Catalyst

Nobody will read this one.

Today has the capacity to be a victory for common sense and decency, but sadly it is unlikely that Teflon will even be asked the right question, let alone give the right answer. It is unlikely that he will give any answers at all, seeing as he has been practising his replies all week and doesn't even know what the questions are yet.

So I'm going to blog about something else.

http://frank-davis.livejournal.com/48605.html

Good old Frank, the campaigner.

The where-should-we-be-allowed-to-smoke argument is done to death. I smoke. I've never thought that smoking in restaurants is a good thing. I've always thought that smoking in pubs is mandatory. I've also thought that separate areas are good, too, because it's a choice. I'm entitled to a choice.

But I suppose I'm not as full-on as some, who think it should be fine for them to smoke at their desk at work. I think it is, but I understand those who disagree.

What I seriously disagree with is this thing about how uncomfortable it has to be. By "law", or statue.

We have a "law" that states that a smoker shall be uncomfortable, inconvenienced, cold, wet and miserable. That's not a proper law, that's spiteful.

If people choose to smoke, and the law proscribes that in any public place indoors, then the law is not allowed to dictate that the area conceded to the smoker has to conform to a worse specification than Stalag Luft Whatever.

That's a fact, in my book. Try and find an analogy, apart from possibly a maximum security prison, where a section of the population is forced to be made cold and wet. Actually, it was a trick. You're not forced to be cold and wet in a maximum security prison - it would be in contravention of basic human rights.

In the US (and other places) there was once a thing called prohibition. It was a bit of a shot-in-the-foot, as the Mafia took over and founded the Speakeasy. I suspect we have them now, I just don't know where they are. Yet. I do know that not very many people I know buy fags from shops any more. There is a huge black market, mainly coming from Poland, via lorry drivers, and it is lucrative enough for them to risk getting caught.

Catalyst. I often ponder the question "when the guano hits the fan for the establishment, and it will, what will be the tipping point?"

They are scared of terrorism. A handful of people, possibly numbering tens, seriously pissed off about something.

I wonder, will the catalyst be a bunch of cold, wet, miserable people? Possibly numbering millions?

Sweeping Generalisation

Why do people who are actively supporting NuLab, promoting Leftist views, etc, look like cunts to me?

I have a few ideas, but I would like some input on this.

My suspicions:

1. Because they are cunts.

2. Because they are likely to be the kind of people I wouldn't like and therefore I expect them to look cuntish.

3. I am convincing myself they look cuntlike - if I didn't know their political views I might think they looked much less cunty.

Any other ideas?

Blogfodder

When I read my favourite bloggers I always find that they've fuelled their blogs with something notable in the news.

Were this not so, all of the blogs would be about the weather, I suppose.

But I've found a great source of blogfuel.

Amazing. All sorts of idiots posting complete codswallop, in 140 characters, on what NuLab have "achieved".

Ignoring the inability of many of the MPs posting on there to distinguish between "effect" and "affect", and ignoring the fact that many are claiming that Gordo's promises of what he is going to do when (rofl) he's elected as fact (rofl, again), one of the huge popular retweets is the one about cancer mortality rates. Fallen 18% since 1995-1997. Must be NuLab. Great.

Look up mortality rates on t'internut. Lots of good news. Now look it up again, but add "international" to the search. We are actually down less than the US, and many other European countries.

Statistics, eh?

I'll let someone else do the next most popular - more disadvantaged kids can go to uni. It's an easy one.

JUST FUCK OFF!

Normally, I don't get really riled. Doesn't matter what I get dealt, I get somewhere between mildly frustrated and furious. But I just read something which made my hands shake and the veins in my neck stick out.

I guess it's to do with everything getting slowly but surely more stupid, so I'm not really surprised any more.

I just gandered Old Holborn's piece about Poverty, and I had to agree that he speaks the truth. You might as well not do anything, and let the state provide. So some think.

But this really did it for me. The Mail did it better but I wanted to avoid the Mail link, because people shout "racist" every time I quote the Mail.

Kids can only go on these trips if they're disadvantaged, that being measured by whether their parents are on benefits such that the kids get school meals.

FFS.

And, unsurprisingly, the Department for Children, Schools, Families, Propaganda and Control declined to comment.

That's because the only comment they could possibly make is "yes, I'm afraid we're just a band of cunts."

Anyone up for arranging some trips for kids whose parents choose to get of their arses?

Blair Costs "Us" £6M to protect

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6874145/Tony-Blair-costs-British-taxpayers-6m-a-year-to-protect.html

Protect from whom? David Cameron? Randy Mandy? Someone who might want to punch him on the nose? Form an orderly queue, behind me.

He's destroyed our country in terms of freedom, right and truth, no doubt about that. Done more lasting damage to Britain than Hitler ever did. But that's all behind him. Surely nobody would want to do him serious harm now, apart from to see him behind bars for the crimes he committed against humanity, knowing them to be illegal under international and common law?

The biggest punishment he can have now is surely to have to live with himself.

There are much bigger and better targets, such as beardy terrormongers. They don't normally get protection. Why shouldn't they? They are targets, made so because they've misbehaved, and made themselves unpopular. So has Blair.

I don't think he's a terrorist target, any more than I am. So why guard his house with four cops? If someone wanted to hurt him they'd go for a family member. I presume Banker Blair, his son, isn't protected 24/7? Nor wossname, the one fed with a catapult when she was a kid?

So, in my humble opinion, we shouldn't be funding protection for him.

But when he's abroad, that's different. When he's doing "charity" work (and I'd surely like to see an audit trail of where this "charity" money goes), which he chooses to do. Then we should definitely not pay for protection. His choice. He pays. No arguments. When he's doing speeches, for which he is paid (and handsomely too, though God knows why anyoene would want to hear what he's got to say). He chooses to do these speeches. We should definitely not be paying.

Please argue. I like a laugh.

Oh, all right. I suppose, if the funding is cancelled and he chooses not to pay for it himself, and is unprotected, and somebody sees fit to shoot him, then we'll all be sorry. Won't we?

