Gossip and news.

Ban Guns !?
Here we go again, I can not defend the actions by the guy who went mental with his guns but I can not believe the comments of some of the "do gooders" in the country who now want something else banned.

Please put it into perspective will you do gooders, there are 70 million people in the UK, 69,999,999 of them didn't go mental and shoot up the area yet you do gooders want to ban everyone from keeping a gun.
I suggest we need more people with shot guns not fewer and for them to go out and shoot the rapidly expanding pigeon epidemic.

Why is it always the way when a gun is involved in a death everyone wants them banned, if he had gone on the rampage in his car, after all he was a taxi driver, and maybe killed 20 people in a bus queue or outside a school would you hear anyone shouting about banning cars, which are the biggest cause of unnatural death and injury in the country. No you wouldn't, because the do gooders all want to drive their kids 100metres to school every morning.

People have gone soft!
I sat in a waiting room yesterday and the receptionist was having a good rant about a phone call she had just taken. The basis of the call was that someone was on holiday in the area and there was a slight problem with their child and they wanted to see a Dr. in a hurry. Unfortunately the receptionist could not give an appointment and she obviously considered there was actually no need to see a Dr. in any case.
The receptionist kept saying to her colleague that "people have gone soft, I really thing everyone has gone soft".
OK, you might think you understand that saying but think about it, it has no actual meaning does it. Pinch yourself, poke yourself in the tummy or slap your face, look, people are soft aren't we, people are squidgy in places, some way more squidgy than others but we are basically soft so how did that phrase ever come about.

It would have amused the waiting room far more if she was ranting that everyone had gone hard, wouldn't it.

Obama is Furious!
Apparently President Obama is furious with BP and said BP has not moved fast enough to respond to the massive oil spill among other things. We have seen a great lets bash Britain campaign from some in the USA and they all seem to have forgotten that the rig was being run by Transocean which, oh look is a company that was founded in 1919 in guess where, Louisiana, which unless it moved is not part of Britain.

BP have stepped in and taken the responsibility for something that is really not their fault, they didn't make the valve that failed they were not the ones responsible for safety on the rig when it exploded but they have done everything they can to help with the disaster.

What it is about some Americans that they just have to bash the UK at every opportunity and now even Obama is on the band waggon.

If our leader Cameron has any bottle he will be telling Obama where he can stick his invite to the White House until Obama gets his facts right.
I won't hold my breath on that one though.

Solar Power - For the Rich, the rest of us pay?

The local rag this week had what looked like an article but was actually an advert, its title was New Energy Stream" and went on to tell me how I could earn money and get free electricity.
We all know nothing in life is free so I read on, then did research of my own.

Its about the latest fad in Solar panels for your home, I'll disregard the fact that they are an eyesore for your neighbours and one of the least efficient ways of generating electricity you can use in the UK and see what the benefits are.

I was completely shocked, get the pun, OK, it seems that if you have the odd £10,000+ laying around doing nothing you can cover your house roof with black panels and maybe on a good day generate only 40% of your energy needs, well in the daytime in mid summer and so long as you don't cook or heat by electricity. So remember your still paying full price for 60% of your electricity.

The amazing thing about this scheme is that you get 41.3pence from your electricity provider for every unit you generate, plus an extra amount of money for any electricity you sell back to the grid, which in fact in most homes is going to be a very very very small amount unless you have covered every inch of the place in solar panels spending £20 - 30K

Where is this 41.3 pence coming from? That's easy, everyone of us who has not got the £10k to spend on buying solar panels is going to pay more for our electricity. Now that sounds fair doesn't it. Just like a lot of things the Labour party stitched us up with, oops I got political again.

But it doesn't end there, because the amount being paid to you to generate your own power was set way too high there are already scams going on with people connecting small diesel generators to their generation systems because they can generate electricity with conventional means for way less than they get paid for their units. It is also apparently worth while setting up arc lights on your roof and running them at night and your still quids in, its apparently been done.

Remember, all this is being paid for by those of us who don't have £10k to throw away.
Remember too that once you have installed the panels you lose out if you decide to move house as your unlikely to get the full price back on your sale, although you could take them with you I am sure it would only cost a few thousand to remove and re-install.

Finally there is the problem with the calculations being made by the people trying to sell you solar panels. They say that as a top rate tax payer your return is equal to 12% PA. No its not, for the first 10-15 years I'd be paying off the installation costs. And if it were interest on my money I wanted you have to consider compound interest whereby £10k in the bank at even just 3% will be £15,579 in 15 years.
If your solar panels are running at maximum, (remember the winter this year) you are expected to save £625 a year, which by my maths means its 16yrs before you break even.

The solution is easier, rather than covering the world in expensive black panels, build nuclear power stations or loads of coal fired ones. We all know coal produces way less pollution than a certain volcano is doing, and as is being proved by Tony Robinson in the series Man on Earth, our CO2 has nothing to do with climate change.

If on the other hand you have £10k to throw away stick it in the bank and in 15yrs time look forward to at least 10yrs completely free electricity.

And another thing!

We we sitting, no were we were sat, oh whatever, we were eating lunch yesterday, home made bread, cheeses the usual kind of thing when I noticed the best before date on the Extra slowly matured cheddar cheese, 11 June 2010, which begs the question , how does the cheese know its finished slowly maturing and to start going off?
And another thing, how come this cheese can mature extra slowly yet when I open it I should use it within 3 days, and the fact that most of my large blocks of cheddar are usually open for a good couple of weeks before they are finished makes me wonder who though they should be used in 3 days.



It will amaze some to learn that cars have horns or to give them their correct name audible warning devices. I say it will amaze them because I bet some people have never used them for their correct use. These much misused devices are intended to allow drivers to warn others to ther presence on the road yet it seems that the lad next door thinks it is to say goodbye every time he drives off. Why is that, whatever is the point and he certainly isn't the only one doing it. And another thing, why is the dork a few roads away allowed to drive around sounding his musical air horns time after time and what does he think he is achieving. Doesn't he know its the same as having a sunvisor sticker saying "I'm a complete tosser"



Finally, I thought I would share with everyone that I can now play the piano. Yes that's right, I started learning 6 weeks ago but I can now tell people I can play it.
How do I reason this, that's simple, you see although I am not very good yet I liken it to when I see a totally terrible driver, if I asked them can you drive they will no doubt say "yes I can drive" they won't say yes but I am not very good. So if anyone should ever ask can I play piano the answer is yes.

Gordon to quit - But not yet

More on the general erection. ( no its not a type, its a big cockup)

I can't help it, I promise I will stop being political on the blog soon, but at the moment I am blown away with the way this country is run.
So Gordon has said he will go, but not yet and I bet he changes his mind, so we are set to have the two parties who lost the election plus a load of Gordon's mates running the country.
Then, as if it was not bad enough that the election was a waste of time, we are yet again going to have a labour prime minister decided not by their policies put to the country but by the labour party as they select a new leader from the bunch of rotten apples and self serving twits such as David Miliband and Ed Ballsup.
The country voted for change millions of people don't want labour in power.

Still I must remember that in a democracy the party decides not the people.

Now GET OUT Gordon, and other points from the news.

