Unforgiven

Old Nick has started an interesting blog that gives you the chance to nominate who you think are the real evil bastards and then to take a public vote on whether to condemn or forgive them.

He started this up as an antidote to the sickening web sites and facebook pages praising Raoul Moat - a man on whom my views have already been expressed.

You can find it here or in my blogroll.

Paki bashing

Seems that Call-me-Dave has pissed off the Pakis!

Those of us that grew up in the sixties will remember that Paki bashing was a national pastime in those days. Then we got used to seeing them everywhere and them having a shop on every corner, so we accepted them as part of the national landscape.

Nothing wrong with that. The vast majority are law abiding, hard working citizens - so it's a good thing that the bigotry has gone.

Also, the Pakistanis in this country are a damn sight safer than they would be in their country of origin. It should be remembered that until recently, Pakistan was a military dictatorship which is about as far from a democracy as it is possibe to get! And old habits die hard...

Pakistan nominally allys itself with the United States in the global war on terror. However, terrorism is rife in the country mainly due to reactions to General Zia ul-Haq's controversial "Islamization" policies and his involvement in the Soviet-Afghan War, which led to greater influx of ideologically driven Afghan Arabs in the tribal areas and the explosion of kalashnikov and drugs culture. The state and the CIA encouraged the "mujahideen" to fight the proxy war against the Soviet Union, most of these groups were never disarmed after the war and were later encouraged by the Taliban to achieve the state's agenda in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The same groups are now taking on the state itself.

Between 2007 and 2009, more than 5,500 people were killed in terrorist attacks on civilians. These are attributed to a number of sources: sectarian violence - mainly between Sunni and Shia Muslims, the easy availability of guns and explosives of a "kalishnikov culture" and influx of ideologically driven "Afghan Arabs" based in or near Pakistan, Islamist insurgent groups and forces such as the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and secessionists movements blamed on regionalism problematic in a country with Pakistan's diverse cultures, languages, traditions and customs.

So Pakistan has a double problem. It needs to be seen to support the US in its war in Afghanistan, and at the same time is being terrorised at home by sectarian and separatist terrorists. But on the other hand, it has been manouevred by the Taliban to support actions in disputed areas such as Kashmir. So at the same time it is trying to both fight and support the Taliban.

This would seem to make David Cameron's remarks about them trying to look both ways highly pertinent...

Extinction watch

The WWF has added another species to it's list of animals at risk of extinction.

Pictured on the left trying to blend into a crowd of Homo Sapiens, the Brownus LieBorii, or the Lesser Spotted Brown Snotgobbler to give it it's more common name, is thought to be the last of it's kind.

The last Snotgobbler in captivity, named 'Gordon', escaped recently from its cage in Downing Street and is believed to be lying low somewhere in Scotland.

It is easily identified by its strange smile and its mating call of "Bigot! Bigot!" If anyone knows where it is, please don't call us.

Nobody works in the Civil Service

I have worked extensily in government departments over the years. It has definitely been an experience.

Take for example the man I sat next to in the Hydrographic Office who never said a word while the boss was in the office and then talked endlessly until the boss walked back in.

Or the man at the Property Services Agency who got me to do all the work and then put his mate's name on the paperwork.

There have been many other examples, but for the piece de resistance, I have to nominate the Rural Payments Agency. Here's why :

(1) There was an ex-contractor there I had worked with on another job. He was on a 12 month fixed term contract as a business analyst at £40,000 a year. He openly admitted to me that he had about enough work for two hours a week if he strung it out. He was counting the days until his contract ran out. I saw him on a bus six months later. He told me he had signed on for another 12 months because it was "easy money and just too good a deal to turn down".

(2)  At the far end of the office was a manager who hardly ever seemed to be there. I asked my boss why. He told me that the guy had no work to do so he used to make up business trips for three days a week and come in for a few hours on the other two days "in between meetings".

(3) As contractors, we do all the work so the staff do as little possible. Because of this, I was doing the work of seven people who did nothing while I did it all. Their manager said to me one day "I don't like you and I don't want you here." "Never mind, " I replied. "You're a big girl and you'll get over it. And just think of all the credit you can take for my work after I've gone!" She thought about that and then left smiling.

