Nature Notes

Have all the nature experts left the UK and started reporting via the Internet to unmanned labs. What else could explain why they seem to be getting a lot of things wrong.

According to these experts swifts are scarce this year and it is caused by both global warming and a lack of nest sites; because all the old barns have been converted to nice energy efficient hermetically sealed homes.

I wish someone would tell the swifts, because as I sit in my garden I look up and see a sky positively full of them, a hundred maybe, the jet fighters of the bird world performing aerobatics catching bugs.

It is not only at my home in Essex that this is happening, on holiday in the Peak District we were buzzed by hundreds of swift skimming the air over the dam, swerving at the last second to avoid us as their wings whizzed past our ears. They are positively abundant this year, where are the experts looking.

And another thing, butterflies are apparently scarce too, not here they are not. I walked along a footpath yesterday and all manner of butterflies were taking off in front of me flitting to the side and landing back behind.

Perhaps the explanation for the experts mistakes is to do with funding. Maybe unless they publish all manner of bad things related to "global warming" they won't get any government grants.

Anyone who speaks out against the Emperors new clothes CO2 theory is already seen as an heretic and obviously hell bent on the destruction of the planet, I guess the nature lobby have fallen in line too.

The world is run for Drongoes.

The world is now run to cater for drongoes, people who need to be told everything.
Even the BBC had joined in and every time a presenter says something he has to explain for the drongoes. For example, they say "you can call us on 0500288291" then Say "calls from landlines will be charged at your standard bla bla bla , calls from mobile may......" yes OK we know you told us that 20 times in the last hour. If they mention a publication it is immediately followed by "other so and so publications are available" and it goes on.

Is this for the drongoes who think the paper shop only sells the Daily Mail, if so why do they have to subject the rest of us to the same. Drongoes are probably still trying to work out how to tune the radio in anyway.

There are notices for the drongoes too, mind the hot water tap is hot, mind the stairs they are , well stairs , mind the hot coffee and even mind the edge of the cliff.
Stop telling people these things, if they want to fall off the edge of a cliff let them, if they are too stupid to know not to who needs them on the planet anyway.

What adds to my annoyance with all these warning is when the notice is written by a drongo.
In Sainsburys they have a notice on some metal railing where boxes are stored, it says "Due to health and safety don't climb on these rails". That is not a proper sentence, what does it even mean.

My final rant about catering for drongos has to be "pear cider". It is apparently the new trend with a company called Brothers advertising it (other pear ciders are not available).
No No No, cider is made from apple juice, what they are selling is perry, a word that has been around for years and until recently was even included in the licencing acts.
But they are advertising to drongos who think perry is a 1980s style of T-shirt so they call it pear cider. What next, grape whiskey?

The question is, if they are too stupid to know what perry is, is it safe to let them drink alcohol anyway.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=drongo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drongo

Banking Rip Off

There is no point having savings in a bank, the interest rate is so low you might as well put it under the bed where you know it is safe.
But hold on, I have spotted an advert for a well known bank, (I won't name it as my in box has only just recovered from the abuse and obscenities I received from Carpet-right staff when I said they were crap, which kind of confirmed my point) but lets just call them Sand-and-air bank. They are offering a whopping 6% on money in a current account for one year, OK you have to be over 50 to take this account out but 6% is massive at the moment.

Lets read on, um, I see yes, you get 6% only on the first £2500 you have in the account, and there is the small matter of a £10 per month fee.

So let me get this right, 6% of £2500 is £150 interest, less the fee of £120, which you don't pay on most current accounts, leaves £30 interest less tax.
If my maths is correct that is an interest rate of 1.2% which if you forget to close the account after the year you lose in 3 months with the fee. Not such a good choice after all.

I guess that the Sand-and-air bank hope people over 50 don't read the small print.
Maybe in Spain reading glasses are not readily available. Oops has that given the bank away.

Points From The News

Gordon Brown goes on, and on, and on.......

It is a strange world at the moment, one country is building nuclear bombs another is starving, one country has been invaded to boot out their dictator and then there is the UK and Gordon Brown.
Last week millions of people voted and showed that they think that Gordon could not manage the local Spar, yet this week the one eyed Scottish idiot is still there. What is more he has appointed Alan Sugar to advice the government. Sugar a man who made his money being a bully and walking all over anyone who got in his way. In other words a man exactly like Gordon.
Gordon has also appointed Mandleson to the government, but hold on isn't this guy a crook and someone who has not been elected to government by anyone in England, in other words a man exactly like Gordon.

Lets poison the water supply

There is a little known plan by some in government to poison all our water supply. Its is not even illegal but they want to make it illegal for water companies not to add the poison. That's just crazy you may think, I agree.

The plan is to put fluoride in all drinking water, fluoride the poison that if drunk can cause all kinds of serious problems. The reason for doing this is to help the teeth of children from poor families. Well that's OK then, lets poison 60million people to look after a few who can not be bothered to brush their teeth.

In some areas they already add fluoride, in one such area before they started adding it they held a survey in which 74% of 10,000 people said they didn't want it.

Oh well that's democracy for you.

What a load of SH*T

We have just driven home on a stretch of road where rich people live. How do I know that they are rich people, well actually it is because of horse manure. Yes that's right, they must be rich because they have horses. As you drive along this stretch of road they are all selling bags of horse shit but at different prices. The lowest at the moment seems to be 20p a bag "please return bags".

You have to wonder who it was that thought it a reasonable idea to actually ask people for money to take away their horses shit for them. And who was the first idiot to agree to pay for it, thereby setting a precedence and making it OK.

Why should I pay to do someone the enormous favour of taking a load of unwanted crap off their hands, can you imagine ever doing it for other kinds of the same. Maybe I could save money on the water rates and get rid of the toilet, crap in a bag sit it by the front gate with a little sign and ask others to take it off my hands for £1. YUCK ! OK no , sorry very bad image there.

Yet some how it has become OK to have sacks of horse muck sitting on the front of your very expensive house.

Hold on though, horse muck is not the most expensive poo you can buy, I have a box of organic fertiliser in the shed, its actually chicken crap, it smells so bad that I can't use it on the garden this time of year for fear that someone will call the council thinking the drains are blocked. This crap was about £2 for a box, so weight for weight that is far more than the 20p a sack of horse poo.

Although I guess you need a lot more chickens to get a bag of poo than you need horses for a sack load I still think that the compost heaps at the top of the garden will provide all the organic matter I need for the vegtables.
I really don't know why I bought the chicken poo, anyone need a box, if so let me know and Ill mail it to you.

It's OK, Panic Over!

Thank goodness it arrived I had been worried for days thinking that maybe mine was lost or perhaps we had been forgotten. I was ready to phone friends and ask them if they had received it yet, but now I don't have to worry any more.

I heard the letter box go and, as I have done for days, hurried to the door, yes oh yes its here. I am saved. The long awaited has arrived and now I can relax. The panic is over and all the answers are here, I now have all I need to survive.

