Out of the mouths of babes and innocents

As you stood there this morning filling your 50 litre petrol tank you will be pleased to learn that as from now 2.5% of the petrol is biofuel. This has all been the result of the EUSSR biofuel directive.

So yippee, we are now all doing our bit to save the planet. But hold on a minute, this is not so yippee for a child in Africa who’s parents are living on a $1 a day. Why? Because biofuel is made out of wheat and the amount of that cereal needed to create 2.5% of a 50 litre tank full will feed that child for about two weeks. So this is an obscene waste of resources. And even if the wheat were available to buy, given a recent price rise of 130% because it’s needed for biofuel, that $1 doesn’t go very far.

Wait until 2010 when the biofuel ratio is 5% and that two weeks will become four weeks. So when that child goes to bed hungry tonight shouldn’t we be giving ...

New Olympic Event 2008

The International Olympic Committee are pleased to announce today a brand new event to honour the Games being held in China

The event will be known as ‘Grab the Torch’. It’s a simple game that can be played by anyone with very little training or practice, so is truly inclusive.

Fifteen, blue track suited, Chinese Security ‘Goons’ form a circle around a gullible, publicity seeking Z list celebrity holding a flaming Torch. Lots of scope here as there are thousands of Z list wannabe celebs and millions of Goons.

The object of the game is to grab the ‘Torch of Harmony’ from the celeb. This is done around a one kilometre track. Rules are even more simple, there are no rules. Pushing, shouting, wrestling to the ground are all part of the fun.

For a few examples of the game search YouTube for footage of a warm up event i ...

April Fool

An many people do, I was up early this morning scouring the newspapers for the April Fool jokes.

And yes I very quickly found the flying penguins and Alistair Darling trying his luck with a scratch card.

Problem was that with the state of Britain as it is I just could not STOP finding jokes. So here are a few that are worthy of the epithet ‘April Fool!’

First up is Harriet Harman (or Harperson, Harpic or Harridan, take your pick). Yesterday she did a walk about in her own constituency in Peckham to proclaim the fall in crime and extra funding for the police. However, even though she was surrounded by policemen, she wore a stab proof vest.

Second up for joke of the year is that it is now illegal to chat up a barmaid. Yes, and not only that but the landlord can be fined for allowing it. Ask any competent barmaid or flight attend ...

I read a number of political blogs. The most notable being the one written by Guido Fawkes, www.order-order.com By the way if you are easily upset by very strong language and tasteless jokes do not visit this site.

In the main left wing blogs struggle to get many comments or visitors whereas the libertarian and right wing blogs positively blossom.

The main reason for this is the humour, posters don’t take themselves very seriously and lampoon politicians on all sides relentlessly. This makes for some extremely entertaining reading.

Compare this to the left wing blogs where posters churn out the equivalent of this month’s tractor production statistics to justify their beloved leaders’ actions. It’s neither interesting nor funny and reads like a 1960s edition of the Soviet newspaper Pravda.

I read with some amusement the advice to Nicolas Sarkozy to ditch the Bling when he meets the Queen. Out go the Rolex and Raybans in favour of a more restrained look as he attends a State Banquet at Windsor Castle.

I visited the State Apartments at Windsor Castle last week and in my opinion Sarkozy may end up wondering why he bothered to dump the relatively restrained icons of the rich and famous.

The Winds ...

Another light hearted piece, I will get into the more serious stuff next week

I am getting increasingly alarmed at what people choose as the names for their children and will give you a few examples and suggest some of the ways things may be trending

I was at an event recently and two of the children were named India and China respectively. Is this a new trend I wonder, naming children after countries, and if it is how will it develop, will we see a two year old toddling around in nappies called Democratic Republic of the Congo and when a child gets to school how will United Arab Emirates or Bosnia and Herzegovina get shortened. I guess with names like this they should at least try and sit for GCSE in Geography.

Another fashion is naming children after the seasons like Spring and Autumn so do these kids change their name every three months? This is presumably a continuation of the trend to name chi ...

