Dioclese

It's a miracle!

2012-02-12T08:00:00.001Z

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (12)

2012-02-11T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (11)

2012-02-10T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (10)

2012-02-09T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (9)

2012-02-08T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (8)

2012-02-07T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (7)

2012-02-06T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

Clothes Make me Sweat!!

2012-02-05T08:00:00.001Z

The Rev. Robert Whipkey, a Catholic priest accused of walking naked down a street in Frederick, Colorado, pleaded not guilty to indecent exposure.
Whipkey, the pastor for three Roman Catholic churches — in Frederick, Mead and Erie — was stopped by Frederick police at 4:30 a.m. for allegedly walking down the street naked. He told police he had been jogging at the Frederick High School track and was walking home.

“I’m a heavy man and wearing clothing while running makes me sweat profusely,” Whipkey said, according to a police report. “I know what I did was wrong.”

In August, the Archdiocese of Denver announced that it had placed Whipkey on administrative leave.

The same day, a lawyer representing Whipkey said the priest deeply regretted any discomfort and embarrassment that the situation had caused Catholics in the archdiocese, his family or anyone else

Whipkey was found guilty and told he must register as a sex offender. He was sentenced to five years of probation and cannot have contact with any children younger than 18, even family members, after being convicted of indecent exposure after a five-hour trial.

The judge was apparently unimpressed by his defence that he had not deliberately exposed himself as 'he didn't expect anyone to be about at that hour of the morning'...

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (6)

2012-02-04T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (5)

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (4)

2012-02-02T08:00:00.000Z

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (3)

2012-02-01T08:30:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word (2)

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000Z

( Dioclese is currently swanning it up in Tenerife )

When it's OK to use the 'F' word

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000Z

I'm off to Tenerife for a NewYear break (yes! another one!), so I thought I'd leave you with this litlle thought : When is it OK to use the 'F' word...

The story of Suzie

2012-01-29T08:00:00.000Z

Remember - God loves you...

Tiger and Stevie go drinking...

2012-01-28T08:00:00.000Z

Tiger Woods & Stevie Wonder are in a bar...

Tiger turns to Stevie and says, "How's the singing career going?"

Stevie replies, "Not too bad. How's the golf?"

Woods replies, "Not too bad, I've had some problems with my swing, but I think I've got that right, now."

Stevie says, "I always find that when my swing goes wrong, I need to stop playing for a while and not think about it. Then, the next time I play, it seems to be all right."

Incredulous, Tiger says, "You play GOLF?"

Stevie says, "Yes, I've been playing for years."

Tiger says, "But -- you're blind! How can you play golf if you can't see?"

Stevie Wonder replies, "Well, I get my caddy to stand in the middle of the fairway and call to me. I listen for the sound of his voice and play the ball towards him. Then, when I get to where the ball lands, the caddy moves to the green or farther down the fairway and again I play the ball towards his voice."

But, "How do you putt" asks Tiger.

"Well", says Stevie, "I get my caddy to lean down in front of the hole and call to me with his head on the ground and I just play the ball toward his voice."

Tiger asks, "What's your handicap?"

Stevie says, "Well, actually -- I'm a scratch golfer."

Woods, incredulous, says to Stevie, "We've got to play a round sometime."

Stevie replies, "Well, people don't take me seriously, so I only play for money, and never play for less than $10,000 a hole. Is that a problem?"

Woods thinks about it and says, "I can afford that; OK, I'm game for that.. $10,000 a hole is fine with me. When would you like to play?"

Stevie Wonder says, "Pick a night."

Life's Too Short!

2012-01-27T08:00:00.003Z

Here's a new song from my good friend Chas that he describes as 'sort of Beach Boys meets the Sex Pistols'

Anyway, I like it - so here's the video I put to it...

Wonder how long it will be before YouTube take this one down?..

It's enough to give you a heart attack!

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000Z

Mrs D. just had an angiogram to find out if she has coronary heart disease (thankfully she doesn't), but the experience is worth recounting...

We got the appointment well in advance, as it is these days with NHS lead times. That wasn't a problem. Just present yourself at 8am on Tuesday. Then on Sunday, we get a telephone call to say 'No, make that 10am. Oh, and could you go to the cardiology department at 9:45 and pick up a blood test form?' No problem.

Tuesday arrives and I take Mrs D. to the hospital. Problem 1 - you don't just need a form, you need to have blood taken. Problem 2, we don't do that here, you need to go to another department.

Off she trots. Problem 3 - 'We're busy! Why weren't you here at 9 o'clock?' Er, because we did what we were told?

Eventually we arrive at the Day Surgery Unit. 'Where have you been? You're late!' Er, well you told us to go to cardiology for a form, which turned out to be a blood test, which is done somewhere else. 'I told you needed to do that and you should have gone there at 9am!' Er, no you didn't - but we're here now so let's get on...

Mrs D, is now led to the ward. It's 10:35 and nothing much happens until after 2pm when she is told they are ready for her. The angiography unit is in a trailer in the car park and it's the coldest day of 2012 so far. Do they wheel her out there on a bed? No, of course not. They give her a double layer of hospital gown to wear and she walks across the car park - followed by a bloke pushing her bed with a nice thick warm quilt on it!

Of course, once you have had one of these things done, there's a bloody - literally - great hole in your femeral artery so you can't walk for a while. But that's no problem because, if you remember, they've brought your bed and you're now allowed to get into it so they can wheel you back to the ward.

Eventually - about 4:30 - they ring me and tell me to collect her. She has an appointment the next day at the cardiology clinic, but this is of course much too close to the test so they ask us to ring up and cancel it.

When I ring the next morning, they tell me that the day unit staff have already cancelled it, so it's a bit of a mystery why they asked us to do it as well.

All in all then, just another typical day in the National Health Service...

Getting rid of the old folk...

2012-01-25T08:00:00.001Z

Let's face it, folks. Old people are just a bloody nuisance...

They block up the housing ladder by having the audacity to occupy houses that are far too big for them just because they can afford them and because they want to spend their hard earned money in any way they want! This is outrageous and the government is taking action to make them downsize.

And they are stopping our young people from getting jobs by carrying on working just because they can and because they need the money. They should be more considerate towards the upcoming generation!

Oh! I nearly forgot the health budget which is being destroyed sick people needing care in their old age. I mean, who do these people think they are! Just because they've paid in to the system all their lives doesn't give them the right to expect the benefits system and the NHS to pander to their every need in their dotage. It's scandalous!

Same with the pensions system. It's wasn't designed to pay out to the sort of ages these people are living to! Why can't they have the good grace to peg out when required?

We're rapidly heading towards a population in the UK of 70 million. There just isn't enough space and if these old people insist on going on living, then there simply won't be enough food to go around - never mind what we need to send over to Africa for the starving people there.

Thankfully, there is an answer which has been staring us in the face since the 1970s...Soylent Green!

And it's a win-win situation! The government can create thousands of new jobs by building a network of Euthanasia Centres for our old people, and food processing plants. It's not that outrageous! After all, there are thousands of old people in the UK who find life in tolerable due to poverty, crime, social decay, inner city deterioration, rising prices and loads of other factors.

Come on, you guys! You know life isn't worth living any more so get yourself down to the local Euthanasia Centre and end it all. We'll make good use of your body to feed the loved ones you leave behind.

You know it makes sense...

Screw the ECHR!

2012-01-24T08:00:00.001Z

Just how much longer are we going to put up with Europe overuling Britains courts and laws?

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has last week once more been sticking its nose into our business and making a mockery of the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. Once upon a time, we knew where we stood. The highest court in the land was the Law Lords in the upper house, now replaced by the formation of a Supreme Court.

One is entitled, in my opinion, to assume that these days if you take your case to this court, then that is your final legal recourse. But of course you would be wrong.

First there was the case of the extradition of Abu Qatada, once described as 'Osama bin Laden's right hand man in Europe'. Currently in detention, he is wanted by the Jordanians for trial on charges that he plotted bomb attacks on two hotels and providing finance and advice for another series of bomb attacks to coincide with the Millennium. This is a man whom the police describe as posing a real and credible threat to the security of this country. We want the Jordanians to have him.

But, no. the ECHR says that there would be a violation of his right to a fair trial under Article Six of the European Convention of Human Rights, “given the real risk of the admission of evidence obtained by torture at his retrial.” Never mind the right of the people he plotted to murder. Never mind the due process of the law. We're stuck with the bastard.

And then there is the case of Jeremy Bamber and other convicted murderers who says that imprisoning them for the rest of their natural lives is 'inhunane' and an infringement of their human rights. Never mind the human rights of their victims not to be assaulted and murdered. Let's stick up for the rights of the murderers.

At least on this case, the ECHR threw out the appeal so we are allowed to throw away the key...

My point is that whatever the ECHR thinks should really be irrelevant. If the highest court in the land says that Qatada should be deported, then off he should go. If they say that Bamber should spend the rest of his life in prison, then that's where he should stay.

British law and legal process should be in the power of the British people. There is no way that this should ever be subject to the approval of foreign courts.

Independence for England

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000Z

There's been a lot of waffle lately about whether Scotland should break away from the United Kingdom and become an independent nation...

...but there's not been a lot of talk about England being the only country in the Union that doesn't have its own parliament / assembly, so I thought I would look into why this is. And believe it or not, it's all rather unsurprisingly down to the Fourth Reich!

Some years back, some penny-ante cock fiddling wanker of a bureaucrat with fuck all better to do decided that there was an optimum size for an administrative unit within the Reich, so he decreed that the UK should be split up into 8 administrative regions - Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, North East England, North West England, South West England, South East England, and Midland England, each having its own equivalent of Stormont or the Welsh Assembly to govern it.

Now, of course, this is Britain not France so we don't just tell them to fuck off because we love to obey rules as is demonstrated by the fact that we are always the first to implement whatever the Reich decides. So we came up with a plan : Wales Scotland and Ireland were already sorted which just left the problem of how to get round the rules for England without actually not implementing the rules. The answer? Regional Development Agencies - quangos which fulfilled the letter of the rules without actually having any power. How very New Labour a solution!

But now we have a new government and it wants to get rid of quangos, so these - and a few more similar ones that have come to life since the originals - are very much on the chop list. And frankly about time, too!

So now we are back to square one. England is the only country in the UK without its own administrative body.

So maybe while we are talking about the Scots going their own way, it's about time we though about England having its parliament and just leaving Westminster as a federal body.

Or, of course, we could just forget the whole thing and join up for Greater Germania...

Practice what you preach

2012-01-22T08:00:00.000Z

A man accused of beating his estranged wife, televangelist Juanita Bynum, says he never hit her and that she physically abused him.

“I have been struck on the face and in the head … with a fist,” Thomas W. Weeks III told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview. “I have been choked … We had gone to counseling.”

Weeks faced felony charges on accusations he beat Bynum in the parking lot of an Atlanta hotel. He pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault and making terroristic threats. He was freed on $40,000 bond and was not allowed to have contact with Bynum.

Asked about the incident that led to charges against him, Weeks expressed skepticism about Bynum’s account.

“A woman said to be kicked, punched, choked and brutally beaten by her husband, does she show up at the hospital four hours later … and refuse to let the police take official pictures of all of the bruises?” Weeks said.

Weeks, head of Global Destiny Ministries, said his church has lost 1,600 members since the incident.

Publications and broadcasts about his stormy marriage with Bynum have not shown a complete and accurate picture, Weeks said.

Bynum’s divorce petitions have cited “cruel treatment” and said the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

Bynum leads a ministry that also includes a gospel record label and seminar tours. She has sold thousands of motivational books, CDs and DVDs related to empowerment and relationships.

Weeks, known to his followers as Bishop Weeks, co-wrote “Teach Me How to Love: The Beginnings” with Bynum.

Your attention, please...

2012-01-21T08:00:00.000Z

Italy unravels like spaghetti

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000Z

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! The great master plan doesn't seem to be going too well...

Naturally, I am greatly upset at the news that having executed a successful coup d'etat to oust Berlisconi, the Monti puppet doesn't seem to be doing what he is told.

Apparently, Monti has had a meeting with the Fuhrer where there seem to have been rather fuller and franker exchanges of views than were expected. After all, he was there to collect his instructions not to raise questions.

Monti has told Merkel that Italy's reforms did not receive the recognition that they deserved. He went on to tell the press "Despite our sacrifices we do not experience any kind of concession by the EU, for example in the form of a cut in interest rates"

The Italian PM warned that his country would need to see more concrete support from both France and Germany in return for agreeing to painful austerity measures imposed by Merkel and Sarkozy and that if the pressure from Merkozy continues, Italians may refer to leave the Euro zone altogether.

Merkozy are visiting Italy today - presumably to apply more of the aforementioned unacceptable pressure!

Meanwhile, a poll in an Italian newspaper would seem to show support for Monti's stance. Over 30 per cent of the country believed that Italy would be better off returning to the lira rather than sticking with the euro whilst 65 percent thought the introduction of the euro had been more damaging than beneficial for the Italian economy.

Confidence in the European Union dropped to 51 per cent, the lowest level for more than three years.

As the Euro zone's third largest economy, the Reich cannot let it fail - so expect to see Monti's brinkmanship bring some megabucks Italy's way in the near future.

Watch out Cameron! There's pickpockets about...

An 'armless bit of fun...

2012-01-19T08:00:00.002Z

Oh, dear! It would seem that the Wallace and Gromit people have dropped a right bollock...although, thinking about it, that might be a bit of an unfortunate phrase under the circumstances!

Lepra - the charity that works with 3,000 schools across the UK to promote an understanding of the disease - says its work has been undone by the trailer.

The 'offensive' scene shows the arrival of the Pirate Captain on board a captive ship, demanding gold. "Afraid we don't have any gold old man, this is a leper-boat," explains a crew member. "See," he adds as his arm falls off.

Lepra's president Sir Christ Bonington said: "It might make you laugh but leprosy stigma not only hurts, it is still forcing people to live a life on the fringes of society. Not only is the dropping off of body parts a total misnomer we have to ask ourselves, as we watch it uncomfortably, is it acceptable for us to be laughing at the millions of people who are disabled by leprosy?"

Well, frankly it did make me laugh, and in my opinion Bonnington is spouting pretentious shite.

Chief executive Sarah Nancollas said: "The high profile use of this play on a misleading stereotype has the potential to set the leprosy agenda back years."

Sorry, Sarah, but that's actually bollocks as well, isn't it?

This fuss has actually done more to highlight the issue of leprosy than anything that your charity has managed to do in living memory, so really you should be grateful.

Or - cynical me - is that why you are making the fuss in the first place?...