I have to read it carefully and understand all that it tells me so I put the kettle on to make coffee, then I will sit down and read every word.
As the kettle begins to warm up I open it up and begin to read, before the kettle reaches boiling I have finished it. But hold on, this is not what I expected, it doesn't tell me anything, it might as well be a blank piece of paper, every thing on it has already been said a hundred times on the TV, radio and in the papers. There must be more, this must be a mistake.

But no, there is nothing more to it. The government information leaflet on swine flue turns out to be as much use as a chocolate T-pot.

DNA - A little bit Innocent

The way laws are written is often confusing, sending you to pages of information just to complete one sentence with entries such as "subject to section 5 sub-section 4a of regulations 3 the meaning of [term] shall be taken as ....." and so on.

It is written like this so that lawyers, barristers and the like can make a lot of money from clients who simply don't have time to read 20 books to understand if it is ok to do some small act.

Recently an E.U. court has told the UK that it is unlawful to keep the DNA of people who are not convicted of a crime. But rather than do as they are told and remove the DNA the government has come up with an intriguing solution:-

Get arrested for a minor offence and found innocent and your DNA will be destroyed after 6 years. Get arrested for a serious offence and found innocent then your DNA will be held for 12 years before it is destroyed.

Hold on. If you are innocent you are innocent there are no degrees of it. Should we now expect court verdicts along the lines of, "your honour we find the defendant a little bit innocent of murder and a lot innocent of manslaughter and completely innocent of any thefts".

Those in favour of the new scheme say that people who are arrested for an offence, and found innocent, are more likely to commit another one. Hold on they didn't commit the first offence, remember that's what innocent means.

The usual drongos were on the radio saying "if you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear". Yet despite what some would have us think DNA from crime scenes is not totally reliable. Perfect DNA is seldom found so a DNA trace could result in a 1 -1000 hit rate. This means if everyone in the UK was on the database there could be 60000 suspects for a single DNA sample left at any particular scene. So you stand a 1 in a 1000 chance of being wrongfully arrested.

Now tell me there is nothing to worry about.

Flu Pandemic

"Mortuaries and emergency services are to be put on alert and told to prepare for up to three-quarters of a million deaths from a flu pandemic." "Emergency planners have begun to look for sites for special mortuaries, each capable of storing 1,000 bodies"

That's scary stuff, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was today's headlines. But no, this is a headline story from March 2005, the last time we were all going to die a horrible death, that time from bird flu.

It is very confusing with the WHO doctors (Dr. WHO?) trying to whip up panic, and today the threat level is 5, no, I have no idea what that means to us either.
The government is even thinking of stopping some sporting and music events. Something isn't right.

I don't believe we are being told the whole truth, is this another government way to hide a new piece of big brother legislation while everyone is looking the other way, or is it really serious. Do we panic or not, where is Corporal Jones when you need him.

At my Gym its almost impossible not to see the TV screens and Sky news are loving it, every few seconds the "Breaking News" is scrolling across "Mrs Miggins was heard to cough and maybe all the customers of her pie shop are now infected" and the like.
One thing that stands out on all the news reports is the lemmings wearing face masks. I really want to spread the word that if you put your right finger in your left ear and walk about saying iggle you won't catch flu. People would do it, because for no rational reason they are all buying and wearing face masks.

There is so much to write about this flu PANDEMIC, why are people calling it swine flu when no pigs have it, but ill finish this blog entry with one more point that confuses me.

We are told to make sure we wash our hands properly, but we are also told that the virus can live for two hours on surfaces, the problem is this, I wash my hands, turn on the taps, lots of soap, good wash, rinse, then oh, um, the taps on, but I and hundreds of other have touched that before washing hour hands. I'm stuck. Do I turn off the tap and re-contaminate my hands or leave it running. It makes little difference if I am in a public toilet thought, because after all my careful hand washing I now have to touch the toilet door handle anyway.

As I said before, its all very confusing. I called the swine flu help line for advice, but all I got was crackling.

Swine Flu. We are all going to die!

Like it or not we are all going to die.
No, no, not of swine flu, didn't you see the full stop in the title.
I can not give you a cast iron guarantee that we won't all die of flu but it is rather less likely that the panic mongers would have us believe. Although, if it gets me I want someone to edit this blog with an appropriate comment or two.

I am more worried today than I was yesterday, because Gordon Brown has got involved with one of his famous predictions. "We are among the best prepared countries in the world". Well that's done it, we were the least likely to suffer in any recession, and boom and bust was over. On is past record maybe we are all doomed.

Give it a couple of days and Alistair Darling will be telling us when it will all be over, probably by June I expect.

Still every cloud has a silver lining, there is no chance that surgical mast makers will suffer in the recession this year, despite them being almost useless at preventing you catching flu.
There are also 30million doses of an anti viral drug that will definitely keep some companies in profit.

Still at least we are safe in the UK, for as the USA and other countries begin to prepare their anti-viral drugs for distribution, any day now every household here will receive a leaflet from the government. Now which would you rather have ?

The Financial Crisis - Solved

This blog is stolen from someone, I don't know who because I heard it from someone who heard it on the radio. For those, like myself, who didn't hear the original Ill endeavour to explain the basics of the idea.

With the exception of a few bits of gold, that good old Gordon didn't sell off, there is actually no money in the UK, no really there isn't.

Look at any note in your pocket and you see that it says "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of". Not that the note is actually £5, £10, £20 or whatever just that someone will pay you it.
Try walking into you bank handing over a tenner and saying "please honour the promise and give me ten pounds in gold or coinage" and see what you get. The whole point of currency is rather eroded these days and the promise on the note as relevant as an Alistair Darling prediction.

Before I digress I had better move back onto subject.
If you are reading this blog on a Windows computer then the chances are it has a bit of software called "system restore". This allows you to effectively wind back time on your machine, if for example you try to load something that trashes everything you already had. It takes your computer back to any date in the past prior to the moment you sodded it up.

There is no money, (see above) but there are huge computers all over the world that hold ones and noughts that we translate into having money. When you buy something, pay money into an account or draw out cash from a machine, somewhere a computer will be updated. Even if you pay the local shop, eventually it becomes just another entry in our cyberspace banking.

The financial crisis didn't happen in reality, if it did there would be fields full of the "lost billions" stacked as far as you can see, but there isn't. Those of us who lost money on savings can't go and watch it drifting in a soggy mess off the coast somewhere or see its dying embers in a colossal bomb fire, because all that happened was a lot of cyberspace numbers just went blip.

So, and this is the clever bit, all that has to be done is a huge "system restore". Wind back the banking computers to the time immediately before it all went lumpy bits up.
The missing billions are returned.

Budget 2009

This week the labour party get another chance to sod up the country. It is budget time again.

Despite the fact that these are the people who took the country at full speed into an economic crash, because they didn't see it coming, for some reason we are expected to trust them with the country still.