(4) But the prize goes to the man two desks away who was remarkably similar to the above cartoon. I used to go home on the same park and ride bus most evenings. I asked him what he did. He replied "I'm a Civil Servant."
"Yes", I replied, "but what is it that you do?"
"I told you. I'm a civil servant. I've been a civil servant for thirty odd years."
I couldn't get past the barrier, so the next day I asked my boss what the bloke did. He told me that he did nothing, but he only had a few years to go until he retired and it was cheaper to let him sit there and pay him than it was to retire him early!

I can honestly tell you that from my vantage point in the corner of a huge open plan office, if you got rid of half the staff there would have been no appreciable difference.

My wife is an ex-civil servant. She is horrified at how things are these days. They certainly weren't like that when she was there....

War - a fresh perspective

Seems there have been one or two fuck ups lately on the warfare front.

First, Nick Clegg stands up in his first Prime Minister's Questions and describes the Iraq War as 'illegal'. Oh dear. Sharp intakes of breath from the Tories behind him who voted for the war.

It should, however, be remembered that the Lib Dems have always regarded the war as illegal. It should also be remembered that just because someone voted for the war, that didn't make it legal. Show me the dodgy dossier and persuade me that Blair has integrity (difficult in my case), and I might have voted for it. But that still doesn't make it legal - so I reckon fair enough, Cleggy.

Then Call-me-Dave pops across the water to liaise with the great black hope. Unfortunately, he then pisses off the yanks by describing Britain's presence in Iraq as a 'supporting role'. True, but not very palatable. It's America's war, they're fucking it up and we seem to be covering all the difficult stuff. Truth hurts!

But just to show that he's not biased, Dave then pisses off his own veterans by saying that Britain played a junior role in World War II. Well, Dave, that's bollocks because if the Japs hadn't bombed Pearl Harbour we'd still be waiting for the yanks to arrive - just like in the first war.

So, all in all, I reckon that's 2-1 on the war front. Not a great result, but a result nevertheless...

Common sense and justice

I have nothing but admiration for the Gurkhas who fight in our armed forces, which is why I am so outraged at the latest bout of bureaucratic stupidity.

In Afghanistan, a Gurkha soldier, under heavy machine gun fire, beheaded a DEAD taliban so that he could take the head back to base for identification against the most wanted list.

For this act of selflessness under fire, he has been suspended from duty, sent back to the UK and awaits court martial. Apparently, if found guilty, he could be imprisoned.

Here's the question I want answered : Since when has it been illegal in this country for a foreign national to behead a dead person overseas?

Apparently, the problem is that the Afghans consider it bad form to dismember a dead body. They like all the bits to be buried together. Perhaps we should remind the Taliban of this custom after their IED bombs have scattered bits of our soldiers all over the landscape or when they decide to behead our soldiers.

There's a simple answer to this problem. Stick the head back on the rotting body, slap the man's wrist and say don't do it again...

...and then give him a medal for bravery under fire!

Send Gordon a message...

You lucky people! You can now send your late lamented PM a message on his bright shiney new web site.

I tried to send him this one :

Give it a try. You just got to http://www.gordonbrown.org.uk/contact_me , put in your greeting, and click on the "Send to Gordon" button.  

You get this friendly response :

It was probably designed by Alistair Campbell...

Lookalikes

Has anyone noticed the remarkable resemblence between best selling author Terry Pratchett and Doctor Who's arch enemy, the Cyberman?

Cyberman                                        Pratchett

Apparently, Pratchett has slagged off Doctor Who for having "ludicrous" storylines and for not being "real science fiction."

This from the man who wrote a series of 37 books based on a flat world balanced on the back of four elephants, perched on the back of the giant turtle called Great A'Tuin.

Still, he managed to get an OBE for it, so I guess we're the cunts.

Perhaps they are related? I think we should be told...

Building Schools for the Future (BSF)

Much has been said recently about the BSF program introduced by Labour. Well, they got the first two letters right anyway...

The teaching unions have been marching in London about the cancellation of the programme to rebuild deteriorating schools and to build new ones. Yet another NIMBY protest about cuts.