Change We See

Change We See. Good slogan. I believe it's some sort of electioneering thingy where people post stuff up t'internut, thus drawing attention to the fact that NuLab have done Great Things.

Unfortunately for them, it has been pretty much bandited by ill-wishers to show the NuLab failures, rather than successes.

There are many of these, for instance Twitter's #changewesee hashtag, and Facebook's group.

Here is one of mine, one that I couldn't post on these groups because it's a tad too long.

My measure of How Things Are: "The The Two Most Successful People I Know."

Over the years, I've known a few successful people. Me amongst them. I've known engineers, producers of goods, transport people, people from all areas from music teachers to publicans. They've been successful. Most of them are now not doing well, all of them blaming (quite rightly) change. Change for the worse. Change for the sake of change.

The Two Most Successful People I Know today are both women. One runs an agency which supplies foreign temporary workers to companies at ridiculously cheap rates. The other runs a virtual office so people can run their businesses on lower and lower overheads.

The rest of the people I know who are even mildly successful are in what I believe is termed the Black Economy. Odd. None of them are black.

'Nough said.

The most beautiful woman in the world

I have nothing to add.

If just one more person reads this glowing accolade as a result of my posting this, then I am happy.

I would vote for this woman if she ran for Prime Minister.

Who is the baddie here?

There's a lot of kerfuffle surrounding the full body scan security at airports.

Rights, and all that.

I'd rather keep both right and left. I have no desire to finish my life prematurely in two different places at once.

I might have done a few more things than a few other people, which might or might not qualify me to say something about airport security.

For instance, I've seen a terrorist bomb go off. It's not pleasant. It was in the 70's and, compared to today's bomb technology, it was rubbish. Still caused a lot of carnage, though. Seeing a lady's shoe with a foot still in it is something which still haunts me.

For another instance, I've been in a plane when it's depressurised. Not funny either. Scary, in fact. I've also been in a plane when its single engine failed. Exciting, but not at all funny.

I've taken my kids to an airport and dropped them off to go on holiday with their mum. They were smaller at the time, and it was on one of the days when the queue just for the airport car park was a mile long, the day they announced the "no liquids" rule. Mayhem. I seriously thought about cancelling the holiday and taking them to the zoo instead. And I sat glued to the airport news channel until their flight landed.

Terrorists seem to have no limits when it comes to their imagination in finding ways to get round yesterday's security arrangements. When you make it hard for them to take in a fat bomb in a suitcase, you make them think harder. They then start to make bomb parts for mixing on the plane. When you stop them doing that, they make bombs for pants. The logical conclusion is that they will then invent a bomb which they implant up their rectum - it doesn't seem to bother them how they take leave of their mortal coil as long as they still get the virgins.

So what is the problem with letting these security people get on with their jobs, and allowing them to use available technology to lower your chances of being a fellow-passenger with some nutjob with half a pound of Semtex stuffed up his bottom?

Terrorists have no qualms about killing all sorts of innocent people, women and children included, as long as the virgins get delivered. That makes them lower than any other form of human life, in my book (and that of anyone I ever wish to meet). Because we are now caring, touchy-feely-group-huggy, mustn't offend anyone, dear oh dear, profiling, no sir, we are unable to address the likely perpetrators of these atrocities. And we mustn't punish them, not really, just lock them up with three square meals a day and free telly and perhaps learn a new skill, such as mailbag-sewing, or chemistry, or something. Same penalty as someone who refuses to pay their tax to fund an illegal war, for instance. Or someone who buggers a small defenceless child, or someone who calls a judge something he doesn't like, in court.

Change this. Let the security people do what they've been trained to do.

Just my opinion, but it seems that some are targeting the wrong villains here. Please disagree.

DONKEYS ARE ALIENS

It has been proved conclusively that donkeys are an alien life-form, sent to earth on a reconnaissance mission by a civilisation on Alpha Centauri, an asteroid in Orion's Belt.

They breathe sulphur dioxide and emit gold hydrocyanate (Au2CnO4), which is the only known amalgam of gold, and that from which all the gold on earth originates.

This was revealed today in a report which also claims that Labour's lead in the elections had risen to 74%, with the Liberals at 34% and the Tories at 21%.

In other news, the FTSE dropped .23 of a point to 5260.54, sales of haggis were up on last year, police have arrested Derby fans after trouble at a match, and Dr van Ypersele said that he couldn't understand why "one mistake in a ... report can damage the credibility of the whole report"

I can.

Can you?

The Kid's New Clothes

Apparently, according to the Bee Bee Sea, there are still some kids in NuLab's Britain who actually can't afford a winter coat.

That is very, very sad. I mean that. I propose to do something.

I have a lovely winter coat, which I seldom wear; it came from a charity shop and cost me £20 plus a bottle of wine for the kind lady who replaced the pockets for me.

I looked up this coat on t'internut, and it is a fine coat, a city coat, with a proper designer label, and cost just shy of £600 new. And it's in pristine condition, apart from the pockets which are made out of old hankies and have daisies on them, but you never see them.

I hardly ever wear it, but it really is a super coat. Really warm, heavy, wouldn't look out of place in one of these swanky restaurants or a gentleman's club.

I don't really deserve a coat like that, but I've got one. I'm lucky.

My kids have coats. The kids are girls, so they are pinkish coats, sort of like ski jackets (there is probably a name for them but I haven't a clue what it is). They are warm and showerproof too, and they look sweet in them.

If I had the choice of buying my kids coats or paying money to the government in order for them to wage war on countries that have oil, or to give it to themselves, or to host the olympics, or to throw at the banks, rest assured (listen, kids) that my girls will be warm when they go to school, and I don't give a bollocks whether they try to send me down for looking after my own.

I hate to think that there really are people who honestly have to make the decision whether to feed the kids or heat the house or buy a winter coat. So, here is my offer,

The first genuinely hard-up person who has a kid and can't afford a coat because they have been dealt a hard hand gets a coat. It will probably come from a charity shop, but it will be a nice, warm coat. No strings attached, except possibly those ones that you put through the sleeves so the kid doesn't lose his gloves.