Education, education, education

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000Z

Now where was it that I heard that mantra? Oh Yes! Tony Blair rammed it down out throats before he was elected and proceeded to forget all about it afterwards...

Last week, there was a survey of sixth formers. You know, the brightest of the bright, cream of the crop, the flower of our country's youth. This is what they found :

9 out of ten can name all of Beckham's children
1 in three think that Winston Churchill is a fictitious character
1 in four think that Hadrian's Wall was built to keep out the French

History it seems has gone to the wall in favour of 'easier subjects' in order to meet the requirements of Labour's farcical league tables. The subject's take up rate is only 30% in comprehensives and 50% in grammar schools. There are 159 state schools where history s not taught at all.

In Knowsley, Merseyside 11 out of 2,000 prospective candidates took GCSE history. Only four of them passed. We are the only country in Europe where history can be dropped before the age of 16.

Why the fuss? Why should it matter?

Well, the answer is that it is difficult to know who you are if you don't know where you come from. Heritage is important because it defines what we are.

A man who believes this is Adrian Sykes who has written a book called 'Made in Britain'. It seeks to explain to us who the people are that made Britain what it is and what inventions and innovations this country has made that contribute to the modern world. I commend it to you.

Meanwhile, in a poll of one million people to find who think is the greatest Britain, Diana came 3rd and John Lennon 7th. Unsurprisingly and perhaps reassuringly, Churchill came top but rather more worrying Michael Crawford was 17th.

Ooooooo, Betty!

Show us yer tits!

2012-01-17T08:00:00.001Z

Last Saturday there was a protest march outside the headquarters of the Harley Medical Group, which installed some 13,900 PIP implants between September 2001 and March 2010.

What surprised me about this protest was that they chose to march on a Saturday when the building was unoccupied, so what exactly was the point? But more surprisingly, only about 60 people turned up. So - big scandal then?

Well, actually yes, it is!

I declare an interest. I once went out with a woman who had a breast implant because she was lop sided. OK, I know we all are but she was seriously lop sided and the implant was done on the NHS. I have a great deal of sympathy therefore for women who have had reconstructive surgery for any medical reason and have these faulty implants. The government has said - honourably in my view - that it will replace them on the NHS.

Now I get contentious. Firstly, I am completely unsympathetic to any woman who has had these implants done purely for vanity reasons. You're an idiot. I don't wish the faulty implants on you, but you had this done completely unecessarily and your own common sense should tell you that sticking stuff inside your body is potentially hazardous. And in any case, silicon implants have a shelf life shorter than your life span.

Having said that, companies such as Harley Medical made a lot of money doing these operations. They used these implants because they maximised their profit, albeit in good faith. The company has blamed the government's regulatory authority for approving the PIP implants. It accused the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) of not carrying out proper checks. Sorry, but the mouthwash ain't making it - I can still smell the bullshit!

Under the Sale of Goods Act a product has to be fit for purpose. Breast implants are no exception. Also under this act, the supplier - not the manufacturer - has a legal obligation to replace the product free of charge. As I understand the situation, Harley Medical is worried that if it replaces all the PIP implants that it has installed it will have a seriously detrimental effect on its profits.

My message to Andrew Lansley is simple - don't wimp out and dump the bill on the taxpayers. Make the private clinics who fitted these things replace them, not the NHS.

Why would you want to?

2012-01-16T08:00:00.001Z

First of all, I would like to say that I extend my sympathies to the relatives of the dead and missing caused by the sinking of the Costa Concordia. It's a tragedy, and I am sincerely sorry for your grief and anguish and for the suffering of the passengers and crew directly involved.

Having said that, I just don't get it. Why the fuck would anyone want to spend their holiday on a bloody great floating town with 4,228 other people?

As my regular readers will know, I cruise a lot. The largest ship I have ever sailed on had a passenger capacity of 320 people. In my defence, it was the first cruise I did. Since then I have never been on one that holds more than 120.

The other day I was sent an offer in the post by our friends at Saga - incidentally, just how the hell do you stop Saga sending unsolicited shit through the post once they have got your name? I was being offered a cruise around the world. It was going to some very nice places that I have already been to, so it was interesting to compare itineraries.

One particular place of interest was Pitcairn Island. We were there in 2010 on a boat that holds 112 people. Pitcairn is tiny. It has a population of 57. Going ashore is a real challenge. We did it in rubber boats 12 at a time, had lunch there and spent the entire day on the island.

Saga's boat holds over 600 passengers. It arrives at 07:00 and leaves again at 13:00 so I can only assume that they start taking the first people back to the ship as soon as the last people have been put ashore.

The boats I use have one restaurant with open seating and dress is always informal. No dress codes, no set seating, no choice of restaurants. Also no theatres, no swimming pools, no organised entertainment, no choices of bars, no casino. And you get to know your fellow passengers.

There are, of course, two major differences. When you take a zero of the passenger numbers, you have to also add a zero onto the price.

And the other difference is that if you do have an accident, then you are not trampled to death by 4,000 people all desperate to get into a lifeboat.

Like I said, I don't get why you would want to get on one of these things in the first place...

Cardinal sin...

2012-01-15T08:00:00.000Z

News this week that Ratshitter has appointed 22 new cardinals - that's on top of the ones he appointed last year - bringing the number of freeloaders who are eligible to vote for his successor to 125.

Not surprisingly, he has surrounded himself with people who think like he does, but perhaps the most interesting new appointment is that of controversial New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

Dolan, you may recall, has been accused of mishandling - or plain covering up - accusations of molestation or sexual abuse of young children during his tenure.

Mary Caplan, the New York leader of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, released a statement condemning the Pope’s decision to elevate Dolan to cardinal :

"As long as the Pope keeps promoting church officials who keep parishioners in doubt, victims in pain, and kids at risk, there will be more child sex crimes. Dolan is the Teflon prelate - through superb public relations, when he acts recklessly and callously with kids' safety, he's almost always able to deny and deflect blame. Dolan is by far the most media-savvy Catholic official on the planet, so we're not surprised the pope has promoted him.

"In Missouri, Wisconsin and New York, he's (Dolan) treated child sex victims and paedophile priests just like his brother bishops across the country have. Dolan's just more skilled at hiding his misdeeds. Don't be fooled by Dolan's glad-handing, self-effacing charm. Behind closed doors, he continues to be a shrewd manager who's determined and adept at keeping clergy sex crimes covered up,” she said.

Needless to say, members of the New York Archdiocese are delighted...

Advise for married men

2012-01-14T08:00:00.000Z

3 men married women from different parts of the world.

The first man married a Greek girl.

He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning.

It took a couple of days, but on the 3rd day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away.

The 2nd man married a Thai.

He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking.

The 1st day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the 3rd day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The 3rd man married a girl from Scotland .

He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot meals on the table for every meal.

The 1st day he didn't see anything, the 2nd day he didn't see anything either but by the 3rd day some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye.

He still has some difficulty when he pees.

Rotten Boroughs - Waveney District

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000Z

Regular readers will remember that not so long ago I told you about Conservative councillor Andrew Draper who was arrested and convicted of drink driving and kicking a police officer.

Well, it seems that this was not enough to get the honourable Councillor to resign, but good news now is that he did eventually go after Suffolk police revealed he had been charged with a new offence of sending an offensive email and that he was being investigated over an allegation of having an offensive weapon – believed to be a stun gun – at his home in Carlton Colville.

You might recall that the Conservatives in Waveney kicked him out but that he continued to support them anyway, so you might be forgiven for regarding this as a bit of window dressing.

It seems that after his earlier conviction, he made a complaint against Suffolk Police. The later e-mail was sent to Sgt Alison Tyler after she told Draper his complaint was not being upheld.

The court heard that Draper's email - said to have been sent when he was drunk - contained personal comments, asking "When was the last time a man desired you?"

Judge David Cooper told the court that Draper had fallen from being a pillar of society to being a complete pariah.

Such pillars we can certainly do without...

North Cyprus

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000Z

The Turkish Republic of North Cyprus is an interesting place for a holiday - not least because it doesn't exist...

If you are looking for sophistication, golden sands and five star hotels then perhaps I would also suggest that it is not the place for you. But for all that, it does have the feel of the the Greek islands as they were 40 years ago before the Great God Tourism took over and fucked the place up completely.

The last time I was in Cyprus - the southern bit - things were a little more strained between the two halves. You couldn't cross the border between the two halves because if you tried then you got shot at. The only way to get in to the Turkish Republic - or as the southern Cypriots call it "the occupied territories" - was to fly in via Istanbul and then only if you didn't have a Greek stamp in your passport. And if the Turks stamped your passport then you had to get a new one if you wanted to go to Greece. Just too much hassle; so you avoided the place altogether. And because of this, the tourist industry never really got off to a flying start.

We flew into Larnaca and crossed the border at Nicosia. You fill in your passport details on a piece of paper and they stamp that instead of your passport. They do the same on the way out and then you conveniently misplace the piece of paper before you get to the airport. That way you can pretend that you never went to the place that officially doesn't exist anyway. Still, if keeps then happy then why rock the boat?

For a place that hasn't officially existed since the invasion / liberation in 1974, it's rather difficult for the Greeks to ignore the bloody great flag chiseled in to chalk on the hills overlooking Nicosia. It's a sort of great big 'fuck you' sign really. It's particularly attractive at night when they illuminate it. Kinda makes the piece of paper routine look a bit silly really...

It gets even sillier when you consider the EU. The EU doesn't recognise that the North exists, so they only let Cyprus join as an entity. They held two referenda. In the North they voted 74% Yes and in the South they voted 75% No. You need to bear in mind that the population is much higher in the South. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004. Let's hope that if we ever get our referendum, they actually take notice of the result!

Like I said, interesting place the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus / occupied territories - depending how you look at it...

President Cantona

2012-01-11T08:00:00.001Z

Following the news that Eric Cantona is to run for the Presidency of France and Deputy Leader of the Fourth Reich, I gave him a ring and asked him what he was up to.

Here's a transcript of our conversation...

"Why have you decided to do this, Eric?"

"I try to find different ways of expressing myself. Without that I will die. I stopped playing football because I'd done as much as I could. I needed something which was going to excite me as much as football had excited me."

"Do you think you have a chance?

"I prefer to play and lose rather than win, because I know in advance I'm going to win. Sometimes in life one experiences an emotion which is so strong that it is difficult to think, or to reason."

"And have you studied your adversaries in the race, particularly President Sarkozy?"

"I didn't study; I live."

"Fair enough. How do you feel you can work together with Chancellor Merkel to solve the Euro crisis?"

"Sometimes you get submerged by emotion. I think it's very important to express it – which doesn't necessarily mean hitting someone."

"Why do feel you have the experience to lead your nation?"

"I'm proud of what I achieved there, but a life built on memories is not much of a life. My best moment? I have a lot of good moments but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan."

"And your message to the voters?"

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."

So there you have it. Can't be difficult to be better than the current encumbent, I'd say...

Time for another veto ?

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000Z

Amazingly, despite David Cameron's use of the veto last month the creature that is Merkozy is still pushing forward with it's financial warfare against this country.

Cameron has made it abundantly clear that he will not allow Britain to be subjected to the imposition of a financial transaction tax unless it is global, but the Fourth Reich has decided that it will have one of this.

On Monday this week the French and Germans met to discuss their plans to implement this tax across the EU - including the UK. To Sarkozy it is, of course, a vital piece of political posturing to make him look good ahead of the forthcoming French Presidential Election. 'Screw ze Breets' is always a good rallying call for a beleaguered French President in need of a few extra votes.

Merkel on the other hand makes noises that she would be devastated to see Britain leave the EU. This is fully understandable as they cannot take over a country by stealth if that country is not willing to play the game. But she must at the same time keep her French puppet in play or the game will fall apart. This is a difficult juggling act, but anyone who thinks she cannot handle it would be seriously underestimating the capabilities of a dangerous adversary.

The double whammy for Cameron is that if he allows this tax to go ahead then he will cripple the City of London and the bankers will never forgive him. They will go for his throat and he will be deservedly finished. On the other hand, if he exercises the veto at the EU summit later this month and last years pattern is repeated, then the other countries could once again go ahead without us.

As a country it suits us to let this happen. The City already handles the majority of financial transactions in the EU and this move would make us even more attractive to their financial institutions. Our economy would gain significantly at the expenses of France and German. The same would happen if we left the EU altogether.

Looks clear cut to me - out or veto. It's a win-win...

Assisted Dying

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000Z

I feel obliged this week to return to a topic on which I feel strongly and on which I have written on several previous occasions.

After much deliberation, the independent Commission on Assisted Dying, whose members include several prominent peers and medics, wants GPs to be able to prescribe lethal doses of medication for dying people to take themselves.

Naturally, certain conditions and safeguards need to be put in place as part of all this, but it is nevertheless a step in the right direction. It cannot be right that human beings are deprived of the right to decide for themselves when their lives have become intolerable; to decide that they can no longer endure pain and suffering and then to have it decided for them that their lives are so sacred that they must endure until the very last moment. This is cruelty of the first order. It would be illegal to inflict it on an animal.

The final report of the Commission, chaired by the former Labour minister Lord Falconer, concludes: “There is a strong case for providing the choice of assisted dying for terminally ill people." It call for the facility to be restricted to those judged to be in the final year of life, for two doctors to be required to assess the case and for the patient to have clear mental capacity to understand what is proposed.

Should I fit these criteria, I would be given the means with which to self administer the lethal dose myself. This is as it should be because this is assisted dying, not euthanasia.

Interestingly the BMA refused to take part in the Commission's investigation. I say 'interestingly' because I find it hard to understand why they should refuse. Doctors already accept 'Do Not Resuscitate' instructions. They already allow patients to self administer potentially lethal doses of pain killers. They allow patients to starve themselves to death.

On Friday I am attending the funeral of a 91 year old relative who simply had had enough of her life and decided that she was no longer interested in maintaining it by eating and drinking. She was allowed to sink into unconsciousness and pass peacefully away. She was frail, and in reasonable health but had no quality of life. The nursing home she was in took reasonable care of her, but she was in God's waiting room and knew it.

I am not suggesting that there was a case for her to end it all. Indeed as she had dementia, the proposed rules would not have allowed it anyway. What I trying to say is that the doctors allowed her to go, so for the same doctors to be opposed to assisted death seems to me to be hypocrisy.

I have no expectation that this matter will be resolved in the short term, but I sincerely hope that it may be resolved in time for it to be of use to me should I find myself in the unfortunate position in the, hopefully, distant future to need to make this difficult decision. It is, after all, my life so why should it not be my decision?