So as we are talking about cuts, let's cut right through the bullshit :

Exactly how many school building projects have been cancelled by the new government? Exactly how many refurbishment projects have been cancelled? Well, in both cases the answer is exactly NONE!

These projects have been POSTPONED - note POSTPONED not CANCELLED - until the money is available and the contracts have been examined to ensure that the contractors have not been ripping us off. When we have done this and the money is available, the projects will go ahead. Pardon me for being naive, but I always thought you could not spend money you do not have - something that our financial and economic genius Gordon Brown seemed unable to comprehend!

And while the teachers are holding their NIMBY protests in London, let's examine the morals of a few of them. Did you know, for example, that many women teachers - a friend of mine included - make a point of returning from maternity leave two weeks before the end of term so that they qualify to be paid during the school holidays?

Fucking hypocrites...

All to no (a) veil

Take a good long hard look at the picture on the left and then tell me that it is acceptable to walk into a bank, an airport or a building society dressed like this.

A lot has been said recently about the niqab and the more severe version, the burqa - especially in the light of the recent ruling in France.

I read recently an empassioned blog about the freedom to dress how you like, and another about the freedom of religious expression. I support both these views, but not at the expense of safety and security.

Firstly, lets deal with the religious aspect. On the BBC breakfast programme on Sunday morning, they interviewed an Imam from a London mosque together with an Islamic woman who, although not a veil wearer herself, disagreed with his views. Surprisingly, the Imam was the one opposing the veil. He pointed out at great length that there is nothing in the Koran about the veil but rather it is a tribal or cultural custom. So as far as I can see, there goes the religious argument.

Secondly, let's look at the French law. The law does not mention the burqa. It makes it illegal for anyone to conceal their face in public. It therefore aplies to, for example, anyone wearing a scarfe over their face, a balaclava or a crash helmet. Let us remind ourselves that there is already a law about hoodies on our statute books.

Thirdly, if we reduce this to a cultural thing, then there is no place for it in our culture. If you come to our country, then you deal with our culture. You do not impose your own.

On this basis, I recommend that certain ill informed MPs would oppose a similar law to the French should think again.

The right to die

A wee while back, I published a post on euthanasia and the right to die on my own terms. I was pilloried.

However, the issue has now again come to a head with the news that Tony Nicklinson, 56,  wants his wife to be allowed to help him die without the risk of being prosecuted for murder.

Tony suffers from so called "locked in syndrome". This means that he can only communicate by blinking or nodding his head at letters on a board.


His lawyers say he is "fed up with life" and does not wish to spend the next 20 years in this condition.

He doesn't want his life prolonged on these terms. Would you? Sadly, his only option is to refuse food and starve himself to death. Not very pleasant - and who's to say that some do-gooder wouldn't go to court for an order to force feed him?

He wants to know if his wife will be prosecuted if she helps him end his life. It's a difficult situation and is there anyone out there who thinks that if his wife does help him, she will ever forgive herself. I feel for them both.

His lawyers argue that the current murder law infringes Mr Nicklinson's rights to respect for his private life under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Regrettably, this bring into question once again who exactly is the highest court in this land. Let's not go there as, for once, this is not the most important question.

The most important question is, of course, whether this country will respect the right of its citizens over their own destinies. It is about time for this decision. If this man brings it about, then he will not have suffered for nothing. He has my total respect.

I sincerely hope that the legal eagles will see common sense in this case and let the man die legally and with dignity without persecuting his wife. She feels bad enough already...

Overseas Aid - again!

Yesterday, I gave you my views on how we could expand the aid budget to include our own people. But now I hear from the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, that aid for Afghanistan is to be increased by 40%

"What!", I hear you say. "The aid budget is ring fenced."

Well, apparently in true political style we can get around that by redefining things.

It seems the total is ring fenced, but we can 'reprioritise' the order in which we give out the aid, presumably drawing a line when the money runs out?

Now don't get me wrong. If the increase in aid to Afghanistan means that we get the country in order more quickly and our troops come home sooner, then that's fair enough.

What I don't go along with is the principal that we can now apparently cut stuff off the bottom of the list to make room for this, but if we weren't doing this, then they would have stayed on the list. This makes no sense.