People who can't be arsed to get a job, spend their money on booze, fags, electronic games, computers, televisions and associated licences, prepacked or takeaway food etc need not apply. I can offer a selection of recipes though, that I use myself, which will feed a family of four for a quid and taste a darn sight better than anything you can buy in a microwave pack. Sadly they involve an activity called "cooking" and another called "washing up", but it's worth it. I also have quite a lot of books which I have read, to which people are welcome - instead of the telly, you hold them in front of you, open the pages, and read them. Quite entertaining.

Roll up, roll up.

[I think I see the point of this post, but then again I may have lost the plot]

Horsecrap

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8479639.stm

That content will change. The BBC is known for changing their content, rather than writing a new piece. Such is the online media, these days.

But I'm chuffed. We're out of recession.

Euphobics everywhere will be disappointed, but not me. No, sir.

I'm going to set up a manufacturing company now. I'll be rich!

All I need to do is to find some premises, buy some equipment, get a workforce, bring in some raw materials, arrange transport, sell to Tesco and yay! The money will roll in.

I've thought hard about this. I don't see the downside. Apart from one or two very small things, such as:

Business Rates

Legal Costs

Accountancy Costs

Loan Servicing Costs

Personnel Overheads

Taxation

National Insurance

Pensions

VAT

Import Duty

Fuel Tax

Getting Paid in 90 Days

Not a problem. Easy-peasy. I can still compete with the huge multinational corporation, not a problem.

Oh. Hold on. We MIGHT not be out of recession. The economy grew by 0.1%. That's statistically insignificant. But still, it's positive. Yes, I'll set up a company.

Oh. Hold on. It's an ESTIMATE. Using 40% of the available data.

FFS.

Broken Britain

I'm normally reasonably calm, but ...

• Two dodgy characters, in Edlington.
  
  
• Not so long ago there were the ones who tortured a cat.
  
  
• Before that, Bliar went on the rampage about the Jamie Bulger case, because it wasn't on his watch.
  
  
• Ages ago we had Soham.
  
  
• In the dim distant past there was Ms Hindley.

Shut up. Just shut up. Shit happens. One isolated occurrence, the baying hounds want blood.

I can't even be arsed to type all the zeroes after the decimal point when you work out what two of sixty mil is as a percentage. It approximates to fuck all.

Shit happens. Shit has always happened. Shit always will happen. It's sad when it does. Worse shit than any of this shit has happened to me. And I can actually blame the government. 100%.

And, in every single case, I can pin it, like a tail on a donkey, as the DIRECT result of them changing something which wasn't broken in the first place.

I'm an engineer. Things that are broken get fixed. Things that are not broken, and are not likely to break, get oiled.

Things that are beyond repair get replaced. When the replacement starts to fall apart, we go back to the original. The one that worked.

Why, why why why, the fuck, do these interfering wankers think that they have any idea how to make things better when they were fine before they started?

And why, why why why, the fuck, do they think they have the RIGHT to mess with other people's lives on a whim?

And if you think I don't have the right to ask this question, I ask it in the name of my daughter, who died, avoidably, because "someone knew better".

So, shut it, Milipede. Shut it, CMD. You have no experience, you haven't the first fucking clue what you're wittering on about, and you're fucking OFFENDING me.

Just crawl back into your box. Sort out something that needs sorting. Just put back those things you've fucked up, make them right again. Don't try any more of your fancy Politically Correct Uni American Special Relationship New Age Group Hug Holistic Horseshit ideas, just put them back as they were before you fucked them up.

And go and do something about ...

[please suggest something they're qualified to sort out. I can't think of anything]

I feel better now. Sorry.

I'm not even a photographer

There was a bit of a kerfuffle in London Town on Saturday, with people demonstrating that it was a Good Thing to take pictures but a Bad Thing to go round blowing stuff up.

Good men, such as Old Holborn. Making a point. Peacefully.

The powers-that-be seem to have a problem with terrorism lately; seems that the alert as been raised to "severe" - that's "highly likely", and the level below the highest level, "critical". The Critical level means "imminent", and I believe that the last time that one was called was just after someone blew something up. Post-horse-bolted stable-door-closing exercise.

I have a camera. It's quite a good one, for me. It isn't an SLR or anything, but it has quite a few of those pixel thingies and takes a good shot if you point it at the right thing in the right light and hold it quite still and press the knob. I'm not very good at photography, but I like having a camera in case something noteworthy happens, or my kids balance spoons on their noses, or something. But I'm not a photographer.

I have taken pictures of Plod all over the place. They normally don't mind. I have even taken pictures of New Scotland Yard - in fact, I've been in it. I've taken pictures of Portcullis House - in fact I've been in it. Same goes for The Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle - I've probably got more pictures of London than Getty Images or the last planeload of Japanese visitors.

Perhaps I just don't look like a terrorist. I hope not. I'd be a rubbish one.

We've had terrorists for ages. The earliest ones I remember were in the 70's, when they blew up a couple of pubs in Guildford. They were IRA ones then (the terrorists, not the pubs). Allegedly (you have to say that).

I believe that Mr Government talked to the IRA, under duress, and they probably sort of understood what the gripe was. Something to do with some Irish chaps being Protestant and others being Catholic. That sort of equates to some of them wanting to be part of the UK, and some of them not. At the end of the day, some of them got antsy about it and then got together with some like-minded chaps, mostly called McSomething, then got all carried away and started chucking Semtex about. Mr Government didn't think that they'd get this cross, but they did.

Then, more recently, some chaps got the hump about something in the USA and chucked a couple of airliners at a couple of buildings. Not at all funny, that. On a much larger scale but in essence no different. The chaps who did the chucking, in this case, were called Muslims. Muslims are not terrorists, but they often disagree with Christians, in the same way as Catholics disagree with Protestants and vice-versa. Men disagree with women on the same sort of scale, and socialists disagree with Tories. It will never change.

Terrorists are a strange breed of people. It scares me that I understand why they do what they do. It scares me a heck of a lot more that Mr Government doesn't.

