Beware of the little old lady...

A young man shopping in a supermarket noticed a little old lady following him around.

If he stopped, she stopped. And she kept staring at him.

She finally overtook him at the checkout, and she turned to him and said, "I hope I haven't made you feel ill at ease - it's just that you look so much like my late son."

He answered, "That's okay."

"I know it's silly, but if you'd call out 'Good bye, Mum' as I leave the store, it would make me feel so happy."

She then went through the checkout, and as she was on her way out of the store, the man called out, "Goodbye, Mum."

The little old lady waved and smiled back at him and pleased that he had brought a little sunshine into someone's day, he went to pay for his groceries.

"That comes to £75.80," said the girl at the till.

"How come so much? I only bought 5 items."

The girl replied, "Yes I know, but your Mother said you'd be paying for her things, too."

Woman found in Simon Cowell's bed

Shock! Horror! A woman has been found in Simon Cowell's bed!...

Apparently woman broke in to Cowell's London house last Saturday night and rifled through his drawers before climbing into his bed.

The woman intruder was taken to a West London police station where she was questioned by officers from Kensington and Chelsea. She is also said to have undergone a psychiatric assessment.

It has not been revealed whether or not the woman is nuts, but police released her after returning her white stick and reuniting her with her Labrador...

EU bag of shite!

Here we go again - more Brussels bullshit!

Clearly with nothing more to occupy their time than to sit on their loathsome, spotty behinds squeezing blackheads and thinking up more totally unnecessary ways to interfere in how people run their own countries, the idiots in Brussels have decided that Britain should implement a tax on plastic bags.

Of course, all this being done as one Kenneth Everett would have put it 'in the best possible taste' because it will help reduce pollution, you know. But if you think about it, this is bollocks because you either need a plastic bag, or you don't.

Personally, I use mine to line my pedal bin in the kitchen. I ran out once because my local supermarket ran a campaign to reduce bag usage. I had to buy some on a roll instead. These were too large and so I was forced to cause even more pollution by using and oversized bag.

Anyway, the EU says it will take the first step to a total ban next month by publishing a report on plastic packaging. One of the key proposals will be a recommendation for mandatory charging for plastic shopping bags.

Last October, Wales imposed a 5p charge and shops that provide free bags face a fine of up to £5,000 - but then this is a nation where a sheep tied to a lamp post passes as a leisure centre so we really shouldn't follow their example. Seems the EU wants to, 'though...

Yes, we should try to re-use these things wherever possible, but when unelected prats in a foreign country decide to force me to do their bidding, I say stick your plastic bag in your fundamental orifice and whistle 'I'm forever blowing bubbles'...

It's draconian environmental fascism of the worst order...

E.M.U.

An Aussie truckie walks into an outback cafe with a full-grown emu behind him.

The waitress asks them for their orders.

The truckie says, 'A hamburger, chips and a coke,' and turns to the emu, 'What's yours?' 'Sounds great, I'll have the same,' says the emu.

A short time later the waitress returns with the order 'That will be $9.40 please,' and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the exact change and pays.

The next day, the man and the emu come again and he says, 'A hamburger, chips and a coke.' The emu says, ' Sounds great, I'll have the same.'

Again the truckie reaches into his pocket and pays with exact change.

This becomes routine until the two enter again. 'The usual?' asks the waitress.

'No, it's Friday night, so I'll have a steak, baked potato and a salad,' says the man. 'Same for me,' says the emu.

Shortly the waitress brings the order and says, 'That will be $32.62.'

Once again the man pulls the exact change out of his pocket and places it on the table.

The waitress cannot hold back her curiosity any longer. 'Excuse me mate, how do you manage to always pull the exact change from your pocket every time?'

'Well, love' says the truckie, 'a few years ago, I was cleaning out the back shed, and found an old lamp. When I cleaned it, a Genie appeared and offered me two wishes.

My first wish was that if I ever had to pay for anything, I would just put my hand in my pocket and the right amount of money would always be there.'

'That's brilliant!' says the waitress. 'Most people would ask for a million dollars or something, but you'll always be as rich as you want, for as long as you live!'

'That's right. Whether it's a gallon of milk or a Rolls Royce, the exact money is always there.' says the man.