Well I am back after a rather long absence. So much has gone on in the recent past that it would be easy to launch into a rant against perma-tanned Peter Hain or McBean, the McCavity cat of politics or even for the Londoners cheeky chappie Ken. So I thought that I would kick off with something quite light hearted.

When I heard that Tony Blair had got a job with U.S. investment bank  J. P. Morgan it got me wondering about Tony’s first day and all those trials that you go through when starting a new job.

Firstly has he had to sign a Contract of Employment along the lines of, ‘Office Hours are 9:00am to 5:30pm with one hour for lunch. Or ‘misuse of the computer by accessing unsuitable web sites will be deemed a dismissible offence’ .

You can also imagine the first morning. Question one, ‘Have you brought your P45 from your previous employment?’. This will be followed by ‘This is your desk, y ...

I wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago about what a hash ‘Call me Dave’ Cameron was making of running the Tory party. For some reason I never published it. I am therefore glad to report a slight upturn in their fortunes for two reasons.

Firstly the magisterial report by Ian ‘Dunkers’ Smith on the state of society in Britain. If you forget the headline grabbing tax break for marriage bit it contains a huge number of solid and sensible proposals.

The mere fact that you are reading this blog already makes you a happier person by the fact that you can read. I personally find it appalling that the government allow children to leave school without this basic skill. What a misery it must be not to be able to get a job or have a sense of purpose because you lack that essential life skill.

Encouragingly Gordy and Co wanted to take a swing at Dunkers document but could find nothing to criticise in it so the To ...

I am going to make some points about the latest terrorist incidents but before doing so indulge in something very British, some gallows humour.

It strikes me how culturally naïve the airport bombers were in choosing Glasgow as the place to stage the attack. Listening to the eyewitness accounts ran like a description of Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night. To paraphrase one witness “He came towards me shouting Allah, I hit him and he fell to the ground’.

Consensus in the papers today and amongst people I have spoken with is that Blair, although an extraordinary actor/manager, will not be missed.

I think that his legacy will be that he has impoverished the UK from almost every aspect and that the effect will be felt for years to come.

Constitution disasters, cultural erosion and a poorer quality of life for many people particularly the working class. They are all clients of the state with no escape.

I was a council house lad in the 1950s who, because of opportunities in education, became socially mobile. I am sure that there is another aspirant Politico living now on the same estate but the poor b*gger can’t even read the bus timetable to get out of it.

Even the pundits today were struggling to find a positive in the Blair years, Northern Ireland being the only exception. In my opinion a settlement in N.I. was caused b ...

Next year a law will be passed that will force everyone to face a police check if they work with children or vulnerable people. This law includes volunteers. So for example, if you are a 75 year old woman and work for a couple of hours a week on a voluntary basis making cups of tea for the local Alzheimers Association you will need a police check as Alzheimers sufferers are vulnerable. Failure to do this is an offence that both you and the Association can be prosecuted for with a maximum fine of £5000 and will give you a criminal record.

It is predicted that many clubs will ban children as members and that many volunteers will just not bother to turn up.

I was also alarmed recently by a volunteer who works with families who have asked for help. The volunteer has already had the police check but has now been forced to sign a code of conduct that makes them challenge racist remarks they hear when visiting the family. Apart fr ...

Tony Blair has claimed the media operates like "a feral beast" and its relationship with politicians is "damaged" and in need of repair.

Well um yes Tony, now tell us something we don’t know

The last 10 years has seen a massive manipulation of the press by the government, the latter of which has poisoned the well of truth.

I see the real issue here that the main news outlets need to get their stories either on or off the record from politicians and PRs in the government media machine. Write something “off message” and suddenly you are not getting the stories.

This has worked well for the Government who have successfully manipulated coverage in a ruthless manner, look at the Andrew Gillian affair for example.

This type of news reporting is called moderated but in the last couple of years all sorts of other news outlets ...

Boy is my life in a mess at the moment. I have just had the outside of my house painted. I got a design consultant in to give me some advice, at great expense, and now my suburban Victorian Villa has the windows painted in pink neon.

