see which of the following strategies is more likely to bring Christmas cheer...

1. Put aside some money every week in a savings account with a regulated bank or building society (and earn a little interest bonus on said savings), or even under the fucking mattress. Withdraw your money a week before Christmas and make your purchases.

2. Give some money every week to a bunch of strangers, who can do what they like with your money and who are not regulated the way a bank is. Wait and see whether they still have any of your money left when you want it back.

And these people expect someone, anyone, (me perhaps with the taxed portion of my hard-earned money?), to reward them for their stupidity.

Fuck Off!

And another thing...

HBOS have been criticised for ensuring that they got their money first. As opposed to what exactly? The directors of the bank have a responsibility to their shareholders to safeguard the Bank's lending and were presumably acting in the shareholders' interests. Any other course of action (such as considering the customers of an outfit that was heavily in debt to the bank before the Bank's own shareholders) would possibly lay them open to prosecution. Banks are businesses too, not bloody charities. It makes me sick.

Rant over

The welcome signs of Winter

What a wonderful phrase from The Englishman in his castle! Another lucky soul who doesn't face the onset of this season with the dread that so many seem too. It's all to do with our country sports of course. Opening Meet this Saturday (which I'll miss as I'll be on our second shoot day) is a wonderful re-establishement of connections neglected since the season ended in March. It's also when our social convention of moving Sunday lunch to 5pm kicks in so that everyone can make best use of the daylight hours to do the stuff that needs it and then down tools and gather for traditional roasts and stodgy puddings.

Shoot days that start in the dark with heating of soup for flasks and loading of coats, hats, gloves, gunslip, cartridges and other paraphanalia and stretch on to post-shoot drinks in pubs with log fires or hot baths and whisky at home. When arriving at the office on a Monday morning with tanned face I've often been asked where I've been. I reply "Outdoors".

Queen CaNUTe

Our Bovine Foreign Secretary has given a speech in Berlin which has me banging my head against the desk. I'll give it a proper response soon but can't resist sharing these gems with you as a taster.

Margaret has decided that the climate must stop changing. As people are fond of saying "...it's really happening you know.." Of course it bloody is - It always has been!

I quote (my emphasis)...

"I call it achieving climate security – a new strategic international priority for the United Kingdom"

and hilariously..

"Our obligation to our citizens is to put in place the conditions for security and prosperity in a crowded and interdependent world. An unstable climate will make it much harder for us to deliver on that obligation."

Oh God Beckett - you stupid stupid cow. Do you seriously believe that climate has ever been stable? It's what climate does you know - it fucking changes!

Then there's a huge amount of guff about climate change being responsible for all the ills of the world and if only we can put £10 on a ticket to Benidorm, the weather will stop being so beastly and changeable and all the nations of the earth will suddenly stop killing each other. In fact she says..

"In short, a failing climate means more failed states. And that has implications for everything we want to achieve from conflict prevention and resolution to counter-terrorism."

Really - a FAILING climate - Ha Ha Ha... Bit like a FAILING school I suppose, or maybe a FAILING Government? I want to say it's pitiful that the representative of Her Majesty's Government is really saying things like this but of course it's actually terrifying to think that the audience are probably all nodding sagely in agreement instead of smothering howls of laughter into their handkerchiefs as they should be.

More soon...

PS Yes Yes I know that Canute was demonstrating that he WASN'T capable of holding back the tides. Just could resist the CNUT joke. All right?

Cash for Fairy Tales

I suppose I should have known, but it comes as a shock to discover that my taxes are currently used to fund 560 "Faith" schools, and more are on the way.

How dare these peddlers of drivel and brainwashing take any of my hard earned money? What on earth suggests that I consent to subsidising these barmy people to raise more indocrinated, intolerant and opinionated adherents to their stupid and dangerous beliefs?

If they want to run schools (and I'm really not sure they should be allowed anywhere near children at all), they can bloody well ask the previous generation of gullible twats to fund them.

Whilst we're on the subject, what exactly are 26 Bishops doing in the House of Lords? They should fuck off back to their Palaces and count the donations from their poor misguided followers.

Do as I say

Arundel Fire Station burns down destroying the fire engine inside.

Chuckle...

Asked why it didn't have a fire alarm fitted, a 'spokesman' said "A fire alarm system is designed to save lives, whereas this building was unoccupied most of the time".

I should have a word with your insurance company before you are so sure about that mate.

Unless the poor old rate payer's going to foot the bill for the new fire engine?

Wheres my funding you arseholes?

What? WHAT!? WHAATT????! I hear myself shouting at the radio... Apparently "Moderate Muslim Groups" will lose their funding unless they help to root out extremists.

What bloody funding is this? Who are these "Moderate Muslim Groups" and what the fuck is the Government doing giving them my money?

I'm a "Moderate Atheist" who will most certainly 'root out' any extremism I come across. Can I have some money please?

No?

Why the fuck not?

When we were 6

I like this...

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930’s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding three on a bike was always great fun.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate bread pudding, white bread and real butter and drank lemonade with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because…
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go karts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels satellite, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given pellet guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
School sports teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them!CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

Slurpy's first

On a lighter note, my girlfriend Lucinda (otherwise known as Slurpy) caught her first trout on Sunday.