There is a thing called Islam, which has Muslims. I am not an expert on it, not am I an expert on Christianity (which has Christians). There are, today, a few people running round Nigeria chucking stuff at each other, because some are Muslims and some Christians. It's happened since about 2000 years ago (and probably more), one way or another. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and even factions of these such as Protestant, Catholic, Sunni, Sheite (they're probably misspelt - that's how much I know).

I'll tell you what I think I know, though. And it seems blindingly obvious to me. These things, called religions, have tenets. Basic concepts. Mainly, they have the same ones. But then some have different ones, or different interpretations of them, and then you get trouble.

One tenet of Islam is the prohibition of usury. The old testament of the Bible (which is seen by Christians as the word of God) also gives usury a good dressing-down. The Romans used to love it, but look what happened to them.

The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (sic) in the USA were icons of usury. I have a suspicion, more than a strong one, that the chaps who chucked the airliners at them saw them as the devil with the horns on.

It can't be condoned. No act of severe violence against a person can (although there are one or two people I'd dearly love to slap).

Usury is the act of using money in order to make more money. Specifically, it is the charging of a very high rate of interest, or even an illegal rate, on money lent. I can see why it would be up there in the list of sins in a civilised religion. Jesus (the one Christians follow) did this thing in a synagogue where he saw red and tipped over the money-changer's tables. Muhammed (the one Muslims follow, PBUH) said in his Farewell Pilgrimage to Medina "Allah forbids you to take usury ...".

I disagree with usury. The whole poxy world is powered by usury. I have nothing against money, it's not a bad attempt at making things common so you don't have to argue how many goats there are to a chicken, and how long you have to dig someone's veg patch to work off the fixing of a tap washer. And there's nothing wrong with someone borrowing some money off you, or vice-versa, and getting a couple of pints as a thank-you, or paying you back what you borrowed plus some sensible interest.

But what there bloody well is something wrong with, seriously wrong, is getting some money and making some more with it, so you can make even more with it, and more, and more.

There is one proper way to make some money, and that is to do some honest work. Do something somebody wants, and they give you some of that money, and you spend it on something made by other men. And fine, save some, so you've got some later, when you need it.

Today, as another bank announces that it's limiting some of its people's bonuses to only ONE MILLION FUCKING POUNDS, remember that.

Think about it. And, as usual, please argue. I especially welcome comments from Islam.

Chill November

A poem.

I've got until tomorrow night to learn a poem. And it's written is bloody Scottish dialect, so I won't even understand it. And I don't do poetry.

"When chill November's surly blast ..." oh, here we go, it's a dirge. It's the Son of Ancient Mariner, written in Scottish, by a bloke who died 200 years ago and of whom nobody south of Hadrian's Wall would have heard, if someone hadn't named a day after him and filled the shops with haggis.

Eleven verses of it. And you have to look up words, like Lordling. Lordling. An immature or insignificant lord. Surprise, surprise. But hold on - it used to mean, especially in Government or Politics, a young lord.

I do some research. Rabbie was writing about the scumbags in power even then!

I read on. Gets better.

Seventh verse has this "man's inhumanity to man" bit - I always thought that was the English bloke, Shakespeare, but no.

And then verse eight - this is the tear-jerker: lordling doesn't really give a bollocks as long as his nest is feathered, the working man can't afford to treat his wife and kids properly.

Verse nine is the nub: if we were born to be free, and not to be enslaved, why are we working for these shysters?

Verse ten then offers hope. Things will get better.

Verse eleven drops you right back in it. I'll let you read it for yourself, it's at the end of this post.

But it made me think. It made me think "stuff it, my kids aren't going to be the next in a long line of poor sods who are, if they're lucky, going to work their butts off for this sponging, thieving, pile of crooks. They're not going to get brainwashed at school then shoved into the next bit of the social engineering production line so some fat bankers and big company fat cats can fill their boots."

I've had enough.

Here's the poem. It really is rather good. Please let me know what you think after reading it (probably several times).

---

1.

When chill November's surly blast

Made fields and forest bare,

One ev'ning, as I wand'red forth

Along the banks of Ayr,

I spied a man, whose aged step

Seem'd weary, worn with care,

His face was furrow'd o'er with years,

And hoary was his hair.

2.

'Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou?'

Began the rev'rend Sage,

'Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain,

Or youthful pleasure's rage?

Or haply, prest with cares and woes,

Too soon thou hast began

To wander forth, with me to mourn

The miseries of Man.

3.

The sun that overhangs yon moors,

Out-spreading far and wide,

Where hundreds labour to support

A haughty lordling's pride:

I've seen yon weary winter-sun

Twice forty times return;

And ev'ry time has added proofs,

That man was made to mourn.

4.

'O Man! while in thy early years,

How prodigal of time!

Mis-spending all thy precious hours,

Thy glorious, youthful prime!

Alternate follies take the sway,

Licentious passions burn:

Which tenfold force gives Nature's law,

That Man was made to mourn.

5.

Look not alone on youthful prime,

Or manhood's active might;

Man then is useful to his kind,

Supported is his right:

But see him on the edge of life,

With cares and sorrows worn;

Then Age and Want - O ill match'd pair! --

Shew Man was made to mourn.

6.

'A few seem favourites of Fate,

In Pleasure's lap carest;

Yet think not all the rich and great

Are likewise truly blest:

But oh! what crowds in ev'ry land,

All wretched and forlorn,

Thro' weary life this lesson learn,

That Man was made to mourn.

7.

'Many and sharp the num'rous ills

Inwoven with our frame!

More pointed still we make ourselves

Regret, remorse, and shame!

And Man, whose heav'n-erected face

The smiles of love adorn,--

Man's inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!

8.

'See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight,

So abject, mean, and vile,

Who begs a brother of the earth

To give him leave to toil;

And see his lordly fellow-worm

The poor petition spurn,

Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife

And helpless offspring mourn.

9.

'If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave--

By Nature's law design'd--

Why was an independent wish

E'er planted in my mind?

If not, why am I subject to

His cruelty, or scorn?