The kids hate it, my wife hates it and the neighbours have started a petition to get the windows painted white again.. I view the pink neon as a statement, a frame of mind and something that is reflective of the 21st century.

This all comes on top of my cancelled holiday to China. For weeks I have been assuring my wife that everything was all set, bookings made etc. About a week before departure I had to admit that I had not booked the taxi to the airport, the flights or any hotels and had to pull the holiday but have promised it for 1st August (assuming we fly on a jumbo with four beds or more)

If all this was not enough the accounting system in my company is on the p ...

I haven’t written for a while and I think that this is indicative of the torpor that has descended on the country. Brown hasn’t started and Blair hasn’t left. So nothing of any note has happened, until yesterday

The official 2012 Olympic logo was launched and what a disaster it was. I have read all the comments about it being childish and garish. However when I saw it the logo immediately shouted out to me, Waffen SS. It is so much like the emblem of the hated corps of troop that started as Hitler’s bodyguard and ended up as a million strong force committing multiple war crimes.

I feel very strongly that this reminder will be very upsetting to older people throughout Europe and I am not alone in thinking this. At the time of writing more than 16,000 had signed a petition to get the logo changed. You can sign it here:
http://ww ...

I get the feeling that we are all on a very large cruise liner that has been sailing around the ocean for the last 10 years, at great expense, but have got nowhere near our destination (wherever that was).

Unfortunately now things have gone critical. We have hit a force 9 gale and are drifting aimlessly in whatever direction fate takes us.

The Captain (Blair) has decided to jump ship and has swum ashore to schmooze with his foreign buddies. Fellow ship jumpers include the Head Waiter (Prescott) and Head of Security (Reid).

Reid, knowing he was going, has left a fine mess. Splitting the security guards in two without consultation and letting three errant passengers who want to kill the rest go free.

Everyone has lost confidence in the Chief Nurse (Hewitt) so getting ill is just not an option. All the while the dynamic duo of Purser (Kelly) and her assistant (Cooper) bo ...

Is it just me or are more and more politicians looking and sounding like aliens. I think there is a planet out there somewhere making humanoids that are delivered to Earth and become politicians. It’s the obvious way to take the World over, by stealth.

Time was when the only manifestation of this was John Redwood. However as he was such a minor player in the Tory party he was ignored. Evidence of his extra terrestial origins showed when he tried to sing the Welsh National Anthem. One of his circuit boards had loosened and exposed him.

More worrying is that these aliens are now much closer to the levers of power. I first realised this when seeing David Milliband on TV. He persists in pulling funny faces when he thinks he is not on camera.

As an aside, there was a story about Mike and Bernie Winters making their first appearance at the Glasgow Empire. Mike went out first and did a preppy little numbe ...

I have oft criticised Sir Al (Sugar) for his use of energy guzzling transport, for a small man he does have a remarkably large carbon footprint.

Why he needs to turn up in a helicopter to instruct a bunch of morons to set up a couple of coffee stalls in Islington is beyond me. However the excuse, I suppose, is that he has made his money and if he wants a whirly bird and a Roller then it is his own hard earned dosh that he is spending

The same excuse does not hold for our unlamented leader Tony Blair, all of his expenditure comes from the hard earned dosh of you and me.

Less than a week into Blair’s resignation circus he is spending money and warming up the planet like CO2 is about to go out of fashion. On the day of his resignation announcement he flew up to his Sedgefield constituency while also dispatching his cavalcade of cars hours earlier to pick him up at the airport.

The headlong rush by politicians trying to prove their green credentials has got to the point of being highly dangerous.

Consider this for a moment, global warming, is at best, a hypothesis. However some of the steps that are being taken at the moment to alleviate this situation that may never happen is going to cause some very serious and real short term environmental problems.

I am talking about the EU target of fuel being sold of forecourts containing 5% biofuel by 2010 and 10% by 2020. To be able to create this amount of biofuel requires the wholesale clearance of the rainforest and will cause food and water shortages. The loss of the rainforest will also threaten the very existence of some of the world’s most endangered species like the Orang Utang and impoverish some of the world's poorest people.

Just in case you are thinking this just the rant of a blogger here are a coupl ...