Why don't we just look at what we can afford - which, let's face it is sod all - and then take the things off the list that can be taken off and use the money to provide essential services for our own people and to pay off our debts?

I suggest,  Messrs. Cleggeron, that you read this and yesterday's posts....

Charities - again!

I was appalled to hear on the breakfast news that councils are beginning to cut local charity contributions as part of our new austerity drive.

Apparently, council contributions to local charities such as community transport schemes account for as much as a third of their income.

And yet we continue to ring fence the foreign aid budget - putting people who live in other countries before our own citizens.

In a perfect world we could do all of this. But we do not live in a perfect world. We are in the shite...and, as they keep telling us, we are all in it together. Unless, of course, you live in a different country.

Some idiot the other day said we could cancel a couple of aircraft carriers and educate 4 million African primary school children for a year on the proceeds. But when we examine the statistics, we already apparently educate more overseas children in this group than our own.

Here's an idea for you, Cleggy. How about we redefine the aid budget which you insist on ring fencing to include funding for projects in this country as well - only let's put our own citizens at the top of the list.

After all, "charity begins at home"

I Spy

I suppose someone had to love him......

I thought the brown rose would be particulary appropriate as the new Labour logo 

Pigs can't fly....

..but apparently cars can!

A company in America - where else? - has announced that it hopes to be selling a flying car by the end of 2011.

"It's the next 'wow' vehicle," said the company's vice president. "Anybody can buy a Ferrari, but as we say, Ferraris don't fly."

Now I don't know about you, but the thought of motorways in the sky fills me with fear and trepidation. I don't really fancy sitting in the back garden waiting for some spotty faced teenager to drop out of the sky on my head in his stolen flying Ferrari!

Apparently, the target market is private pilots who want to get round the inconvenience of having to use a car to get to the airport. You just drive up, unfold the wings and off you go! Magic - except that a purchase price of around $194,000 would pay for a hell of a lot of taxis.

And the dropping out of the sky problem? No problem at all! It comes with an optional full vehicle parachute - so provided the driver remembers to sound his horn on the way down, I should have time to duck out of the way just before it flattens my house...

Frying tonight...

Take a good look at picture on the left.

It's an electrified third rail on the railway line. It's dangerous. It will kill you if you touch it.

And yet I've just been listening to some poor sod on the breakfast news bleating on about losing their daughter when she touched the third rail taking a short cut home.

This incidentally was not some small kid, but an adolescent teenager.

The mother apparently blames PS2 games where you get up again when you're killed for distorting kids' sense of real danger. She blames lack of authority for kids playing on railway lines. She blames lack of signage.

I am sorry for her loss, but she seems to be blaming everyone but herself. It's tragic, but at the end of the day, you have to take some responsibility for your kids upbringing yourself as well.

Still, look on the bright side. You can always sue Railtrack.

Decline and Fall of the Labour Party

Is the Labour Party now entering it's death throes?

Let's consider the facts :

The Labour Party's origins lie in the late 19th century, around which time it became apparent that there was a need for a new political party to represent the interests and needs of the urban proletariat. In the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates but won only 44,325 votes.

But from little acorns, mighty oaks did grow. By 1910, the party had 42 MPs and was seen by many to take over from the Liberal Party as the true home of the left wing vote.

Then came the First World War and the Liberal failure to provide jobs for the returning heroes led to a surge in the popular vote for the Labour Party. This was further enhanced by the depression of the 1930s.

The graph on the right shows the share of the votes for the three main parties from the mid 1800's through to the present day. This clearly shows that Labour took its share of the vote not from the Conservatives, but the Liberals.

When Tony Blair rebranded the party as New Labour he was ironically moving the party into the very position on the centre left of politics that Labour had claimed from the Liberals in the years following WWII - and it was this very repositioning that has led to the decline in the party's fortunes.

Taking its main backing from the Trades Union movement, Labour has also seen a fall in support following the militant actions of the 1970s so effectively crushed by Margaret Thatcher's government. This stemmed the power of the unions and led to a decline in union membership which has continued to the present day.

It is here that history begins to repeat itself. The Liberal Democrats have performed the very manoeuvre that worked so effectively for Labour. It is they, not Labour, who are now seen as occupying the centre left of politics - thus regaining the ground they lost to Labour in the first place.