So there we have it, well over 2 million less people voted for Gordon than David but he still stands outside No.10 and says he is the Prime Minister.
As he would say LOOK (I hate the way he uses look to try and be-little people) LOOK 77% of the country didn't vote for you so GO!
What do we have to do to get rid of him, physically carry him out, let me know when and Ill lend a hand.

The sheer arrogance of the bloke who has not only never been elected in but now that he has been elected out he still thinks he can stay. Send in the removal team now, lets be shot of this tw-t. What makes it worse is that the party who got the least votes is now virtually deciding who will be prime minister.

OK enough of that, plenty of other people are fuming over this best I move on.

Something completely different
Off the coast of America an oil rig has exploded, everyone seems to have forgotten that 11 people died in the explosion but that aside there is one ironic outcome from the disaster.

Before I give you that it is worth putting my comment in context with some of those by Americans.
So far they have come up with ; " We have the boot firmly on the throat of BP and we don't intend to remove it any time soon" , "Lets just hope the tide changes and the oil washes up all over the beaches of the UK" , and best so far "how would they feel if we put cyanide in the drinking supply of the UK" .
Cheers guys, someone remind me why we are allies with that lot.

So anyway, although no one would wish to see harm caused to the wildlife you have to smile when having invaded and terrorised so many places in the world to take their oil they now have it washing up on their beaches.

Strange how oil industry pollution only matters to them when they can see it.

What have the Romans Labour Party ever done for us ?

With thanks to Monty Python I ask on the eve of Gordon being booted out of No.10 (if he isn't the election is a fix) what has the labour party ever done for us.

the sanitation!
Oh yes ... sanitation, Reg, you remember before people could actually afford their water rates.

And the roads ...
Well YES OBVIOUSLY the roads ... the roads go without saying, before they put up car tax we had roads you could drive along without hitting pot holes all the time.
But apart from, the sanitation and the roads ...

Medicine ... Education ... Health
Yes ... all right, fair enough ... Prescriptions have trebled in price and people fight to find a good education for their children, and as for the NHS the waiting lists are gone because they won't put you on a list until you have waited 2 years already.

And the wine ...
Oh yes! True! They want to tax wine so much that no one can afford it just because a few drunks can't control themselves.
Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Roman labour left.

AND it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.
Yes, they certainly know how to keep order you can walk the streets at night with any weapon you like, and reported crime has fallen because there is no way you can get through to the police to report it.

All right ... all right ... but apart from sanitation and medicine and education and public health and roads and public order ... what HAVE the Romans Labour ever done for US?

£800,000,000,000 debt!

'Nude Green Leaves, and Bust'

Its official the world is mad. Today in the news there is an article about a painting by Picasso which has just been sold at auction.

A few weeks ago I spent time wandering in the National Gallery in London, well its free so why not, and there are some amazing works of art there. Paintings that look like photographs and some that are so intricate that they must have taken months of work if not years.
Then you come to the Picasso or the Sunflowers by Van Klonk or whoever he was and you have to look at them and think why the heck would anyone think this is good.
Some of the art there is nothing short of terrible, and don't anyone dare tell me that I just don't understand it or that I am not educated enough to be able to see the art in it, take it from me its trash and a 5yo could paint better using a dead cat as a paint brush.

So I get back to the Picasso, here it is -
I dare anyone to tell me that it is worth the £70million paid for it yesterday.
I have seen road kill that's better art.

The thing about doctors is.......

I've been feeling a bit crock for a while so decided it was time to go see the doc and see if there is anything I can do to feel better.
The thing is though, if I wanted my car repaired I would ask people to recommend a good mechanic, likewise when I need any tradesman I get other peoples opinions before I trust them with my work, but doctors, I was just allocated this guy and to tell you the truth I am not impressed.

I had been seeing the same Dr. for years. he knew me as a person, we would chat about all sorts of unrelated things when he didn't have another patient to see and I trusted him completely to decide what I needed to do if something was wrong.

But the Dr. I have now, um, I don't have much faith in him.
Its not as if you can go in and ask to see his qualifications either is it, yes there is a notice on the door saying he has all these letters after his name, but has anyone ever asked, we are expected to take it as a given that he is a Dr, yet in the news we read about an on call Dr. who killed a patient on his first night.

I have to put my life in the hands of someone who I don't trust and to whom I am just the next 8 minutes.
I went to see another Dr. at the same practice once, never again, I was given a good telling off for not seeing the Dr I am registered with. Its rather worrying really.

Isn't the NHS wonderful!

Gordon and Mrs Duffy - They should never have put me with that woman!

The real Gordon Brown is revealed live.
The man who says one thing to your face then slags you off as soon as he walks away. Not only that but he is so stupid he forgets that he is wearing a radio mic. so the whole world gets to know what he really thinks.

There can surely be no sane person who wants to vote Labour after this episode on the election campaign.

Lets just hear that again shall we :-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649042.stm

Gordon later went to the home of the woman involved where he apparently apologised, although how you apologise for doing something deliberately I don't quite understand. He probably reminded her about Dr Kelly and what happens to people who embarrass labour PMs.

He then went on to say that "he was just letting off steam after a difficult conversation" well that is because he doesn't understand anything that the people of Britain tell him, otherwise he would have resigned years ago.
It was not much better that he further said that he misunderstood some of the words she used, maybe because when people say Gordon your a tw-t he hears, " Gordon your fantastic and everyone wants you to be PM forever".

The best thing is we get to know for sure that his meet the public walks are all staged, he only meets those who are set up for him to talk to.
No surprise there then.

Points from the News.

I have not done a points from the news recently because the news seems to be dominated by the children squabbling and as if it was necessary to prove that children is exactly what these political people are we hear to today that Peppa Pig was to attend an election event for the Labour Party. No really I am not making this up. The monster loony party had nothing on Gordon and his bunch of half-wits. Ms Pig has been withdrawn from the event I presume because he/she has more intelligence than most people in the Labour Party, and that is taking into account she/he is a cartoon and so does not actually exist. - so why i use he /she I have no idea.



Next I move swiftly on to someone who is very much real, although less useful than Peppa Pig. If you don't recognise the picture its Ed Balls, in case you missed it Ed was fined £60 and given 3 points for using his mobile while driving, quite right too, id disqualify anyone for doing that, the thing is he gave a statement saying he only took the handset out of the hands free so he could use it without waking his children on the back of the car.

Excellent Balls, what a good idea, don't wake them with a phone call, kill them with a crash when you lose control of the car. And people actually voted for this twit?

Ill finish this short entry with the news that I have become a victim of the volcanic ash, and not only me but my guests stopping over at the weekend will be too. Not only is the car covered in a thin layer, no its not sand don't run your finger through it you'll scratch the, oh OK too late, well not only do I have scratches on the car but even worse, there were no sugar-snap peas in the shop today, apparently because of the ash.
Still its OK I bought carrots instead, they will be fine. Won't they, Andy ?

Southern Electric 100% price increase

Imagine as I open the letter headed changes to our gas prices how I feel when I see on the front page that the "gas price for the average customer has gone down by 4%", well at last. But then my mood changes as I turn the page to the bit they hope you won't read.