I was both amused and bewildered by the report in the newspapers yesterday that Weymouth trading standards officers had banned a bakery shop from selling Robin Tarts. These were cakes topped with a fondant robin. The reason for the ban is that they did not contain real robin meat. Just to remind you, today is the 1^st of May not the 1^st of April.

So that was it then, all your old favourites are going to disappear. Remember there are no Angels in Angel cake, Marble in Marble Cake or Shepards in a Shepard’s Pie. Fisherman’s pie, forget it and&n ...

I have recently been over to France for the regular booze run and decided to stay overnight.

What a brilliant two days away, considering I was never more than 100 miles from home it felt like a million miles away.

It had only been six months since my last trip but the differences with the UK were glaring. This worried me, so I started to try and analyse the differences, without thinking too hard this is what I came up with.

The near empty roads, the lack of speed cameras, the considerate driving by other motorists.

The charming shop assistants who appeared to enjoy their jobs and were punctiliously polite.

The restaurants that serve high quality, fresh, well prepared food at reasonable prices.

Being able to get what food and drink you want. Wine, beer, cheeses, mountain ham, cured sausage, oysters, fish sou ...

Slowly but surely, over the last ten years, British people have been ripped off by the Government. This has been so constant that I think most people now just accept it as the norm.

Council tax has doubled, you pay tax on more of your salary, National Health Insurance has gone up and there is now the insidious fines and penalties that affect almost everything we do.

Late filing fines for tax returns, congestion charges (that have not decreased congestion), bus lane fines, recycling fines, punitive parking charges in hospitals. The list is endless.

The impunity with which all this has been done is now seeping into the private sector and rip off Britain is alive and well in all our dealings with commercial organisations. Here are just a few examples, rail fares are set at a laughable level far outstripping the same journey by plane, energy bills stay high while energy costs to the supplier plummet, t ...

As its almost the weekend and its been hot and sunny here is a lighter piece.

I got a billet-doux from my fiancé recently inviting me round last night for a tête-à-tête, she asked me to RSVP. She works in London during the week to be close to me so has a pied-à-terre, it’s a maisonette in a cul de sac. She really is lovely, very petite and when we are out she is the belle of the ball.

She cooked dinner, but before eating we had an aperitif. The meal started with hors d'oeuvres, I wished her bon appétit and as she lifted her glass of vin rouge she toasted me with 'a votre santé'.

The meal continued with coq au vin, mange tout and pomme frites followed by crème brulee and petit fours.

Rather than sit at the table we sat on her chaise longue to drink our café au lait and digestifs. We talked about going out to a discotheque bu ...

I wrote a few days ago about the lack of aspiration amongst young males who are at school and complained about them wanting to be footballers or play in a band rather than study.

The reality is that most people have to pursue a fairly regular career in order to make a living wage.

I have been giving this a lot of thought and still could not work out the answer, until reading the newspapers yesterday.

When reading about the break up of the relationship between William and Kate a problem area was the way in which William’s friends derided Kate and particularly her mother.

Kate’s mother had been, when younger, an air stewardess (or flight attendant). William’s friends delighted in making comments to Kate like ‘Doors to manual’ and ‘When does the drinks service start’. There were also comments that her mother used words like ‘toilet’ and ‘pardon’.

A couple of days ago a petition was posted on the 10 Downing Street site by former Navy officer Mike Critchley, of Warship World magazine. He was representing a wide range of service personnel who cannot post petitions.

This came hard on the heels of the Press Complaints Commission claiming that they could have stopped the media scrum surrounding the 15 sailors

The petition read
"We the undersigned consider the statement to allow members of Her Majesty's forces to sell their stories to the media to be a major government failure -and PR disaster for the Royal Navy - and "heads should roll" at the highest level."

Given the events of the last week not an unreasonable point of view. I was one of about 3000 people who have signed to date. The signing deadline is in early June.

This afternoon I got an e mail from Number 10 which pointed me to th ...

Here is a report from the Commander of the Carnival Cruise Ship Cornwall, Captain Calamity, now sailing somewhere in the Persian Gulf.