Darling is apparently going to announce £15 billion of "efficiency savings". Stop, hold on, efficiency savings. He is intending to become more efficient to the sum of 15 billion pounds. This isn't just making people return the Bic before you issue a new one, or stopping people from unfolding paper clips. This is saying that they have been wasting 15 billion pounds.
I keep saying that amount because I can not comprehend how any organisation has been allowed to be inefficient to the tune of £15 billion. Who the blinkin heck has been running things.
No sorry forget that question, we know the answer, its the same bunch setting this weeks budget.

God help us!

I know the man holding the box is Gordon, you don't believe Darling gets to make decisions, do you ?

New Speed Limits

I have written about speed limits, speed cameras, and those stupid flashing signs that tell you to slow down or that its a 30 limit before. To continue in their effort to spoil driving the government is set to lower speed limits in an attempt to "save 1000 lives a year".

The plan is to drop a lot of the 60mph de-restricted roads to 50 and many of the 30 limits, especially near schools, to 20. Funny, because we all know that when children are going in and out of schools there is little change of doing 5mp past anyway because of all the 4x4's and people carriers parked ready to take little Chav and Chavney 400metres home.

If it was about saving lives, or stood any chance of working how fantastic it would be. But it won't save lives and its not about that anyway. It is about other things.
Firstly it is about raising money, if they lower the speed limit there is more chance of people exceeding them so more fines.

The second point is a little less obvious and connected to another government announcement. Remember that they plan to give a £5000 incentive to people to buy electric cars? OK, I know there are no cars that will be eligible for the grant, but ignore that for the moment. Imaging there were and the roads were busy with millions of electric cars. What will be needed.

You are off on holiday, its 300 miles to Cornwall and your electric car does 50miles per 1 hour charge what do you need, you got it, millions of electric sockets on the route.
To connect you dead battery car to a socket you need an extension cable, the chances of you running out of power right by are socket are slim so you will connect to the closest one.

Yours won't be the only car on charge so there will be cables all over the road. Snagging your bumper on this jumble of cables, especially near schools where children could easily be caught up in them, will be a major new road safety hazard.
So the obvious solution, you got it, slower speed limits.

Old Car Trade in - How to make money from it!

The word is that the government is about to announce a scheme to pay £2000 towards a new car if you scrap your old car, which is over 9 years old. This is going to save the planet.

How quickly the planet is saved depends on how many miles a year you drive your new car. As making your new car and re-cycling your old one will produce a massive amount of carbon you might have to drive the new one about 300,000 miles before the planet wins.

The great thing about the scheme is its potential for making money so I am off out to buy up as many old wrecks as I can. Under the scheme the plan is this:-

1) Buy a wreck over 9yrs old for £100 and register it in your name.

2) Scrap the car and get the £2000 off voucher

3) Buy a basic new (or under 1 year old) car for £7000

4) Sell the new car straight away, maybe even back to the dealer for £7000 less VAT £1050

5) Pocket £850

Repeat as above.

At last the chancellor has proposed something really useful.

G20 Summit

There is something called a G20 summit starting tomorrow. One person who knows this, because he thinks it is all about him and how he is about the save the world, is Gordon the wonder PM. Tomorrow he will stand before elected world leaders and woffle on again like a demented drunk refusing to leave the bar.
The trouble is that it is all in his imaginary world, the one in which he is always right and is so powerful that he stands up an the world goes WOW!

In the real world we know that the summit will do nothing to solve the world crisis because, with the exception of Obama, all those attending are responsible for it. Yet deluded Gordon still maintains that the G20 with "rise to the challenge" in the same way as he "abolished boom and bust" and placed the UK well to work through any recession.

Most of us have not been invited to the G20, we are just paying the alleged £5million an hour it is costing the UK to host it, with its champagne receptions, big dinners, back slapping and Gordon going on and on about how great he is.

There is one conciliation, some top executives in the City have apparently been told to stay at home for the day because of expected demonstrations. So at least for one day they should not be able to crash a bank or building society.

Jacqui Smith - It's OK to Lie and Steal

The latest Jacqui Smith debacle says it all about the way our country is being run, or not run, by this government. Not only does Smith fiddle her expenses but the prime minister says "its a personal matter".

No Gordon, it is not a personal matter, anyone else in the country would lose their job for fiddling expenses claims. If this attitude is alright for the home secretary then where does it stop, oops I am sorry I got caught nicking from Debenhams, here ill pay now its not theft.

Yet again she is claiming for something that everyone else has to pay for from their normal wages, an internet package for goodness sake, just part of the £157,000 of expenses she has been paid. Is there anything that an MP actually pays for from their basic salary.

It highlights just how stupid Smith is in that she doesn't even know how much she usually pays for her internet, if she did she would have know not to claim for the movies.

Her husband can't be all the ticket either, they have an internet package yet he is still paying for his porn, oh but that's OK because its on expenses, isn't it.

Don't Ask The City Analyst

The rate of inflation is down today, or is that up, hurray, or boo, or whatever we are supposed to say when they announce these things on the news.

Apparently the rate is "more than expected" or was that less that predicted, by the city analysts. This got me wondering what these people actually do, and more to the point why.

I imagine they skulk about in dark basements wearing pullovers with leather patches on the elbows and glasses held together with elastoplast, but other than that I can't guess.

They didn't predict the banking crash nor the stock exchange falling over, the jump in oil prices in the summer or the fall of the Pound against the Euro, and today they didn't get the inflation rate right either.
You would expect that if your job involves looking at a single digit number and calculating by how much it will change in a month there would be a risk you could get it right by accident. But time and again the geeks in the basements are "surprised", "caught out" or just plain wrong.

The only reason for predicting these thing seems to be so that other people can "give a warning" as the news always seems to be of city analysts warning that this that or the other will happen.

Despite all their working out, giving warnings and predicting we are still on a sinking ship with a mad Scot at the helm.

Its not rocket science, so Ill have a bash at predictions for the next 6 months:-
Inflation will rise to above where it was predicted to fall below in the previous 12 months with GDP falling less that was first predicted in the last half of the first quarter of last year. The trade deficit will be below the water line in most regions with a general scattering or barnacles over 3%. There is a warning that house prices will move and mortgage lending will continue.

OK,OK I know its all rubbish, but at least I know its rubbish.

Mortgages and Endowments.

I have an endowment mortgage and a fixed rate one at that, so I am stuffed. Like so many others I am now paying way above the present Bank of Brown, sorry England, interest rate and stuck with it for another 4 years.

My mortgage endowment won't pay off my mortgage and when everyone was taking action for mis-selling my company was sending me letters saying how well it was going, all on target to pay out as expected.

Do I keep throwing good money after bad, hoping that things will improve, or do I say enough is enough and cut my losses.

I phoned my endowment company and spoke to a guy with the thickest Indian accent you can imagine, he was using the cheapest telephone head set and sounded as though he was in the shower, of course I don't know that he wasn't.

I am good with accents but it took total concentration to understand what he was saying and I still failed, so I waited until he finished speaking and asked my question.
He launched into reading his screen something about FSA, 4%, 8% , agreed standards, could go up as well as down, any figures quoted were only valid for 2 seconds and then only if there was a ding in the month or was it an R. After 4 minutes he stopped talking.
So how much will I get, I have no idea but all the numbers he said were well below what I was told 22yrs ago.