F------- B------- you what! The standing charge has gone up by over 100%, yes that's not a typo it has increased from 13.36 to 26.85 pence per day. As you can imagine I am on the phone right away, this must be an error they must have made a mistake.

No, the lovely girl on the phone tells me that its true, its gone up over 100% because they were charging less than the other providers. Oh that's OK and here was me thinking it was another stitch up to make more money, 4% down 100% up.

I don't use Twitter or the like but I am sure I was told there is a way there to tell everyone of things like this amazing increase that they hope we don't spot.

Right next stop Uswitch.com

Planes fly into the Volcanic Ash

The planes fly again, yipee if your wanting to fly, but it is not because the volcanic ash is no longer in the air, or because the experts have decided they were wrong but because the government has decided there is too much money to be lost keeping planes on the ground.
Remember the government always knows better than the experts as I have mentioned in several posts before.

But it is not all bad news, there is apparently a roaring trade at the car wash, where the Polish guys are making a tax free fortune washing the ash off cars.
We are also told that the volcanic ash will be good for our gardens, so that's a good thing isn't it. Although as its only money that has made the sky safe to fly in again it could be that the ash will help the plants but I am not too sure that a 747 hitting the veg patch will do the potatoes that much good.

Election 2010 - Does your vote count?

As politicians try desperately to find a way to divert the news from volcanic ash back to the election campaign the three leaders continue to act like 12 year olds in the school play ground and certainly don't inspire me too vote for any of them.

Gordon is sending coaches (well so he says) to collect people from their holidays, but only those who can prove they vote labour. Arrive at the coach stop in your track suit bottoms and your sure to be allowed on.

If we survive the ash and less likely the election campaigning you then have to remember that politicians are totally out for all they can get for themselves so what reason is there to believe that our votes are even counted.

No seriously, how do you know that the count is conducted correctly, how can you be sure that the guy standing up saying Labour 250 million votes, Conservative 1 vote is telling the truth and who makes sure those overseeing the counts are really impartial. Probably the same people who allowed every MP to own at least 2 homes and claim everything including the kitchen sink and duck house on expenses.

I would like to think I am wrong, but nothing is beyond Brown to hold on to power. If you believe Dr Kelly committed suicide you can believe that your vote is counted.

The rest of us will go on wondering, especially if Brown gets back in.

Proposed New Driving Licence System

Hot on the heals of cars that can parallel park themselves, for those who for some reason can't manage this simple driving procedure, is a new style driving licence.

The new licence includes a chip which stores your driver details and will be used to allow you to start your car.
New cars manufactured from next year will have a card reader on the dash which verifies that you are entitled to drive that type of vehicle. The system is also connected the the engine management of the car and to the internet by WiFi and the O2 phone network.

Cars will use the same senors that the self parking systems use to determine if there are vehicles ahead of you or if you are breaking unnecessarily before driving around every bend etc . From this information the computer will determine if you are driving at an appropriate speed for the road and if you are going too slow will sound an alarm. If you fail to increase your speed after the alarm the card reader will melt your licence and you are no longer entitled to drive.

There will also be the capability for some well qualified motorists to call into a central computer where they can type in the registration of anyone whom they feel are not driving in a competent manner and the system will then disable the licence of the driver from the moment the car is next parked.

The ability to remove poor drivers from the roads using this system is expected to result in as many as 95% of drivers being disqualified within the first 6 months of the system coming into use. A spokesman for friends of the earth said that the system was the first really positive move to reduce CO2.

Further information on the system can be found at
http://essexblogger.blogspot.com/2010/03/election-2010.html

Mephedrone -The worlds most expensive plant food

I have spent the afternoon in the greenhouse planting seeds for this years veg patches and flower gardens. Then I sprinkled growmore on the strawberry patch before checking under the cloches to see if the sugar snaps are showing yet. All very relaxing. After that I came inside and decided to check the latest news.

To my horror there are moves a foot by government to ban plant food. Yipes where will I be without my growmore.

Phew! , it seems the only "plant food" they are going to ban is something called Mephedrone. Having never heard of it I decided to google it and now I see why its going to be banned. For a kilo of Growmore I think I pay about £3.50, but for a kilo of this mephedrone they want , wow, £4500. No no this is not right, the website which calls itself a plant food website sells the one plant food in quantities as small as 1 gram, costing for the 1gram £15. Hold on, you what, for the cost of a 10 kilo bucked of Growmore I get 1 gram of this plant food. It better be good.

I am sorry but there isn't a plant food on the planet worth £4500 a kilo but if you wish to buy it I suggest that you simply sent your name and address to P.O. Box 2, Springfield, Essex, CM2 6DA or, if you must, buy direct for £4500 a kilo try http://www.plant-food.net/ .

This could be a first, I actually agree with the government on something, things are looking bad.

Election 2010

It is time for election fever, and today the deranged Scottish idiot tells the country "I will remain as P.M. even if there is a hung Parliament" (why am I not surprised ).

There really is no hope for us. If you vote for him (why would you) and his crack pot party they will get in, if you don't vote for them they will inevitably get in by declaring that they have made a new law whereby only votes for them count and anyone who objects will be declared a terrorist and arrested.

It really is a sad state of a nation when an unelected person is running the country saying that no one will ever remove him. That's dictatorship not a democracy.

Still the purpose of this entry is not to have another go at Gordon, because as everyone knows everything he does is "the right thing to do" , but rather this entry is to say, as its election time I am joining in with the spirit and from now on until voting day everything I write will be made up, exaggerated, spun, re-announced or just complete lies.

And if the press complaints commission wants to have a go at this blog, I say bring it on.

Climate Change Scientists

How very interesting, apparently 97% of climate change scientist agree that climate change is being caused by humans.

Let me ponder that for a moment, there is, or are, a group of scientists that have a job title of "climate change scientist" and they spend all day studying climate change I presume. I imagine a conversation between the 97% and a scientist in the 3% might be interesting, they can't both be right yet both are scientists and both are studying climate change and both say they are experts.

And this statistic, 97% is rather misleading we don't actually know what question they were asked. If the question was "your funding is coming to an end, do you agree that climate change is man made" you might get a different answer to "what do you think is causing climate change" . And lets face it how many of these "scientists" are going to say no its all natural, and suddenly find they no longer have a job.

The reassuring thing is that the scientist who fiddled the figures on climate change has been "cleared of all wrong doing", although hold on, oh I read he has been cleared by a group of ministers who are investigating.

So from that I can assume that he is guilty, we all know ministers are the least likely people to be able to recognise the truth.

The Glass Ceiling

Sometime this week there was a Business Woman of the year award, now if that isn't sexist I don't know what is, but it inevitably brought about comments on "the glass ceiling".

It seems that some women who can't get the promotions they want suddenly decide it is because of a glass ceiling and then go on and on about how they need to break through this ceiling. Typically having no regard for the devastation it will cause with shards of glass raining down upon everyone else as do this smashing.

Of course the glass ceiling exists only in the minds of the few who think they are better at their jobs than they actually are, and I recall a woman I used to work with going on about the glass ceiling, before she finally got promoted by accusing the boss of some kind of sexism and therefore getting promoted by foul means.