Still curious the waitress asks, 'So what's with the bloody emu?'

The truckie pauses, sighs, and answers, 'My second wish was for a tall bird with a big arse and long legs, who agrees with everything I say.

Wot - no friends?

What could be more normal and healthy than for your darling kiddywinkle to go trotting off to school and to have his very own best friend?

Well, apparently the politically correct brigade are now convincing a growing number of primary schools that this is a very, very bad idea indeed! It seems that teachers need to discourage such things because children could be emotionally traumatised when best friends fall out.

FFS! Get a life...

Educational psychologist Gaynor Sbuttoni said the policy has been used at schools in Kingston, South West London, and Surrey.

She added: "I have noticed that teachers tell children they shouldn't have a best friend and that everyone should play together. They are doing it because they want to save the child the pain of splitting up from their best friend. But it is natural for some children to want a best friend. If they break up, they have to feel the pain because they're learning to deal with it."

Quite right, Gaynor.

How the hell are we going to expect our children to grow up to have close personal relationships and to learn to deal with rejection and emotional turmoil if we carry on like this? It's political correctness gone mad and makes no sense at all.

The role of a teacher is to prepare our children for life as adults. It is not their job to act a therapists providing for emotionally deprived children. If we go down that route, then more crap like this will ouze inexorably in to our schools. The inevitable result of this trend is to turn out dysfunctional children who cannot cope with emotional stress.

And at the end of the day, we send our kids to school to be educated, not brainwashed...

Cutting through the pensions bullshit...

There's been of lot of guff spouted over the last few days about the so called 'granny tax', but what's the truth behind the spin?

In the budget, tax allowances were increased by £1,200 per annum to £9,205 for everyone apart from people who receive the age related rates. They will get the same as now - £10,500 at 65 or £10,660 at 75. These higher rates were frozen until they fall in line with the basic tax allowance.

Now Labour tell you that this means that pensioners are worse off. Well, they aren't. You can't be worse off because you lost something you never had. If I had £100 in my pocket, I can't claim to be £10 worse off than if I had £110 in my pocket. It's not a valid argument.

However, if we set that aside then if a pensioner also got an extra £1,200 then at 20% basic rate he would have paid £240 per annum less tax.

But what has been wholesalely ignored by the media - check the BBC budget analysis and you will find no mention of it - is that the Chancellor increased the basic state pension by £5.30 per week. That works out to £275 per annum.

So maybe I'm a bit dim, but it seems to me that if you get an extra £275 then even if you take off the £240 for losing something that you never had in the first place, you are still £35 a year better off.

The reality, though, is that pensioners are actually £275 a year better off. And - while we are at it - let's not forget that the higher age related allowance only applies if your income including the pension is less than £29,900 a year anyway whereas every pensioner will get the extra £5.30 per week.

To turn this into a loss - and a headline - we need to add in the loss of something you never had in the first place and then adjust for inflation. Ignoring, of course, that inflation effects everyone so you really ought to knock that out of the comparison as well.

So Oscar was right. There are lies, damn lies and statistics...

Off with their goolies!

I remember a sketch many years ago on 'Not the Nine O'clock News' where it was proposed that the only answer to the problem of youth was to chop off their goolies. Well, how prophetic that turned out to be as earlier this week it transpired that the Catholic Church in Holland had actually been doing just that!

At least 10 teenage boys or young men under the age of 21 were surgically castrated "to get rid of homosexuality" while in their care in the 1950s.

Evidence of the castrations has emerged amid controversy that it was not included in the findings of an official investigation into sexual abuse within the church last year. The NRC Handelsblad newspaper identified Henk Heithuis who was castrated in 1956, while a minor, after reporting priests to the police for abusing him in a Catholic boarding home.

Joep Dohmen, the investigative journalist who uncovered the Heithuis case, also found evidence of at least nine other castrations. "These cases are anonymous and can no longer be traced," he said. "There will be many more. But the question is whether those boys, now old men, will want to tell their story."

The picture I have used in this article shows the similar treatment of jewish prisoners in a German concentration camp. You might think that this comparison is a bit strong - but frankly I can see no difference.

Any organisation that behaves in such a manner should be ashamed. Any church doing so should be doubly ashamed.

( You can read more on this story in the Telegraph by clicking here )

Chancellor's budget message

Who cares?