Since Blair's departure, Gordon Brown has moved the party further back to the left and New Labour is once again seen as the Labour Party of old. Ironically, the Credit Crunch has mimicked in its own way the Depression that was the downfall of the old Liberal party - only this time it is Labour that is paying the price.

Over the coming years, the power of the union movement will continue to decline and take Labour with it. Social mobility has become a force to be reckoned with, moving the downtrodden working classes of old into the new middle class where they are more appropriately represented by the LibDems.

It is quite possible that Labour will not hold government again in our lifetimes - and when you look at the mess they have made of the country over the last 13 years, this seems wholly understandable.

Equal opportunities is bollocks

It will come as no surprise to you that I think Harriet Harman is a complete arse.

So I was not surprised that she wants the shadow cabinet to be comprised of equal numbers of males and females.

Personally I have never understood the feminist movement. Why the hell would they want equality with men? Why would they want to come down to our level?

Successive administrations both in the UK and EU have consistently introduced legislation on sexual and many other types of discrimination until we have got to the point where I have become an ethnic minority in my own country...

Someone once asked Sammy Davis Jnr what he thought was the secret of his success. He replied, "I'm a one eyed black jew. How could I fail?" Sadly Sammy, I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head.

I'm white, so naturally there is positive discrimination in favour of non-whites. It is a fact that if I am interviewed for a job, no reason has to be given as to why I was rejected. If I was not white, then I could demand to know the reason and sue if I did not like it.

I'm not a member of a non-Christian church, nor am I an immigrant. I am able bodied and (arguably) in my right mind. All these conditions carry their share of positive discrimination and are monitored by the nanny state.

As regards being male or female, if women want equal treatment, then let them open the door for me and offer me a seat on the train. Stand up when I enter the room. Be bound by the same business dress rules as I am. Buy the first round in the pub, and pay when we go out to dinner.

The truth is that women want equality without giving up the perks of their sex, and that there is no such thing as positive discrimination because if it is positive to one party, then it is negative to the other.

So, Ms Harman, I suggest you stop talking bollocks and, Mr Cameron, you could save a shed load of money by scrapping the Equal Opportunites Commission.

Raoul Moat - the last word

If ever there was a cunt needed killing, it was Raoul Moat.

I have been sickened over the last forty eight hours by the positions some people have taken in defending this man and in attacking the police who hunted him down.

Let's cut through the bullshit. This nutter was let out of prison when he should have been sectioned. The prison services notified the police that he was a clear and present threat to his former girlfriend, yet they let him out and the police took no action to protect the people he subsequently shot. For this I blame the police - but not for anything else.

Moat went on to shoot a copper in what appears to be a random act before going to ground in Rothbury. He was cornered - eventually - and negotiations to get him to surrender went on for over 6 hours.

Now his brother is blaming the police for his death. He reckons that hitting Moat with a taser gun might actually have caused the shotgun blast that killed him. Apparently, he offered to go in and try to talk him out. Well perhaps you should have, Angus, and then you might just have been on the recieving end yourself.

But I'll tell you plainly, if I had had a bead on him then it wouldn't have been a taser I would have been shooting at him. It would be a 44 magnum.

Then his uncle jumps on the bandwagon. He reckons that "I know he's done a terrible, heinous thing... but I don't think he was a threat to the public." Well,the only reason he wasn't a threat to the public - that's the public he threatened to start gunning down next, if you remember - was because he was surrounded by armed coppers.

At the end of the day, he was a mad dog that needed to be put down. By killing himself, he saved us the bother of a trial and the expense of locking him up and keeping him in Broadmoor for the next fifty years.

Frankly, if I had had a gun I would have shot the bastard in cold blood - just like he shot that copper.

But I guess it is to the eternal credit of our police that they exercised just a little more restraint that I would have...

Oi!...Prescott...No!.....

Did you see that hypocritical, sanctimonious prat Prescott - sorry!..Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull - on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday morning?

He was banging on to Martha Kierney about how chuffed he was to be sitting in the House of Lords because it gives him the opportunity to make a real contribution to politics. Why, only next Wednesday he is giving a speech about the environment which is really, really important...

