Ban The Man

I see, courtesy of Tory Totty Online, that Ms Harperson has now boldly gone behind the bid to ban the term "chairman" for being sexist.

I'm old enough, and dragged up enough, to expect to hold the door open for a lady. Me being a chap, and all that, it's what I expect. And I expect to give up my seat to a lady as well if there's a spare seat and the lady in question hasn't got the look of a bulldog chewing a wasp.

I have done these things, though, and been treated to the most disgusted of looks. Looks that say "You're no better than me" and ask "What, do I look pregnant to you?"

I am also not sexist. I work in a fairly male-dominated environment because, for some reason, the kind of people who work the kind of huge plant in which I work tend to be big hairy blokes. But there are ladies too. Some are big hairy ladies, some are quite stylish ladies. The ladies tend to do what I would see as lady jobs, these being Elfin Safety and Administrative things. But then one of the ladies deals with the manly jobs such as transport, and one deals with the anger of truckers who grace our portals for about 18 hours of the day and, although she is one of the more stylish ladies, I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of an argument with her.

We don't have many indigenous idiots here. We have plenty who hail from what they call the "central function", this being the empire from which all things come. And, actually, all but one of the idiots in my circle of acquaintance are men. Only one is a lady. A stylish lady at that, though an idiot nevertheless.

We also have reps, with whom we have to deal. Some are rubbish and we try to feign absence when they come. Some are good. Some are even better because they bring gifts of coffee mugs and calculators and Swiss army knives and even small tool kits, which we like. These latter ones comprise of two ladies. Most of the good are ladies. One of the good is a chap. All the rubbish ones are chaps.

We have to go to some meetings, even though these are a waste of time, as are all meetings which aren't held in a pub. The meetings have chairpeople - sometimes men, sometimes ladies. I try to avoid the meetings where the chairman is a man. The ladies seem to do it better. I don't know why, but I know that it is true.

Now, Ms Harperson, may I be the first one to point out that what you are backing here is an utter, uncompromised pile of cack? Thank you.

I'd also like to point out, as an aside, that ladies are a different sex from men. I know it is hard to believe. But yes, they really are. And they tend to be better at some things than men. And vice-versa.

Live with it, bitch.

One, two, three, die.

Smoking kills. Smoking kills someone else. People will die horribly if they go anywhere near anywhere a smoker has ever been. The Beeb ran it as well, so it must be true. And also Berkeley Labs, which is actually the US Government Department of Energy, Climate Change, Scaremongering and Finding Excuses To Raise More Tax.

Tomorrow's news may be that people will die of asphyxiation because they watch someone else smoke on the telly.

But surely there is no smoke without fire? Surely no real scientist would be researching something and publishing results unless there was a real danger?

Correct. There was a real danger that a certain Hugo Destaillats, a chap with a PhD from Buenos Bloody Aires in 1988 and who has pursued a career in research in Californian Universities ever since, had run out of grantworthy research to do.

Stay with me here. This is research, and research is dull. I just want to make sure I'm not making this up, so I've linked all the references I can.

But then he discovered the mother lode. The Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, or TRDRP

This is an organisation, in California (luckily for our Hugo), which is funded by the Cigarette and Tobacco Products Surplus Fund, or tax (see page 4, "Program Administration") of 25 cents per packet specifically creamed off for this purpose.

On page 36 of that document the name Hugo Destaillats can be found, again, in the natty piece of research entitled "Reactivity of Surface Nicotine Towards Indoor Ozone". As the proud holder of an O level in chemistry and a degree in bullshit, I would like to offer my translation of that research project as follow:

"When you get someone to smoke in a house the smoke sticks on the walls, and eventually it unsticks so it could end up inside another person."

No shit, Sherlock. How much did that cost? And who paid for it? Oh yes, the people whose pleasures you're trying to take away from them.

Not happy with that one, though, he tries again. I assume that this will be in the 2009/10 report. And I dare say there'll be yet another, in 2011, 2012, ...

I wonder what this geek looks like?

This. Surprised? I wouldn't have had Groucho down for something as daft as this. All the Marx brothers films I've seen have been plausible.