In the meantime, at least the debate is taking place...

Cameron : new appointment

2012-01-08T13:32:00.000Z

Breaking news that following his recent remarks, David Cameron has been appointed as Chairman of the body to promote tourism to Britain in 2012...

93 Men in a Boat (9) - The Moral Compass

2012-01-08T08:00:00.000Z

OK, I'm cheating a bit as I didn't actually come across this particular arsehole on a boat but on my recent land based trip to the delights of North Cyprus - of which, more later.

Every group needs a spiritual leader. Someone to lay down standards and provide a moral compass. Someone who leads clearly and unambiguously by example.

We had just such a stalwart on our recent New Year expedition...

I knew I was in trouble as soon as I sat down next to him and his wife at our New Year celebratory dinner. Clearly they were not happy. I got the distinct impression that there just might be something about me which they didn't quite like. It started off alright but then the wife started studiously ignoring me - even to the extent of cutting straight into my conversation with the person opposite as if I was not actually speaking at all. Clearly she had decided that they should be ignoring me as well. They never spoke to me again all night, which frankly caused me many sleepless hours later, as you can imagine.

A few days later they gatecrashed a trip out which they had already done once the previous week - without paying for it, of course. Or the included lunch, which saved them buying one. As I was paying for my drinks at the counter, I was laughing and joking with one of my other fellow travellers and this bastard clearly didn't care for my tone or language.

He turned on me and said "Can you not moderate your bloody language. Every other word with you is bloody!" Duh? At the time we had been discussing that this was an ABC trip - another bloody church - so the word was difficult to avoid. He also committed the capital sin of saying this over his shoulder as he walked away - which normally would produce a red mist in my eyes and a reflex action of planting my boot up his arse, but he was away a bit quick for me!

Anyway, I walked after him and replied "I can also do bollocks and you can fuck off you hypocritical bastard." I gave it a minute or so to get a reaction but clearly I was being ignored again. Then I walked away.

One of my companions asked what it was all about, When I told her she just said "Bloody hypocrite" and laughed. Her husband said I should take no notice as apparently he had been ticking people off ever since he arrived.

You come across a lot of these types as you travel the world. They think everyone should behave the way they tell you but, of course, they never apply the same standards of behaviour to themselves. I remember I came across a similar prat in India a few years ago. She looked me straight in the face across a restaurant table and said " You should keep your unwanted opinions to yourself for the good of the group harmony." "What," I replied, "like you you just did?"

Anyway, I got my own back on this particular prat on the plane on the way home when he unfortunately tripped over my foot while returning from the toilet...

Olympic tickets : TOLD YOU SO ! ! !

2012-01-07T08:00:00.000Z

The site will crash. I guarantee it. It won't handle the volume of traffic.

Remember, you heard it here first...

It gives me no pleasure to say this - well, OK! Maybe a little! - but it did say this would happen, didn't I?

This comment from the BBC's James Pierce on Twitter :

"The website, which is run by Ticketmaster, simply has not delivered the high-quality service which was expected.

During the initial sales period it crashed at crucial times, and now it has failed again during the resale phase.

Of course part of the reason for this is the huge demand for tickets, and London 2012 cannot be blamed for that, but the simple fact is that both London 2012 and Ticketmaster have had years to prepare for this."

Er....Yes, they can, James. There isn't anyone else to blame. They have been carping on about the volumes for weeks and simply didn't design or load test the system properly.

TOLD YOU SO ! ! !

Down on Jollity Farm

2012-01-06T08:00:00.003Z

I am not really a great fan of Christmas and New Year festivities.

I have felt for many years that Christmas is that time of year when the stupid and gullible gather together to celebrate the birth of catalogue shopping. Don't get me wrong - the day itself is great once yo get over the three of four months of relentless pressure that precedes it.

The the one that I don't get at all is New Year. I mean, whats all the fuss about anyway? I blame the Scottish for starting it all and the English for jumping on the bandwagon in the hopes - well founded as it happens - of getting another day of work on the basis that they're too hung over to go to work anyway. Let's face it, it's just another excuse for a piss up.

But then again maybe after all that compulsory bon homie at Christmas, the New Year is a great excuse to tie one on and tell all those two faced bastards that you've been sucking up to all year exactly what you really think of them? In vino veritas and all that? After all no-one will remember what you said the next day...

Then again, there is the concept of a new year signalling a new beginning. Out with the old and in with the new and all that sort of stuff. Something to look forward to.

Well this year according the mighty Merkozy it's going to be even more shit than it was last year! So much for a new beginning! But then again, such honesty in a politician seldom gets put into action, so maybe there's hope after all?

And then, of course, there is the Olympics to look forward to - an opportunity for the French to piss themselves laughing at the stupid old Brits making embarrassing arses of themselves and forking out twenty odd billion at the same time! I'm actually looking forward to it because it gives me the perfect excuse to go thumbing through the holiday brochures trying to find somewhere where I can avoid it altogether. Maybe I'll even make a few quid from renting out my house to a gullible sports fan or two?

Still, there is always the great Euro collapse to look forward to. The thought of watching the Eu implode and taking the bastards of the Fourth Reich with it - now that's got to be something to really look forward to.

Happy New Year...

What Religion is Your Bra?

2012-01-05T08:00:00.002Z

A man walked into the ladies department at John Lewis. He shyly walked up to the woman behind the counter and said, "I'd like to buy a bra for my wife."

Now John Lewis are reknowned for their helpful and knowledgeable assistants, so she replied "What type of bra. sir?"

"Type?" inquires the man, "There's more than one type?"

"Look around," she said as she showed a sea of bras in every shape, size, color and material imaginable.

"Actually, even with all of this variety, there are really only four types of bras to choose from - Catholic, Salvation Army, Presbyterian, and Baptist. Which one would you prefer?"

Now totally befuddled, the man asked about the differences between them. The saleslady responded, "It is all really quite simple. .

The Catholic supports the masses;
The Salvation Army lifts the fallen;
The Presbyterian keeps them staunch and upright;
and The Baptist makes mountains out of mole hills."

The man then asked about various sizes and what the letters meant. "It's really quite simple," she replied, handing him a chart which read :

(A} Almost Boobs...
{B} Barely there...
{C} Can't Complain!...
{D} Dang!...
{DD} Double dang!......
{E} Enormous!...
{F} Fake...
{G} Get a Reduction....
{H} Help me, I've fallen over and I can't get up!...

In the end he bought a German bra called Holtzemfrumfloppen.

( Dioclese is sadly contemplating his return from Cyprus... )

Unwanted Christmas gift

2012-01-04T08:00:00.004Z

I found this doll on eBay with the following description :

"Unwanted Christmas gift. Talking Muslim doll"

Underneath was a question :

"What does it say?"

To which was posted the following reply :

"Not sure. It doesn't say on the box and no-one's had the guts to pull the chord yet..."

( Dioclese is still enjoying the Cypriot sunshine and cheap Metaxa )

Sound like anyone you know?

2012-01-03T08:00:00.001Z

While on a road trip, an elderly couple stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch.

After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant and resumed their trip. Unfortunately, the elderly woman unknowingly left her glasses on the table and she didn't miss them until they had been driving for about forty minutes.

By then, to add to the aggravation, they had to travel quite a distance before they could find a place to turn around in order to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.

All the way back, the elderly husband became the classic grouchy old man. He fussed and complained and scolded his wife relentlessly during the entire return drive. The more he chided her, the more agitated he became.
He just wouldn't let up for a single minute.

To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant. As the woman got out of the car and hurried inside to retrieve her gGlasses, the old geezer yelled to her ...

"While you're in there, you might as well get my hat and credit card."

(Dioclese is currently sitting in a bar in Cyprus...)

WalMartians

2012-01-02T08:00:00.003Z

Last year, I posted a series of photographs of weird people in WalMart (are then any other types?)...

To start off this year with a laugh, here's an excellent video sent to me by a friend of mine in the west (of England).

(Dioclese is currently sitting in a bar in Cyprus...)

Welcome to 2012

2012-01-01T08:00:00.001Z

...but in the meantime, I'm sitting in a bar in Northern Cyprus with a drink in my hand.

Cheers! And a Happy New Year to you all.

Review of the Year 2011 (Part 5)

2011-12-31T08:00:00.004Z

October

The Greeks started off the month nicely with star brinksmanship over repaying their debts which was to get even better later. Meanwhile at the other end of the EU, the French were starting off their campaign to cripple the City of London with a transaction tax.

Liam Fox resigned on account of him being a silly bugger while Steve Jobs disproved the theories of 'an apple a day...'

Whipping was the activity of the month. The Jockey Club didn't like it all but Cameron thought it was wonderful!

Jimmy Saville died - and so did Gaddafi making me the proud winner of 'The Dead Cunt Pool'

I wasn't too bothered about it all really as I was languishing on the Amalfi coast in a rather nice old Palazzo and listening to some opera, although I did get a bit hot under the collar at being told I should downsize my house and make room for people wh need the space more than I did!

November

The month started with news that the UK population is approaching 70 million and the government is tinkering with child benefit reforms. A bit like fiddling while Rome burns......or should that be Athens?

Meanwhile, we're havig a protest camp outside St Pauls. Why? It's acheiving bugger all - but the Kaflics love it.

And just to prove that troughing is still an art form, news that the bosses giving themselves 49% pay rises while the rest of us are getting bugger all. Nothing new there.

And the charity season gets into swing with Children in Need. My God, how I detest that particular fundraiser. It makes people do the stupidest things...

And, of course, there were the public sector strikes - or more correctly a day off for the easily duped amongst us.

Still, mortgage problems may be a thng of the past as the government may decide to underwrite your mortgage. Play your cards right, you might even get your house for free!

December

News from the EU that 'German bullying is getting deeply unpleasant' - there's a surprise. Now Cameron has told them to stuff their fiscal union, no doubt it will get worse. I gather Cleggy's a bit miffed though.

Perhaps it would be better if we just left it to Thomas the Tank Engine to sort it all out?

And just when I had gotten over Children In Need, ITV decide to jump on the Christmas charity season bandwagon with their own brand of shite.

Anyhow, I hoped you've enjoyed this little wander down memory lane and that I have managed to entertain you as well as make you think over the past 12 months. I appreciate your support and look forward to carrying on in my own irreverent way in 2012.......

Review of the Year 2011 (Part 4)

2011-12-30T08:00:00.002Z

August

Ah, those hot August nights! Hotter in some places than others and looting and arson were rife on the streets. We interviewed a 'rioter' in Tottenham to get his reasons. The perhaps as a result of the feelings on the streets, the hanging debate rose its head again.

And for those of you that get hypertension every time the phrase 'human rights', good news that the EHRC has been identified as a worthless crock of shite at last.

We're not getting our EU referendum either. The PM says so!

It was all too much for me, I'm afraid so I buggered off to the Arctic at the end of the month to check out the bollocks they are talking about global warming...

...and while I was there, the Libyans finally overran Gaddafi. I though perhaps he could apply for the CEO job at Suffolk as his style would fit right in.

September

Good news for lazy bastards! You are not alone! There are 370,000 households in the UK where no-one has ever worked.

A huge turd was sighted floating in the River Thames.

The BBC came under fire for sowing scenes from the Libyan war that were 'too realistic'. For once, I'm with the Beeb.

My musical friend sent me a nice piece of inverted punk rock as a reaction to the so called 'riots' which kinda summed the whole sorry thing up in a nutshell, while I started to wonder what exactly they were continuing to piss about at down at Dale Farm!

And I got even more confused when the 'Total Politics' blog awards branded me as a Ring Wing Non-aligned Libertarian. Who says you can't please all of the people all of the time?

And the cultural event of the year? A new play in which Hindu god, Ganesh goes head to head with Adolf Hitler over who has the rights to use the swastika. Unfortunately it was in Australia, so I missed it. Shame.

We'll round off the year tomorrow...

Review of the Year 2011 (Part 3)

2011-12-29T08:00:00.000Z

June

Well, some of already thought the EU was barking mad - but introducing legislation to protect endangered cyclists? That's nearly as daft as suggesting that we should all throw away cash and pay for everything with a mobile phone! As if internet banking wasn't already bad enough...

The new expenses scandal broke - bottomless credit cards to enable serial troughers to charge things directly to the government. Mind you, I thought they aready had this - it's called 'taxation'.

After sticking his nose into politics yet again, I suggested that the Archdruid Williams should shut up or bugger off. Prophetic words as it turns out - he's doing the latter next year.

And my award for the most over the top completely ridiculous piece of software of the year goes to Tesco for in store SatNav.

The highlight certainly of the month and perhaps of the whole year goes to Peter Smedley, an immensely brave and principalled man who allowed himself to filmed dying in a documentary on assisted death. In my view it should be compulsory viewing for everyone - but, of course, the Kaflics were up in arms!

My piss boiler of the month was that Sharon Shoesmith - the bitch at the centre of the Baby P scandal - was to get over £1 million in damages in compensation for Ed Balls doing something right for a change and summarily sacking her.

July

The month got off to a flying start with the excellent news that Suffolk County Council had finally rid itself of its overpaid CEO, Andrea Hill. It cost a packet to pay her off, but it was worth every penny!

Having awarded my useless software award to Tesco last month, the award for pointless hardware of the year is awarded to Google's Chromebook and despite being told I don;t know what I'm talking about, the sales figures seem to have proven me right - so there! And for firmware that's useless, look no further than Old Jug Ears...

And whilst it is still rumbling on, this was the month that the News of the World closed, thinking rather naively that that would be the end of the phone hacking scandal. What a bumper closing issue too!

And when is a 10% rise in your Electricity bill actually 37%? Answer : when you get it from Scottish Power, although to be fair all the utility companies were taking the piss with their price rises. Hello, government! It's called price ringing and it's illegal! Get a grip!!

And it's only a year to go until the 2012 Olympics. It's going to be embarrassing and expensive. Rememer I told you so.

And then there was Bob Crow's outrageous plans for the comensation of his members when Network Rail opens its new signalling centres. Any chance of a job, Bob?

More outrageous stuff tomorrow...

Review of the Year 2011 (part 2)

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000Z

March

March opened with my wide jawed disbelief at the billion that Cameron is giving to countries better off than this in the name of 'foreign aid'. Charity begins at home, Dave. More taxes for us, but at least we're not giving it to the Welsh whose assembly bottled it when it came to voting for tax raising powers...

My jaw dropped again when a survey revealed that more Asians than whites believe that immigration to this country must be stemmed and yet again when I found myself actually agreeing with Ed Miliband about AV - not that it came to anything at the end of the day!