Two years ago if my endowment grew at 4% it would pay out well over my needed sum, yet now a growth of 4% will be well under my needed sum. Something doesn't add up. It must be that counting has changed since the bankers screwed up the system. Perhaps 4 is the old 1, which could be good news if my mortgage is calculated using the same math.

It's not our fault, is it, we trusted people to advise us about our finances and it turns out that they were at best wrong and at worst crooks.

Strange how the same crooks who crashed the financial system are the ones who moved the call centres to India so no one can find out what is happening to their money.

Jade Goody is not news!

Here I go about to upset someone, still that's life or rather in this case its death. I have said before this is my blog so Ill write what I wish.

For some reason the Prime Minister's publicity office has seen fit for him to "lead tributes" to the dead Jade Goodey.
Why Gordon should think it necessary to speak about her above the 1200+ other people who died in the UK today I am unsure. Could it be an idea that if he comments on everything then people will begin to say "wow that Gordon Brown bloke knows whats going on in the country". Well fat chance of that Gordon, we can see through that plan and your still an out of touch bumbling "one eyed Scottish idiot".
For the Prime Minister to be getting involved in this kind of soap opera nonsense, when he has crashed the economy of the country putting thousands out of work, is beyond belief.

I digress. The point is it is only a tragedy for the friend and family of Jade Goodey, most of us don't give a fig and still see her as the overweight less than average intelligence no-body who got famous because too many people think the Sun is a newspaper.

I would not wish cancer on anyone, but she was not the only one to die of it today, she is just the only one who had a publicist and the only one who, for some reason I can not begin to understand, was followed in every step of death by the news media.

I never knew her and never wanted to. Other than to her family she was no one special.
She was not brave or courageous she was just doing what anyone who has a life threatening condition does, try to live, and she was allowed to do that by making millions of pounds and depressing and upsetting millions of innocent people who didn't know her either but were made to suffer her every problem.

For people now thinking I am out of line and "don't I know it is wrong to speak ill of the dead", no it isn't. If that's your attitude then I expect to hear you say Adolf Hitler was a really nice bloke who did a lot for the barbed wire industry.

Another one bites the dust, although I expect there is still plenty of money to be made by Max and others, oh Goodey!

The Post Office Bank

I am wondering if I have been living in a parallel universe, where everything that is a new idea here has been tried already.

How can it be that a Post Office Bank is a fantastic new idea, the old post office Giro Bank book I have has entries of me paying in my hard earned £1 pocket money in the early 70's. Has the whole country gone gaga and decided to follow the government trend of announcing old things as new to look good.

An article about the "people's bank" (that is what it would be named) suggested that it would be good for small businesses and also "for the 3 million people in the UK who can not get credit".
No No No, hold on there! The Post Office Bank is to lend money to people who are a credit risk? Isn't this exactly why we are in this mess, because banks lent money to drongo twits who didn't pay the money back.

A better announcement would be that loan sharks are to be employed to run the countries banks.
It would stop any future banking crash if the low life, sorry I mean sub prime borrowers, knew the bank manager would be round to break their legs if they spent the repayment on vodka and fags, they would darn well keep up payment then.

A local post office bank would certainly be useful then, its hard to walk far in a leg cast.

Sainsburys Self Check-Out

I was in the local Sainsburys store, when heading for the check-outs I noticed how few staff they have these days, especially at 9.00 am when I am usually ready to head out of the store.

Instead of helpful people they have an array of self service tills.

The small self service tills have been about for a time and are good when you are buying a few items, but the new system is a re-vamped till that you operate yourself with the help of a very annoying recorded voice. Having seen the chaos that other shoppers were in trying to use the new systems, I headed as usual to a queue which happened to be beside the row of self service.

Because I was near several of these I could hear all of the systems helpful commands but as they all merged into one this is a brief idea of what I heard:-

"Unexpected item on belt - Authorisation required - Have you swiped your Nectar card - unexpected item on belt - have you swiped your card - please remove item from packing area - authorisation required - thank you for using sainsburys self check out - please insert your payment card or select cash - thank you for using your unexpected item on belt - please insert your belt into the authorisation card - have you swiped your belt on the self service unexpected item - please select payment belt and insert your assistance into the nectar thank your belt into the sainsburys" Arghhhhhhh.

How do the staff that attend these tills actually stay sane.

If the trend to remove staff from the store continues the logical step is to ask us to stock the shelves before we shop, or maybe we could drive the delivery lorry, stock the shelves select our items then check ourselves out.

Or maybe I should just grow my own produce. If nothing else that seems a quieter option.

Community Speed Watch

When I was a kid, if you went running to teacher saying that Jonny had written the rude word on the blackboard (we still had them) or that Sally was responsible for the snapped pencil in the box, it was called telling tales. No one liked you for it, and the friends of anyone you told on would get you at play time.

These days telling tales seems to be positively encouraged, but not by children, this time it is by adults.

The police in parts of the UK don't do policing any more and have been replaced by various groups to do it for them. The most obvious are PCSOs (totally useless) but another group of people are the drongoes who join Community Speed Watch.
They come to mind after a report on the local news saying that some are being verbally abused. You don't say, welcome to the real world guys.

Community speed watch, if you don't know, are set up by the police to stand at the side of the roads and wave speed detection devices at people. They pretend to be community minded but are actually just sad. If you drive past a community speed watch groups, at a speed above the limit, they will write down your number and tell the police. Oh I'm scared already, but not for the reason you may think.

Speeding drivers should be caught, but by the police not a group of sad people who need to get a life. Once they tell on you, you get a letter saying that you were seen speeding. That's it.

If you are caught speeding by a traffic cop you know that the person doing you is a good driver and will go before a magistrate, or judge, to tell them what you did wrong if needs be.
Get caught by community speed watch and you have no idea if they are one of the worlds worst drivers or even totally mental. Why does that matter, simple, hand held speed guns are corroboration of excess speed not proof. Hence they can't prosecute you because that would mean the mad gits from the speed watch going to court and proving to everyone that they don't really know what they are doing, in court or at the road side.

It's not often that I want to see people being abused but if they insist on making themselves available they are surely fair game.
Be careful what you say to them though, they will tell on you.

University Challenge Explains the Recession

I saw the last few minutes of the University Challenge final, I had not intended to watch it but it happened to be on before something I wanted to see.

I can not decide if this quiz is funny or sad, in the modern meaning of sad, but I do know that the whole thing was hilarious. How awful the guy on the end must have felt being left out of consultations and being patted on the back when he dared to answer a question, and with little miss know-it-all saying "well done" if one of her team knew an answer before her.

Never mind the quiz, what is far more interesting is the controversy that has surrounded the final, especially how it explains a lot of what has caused the crisis that we now see the world in.

One of the team members that declared "studying chemistry" is actually working for Price Waterhouse Coopers.
So, the lie telling chemist is working for an accountancy firm, that makes perfect sense.
Look at the top people in finance in this country, the chancellor, the bank bosses, the ex-chancellor, none of them have any qualifications in finance and it has not done them any harm has it.