I am drifting from my point, the actual purpose of this entry to to say one thing. OK all you women who believe your are stuck under a glass ceiling, think of this.
One woman's ceiling is another mans floor. How long will it be once you get the other side of the glass that you start moaning that all the men below the glass ceiling keep looking up, through the glass, and commenting on the colour of your knickers.

Yea, you didn't think it through very well did you.

Nissan Electric Car

Nissan have announced that they are going to produce their new electric car in the UK. It will have a range of up to 100 miles and can be re-charged from a 13amp socket costing about £1 of electricity for every 38miles.

So far excellent, but I have covered electric cars before and still have the same concerns plus a few more.
If it cost £1 for 38 miles that means it must be taking about 8KWh so to charge for the 100 miles is about 24KWh. Your domestic 13amp plug will take about 3kw maximum so a total re-charge of your car will take about 8hours. That's not too bad is it, plug in overnight and your all set, unless of course you get up in the morning and see it needs a charge before work.

And hang on a minute, I have just seen the car will be ideal for urban driving and city and town dwellers.

I guess it would as long as the town and city dwelling people don't live in houses similar to those on the left. Or it they live in a nice new town house how many of those have a garage, an empty one. Remember even Christmas wreaths get stolen off doors in towns so who is going to leave an extension lead running out the house and down the street to charge the car over night. By morning the whole street will be hooked into your electricity.

My final question is how do you drive an electric car in winter. A petrol car has a heater as a bi-product of cooling the engine, an electric car will have to have an electric heater, say at least 1KW so there goes your 100 mile range down to say 60 if your lucky.

I don't expect to be buying an electric car any time soon, what I am buying is a tow truck, there will be a fortune to be made towing electric cars to a power socket.

4 x 4 Drivers are mostly mad !

What is it about people who drive 4x4 vehicles that turns a lot of them into total twits.
On Saturday I was driving alone the A12 at 70mph in lane 2 of a 2 lane section when some idiot in her mega huge 4x4 range rover decided that the stopping distance at 70mph is a mere 6 feet (see above, one of my passengers took a photo of her and posted it on twitter, which being a twit is the place she should be). For some reason 4x4 drivers seem to think that because they cause twice as much pollution they have the right to do as they please. The sad thing is there are no cops about to stop them so until they crash they get away with it.

Earlier today I was walking along a pavement when an elderly 4x4 driver decided he wanted to post a letter. Yes, unbelievably he drove along the pavement and stopped along side the post box. You also notice that its alongside the zig zags of a pedestrian crossing too.

In case you can't see the index number its C6PWG which must stand for something so he is one of those other kind of motoring twits as well , one who buys a number plate. The other car blocking the pavement is a Volvo, so that says it all about him doesn't it.

We used to have a saying about Volvo drivers but this blog is not listed under adult content so I won't go into it here.

SPAM Email

For some reason my email spam in-box is being hit everyday with more and more rubbish trying to sell me drugs. It used to be just Viagra and grow your own penis type dross but now it seems to be more and more "buy prescription drugs", "24hr online pharmacy in Canada" and other things that I have no interest in.

What is the point of spam email, is there anyone who sees "Get a bigger penis in 7 days" and thinks yeah that must be real I will send for that. And as for "discount Viagra direct to you in 24hr" from Toxic and Poison Chemists Ltd. is anyone going to do anything other than hit delete.

What is the point of sending spam mails, who benefits, that's is a serious question, if you know the answer please hit the comment button.

Why can't spam be useful, image if you got "we deliver milk in 20 mins 24hr a day" or "run out of bread, call now", then maybe we would all be hitting "reply".

Jon Venables - It's not news!

I was in the gym last week, if you remember that is where I see SKY News but don't hear it because I am plugged into my Ipod, the breaking news was all about a 17yr old murder.
It was obviously a slow news day and as I was running Sky were busy interviewing some retired detective, retired solicitor and showing 17yr old video footage of an image that could be anyone but we are told was James Bulger.

So what was the amazing breaking news, it was that Jon Venables had committed a crime while on probation and was going back too prison. Yes that's news, but it has nothing much to do with the murder 17ys ago or anything to do with the detectives etc.

Today this news is still running, oh please, the mother of James going on and on about how she should be told what is going on. Why? What has it got to do with her. She has had "sleepless nights" over her sons killer going back to prison, again why?

Venables went to prison for the murder of her son, she has no other rights over the life of Venables, but she seems to think that she should be told about the latest crime, how that would change her life I fail to see, if she was losing sleep because he was out of prison I could understand.

Yet again the media is manufacturing news that is so irrelevant as to have no meaning.

Still it gives me something to woffle about doesn't it.

Ashcroft didn't pay his tax - yeah whatever!

You would never guess that there is an election coming up.
Political parties acting like a bunch of 10yr olds "my dad could beat your dad any day" " your mums fat" " so what you sister looks like a monkey and you smell". Seriously, that's all they are doing isn't it, throwing stupid insults at each other hoping that they find one that the whole country will join in with. There are plenty of Sun and Mirror readers who will, but the rest of us are educated enough to see the truth.

The latest nar-nar-nee-nar-nar from the Labour party is that Lord Ashcroft didn't pay his tax to Gordon, so Gordon couldn't waste it with the other £800 billion he has lost in the last year.
OK so maybe someone on planet earth thinks this is important but to call it a "critical piece of information that Parliament and the people of the country needed to know" is taking it way too far.

I was concerned at the weekend when reading in the times that the latest poll had Labour winning the next election, I don't think I or the country could stand another 4years of the bullying indecisive idiot PM we have at the moment, but look at the alternatives and you have to wonder whether we would all be better off voting for Terry Wogan.

The lesson to be taken from Lord Ashcroft is that there are ways out there that you can keep from paying tax, the critical piece of information we need to know is HOW?

Amazon.com - Those who bought this also ....

I was on Amazon.co.uk the other day, nothing unusual there, a lot of things are so much cheaper on the internet so I often shop via Amazon.
I was looking for a coffee machine, which I decided not to buy because I would need to drink about 10 cups a day to justify spending that much on a machine. While I was on Amazon I noticed the "other people who bought this also viewed" section. I can only ask what is the point of it. Apparently other people who spent too much on a coffee machine also bought a blue ray disc players. Good for them but what the flippin heck it has to do with me I don't know.

I was on Amazon again today looking for a specific type of printer paper which is about a quarter the price on line as it is in any local store, the other people bought section told me that people also viewed digital cameras, sorry, but why would I care what someone else viewed after buying something.

That is unless Amazon gets really clever and starts saying that when Esssexblogger bought a coffee machine he also viewed the share price index timesonline and then spent 10 minutes on porn sites, then I will start to worry.

I've seen the tripod police!

On the day I read about a father who was told to stop taking photos of his own child in a shopping centre by some dim witt security guard who then called the police, who unbelievably also told the guy off and to delete the pictures (yea ok copper go get a court order) I also saw the London tripod police at work.