Doesn't it just warm your heart to see a jolly, happy pensioner getting the home care she needs in her advancing years?...

What a shame it's absolute bollocks!

I was prompted to think about this because of a recent report that says the care that our old poeple are receiving at home falls sadly below the standards that would be expected in a civilised country.

The consumer magazine, Which?,  found cases of missed visits, food left out of reach, medication not given and people being left in soiled beds during its investigation. It concluded too many faced a "constant battle" to just get the basic help.

This is, of course, nothing new as you only have to type 'home care' into Google to see how many reports have been saying the same thing for years so for Labour to blame the situation on this government's spending cuts is a bit rich. This is even more ridiculous when you consider that Which? points out that its survey included those people who pay privately and that the service was just as bad for them too!

Whilst I was on holiday, I recorded "Call the Midwife" and watched one episode last night. Set in the 1950's, it dealt with the case of an old man with leg ulcers who was living on his own in a run down tenement. The place was a tip, but the nurse was at least dressing his legs for him.

Then he was moved away into care where his legs were neglected and not dressed properly. They became gangrenous and had to be amputated. He died shortly afterwards.

It led me to reflect that despite all the soundbites, very little has really improved over the past 60 years...

Taking the PCS!

It really is about time that something was done about the ludicrous strike ballot rules in this country.

In their ongoing attempt to strong arm the government into letting them continue with their obscenely disproportionate pensions, the country's 5th biggest trades union is proclaiming 'overwhelming support' from its members in favour of rejecting the government's latest pension deal and proceeding with further industrial action.

Apparently, 90% rejected the proposals and 72% were in favour of further strikes. An overwhelming majority indeed!

But was it?....

Look into the figures more deeply and it these percentages relate to 'those members who voted' - so how many was that, then? Oops! Seems it was only 33%

So let's restate this without the spin. 30% of the membership reject the latest proposals, whilst 24% want further strike action. To put another way, the vast majority of the PCS membership couldn't give a flying fuck one way or the other or - quite likely - couldn't face the intimidation of the militants by voting 'no'.

The government really does need to grasp this nettle and make union ballots conpulsory for all members or, at least, invalidate them without a 90% turnout.

It's simply not on to let these people hold the country to ransom on the strength of a 24% 'yes' vote.

Today's Budget in full...

• Rich people pay too much tax
• Public servants are overpaid
• Fags and booze are too cheap
• The LibDems are holding us back
• Gordon sold all the gold
• Labour are hopeless
• The unions are irresponsible
• The country's fucked
• It's not our fault
• We're all in it together
• Things can only get better!
• er..........that's it.

Supreme Leader's pre budget announcement

Comrades,

Tomorrow we are again to be confronted with the treacherous lies of this right-wing dominated government. Once again they will be spreading wicked propaganda about the economic future of our country!

Do not believe them! Only I, your Supreme Leader, can solve our economic woes.

I have a plan to get our young people back to work. When the party is returned to power I shall guarantee a job for every unemployed young worker in our country.

This carefully crafted scheme has been painstakingly costed by Comrade Balls who assures me that it can be easily funded by taxing the bonuses paid out to the filthy capitalist bankers who are responsible for this mess in the first place! Only I, your Supreme Leader, have the vision and courage to take such bold steps - proving that only I put the nation first!

Your fascist leaders want to line their pockets by abolishing the highest income taxes, putting the greed of the rich above the poverty of the oppressed working classes. But we shall not stand idly back and let this happen! I pledge to you that when we are returned to power we will cut basic tax to 10% paying for this by introducing a top rate of tax at 90% on all company directors.

The imperial capitalists must not be allowed to exploit us any longer! Keep the faith, comrades, and the future will be fair for all of you!

Your Supreme Leader

It's very sad, but why is it headline news?

OK, I admit that I am not a football fan but despite that I cannot understand why all the news yesterday was totally dominated by the collapse of Bolton footballer, Fabrice Muamba.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it's not very sad that this guy appears to have collapsed from a heart attack and my sympathies go out to his family. But it happens to hundreds of people every day and it doesn't make the local news, never mind dominate the nationals. So why is this so different?