OK they have collectively trashed the world financial systems but they are doing alright Jack.

A Very Expensive Plant Tray

I went into a DIY store the other morning, I was looking for a specific kind of plant tray for the new greenhouse, when I spotted a sign "End of range clearance ", it was not so much the sign as the items that were on the display that caught my attention.

Unless you have been looking for one then a shower curtain track may not sound all that exciting. Note that I say track not rail here because that is important. I needed a track because it allows the curtain to go all the way around the bath and have additional supports on the ceiling, a pole doesn't allow this.

The curtain tracks are end of range clearance for just under ten pounds, about one Euro for anyone reading from mainland Europe. I looked at the curtain tracks and although they seemed to be an excellent deal to tell the truth they also looked a bit flimsy and being the stores own brand I began to see why they were going for so little.

This is where I made a big mistake. Instead of remembering that I was there to buy a plant tray I headed for the bathroom section to see if they had other curtain tracks. They had one made by a well know manufacturer but it was £45. I had been wanting to replace the inadequate short rail for some time and not seen the tracks so decided to get one.

The shower track takes two shower curtains so I had to buy those and then I though, well if I am going to put the curtain around the bath then it will allow us to have a more powerful shower in the bathroom. We have a good pumped shower in the en-suite so I looked and yes the store sold them. Now I had the curtain track, two shower curtains and the shower pump, I needed a few electrical bits and bobs to wire it all up (pull cord, RCD, junction box etc) then off to the till.

Over £200 of bits there was not the end of it, after removing the old shower rail there were the holes in the ceiling to fill so the ceiling needed painting, (£18) now the walls looked dirty so they needed painting too, the old extractor fan that didn't work properly might as well be replaced (£15).

So my trip to the DIY store had cost me rather more than anticipated, oh and I still need to find the plant tray.

Jacqui Smith, Expenses Fiddle

You have to wonder what expenses require you to claim £500 a week for a second home especially when you say you live most of the time with your sister. Still who are we to question Gordon's Government, always right and always above the law.

It is interesting that Jacqui Smith "got advice on the matter" from someone, an M.P. also on the fiddle no doubt, isn't that a bit like asking Reggi Cray if its ok to nick sweets from Tesco.

I have been sent a transcript of a phone call between Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown on the matter of this £100,000 of expenses:-

Smith. - Hello, Gordon its the Home Secretary.

Brown. - Hello.

Smith - I am being accused of fiddling my expenses and thought I should speak to you about it.

Brown - OK.

Alistair Darling - Who is it?

Brown. - (hand over phone) its some secretary, caught fidding with someone.

Smith - I heard that, its your Home Secretary, Jacqui, its not fiddling with someone, I'm fiddling my expenses, I mean accused of.

Brown - Oh Jacqui, right yes, sorry Darling and me are just playing the new Monopoly, have you played it yet, its rather good. I have just bought the Royal Bank of Scotland for £100 billion and built a hotel on its HQ.

Darling - An Hotel, its an Hotel not A, and its not monopoly Prime Minister, I told you before this is real money.

Brown - Well its still jolly good fun.

Smith - ach hum, excuse me Gordon shall I call back, you seem distracted and this is rather important.

Brown - No no, go on, so you want to resign then?

Smith - NO! I don't want to resign I want your advice.

Brown - Well don't worry about it, this is New Labour we don't have to stick to any rules.

Smith - OK, but the press have got hold of this and it could cause a bit of a stink.

Brown - (hand over the phone to Darling) Do you want to be Home Secretary?

Darling - No I don't! I am already Chancellor.

Brown - Oh yes, sorry I forget that isn't me too.

Smith - Ill call another time this isn't working out.

Brown - Ill get someone to call you about this, where will you be.

Smith - At home, I mean at my Sisters home which is my home really, where I live most of the time any way, it cost me well over that £500 a week to run my other house, I am never there but it still costs me money just to buy new things for it all the time.

Brown - Yes, yes goodbye (click) She is going to ruin this for everyone if we don't watch out, We must keep an eye on that woman.

The Plight of The Bumblebee

Life, the universe, and now for the small things .

There was an article in the paper a year ago about bees, it said that they are dying out. Its OK though the Minister responsible for that kind of thing said the experts are all wrong, "UK bees are just fine". Here we go again, if a Minister says its OK, we are in trouble.

At the weekend The Times magazine had much more on the plight of the bee and it makes disturbing reading:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5604401.ece

Forget global warming, forget the polar bear struggling to stand on the last ever Foxes Glacier mint and forget all the hot air about CO2, bees must be the number one concern for us all, and right now!

If you have not seen anything before on this you will be forgiven for wondering why it is important. Bees are essential for the pollination of plants, not only flowers but many things we depend upon for food as well as bushes that sustain the hedgerows. When bees go it is not just honey that we don't see any more but apples, soft fruits and many many food crops are no longer sustainable.

There are already places in the world where bees have been wiped out and whole orchards are now pollinated by hand, requiring hundreds of people climbing trees with feathers and pots of pollen. No, I am not joking.

Once bees go so does the sustainability of the world population. Unlike CO2 and global warming this isn't something that will happen in fifty or one hundred years, this is expect to happen in eight to ten years because bees are already dying out at an alarming rate.
In as little as ten years we hit the point of no return and begin the slide into starvation.

So why don't we hear this on the news all the time, why doesn't the government put billions of pounds into rescuing the Really bad Bee Situation (RBS). I assume that there is no money in it for them, they can't have a bee tax, or bee offsetting. Instead they are happy to sit back and watch the most dangerous extinction of mankind and send out a Minister to say everything is fine.

There is some hope, a ray of good news. We can all play a part and try to save the bees. By planting bee friendly flowers in gardens or even window boxes. It might sounds a long shot but if the other option is starvation.
We have already planned a new section of our garden with plants just for bees.

A useful website for more information on saving the bee is:
http://www.saveourbees.org.uk/

New Fords Help You Crash

I am going to sound a grump in this blog, but its my blog and Ill grump if I want to.

My brother-in-law has a new car. As people do when they have a new car he wants to show if off so he came to show it to me.
I can't get excited about new cars, I have driven so many different ones and now as long as there is a wheel at each corner, something to control it by and a reasonably comfortable seat, then, yes its a car I am pleased you have one.

His new Ford car struck me as possibly the most dangerous car I have seen.
It is equipped with a hands free telephone, climate control, trip computer, entertainment system, sat nav and somewhere I think was a button to make toast.

All these "clever" functions are controlled by way of a computer screen on the dash and a series of buttons on the steering wheel; well why not, steering is so old fashioned.