Did I mention that this bloke works for the government? Yes, I thought so.

Hat tips: The excellent Leg-Iron and Mr Bite

Nine Bananas

I hate blogs full of references. Hate them. Makes them so difficult to read.

So here is one.

The Constitutional Reform Bill (not to be confused with the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill) is up for business in Parliament.

Captain Ranty does this better than I could. Worth a read. But I think I might have drawn his attention to it, and then again Mr Clock might have (see Blogroll, over there on the left). Either way, I maintain that I dredged it up on my daily read of "Bills going through Parliament". So there.

It's Good Stuff. UKIP's Lordlings Pearson (that's not Molesworth I's grate frend - it's the leader of UKIP) and Willougby de Broke (I know, I know) are quoted; Pearson spoke rather well, as did Lord de Broke (whose Bill it is).

As Lord Pearson puts it, very simply, it advocates getting out of the EU and having referendums on important issues. Binding referendums.

And I think it needs to be so. It needs to happen before the EUists implement the Atlantic Region and the North Sea Region, thus making East Anglia part of Denmark and the Isle of Man part of Cornwall. It needs to happen before the General Election.

It needs to happen soon.

However, it contains stuff that no politician, especially an MP, is going to go for.

Stuff like £30K salary (albeit with huge expenses) [8.1]. But then allow them to earn money elsewhere [8.4]. That won't make for much time being spent running the country. And it won't get this Bill many votes either.

Stuff like local authorities being able to legislate on just about anything [10.1]. Then them being able to tax you as well [12.2g], although this will make the housing market start to move. The Control Freaks won't like this bit. However the two MPs left who aren't Control Freaks, these being our Lordlings, will.

All in all, though, there are lots of bits in this bill that are wonderful, to me. Libertarian stuff. Sensible stuff.

That's why it won't get off the starting blocks, even though it's been "discussed". We'll see. If it does, I'll be both amazed and delighted, since it is nothing but bad news for Nu Lab.

Perhaps the Clown will then find another habit. As the great Guthrum ejaculated earlier, we've descended to the level of a banana republic.

I'm not sure that's what he meant.

Something for the weekend

I haven't any idea what this means.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmbills/048/10048.i-i.html

I expect I could work it out. But not until Monday, because I shall be away from reality until then.

So, if some kind, learned soul would care to wade through the very few paragraphs of cock therein, and would like to leave a little comment along the lines of "Good Thing" or "Bad Thing", then please do so.

Then I will be able to know what it is about. Or not.

Why do they make these things so complicated? Legal Beagles tell me that it is so that everything is unabiguous. I think that their sesquipedaliansim is to prevent the poor chap on the Clapham Omnibus getting further than the first sentence.

ITWSBT.

Today I saw a footprint on the beach

"Sunshine and Bunnies"

I am delighted to be able to report today that a major hurdle has been overcome in the fight for commonsense, justice and freedom.

David Cameron said today that if he is elected he will stand by each and every one of his manifesto promises, all of which have a GANTT chart published explaining who is to do what, when, and how much it will cost.

He promises a referendum on Europe, as well as promising to cut a swathe through the army of unnecessary public servants who are soaking up the taxpayers' hard-earned cash whilst merely increasing red tape and reducing the unemployment figure to make the government look good.

He said in a statement that in the event of any these promises coming to nothing he will cut off one of his limbs and stick it on a spike outside Downing Street.

Actually, this is all bollocks. He didn't say anything of the sort. Nor will he. Nor will Brown. Nor will Clegg, nor any of the others including the Nazi Party.

So this isn't going to work, is it?

No.

I shall instead continue to try to draw attention to the ridiculous things that New Labour have done in the last twelve years, and the fact that it isn't going to get any better unless a few million people crawl out from under the TV and start to do something about it.

If I offend someone in the process, so be it.

If that person is someone whose opinion I have come to respect, I ask only that that person tries to understand mine.

Some people are homophobic ...

GET OVER IT.

I am utterly fed up with everything being shoved in my face. There's another huge red sign up on the hoarding round the corner, from Stonewall, saying in big letters that some people are gay. And then saying in letters just as big that I should get over it. I wasn't under it to start with.