Well, he's a Premier League footballer. OK, but why does that make him a national celebrity? He entertains people by kicking a ball around on a piece of grass. And what's this celebrity cult thing all about anyway?

On Sunday morning all the TV news people could talk about was this guy. The photographers and reporters were camped outside the London Chest Hospital to report that there was no news. It occupied the first seven minutes of the BBC national news. They got a cardiologist in to be interviewed about the case which - to be honest - he had no information on and the whole thing was just idle speculation.

And if he had broken a leg, then he would have been stretchered off and a sub brought on, so why was the game abandoned? No doubt I will be accused of being insensitive and uncaring, but the cynical would ask how much extra money they get for the rematch.

By the time this piece is published, the man may be dead or recovering - hopefully the latter - but I just don't get why it's so damn important in the great scheme of things...

Stop abortion - or else!

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service said this week that a campaign run by a U.S.-based religious group '40 Days for Life' is intimidating women who use its services by holding vigils outside one of their central London clinics and filming people coming in and out of the building.

A spokeswoman, who requested anonymity because she said she had received hate mail, said the protests were bigger than many other anti-abortion protests. “We’ve always had sporadic outbursts down the years, but I think we are seeing something, seeing protest on a scale we haven’t seen before,” she said.

40 Days for Life said its members are carrying out a peaceful Christian prayer vigil outside BPAS’s central London clinic. “It’s totally unfounded to say we want to intimidate women,” they said. “We are there to pray and to show there is love in the community out there.” They claim that the filming is not official policy.

So basically then, it's a peaceful protest by a respectable religious organisation against a perfectly legal practice with no intention whatsoever of causing intimidation by barracking, picketing, filming or sending hate mail.

Right. And I'm the next Pope..

Why Britain's going to pot...

(Hat tip to GeorgeSilver for the photo...)

Red meat

A report out this week warns us that red meat is dangerous.

Apparently, red meat will be the death of you! It's official! Red meat can mean that you are 13% more likely to die, whereas it's 20% more fatal if it is processed.

So you better watch out!

Of course, if your red meat wears a rag round its head and carries an AK47, the risk can be even higher - and higher still if it's been processed by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay.

Remember - you've been warned...

Big Brother is still watching

There is an argument that CCTV makes Britain safer. There is also the counter argument that it turns us into a society where everyone is being watched, controlled, spied on...

Whatever you point of view there is no doubt that it is costing the taxpayer a small fortune.

There are now 51,600 council operated CCTV cameras in Britain. Here's a run down from a report commissioned by Big Brother Watch :

The two biggest spenders were Birmingham City Council, spending more than £14million on 636 cameras, Westminster City, forking out £12million for 153 cameras, followed by Leeds, which laid out more than £8.7million on 253 devices.

Edinburgh and Cambridge, and Croydon, Enfield, and Barnet, all in London, spent more than £4.6million each from 2007-11.

The residents of Leicester are the most watched with 2,083 cameras. Fife is second with 1,420 cameras followed by Wandsworth in London with 1,158.

The staggering cost of all this over the past four years is £515,000,000.

Now there is a valid criticism that these cameras are everywhere but that you never see a copper on his beat any more. For £515m we could have employed over 4000 extra PCs.

Which would you prefer? Cameras or coppers?

Tony Nicklinson's quest for death

I am appalled that the so called intelligent people of this country still fail to grasp the fundamental differences between 'euthanasia' an 'assisted death' as is being clearly demonstrated once again by the reaction to the attempt by Tony Nicklinson to have his intolerable suffering ended.

So let's try once again to spell this out : 'Euthanasia' is the decision by another person to end your life because they think it should be ended. 'Assisted death' is your decision to end your own life and to seek assistance to do so because you cannot manage it on your own.

There is a clear difference between these two positions which MUST be understood. The former is murder. Plain and simple. It should be illegal. The latter is suicide. Your life. Your decision. Not someone else's decision. Are we clear?

Kathy Gyngell - who wrote this article in the Daily Mail - clearly does not understand this difference and so wrote the most appallingly penned piece of emotionally driven gobshite that it has been my displeasure to read for some time. This made all the more incomprehenible because she tragically lost her own husband to cancer.

The Nicklinson's have been granted their day in court to argue their case. This is quite right and as it should be. I applaud Mr. Justice Charles' decision and his courage in what will undoubtedly be outraged condemnation - mainly by people who are incapable of understanding the point I made above.

