Not alone.

You sometimes get the impression that those of us who wish to be out of the EU are the fringe of the fringe, it's certainly an impression which is put forward by the media, even if subliminally. You'd think that anti-EU sentiment is the preserve of some sort of bizarre little Englander set, in the minority nationally and at total odds with the population of Europe.

I've never accepted the former, this is why successive governments have never given us a referendum on the subject, they're scared that a vote for getting us out would be carried. They'll give some excuse about how referenda are not British, whilst then abandoning other British institutions to the EU. I've heard people say that it is too complicated for us to understand, this unsurprisingly from a LibDem member who also tried to persuade me that referenda were undemocratic, as people could be persuaded by the antis to vote against our continued membership. Funnily enough I've never heard the argument against being that support for our membership was so overwhelming that you might as well hold a referendum on whether we send murderers to prison.

We're conditioned to believe that if we want to leave the EU, we're out of step with opinion across the continent, and when all else fails, we'll just be labelled racists.

I was encouraged with a conversation that I had with a French woman very recently where we discussed membership of the EU.

'Don't.' She spat. 'Don't talk to me of the EU. It disgusts me.' I was a little taken aback, after all, are we not to believe that mainland Europe kneels weeping tears of joy and gratitude in-front of the blue flag with the yellow stars? I thought she was going to give the old reformer line of it being a wonderful organisation which is hampered by poor administration. Not a bit of it.

She went on to explain to me that she was European, in the same way that a Bolivian is South American or a Malaysian is Asian, it certainly wasn't her nationality though. 'I am French.' She stated simply. 'European is not my nationality.'

She went on to tell me how she missed the Franc and desperately wanted it back, how she felt that any control over her economy had been given away. She told me about how the French tricolor is the most beautiful flag in the world, and how upset she was at it being supplanted by the EUro flag at every turn, a flag she has no emotional link or loyalty to.

She told about how she wanted her country back. Not, she was at pains to add, from the Algerians or West Africans, but from those who have stolen it away from the people of France irrespective of ethnicity. She commented that she didn't hate Germany or England, why should she? But she was French. She said 'I am human, but it doesn't mean I hate elephants and tigers.'

'There are many of us' she said with a sigh. 'But they will not let us be heard. We grow in number. I think we are the majority, but it is the farmers and the city resident liberals who elect the politicians, the farmers have been bought and the Parisiens hate the rest of France, they think they are France.'

This may not be representative, but I wonder how many people in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Poland and everywhere else think this, and how poorly they are represented in government.

Then I look at Libya, Syria, Yemen and fear the worst.

The cracks widen . . .

I've always indulged my Trek geek side and drawn comparisons between the EU and Ceti Alpha V. Ceti Alpha V is a planet, which through an ingenious plot device, becomes exposed to the 'Genesis Device', a missile which is used in terraforming a planet, making it inhabitable in a very short period.

The problem being that as it whips an inhabitable ecosystem up in double quick time, shortcuts were taken and the planet disintegrates in double quick time. The moral of the story being that things like this cannot just be thrown together, there has to be a natural evolution and the imposition of man's will will lead to things falling apart.

The EU is the Genesis Device to the physical continent of Europe. We're seeing an artificially constructed economy fall apart at the seams, like tectonic plates forced together ripping themselves apart to follow the course that the physics of the planet intended.

Now we see two of the old apex predators, shoehorned into the new ecosystem turn on each other. France has effectively closed the border with Italy, furious that Italy has acted like a good European country by laying out the welcome mat for anyone who cares to turn up on the doorstep. Italy has been perfectly happy to dole out temporary residence permits, secure in the knowledge that the Francophone and Francophile Tunisians will head for France as quick as their legs will carry them. Poor France, they never asked for this, and they'd certainly never turn a blind eye at a press of humanity trying to cross their border to another member state, would they?