And the budget was coming so it was time for Ed to talk Balls again, this time excelling himself by suggesting that the Japanese sunami might be a good excuse to downgrading the economy. Bad taste even by his standards. Nearly as bad as some of the jokes on Red Nose Day.

Red Ed of course had his own views on the budget and we were subjected to first in a long line of cockups on Olympic tickets.

The month ended with International Climate Week - but unfortunately, nobody noticed! However the best bit for me was one of my favourite pieces of ChasC's music about life in a small town. Spot on!

April

"April showers come they may, they bring out dick heads to vote in May" or something like that...

Anyway, Dave decided that we should arm the Libyans and then decided that there would no mission creep in Libya - that is until we went in and bombed the crap out of the place.

Easter was coming - which of course means the Pope's traditional message and, amazingly, the only week of the year that seems not to be a charity event.

And there was the Royal Wedding to look forward to. Let's hope Wills makes a better job of it than his dad...

May

It was all going to be too much for me, so I buggered off on my yacht around the Aegean for a couple of weeks, only to return to the great Blogger disaster on, you guessed it , Friday 13th. You couldn't make it up.

Semms thought that my humble little publication has quite an influence on US policy, because when I suggested they should stick Bin Laden's body in a bin bag and dump it - they did just that!

Things were also hotting u for the most hated council chief in the country as Suffolk's Andrea Hill went on gardening leave after one of her staff was 'alledgedly' bullied to the point of suicide. She was never to return to her post. Good riddance to bad rubbish...

And I also take credit for publishing the world's most depressing song.

More stuff tomorrow...

Review of the Year 2011 (Part 1)

2011-12-27T08:00:00.003Z

It's that time of the year when we look back over the events of the last twelve months and reflect on what has happened and the missed opportunites that passed us by...

...or to put it another way, I have buggered off to Cyprus to see the New Year in with a bit of sunshine on my back and news is pretty slow anyway because everybody's sitting on their arses or out getting pissed.

January

January set the scene for the rest of the year eclesiastically speaking with the Archdruid of Cunterbury, Rowan Williams, determined to see out what is hopefully his last year by poking his nose into all sorts of things that are bugger all to do with him! This time round it was telling us to share our ill gotten gains to the less well off because of the budget cuts. The Lord best helps those who help themselves!

Seems he was on the right track though as the banks were suggesting introducing ATMs that only let you withdraw your own money if you paid a fee to charity. Yes, autochugger has arrived...

Not that we've have any money to give after our fuckwit government had given £825 million to India, a nation better off than us FFS.

Then there was the rows over votes for prisoners and the rewriting of classic childrens literature to make it more politically correct. Enid Blyton was turning in her grave.

On the good news front, it was great to know that the late Pope John-Paul had officially performed his first miracle on his fast track to sainthood. Unfortunately bad news that Miiband had appointed as his shadw chancellor the very man who heled Gordon Brown get us in the shit in the first place - none other than Ed 'i-Talk' Balls.

Saddest news of the month was perhaps the death of Pete Postlethwaite, possible our best actor never to win an Oscar.

February

The month opened with a big row over the complicity of Westminster in the release of the Lockerbie bomber on health grounds. Ironic, considering the events that were to unfold in Libya later in the year. Even more ironically, as I write this the bugger is still on his death bed.

The Daily Express delivered a petition with 373,000 signatures on it demanding a referendum on Europe. We were to get a vote, but yet again the politicians shafted us by not keeping their promiss for a vote...

And while contemplating whether a degree is worth all those fees, there was news of Liverpool University issuing its first masters degree in ....the Beatles.

And just when you thought it coudn't get any dafter, a woman in Essex was prosecuted for helping herself from bin bags of food that were thrown away outside Tesco. Freegans beware!

And just to beat last year's record of April, a friend of mine sent me a copy of his first Christmas advertisement. I doubt we'll beat that - although Park are advertising for Christmas 2012 already but that doesn't really count, does it? Unless, of course, you know better ?...

On the religious front, Jesus Christ made his first appearance on the front cover of Playboy and the Vatican brought out a confession app for the iPhone.

The non-event that was the AV campaign hotted up with some pretty unsavoury negative campaigning from the 'No' vote side and 'The Kings Speech' swept the board at the Oscars - proving that we are still pretty good at something.

All this, and it's still only February. More tomorrow...

The Day After Christmas

2011-12-26T08:00:00.002Z

It's the day after Christmas

Thank God it's all over!

I've got seven new ties

And a bright green pullover

I wanted and iPad

But I got a jigsaw

And a pair of cheap trainers

I don't want any more

It's the day after Christmas

And I'm going out to eat

Just avoiding the turkey

Will be a real treat!

The shops are all heaving

With sales in full swing

We're all looking for bargains

Or just any old thing

It's the day after Christmas

And the sales are now on

I can cash in the refunds

And have me some fun!

I don't need any money

I'll give the plastic a dent

I'll buy what I wanted

That Santa hasn't sent

Something to do on Christmas morning...

2011-12-25T07:00:00.006Z

Just click on the picture below to be whisked away to this magical site that embraces the true spirit of this magical day...

It'll give you something to do while you're waiting for the family to invade and destroy the tranquility of Christmas morning, or perhaps something to play with the kids after you've all stuffed your faces over lunch.

There's even a Lady Gaga version if you're feeling trendy!

Happy Winterval!

Santa's on his way...

2011-12-24T08:00:00.018Z

It's Christmas Eve, that magical time of year when millions of little children hang their stockings up and await the clatter of Santa's reindeer on the roof.

This is what it's really like these days...

Well, it is Christmas week...

2011-12-23T08:00:00.001Z

This priceless billboard was erected in the centre of Auckland, New Zealand apparently in attempt to catch the eye of non-believers.

However, Lyndsay Freer, spokesman for the Auckland Catholic Diocese, said for a church to put up a poster which implied the Virgin Mary and Joseph had just had sex was inappropriate. 'This is disrespectful and offensive to all Christians,’ she said. 'It's over the top.

‘Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph. Such a poster is inappropriate and disrespectful.'

Of course, the faithful of Auckland have respectfully defaced the poster by painting over the faces of Mary and Joseph in outrage.

But the vicar of the St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, was unrepentant. He pointed out that his form of progressive Christianity is distinctive and 'is one of robust engagement’.

Way to go, Rev...

"YouTube if you want to..."

2011-12-22T15:15:00.001Z

YouTube really get right up my nose on occasions!

A while back, I posted a jolly little tune by Eric Bogle entitled "I Hate Wogs" which YouTube decided, after 6 months, was racially offensive so they banned it.

Now if you listen to this little ditty, it about stupid narrow minded hypocrites slagging off foreigners for doing exactly what they do themselves. Hello! It's an ANTI-RACISM song!!!

I appealed. YouTube ignored me so I appealed again. They sent me this reply :

Dear Dioclese,

Thank you for submitting your video appeal to YouTube.
After further review of the content, we've determined that your video does violate our Community Guidelines and have upheld our original decision. We appreciate your understanding.
Yours sincerely,
– The YouTube Team

You fucking what!!!! You 'appreciate my understanding'!!!! You insufferable, patronising, condescending, pompous, supercilious, arrogant little pricks!!!!

So here's my reply to them :

I think that covers it.

Thank God for EyeTube where you can still watch videos like this without censorship...

Di Gospel according tu Gad...

2011-12-22T08:00:00.007Z

News on the BBC this Sunday that clergy are up in arms at the translation of the King James Bible into Jamaican patois...

Well not really news because this has actually been raging on since 2008, but this week the first part of the project - The Luke gospel - has finally been published. "And what's all the fuss about?" I say.

Proponents of the Jamaica Bible Society patois version argue that since many islanders have difficulty understanding standard English, it is wrong to have the holy book in a ‘foreign’ tongue. They have a point - and what's more the people who oppose this version seem to have forgotten that the King James version itself was a translation into English in the first place. Then English was the 'foreign tongue'...

Here's a sample : In the depiction of the Angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, the New King James Bible’s version of Luke reads: ‘And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favoured one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women".'

In the patois version, it becomes: ‘Di ienjel go tu Mieri an se tu ar se, “Mieri, mi av nyuuz we a go mek yu wel api. Gad riili riili bles yu an im a waak wid yu aal di taim.”’

Personally, I find it all rather lyrical.

We should remember that Patois is a 400 old language and I feel that the English are being rather arrogant in suggesting that only their language is rich enough to convey the true meaning of the Bible. I am sure adherents of the French, Italian, German and many other versions would agree with me.

But then haven't the English always believed that God was an Englishman?...

( You can read more about this story here )

The ultimate crap Christmas present

2011-12-21T08:00:00.003Z

Some things just beggar belief. This is one of them...

When the Fourth Reich is going through a bit of a crisis with it's universal currency, Greeece and Italy are going bankrupt and certain leaders are at each others' throats, it's great to see that Herman Von Rumpey-Pumpey can come up with something to spread a little cheer about at Christmas time.

Herman has sent each of the European leaders the ultimate crap Christmas present - a collection of essays on happiness. The World Book of Happiness is a collection of short essays by happiness experts from 50 different nations.

Rumpey-Pumpey says: 'My request to you as world leaders is to make people’s happiness and wellbeing our political priority for 2012. Positive thinking is no longer for drifters, dreamers and the perpetually naive.

'People who think positively see more opportunities, perform better, take more often correct and sound decisions, have more self-confidence, maintain better relations and have more trust placed in them.

'Cynics will dismiss these proposals as naive, but they are not.'

I agree with him. Insulting, condescending, patronising and two-faced would be better descriptions.

The bloke's a cunt...

The Great Olympic Ticket Fiasco (3)

2011-12-20T08:00:00.002Z

Here we go again...

The other day the Olympic sized twat, Seb Coe, and his merry men annouced the latest round in this long running and seemingly never ending joke.

When you get a load of tickets that you don't want, you are going to be allowed to put them up on 2012's web site so that other people can buy them off you. Nothing wrong with that I hear you say...

Well, yes there is. There's not going to be any sort of queuing system on the site. I would have written this so that people with tickets to dispose of could add them to a list of available tickets. I would than have another list of people buying tickets and would then match them together in order of listing.

Apparently, this is not the way it will work. If you want to sell tickets then they will, indeed, be listed. But if you are buying, then you will be live on line. This means that buyers have to keep enquiring in case the tickets they want become available as sellers add them. They could be offered after your last enquiry and snapped up by someone else before you look again.

This system is, I believe, known as 'pot luck'. But it's OK because you, as a buyer, will never actually know you missed out.

But the ramifications of this go much further. Because of the limitted window, millions of hits will be recorded on the site by people sitting in offices continually enquiring after tickets. This will have two major implications :

(1) Millions of man hours will be lost to employers while their employees sit on the web trying to buy tickets, and

(2) The site will crash. I guarantee it. It won't handle the volume of traffic.

Remember, you heard it here first...

The Dioclese 2011 Christmas Song

2011-12-19T08:00:00.006Z

Now I know you've all been waiting for this with baited breath - so wait no more...

Here's the Dioclese offering for the Christmas number 1 this year. It's a little rendition called 'Santa Go Home' with thanks once again to the performance and song writing talents(?) of my old mate ChasC.

Oh, and if this little number if not enough, he's posted another one of his own this morning called 'Why are my neighbours all dicks?' so I guess he won't be asking them over for drinks on Christmas morning...

Save me from this wicked Christian!

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000Z

Bible thumpers and human rights have always been two subjects guaranteed to make my blood boil, so I was delighted when I came across this story in the Sun...

An atheist rapist complained that his human rights were breached by having to share a prison cell with a Christian lag.

Barman Steven Relf was jailed indefinitely after admitting raping two women he targeted when he served them drinks in a pub.

Police branded him a "sexual predator" and said he could have had as many as 40 victims.

In a letter to an inmates' magazine, Relf wrote: "I recently had the displeasure of sharing a cell with a Bible-thumping believer."

A source said Relf was "furious" at having to share at Manchester Prison with the Christian convict and wanted him to be "evicted".

He said: "He moaned about how the guy wouldn't shut up about God. He said he wanted to speak to a lawyer about his rights so he could be moved cells."

The other inmate was later transferred.

Onions and Christmas Trees

2011-12-17T08:00:00.003Z

A family is at the dinner table. The son asks his father, "Dad, how many kinds of boobs are there?"

The father, surprised, answers, "Well, son, there are three kinds of boobs: In her 20's, a woman's are like melons, round and firm. In her 30's to 40's, they are like pears, still nice but hanging a bit. After 50, they are like onions."

"Onions?"

"Yes, you see them and they make you cry."

This infuriated his wife and daughter so the daughter said, "Mum, how many kinds of 'willies' are there?"

The mother, surprised, smiles and answers, "Well dear, a man goes through three phases. In his 20's, his willy is like an oak tree, mighty and hard. In his 30's and 40's, it is like a birch, flexible but reliable. After his 50's, it is like a Christmas Tree."

"A Christmas tree?"

"Yes - the tree is dead and the balls are just for decoration."

Rotten Boroughs : Essex County Council

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000Z

Expenses. Always a touchy subject with politicians...

Essex County Councillor and former chairman of the Essex Police Authority, Robert Chambers, has been asked to pay back £10,000 in overclaimed mileage allowances.

He claims - no pun intended - that he made a 'genuine mistake' in that the Authority only pays the first 5,000 miles and that this was not explained to him.

Cllr Chambers case was referred to the Metropolitan Police to investigate and they have concluded that there is no case for a prosecution. Obviously, this decision has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was on the Essex Police Authority for 8 years, during which time he was the Chairman for 3 years. It also categorically has nothing to do with the fact that he stood down in order to campaign as an elected police and crime commissioner.

He said " I have said I will pay back the money – I have a cheque sitting here ready and waiting. But, I want a written assurance from them [EPA] that that’s the end of it.”

That strikes me as a strange condition to be stipulating if, as Cllr Chamber says, he made an honest mistake.

But, of course, I am not suggesting for a moment that he has done anything wrong - although you do wonder how the finance officer of Uttesford District Council could make such a fundamental accounting error.

I suppose these things just happen...

Thomas and the EU Summit

2011-12-15T08:00:00.003Z

Big Dave and Little Willy leave Sodall to meet with the other train companies on the mainland, but Eva and Napolean aren't having any - and Cleggy, the Twat Controller, is not pleased....

Arab Summer, Red Winter, Euro Spring?

2011-12-14T08:00:00.002Z

You can always rely on one fact when it comes to human beings : they never learn!

The picture above was taken in Moscow last week and shows protestors marching to show their distrust of the latest election results.