Ms Gyngel on the other hand says "Without doubt our obsessively rights oriented culture has made this appalling case possible. However intolerable the life of Mr Nicklinson, this is an inflation of ‘rights’ too far. Death is not a right. Nor can killing ever be." Bollocks, Ms Gyngel! The case is not appalling to the intelligent and unemotional observer. Your own death absolutely is a right, but you are correct that killing can never be.

She goes on, "inventing a right to euthanasia is not necessary to relieve suffering or to protect human dignity" so here we have the point again. Euthanasia, no - assisted death, yes. She still doesn't get the difference.

In a long meandering article, she does however make one good point "Murder by necessity would, almost certainly, be open to abuse by those who stand to benefit from death." but she blows it yet again by failing to understand the basic point. Murder is murder. Euthanasia - my death decided by someone else - is murder. Assisted death is my decision, not yours and therefore by definition not murder.

We will never get anywhere on this issue until we grasp this essential difference...

Human rights for dolphins

Now as my regular reader will know, whenever the expression 'human rights' is used, I tend to go for a lie down in a dark room and reach for the blood pressure medication...

So when some complete tosser seriously proposes that this should be applied to whales and dolphins then you can imagine how I react!

A coalition of scientists, philosophers and animal welfare groups have come up with a declaration of dolphin rights which they hope will one day be enshrined in law.

Whales would also be elevated above other animals by the list of rules, leading to whalers being classed as murderers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference heard in Vancouver.

Whale watching trips would be subject to regulations which would respect the creatures’ privacy, and developers and oil companies would have to give huge consideration to the effect their projects would have on the animals’ life and culture.

Philosopher Thomas White said: ‘Scientific evidence is now strong enough to support the claim that dolphins are, like humans, self-aware, intelligent beings with emotions and personalities. '

The bill of rights states that every individual member of the cetacean order – whales, dolphins and porpoises – has a right to life. It also says that no one has the right to own the creatures or to do anything that undermines their rights, freedoms or norms.

Now don't get me wrong. I like whales and dolphins and would ban whaling and fishing methods injurious to dolphin - but a bill of rights for them seems to me to be absolutely crazy!

We have enough trouble with people without extending this bullshit to cetaceans!

Tax relief on pensions

Budget time is coming round again and there are calls from the Limp Dumps to abolish higher rate tax relief on pension contributions and to make the tax free lump sums on pensions taxable.

Now it might just surprise you to know that I actually agree with some of this in principle.

Let's take, for an example, Sir - sorry Mr - Fred Goodwin who walked away from RBS with a twelve million quid pension pot.  Goodwin was a prime example of people quite legally avoiding paying tax by stuffing vast amounts of his remuneration in to a pension fund thus avoiding paying income tax on it.

For many years accountants have been advising highly paid people to dio exactly this and, legally, there is nothing wrong in this. Morally, however, I would say this was a different kettle of fish altogether.

I have no problem with allowing tax relief on pension contributions as these are a way of boosting funds and encouraging people to make provision for their own future. This reduces the burden on the state in their old age and therefore I see a perfect justification for the state to contribute. For the same reason, I see no reason to change the rules to make lump sums taxable.

The problem I do have is with the abuse of these funds as a method for highly paid people to avoid paying tax.

I would restrict tax relief on pension funds to the basic rate of tax so that 40% and 50% taxpayers only receive relief at the basic 20% rate. I believe that this is fair and that as the vast majority of people who pay into pension funds are basic rate payers, it would be generally supported.

George Osbourne, however, would appear to disagree. He might - just conceivably - be prepared to cut off tax relief at £100,000 earners but not to generally restrict the relief to basic rate for everyone.

And when you look at the circles he moves in - you just might ask yourself why this is?..

Catholics oppose gay adoption

There are moves afoot to make gay adoption more ready available in the UK which have caused Leeds based charity, Catholic Care' consider giving up its work finding homes for children if they are forced to comply with the current legislation.

Let me say right out that I don't believe that same sex couples should adopt children where there is a two-sex couple available to take the child instead. Life is difficult enough for a growing child without having to deal with jibing from other kids about their parentage. You might make the same argument about mixed race couples having children, although I realise that this would sound very politically incorrect.