If you listen to the EU mandarins, the nation state is dead. France obviously doesn't think so. Nor do the people of Finland, who look like acting in the manner of a glacier and sweeping all before them. The parties who have had the country sewn up for so many years don't seem to like it one bit, but then that is the default setting of the Europolitician, the electorate's job is to vote them in, keep quiet and be thankful for anything they are lucky enough to get. Looks like the Finns have had enough of this, and if their wishes are not listened to this time round, well, the main EU poodle parties are just delaying the inevitable.

No doubt the BBC and other EU and publicly funded media outlets will decry them as fascists and nationalists, following the good old example that Uncle Joe set out, they'll try to scare us with tales of the bogeyman, without realising that the vision they promote of a 21st Century Europe is far, far scarier than anything UKIP or True Finns could ever be or do. The further east you go, the fresher the memories are.

We've no doubt seen a good portion of the public of Iceland look at their recent referendum on whether they should allow themselves to be mugged by the UK and the Netherlands with one eye on their application to join the EU, and I've heard whispers that the Croats are re-evaluating their position on joining as well.

The political continent is starting to tear itself apart. The apparatchiks can stamp their feet as much as they like, but European history tells us that there is a tipping point. Whether it is Cromwell, the storming of the Bastille or the Winter Palace, the stringing up of Mussolini or the overthrow of Ceaușescu, once that tipping point is reached, you can do nothing about it. It is true to say that what replaces that which went before may not be better, and may even be worse, but that is the danger with revolutions, it does not invalidate the lack of credibility of the regime which came before.

In his quarters aboard the Enterprise, Spock had a painting of a scene from ancient human mythology - the explusion from Eden. It was there to serve as a reminder that all things end.

Looking past the decoy.

There were breathless reports in the British media yesterday about the actions of two women who went out defy the ban on the wearing of face coverings in France. The reports on BBC radio were of the tone that these women were being very silly and that the ban was a good thing.

My French ain't great, but as luck would have it, I was in the country yesterday and French radio was carrying a lot of vox-pops that suggested the general population was mystified at best by the ban, and in a couple of interviews the reaction was hostile.

Now, I don't like the burqa, I think it is a hateful item of clothing which disconnects the wearer from the rest of society, it also suggests that all women are sluts and all men are rapists. It is the physical embodiment of one of the things that turns me off from religion, the mania for collecting people whilst dictating their actions and thoughts and telling them they are worthless. I also hate socks worn with sandals and the old blazer and jeans combo, but because, like the veil, they don't actually do any harm, I am not calling for their prohibition.

But of course the story is a bit of a decoy. You see, the law in France doesn't ban the burqua or the niqab, what it does is ban all face coverings in public. Everyone is prohibited from covering their face in public in France now; this means that Old Holborn's little walk would be illegal. Well, when I say everyone, that isn't quite accurate. You and I would be breaking the law by going out with a face covering, whether the reason for doing so is malicious or not, but for agents of the state, it is perfectly acceptable for them to go out dressed thus:

The odd, non-assimilationist, muslim women wearing the burqa, the section of society that the rest doesn't trust because their behaviour is so different to everyone else, have been used as a smokescreen, a decoy, to prevent attention from falling onto the fact that every private citizen is being restricted here.

It isn't jsut that; as the Torygraph correctly reports:

But Alexis Marsan, a public order official, said they were solely given warnings for taking part in an illegal gathering.

Five men and another women were also held for taking part in the demonstration.

Whereas in the UK, it is illegal to hold a demonstration without permission within a certain radius of parliament, which is bad enough, in France it is illegal to hold a demonstation anywhere without permission. This is what was being reported in a very matter of fact way on French radio, that these people had been arrested for an unauthorised demonstration.

The BBC also reported on their TV news that the pair were spirited away to a police station to 'have their papers checked.' It should be noted that any resident of France is obliged to carry their Carte d'Identitie or Carte de Sejour at all times and you can be stopped and checked at any time, for no particular reason, I don't know if you can be obliged to go to the police station for your papers to be checked for no good reason, but given the reputation of the gendarmerie and the paramilitary CRS for being robust, I'm not too sure I'd be asking too forcefully.

So, just across that short stip of water we have a country where you cannot demonstrate against the state unless the state gives you permission to do so, where you cannot wear a face covering, for example a rubber mask of Sarkozy or De Gaulle, and where you can routinely be swept up off the street to have your 'papers' checked.

Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?

Normally, I'd be saying that this is a matter for the country in question, but reports are that Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands have plans along similar lines, and you can only wonder how long it will be before the same comes in over here, either through our own parliament or as the result of a dictat from Brussels.

The One That Is Marvelling . . .

Election time is over, let the stupidity begin!

Where to start? There really are some idiots out there.

Let's start with the cabin crew at BA, pictured standing outside the High Court singing 'We are the champions' as the injunction on their strike was overturned. I'm very pleased for you. CF has a very eloquent rant on the stupidity of their stance. If they've not driven the final nail into their own coffin, then they've certainly lined it up and whacked their thumb with the hammer.

I went on holiday a couple of months ago and BA were cheaper by about £50 per ticket and the take off and landing times in London were much more convenient for me, but I chose to fly Virgin. Why? Simple, I knew that the Virgin staff would turn up for work. Anyone booking a BA flight at the moment must be doing so with fingers crossed in hope. As CF points out, who is going to trust BA now? The holidaymakers won't, the business men and women won't, who does that leave? No-one. BA will be dead by the time the decade is out, and then where will these cabin crew be? I'll tell you, they'll be whining at the government for not taking our money off us and putting it in their pockets whilst they get paid a shitload more than the staff at Virgin, get free flights and all the other perks.

Tough shit. There's thousands of people who'd love to have your job. I'm sure a long haul flight is hard work, I have no doubt that the travelling public are the biggest collection of idiots and arseholes you'll ever encounter, but really, you've got it very easy and you're throwing it all away. Your loss, not mine, I've plenty of choice, see you later on.

OH then links to more stupid. This time from an article in the Graun.

The poor old MPs are having a tough time of it. They're not being given unfettered access to our money.

Aw, diddums. Here's a point, we've just had an election. If the T&C's of your employment were so onerous, why the bloody hell did you stand? Are you simple? This sort of thing just underlines how little this new politics differs from the old:

We just have to accept this because the public is not with us. It will take something really horrendous, such as a woman MP being stabbed on the streets of London because she is not entitled to take a taxi home late at night, before people wake up and realise how unfair this is.

Really? Has there been some new Act passed which forbids politicians to stand on Whitehall with their hand in the air, hailing a cab, telling the nice man where they want to go and then putting their hand in their own pocket, rather than mine, and paying the fare?

No-one pays for my transport from work to home. I have to pay for that myself. And it's not as if you're having to pay for transport from Penzance or Perth to Westminster, is it? No, you're getting a cab to your second home. A second home paid for by me.

If one of you get stabbed on the street, then perhaps you'll have an understanding of the world the rest of us live in. Now, let's think, who could possibly change that world?

Thirteen years of Labour's entitlement culture, why am I surprised? They've been telling everyone how they are deserving of this and that. Not any more, that ship has sailed.

This new government is ticking some boxes at the moment. The civil liberties thing is going down very well with me. I also enjoyed Sarko's very glum expression when Cameron was talking last night. No doubt the odious little shit was browbeating Dave for our bizarre decision to have stayed out of the Euro thus far, and the even more peverse decision to stay as far away from this phoney currency as we possibly can now. These Greek retirees with their huge state pensions and French farmers being paid an awful lot to produce fuck all aren't going to feed themselves, you know. It's our duty to bankrupt ourselves even further, to take food from our own childrens' mouths just to ensure these lazy, corrupt, grasping arseclowns can continue to be kept in the style to which they have become accustomed.

Sorry Jean-Paul, you're own your own. You spent years trying to block our produce in direct contravention of the free-trade rules and now you come crying to us because you're broke? Three points: 1 - Fuck you. 2 - We're broke too. 3 - Fuck you.

The sooner this corrupt, anti-democratic and protectionist currency and international experiment comes crashing down, the better. Hopefully Cameron digging his heels in will hasten that collapse.

Yes, it's all being going quite nicely from my point of view. Oh, hello? What's this?