Or why has Man the will and pow'r

To make his fellow mourn?

10.

'Yet let not this too much, my son,

Disturb thy youthful breast:

This partial view of human-kind

Is surely not the last!

The poor, oppressed, honest man,

Had never, sure, been born,

Had there not been some recompense

To comfort those that mourn!

11.

'O Death! the poor man's dearest friend,

The kindest and the best!

Welcome the hour my aged limbs

Are laid with thee at rest!

The great, the wealthy fear thy blow,

From pomp and pleasure torn,

But, oh! a blest relief to those

That weary-laden mourn!'

"He will say today ..." - some advice for the "other" parties

Am I the only fed up with the Government Propaganda Mouthpiece (BBC) saying "[insert name here] will say today ... "?

In village pubs, there is a need to be the one who knows. It's not a real need, but it's always been there. You know, when someone says, in a hushed whisper, just loud enough for both bars to hear above the juke box "have you heard about ..." or "you know [insert name here] ..." or "guess what?"

I guess this is to do with press releases. It must be. Then the Mouthpiece comes out with it like they've discovered it under a stone left by Moses, and says what he's going to be saying, about whom.

So there's not much point, then, listening to him say it. Is there?

That's not my point though.

Example: [insert one of the three strongest parties' leader's name here] will say today that [insert another party here] have failed in delivering [insert a service such as health, education, snow] because of [insert factor here such as incompetence, forthcoming election]

You can make up your own. If you do ten or so one of them will be right for next week and you can then claim to be a top investigative journalist.

It's still not my point though.

My point is that I don't give a stuff what one of the three strongest parties' leader's got to say about one of the other parties' failure, or success for that matter. I might be the slightest bit interested to see what he has to say about what his own party intends to do, but only if that's qualified by when, or by why it might or might not happen. But I'm probably not, because it's probably all bollocks to get him elected to the top job, and as soon as he gets in and drinks the champagne it's all back to the same old shit.

The BBC doesn't say anything about any of the other parties, except when someone's shagging someone else, or when one of them calls someone something blatantly racist, or accuses someone (or indeed indulges in the act of) performing buggery on a farmyard animal in the middle of Westminster Bridge in the rush hour, or some such newsworthy event.

So I have some advice. This advice is directed at some of the parties whose current chance of even being heard, let alone catching a vote, is roughly equal to that of me winning the rollover jackpot on Saturday's lottery draw.

Do something daft. It worked for Nick Griffin. I have something in common with Nick (it isn't an eye deficiency, a liking for brown shirts or anything to do with racism, so you can guess if you like). I have another thing in common with him too - if you put me on the telly, or radio, in front of a hostile mob, I will come over like a complete twat. It's a big shame. I don't agree with very much of what he says, but then I do agree with a bit. The Euro bit, certainly.

But Nick at least got the publicity.

The big boys have a machine that gets them this publicity. Why else would Major and Currie have got together? Why else would they put Blunkett in charge of anything? All publicity is good publicity.

Attention, you minority parties, Libertarians, NOTA - there are loads of you. Do something. There's no point twittering away on t'internet, like I do. People won't read you, apart from those looking for you. The voters are watching Strictly. Britain's got Talent. You need to get in the public eye. Shag a goat. Get drunk and urinate on a Beefeater. Lunge wildly at the Pope [thanks to Bill Bailey for that one]. But do something, get noticed. Get your tits out. Anything.

Perhaps the reader of this blog (there is only one) would like to suggest some things?

I know it would work. I behave like an arse most days, and even if it doesn't get me popular, at least people know who I am.

Go on. You know you want to. There isn't much time.

Right. I'm off to check the lottery results. I'll let you know.

Paper

[I wrote this a while back, which is why the VAT rate seems to be 17.5%. It was]

Paperwork. There’s a place for it. It is not, however, in a builder’s merchants.

My youngster, being a youngster, jumps on the bed. They all do; if you think they don’t, then yours do it when you’re not looking. Anyway, owing to the slats being made of inferior Eastern European pine, and having knots in them thicker than the slat itself, they break.

Replacement is simple, you go to the builder’s merchants, and ask for a couple of nine hundred mil lengths of seventy by twenty softwood, my good chap. For those who are as old as I, that's a yard of ¾" by 2¾".

The merchant then taps away at a computer for about five minutes, asks if that’s all you need today, you reply in the affirmative.

Out come three sheets of paper which he pulls from the printer. He asks you for £2.12 which you hand over, then out comes a receipt which he staples to the other three pieces of paper, handing them to you with the instruction to go to the yard and give this paperwork to the sawman.

You do this, then the sawman takes the paperwork, goes into the office where he stows one sheet, taking the rest to the sawbench. He gives you your replacement slats, followed by the pieces of paper that you gave to him only a minute ago.

You leave the builder’s merchants and, whilst drinking the pint in the pub next door, you get to thinking what the point of all this really is.

It is because it is necessary. Without the paperwork nobody would know that the two replacement slats had been sold. The six people working in the back office would have nothing to do, and be assured that for every piece of paper that you get there will be another one produced in the back office, which can then be stamped, passed to someone else, filed, copied, filed again and eventually sent to the accountants. From there, the paper will go to the auditors, and then all will know that the treasury pocketed 31.8 pence for the coffers, in VAT alone.

All that tapping, printing, filing and there is 31.8p. Eventually, if enough kids break enough beds, that 31.8p will multiply. If you multiply it by 100, it will be £31.80. That’s 100 kids breaking two slats each, or 200 kids breaking one slat each.

If you multiply it by 1,000, that’s 200,000 slats broken, then you make £31,800. And 1,000 again, that’s 200 million slats and you have £31,800,000. Thirty one million pounds. Wow! And by 1,000 again, 200 billion slats and you have just enough to throw at a failing bank

And my point is?

This: all of that effort, everyone doing everything right, by the book, following the rules, blindly following the prescribed procedure. Years and years of it, like ants in a nest or bees in a hive, blindly doing what they do because that’s what they do. And at the end of it all, it goes down a big hole. Swallowed up, the nest bulldozed and the hive ransacked.