It was amazing to see the speed they struck, the photographer and film guy were only just on Trafalgar square when the first one of the gang hit them with "what exactly are you intending to do here". In no time at all two other tripod cops had rushed into the battle then some other member of the SS in his blue coat joined in and out came the fixed penalty pads.

Its unbelievable, there are so many stories of people being threatened under anti terror laws and videos on the www of police making up laws to demand photographers detail and of people being arrested for "suspicious behaviour" when filming a Christmas parade now a father being told he is a paedophile for taking shots of his own child. How did it come to this.

As both I and the other half are frequently carrying both stills and video cameras in public places I guess it is only a matter of time until some mini-Hitler security guard or community support officer tried to tell us off, I can't wait. When asked what I am doing I shall say that I am working for Al-Qaeda taking photos of young children to train as prospective suicide bombers.

The old one eyed scotish idiot in number 10, when asked about the problem of photographers being harrassed for no reason, said that it was only right that the police had the power to control the taking of photographs in public places. Yes of course it is Gordon, the same way you want to control every other aspect of our lives.

Thank goodness we live in a democracy.

Inflation hits 3.5%

Everyone in the UK knows inflation is at 28%, petrol has risen at over that in the last 12 months, but in the land of fairies, where Gordon and the rest of his fools live, they are pretending that inflation hit 3.5% today.
As it hit 3.5% the governor of the Bank of England has to write a letter to the chancellor explaining why. I can't be the only person who thinks this is the most stupid thing ever, am I?

The letters are published but the latest one to be publish will be a cover up, here is the content of the actual letter as written by Mervyn King to Alistair Darling.:-

Darling

The CPI inflation rate to be published tomorrow by the Office for National Statistics is 3.5%, thank the lord that they are not publishing the actual figures and that your bribes and Gordon's threats continue to keep them in check.

I am therefore writing this open letter to you, on behalf of the MPC explaining why inflation has risen above target and what I propose to do about it.

The simple reason for the rise is the sheer incompetence of you and that twit in No.10 who's policies trashed the country while he was in your office and continue to do so with your help to this day. To be frank things are a mess, you are well aware inflation is running at a massive amount over 20%. For heavens sakes even tin tomatoes have gone from 13p to 31p and bananas are up to.

I welcome this opportunity to explain to you what I intend to do about this matter and while many of my colleagues in the banks are grateful to you for their jobs and bonuses this year I as governor was never under threat and my £300k a year basic and £4million pension is doing just fine thank you.

What I and the rest of the MPC will do is simple, vote for anyone but your lot at the general election.

Yours sincerely
Merv

Toyota recall, and other things in the news

Toyota Recall.
I find it interesting how some people think, for example there are people saying that if you crash in a Toyota you can not be prosecuted because they are known to have defective brakes and sticking accelerators.

That must makes it even easier to prosecute someone after a crash, not only have they been a crap driver but they decided to drive knowing they had defective brakes and an accelerator likely to stick at any moment.

In fact why let it get to that, all police vehicle examiners with prohibition powers should be out there issuing prohibition notices to all Toyota drivers, get them off the road before they crash, that's what I say.

Gordon, the really sick PM.
Regular readers of the blog know that I have no respect for the one eyed Scottish idiot we are stuck with in number 10 Downing Street, but even I was aghast at how low he will sink to keep his position.

How can anyone so awful be in charge of the country, OK that was a rhetorical question its because he threatens anyone who tries to speak against him.

Is there anyone else who would use their dead child as a tool for political aims. To go on national television and use the "cry for me you bunch of easily led fools" ploy going on about how he held his dying child as it dies. You sick individual Brown how on earth do you live with yourself.

The Banking Crisis Explained

I have heard an explanation of the banking crisis in a way I can understand so it is only right that I pass it on, in case like me you were confused why we have given them billions of pounds.

It is simple, the banks use their money like a gambler and they put bets on things, this week apparently they are all betting on the Euro.

How they do this is a mystery.

The banking crisis is apparently as simple as this; your best mate borrowed your life savings and lost it all on the roulette wheel. Then he came back to you and said "sorry pal I lost your life savings, but don't worry you go get a loan and give me the money and I will go and win this time". Now we are in the "mates gone back to the casino" time, because some twit gave them more money.
Still whats £800 billion between friends. Nothing at all if you believe Gordon.

An honest driver- Crashes

It is not often I find a driver who says that the way he was driving was not anything other than fantastic, good or average,but today I found a driver who told me how he thought he was driving and I totally agreed.

I was coming through a 30 mph limit at 30, when about 100m behind me appeared a blue car doing considerably more, I would estimate about 60mph. In no time at all the car is behind me then along side me and then in front of me. I remarked to my other half in the passenger seat what a talented driver the man who just over took was, ok I said whats a wan**r , as we watched him speed ahead until he approached the next bend when he hit the brakes hard.
Obviously one of the many drivers who can only drive fast in a straight line and panics at every bend I thought. Down the hill is a right hand bend where we see his car mount the nearside bank disappear for a second before we see it across the other side of the road and hit the ditch.

I had to think serves you darn well right as I parked opposite the ditched car grabbed a fluorescent jacket I keep in the boot for just such occasions and wandered over to the driver. On first opening his door I feared he was having a heart attack, but he was just shocked and otherwise uninjured and I was surprised to see the driver was in his mid 60s. With his car well and truely stuck in the ditch I asked "what were do doing, I wondered where the emergency was as you came past me in the 30 limit" to my amazement he replied "I was driving like a c**t. I was almost speechless at his honesty.

I have to wonder , when he comes to fill in his insurance claim wil he tell the truth again or put "lost control on ice" .

It can be good to be a grump!

I was accused of being "one of the grumps I keep running into" on a web forum I wrote on the other day, which got me thinking.

The reason I was called this was because I remarked that, amazingly, I had seen a policeman walking in the town and that he was wearing a tunic, which is not the correct uniform. There was more to the post but I won't bore you with it.

The another forum member told me that the tunic has been good enough for 150 years and was good enough today etc. No it isn't, it is restrictive and uncomfortable and has no place in modern policing other than court, funerals and ceremonial, but lets get back to being a grump.

If a grump is someone who says things could be better and things should be different then I am proud to be a grump because if you take the view "always look at the positive and stop complaining" we would still be living in caves. Maybe I should explain my reasoning here.
Go back however many years you believe it was that we were living in caves, the look on the bright side cave man was happy to be alive and spent all day smiling at the wonders of the world eating and nothing else, while the grump was fed up with a damp stinking cave and set forth making things better.

While Mr everything is brilliant caveman died of the pox, brought on by thinking his cesspool of a cave was really great, grump caveman was never happy and kept wanting a cleaner, brighter, dryer place to live so kept improving things.

I think you get the picture, and maybe are thinking of reasons why it is better to be positive, I agree positive has its place, but without the grumps in the world, those who are not happy with the way things are, nothing would have changed and we would all be living, and dying, in a cesspool cave.

Maybe even a place as bad as Vange in Basildon.

Airport Security

Here is a thought for you, there was information the other day that the new body scanners being installed in airports take just 35 seconds to scan you. Now that might not seem long but look at it this way.