Well, get this into your head Prezza :

No-one elected you. No-one gives a flying fuck for your opinion. You are a rejected has been political thug who has been thrown onto the scrapheap of politics - or to put it another way, inaugurated into the House of Lords.

This is the man who slagged off the institution he has now joined as having no place in the modern world. But, all of a sudden, he seems to have changed his opinion and praised it as a really, really important debating forum.

No, John. You're there because if you stuck by what you have always said, Lady Paulene - God help us - would serve up your bollocks in a pie for your tea.

You have debased the peerage system. You have sold out. You are a solid gold 24 carat hypocrite.

If ever there was a case for replacing the House of Lords with an elected chamber, then I think you just made it.

Carbon offsetting is nonsense!

I'm off on holiday again in September and I've just got the invoice through for the trip.

On it, there is an optional "Carbon Offset Charge" of £2.83 per person. So let me see if I understand this - if I pay £2.83 then the plane engines will suddenly become more efficient and will belch less environmentally damaging crap into the atmosphere?

I don't get it. Surely the engines will belch the crap out regardless, and I don't get how paying yet another tax will help.

Well, it seems I am missing the point.

Apparently, by paying this money I will be helping to fund an environmentally friendly project such as planting a tree, building a wind farm, sticking a cork up a cows arse, or the like.

Or, to put it another way, the government will take my money and piss it up the wall just like they always do. It's just yet another left over old LieBour stealth tax...

... and I ain't paying it.

Accountancy is not boring!

Accountants will one day cause the end of civilisation as we know it!

If you fancy an exciting career in accountancy, then just watch the following video. I swear it's real. It's absolutely not boring and it will have you rushing out to sign up immediately!



Take it from me. Allowing an accountant to run your company should be made illegal. Their training makes them fundamentally unsuitable!

Let's take an example : Your company isn't making enough profit. You think this means you need to sell more product at a lower cost and for a better margin, don't you? Wrong! Any accountant will tell you that what you really need to do is to revalue the assets on your balance sheet and add the theoretical profit into your results...

And if you think that's silly, then let me assure you that is exactly how my friend's business went bust. Because to pay your bills, you will need real money. And this system doesn't actually generate any.

And today you need a degree to become and accountant - although quite how a degree in history, or geography, or socialogy will help, I'm not sure. In my day, you needed 5 'O' levels and I passed first time. Without a degree. And with a grade E in 'A' level chemistry. So clearly it's not necessary.

And it's a waste of a good education. It is a little known fact that in the 1980's, 80% of the graduate output of the UK became accountants. No wonder we're fucked.

As George Orwell once said : "The world will end with a wimper not a bang." Rest assured that the accountants will be doing the wimpering...

The Repeal Bill Song

With our wonderful new coalition government offering us a bonfire of laws, I have called upon the master of the protest song, Bob Dylan, and a reworking of his classic "A hard rains a-gonna fall" to ask "What do you want from your new government?"

I'm sure you can think of a few more things I've missed...



...such as : "We shouldn't be stifled by red tape and nannying"

(I wrote that, then forgot to sing it!)

And anyway, the Welsh aren't like us

You might have noticed that I have banged on a bit about the Welsh this week? Well, I'd like to bring it all to a close on a jolly note with a joke and a song...

The joke :

What do you call a sheep tied to lamp post in Cardiff?
Answer : A leisure centre

The song :
(It's not one of mine, but it made me laugh)



And the last word goes to Ali G....

Welsh is a dead language

Dear call me Dave,

If you are looking to shave a huge amount of money from the national budget, can I suggest that you need to look no further than the amounts spent by National and local government in translating everything into foreign languages?

It's ridiculous. If people want to live here in the UK, then they should learn to understand English. And if they can't read your literature, let them get one of their mates to tell you what it says.

And while you're at it, you could also slash 50% off the money given to the Welsh assembly at a stroke!

I recently returned from a trip to Wales. Everything was written in two languages - first Welsh, and underneath in English. Except in the south, where it is the other way around. I wonder if there is a bit in the middle where it is side by side?

But I digress. The fact is that this costs hundreds of millions of pounds and is completely unnecessary.