Not so long ago, the Arab world was up in arms - literally - because the rulers of their country were corrupt and power hungry dictators who showed little or no regard for their people and were only interested in lining their own pockets and slapping down any opposition with a fist of iron.

Surprisingly - to me at least - they actually succeeded! Syria is still clinging on desperately but even there the rulers' days are numbered. But now we have moved on to Russia...

As in the Arab countries, protestors are ignoring bans on marches and are making their voices heard against Vladimir Putin whilst the regime responds with gangs of loyalist 'supporters' and police with batons and tear gas. Protesters chanted slogans against the ruling party as the Putin loyalists beat drums and chanted "Putin, Russia".

Police arrested at least 250 protesters, including veteran liberal politician Boris Nemtsov.

This is not going to go away. Putin's Russia is riddled with corruption. Even his supporters in the media have been censored. His support in the elections dropped sharply, but he is still determined to orchestrate a return to power in the forthcoming Presidential Election which, if the protestors are to be believed, will be just as rigged as this one.

So am I saying that the Russians never learn? Yes, but this is not my point. No-one ever learns.

We have had the Arab summer and now we have the Russian winter. Last week we witnessed a summit meeting in Brussels aimed at regime change in more Eurozone countries - a snatching of economic and fiscal powers by Paris and Berlin. This I believe is at least an attempt to start the end game of the 1944 Red House Agreement - the ultimate takeover by the Fourth Reich of the nations of Europe through economic warfare.

We have seen protests in Athens and Rome quashed and the leaders of these nations replaced by puppets obedient to the cause. In these countries at least, the penny is beginning to drop. The master plan may stall a little this time around, but it will not stop. In it's own way, the EU is just as undemocratic and corrupt as Russia and the Arab world. The mechanisms may be different, but the principals are the same.

So take a good hard look at what is happening now in Russia. It could well be happening soon in a street near you...

How to be invisible

2011-12-13T08:00:00.004Z

Take a look at this innocuous looking spot on the nose. Doesn't look much does it? Perhaps you've got one just like it?

Well it might not look much, but this is a skin cancer. If you have something that looks like this, then go to your doctor. Better safe than sorry.

If you're lucky, they may be able to freeze it with liquid nitrogen and get rid of it. If not then they will need to cut it out. Depending on where it is and how big it is, you may need a skin graft. And if you get through all that and you get even luckier, it might not be malignant.

Mrs D had one pretty much where the one is in the above picture. They cut a hole about the size of a 1p piece in her nose and put in a full thickness graft taken from behind her ear to plug the hole. For a week she had a humungous dressing stitched onto her nose. This is known by the nursing staff as a 'bee' because it's black and yellow from a mixture of ointment and dried blood. It was a great relief when it was removed.

The resulting wound is healing, but initially could be accurately described as a bloody mess. We smeared it with greasy antibacterial ointment twice a day for ten days or so and are now slowly backing this off.

How well all this turns out is mainly up to a mixture of luck and the skill of your plastic surgeon. I'd advise you to get the best you can. It's very upsetting. I would hazard a guess that it's even more upsetting for a woman than a man because of the cosmetic implications. It's really not nice at all.

But the most interesting thing about this whole experience is that after hiding away for a couple of weeks, Mrs D plucked up the courage to go out in public and face people she knows. I admire her greatly for this as however we dress it up, it's a large, unsightly open wound right in the middle of her face. It can't have been easy.

But what really upset her was that in a room full of people the majority of whom we are on at least speaking terms with, not one of them could see the wound or had the decency to ask her what had happened or how she was. One woman whom we know very well even did a double take when she saw her, and still the wound was invisible...

...and we both think that's appalling!

Thomas and the Gold Plated Pension

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000Z

Down at the engine sheds, Thomas and Percy are talking about taking strike action in support of the proposed cuts to their public service pensions...

..and is the Fat Controller really a Tory sympathiser in disguise?

Why Christmas has had it's day

2011-12-11T08:00:00.002Z

Now don't get me wrong - I actually like Christmas! No, really. I do!

But when I say this I mean the actual day itself. It's nice to have one day a year to reflect on the true values of life like family and loved ones. It's nice to get together with friends - real friends not Facebook virtual friends. It's nice to have one day a year when everything stops and life settles down to a relaxing pace and gives you time to take stock of your life...

Unfortunately, Christmas is not like that.

Christmas starts in September - although this year I spotted my first advertisement in February! The lead up is always the same :

Retailers start bombarding you with advertising to remind you that people will think you tight fisted unless you buy them a one must have present

Charities start flooding your TV screen with appeals, banging on your door asking you to sign direct debit forms - and don't even start me on Children in Need. This year even ITV are jumping on the bandwagon with Text Santa FFS!

Then there's the panto. It usually starts in November and runs through until mid January. And thoughts of serious theatre are banished for eight weeks!

And don't go down the shops unless you are prepared for the endless droning on of Christmas muzak. Honestly, if I hear the Ronnettes singing 'Frosty the Fucking Snowman' one more time, I swear I will scream!

Oh, and the endless round of books, CDs and DVDs launched especially to catch your Christmas gift list. I wouldn't mind but the CDs in particular are stuffed full of old back catalogue shite loosely compiled around any old theme. It's aimed squarely at the 'what shall we by our parents for Christmas' market.

Did I say 'market'? Well of course now we are being hit with the latest import - the dreaded Christmas market selling any old Christmas tat at vastly inflated prices. Or, of course, you can take a trip to the continent for a proper Christmas Market. Shame shit, different country...

And don't expect to get any sleep because you're forgetting the noisy neighbours' kids parties - the banging of endless car doors under your bedroom window at three in the morning, the drunks rolling home yelling and screaming and throwing up on your front garden...

Yes, Christmas has had it's day. Let's just give in and rename it the 'Winter Retail Fest" because any sense of the true meaning of Christmas has been well and truly kicked out of you well before 25th December...

The Turnip Prize 2011

2011-12-10T08:00:00.002Z

Congratulations go to Jim Drew for winning the 12th annual Turnip Prize, the art world's answer to the even more ludicrous Turner Prize.

This prize winning piece is entitled "Jamming with Muddy Waters".

The Turnip Prize seeks to recognise and reward deliberately bad modern art. It was started mainly as a joke in 1999, but has gained national media attention and inspired other similar prizes.

Credit is given for entries that have bad puns as titles, display "lack of effort" and pass the crucial test of "is it shit?"; conversely, entries which show "too much effort" or are "not shit enough" are disqualified. The first prize is a turnip nailed to a block of wood

Jim Drews 2011 winner comprises a jar containing some jam and dirty water. It was singled out for requiring practically no effort whatsoever, rather like Tracey Emin's better known Turner winner "My bed".

Here's a list of the past winners :

1999 - "Alfred The Grate" (two burned rolls on a fire grate)
2000 - "Minstrel Cycle" (a bicycle constructed of sweets, cocktail sticks and Tampons)
2003 - "Take a Leaf out of my Chook" (A raw chicken stuffed with leaves)
2005 - "Birds Flew" (An empty birds' nest with a box of flu remedy)
2006 - "Torn Beef" (empty corned beef can)
2007 - "Tea P" (Used tea bags in the shape of a P)
2008 - "Fleeced" - A piece of sheeps wool depicting John Sargeant
2009 - “Manhole Cover” - A pair of large white Y fronts
2010 - “Chilli n’Minors” - One large chilli and three smaller chilli’s

Notable runners up include "Bitter and Twisted" (a piece of grapefruit peel), "Jonny Wilkinson" (a condom and a razor blade), "Surf In The Net" (a box of washing powder in a net) and the highly commended "Mints Meet" (A mincemeat jar containing a polo mint and an extra strong mint).

In 2007, a piece of artwork with the title "By the Banksea" was entered bearing a striking resemblance to the work of the famous Bristol graffiti artist Banksy. It portrays a seaside Aunt Sally in the form of a stencil of the Mona Lisa, but in true Banksy-style, the Mona Lisa is holding a rocket launcher, firing a turnip over the wreckage of a seaside pier and an emergency exit sign.

The piece was disqualified for "too much effort and not shit enough."

Britain stands alone...

2011-12-09T09:31:00.001Z

Well, I never thought I would see the day that David Cameron grew a set and stood up for Britain against the the hoards of the Fourth Reich!

This column has been critical of Cameron in the past. I have applied to him the most damning word in the English language : 'disappointing'. I have criticised his actions in denying the people of this country the EU referendum that he promissed in his manifesto. I have so far been unimpressed.

But in refusing to sign away British sovereignty and the right to set our own tax rates and budgets, Cameron has taken the right decision. The city of London provides more than 50% of the financial services in the EU. Agreeing to a financial transaction tax wold have neutered the city and 58% of our economy. It is a vicious economic attack. There is no way he should ever have agreed to this and he didn't.

The Prime Minister has come under considerable pressure from the Reich to sign up, and he refused. He was 100% right to do so. President Sarkozy called this 'unacceptable' - but to whom? To the Reich maybe, but certainly not to the people whom he represents. It takes true bulldog spirit to say 'No!' under this sort of pressure, and despite my doubts Cameron seems to have what it took.

There have been comments this morning that this excludes Britain from the mainstream of Europe. That there is now an inner core and that the EU is a two speed institution. I don't believe the former and would point out that even if the latter is true, one should not assume that the Eurozone core is necessarily the fast track whilst we are in the slow lane.

There is already a two track EU - those in the single currency and those outside it. This has not changed. Cameron says that there will be no need to put any of this to a referendum because there has been no alteration to the existing treaties. He is quite right. I also suspect he knows that if he had betrayed our national interests and signed up for this new treaty, the British people would be unforgiving. Had he been forced to sign up, then the choice was simple - wreck our already fragile economy or quit Europe. The only real choice would surely have been the latter.

This has been a considerable coup for the Reich. As in 1940, Britain risks being seen as a lone voice in the wilderness. Churchill experienced this, and he was right. I believe that history will prove that Cameron is also right.

In 1940, Churchill was named Time magazine's man of the year. The citation read "He gave his countrymen exactly what he promissed them." Last night David Cameron did exactly the same.

How refreshing...

Text Santa FFS

2011-12-08T08:00:00.001Z

Oh, FFS, I only just got over the purile load of unentertaining, unfunny drivel that was served up for 'Cheeeeldren in Need' and now I find that ITV are going to jump on the Charity - sorry, I meant Christmas - bandwagon...

Announcing 'Text Santa', Peter Fincham, ITV Director of Television said: “This is a superb opportunity for us to throw the weight of the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster behind a brand new charity initiative and event. And it's incredibly cheap to produce 'cos it's for charity and everybody appearing does it for nothing .

Text Santa will be a fantastic entertainment centrepiece to the ITV1 Christmas schedule, but more importantly we also get to fill four hours of our otherwise overstretched schedule which would otherwise be showing repeats - sorry, I mean classic episodes - of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Coronation Street or old black and white films.”

The first show kicks off on 11^th December with a live, one-hour special hosted by Phillip Snowfield and Christine Blankly, co-hosted by Ant and Dec who have promissed to end the show by doing something that their viewers have always wanted them to do. I'd like to suggest perhaps jumping naked from an airplane over the Atlantic without a parachute!

The second show is on Christmas Eve. With further victims to be announced, both shows will combine unbelievably untalented attempts at entertainment with seriously unfunny attempts at comedy in order to exploit the spirit of Christmas in a cynical attempt to seperate you from your hard earned money.

Enough! Please! I'm all charitied out...

Too Damn Late!

2011-12-07T08:00:00.008Z

I have been duly chastised by my musical friend for not making any videos for him lately, so when he sent me a nice rowdy punk protest song, I thought this was the ideal opportunity to put the situation to rights!

Crank up the volume and take 4 minutes out of your life enjoy this condemnation of the sorry state of our nation...

I'll believe it when I see it!

2011-12-06T08:00:00.001Z

I watched incredulously on Saturday morning when the BBC announced that there were plans afoot at Lloyds Banking Group to claw back half of the £1,450,000 bonus it handed to its former chief executive Eric Daniels earlier this year.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the part-nationalised lender have informed Mr Daniels and senior executives at the bank that it plans to "claw back' parts of their bonuses. It is believed to be the first time a high street bank has used the so-called clawback clause in a director's contract.

The move is linked to the problems the bank has been having over misselling of PPI. A spokesman announced "As part of an ongoing process the implications on compensation are being considered by the Remuneration Committee and will be determined by the Board in due course, in line with the FSA code on compensation."

Lloyds is of course part owned by the taxpayer, but I suspect that detecting the hand of Vince Cable behind the scenes of the move are perhaps a little fanciful. More likely it is to do with the resignation of Chief Exec Antonio Horta-Osorio who has stepped down after weathering a profit warning at the group due to "extreme fatigue". Ah bless! I could put up with a bit of fatigue for what these buggers get paid...

I suspect that the clawback is really to help fund the rumoured £6,000,000 "golden hello" to release RSA chief financial officer, George Culmer, from his 12-month notice period at the insurer so he can join the bank.

Banks getting tough with their executives' pay and bonuses? Like I said, I'll believe it when I see it. Remember Fred Goodwin?...

( You can read more about this in the Daily Telegraph )

Rotton Boroughs : Gosport Borough Council

2011-12-05T08:00:00.002Z

Now this column has been known to suggest in the past that the behaviour of some of our elected officials leaves a little to be desired, but this story really is a cracker!

Independent Cllr Dave Smith and Liberal Democrat Cllr Peter Chegwyn, who both sit on Gosport Borough Council, made complaints about each other to the council’s standards committee who have referred them on to Standards for England.

It comes after Cllr Smith was cautioned by police in September for assaulting Cllr Chegwyn after a council meeting. Both councillors have made complaints about each other’s behaviour and they have both faced the standards board before.

Cllr Smith said: ‘Our altercation was private and personal and nothing to do with council business. The police dealt with that and I apologised to him publicly. After taking legal advice and advice from others I decided to put in a written complaint.’

Cllr Chegwyn said: ‘I’m not fussed about it because I know I have done nothing wrong. It’s just tit-for-tat. He got arrested and cautioned and I didn’t. I have no love for the standards board regime but it was the only course of action open to me.’

Both councillors have been referred to the standards board before.

Cllr Chegwyn was reported after he voted to block a motion on his Stokes Bay Festival from being discussed. This resulted in a two-year disqualification which was later reduced at the High Court to a two-month suspension in 2009.

And Cllr Smith finished a 12-month suspension earlier this year for calling council officers corrupt.

Good to know that our expectations of Councillors' behaviour are never disappointed, isn't it?