Some people are gay. I know they are glad to be gay, because Tom Robinson sang so. I don't really give a toss, even if George Michael does, whether they're gay or not; I'm just glad my parents weren't because, had they been, I wouldn't be here.

Some people are football supporters. I'm not.

Some people like "Britain's got Talent" and "Strictly". I've never seen either and nor do I wish to.

I don't think that I largely like football supporters. I except, maybe, my mate Dominic who was born a generation after me and supports some football team or other. I don't know which one, so I don't think he's an activist or a fanatic.

I don't think that I largely like people who are fans of "Britain's" or "Strictly", either. That's mainly because, in my humble opinion, the kind of people who are fans of this mindless rubbish are mindless and, well, rubbish. However, I happen to know that my kids watch such rubbish, because their mum does, but they know that they are not going to hold a conversation with me about mindlessness of any kind, let alone the televisual kind. So I don't regard them as fans, as such.

I don't believe that any of my kids are gay. Or lesbian, which I thought was gay but female-gay, but clearly isn't otherwise there would be no such thing as LGBT, which I previously thought was a sandwich until I looked it up on Wikipedia. I don't think my kids are bi-anything. Or trans-anything either. I suspect that they would tell me if they were, or that I would notice.

I don't think that I largely like gay people. Apart from one, who is called Paddy, and because he's not Irish I can only imagine that this must be because he gets stroppy sometimes. Anyway, he's a decent lad and I have had far too much to drink with him on a couple of occasions. And the only reason I know he's gay is because about a hundred people told me that he is.

But my research (I use the term loosely and as a euphemism for looking on Wikipedia) has shown me that I am a homophobe. If someone had decided to publish (another euphemism for "made up") a psychological disorder to describe people who don't much care for football supporters or people who watch crap telly, and called it wankaphobia, I would also be wankaphobic.

I don't like Mandelson. I don't have to like him. I dislike him because I see him as standing for all the things that I detest about this last government, New Labour. I detest Brown too. And Blair. But I don't detest Mandelson particularly because he's gay. I don't detest Brown particularly because he's Scottish. And I don't particularly detest Blair because he was the main driving force behind the smoking ban. All of things help me detest these people, but I would have detested them, and all that they stand for, anyway.

So I don't care, is what I'm saying. I don't mind being labelled. Just get out of my face.

And Stonewall, whoever and whatever you are, I'd like to point out that you are doing far more harm than good.

I'll leave Old Holborn to do his Joo thing. I'm doing the gay thing today.

No Competition

Someone said to me on Saturday that Labour have gained in the polls. I can't find any evidence of this, although I believe the underdogs are up a couple of points, which means that the next Parliament is going to be even more diluted than it was going to be before.

Then CMD says "burglars leave their human rights at the front door." That'll get him some votes.

The Daily Mail loves this. So do I, because I know what he means. But what he said is not what he means. I sincerely hope so, anyway.

What he means, I hope and pray, is that when a burglar breaks in, or lets himself in, to your house/car/office/shed/boat/sleeping bag, and you decide that you're not terribly happy with this and your polite request to Mr Burglar to leave the premises fails to achieve the desired result, then you can smack him in the gob without the luvvy darling Blairspawn legal system coming down on you like a ton of shite.

That would be right and proper, in my book. And the book of everyone I know apart from a bloke called Dominic who was brought up a generation behind me and therefore doesn't understand reality, as I keep having to explain to him.

What would not be right, nor proper, in my book (and again, that of everyone I know, but this time including Dominic), is to take away human rights. You can justify taking away freedom, you can justify a bop on the nose and, if someone threatens your kids, a stout scaffold pole to the back of the head. But a human is a human. Humans have rights. Even if they're chavs, blaggers, burglars, thieves or genocidal maniacs, such as that chap who's recently been grilled at the Chilcot Inquiry. They have rights.

Dear Dave, please take just a little bit of care choosing your words. Humans are humans. They have rights. Always. Such as the right to go and have a fag in a heated, substantially enclosed place.