English is the official language of the UK, not Welsh. There are 60 million people in the United Kingdom and some 600,000 people in Wales speak Welsh. That equates to 1% of the population overall and approximately 21% of the population of Wales.

The Welsh Language Society openly admits that there is less than 0.1% of the population who only speak Welsh - and those are preschool age children who are growing up in families that speak Welsh as a first language.

Yet every street sign is in Welsh and English, Every shop sign is in Welsh and English. Every tourist leaflet. every piece of official literature. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Think of the environmental cost! Bigger signs, more paint, more ink, more paper. And why? The people who read them all speak English!

The Welsh assembly has interpreters who sit in on its proceedings, translating live through members' headphones. I can understand this in the United Nations - but in Cardiff!?! It's ridiculous. Everyone present can speak English.

That is what happens when you give a tin pot little principality - note that I say "principality" not "country" - its own parliament. They piss money up the wall to make themselves look important and pass silly laws to make it happen.

And don't tell me that Welsh is still a live language - because they still speak Latin in the Vatican but that doesn't mean that every Italian street sign is in two languages.

Sorry, Taff, but  the Welsh language is a quaint little anachronism and doesn't need to be plastered over everything in sight.

Get over it and move on...

Students today don't know they are born

I have just spent four nights in the halls of residence at Bangor University.

"Oh no!"  I hear you cry. "Four nights of squalor and depravity!  Rat infested rooms!  Beds filled with toast crumbs! Marmite in the butter dish! Butter in the Marmite! Pubic hairs in the shower!"

Well, no actually. Anyone who wants to know which wall Gordon has been pissing our money up for the last 13 years need only visit Bangor University.

The halls of residence here are about 12 months old. They are clean, modern and very comfortable. I have stayed at 4 star hotels that were not as good. Honestly!...

But what about the food? Well, the bar and restaurant are also new and the food is very good. The bar is well stocked and very pleasant. There is a pool table and two plasma tellies. It's a far cry from the smoke stained spit and sawdust of my days.

It was difficult to find anything to moan about - although, of course, some people will always moan about something.

In my case, it was the modular shower room. It had been lifted straight out of a French motorway motel.

I knew it was foreign because the shaver socket wouldn't accept a UK plug....

The good, the bad and the ugly.

For my sins, I have just returned from a four-day coach trip to North Wales.

To say it was an experience would be an understatement.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people will put themselves to enormous personal inconvenience to organise these things only to suffer the endless whingeing and complaining from the people who benefit from their efforts.

The food is in edible! The room is scruffy! The bed is uncomfortable! Oh yes...and some of the people!....

But it is important to remember that only other people are intolerant.

For example, the person who always wants the front seat on the coach....

The woman who queues at the coach door 20 minutes before the driver arrives....

Or the one who was fills her handbag from the breakfast buffet just to save buying lunch.

But the piece de resistance came at Portmeirion where one of our party went into the "Prisoner" gift shop, grabbed three books off the bookshelf, parked herself in Number 2's shell chair and spent the next half hour reading them before putting them back on the shelf.

Some people have more neck than a flamingo - and it ain't half as pretty!

Happy birthday America!

As today is the official birthday of the mighty USofA, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on the origins of this great nation...

"America," as a wise man once put it, "is a nation of mongrels swept from the gutters of Europe." So how did it become the nation it is today?

Well, after we had cleared out the gutters and sent them all off to fight indians, we still had some ne'er do wells left. So now we needed to ship the rest over and then get rid of the place. After all, it was a long way away, cost us a fortune to maintain and we had never received a penny in taxes. They wanted to break away and this suited us just fine.

But how to do this? We couldn't just give it away. So we hatched a master plan. We would draft all the rest of the cannon fodder into the army and send them off to America to fight the yanks. Then we drew a line across the map, kept the good bit, and called it "Canada".

And if you think this is all guff, ask yourself why the American War of Independence is the only war Britain has ever lost...

Euthanasia - The only way to go

An awful lot of guff is talked about human rights and none more so than about the right to life.

What about the right to die?

With dignity?

After all, it's my life and if I have had enough, then why should some goody two shoes know-it-all religious nut tell me that I have no right to end it?