Last Supper made of pocket lint

2011-12-04T08:00:00.004Z

I've seen Jesus turn up in a lot of unexpected places, but never before has he been so fuzzy...

A Michigan woman has recreated the last supper -- savior and all -- out of laundry lint.

No, it's not some weird new spin (cycle) on the Da Vinci code... but a massive painting 14 feet long and 4 feet high -- and it took Laura Bell about 200 hours to make it (not to mention nearly 800 hours of laundry loads).

And now, it's a proud new addition to the Ripley's Believe It or Not! collection in the States.

Ripley's spokesman Tim O'Brien says the painting is everything they like in a piece of art.

"We have smaller lint art pieces in our collection, but what hit us about this one is its immense size," he said. "That combined with the amazing color she was able to get from natural lint to the details of the characters make this one great piece of art, albeit a very non-mainstream piece artistic endeavor."

Its' amazing what some people will do to praise the Lord...

Lookalikes

2011-12-03T08:00:00.001Z

Barber Mitchell

Has anyone noticed the remarkable resemblance between this week's 'man of the moment' TUC leader Brendan Barber and lovable, whisky swigging, Eastenders hard man Phil Mitchell?

Their heavy handed tactics certainly seem the same.

Are they perhaps related? I think we should be told...

Inaction heroes...

2011-12-02T08:00:00.003Z

A handful of true stories about life in the Civil Service gleaned from personal experience in a particular government agency...

I sat a couple of desks from this bloke who didn't seem to do a lot. One night I bumped into him on the Park and Ride bus on the way home. I asked him what he did.

"I'm a civil servant", he replied.

"I know that", I replied, "but what do you do?"

Baffled, he replied "I've been a civil servant for thirty years!" I never got past the loop, so next day I asked my guv'nor what he did. He told me that he didn't do anything. They didn't have anything for him to do...

...but he was three years away from getting his gold plated pension and it was cheaper to pay him to sit there than it was to make him redundant.
Down the other end of the office, was a senior manager. He didn't seem to be there a lot. I asked my boss what he did because he seemed to be in and out of the office quite a bit so I assumed he must be dashing about for work.

"Oh," he replied, "he's just waiting for them to find him a new post."

"But he's hardly ever here" I said. "No" he replied. "He takes most days off pretending to work at home or going to meetings but it suits us not to ask where he is because then we'd have to find him something to do and frankly he's not much use."
A contractor I worked with once before was in our office. I was surprised to see him as he was a contractor not a 'permie'. Apparently he was on a one year contract because he couldn't find a contract at the time.

"It's a no brainer" he told me. "They give me £45k a year and a laptop, so I spend most of my day on the internet. I'm here to do whatever they give me, but to be honest I only do about one day of work a week."

He told me he was counting the days until the contract ended because he was bored out of his skull, so I was surprised to see him on a bus one evening six months later as Mrs D and I were coming home from a shopping trip to town.

"Well, yeah," he said, "it's true I was counting the days but then they offered me a pay rise to sign on for another year and I thought - well, it's easy money so why not?"

Only 710,000 public sector employees surplus to requirements, George? You're not trying...

Two world wars and one world cup...

2011-12-01T08:00:00.000Z

...and the Fourth Reich is still trying it on!

Take a look at the picture above. This is German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble. Dr Schauble is a man despised even in his own nation, ridiculed as 'Doctor Strangelove' because he is confined to a wheelchair after being shot in an assassination attempt in 1990.

The good Doctor last week predicted that the UK would eventually be forced to come on side and join the Euro.“It will happen perhaps faster than some in the British Isles currently believe,” he said.

His warning followed the emergence of a secret German plan to build a powerful new economic government for the eurozone and block an EU referendum in Britain. A leaked German foreign ministry memo detailed plans for a new European Monetary Fund. It also claimed the EU’s treaty could be altered to centralise more power without triggering a vote.

And this, of course, comes on top of the German push to introduce a financial transaction tax to cripple the City of London.

It's about time Cameron grew some balls and stood up to the Germans. This country didn't fight two world wars just to lose a third one being fought with economic weapons instead of guns. It's also about time the French remembered who dug them out from under the German yoke last time around.

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage summed it up nicely when he said last week : “This German bullying is deeply unpleasant and the sooner we leave the EU the better.”

I couldn't agree more...

The spirit of Scargill lives on...

2011-11-30T08:00:00.008Z

Take a good long hard look at the picture above if you are on strike today!

Do you remember the miners' strike? Why am I reminding you of it now?

It's because this was the last time that a load of left-wing socialist Marxist scum manipulated the ordinary workers of this country in an attempted coup d'etat to bring down the democratically elected government.

And if you are on strike today, then you are falling for the claptrap that is being fed you by these people. You are being used.

This strike is nothing to do with public service pensions. Every person in this country is being squeezed because of the reckless and irresponsible spending by the Labour party - that's the same Labour party that is now owned lock, stock and barrel by the Trades Unions. The same Labour party you are being conned into trying to return to power by the use of politicaly motivated industrial action.

Everybody has suffered in this financial crisis. Everybody that has a pension fund has suffered losses. Why should you be different?

You still earn on average more than your equivalent in the private sector. You are being asked to contribute more to your pension, just like everyone else, but unlike everyone else you still end up with a better pension. You still pay proportionately less for it. You still have better wages.

There is, however, one more difference between me and you. I am contributing to your pension, but you are detracting from mine. My taxes go into your pot, which means the government has less left for my state pension.

So if you want to be on strike today - and the union ballots suggest that the vast majority of you don't want to be - then you are a greedy, parasitic cancer on the nation. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Do you really want people like Scargill running the country, because if you then you really are just plain stupid...

93 men in a boat (8) - The Opera Bore

2011-11-29T08:00:00.006Z

I knew I was in trouble the minute he invited himself to join us at our dinner table. It was our own fault. We had left a vacant seat, and he was on his own...

It only took a few moments to realise why he was on his own. He was travelling on his own because he had bored his wife to death a few years back.

He was an opera buff.

I know I asked for it as this was the second trip I had done this year which had an opera theme to it. The first time around was in a Palazzo in Italy and we got away with it. On that occasion even the singers were pleasant and outgoing and quite interesting people once you got chatting to them. But this time was different. We were on a boat - admittedly a very nice boat - but we were trapped. No going out for a meal. No popping out for a beer. Unless you fancied a swim in the Danube - chilly in November - there was no escape.

We started off with the relative merits of sopranos. Did I prefer Georghiou to Te Kanawa or Kabaivanska? Was Tosca a better female role than Traviata or Butterfly?

Then we moved on to composers. Verdi was OK but surely I agreed that Puccini was more rounded? And wasn't Britten the best twentieth century composer?

Then there were the tenors? Gobi was so much better than Pavarotti, and Domingo was so past his best these days! Christ, he could drone on and on and on and on for hours. Like a Chartered bloody Accountant only less interesting...

When I had had enough I explained that I was a professional musician in the hope it would kerb his enthusiasm. But no - not even interested in what sort of musician I might be, he proceeded to inform me that there was no-one living today who could possibly be called a musician because to be a real musician you had to have written opera and then died!

In the end I gave up. Resolving to avoid him like the plague, I decided to deliver a lecture on the relative merits of Paul Kossoff, Eric Clapton, Hendrix and Jimmy Page. Totally non-plussed he simply said he had not come across them and asked me which operas they had appeared in!

God give me strength...

The Dear Gill Letters (17)

2011-11-28T08:00:00.013Z

Home improvements and feline capers...

OK - so I got a new bathroom. So what's the big deal? The press seem to think that it's some kind of bad example in these times of austerity but I mean did you see the hideous creation that old slot gob left us with?

I mean I know her bum looked big in most things but you should see the size of the bidet!! Dave can bath Florrie in it and then climb in with her! And that hideous floral design on the tiles...looks like deadly nightshade or something. Was this Tony's 'I'll get you yet Gordie' fantasy or what?

Anyway it's all gone and frankly I'm not going to apologise for it especially that simply georgeous Italian limestone. I mean if they can make stuff like this, why is their economy so tits up? There's just nothing quite like it.

Still, I'm glad we've done it because now Dave and I have somewhere to relax away from the kids after a long stressful day trying to lead the free world to the promissed land. There's nothing like a good soak in the Jacuzzi and a nice cold bottle of Bollie to soak away your woes, darling!

Oh, I suppose you heard about Larry? I really don't know why we have that cat! He's supposed to catch all the mice that infest this God forsaken relic of a building but instead he's been spending all his time asleep - think's he's in the House of Lords or something, I reckon. Anyway, Dave was having lunch with the cabinet the other day and this bloody great rodent went charging across the carpet. He tried to spear it by chucking his fork at it, but of course it was hopeless, much to the amusement of the cabinet. Somebody suggested that a fork would never replace Trident, which didn't go down too well!!

We were about to consign the damn cat to a sack in the Thames when Arthur came in with a rather sheepish look on his face. Apparently the cursed cat had chewed up some of his toys so he decided to slow it down by mixing my tranks with it's food. No wonder the poor bloody thing was asleep all the time with this strange relaxed look on its face! But don't tell the papparazzi 'cos they reckon Larry been out on the tiles sowing his oats around!

And talking of stress, bloody Herr Fuhrer Merkel has been pissing Dave off again. I can always tell when she been on his case 'cos he goes around the house muttering about how a third war's not out of the question and why can we just nuke Berlin and get it over with. I mean I know he's only letting off steam 'cos he's quite pro Europe really but just don't tell the press or mention it on your mobile phone - which I suppose amounts to the same thing really lol!

And what the hell was he doing on that building site with Little Nicky Clegg? I said to him I said "For fucks sake, Dave. Just look at those wellies! Do you want to be reminded of Willy in his baseball cap or Diddy Dave with his banana?" He really ought to be more careful when there's cameras around! And the mud!!! God, what a job I had getting it off his trousers afterwards. I told him, I said "You can't go back to work looking like that! What would Queenie think of you dropping mud all over the palace carpet?" but he just laughed and said "Don't worry darling - that's what footmen are for"...

And apparently the Yanks want us to help them invade Iran or somewhere 'cos they're having problems with their budget and are having to reduce the size of their armies. Dave thinks there's a bit of horse trading to be done there. You know, sort of "we'll help you invade Iran if you lean on Merky and Sarky for us" to get them off our backs. They really are beyond the pale those two. They seem to have forgotten who invaded and occupied who and who it was that invaded and dug them out! Un-bloody-believable!!!

Anyway, to hell with them all. I'm off to the bathroom for a good soak and a bit of me time,

Vicar sues God over hate campaign

2011-11-27T08:00:00.003Z

A vicar who moved to an “idyllic” rural parish claims that locals subjected him and his family to a four-year-reign of intimidation and terror.

Reverend Mark Sharpe claims parishioners slashed his tyres, smeared excrement over the family car, strewed broken glass over his drive and even poisoned his pet dog. He says he and his wife Sara were forced to install CCTV cameras at the rectory to protect themselves and their four children after their post was tampered with and internet and phone connections were cut.

Eventually they moved away and this week Rev Sharpe began a claim of constructive dismissal against the Church of England.

Apparently, soon after moving to the countryside parish in Worcestershire he uncovered administrative mismanagement and financial problems but after highlighting those, he began receiving ''sinister'' anonymous letters telling him it was not ''his church'' but ''a local church for local people''.

Rev Sharpe, who is being supported by the faith workers section of the Unite union, claims he was effectively forced out of his parish and that the bishop and diocese of Worcester did nothing to protect him. He is asking employment judges whether he is entitled to bring a claim against the Diocese, claiming he had assumed that being an officer of the church would provide him the same rights as an employee.

However, the Church of England's official line on this is that their clergy are 'employed by God' which is a pretty neat get out line, especially as they initially accepted the position as employers before hastily withdrawing it!

Given the recent ruling that Priests were employees of the Catholic Church, it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

In the meantime, my congratulations go to the parisioners of the Teme Valley South Ministry for exhibitting such a remarkable Christain spirit of charity and tolerance...

( You can read the full story in the Daily Telegraph )

Just a thought...

2011-11-26T08:00:00.000Z

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Appleby almost three years previously, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Cumbria ?

And, they even tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 125,000 illegal immigrants wandering around our country.

Maybe we should give each of them a cow...

The Nick Clegg song

2011-11-25T08:00:00.003Z

Couldn't have written it better myself...

And if this is all too much for you, when you have stopped larfing, this guy has just posted a nice version of 'American Pie' worth cocking an ear to. Nice one, Chas.

Why is William Hague still a cunt?

2011-11-24T08:00:00.002Z

Now there's a question that will strike a chord in the hearts of stout hearted Englishmen everywhere!

I can't help thinking that when Hague was elected as Tory leader, he was bloody useless! Remember that election campaign for 'save the pound'? Years ahead of it's time or just plain embarassing?

Remember the picture above? A bananaman moment that should have sunk the little prat forever. But no...

He's back. At the centre of government. Fucking up our foreign policy and embarassing the hell out of us while he does it.

OK. I know what you are going to say. He might look like a prat, but this is a job once held by Robin Cook so clearly looking a bit odd is a job requirement. So let's look at his record...

Wind back for a moment to those heady days after the 2010 election. You remember those days? When we thought that the new boss might not be just the same as the old boss? In July 2010, Hague gave a speech entitled "Britain's Foreign Policy in a Networked World" the first in a series of four by the Foreign Secretary setting out how a distinctive British foreign policy can and should be achieved.

Here's an excerpt :

"...we will deliver a distinctive British Foreign policy that extends our global reach and influence, that is agile and energetic in a networked world, that uses diplomacy to secure our prosperity, that builds up significantly strengthened bilateral relations for Britain, that harnesses the appeal of our culture and heritage to promote our values, and that sets out to make the most of the abundant opportunities of the 21st century systematically and for the long-term. So for the first time in years Britain will have a foreign policy that is clear, focused and effective."

Now let's get back to the real world of today. This week the follically challenged little twerp has upset the Columbians. As their President visits Britain to discuss deepening trade relationships, he has told them that Britain puts human rights (don't you just love that expression?) at the heart of foreign policy, and that Columbia must address the issue if it expects to deal with Britain.

Colombia apparently has one of the worst records on human rights and kills more trade unionists than any other country. Not all bad then...

Then there's the Syrians. Hague has met with rebel Syrian leaders in London to tell them he supports their aim to overthrow the government of Syria. Now whatever you think of Assad, this is the overthrow of the government of a foreign country we are supporting. Would he have had similar discussion with the IRA if he had been in power a few years back, or is that somehow different?

How the governments of other countries conduct themselves is none of our business. It is an internal matter of them to resolve on their own. Leave them alone, Hague. Keep your nose out!