To make a "hands free" call you have to take your eyes off the road and look at the screen, you then have to move your hands to the buttons on the steering wheel, putting yourself into a position difficult to properly steer, and select a screen from a menu list. Scroll down the screen to telephone, select telephone select something else and eventually you can dial your hands free call.
All this is done with your eyes off the road obviously, the last thing you want to do is to ring the wrong person so better pay attention to that computer screen. It is the same for selecting something from the entertainment system or for getting the car to just the right temperature so that when you inevitably drive under the back of a lorry the emergency services are nice and warm as they remove your body.

There was a really good reason for the law that said a driver must not be able to see a TV screen in his vehicle as he is driving but because the law referred to "cathode ray tube" and now its all LCD, the manufacturers are adding screens all over the place.

Driving standards in the UK are getting worse and with the help of manufacturers like Ford and cars with computer screens you can be sure of one thing, undertakers and the air ambulance will not be out of work in this recession.

Duvet Dilemma

We have guests stopping over in a few weeks time and in this cold winter I am concerned that they are not cold in the night. I thought I should put the winter duvet on the guest bed. The trouble is that on our main bed we have a wool duvet which is an all year one so I am a little out of touch with all this TOG rating that goes with feather bedding.

I decided the only way to solve this was to ask our guests. I thought I would share the email with you:-

Hi .
I have a strange question to ask, possibly one to refer to your wife but here is the background to the question .

I woke up very early the other morning, feeling cold, and thought crikey if I am cold whatever will your wife be in this house, see at night we turn the heating off as it makes too much noise and keeps me awake, which is strange because I was now awake because it was off and I was cold.

Anyway, I thought I must go into the loft and get the winter duvet down to air for the guest room for when you are over, I like to plan ahead, infact I already have the potatoes peeled, the chicken in the marinade on the worktop and the wine open to breathe for when your over.

I digress.

Yesterday I got the duvet down and remembered it is one of those you have two bits and you add them together to make the winter weight, they are not as easy as it sounds there is only one correct way that they will fit and I think it was 23 ways that they don't.

I am getting near to the question here so stick with it :-)

I added the 9 tog to the already on 4.5 tog so there is now a 13.5 tog duvet on the guest bed. I put it into a duvet cover, eventually, and as I put it on the bed thought crikey this weighs a ton do people really manage to sleep under this much duvet.

So, here is the question, probably for your wife, what tog rating is your duvet? Is 13.5 too much would you prefer a 9 tog in an unheated bedroom or should I put the 9tog and 4.5 tog in separate covers so you can decide. There is also the option of a hot water bottle, or two if I buy another one.

There is another option of course, we could leave the heating on for one night, it will probably keep all of us awake, but at least we will be warm :-)

I am sat in the guest room surrounded by bedding awaiting your reply.

Hope your well.
Chris

Things Parents say

I was reading an article in the paper the other afternoon about a married woman of 40 who's parents are still trying to control her life.
I started thinking of some of the things that are said, when your growing up.

"Take your elbows off the table, its bad manners".
Why? No its not. What better place is there to put elbows, chairs are designed to be at the right height for the table so elbows rest comfortably there. "Bad manners" are made up by people who want to think they are something better than they actually are.

"Don't take the last one".
Referring to anything that had been put out for eating. What the jolly heck was that all about. Someone has to take the last one, why not me.

"Oh your too sensitive".
Explain that if you can. Is there a level of sensitive that is just right, is anyone ever told "your just not sensitive enough". Sensitive to what. Because one person is not annoyed or upset by something, does it logically follow that everyone should feel the same.

"Smile for heavens sake".
Look at people as you go about your day. How many of them are actually smiling. The people who walk down the street with a broad smile on their faces for no reason are usually the mad ones.

"If your don't stop crying Ill give you something to cry about" SLAP!
I heard this one in a shop the other day, with the child already screaming the place down the slap did as you would expect, ramped up the scream by another 5 decibels.

I could go on with these but if I don't go and make the Sunday dinner I will get sent to my room until I learn how to behave.
Fat change of that happening at my age though.

Points from the news.

The government is breathing a sigh or relief because February has hit the country with snow, snow and more snow. At last there is something taking the headlines that Gordon isn't responsible for.

Hold that thought. Was there ever a time before when after just 3 days of bad weather the local council said "sorry we are out of road grit and the Highways Agency won't give us any".

The Labour Government set up the Highways Agency in 2000, another level of bureaucracy, replacing motorway police with Highway Agency Traffic plonkers and stores of road salt with billion pound computers to predict the next traffic jam.

Gordon Brown has been part of the country trashing government since before 2000 so by association, or maybe just because I hate him more than words can say, he must be indirectly responsible for the balls up on our ice covered roads.

Moving quickly on, or slowly if your path is still iced over, I have to go crazy about the Royal Bank of Scotland. Here is a bank that was run so badly that the tax payers have given it billions of pounds so it doesn't go bust. And now they are arguing that they have to pay their incompetent oafs of managers big bonuses because "they expect it".

They argue that "if we don't pay bonuses and high salaries we aren't able to attract the right staff". Let me get this right, the staff that crashed the bank are the ones you want to retain are they. For ........ sake!

Ayone with a RBS account should get their money out now, put it under a pillow, in a box in the garden or anywhere, just don't leave it with RBS who think it is only there to pay their salaries.

And breathe, think calm thoughts, relax. It's OK nurse Ill be fine just keep me away from the news papers for a while.

One Eyed Scottish Idiot

I was in the gym when I heard Jeremy Clarkson on the news and I chuckled. Never one to keep his thoughts to himself he referred to Gordon Brown as "a ones eyed Scottish idiot".

People, with nothing better to do, immediately took offence at this and the news rolled out a spokesman for the R.N.I.B. The two eyed idiot (strange for someone representing blind people) went to great length to say how awful the comment was and how blind people do amazing things and blind people are in all walks of life.

After losing the plot he said he would "like to talk to Clarkson when he returned to the country" so that they could "help Mr Clarkson understand the positive contribution people with sight loss make to society," they hoped he would agree to a meeting.
Id love to be a fly on the wall if that unlikely event took place.

Yes alright RNIB, some blind people are good people, just not the one eyed Scottish idiot we have wrecking the country. Getting David Blunket to speak on behalf of Gordon and Blind people was hardly a good move either.

Jeremy has not said anything wrong, the bloke has one eye, he is Scottish and he is an idiot, so why the outcry for him to apologise. Who knows.

I take offence on behalf of all the idiots of the country, how dare Clarkson call Brown and idiot, doesn't he know that idiots are in all walks of life and that people in top positions in the country are idiots. There are bankers who are idiots, politicians, chief police officers and even members of the house of Lords who are all idiots.

Without the contribution idiots make this country would not be what it is today.

A virus that makes you fat.

There are some things that I hear and simply don't believe and this has to be one that really takes the biscuit, or maybe burger and extra fies.
A scientist has discovered that there is a virus that can make you fat, oh please. Even the breakfast presenter and the Old Woman on Steve Wright's show don't believe that one.

Lets play along with this discovery and take it to a natural conclusion.
A lot of Viruses are easy to catch and some of them are really nasty, like for example the flu. But whereas, so long as it doesn't kill you, the flu lasts for a week and then you recover and get on with life, the fat virus makes your fat cells multiply then you turn into one of the wobbling lycra clad mingers who frequently offend my eyes everywhere these days.