If a dog has cancer and is suffering we take it to the vet and put it out of its misery. If a horse breaks its leg, we shoot it. If we fancy a steak or a chop, we don't think twice about killing the poor cow, sheep or pig. So what is it that is so special about the human being? After all we are just another mammal only smarter - well, unless you compare us to dolphins anyway...

"Ah", I hear you say "only humans have souls and God made us in his own image and gave us dominion over the beasts of the Earth." Absolute bollocks! Anyone who believes that God is a man with a big white beard and sits on a throne in the clouds is a demented lunatic and should be locked up immediately for his own safety and the safety of others.

The fact is that there is most likely no God, and even if there is then any man arrogant enough to think he has a direct line to Him and that He listens to what he says is deluding himself. If there is a God, then the creator of the universe is far to busy to notice this entire planet, let alone any individual on it. If the sun exploded tomorrow, then in the great scheme of things, it simply wouldn't matter. No-one out there would notice.

The fact is that the greatest human right we could possibly have is the right to decide what to do with our own lives. If I am suffering and I have had enough, then I want the right to end it. I want the right to ask someone to help me. I want the right for them not to be prosecuted for their compassion and compliance in helping me.

It must be my decision and mine alone and I would not condone for a moment anyone else taking that decision for me by either prolonging my life against my wishes or deciding to end it for me.

So put all the safeguards in place by all means but at least have the courage to grant me dignity and a death free from protracted suffering. After all, we extend that right to animals, so why not humans...

Working for charity

Recently, I had a bit of a moan about charities and direct debits. I expected to get slagged for it. I was amazed to find pretty much universal agreement.

I was reminded of an experience I had a few years ago when I was offered an IT contract for a well known international charity who shall remain nameless for fear of being sued for telling the truth.

The charity in question, who for the sake of argument we shall refer to as "Oxfam", controlled a lot of projects to help the local communities out in Africa. This is a good thing and it also generated work for the locals in not only building the thing, but also in keeping track of what was being spent.

I am a great believer in helping people help themselves. It builds their self respect - so when this project was described to me, I was a bit taken aback.

The idea was to spend huge amounts of money on a laptop based computer system to enable the local project managers to keep their own records and then send them back to HQ via satellite links.

"What's wrong with that?" you ask. Well, I'll tell you :

(1) For every system that was being rolled out, we put three or four local clerks out of work thus depriving them of the opportunity to earn money and damaging the local economy.

(2) The money being spent on the system was depriving starving natives in Africa of food.

"That last one's a bit strong, isn't it?"

Well, no actually. The idiot interviewing me told me that for every £1 he knocked off my hourly rate, he could feed a starving family in Africa for a week. I asked him how many he could feed by scrapping this daft system.

"I think you're missing the point" was his reply.

Actually, I dont think I was...

Hypocrisy makes the world go round

The 'Hypocrisy' two bottle gift set
Fine Caret for me - Vin Ordinaire for you!

Hypocrisy - if only we could bottle it, then we could sell it for a fortune!

Let's look at some of the recent examples :

David Laws - put in charge of cutting the public sector and then caught fiddling his expenses

The five MPs currently being prosecuted for expenses fiddles - they sit in parliament and makes laws, and then when they are caught breaking them say they don't apply to them. Unbelievable!

Diane Abbott - bangs on about education based on merit rather than ability to pay, and then sends her son to a private school.

Alex Salmond - branded a hypocrite for slagging off Westminster's gravy train and then accepting a golden goodbye when he stands down as an MP - despite the fact that he is still in a job in Scotland with a 6 figure salary

The government bangs on about cutting costs and then spends 18 grand topping up the House of Commons wine cellar

John Prescott - takes money for making a documentary about the unfairness of the class system and then accepts a peerage

But there are a few glimmers of hope.

David Cameron this week turned down the lifetime pension that he became entitled to as soon as he became PM

Nationwide building society's CEO turned down the proportion of his huge bonus that would have meant he got a big pay increase compared to last year.

John Baron, the Conservative MP, gave the £60,000 profit on his second home to charity when he was perfectly entitled to keep it.

I could go on and on - and to be fair I usually do - but I am sure you could think of a good few more I haven't mentioned....