And I am guessing that the amount thrown at the bank, the bank who didn’t do the paperwork properly and didn’t follow the rules, was not calculated as £31,801,962,421.24 but was just plain old-fashioned thirty billion pounds.

In builder’s merchant terms, that’s 2 million years of tapping, printing and filing.

Please write and explain why this is OK. Please?

“It’s what makes the world go round” is the wrong answer. Ask an ant, or a bee.

Why we are going to hell in a handcart

Because someone thinks they can do better

We are going to have a general election. There are three parties who could possibly win it.

The Conservatives will win.

New Labour will come second.

The Lib Dems will come third.

That's not a guess. It's fact

People who will vote Conservative are the people who always vote Conservative, plus those who have realised after only twelve years that New Labour, who they voted for the last three times, have fucked up beyond all recognition.

People who will vote New Labour are the people who always voted for Labour or New Labour, but have not realised after twelve years that this lot have fucked up beyond all recognition. It amazes me that there must be millions of those, but there you go.

People who will vote Lib Dems are the people who are disillusioned with the Conservatives AND New Labour, or have always voted for the Lib Dems, despite the fact that they are not going to get in.

What the Conservatives and Lib Dems have in common is the fact that despite their ramblings they have no experience of being in power. They also have limited access to the figures that those in power have, therefore whatever they claim can be knocked down in microseconds by those who are already in (and therefore do have access).

What we know, thus far, is that the ones in power currently have made a stupendous balls-up of just about everything they've touched. Since the spin machine came into existence just before May 1997, they have bungled their way through a lawmaking state-controlled hubris-driven yee-haa ransacking of this once-great country's money, morality, sovereignty - anything good we ever had. Including democracy.

I have no doubt at all that The Great Tony had this in his plan. I have no doubt that the whole party did.

He achieved what he set out to do then did a runner just before the wheels fell off. All credit to him. He was never stupid.

I have no doubt at all that he thought that what he was doing was the Right Thing, at least to start with. I knew it wasn't, but then again I'm amongst millions who knew that, so it wasn't clever even with the benefit of hindsight.

I strongly suspect that people who voted for New Labour originally did so because they were fed up with the Tories, who had been in for too long, and become complacent after John Major's unexpected, though slim, election victory in 1992. Poor old Major suffered the same fate as Clown, in that his predecessor (Maggie, in Major's case) did a runner at the first sign of wheels-off, leaving the incumbent to take the rap for a bit of a recession.

New Labour then proceeded to take the credit (excuse the pun) for the post-recession boom (even though Major had brought unemployment down from around 3M to around 2M), instigated partly at least by Clown's flogging-off of the gold reserves at bottom-dollar, along with a couple of bridges and anything else that wasn't nailed down. Hence the Dead Donkey joke (of course you've heard it).

Simples. Four years on, re-election.

Four more. Re-election.

A couple more. Too late, ten years in this position is untenable. The lunacy bites. The megalomania is incurable. But then the shit starts to get a bit too close to the fan for comfort, and apart from the odd bit of genocide the reputation is repairable. Do a runner.

Poor Clown. Posture, puff out that chest. Get the job. Beat all comers - you know, the ones who probably saw it coming and thought "Hm. Shall I go for the job, so I can go down in the annals of history as the one driving the chariot at wheels-off time?"

And now, and not before time, it's the Tories' turn.

Dave, I believe, honestly thinks he can do better. I honestly think he couldn't do worse, but that's not good enough. He has ZERO experience of being in charge. Nor does Nick. Nor the other Nick. You can, I understand, go to Uni and get a degree in Politics. I know that, because Miliband (D) has at least two of them. I don't know if Churchill, Thatcher, Major or any of those actually taught Politics. If not, then I suspect that the people who do teach it are people who have learnt is from someone else who taught it, and none of these have ever had any experience of it.

"STFU, Marvo," I hear you cry. "What is your point?"

"I shall tell you!" I say.

This is my point: this sort of government doesn't work. It doesn't work here, it doesn't work anywhere else. Look at the international press (small 'i') and see. Apart from the obvious www (world wide wecession) AKA the Banking Ballsup, which was fixable but wasn't fixed, everyone's in the same boat. Especially all of Europe (regardless of the spin that some of them put on it).

Look at the antipodes - they have emulated "our" PC, control-based philosophy, and are now leaving in their droves too.

Then look at the smaller, "less-developed" countries. The smaller ones. Where they do a lot of smiling, there isn't much in the way of crime, they don't do dissidence. They have an elected government, they find ways to make money. Antigua, say. There are many others. If you doubt, go there, go to their capitals, not to the hotels and beaches. Have a look.

We can devolve. We don't need to be bigger. The EU is a step too far.

There would be one way we could achieve that status and set the way forward. Sadly, it is not an option, for the powers-that-be have cornered any attempt at it. That way would be NOT TO VOTE AT ALL.

Damn

Told you they were clever.

My Manifesto: EDUKASHUN

The first in a series of manifesto items for the rootcause party (which doesn’t actually exist, but should).

EDUCATION

The three R’s would come back, immediately. Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic.

Anyone, that means anyone, declaring that it is not important to be literate and numerate will be discarded. If this person happens to be in a position of authority he should be immediately sacked and given ten years of roundabout-planting duty outside primary schools.

Any other form of education starts once the three R’s have been mastered. There is no point educating people in what comparative religions are, or what they are for, nor training them to be anything beginning with ps or ph, nor indeed anything else, until they have a grasp of the principles from which all of these other things will start to come.

Streaming, the mechanism whereby people of differing abilities are separated, will be brought back. There is a fundamental reason for this: all people are not born equal. The expression is “all people are born equal in the sight of God” and God doesn’t care whether they can read, write, add up or even walk in a straight line, if at all. But education, correct me please if I’m wrong, is the tool which prepares one for what lies ahead, which is life. Life is not free unless you are a bird, fish or animal of any kind, wild or domesticated. Humans don’t naturally co-exist as a philanthropic society, they vie. They argue. They aspire. All are not equal because, if they were, they would all be CEO’s of banks and all earn ten million pounds per year. People who can’t do the three R’s will not get very far up the ladder which one must climb to get to the CEO’s luxurious office on the top floor.

