Well, then you're an idiot.

Fish and chip shops in Bridlington have put up signs warning customers about being attacked by seagulls.

No, it's not a gang or a new acronym to describe the socially incompetent. We're talking actual shitehawks here.

Seafront chip shop owner Justin Carpenter said he was now losing money because of the number of chip thefts. 

Whoa, whoa, hang on. Are we to understand the little buggers are strolling in and helping themselves? Seagulls are brazen at the best of times, but I've never heard of that.

He said he was giving out more free bags of chips in compensation for the ones stolen by the birds.

Wha. . .?

"The seagulls dive-bomb them, just take their food and there is nothing you can do about it," he said.

"So the customers come back to us and we feel obliged to give them the food to reimburse them, and that's us losing money."

Well, then you're an idiot. Remind me not to invest in Carpenter Fish & Chip Shops Ltd.

I wonder if he'd take the same view if he were running an Aston Martin dealership? I can just see it now, the proud owner pulls out of the car park, joins the traffic and is rear-ended by a Vauxhall Nova. He'd be shaking his head and calling out 'Guys, prep another one, it's happened again. Bloody Nova drivers, this is costing us a fortune. Still, I just have this feeling of obligation. . .'

I've a shiny 50p coin that says the vast majority of the shitehawk muggees of Bridlington are tourists, gone to the coast for the day. I'll tell you this, it's a lesson you only need teaching once.

I live near the Kent coast now, and for four years lived in Falmouth, a town that specialises in what appear to be GM cyber-robo-herring gulls, you get used to them very quickly and take appropriate steps to ensure that you don't get caught out again.

The pub I used to work at had a large outdoor seating area on the quay. You'd never, ever, see the locals enjoying their pub lunch outdoors, and when drinks were taken outdoors they were always covered with a beer mat, deployed to defend against aerial biological bombardment.

How the tourists would ooh and aah as they fed the gulls a crust of bread or a chip. How they would then shriek when the same seagull would leap up onto the table and tuck in to their lovely pub lunches.

Did we feel obliged to give them a free lunch? Not on your life. The conversation would normally go something like this:

Punter: A seagull just shat on/stole/knocked over my drink/lunch.


Staff: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.


Punter: What are you going to do about it?


Staff: Well, nothing. This is what seagulls do, especially if people are silly enough to feed them. (Knowing look.)


Punter: Well, you didn't warn me.


Staff: It's an implied risk Sir/Madam, why do you think these people are enjoying their lunch inside on such a glorious day? (Smirks and waves from the table of locals)


Punter: I think you're responsible.


Staff: OK, bring me the seagull and show me where 'property of Greenalls brewery' is marked on it, and I'll give you a replacement or a refund.

I don't know who is more stupid here, the chip eaters for waving their lunch around in front of the gulls, and probably throwing them the occasional titbit, or the chip shop owner for blithely handing out freebie replacements.

If he were any sort of businessman he'd be training the seagulls to swoop down on anyone holding a white paper bag on sight. I also can't help but wonder how many phantom seagull attacks have taken place. Too tight to buy a fish lunch for the whole family? Buy one for yourself and one for your kid. Give your chips to the Mrs, and sprog 1's chips to sprog 2. Take tearful sprog 1 back into shop and rant about seagulls.

Even I can work that one out, and I'm public sector.

Politicians = stupid.

This popped into my inbox today. It is likely to be a) old, and b) apocryphal, but that doesn't make it any less amusing.

A Washington, DC airport ticket agent offers some examples of why the country is in trouble.

All are from people involved in Government in one way or another:

1. I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.

2. I got a call from a Kansas Congressman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, ''I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts.''
Without trying to make him look stupid, I calmly explained, ''Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in South Africa ''

his response -- click.

3. A senior Vermont Congressman called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that's not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.

He replied, 'Don't lie to me, I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!''

4. I got a call from a lawmaker's wife who asked, ''Is it possible to see England from Canada?''
I said, ''No.''
She said, ''But they look so close on the map.''

5. An aide for a cabinet member once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. I pulled up the reservation and noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, ''I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.''

6. An Illinois Congresswoman called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 a.m., and got to Chicago at 8:33 a.m.

I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she couldn't understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.

7. A New York lawmaker called and asked, ''Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?'' I said, 'No, why do you ask?'

He replied, ''Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said (FAT), and I'm overweight. I think that's very rude!''

After putting him on hold for a minute, while I looked into it. (I was dying laughing). I came back and explained the city code for Fresno, Ca. is "FAT" (Fresno Air Terminal), and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage.

8. An aide to Senator John Kerry called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked,

''Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?''

9. I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman from Alabama who asked, ''How do I know which plane to get on?''