Casting upstream to a brown trout on the gin-clear waters of the River Test at Broadlands, she managed to take up just enough slack on the line as the fly drifted over the fish and he turned to follow it downstream.. After what seemed like an age he opened his mouth and sucked in the fly. Even then she didn't panic, but let him turn to return to his lie before lifting the rod firmly to set the hook.. The fish was beautifully played - just enough tension on the line to keep it from taking her into the weed and giving the fish the occasional gulp of air on the surface before yours truly slid the net under him and put him on the bank.

How perfect is that for your first fish?!

Anyone else feel this way?

For once Tony - It isn't your fault

The God Delusion. Can't wait to read this one..

If only religion (believing in an imaginary friend) stayed in the nursery along with waiting for Father Christmas and other harmless childish fun. Hey ho... The respected journalist Muriel Gray, writing in the (Glasgow) Herald on 24 July 2005 puts it rather well:

Everyone is being blamed, from the obvious villainous duo of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, to the inaction of Muslim 'communities'. But it has never been clearer that there is only one place to lay the blame and it has ever been thus. The cause of all this misery, mayhem, violence, terror and ignorance is of course religion itself, and if it seems ludicrous to have to state such an obvious reality, the fact is that the government and the media are doing a pretty good job of pretending that it isn't so.

It's just so fucking obvious isn't it

The Sky is Falling!

Oh for goodness sake! When are the media going to start challenging this Global Warming tripe? Today we have the president of the Maldives, when asked if he had any evidence of a rise in the sea level, replied "Oh yes! Measurements have shown that there has been a rise of one millimeter a year for the past ten years". He then demands urgent action from the international community (my taxes) to work on some sort of solution to this pressing problem.

Look - my beef with this sort of crap goes something like this...

A MILLIMETER?

How the hell does anyone measure a millimeter of sea level? Given that the sea never stops going up and down (remember tides?), what we are talking about here is measuring the highest point of a tide every day for a year and then comparing it to last years measurement, and so on.. Even the most amateur sailor could tell you that weather has a significant effect on the highest point spring tides will reach - wasn't there a huge flood in the fifties in East Anglia that was caused by a storm in the North Sea that pushed huge volumes of water over the sea defences?

So we can measure a millimeter rise in sea level can we? BOLLOCKS!

URGENT?

Even if this shit was true -how do we get to URGENT? Let's just indulge the scaremongerers for a moment and assume that this 'measurement' is correct, and that it is a constant trend, and it is actually the sea that is rising and not the land sinking because they've built 20 more hotels by the seaside (has anyone weighed the concrete that's been imported by The Maldivians in the last 10 years?), then...

It will take 300 fucking years for the sea level to rise 30cm (1ft)!

And what was the Today Programme's next question?

DO YOU HAVE AN EVACUATION PLAN?

Dear God, am I the only one actually listening to what is being said here? For goodness sake stop wasting everybody's time with this tripe...

Oh - just found this PRICELESS quote..

"The most easily measured effect of rising sea level is the inundation of coastal areas. Donald F. Boesch, with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences, estimates that for each millimeter rise in sea level, the shoreline retreats an average of 1.5 meters. Thus if sea level rises by 1 meter, coastline will retreat by 1,500 meters, or nearly a mile. "

Hahahahaha - Given that tides around Britain rise and fall by (let's be kind) 2 meters, the sea should be flooding 2 miles back and forth every day!

Wanker!

Oh and it isn't true anyway (or at least someone who could be bothered to do the work instead of spouting the same old rubbish, reckons). See this from the International Union for Quaternary Research (a member of the International Council for Science)

In summary:

The Maldives have a uniquely position in sea level research (as discussed in Integrated Coastal Zone Management, No. 1, 2000, p. 17-20). In the last decade, they have attracted special attention because, in the IPCC-scenario, the Maldives would be condemned to become flooded in the next 50-100 years. Our research data do not lend support to any such flooding scenario, however. On the contrary, we find no signs of any on-going sea level rise. Our results comes from visits to numerous islands including extensive work on Hulhudoo and Guidhoo in the north, in Viligili and Loshfuchi (the site of “the reef woman”) in the middle, and in Addu in the south. This includes coring, levelling, sampling and dating (35 C14-dates). Present sea level was reached at about 4500 BP. In the last 4000 years, sea level oscillated around the present in the last 4000 years. At 3900 BP, there was a short and sharp sea level high-stand at about +1.2 m. For the last millennium, a detailed sea level record is established: +0 m 1000-800 BP, +60 cm 800-300 BP, 0 to just below 0 in the 18th century AD, +30 cm 1790-1970 AD, fall to 0 in ~1970 up to today. At about 1970, sea level fell by 20-30 cm (presumably due to increased evaporation). This is recorded in storm level, high-tide level, mean sea level and in lake and lagoon levels (from the north to the south). In the last decade, there are no signs of any rise in sea level. Hence, we are able to free the islands from the condemnation to become flooded in the 21st century.
Co-authored with the Maldives Project Team Members.