Nevertheless, whatever your views on what is a highly controversial subject the government of this country has enacted laws and regulations to deal with it. The law is the law even where it is an ass. The law is there to be obeyed or face the consequences.

Now, no-one is suggesting that any charity should be an exception to the law, and they do have the right to shut up shop if they feel they cannot operate within the rules.

But I hope they will reconsider because but it does seem to me that if religious dogma is considered more important than the welfare of young children, then the church has got it seriously wrong...

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (13)

A bit of Saturday humour that I didn't use while I was away...

Get stuffed!

As a lover of the bizarre things that people do, I just loved this story the minute I saw it!

In Brooklyn in the U.S. (where else!?!), Susan Jeiven's class on anthropomorphic taxidermy has been sold out since December.

The one-day workshop, which teaches students how to stuff dead mice and pose them up as if they were humans, is becoming a popular pastime in New York.

White-haired mice styled in tutus and polka dot hair bows; their spindly paws strumming miniature guitars - even reading the New York Times...

An 'educator' and tattoo artist, she begins the four-hour lesson handing out the lifeless little creatures, having sucked out their blood with a syringe beforehand.

But strange or morbid as it might seem to some, anthropomorphic taxidermy – the practice of mounting and displaying taxidermied animals as if they were humans or engaged in human activities – has a long and storied history, beginning with the most privileged classes.

It was a popular art form during the Victorian and Edwardian eras; the best known practitioner of the art form being British taxidermist Walter Potter, whose works included The Kitten Wedding and The Kitten Tea Party, which the mind immediately wants to imagine.

My thanks to the Daily Mail for brightenng my day. Go to their website for some excellent pictures.

Britains 'No Go' areas...

A worrying report from the United Nations of all people has compared parts of the UK to Mexico and Brazil where the police fear to tread because of drugs gangs.

The UN says that in parts of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham the police are losing the battle against drugs and organised crime.

The three cities were directly compared to the drug cartels which hold sway over large parts of Brazil and Mexico by Professor Hamid Ghodse, the president of the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). He said the cities were trapped in 'a vicious cycle of social exclusion and drugs problems and fractured communities.

'In many societies around the world, whether developed or developing, there are communities within the societies which develop which become no-go areas. Drug traffickers, organised crime, drug users, they take over. They will get the sort of governance of those areas.

'Examples are in Brazil, Mexico, in the United States, in the UK, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and therefore it is no good to have only law enforcement, which always shows it does not succeed.'

He blames it all on social equality and lack of education and employment opportunities.

Well, he has partly got a point although an old saying about horses and stable doors does come to mind.

If you are dealing drugs and making a small fortune doing it, are you really going to be interested in giving it up to go on a training programme? If you are a crack head, are you really going to be looking further ahead than who you can rob to pay for your next fix?

There used to be a saying that 'crime doesn't pay'. Well, sadly these days it seems to pay very well...

The Dear Gill Letters (18)

OMG wasn't London Fashion Week just so divine, darling?? I mean, it was just wonderful to be out strutting one's stuff and being the centre of attention for a change in all those wonderful freebie dresses!!!

I mean, it's one thing being the PM's better half but what's the point if you can't be the centre of attention once in a while in your own right? Somebody's mother, somebody's daughter, somebody bloody mother is all very well but I am me as well you know!

It was lovely to see you there too, darling, and let's face it the best seats and loads of free booze are the least we deserve after all the angst we have to put up with. I gather your dear hubby has been getting stick over his bonus again. So the bank lost a few billion! I mean, so what! Dave loses billions every week - mainly to the old German bitch Merkel but at least it's not his money. Nobody bitches about that, do they? I think a few hundred thou is the least he deserves putting up with all that aggro.

And talking about aggro, Dave's been off to another summit so he's in a right old paddy. I told him that whatever he said was a waste of breath, but did he listen? Did he hell as like! What did he expect after telling them to shove heir financial pact where the sun doesn't shine? Drinkies all round? Well, I think not! Whatever was he on when he was caught whinging that nobody listens to him? The cheap French wine or the freebie schnapps? Well, whatever it was he should know better. After all, nobody listens to him at home, so why should they listen to him in Brussels?