The UK's coalition government has pledged to ban the sale of alcohol below cost price in an effort to cut binge drinking in England and Wales.

The plan is likely to ban retailers from running loss leader promotions on lager, wine and alcopops.

The coalition said that it would also review alcohol taxation and pricing and strengthen licensing powers.

You stupid, stupid fucks. Can you not make the connection? Is it so difficult, or are you just so hard of thinking? What is the difference between:

There were some bad apples who did terrible things with their expenses. The system had to change. But decent people in all parties are being treated in an infantile way.

And then bumping up the price of booze because:

Police officers frequently report that some of the young people they deal with arrive in pubs well on the way to being drunk thanks to cheap alcohol bought and consumed earlier in the evening.

Do you see? Do as you would be done by. You've treated us like this for years, and now you're getting some back. Not very nice, is it? Good. I hope it makes you miserable, you arrogant, preaching righteous fucks.

The One That Found This Highly Amusing. . .

From a blog hitherto unknown to me, called 'Irish Soccer Insider'. Is it a hoax? Probably. Doesn't make it any less amusing though. . .

(Click on the image to see the letters in full)

The One That Doubts Even Our Policitans Would Try This Stunt. . .

Christiane Chocat, a French politician, and her son have been arrested and charged with trying to smuggle illegal migrants into Britain.

Mrs Chocat, a 51-year-old municipal councillor from Seine et Marne south of Paris, is in custody in Portsmouth, Hants.

She and her son Benjamin Chocat, 20, are accused of bringing 16 Vietnamese migrants into the city in the back of a hired van.

What?

What the bloody buggering hell? I mean our lot have pulled some bloody tricks in their time, but smuggling a load of Vietnamese in a bloody van really does push the boundaries of 'technical breaches' of the law. It's the sort of the thing you'd expect to see on the Daily Mash.

The case will prove an embarrassment to the French authorities

No shit? D'you think?

The One That Says You Should Be Careful Who You Pick Fights With. . .

Old Holborn has posted a very entertaining video of two idiots in Swansea making a pain in the arse of themselves and then coming across someone who very efficiently cleaned their clocks, but it isn't just skinny shirtless (or in the case of the other one, a lard arsed 9XL T-shirt clad) pissheads that can make this mistake.

A group of Somali pirates has been captured after attacking a French navy ship by mistake, apparently thinking it was a harmless cargo vessel.

Ooops, that wasn't a terrific plan, was it?

(. . .)the pirates attacked in skiffs late at night some 500km (310 miles) off the Somali coast.

But the command and supply ship, the Somme, repelled the attack and chased the pirates, capturing five of them.

Now if this were a British ship, the Pirates would have been treated with kid gloves, not the fault of our matelots, it's the ridiculous touchy feely attitude we have towards everything.

Admiral Prazuck told French TV station La Chaine Info the pirates seemed to be surprised that the navy ship fought back.

"Once they realised they were facing a ship that was responding and was heading towards them, they stopped shooting and attempted to flee," he said.

I bet they bloody did. It's all smiles and laughter as you approach the unarmed cargo ship, isn't it? Not so much fun when you get some back. Cowards.

"The Somme gave chase and intercepted one of the pirates' boats. All the weapons had apparently been tossed into the sea and the suspected pirates are now being held on board the Somme."

I've seen the French Police National and the CRS in action at fairly close quarters (thankfully I wasn't the focus of their ire), I'm sure that these pirates were given a decent pasting for their efforts.

No doubt there will be people moaning that the French navy are nasty people for not looking significantly enough like a military vessel with guns and trained personnel.

Well done the Frogs.

The One That Is Saying 'Population de la France, Bravo!'

Yes, the French go on strike at the drop of a hat. Whether I agree with them or not is irrelevant, bloody hell do I respect the French for getting up off their arses and pointing out that they are pissed off, and will not put up with it.

And they've kicked off in Paris tonight.

Meanwhile the Lyonnais mourn the loss of civil liberties.

How long until we see scenes like this on the streets of the UK, could anyone care less, or are we all too concerned about the recent spat between two plastic titted, bottle orange 'celebrities'?