However, nature proves not to be capricious, it seems. In my humble job up the middle of the pecking order I meet people from the top and the bottom alike (mainly in the smoking shelter, thanks to Bliar). The ones at the top are often struggling, often scared, often pole turtles (see pole turtle picture below if you are not familiar with the term), and some are quite unhappy. The same applies to the people at the bottom. So in effect they are the same, apart from the fact that some of the people at the bottom could do the jobs of those at the top, but not vice-versa.

A typical Pole Turtle

Education should not try to protect the weak. If it does, it is merely raising the level of pride thus increasing the depth of an inevitable fall.

I remember being very upset when (much) younger; I had made a circuit board for a radio control for a model boat. The chap who kindly supervised me, a next-door neighbour called Max, said to me upon first inspection of my finished article “I see art is not your strong point.” He then did it again, as it was pretty much beyond repair. Art is not my strong point, although I subsequently qualified as an electronic engineer.

My point is this: had Max said “Wow! Fantastic, lovely job.” I would probably have taken him at his word, sunk the boat, and become a really bad artist (which I am). So: teachers, governments, people, anyone with ears; reality. It hurts, but nowhere near as much as falling from the dizzy height to which you’re elevating your victims.

Not everyone should, or wants to, go on to further education. It is counter-productive in the wrong circumstances. It does not teach you how to live on your own, and do your washing, and manage on a budget. Living on your own, doing your washing and managing on a budget teaches that, and does not need to be interspersed with teaching and exams.

Educate to ability. Educate to aspirations, as long as those aspirations are achieveable. If you or little Johnny want to be doctors, then be doctors, if you can cope with a lot of hard work, sleepless nights, pressure, watching people die while you look on helplessly. If you or little Johnny are what we used to call ESN (I don’t know the PC term for it so ESN it is), then you won’t be doctors, but then nor will you aspire to be.

I know tree surgeons who make more money than real surgeons, have a lot more fun, have very little stress and can still function after a night on the tiles. They are still saddened when a patient dies though.

Lastly, I moot this: no formal education has ever prepared me to recognise an opportunity when I see one. It should be a subject on its own. Perhaps they do that now, and if so I would love to know.

Please feel free to call me a rightist/leftist/racist/nazi/pinko or whatever, it doesn’t bother me much and I just love a good argument.

Megalomania

I'm not a shrink. I stole these definitions from t'internut. I dare say that reproducing them in whole or in part is an offence (most things are, these days) so please feel free to come and arrest me. I'm not hard to find.

1. A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.

2. A type of delusion in which the afflicted person considers himself or herself possessed of greatness.

3. Morbid verbalized overevaluation of oneself or of some aspect of oneself.

It is a mental disorder. Here are the symptoms : http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/m/megalomania/symptoms.htm

Check out the symptoms against certain people in the public eye. I suggest that many pop stars, such as Bono, Geldof et al suffer from it. I don't really give a toss. I can ignore them, as I can ignore most people I disagree with strongly or otherwise don't like. I suggest that star footballers can suffer too. I think I could be a megalomaniac, given a bit of encouragement, and the correct amount of money. I could be quite good at it.

George III was bonkers, that's why they called him Mad King George. Many of our rulers have been, if not at first, then towards the end. It may be that the pressures of the job drive them over the edge - I can understand that. George, bless him, was treated by forcibly restraining him or applying caustic poultices. A bit drastic.

Section 141 of the Mental Health Act of 1983 states that an MP will be removed from office if detained under the Act for a period of six months. Good idea.

Under the revised Act of 2007, parliamentarians tried, unsuccessfully, to get rid of this bit. I wonder why?

Under the yet-again-to-be-revised act of 2009, it is recommended by the Royal College of Pshrinks that subsections 2 - 7 of section 141 are to be deleted. I am pretty sure they haven't been yet.

Here is the real bollocks: the RCP recommend the removal because it is discriminatory. There is a disparity between a physical disability, such as blindness, having one arm or one leg (or, as in Hitler's case, one testicle), and having a mental incapacity, such as being a roaring nutter.

There are some quite capable people with quite serious physical disabilities. The disabilities are not usually their fault. Someone with one arm could probably type at least as well as I. Professor Stephen Hawking, quite severely disabled, does a pretty fine job.

However, I suggest that someone with a mental disorder should not be running the country, nor should be involved in any way with the running of it. There are plenty of jobs going for mentally deranged people, such as writing science fiction novels, or journalism, just to pick a couple of examples.

I suggest that most of the oligarchy are suffering from this condition. I suggest that some men in white coats are required.

Would it not be sensible for a Pshrink to regularly review the chaps in charge with a view to finding signs of hubris, megalomania or one of the other very many illnesses that really should preclude them from having any say in how the country is run?

Comments more than welcome, even just a simple "for" or "against".

Or "oink", "wibble" or similar. Just so we know who you are.

Krafty

I note that there are loads of blogsters today pointing out that Gordo warned Kraft not to put British Jobs at risk after the takeover of Cadbury, following which Kraft announced that British Job cuts are inevitable.

'Nuff said. Gordo has no power over ME, let alone over an American Corporation. I don't know what drugs he's on, but I want some.

Anyway, most of my work is done for a huge food company. It wasn't, originally. It was done for a much smaller one. It kept the price of certain products down for many years, but in the end the red tape, regulations (mainly H&S horsecrap) forced that company into being sold to a larger one.

I give the chaps who ran the small company their due - they made sure that we didn't sell out to the sharks (even though they could have made a packet had they done so). The company that took over in the end were pretty good, and kept on all of the staff, and pretty much kept the place as it was - efficient, producing good quality product. Some horseshit was introduced, but not enough to wreck the place.