Mind you, that Sarky's a two faced piece of work! All camera work and no sincerity. He'll say anything to get re-elected - it's like the Labour party but with more prospects!

Anyway, Daddy's in a better mood now they've abandoned plans to build Hell on Earth in his back yard! Plus he's doing rather well on the old environmentally friendly energy front. Seems his eight wind turbines are proving a great success! Three and a half Hesters for a few windmills can't be all bad and for once they can't point the finger at me because the subsidy scheme was introduced by the last lot. Apparently it costs the taxpayer about fourteen quid a head in taxes, but what the hell? It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good as they say.

Anyway, he's going to stick a few more up at Flixborough Grange. Seems the local serfs are up in arms, but at the end of the day who cares what the cannon fodder think as long as they up cough up the readies!?

Anyway, better close because old Grumpy is demanding his conjugals and we need to keep him on side! Coffee next week? Give me a call...

Shitburger anyone?

News from the continent that Dutch scientists have used stem cells to create strips of muscle tissue with the aim of producing the first lab-grown hamburger later this year.

A university in Maastricht - a place also famous for producing unpalettable treaties - has grown small pieces of muscle about 2cm long, 1cm wide and about 1 mm thick. These are off-white and resemble strips of calamari in appearance. These strips will be mixed with blood and artificially grown fat to produce a hamburger by the autumn.

What I find most frightening about this is that having grown something that is pure protein, they can't sell it to the public without putting the shit stuff back in!

And to court publicity, they intend to get Heston to cook the very first artificial burger. Heston is, of course, world famous for rustling up a wholesome meal from stuff that some people wouldn't scrape of the bottom of their shoes. Who could forget his snail porridge and sardine on toast ice cream? Yum, yum...

So what is the synthetic burger likely to taste like?

"In the beginning it will taste bland," says MU's Prof Post. "I think we will need to work on the flavour separately by trying to figure out which components of the meat actually produce the taste and analyse what the composition of the strip is and whether we can change that."

Now it has been suggested that a well known hamburger fast food chain who I can't name for fear of being sued has been producing hamburgers from tasteless crap and selling them quite successfully for many years, but as Francis Urquhart might well have said "You might very well think that - I couldn't possibly comment!"

Prof Post also said that if the technology took off, it would reduce the number of animals that were factory farmed and slaughtered but David Steele, who is president of Earthsave Canada, said that the same benefits could be achieved if people ate less meat.

"While I do think that there are definite environmental and animal welfare advantages of this high-tech approach over factory farming, especially, it is pretty clear to me that plant-based alternatives... have substantial environmental and probably animal welfare advantages over synthetic meat," he said.

Dr Steele, who is also a molecular biologist, said he was also concerned that unhealthily high levels of antibiotics and antifungal chemicals would be needed to stop the synthetic meat from rotting.

Delicious...

Ban bus passes for OAPs

Just look at them! Lazy, scrounging bastards the lot of them...

Well, anyway, that seems to be the general view of the Social Market Foundation who point out that giving bus passes to pensioners costs the poor old taxpayer about a billion a year. Not only that, but if we stopped giving these scroungers the winter fuel allowance and just let them freeze to death instead, then that would save another couple of billion - and of course would reduce the strain on the NHS of caring for old folk.

Now as I am a pensioner, I must declare an interest. However, I am not yet old enough to get the state pension. I was, however, looking forward to recieving my bus pass when I hit 60 because it will save me money on the park and ride. However, I am now told that I will have to wait until I am 62 for that.

In the meantime, I do qualify for free prescriptions for all the medicines that I don't take!

Now recently there has been a financial crisis. This has meant that loads of people have lost their jobs, for whom I am sorry. It also means that interest rate cuts have benefitted lots of people with mortgages. Good luck to them, too.

However, I retired early at my own expenses thus freeing up a job for a younger person. I also don't have a mortgage and live off the interest on my savings. I do notice that very little is ever said about retired people like me who have had their incomes cut dramatically because of lower rates.

I accept all this because it is in the national interest and in the long term - assuming I am still young enough to have a long term to look forward to - we will all benefit. So when I read about cunts like this trying to hit us even harder, then it frankly makes my piss boil.