If anyone can catch this and we don't know which fatty has it we should be protecting ourselves.
I suggest carrying a solid walking stick at all times and when the next blob wobbles your way swing it wildly shouting get back unclean.

It is one thing to say that the virus can make you fat but it must be one hell of a virus because it even controls your speech by making you say "large burger and extra fries" when you meant to say "a green salad please"

Prince Harry and the Racist Comment.

I wonder about the people who write the news. Today there is a headline about Prince Harry, who, it seems, made a comment about someone some years ago. Now that rather dubious paper the News of The World has decided to start a great big fuss about it.

It seems that Harry called a friend a Paki, oh my, the world will no doubt end.

The guy is given a gun and goes off to foreign lands to shoot people, yet all the paper can find to complain about it that he called someone a Paki some years ago when he was in training school. And he didn't even do it as a term of insult.

I wonder at the various organisations who now want "access to the evidence" so they can decide what action should be taken, and why do we have the usual stupid comments from all the politicians.
I suggest that the action needed is nothing!
What needs to happen though is that the Equality and Human Rights Commission, or whatever group is starting the fuss, should have all funding stopped until it grows up.

Many times us British get called Brits, I am sure that when I was on holiday in Australia and the USA people have said "oh yours Brits are you", and unless I am very much mistaken Brit is the same number of letters abbreviation of British as paki is of Pakistani.
So every time some one calls me a Brit should I dash off and seek legal advice. No I think not, Ill just say yes that's me I'm a Brit.

Although if things go down hill much more in this country I might decide to deny it completely and pretend to be Canadian or something.

The Cold Remedy Scam.

As you may have read further down the page I have had the flu. Unlike much of the rest of the UK I don't reach for the Beechams or Lemsip, I know that they are only high strength paracetamol or aspirin so instead of paying the 40p a dose I prefer the generic drug at 8p for the same amount of active chemical.

It was only yesterday that I realised why those companies who manufacture the "cold remedies" are so keen to promote that their particular mix of aspirin, or whatever, allows you to get on with life. Once you know their reason it is so obvious and so worrying.

The cold treatment business is worth a fantastically huge amount of money yet despite what their advertising would have us believe none of the products are new. The latest max strength is only more of the same, and "nothing acts faster" could be re-written as "everything acts at this speed".

The scary thing is that the aim of letting us get on with life when we have a cold or flu is so we go to work or socialise with the one aim of spreading the bugs. This means more cold ridden people to rush out and buy the latest max strength and so profits increase at the misery of the masses.

Next time you head to the chemist bypass all the name brands and head for the 26p a packet, they won't make you better faster, but they will save you around 32pence a dose and make you better at exactly the same speed.

Another word on Telephones.

There is a story that dear old Mr Bell himself, the person who probably didn't invent the telephone, refused to have one because of the infernal din it made.

I can see exactly what he meant. Our telephone rings whenever we are eating dinner, in the shower or watching a particularly exciting part of a film.

How people know that exact moment to call as I lift the fork to eat or the second that water falls from the shower head is an infuriating mystery.

Despite the views of hundreds of call centre workers I have a telephone for my benefit, if that were not the case someone else would be paying the line rental, wouldn't they? There is definitely a market for a phone that when you shout "shut up" stops ringing and sends a "your call is not being taken at the moment, please hang up" message.

The telephone is the most intrusive gadget in our home, at least until the government decide to install CCTV in all our rooms as I expect will happen some day.

A ringing phone takes no account for what we are doing, what mood we are in or that we are already doing 4 other jobs, yet so often we are expected to answer the home phone as if we were sitting there just waiting for the call and its the most important thing to happen.

I own my phone so its my decision when I answer it, if I answer it and how I answer it, so if the next time you call me I simply shout "WHAT", its OK its not you, it the phone it always rings at the most inconvenient moment.

The 2009 Pantomime Review

It is panto time and as luck would have it I was again invited to review the show at Westminster theatre..

I didn’t get to see all the panto, for reasons that will become clear, but I will share with you my views on what I saw.

The show starts with a huge shock as the principal character, Tony, is seen being bundled into a sack and thrown off the stage to be replaced by his understudy a rather sour faced Scottish man, Gordon, with very little talent who storms onto the stage and within the fist few minutes kills off 4 of the main characters.

There seems to be some confusion on stage not only among the cast but also the sound and lighting crews. At one point the curtain started to come down to be met with Gordon screaming that anyone who brings the curtain down on him will be finished.

It was not long before most of the audience began to suspect that Gordon was re-writing the script as he went along, especially as he kept passing lines to Alistair, the principal girl.
After every interaction on stage Gordon simply replied “I am right, I am in charge I am running this panto".
The principal boy, played by a Jacqui Smith, an actor completely out of her depth and with no talent, flitted about the stage around Gordon with little or no idea what her role was. At one point she started a fight with a group of characters for no apparent reason then started reciting lines from last years panto.

The first musical number “when I rule the world” took everyone including the orchestra by surprise and was a resounding flop because the chorus were expecting “the wonderful thing about tiggers”.

With chaos on stage, the lights on automatic and the crew now in the bar Gordon continued to ignore the script and storm about the stage in some strange one man show. Nothing anyone said or did made any difference. Having tied back the curtains and chained himself to a stage prop he shouted and babbled endlessly.

It was clear that the evening had degenerated into a farce and many in the audience began to get up to leave which resulted in Gordon throwing out vouchers for 2 percent off popcorn in the lobby. When this failed to quell the exodus he began throwing out handfuls of cash from a box on stage.

It seemed like the evening would go on for ever and with people shouting “get off” and ”rubbish” Gordon had all doors locked and the emergency exit chained shut.
Many passed out with fear and some poor woman jumped from the gods, thankfully landing on a very fat man below and sustaining only minor injuries.

The two stooges David and Nick together with a number of the cast managed to storm the stage and remove Gordon but too late to save the evening.

The events of the evening were troubling, but not as disturbing as the comments being made in the lobby afterwards where the majority of people were saying that they defiantly wanted Gordon to be given the principal role in next years pantomime.

Very worrying.

Man Flu

Sniff, cough, sniff, pass the aspirin!
Like so many I have managed to pick up the blasted flu cold bug thing that's going around. I did ever so well, I spent the whole of Christmas surrounded by people coughing and didn't catch it, then flying back home the guy next to me on the plane was full of cold and hey presto 3 days later I feel like death.

Why do people with the bug insist on going out and spreading them to everyone. I was in Salisbury's the other day, before I caught this, and the place was full of people coughing and sneezing, not a glimpse of a hanky or tissue, spraying their darn bugs over everything and everyone. And yuck of yucks, the woman on the checkout had a cold too, she at least covered her mouth when she coughed, then continued to handle all my shopping. (Note to self, email customer services on that one)

There is no need to go shopping and spread germs, get a computer and shop online or get a friend to pick up the essentials for you, but do not go out and give god knows how many innocent people your bug.