And while we're talking about regime change, perhaps we should be keeping a close eye on what's going on closer at home - in Italy and Greece for example.

Otherwise, we are in danger of becoming the next victim of a foreign policy that is fine when we apply it to other countries, but which we wouldn't like applied to ourselves?

Unemployment in perspective

2011-11-23T08:00:00.001Z

Much has been said over the last few months about the increases in unemployment, especially with the announcement of the latest figures last week.

And of course the flavour of the moment seems to be the plight of our youth and their hopes for the future.

But I think it is important to take a closer look at what is actually happening.

It is quite clear form the ONS graph that I have reproduced above that as a percentage of the total number unemployed, youth unemployment has actually gone down. The real victim of the recession and its ensuing financial problems is not just our youth - it is the whole of our working population.

Now I am not decrying the problems that school leavers and university graduates have in finding a job, altough I do think that a great number of them could improve their prospects of employment if they were prepared to be more flexible in their job search. But what about the other end of the spectrum? What about the over 40s and the over 50s? What about the poor buggers made redundant who have little prospect of ever finding another job because they are written off as being just too old?

Perhaps I am a little biased as one of the older generation who as been made redundant no less than 5 times over my working life, but I can remember when the unemployed numbered over 3 million and that was from a considerably smaller population. I am not suggesting that this is either good or desirable, but again let's remember that things have been worse.

The latest figures show an increase of around 7.5% in the number of people under 25 out of work - 21.9% from 20.2% - but the same figures for over 50's shows an increase of 25%.

So yes, let's try and get our young people working - but at the same time let's not forget about the other end of the age scale while we're doing it...

Money for nothing, and your house for free

2011-11-22T08:00:00.022Z

Fancy a free house? Who wouldn't...

Well under a new plan announced yesterday by the two wallies pictured above, that exactly what you can expect to get if you play your cards right.

After a lot of consideration (really? Who'da thought it?...), the government has decided that the best way to tackle the crisis in housing caused by reckless lending is to encourage a return to reckless lending.

The problem is apparently that builders are not building houses on land they already own because the banks won't lend them the money they need to fund the build. So the government will put tax payers money into building projects to be repaid once the properties are sold. This is of course assuming that the properties are ever sold, because we have just given the builders every incentive to not bother selling their properties. After all, they already have the money, so why bother?

The other problem is that first time buyers can't get mortgages because the deposits they have to find are too high. The government will solve this by incentivising the banks to lend 95% mortgages again, underwriting the risk with our taxes.

Now I have every sympathy for people who quite rightly point out that the mortgage they would be paying is actually lower than the rent they are already paying. These people are clearly not a bad risk and should be able to raise mortgages. Sensible banking policy would solve this problem. But where's the incentive been for sensible banking policy? There's no profit in it...

And what's going to happen when interest rates rise again - as they inevitably will - and the repayments rise beyond people's ability to pay? Well, the government will likely bung 'em a bit more of our cash, I expect.

This new policy is a reflection of the desperation of the government to get the economy moving. They say it will produce 32,000 new jobs in the building industry. What they forget is that most of these jobs will go to economic migrants from EU countries like Poland who will be quick to jump on the building bandwagon as soon as it starts rolling again. Just as quick as they were to go home when building stopped. OK, we'll get some taxes out of it but let's not kid ourselves that it will reduce unemployment. Brits are basically slow to get their hands dirty in the building trade

We are told that the UK needs to build hundreds of thousands of new homes to address the 'chronic housing shortage'. I don't buy this argument. The UK is fast on the road to becoming the most densely populated country in Europe. We are filling up fast. If the people who aren't supposed to be here were sent home and we weren't being flooded by uncontrolled immigration, then we wouldn't need to pave over our country.

Yes, we need sensible lending to enable responsible people to buy homes. What we don't need is some half-arsed government kneejerk reaction which will result in people having no incentive to make the repayments because the government will guarantee the default. That's no way to proceed.

A gala meal in Linz...

2011-11-21T08:00:00.007Z

As we were tied up in Linz alongside the Kunstmuseum - I wonder what they keep in there? - I came across the rather unfortunately named Nasi Goring on the dinner menu.

This led me to reflect on the fact that Linz in Austria in the birthplace of none other than one Adolf Hitler although for some reason there seemed to be no signs of commemoration for Linz's most famous son.

To remedy this, there is the menu for our special Adolf Memorial Dinner :

Starter

Kristelnacht Cocktail

Bricks of melon served on shards of broken ice

Soup

North Atlantic Pea Soup

Served with sculpted vegetable U-boats and a convoy of biscuits

Main course

either

Panzer of beef

served with a melee of Kosher vegetables on a bed of 'Third Rice'

Nazi Goering

with oven roasted vegetables

Sweet

'Retreat from Moscow'

An eagle's nest of white meringue, blood red raspberry coulie

and a 'Seig Heil' wafer

Coffee 'Mein Kampfe'

A selection of Normandy cheeses

To accompany, our selected wines this evening are :

Third Reichling 1938

Blitzkreig Red 1941

And sadly, this style of menu is not too far removed from the pretentious shite we were actually presented with.

It tasted a damn site better than it sounded!

Church is liable for the crimes of Priests

2011-11-20T08:00:00.008Z

The High Court in London has ruled that the Catholic Church can be held legally liable for the crimes of abusive clergy.

For the first time British law says the relationship of a priest to his bishop as that of an employee to an employer, instead of seeing the priest as effectively self-employed which means that a bishop and a diocese can be punished for the crimes of a priest.

The case involves a 47-year-old mother of three who claims she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Fr Wilfred Baldwin as a seven-year-old girl in The Firs children’s home in Waterlooville, in southern England, in the early 1970s. She claims that she also was attacked in the dressing room of a church on the day she made her first Communion.

The court was not asked to judge the truth of the allegations but was specifically asked, as a preliminary hearing on the case, to rule on the question of whether the “relationship between a Catholic priest and his bishop is akin to an employment relationship”.

The judge said the Church gave Fr Baldwin the “premises, the pulpit and the clerical robes” and that he was given full authority and free rein in the community to “act as a representative of the church.”

“Whether or not the relationship may be regarded as ‘akin to employment,’ the principal features of the relationship dictate that the defendants should be held responsible for the actions which they initiated by the appointment and all that went with it,” said the judge.

The court ruling was welcomed by the victims’ support group, Ministers and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors.

The group claimed that while the Church spent millions of pounds attempting to avoid liability “the victims receive no support, and their suffering continues as they are re-traumatized by having to go through such adversarial and hostile legal processes to achieve justice”.

( You can read more aboutthis case in the Telegraph by clicking here )

Mrs Pudsey's passport...

2011-11-19T08:00:00.014Z

Now that all that Cheeeldren in Need bollocks is over for another year, I thought that you might all like this heartwarming story about the real Pudsey Bear.

Yes, there really is one.

Eileen De Bont (that's Bont not Cont!) legally adopted the name of the BBC appeal's mascot and updated her documents. However, when she applied for a new passport in the name of Pudsey Bear her application was turned down.

She said: "I do not know what to do. It is utterly ridiculous. My old passport expired in October. They say they will only issue me with one in the name of Eileen De Bont, but that is not my name. I do not have any documents with that name on now. If I get a passport in the name of Eileen I am going to have trouble checking into hotels, hiring cars and even changing money."

Mrs Bear, a mother-of-two daughters aged 10 and 13, changed her name legally through the UK Deed Poll Service and sent off her driver's licence, bank cards, credit cards and tax forms to have them altered.

Her bank card now reads 'Mrs P Bear', and her driving licence 'Mrs Pudsey Bear'. She is addressed as 'Ms Pudsey Bear' on her council tax statements, and the Inland Revenue lists her as 'Mrs Pudsey Bear'.

The Identity & Passport Service, which addressed her as 'Mrs Bear', told her in a letter: "It is deemed to be a frivolous change of name, which would bring IPS into disrepute. It could also pose problems for you at border control in some countries. IPS is not questioning the validity of the deed poll, however, it is not prepared to issue a passport in a frivolous name which could compromise our mission statement 'safeguarding your identity'."

Mrs Bear said the decision would prevent her from taking holidays abroad. She said: "I love my new name. It has become part of my life. It is who I am. My girls both call me 'Mummy Bear'."

Mike Barratt, of the UK Deed Poll Service, criticized the decision. He said: "It is unnecessary interference from a public authority in Mrs Bear's private life that is in breach of her human rights."

Personally I think she behaved like a complete arse and deserved everything she got...

But that's just because I am a miserable tight-fisted cunt...

( You can read the full story in the Telegraph by clicking here )

Children in Need 2011

2011-11-18T08:00:00.051Z

Yes, it's that time of year again. There's fuck all worth watching on tellie tonight because Pudsey is back...

Now, I know you are going to think that anyone who says that a charity appeal that raises so much for needy cheeldren should be taken off the air just because it's a load of purile, talentless shite is a fucking miserable bastard, but frankly I don't give a shit!

My wife was a single parent. Her first husband fucked off and left her holding the baby - the bastard! She didn't have two halfpennies to rub together or a pot to piss in, so she got off her arse and did whatever she had to do to put food in the baby's belly, clothes on its back and a roof over its head.

She did some really shitty jobs - and I mean really shitty. The sort of work that lots of people in this country would rather starve than do - except of course that in the modern welfare state there's no need to do these jobs. You just stick your hand out.

BBC Children in Need is just phase one of the charity barrage that signals the start of the Christmas onslaught in earnest. The chuggers are coming, and woe betide you if you tell them to bugger off!

I remember one year when I was doing a contact for the Royal Mail. Some spotty faced pleb with a bandage round his head and a big red bucket (who should have been inside the building working) stepped in front of me an refused to let me enter until I had put a quid in for Chldren in Need. I informed him that unless he wanted the bandage to actually perform its intended function, he needed to get out of the bloody way. He called me a miserable, tight fisted cunt.

This country is in the shit. Money is tight. Charity begins at home. Family first, everybody else second. The Lord helps those who help themselves.

When the big plastic Santa comes round on his lorry playing Christmas carols through a loudspeaker and they knock on my door, I don't answer it. When a tin is waved under my chin in the street, I ignore it.

I'm not tight fisted. I'm not miserable. But if standing my ground makes a cunt, then I plead guilty...

Pub of the Year

2011-11-17T08:00:00.001Z

As the end of the year approaches, I thought I would like to put my personal nomination forward for the 'Pub of the Year 2011'

Walk into 'The Foul Mouthed Cunt' and you are transported to another era. From its friendly and curiously deadly bar staff to original watercolour paintings of car accidents adorning the walls, every detail is kept as it would have been over 100 years ago. It really is a step back in time.

And if it's great food you're after then the Cunt delivers! Decribed by Gary Rhodes a "Spine chilling" why not try the Blinding Migraine in a Volvo?. Bruised shin? or a Confetti of broken glass? And as for the puddings, how mouth-watering do you want to get? Tumble dried denim dusted with Volcano ash? Dry ice? Asphalt patio? All within an inch of your face.

But it's not just about the food - the ales are equally great : Why not try a great pint of Swollen Tits, or Old Mother's Twat. The locally brewed Fucking Typical never disappoints. And for the ladies? - how about Council Estate, a simply stunning Cote de Rhone?

Children are also catered for with an exciting play area that will keep them entertained for hours. All the paints are guaranteed highly toxic.

I could rave on for hours - and I frequently do - but if you want to know more about this stunningly different Hamshire gem, then I thoroughly recommend a visit to the web site which you can find by clicking here.

Stop whingeing about petrol prices...

2011-11-16T08:00:00.007Z

OK - Point 1 : Just what the fuck was that load of old bollocks about last night in the House of Commons?

110,000 people decide that they have had enough of being stung by the Government with increases in fuel duty so they decide to have a debate. Sufficient hot air having been exuded to provide the bulk of our energy requirements for the next decade later, the House decides that it supports the motion without taking a vote, but in any case the decision will not be binding on Ministers.

...and these are the people who have the barefaced unmitigated gall to lecture us about waste!?!

Point 2 : Just why are we whingeing on about the price of Petrol?Let's be objective about this for a moment. Here's a table of the top 95 octane petrol prices per litre over on the continent. For comparison purposes I've converted them all to Euro

Norway		€1.83
Netherlands		€1.70
Belgium		€1.59
Greece		€1.59
Portugal		€1.59
Sweden		€1.57
Denmark		€1.56
Italy		€1.59
Finland		€1.56
Germany		€1.55
France		€1.53
UK		€1.53

So this means that there are eleven other countries in our immediate vicinity with petrol prices the same or higher than ours...

But if you really want to get your blood boiling, I watched a woman being interviewed on the BBC yesterday morning banging on just to prove that the average Brit really is a moaning thicky.

The woman in question was a child minder. She was complaining that the price of fuel was now so high that she had to downsize her people carrier. This meant that she couldn't now mind as many children.

So let's get this straight: She's reduced her income by spending loads of dosh on a new car because she hasn't got any money. There is no hope for her. She is terminally stupid.

Gobshite on the Danube

2011-11-15T08:00:00.002Z

For the benefit of you Philistine, pig ignorant, non-cultured garbage out there, the picture above is of the Statsoperahaus in Vienna.

A little earlier in the year, you might remember my recanting to you the tale of my short stay at the Pallazzo Belmonte in Santa Maria de Castalabate on the Amalfi coast where Mrs D and I languished away our time attending, amongst other things, private performances by professional opera singers? No? Well never mind...

Having decided that the company of decrepit old opera bores was definitely the thing for us - not! - we decided to to it all again; only this time on a boat. The company was, to say the least, interesting. But as I have enough material stored up for a small book never mind a short series of witty and amusing articles written in the world famous Dioclese style, more of that later.

We have done the route from Passau to Budapest before but as this was a tour offered by our favourite tour operator to commemorate their 20th year in business and because they gave a good price as regular customers, we thought "Why not?"

Part of the trip was the opportunity to see an opera in the Vienna State Opera House, but I have to say to you that if you want a damn good laugh, then go to their web site and see if you can figure out which seats you are booking. It's impossible to decipher what's what. I suspect that it's one these places where if you don't know already, then you won't find out from them!

The opera in question was Donizetti's Elisir d'Amore. It's an amusing piece but rather short at just under two hours. That works out at about 1.4p a second for a decent seat...

Being me, I downloaded a copy off the web that had Pavarotti singing the role and sat down to watch it over a cup of Nespresso - what else? Anyway, after about 40 minutes I decided that if Pavarotti couldn't lift it, then it probably wasn't worth the 1.4p

Needless to say, the stuffed shirts were quick to tell me the next morning just how wonderful it was and how they couldn't understand how I could possibly pass up on an opportunity to watch this piece of sheer genius in such a magnificent setting.