The Social Market Foundation is, apparently, a 'think tank'. What I think is this : Who the fuck pays these people and how much can we save by shutting them down?

After the Rapture

Well, it would seem that the predictions of Harold Camping that the day of judgement would be upon us last year came to nothing, but he's got it wrong before so maybe the timing was just a bit off!

It made me think "What would it have been like if he got it right?"

New Olympic sport announced

Coe and his cronies have just announced that a new Oympic sport is to be previewed at London 2012 for the first time : 'Find a cheap hotel room'...

Now admittedly this has never been easy in London at the best of times, but now the game is officially of truly Olympic proportions!

Amazed by the operation of a basic function of everyday economics called 'supply and demand', the Chief Executive of VisitBritain, Sandie Dawe, has been slagging off hotel operators for hiking their prices during the games. Rather naive I would say if I was being polite about it. Everybody knows that in times of high demand and limited supply prices tend to rocket.

On top of all this, Locock the games organisers have handed back 120,000 room nights that are "surplus to requirements" and originally booked for officials and sponsors. Do the math : divide 120,000 room nights by 4 weeks to be generous and that's one fuck of a lot of freeloaders being paid for out of our taxes!

Many hotels have trebled their prices for the duration of the Olympics as well as stipulating minimum stays and payments in advance. You can't blame them - and if Ms Dawe thinks that this is unrealistic then she's totally out of touch with reality.

As former U.S. Vice President, Spiro Agnew, once so succinctly put it "When you have them by the balls, then the head and the heart follow..."

My advice is simple. If you don't want to pay the price then don't come. I won't be there...

Opportunistic bastards!

Now my regular reader will know that I am not a great fan of the forthcoming Olympic games, but it seems that there is at least one bunch of opportunistoc, money grabbing bastards out there who are all for it!

Britain's biggest union has threatened to disrupt the London Olympics as part of its battle against cuts to public sector pensions. Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, urged other unions opposing the Coalition's pension plans and George Osborne's austerity measures to target the Olympics.

The Olympics is, he says, "a leverage point" - or to put it into plain English, and oportunity to extort money by using blackmail.

He went on "The unions, and the general community, have got every right to be out protesting. If the Olympics provide us with an opportunity, then that's exactly one that we should be looking at." He said no decisions had been reached and said "it would be nice if we were able not to disrupt such a prestigious event as the Olympics".

"Nice" FFS!!!!....It's not compulsory!!!!!

As if possessed with a incontrollable urge to rant on and spout even more bullshit, he added: "Our parents and our grandparents, having defeated fascism in Europe, came back determined to build a land fit for heroes. They gave us the welfare state, the National Health Service, universal education. All of that is being attacked." What a crock of shite!

His comments even dismayed Ed Miliband, who urged both sides of the dispute to get round the negotiating table. Baroness Warsi, said: "I am shocked that Unite would sink so low as to spoil this great national event for everyone else. Ed Miliband must order his union cronies to rule out disrupting the Olympics."

And just to add to the frenzy, RMT are now in dispute over the size of the Olympic non-disruption bungs for the tube drivers.

Doesn't it just make you proud to be British?...


( Jim White wrote a nice piece in the Torygraph about this prat which you can read here)

This stinks...

Is there anybody out there who doesn't think that the extradition of Christopher Tappin to the US stinks?

Here is a man who didn't even know he had been indicted for three years. A man accused to selling batteries - batteries FFS! - to a firm in the Netherlands to sent them on to Iran to be used in missile production. Here is a man who has committed no offense in the UK.

So what do we do? We give him a couple of weeks to appeal and then cart him off to America to be locked up and have his bail opposed.

Attorney General Dominic Grieve said his extradition had highlighted problems with the treaty between the UK and US, which are not "readily curable" which as far as I can see is the understatement of the century!

In a written statement which she was unable to finish reading, Mrs Tappin said  "At the heart of our despair is the fact that nobody was prepared to listen to Chris's defence before carting him off. They ticked the boxes but were deaf and blind to the possibility of injustice."

She had still not been able to talk to her husband since he was extradited and he was being held in isolation, "locked up for 23 hours a day".

What the hell is wrong with the government of this country that we have to cowtow to this sort of all-American bullshit. They don't let us do it to their citizens, so why the hell do we roll over and let them do it to ours?