Since then, that company has sold out lock, stock and barrel to a huge one. It's now ratshit. I'm surprised we make anything at all. What we tend to do now is H&S and kowtow to the little pathetic empires that these people build and maintain to keep hanging on to their stupid job titles. We are now run by a computer, calling itself SAP (it's a system that makes your business run like any other business whether you like it or not). Many folk won't deal with us any more because they would go bust before they got paid.

Despite this, I continue to be a real pain in the arse. I try to keep us efficient, against all the odds, and I'm proud of that. The PLE's (pathetic little empires) fight against this, but if their combined brainweight were dynamite, it wouldn't be enough to blow one of their hats off. It won't last though. Eventually, I'll be beaten just because of the hugeness of the opposition. But I fight to the death.

Kraft will be the same. When anything gets that big, it goes the same way. The American Way. Trust me, it's not a good way. The only way to keep efficiency is to keep small. But keeping small makes the PLE's less powerful. Power is everything. Cadbury are fucked, which is a shame, because I rather like the Bournville bar (named after the village where Cadbury began, and where they still have the wonderful Cadbury World - I recommend a visit while it's still there).

The government have the same problem. They need to devolve. They need to give more of the work that needs to be done to councils, who need to be apolitical, and need to run like small business, treating their people as customers, and giving them a choice. If you don't like one shop, you'll use another one. If you don't like your council, you can move, or you can vote for another bunch of councillors who will be just the same as the last lot.

The ONLY WAY to put this right is to have a choice. Not a same-difference "choice" every four years, but a proper choice. Where you can choose one over the other, when you like, and where someone else can set up in competition, when they like, and can go bust if they're rubbish. And they will. Imagine if there were to be a choice of which refuse collection you used. You'd pay for what you got. If it was not up to scratch, or too expensive, you'd change.

What exactly is wrong with that? Nothing, I say. But I suspect that there will be a million people who will say "if it was workable we'd be doing it already."

Bollocks. The oligarchy don't want it. There will be less power for them. "Choice" is not a word they use. "Control" is.

Please argue. Go on.

I'm going to go and make some fine food products.

My turn

Having read the very many blogs by such as The Penguin, Guthrum, Corrugated Soundbite, Ranty (in no particular order and with many missing), and commented on same, it occurred to me that it could (probably) do no harm to knock up some sort of blogrant myself. It would certainly upset the "journalist" who thinks that he has the monopoly on blogs, because he's properly trained and won't upset anyone, so that's a bonus.

I would relish comments. I would particularly relish comments by anyone who thinks that the way forward for "society" is more control or legislation.

Here are my thoughts for today.

A certain B. Bragg has said that he is fed up with the Bank Bonuses and therefore, if nothing is done by Jan 31 2010, will withhold his taxes.

Well done, Billy. I don't agree with most of what you say, especially the limit of £25K, but what I do agree with is the degree of pressure you're willing to apply. I suspect when it comes to the crunch you won't be prepared to go to jail (which is the prescribed penalty for refusing to pay), but at least you're making a stand.

I heard some blithering idiot on the radio yesterday who called in to say that he disagreed with the Bank Bonuses too, but that what Billy was offering was against the law. And that would never do.

There's the rub. We live in a free country [falls about laughing] and we have the tools to put forward our views, those views to which we are entitled.

Here are the ways in which we can legitimately do this. I think this is all of them, and I would be extremely grateful if someone could point out any others which might be more effective, yet legitimate and legal.

We are controlled by them, the government machine. They were elected (some of them, anyway) to do what we require of them. Their mandate is NOT to do what they feel to be right without any reference to us, the people.

1. We can demonstrate, as long as we tell them we are going to, and where, and when, so they can muster enough of their enforcement officials to make sure we don't inconvenience them.

2. We can petition them, either by delivering a list of signatures on paper, or now by filing a petition online.

3. We can ask for information from them under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).

They expect these things to happen. In most cases, the Great Unwashed do not even notice, for they are concerned greatly about the winner of "Strictly" whatever it is this week, "Britain's got Talent", and the six numbers which will secure their rosy future on the Lotto.

The standard responses to these tools are predictable.

1. Stay indoors until it goes away. Usually a demo will be on Saturday so they will be at the tennis club anyway.

2. Write a reply, saying nothing of importance, and post it on the petition website. If it's a really silly petition, make a YouTube video in reply.

3. Fob the enquirer off with some inane statistics, usually stating that the maximum amount of money they're allowed to spend on a reply is just under the amount it would cost to produce such a reply.

Therefore, they love us to use these tools. They are completely ineffective.

Statutes (these are the instruments that they use to control us) are put in place to ensure that any other action is "against the law", such that if we try to protest in a way which will hurt them in any way, the Great Unwashed will cry "anarchy".

The only things which bother them, so far as I can see, are money and power. They are effectively an oligarchy (a system run by the "chosen few"). They need the money to keep that power. And once someone has power, he would rather give up his right hand than relinquish the power. It's a drug.

We can affect the power by the judicious use of our votes. So the prefect becomes the head boy, and vice versa, until the next time.

We can cut off the power by cutting off the money. That is the real answer. But the oligarchs, the people who are at the top of the power tree, are not stupid - not all of them, anyway. They would be so if they didn't make the greatest effort to ensure that the flow of money, and therefore power, can't be stopped.

There are broadly four types of people in the Great Unwashed.

1. PAYE taxpayers with real jobs, ones who service customers, who provide something that somebody wants.

2. PAYE taxpayers who work for the oligarchy.

3. Beneficiaries. These are net recipients of some of the money.

4. The oligarchy themselves.

5. Self-employed types.

Type 1 people are shafted before they start. That's why PAYE is there. They plod along, some of them might have an opinion but there is nothing they can do to change things.

Type 2 people have a vested interest in the system being the way it is. And God knows, there are one heck of a lot of them. And the reason for this is that the more of them there are, the stronger the oligarchy becomes.

Type 3 and 4 people need the system as it is.

Type 5 people are the danger. These are the only ones who could, were they so inclined, to do any significant damage to the structure. And I suspect that most of the bloggers I read are of type 5.

There are so few of these type 5's, comparatively, that I now despair of anything ever being done about the way things are.

I hope someone can put me right.