Well the day our chaps and chapess were captured started like any other. After breakfast we played that ever popular game “How many words can you make out of the phrase Stupid Prat”. Always loud guffaws when I run it, can’t think why.

Pretty soon one of those Arab boat things appeared, the ones with a bit of fabri ...

News is published today that the Darley Dale maternity unit in North Derbyshire is to be closed by Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Trust.  Allied to this, the numbers of midwives for the area will be cut from 50 to 33. This has been despite a vigorous campaign to save it by an organisation called MOMS (Maintain our Maternity Services.)

So what has this piece of news got to do with breaking the speed limit. Well the answer is nothing. However the statement made by one Terry Alty, the strangely named Corporate Secretary of the Trust has. I will come to the statement in a minute after outlining the situation

Decisions of this type should only be taken after a public consultation and this is not due to end until April 20. In fact the Cabinet Office has published a code of conduct about closures like this stating that campaigners must be involved before proposals are published and asking closed questions wi ...

I sometimes feel a sense of real despair when reading about the academic achievements of young males in the UK.

A lack of education is almost a loss of life. Imagine not being able to get a job that give you real stimulation or not being able to earn enough money to travel or eat in restaurants.

So where does it all go wrong? I think that many working class kids look to their role models in sport, entertainment and the media. Why bother to study when you can kick a ball, sing in a band or present a TV program.

Well the answer is that a tiny percentage of people ever get to the level of earning vast amounts of money and if you are not one of the lucky ones then you are up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

It seems that the first issue is one of discipline. Without being sexist, the fact that only one teacher in 10 is male must be having an effect. I know female te ...

Just a quick blog today on the decision by the MOD to allow the sailors and marines captured by Iran to sell their stories to the media.

This must seem like a real kick in the teeth to the families of the service people who have been killed and injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. No £100,000 payouts for them.

Families are having to wait up to five years for an inquest into the deaths of their loved ones, so there can be no act of closure just an ongoing sadness.

Equally poorly treated are the injured who, on return, have been the subject of poor treatment and conditions.

The service people who were taken should now be in the process of de-briefing followed by the consideration of disciplinary action for the way they collaborated. It seems, judging by the pictures of them in those ridiculous, ill fitting suits, that the only information they withheld was their insid ...

I read with great sadness yesterday of the death of four soldiers in Basra. This is without forgetting the civilian translator killed and a fifth soldier badly injured.

Within the details of this story  I found the greatest sadness for Second Lt Joanna Dyer. She read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford before going on to train as an officer at Sandhurst.

During her time at Sandhurst she became a personal friend of Prince William and he has already expressed his sorrow on hearing of her death.

War is a dirty business but it does not stop us from asking the question why? Why are we in Iraq and why are we wasting Britain’s finest in this futile, ill-defined mission?

Basra is supposed to be the UK’s success story in Iraq. Sensitive soldiering it is claimed has produced a more stable environment, well this is evidently not so.

My eye was caught by three news items that have appeared in the last 24 hours that sum up some of the elements of life in the UK today.

Lets start with the simple one. Yesterday Ruth Kelly announced that wind turbines and solar panels do not need planning permission to be installed. So why was planning applied to them and still applies to satellite dishes? This headlong rush into being ‘green’ just defies belief. Its amazing how rules can be ignored when it suits the politicians’ agenda.

The 25th anniversary of the Falklands war is with us, it seems like only yesterday we were watching those converted cruise ships leaving Southampton.

The troops left with the 100% commitment from the British people because our sovereignty has been threatened.

The invasion had come about due to the complacency of the Foreign Office. Lord Carrington resigned and so did John Nott, although in the latter case Margaret Thatcher would not accept it.

However given the fine mess the F & CO had got us into even though it was as a result of Argentinian aggression, Maggie put together the task force that rescued the Islanders, no need for any dodgy dossiers.

Who could not have been proud to be British at that time for the personal and collective bravery that was shown. Colonel H, awarded a posthumous VC, Simon Weston and his struggle with terrible injury, the ships in Sa ...