Stansted airport handles, give or take, 24million passengers a year, now not even considering that the passenger numbers are not spread evenly over the year think of this :-

24,000,000 times 35 seconds is 233,333 hours of scanning and say the airport is taking passengers through 18hours a day that is 12962 days of scanning, taken that there are 365 days in a year that means they need 36 scanners to get all the passengers through. When have you ever been to Stansted and seen more than 6 security positions in use.

Another great knee jerk decision made by the wondrous Gordon Brown.

Stealing from Dara O'Brien - when you have to show your wobbly bit before you are allowed to leave the country, the terrorists have already won anyway.

It's my path I'll do as I darn well like!

The world has gone completely mad but some of the things coming out of this snowy spell defy belief.

For example people are going around saying "don't clear your path or you will be liable if someone slips on it" yeah OK just try it mate. Then a paper apparently said if you don't clear your path and the milkman or postman (or woman) slips on it you will be liable.
No sorry I am not, if you walk on snow or ice and don't expect it to be slippery that's your fault not mine. And if I do choose to clear my path, not that I will, its also your fault if you don't think oh look this has been cleared but all around is snow and ice so it might still be slippery.

Those eediots who go around saying health and safety to every thing also need a kick in the backside. I defy anyone to find me anything from the health and safety executive that tells me what I can and can not do with or on my path.

And another thing, schools are apparently being shut for "health and safety reasons", fair enough if the teachers can not get in but to the drongo woman I heard saying that the school had to be shut because the playground was icy I say this. GET A LIFE!
If the playground was too dangerous how dangerous was it for the children off school making an ice slide outside my house on Friday.

It's only snow - Deal with it!

This snow is very nice, so long as you don't need to drive anywhere, go to work, go food shopping, on catch a flight on holiday. But it is after all just snow, other countries carry on no matter how much of it falls or how low the temperature dips.

I hear people saying "well yes, other countries cope because they expect it and are prepared" then the same people will go on "still this is nothing compared with the winter of ...... " yeah, OK.

Now let me get this right, depending upon who you talk to the winter of 61, 63, 66, 77, 78, 81, 84 or 87 were all worse than this one. So already we have 8 years when it has been terrible in the UK or parts of it and that's not including the odd year where there has been a few days of snow, oh and this year.

So why are we not prepared. Possible because we insist on dumping millions of tonnes of salt on roads when it does nothing useful for falling snow. What is needed is snow ploughs and mechanical path and road clearing, together with the proper used of winter tyres, or at least the banning of summer tyres and the enforced fitting of all weather tyres on our cars.

Oh yes, the people in power say, but we can not afford to buy machines, we prefer to waste millions on salt. If they can manage it in places all over the world why can't we manage it here.

Oh yes that's right, they expect it there and we have only had since 1961 to prepare for snow clearing in the UK.

I saw a gritting lorry!

Its true, I was walking along a local road today and I actually saw a gritting lorry, and what is more impressive it had grit on it. OK, it was driving along at about 40 mph, in a 30, and the amount of grit it was spraying out was possibly enough to melt the ice in a medium sized ice bucket, but at least it was there.

The interesting thing is why in the cab of the lorry it needed 3 men in yellow jackets, one to drive and 2 to do exactly what?

The county council has announced that it is running out of grit, because it has "been gritting for 27 days consecutively" . Didn't anyone tell them that winter is more than 27 days in the UK, in fact it is actually 3 months minimum. Or is it that they spent all the money on consultants to work out how much salt would be needed if we had a bad winter.

To add to the mess this country is in the latest gossip is that the country is actually running out of gas, well its not gossip its actually been announced by the national grid that they will be reducing supplies to company because of record demand. Ho hum, didn't anyone tell them that 70million people now live in the UK and most of them like to keep warm.

I would say that this country is going down hill, but that seems a little too obvious.

Aircraft Security - This plane smells like sh-t!

The latest aircraft security scare, or was it another ploy by the USA for an excuse to take away more personal freedom, has led to an increase in security and the anticipated introduction of yet more checks and procedures to make air travel slower, sorry, I mean safer.

More aircraft fall out of the sky through maintenance errors and manufacture faults then ever will from terrorist attacks, but where is the money to be made from scaring people over that one. Still in the spirit of all things control freak the USA and the rest of the world are looking at yet more ways to slow down your leaving the country by air.

One of the new security measures, in the US at least, forbids passenger from leaving their seats for the last hour of the flight. That sounds like the most stupid thing yet but also will have a very unpleasant effect on air travel. Pass me the air freshener!

Imagine, your on long-haul and 1 and half hours before you land they wake you up and give you a nice breakfast and cup of coffee. Soon after breakfast you find you need to use the toilet, but oh no, its only 59 mins before you land. You sit there, its no good you really need to go, you summon the cabin crew but nope you have to wait until we land. For some people waiting an hour may be possible, but for many it might not. Then there is the possibility that the aircraft might be in the stack for 15.

I won't go into more detail but I think aircraft are going to become unpleasant places, especially for the last hour of any flights.

I only hope the cleaning crew use strong disinfectant from now on - yuck!

New Year - Points from the News.

We, the planet, made it through another year and yes another decade. Everyone is wandering around saying happy new year again. But it only takes a quick look at the news to see it is a case of happy new year, same as the old one.

Lets see now, there is the new years honours again, where this time a racing driver has been given an honour, presumably for his contribution to CO2 and his bank balance, and Jean-Luc Picard got his for saving the universe so many times. Its all bunkum really isn't it.

Also in the news, proving further that nothing changed in the new year, is Gordon Brown ordering a review of airport security, well that's good considering I don't think he could order a cup of coffee in Starbucks, what is far more likely is that the manufactures of the full body scanner have sent him a nice little incentive to tell airports to waste some money on them.

Other than changing the year date from 2009 to 2010, but where do we even write that these days, not much changes with the coming of a new year.
I wish I could get excited about these things, but the fact is that by Monday all the hype of a new year and decade will have faded, only the empty cava bottles will remain in the recycling bin as a reminder that something happened recently.

Chillax

Some time ago on a holiday we were sat at dinner opposite a family with two youngish children. After the meal the father said to the children, " come on now it's time to go and do some chill out". Oh please NO! How can you turn something like chilling out into an activity that you have to go and do. That defeats the whole object of it.

I was reminded of it when I received a text today, after declining an invite to a social gathering, saying "no problems go chillax". For goodness sake, have the morons who think it is clever to use management speak invaded relaxation too.

There is no way that I will go chillax, it is a preposterous word with no place in the language of normal people.

White Christmas

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, as the song goes.
Millions of Christmas cards are sent showing idyllic scenes with snow covered churches, fields and old cottages or Robins sitting on snow covered branches. Isn't it lovely all white and clean.

Then the week before Christmas the UK is hit by a few centimeters of snow, you would think the world was about to end. Everyone starts complaining, schools shut, roads become blocked with crashed cars, rail and air transport systems grind to a halt.

I am dreaming of a White Christmas, so long as it only falls on Christmas morning, after all the essential workers have got in and melts before they need to change shifts.

As more snow is predicted for the North of England and the Met office issues another warning of winter weather perhaps they would like to check the calender, oh look its December in the UK!