I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, ''I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.''

10. Senator Dianne Feinstein
called and said, ''I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola, Florida. Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?''

I asked if she meant fly to Pensacola, FL on a commuter plane

She said, ''Yeah, whatever, smarty!''

11. An LA Senator called and had a question about the documents she needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded her that she needed a visa. 'Oh, no I don't. I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those.''

I double-checked and sure enough, her stay required a visa. When I told her this she said, ''Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!''

12. A New Jersey Congressman called to make reservations, ''I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York.''

I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, ''Are you sure that's the name of the town?''

'Yes, what flights do you have?'' replied the man.

After some searching, I came back with, ''I'm sorry, sir, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a rhino anywhere."

''The man retorted, ''Oh, don't be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!''

So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, ''You don't mean Buffalo, do you?''

The reply? ''Whatever! I knew it was some sort of a big animal.''

A few pointers.

Been a little busy this week, but there are a few things which have rattled my cage over the last few days.

Conservatives:

Very well done on your posturing over the EU budget. Gosh, you are my heroes. What is going to happen if you don't get your way? Are you going to refuse to pay? No? How about giving us a referendum asking whether in light of the cuts being made to the domestic civil service we want to contribute to an even more bloated, wasteful, arrogant and unaccountable European one? No? How about meekly giving in and coughing up more our money, even though nobody has ever had the good grace to ask us if we want to be members of this ridiculous club? Yes? Thought so.

Be a good bunch of chaps and chapesses, and fuck off. Come back when you've grown a pair.

Stupid people on radio phone in shows:

Stop blaming the bankers. Yes, they screwed their business up, but it wasn't them who bankrupted the country, it was the politicians. They didn't come running when Woolies went under, no rescue package was put together when MFI hit the skids, they were nowhere to be seen when Zavvi disappeared. Yet somehow, they had to ride to the resuce of the shareholders of the bank when they spectacularly failed to exercise any control over the people they had appointed to run the business in the first place.

The value of your shares can go up, as well as down. Well, unless those shares are in a bank, then they can only go up. The taxpayer wouldn't stand me my debts if I pissed my wages up the wall on the roulette table, so why should the banks be any different?

Cold callers calling my phone:

Fuck off. If your product or service was that amazing, I'd be calling you. It isn't, leave me alone, don't get all huffy when I tell you to fuck off. You applied for the job, them's the breaks.

Charity muggers knocking at my door:

Fuck right off. I'll give to charity on my own terms, thank you very much. I certainly won't give to charities who have already had their hand in my pocket courtesy of the Inland Revenue. And I'll be damned if I give to a charity who then uses that money to employ some mercenary to try and make off with more of my money.

Utility companies knocking at my door:

Fuck right off and die horribly. That is all.

Stupid people at supermarket checkouts:

If you haven't been able to figure out how to use the self-service jobbies by now, please go and use the checkout with the friendly young lady sat at it. She'll take care of you. However, don't act surprised when, having stood there like a mong for five minutes whilst the nice young lady has scanned and bagged your items for you, the nice young lady asks for payment in return for the bags of produce sat in front of you. Try having your wallet out and ready.

Righteous people at checkouts:

I take the plastic bags every time because I have a need for them. Don't sneer at me. I use them to pick up the shit my large dog leaves lying around the park when I take her for a walk. Or would you rather I went out a bought a supply of plastic bags? No. OK then, I'll leave it where is so your kids can play in it.

There's a whole bunch of other people who piss me off, but I've had enough now. I'm off for a cigarette.

Pip-pip.

Where to start?

A few days of silence broken by a roaring avalanche of stupid.

I’ve been trying to think about how I could split these up into separate posts, but sod it, I’m sure some common thread, beyond stupidity, will reveal itself before the end of the post. I make no apologies for sourcing entirely from Nanny Beeb, the tone is so wonderfully patronising.

Right so, exhibit A:

Newly qualified young drivers should be banned from night-time motoring and carrying passengers of a similar age, Cardiff University researchers say.

They said such "graduated driver licensing" for those aged 17-19 could save more than 200 lives and result in 1,700 fewer serious injuries each year.

I didn’t start driving until I was fairly old, I’d certainly left uni before I got my licence.

There is no doubt that young people are much more likely to be involved in an accident than older drivers. But I would submit that it is lazy to attribute this solely to their age. Surely the biggest factor in this statistic is the question of experience?

We already have this crazy rule whereas a learner is barred from driving on a motorway with (in the main) a professional instructor at hand, but once they pass their test, which has no element of motorway driving in it (I’m assuming the theory test does, I never took one) they are free to go and drive on the motorway with no supervision at all. The answer to this is not to say ‘you can’t go on a motorway until you’ve been passed a year’ the answer surely is to make this an element of the learning and testing experience.