Imagine this scene, I walk into a shop, at random I slap people on the face really hard, so hard that for a week their nose will be sore, I then hit them in the throat and on every joint in their body so its hurts for a week. That's OK isn't it, no problem with that is there.
What, you have a problem with it, you would call the police, have me arrested prosecuted for assault.

But hold on, I am just doing what all these twits who are coughing and sneezing in shops are doing, I am just making you feel really ill, and at least you will know who made you feel so bad. Most of the time we can only guess who passed us the darn flu.

Before I leave flu I have to say a few words to all the women who come out with "he's got man flu" and scoff. Even my mother said it to me the other day, and the woman along the road too about her husband when he was ill. Well listen here all women of the world, you can not possibly know how a man feels when he has the flu. I recall a woman I worked with saying "flu, huh, you don't know pain until you have been through childbirth" dotty woman. You can not possibly know pain unless you are a man and have had the flu.

Its that simple, so stop your scoffing and pass the blasted aspirin will you.

New Years Honours

It's that time of year again when well deserving people are recognised and given something for their efforts.
People like Lewis Hamilton, a person who has done so much for his own bank balance that he is too rich to stay in Britain. Or Chris Hoy, a man who rode a bike, and for doing sod all but riding a bike for years he becomes a Knight. Anyone who did nothing but ride a bike all day would become good at it too. Oh, and aren't Knights supposed to ride a trusty steeds not a bike.

Everyone, in the real world anyway, knows that the Queens Honours are senseless, and yet for some reason they still exist in this the 21st Century. It is impossible to see why someone gets an honour for making themselves rich. Previous honours have seen top bankers and people from finance being knighted, and yet this year has shown what a thieving incompetent lot they really are.

Some have been saying that it is because of Chris Hoy that so many people took up cycling this year, isn't it more likely because petrol hit £1.28 a litre.

While doctors, nurses, truck drivers, power station workers, water purification plant staff, refuse collectors and the millions more service industry staff continue to ensure this country functions it is hard to see how riding a bike or becoming a millionaire is worthy of an honour. Take away the guy who makes rubber and see how fast Hamilton or Hoy travel, but where are they in the honours.

The whole honours process is a farce, so maybe we should set up the people's honours. A list where people who make a difference are recognised, where Fred the dustman and Mrs Miggins the pie maker are realised for their worth in society, where the lad who works on the checkout is knighted rather than the fat cat owning the firm.

The world changed in 2008 when we saw that the rich are sometimes rich because they are crooked and the powerful are usually the most corrupt of all. Maybe in 2009 the small people who do the work can be crowned the heroes. Maybe.

The Old School

There are untold properties in the UK with names of The Old Post Office, The Old Station House, The Old Rectory and then one that maybe even more prolific The Old School House.
I mention this as after driving past a school yesterday, the damp looking portacabins with flaking paint on hardly shutting windows with the lifting felt of flat roofs and I wondered why all the Old School Houses were sold off.

Contrasting a portacabin with these old school houses and I know which building I would rather be educated in.


With the government selling off everything, if they ever sell off 10 Downing Street I wonder what it would be called.
The Old Fools House maybe.

As Safe as a Bank.

There was a time when I would be impressed if someone said that they were in banking and finance . Crikey I would think, here is a person who has done well in life and knows a thing or two about money.

I have friends in banking and I thought they were clever, probably had a few A'levels or maybe even a degree. Friends who's advice was trusted, views respected and hard work admired.

Today things are different, if I happen to meet these friends I will put my wallet into a zipped pocket and definitely won't give them the money to get a round while I pop to the smallest room.

Is it just me or is it worrying that Bank Manager is an occupation that allows the verification of a passport application.

It is bad enough that banks lent billions to people who can't pay it back, but we now hear that many banks, trusted with looking after our money, had invested it in a pyramid selling scam.

Not just a few pounds sent to a scam circulated on the Internet but billions of pounds sent to nonexistent investments. How can this possibly be, banking is not rocket science, all you to do is look after money. And to do that you simply have to check that where you put it is safe.

Readers of my blog will remember earlier this year that I offered to put your money into a plastic box and keep it safe in my garden. I have had very few takers but by crikey I bet Santander wish they had called me. Their 2 billion maybe a little damp but at least it would still there.

Maybe it is time to release armed robbers from prison and lock up the bankers, at least with a robbery you have a chance of holding onto some of your money.

BREAKING NEWS........BREAKING NEWS........

I was at the gym the other day. One thing I can not avoid there, other than trying to keep pace with people about 20 years younger than me and regretting it the next day, is seeing the SKY news. It is always on one of the large screens Although I never hear it, because I am plugged into my MP3 player, I see the scrolling texts.

There is always a Breaking News story and on this occasion it was the Met Police shooting of the commuter, you know the one who's name seems to get longer each time it is reported.
SKY kept cutting to a police officer reading something then off to diagrams of a tube train then back the studio to see a big red "Breaking News" flash up followed by a police officer reading a statement and so on.

As often seems to be the case with SKY Breaking News is neither breaking or news, but more a recycled version of what you heard a week ago with a big red headline to make is seem more in interesting. I doubt there are many people in the country who don't know about the shooting they were talking about so the news could simply have said that the verdict was whatever it was and then moved onto something actually worth reporting. Yet they managed to fill at least an hour with information that is of no more use to most people than the woffling in these blogs.

Why does the news sensationalise the smallest thing into a feature length epic and assume that we have forgotten what they told us a week ago.

I was at the gym the other day. One thing I can not avoid there, other than trying to keep pace with people about 20 years younger than me and regretting it the next day, is seeing the SKY news. It is always on one of the large screens Although I never hear it, because I am plugged into my MP3 player, I see the scrolling texts.................................................................

Your fired! Please stay on and wreck the company.

We live in a world where one person can cause catastrophic damage to a company from the comfort of their own desk. Millions have the power to crash a firm from there computer terminal. For exactly that reason when someone is fired or being made redundant they will be escorted from the office the same day and put on gardening leave.

If you let an employee stay on in a disgruntled state why wouldn't they decide to exact revenge. But hold on one moment, we have one such employee, his name is Gordon Brown and he is doing exactly what has to be prevented in any company, he is trashing the place before he leaves.

There isn't a hope in hell that the "unelected" PM will get in at the next election, or if he does it will be another Labour scam, so what has he got to lose.
He is demented if he believes that he is really doing his best for the country. No one in their right mind thinks that what he is doing is right but anyone who speaks out against him risks losing their job, being arrested or maybe found dead on the edge of a field.

Remember Gordon is not only the man who told us that boom and bust was over but also the one, who just a few weeks ago, told us that Britain was well placed to ride out any recession. Just before we started on this ride down the plug hole.

Now jobs are going, the pound is sinking and my beer in Austria in a few weeks time will cost me a fiver.

Even the Germans are telling him he is wrong, his response in true Brown style is that everyone is wrong but him.

There must be someone who can escort this man from office, or does he get to trash the whole place before he leaves?