Increased Airport Security - AGAIN

Yet again someone decided to blow himself up on a plane, why these people can't stop at home with a can of petrol and a zippo I really don't know.

And, so again "the President" of the USA has ordered increased security at all airports.
OK right, yawn. There are so many problems with that "order" the first being that it is a total waste of time.
I have just been in and out of the county by air and other than taking my kit off there was not much that didn't get searched. As usual I walked through the arch and it went bleep so got the full rub down. Let me assure you the guy searching wasn't shy on where he put his hands either.

The bomber this time apparently moulded explosives to the shape of his body and hid it in his underpants. (sounds like a load of balls to me)

There is one solution, I dare to mentions it at the risk of the power crazed idiots who now run the world actually thinking it a great idea.
Every passenger will have to fly naked, yup, and before you think "Cor yeah, cool views", remember that you could still be sat next to the 25stone 5ft2in woman from Manchester who would normally be in her tracksuit bottoms and lager stained T-shirt. Prior to take off everyone will have a full body x-ray, then to be escorted onto the plane and strapped into their seat by a nude security guard, so that they can not possibly pass you anything.

The seat belt check will be more fun for the flight crew, I have it on good authority it is already know as "the crotch check" and in future it will be more obvious who is well hung and who has just got PETN stuck to their penis.

Silent Night- Holy Night (Never trust on-line translators!)

Over the Christmas period I shall be singing just one carol, it will be silent night, the thing is it will be sung in German and in the company of Germans and Austrians so I thought I would brush up on the German version as there are a few bits that you have to fit the German cleverly into the tune.

Because I had very little to do at the time I thought I would cut and paste the German version into an on-line translator, even I didn't expect the result to be quite so funny.

Try singing the output of the translator next time you sing Silent Night: -

Satisfies night, holy night, Everything sleeps; lonely is awake
High-holy pair only trusted. Holder boy in the curly hair,
Sleep in more heavenly rest! Sleep in more heavenly rest!

Satisfies night, holy night, Herdsmen only kundgemacht
By the angels Halleluja,
It sounds loud from a distance and near:
There Christian, the rescuer is! There Christian, the rescuer is!

Satisfies night, holy night,
God son, o as laughs Lieb' from your divine mouth,
There the saving Stund' strikes us;.
Christian, in your birth! Christian, in your birth!

"Climategate" - Global Cooling

So there we have it, scientist have been fudging the data for years to keep themselves in jobs and provide fodder for the multi billion pound businesses that have sprung up around global warming also allowing governments to have jollies with champers and big dinners at conference after conference to discussing global warming when all along it is most likely that the climate has been cooling for some time.

And what do those who still believe CO2 is warming the planet have to say now, well one was simply demanding that the people who hacked the computers with the truth hidden on be found and prosecuted for the serious crimes they have committed. Yeah OK.

Various professors and others who's jobs will likely evaporate if the truth comes out are saying anything to make it seem that the hackers have lied about what they have found, but having spent some time looking at the data it does seem to be pretty conclusive, we have been being led down the garden path for some time.

I am not one to say I told you so, but hey I did, its all a scam but even if truth prevails I doubt we will see our CO2 based car tax and others refunded anytime soon.

Waste Food

The latest "save the planet" idea of the local council is a waste food collection. If it follows a nearby council it will now purchase thousands of plastic boxes for us all to put the slops in. But hold on, what is waste food, I don't have any?

Supermarkets waste food by the tonne simply because they don't give a stuff about how much they throw away so long as they have covered the profits on what they have sold, but do people really have enough waste food for a collection. I guess some do.

I have seen a little of the TV program where families are throwing away 40-50% of the food they buy, but for goodness sake don't collect it from them, prosecute them for being idiots or make a new law against wasting food. Lets face it with over 300o new laws in the last 10 years another one won't matter will it.

The only waste food we have is meat bones, and the rag and bone man (or woman) went long ago.

Some one has worked out:-
We throw away:
860,000 tonnes of fresh vegetables and salads
870,000 tonnes of drink
500,000 tonnes of fresh fruit
680,000 tonnes of bakery
660,000 tonnes of home made and pre-prepared meals
290,000 tonnes of meat and fish
530,000 tonnes of diary and eggs
190,000 tonnes of cakes and dessertse

67,000 tonnes of confectionery and snacks
An average £480 a year for every household of 2 people and £680 for a family.

That is totally bonkers, and that is an average, so there must be a lot of people like me who don't throw food away thus some are throwing away even more. Crazy!

I look forward to my plastic box, it will come in handy for something I am sure. That is of course if they don't decide to prosecute people who don't put it out each week.

Boy with his finger in the dyke (2009)

I thought it was about time that the well known story by Mary Dodge of the little boy, Hans Brinker, who saved the town by putting his finger in the dyke was updated to the modern day so here goes:

It was a lovely autumn afternoon as Hans Brinker headed off to take fresh cakes that his mother had baked to his blind friend Jansen. Jansen loved visits from Hans, not many people visited the old man these days, with the fear of pedophiles rife old men living on their own, even blind ones, were considered too much of a risk to let children near.

On his way home Hans was walking by the dyke when he heard the sound of running water, that's funny he thought where is that coming from. He look around and found a small hole in the dyke with water spraying out. All children in Holland know how important it is to keep the water out of the town so Hans grabbed his mobile and phoned the police, who in turn contacted the council who then contacted the sub-contractor who sent an email back to the town council.

The following morning the town council opened the email and referred it to the department dealing with dykes who said that it was not a gender issue so forwarded it to the engineers.
This was major, they knew a hole in the dyke was serious so they called in a number of professors who together with super computers began to produce mathematical models of how the hole might look after 1 day, 1 month, 1 year and 10 years.

The professors presented their findings to the people of the town by a series of leaked emails to the press saying how the hole in the dyke could mean the town would be flooded in less than a year and explaining in detail how in the worst case the entire country could be flooded.

The professors were given a grant, began touring the area giving presentations, making videos such as "an inconvenient leak" and building a new dyke change institute.

Meanwhile the day after finding the hole Hans Brinke had told his father who being a builder had mixed up some cement and filled the hole. The professors knew nothing about this and continued to work with their computers predicting, forecasting and scaring people until one afternoon a professor was out for a walk when he noticed Hans standing with a friend and pointing at the dyke, "look" he heard him say, "that's where my dad filled the hole I found".

The professor pondered then headed back to his office and began another run of his model.

So who is the statue at the top, that's Hans a statue was erected to him in 1950 to please the tourists who thought the story was true and expected to see something about it.

Turn That Phone Off!

As you fill your car with petrol you will probably spot a sign similar to the one on the left, indicating that we must not use our mobiles on the forecourt of the petrol station. It is one of those notices that every petrol station seems to have but if you ask them why I bet they don't know.

A friend of mine had a new car with something really strange about the petrol cap that the previous owner had fitted and she made the mistake of calling up from the forecourt to ask how to open it. The woman assistant came flying out of the office yelling and shouting at her to put the phone away, but for what reason.

There has never in the history of petrol or mobile phones been an explosion on a petrol forecourt caused by a mobile phone, no there hasn't, and why should there be.