I simply told them that I'd been there loads of times and found the seats rather uncomfortable...

Nespresso : An aspirational lifestyle

2011-11-14T08:00:00.002Z

For my birthday, Mrs D. bought me a Nespresso coffee machine.

I was going to a piece about the overwhelmingy pretentious, marketing bollocks they feed you when you buy one of these machines, but frankly I cannot best the piece written by Charlie Brooker in the Grauniad in 2007 which is as true today as it was then.

Here it is reproduced in all it's glory...

Not long ago, I bought a coffee machine. You pop in a cute little metallic coffee pod, push a button and hey presto: you've made an espresso without having to faff around spooning coffee powder into a receptacle and banging it about and getting grit all over the sideboard and shouting like a sailor in a thunderstorm, which is what baristas do. It's made by Nestlé. I'm dimly aware they're supposed to be monstrously evil ... but look, I hadn't made the connection at the time, and besides, I need my coffee, OK? I'm a heartless monster.

Annoyingly, you can't just walk into a shop and buy the special pods. You have to order them online, via an impossibly snooty website full of blah about the "subtle alchemy" of coffee and so on. On handing over your details, you're inducted into a mysterious "club", the consequences of which were lost on me until this week, when a glossy magazine plopped through my door. Turns out that by buying a coffee machine, I'd inadvertently subscribed to a "lifestyle", and this magazine would regularly arrive to congratulate me.

I like free magazines because they're hilariously desperate, and the classier they purport to be, the more desperate they are. Nespresso magazine is the most acute example I've ever seen. It's as hateful as Tatler, but with an overbearing and whorish emphasis on coffee pods bunged in for good measure. Let's take a walk through the latest issue. The cover is a black-and-white photo of official "Nespresso ambassador" George Clooney sitting at a table with a couple of coffee pods on it. They're tastefully out of focus, so you don't notice them at first. But they're still there. Inside, there's another huge photo of George balancing four coffee pods on top of each other.

The contents page is broken up with little colour photos of coffee pods, and snapshots of the contributors, including "legendary star photographer Michel Comte" (posing pretentiously with his hands on his chin). Best known for snapping superstars, Comte has recently "taken a humanitarian bent" by covering "war-torn locations such as Iraq, Chechnya and Afghanistan". But this week he "joined George Clooney for a coffee and the latest Nespresso campaign". Beneath Comte's photo is a bright blue coffee pod. Next, several pages showcasing the latest Nespresso coffee machines, which are intensely coloured because "intense colours are the rule on the catwalks of the season". Another inspiration is "rock legend David Bowie, whose alter ego Ziggy Stardust defined both glam rock and its look in the 1970s". To underline how fashionable the machines are, they're accompanied by photos of Louis Vuitton shoes, Chanel bags, the Bilbao Guggenheim museum, and some coffee pods.

Then, a series of full-page Q&A sessions with five "Nespresso Coffee Experts", each posing with a cup of coffee and spouting bumwash. (Sample: "Q: What elements or setting do you need for your own personal coffee moment or ritual? A: An open mind and sharpened senses".) Coffee pods in this section: nine. Now we've arrived at the George Clooney profile proper. "My parents brought me up to read and to ask questions, and to constantly question authority," he reveals. "Because authority unchecked, without exception, corrupts. Always." Something to contemplate there, while you gaze at more photos of George and the pods.

Next, a guide to festive entertaining "dos and don'ts", in which the letter o in the word dos is replaced by a photograph of a coffee pod, upended and shot from above. By now, I'm actively enjoying this relentless pod barrage.

Pages 32-37: a piece on the Keralan coastline, accompanied by exotic photos of natives (and coffee pods).

Page 38: upmarket ski destinations (and a coffee pod).

Page 40: a profile of the mastermind behind Swiss watchmakers Chopard. "A true epicurean, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele's passion drives him to pursue excellence in all aspects of life," reads a caption beside a photo of Karl, his hot wife Christine, and three more coffee pods.

Page 42: a feature on milk. Real milk, you understand, not that powdered formula gunk people in the developing world mix with unclean water and bottlefeed to babies, causing diarrhoea and vomiting. For some mad reason, that's not mentioned at all. No pods, either: a double oversight.

Page 46-51: Indian recipes inspired "by the flavours of the Nespresso Grand Crus". Coffee pods next to the food and, in one case, balanced on the edge of a plate. Brilliant.

Pages 54-59: fashion spread starring a man who looks about 50 and a sexy woman who looks about 25. Cups, machines and Nespresso logos are visible. But boo: no coffee pods.

The unexpected pod drought continues throughout a feature on ghastly overpriced crud to put on your coffee table, a guffy peep about yachting, an advert for Chopard watches, and a self-celebratory piece on sustainable farming practices in Costa Rica, the last page of which is suddenly improved immensely - at last - by a minuscule photo of a coffee pod in the lower right-hand corner, serving as a full stop at the end of the article. Finally, the home straight: several pages of chinaware from the Nespresso range, a deluge of coffee pods and an order form. And that's it.

I went back and counted. In total, there were 281 visible coffee pods - 281 tiny bullet-shaped reminders of the bizarre, anxious banality of marketing. On one hand, it's a pointless free mag. On the other, it's the by-product of an entire industry peopled exclusively by desperate, snivelling lunatics. And most damning of all, it's put me off my coffee

Like I said, a brilliant piece that's hard to beat - so I'm not going to try! Thanks, Charlie...

Respect

2011-11-13T08:00:00.000Z

Today is not a day for levity or for frivolous posts. Today is a solemn day.

Today we choose to remember the men and women of our armed forces who have lost their lives in the service of their country. And it is important to remember also that we choose to remember, and that this is the way it should be.

Although the ceremony inevitably concentrates on the fallen of the two World Wars, let's also remember the more recently fallen - in Iraq and Afghanistan. And whether you agree, or disagree vehemently as I do, with our servicemen's involvement in these conflicts let's not diminish the sacrifices that have been made by people who, it must be remembered, are all volunteers.

Surely a minute of silence is the least we can do for them...

Well, tickle my testicles!

2011-11-12T08:00:00.000Z

Say hello to Maria Topp, pictured outside Newcastle Crown Court where she has been told that she could face a custodial sentence for the heinous crime of...

...biting off her boyfriends bollocks!

She bit Martin Douglas, her partner of five years, during a drunken brawl at 4am at his flat back in February. After the incident, Mr Douglas needed emergency surgery to reattach his testicles.

Apparently the 45 year old DJ was in excruciating pain when he dialled 999 for assistance. I bet he was! It makes your eyes water just thinking about it...

Gavin Doig, prosecuting, said 'This incident arose on February 18 in which the injured party suffered a number of injuries, particularly a very serious wound to his scrotum.

'The crown's case has always been that was caused by a bite. Until today the defence's contention was it was caused by her hands. Her plea, as I understand, is on the basis she did indeed cause that injury with her teeth. That is an important concession as far as the crown are concerned.

'It is an aggravating feature she used her teeth.' No kidding!

Caroline Goodwin, defending, told the court Topp did accept the injury was caused by a bite - though she does not remember it.

Miss Goodwin added: 'There is no issue in relation to biting. Maria Topp has actually no specific recollection of the action of biting. I say no more about it than that.'

And the judge's reaction? He warned Topp: 'I have no idea what I am going to do with you',

Well, m'lud, I was you I certainly wouldn't go for the blowjob...

Rotten Boroughs : Derby City Council

2011-11-11T08:00:00.000Z

Derby City Council has come in for a bit of stick for spending £250,000 to revamp it's website at a time when it has just announced that in order to reduce its costs it will be making a further 500 staff redundant.

They did their best, understandably, to keep this quiet until a freedom of information request was lodged. The response from Nick O'Reilly, the council's IT director, was that the investment was good value because it would mean more customers would be able to interact with the authority online.

When asked to justify the expenditure, the official council line was that the budget for the project was approved two years ago - before the general election and before the council was required to make cost savings.

But that just doesn't wash really, does it? You can't justify spending money on the basis that you did it before you were told not to. And, to be honest, a quarter of a million quid does seem rather a lot just to revamp a website.

Nicole Berrisford, branch secretary for trade union Unison, said she had not been aware of the cost of the new website.

She said: "That's quite a lot when we know 500 FTEs (full-time equivalent staff) are going to leave the authority by 31 December."

And from my experience of government IT projects, the thing probably won't work properly, and it'll cost a shed load more money to fix it...

Euroshit.

2011-11-10T08:00:00.001Z

I wrote to my MP before the EU referendum debate asking his voting intentions. Some time after the debate was over, he sent me this list of why he dislikes Europe.

I'd like to share them with you :

The EU budget keeps going up while UK spending budgets at home are being cut.
EU red tape that hurts UK businesses.
Open borders with the EU that mean the British Parliament cannot control immigration as it would like.
The way the Common Fisheries Policy has hurt the British fishing industry.
Food prices are higher in the UK as a result of the Common Agricultural Policy.
The lack of democratic control of decisions taken by the European Union.
We joined a common market but the EU has become a political project with too much power in the hands of bureaucrats.
The EU accounts haven’t been audited properly for many years.
EU waste and corruption.
An EU aid budget that often doesn’t reach the poor and hungry.
The economic problems created by the Eurozone.
The sense that Britain plays by the rules and implements EU laws but other EU countries do not.
EU environmental and renewable energy policies that are leading to higher energy prices.

So naturally, feeling this way as he does, the spineless git voted against a referendum!

49% for you. Fuck all for us!

2011-11-09T08:00:00.002Z

Britain's FTSE100 company directors have enjoyed a pay rise of almost 50% in the past year - taking their average earnings to almost £2.7m according to a study by Incomes Data Services (IDS).

Steve Tatton of IDS said: "Britain's economy may be struggling to return to pre-recession levels of output, but the same cannot be said of FTSE 100 directors' remuneration. The generous remuneration packages that FTSE 100 directors now receive indicates a marked improvement in boardroom fortunes."

Well, no actually. That improvement is brought about my the fact that there is a comparison being made to the woeful performance of the past few years.

He added : "At a time when employees are experiencing real wage cuts and risk losing their livelihoods, without further explanation it may be difficult for FTSE 100 companies to justify the significant increase in earnings awarded to their directors."

Difficult? No. Impossible? Yes. So why does it happen?..

Well, it's simple really. The FTSE100 companies' major shareholders are all large financial insitutions such as trusts and pension funds. This means that at AGMs the votes of the smaller shareholders count for next to nothing when agreeing directors' renumeration packages. So the people that control these votes are people who are getting big packages themselves.

They are not going to vote down their mates...

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Boardroom pay rewards are a brazen stitch-up. Reform should start with employee representation on remuneration committees, which would give directors a much-needed sense of reality."

Ed Miliband said: "I think its wrong because what we see is rewards not based on performance, not a something for something culture but a something for nothing culture. We've seen the stock market flat over the last year or so, so not more wealth being created and yet top pay going up by 50%"

Now I happen to think that these two are the dregs of the Earth, so it is quite something that I find myself agreeing with them. Frankly, I would rather stick red hot needles through my eyeballs, but there you have it!

And the government's response? "We recently launched a consultation into company narrative reporting and a discussion paper on executive pay. Proposals being consulted on include how to strengthen the link between pay and performance and provide shareholders with clearer, more relevant information on executive remuneration."

They don't seem to have got the message. Or have they?

Take a look at how many senior members of the government have directorships in FTSE companies...

Poof aid

2011-11-08T08:00:00.005Z

Just when I was thinking that Cameron has to be turning as corner becasue he can't possibly maintain this level of disappointing stupidity for much longer, he just has to prove me wrong...

At the recent Heads of Government Conference in Australia, he took it upon himself for collar certain nations and inform them that if they want to continue getting aid from Britain, they will need to reform their laws banning homosexuality.

He told Andy Pandy Marr of the Biased Broadcasting Corporation "This is an issue where we are pushing for movement, we are prepared to put some money behind what we believe. But I'm afraid that you can't expect countries to change overnight."

Actually Dave, where does the 'we' come into this? It's not in your manifesto and you have no right to dictate to other countries what laws they should have. And I don't recall anybody asking me.

Some African countries are crying foul calling “a conspiracy from the West to impose its immoral values on Africans”. I think they have a point. The above cartoon from the Ghanaian Chronicle sums their attitude up nicely.

And another thing - why isn’t the UK so quick to turn off the tap on non-democratic regimes? and I’m talking about the ones that claim their democratic when they really aren’t. Why does the UK feel the need to protect gay rights when there are many other injustices?

Could it possibly be because there are so many asylum seekers in this country fighting repatriation on the grounds that they are gay and will be persecuted if they are sent home?

If so, then maybe he's not that stupid after all...

Life without my mobile

2011-11-07T08:00:00.000Z

The debacle that has hit Blackberry recently has made me reflect on exactly how the current generation are addicted to their mobile phones and just how their lives would be affected if we just took them all away...

Now I am the first to admit that I have a pay as you go mobile which I put a £10 credit on about four years ago. There's still £1.83 on it. I rarely switch it on and have it mainly because I drive a 17 year old car which may just conceivably break down when I am off to the airport on holiday - and missing the flight could be rather an expensive exercise.

I can't actually remember when I last used it to call someone. I wouldn't have bought one in the first place were it not for the fact that I was working in London at the time and my wife got paranoid if I was late home because her ex was once involved in a train crash. I admit I used to piss my self laughing at the people on the train who rang their wives just to say "I'm on the usual train. I'll be home at the usual time." Morons...

I heard on the BBC the other morning about a teenager who was incandescent with rage because his entire life had stopped because his Blackberry wasn't working. No texts, no surfing, no Facebook, no Tweeting....OMG!

And of course phones now have cameras in them, and an MP3 player. So if your phone stops working then all that stops working as well. This means that you can't actually take embarrassing pictures of your mates throwing up at a party, or cut yourself off from reality as you walk in front of a car - although that last thought does have a certain appeal come to think of it!

We are addicted to these bloody things! We have become completely brainwashed by all the marketing shite and hype!

I find it incomprehensible that two people can walk down the road together side by side both talking to other people on their phones. Why don't they just talk to each other? Is it just me that finds it incredibly rude when my friend across the dinner table is texting someone else instead of talking to me? Why can't people switch the bloody things off when they are in the cinema or the theatre or driving down the road?

Sure these things are useful, but if you can't even manage for a single day without your mobile, then you really are a sad little twat.