There is the technical ramblings on the Internet that the electro static can build up on you and discharge as you fill the tank etc, but there is a huge problem with the "a spark can blow up the petrol station" theory. Any car with a poor HT (high tension) lead, you know the one that makes that lovely light display when you open the engine cover in the dark, thousands of sparks flying all over the place, would be a far greater risk than something from a mobile.

Interestingly if there is any risk of exploding when you fill up it is more likely to be for women with nylon nickers, yes, apparently women are less likely to touch the car body when they get out of the car and the first time they earth the static built up is when they touch the petrol nozzle into the tank.

So us men are ok and if your a woman, the next time someone comes rushing out to tell you off for using your mobile simply smile and say "Its OK I've taken my panties off in the car".

Do you want a carrier bag ............

Since the Carpetright fiasco I am always a little wary of mentioning store names in a blog, but as most other places are more grown up than Carpetright, and lets face it no other shop is trying to sell us goods by scaring the heck out of people with snakes, spiders and god knows what else crawling over their products, I think I will risk it.

In a branch of Wilkinson's as I got to the till the very pleasant lady said "do you want a bag", "no thanks", then she went on "postage stamps, mobile phone top ups", "OK stop" I don't need a bag stamps or anything other than what I have put in front of you thank you. "You must get fed up if you have to say that to every customer" I asked and she told me that if she doesn't ask she would be disciplined. No way, seriously?

But this could get out of hand, what if some manger decides that none of us remember anything we go into the store for, the next time I get to the till might be:-

"do you need a bag, postage stamps, mobile phone top ups, sugar, tea, deodorant,toothpaste, matches, dishwasher tablets,shower gel, ....................................toilet rolls, christmas lights, pens, pencils, lawn food, bird food, mouse traps, light switch, fire lighters, saucepans, oven gloves, children's toys, paint, wool, sour cream ........................................................................... wet wipes, dental floss, ............................tea towel, air freshener .......................................... "etc. etc.

Won't it be great if it does happen, then when she gets to the end of the list Ill say, now there was something, what was it.

999 - Tell me the Postcode or you don't get an ambulance!

It is amazing the lengths that people will go to to reduce the number of reported road accidents in the UK, the latest seems beyond belief.

A friend of mine was walking along The Mall in London when he witnessed a cyclist get hit by a car in front of him. As people went to help he did the most obvious thing, took out his mobile phone and dialed 999.
He asked for ambulance and police and was then totally stumped when the operator said "whats the post code there". "Um, I have no idea, its The Mall London, you know the red road that goes to Buckingham Palace" , "well I need the post code", "I don't have it how would I know it" "well without it I can't do anything". This went on for several minutes until he gave up as no-one around knew the postcode so he hung up, to be rung back a few moments later asking if everything was OK because he had been cut off on and emergency call.

For F..... sake, this is unbelievable isn't it, there he was with a cyclist laying beside a taxi and the dum twit operator wanted the post code, how would any of us know the post code of a road we are walking along, why would we.

If it had been me I would have been tempted to say either ER2 2ER or "I am a terrorist with a rucksack of explosive in The Mall and I am walking towards the Palace" I bet they would have sent some police then.

Save the newt, kill the humans

I was at a nature reserve I often go to and several things occurred to me.

It is relaxing and interesting watching wildlife and birds but there are groups of people who go to the hides who I really wish I could understand.
I say groups but I am not exactly sure what the difference is between the two other than a member of one group was slagging off the other last week. The groups I am referring to are the serious bird watchers and the twitchers. (I thought they were one and the same but I am obviously wrong)

Why do they do it, how do they find it so interesting, and why can't I understand it are just some questions that spring to mind as I see someone with a note book and £3000 of spotter scope who tells me he has been there since 8am and its now around 3pm.

By all means be interested in birds but when I hear people having an orgasm because there is a lesser spotted dingle fisher flying over I just don't get it. I would love to get so carried away but I am just as happy watching the bird over there, the one with the long beak and the brown bit that just caught something.

I was in a hide the other day and someone asked me "have you seen the sandpiper", nope sorry and if it was pecking my left ear I wouldn't know it was a sandpiper, perhaps I should, but I don't and maybe that's wrong, or maybe they are, who knows.

It has now become a standing joke between and the other half, "have you seen the sandpaper [sic]" said in a fake posh accent, now describes anyone who is a little too into bird watching.

I have wandered off track of the title so let me get back onto it. The nature reserve joins onto a firing range where today the army were busy blasting the heck out of something with machine guns. It just seemed wrong to be in an area where if you trod on a newt you would be barred for life and yet 1000m away people were training hard to kill humans.

Environmental damage can be great!

I have been on a short break on the Norfolk Broads, November is definitely the time to go because most people don't go there this time of year and instead of being like the M25 on water you can cruise along, at a top speed of 5mph (exactly like the M25), but you don't see anyone else for hours at a time.

I doubt there are many people who would want to fill in the Norfolk Broads but that is exactly what should be done, isn't it , because the broads were created by environmental "damage" on a huge scale.

If you grab yourself a shovel today and start to dig out peat someone comes along and tells you you are trashing the planet and makes you stop. Lets face it if you buy Irish moss peat for the garden these days you are made to feel like the worst eco-terrorist ever.

The Norfolk Broads were created by people digging peat for heating for about 500 years beginning in the 9th century. Then around the 1400s the sea level began to rise and the broads were flooded.
Which in itself is interesting, because unless I read the wrong books the 1400s were not that well know for Range Rovers, long haul flights and gas turbine generators, the things we are told will cause the sea level to rise.

My point is this, 1200 years ago people did what some today call destruction of the environment yet the result was that nature recovered to produce a fantastic habitat for millions of creatures and a scene so wonderful that thousands of tourists head for it each year.

Next time someone moans at you for buying peat for the tomatoes just say "Norfolk broads".

BANNG

Have you ever noticed that some people get carried away with their titles.
I used to have a job where every so often Captain Plunket would phone up, he always introduced himself as "Captain Plunket here" although the (late) gentleman had left the army many years ago he still insisted on being called Captain.

And so it is with people who feel insecure with themselves, they need some kind of title to bolster their ego. There is a gentleman living nearby who used to be a professor, now he is retired and meddling in things he is still being written about as professor Blowers OBE etc.

The trouble with this kind of person is that the easily led go "oh gosh a professor he must know what he is talking about", in the same way as they used to go "oh gosh a bank manager he must be trustworthy". In the case in point the professor is meddling in the decision to build a new and much needed nuclear power station and has set up a group called BANNG, hence the title of this entry.

Many people nearby are falling for the ramblings of the professor who was once a government advisor so should hardly be trusted with anything important, and he is busy "proving " all kinds of rubbish about how this and that will happen if they build a power station. Did I mention there was one there before and somehow we all survived.

Me, I have never been swayed by titles and am sure the most knowledgeable people in the word are just Mr, Mrs or Miss . Professor is a job title and connected to a place of learning or study and I remember well the saying that as someone becomes an expert in a field they learn more and more about less and less, until they eventually know everything about nothing.

Me, I know nothing about everything, but give me something to write about and Ill find an opinion.