Without the experience of driving in the dark, with passengers, on the motorway, towing a trailer or a caravan, any driver is likely to be at increased risk of having a prang when driving in that situation.

Merely bringing in a rule that says ‘no driving in these conditions until you’re twenty‘ will surely only serve to postpone the vulnerability of not having that experience.

Young people can’t be trusted is the message here. More restrictions are the answer, because it looks like you are doing something. Even if that something will actually do nothing to alleviate the problem.

It’s not just on the roads, either:

A study of 10 to 11-year-olds in the area revealed that almost one in five was clinically obese and that more than a third were overweight.

What’s the cause of this then? I’ve transposed the headline and the first paragraph here.

Fast-food outlets could be banned from operating near schools in Medway as part of an effort to cut child obesity.

Right, so it is nothing to do with the wholesaling of school and public playing fields for development, nothing to do with the constant warnings that your children can’t leave the house without being hit by a car, injected with drugs, playing hopscotch on the high speed rail link, buggered by the nonces hanging around the bushes at the end of the street, stabbed, held at knifepoint until mobile phones and MP3 players are handed over or inducted to the Hare Krishnas.  It is certainly nothing to do with the state telling mothers that they’re worthless if they don’t go back to work as soon as the stitches have healed or both sets of parents that it would just be better all round if they let the State bring up their children for them.

These kids are fat, not because of the above, but because there’s a place selling chips near the school. The Righteous have declared this to be the case, therefore it is fact. It is unfortunate that these businesses will have to close, and these people will lose their jobs. It is unfortunate that the people who work in these places are probably poor and just above the poverty line themselves, but despite all the Righteous bleating about helping them, they really couldn’t give a toss. They’re not thinking of you today, they’re thinking of the chiiiiiiiiiildren.

Despite the attempts of successive governments, children are actually very creative problem solvers, especially when it is a problem close to their hearts that needs solving. So when you read;

In 2008 Waltham Forest Council in east London set up a 400m exclusion zone around schools, parks and youth centres to tackle child obesity

I’m willing to bet that the kids were very quick to identify the fried chicken shop that was 405m away from the school gates. It certainly betrays a clarity of thought sadly absent in some of our politicians and civil servants.

And whilst we’re on the subject of fat (have you seen what I’ve done here? God I’m good!):

The British RMT union has criticised the boss of Stena Line for making comments calling British workers "fat" and "tattooed".

Fair enough, it seems only fair, I criticise the RMT on an almost daily basis for being petulant, childlike Communist fantasists. I’ve seen many workers who are British, and many of them are fat. Many of them are tattooed. A good number are both. An equally good number are neither.

Pim de Lange said he was quoted out of context and has apologised.

Oh, Pim. That’s your second mistake there. Never apologise. Those Righteous bastards never do, so why should you?

But Steve Todd, head of maritime at the RMT, has called for a fuller apology.

Naturally.

Mr de Lange's comments appeared in a Dutch newspaper, in which he also said it was hard to find British workers who were young and fit for the job.

It’s all because of those fast-food restaurants near the schools, you see, Pim.

He later said in a statement: "I regret any offence caused and apologise."

But Mr Todd said this did not go far enough.

Not nearly far enough.

"RMT is demanding a full retraction of all the statements he has made and a full apology to all British seafarers for his behaviour," he said. “We are also demanding that he be stripped naked, flogged, dragged on a hurdle through Harwich town centre to the docks, before being keel-hauled on the trip back to Holland. Once there, his remains should be ground into dust, mixed with some petrol in a glass bottle and set alight before being thrown through the window of his house, where his wife and kids will be bound to large objects of furniture, unable to escape the ensuing conflagration.”

I might have made that last bit up.

Bloody RMT, it’s perfectly acceptable for them to make everyone else’s life a misery, but as soon as someone suggests that on occasion it might be an idea for one or two of their members to pass on the odd bacon roll and perhaps be a little more discerning in the subject of body art, it’s the end of the world.

I thought you were supposed to be big roughty-toughty sailors, picking the weevils out of biscuits, pouring hot tar down hatches, drinking huge amounts of rum, all buggers’ grips and golden rivets? Don’t be so fucking precious.

The One That Is Shouting 'GOOOOOAAAAAAL!'. . .

Ahhhh, World Cup year. I do love the World Cup. Always have, I have found it enchanting since I was a little boy. I love the way the players’ shirts shimmer in the hot summer sun (although not this year, it’ll be winter in South Africa), the reaction of the players and supporters of the smaller nations when they cause an upset, or even in some cases just score a goal. I love seeing the unbridled joy of one set of players when they score a victory over their bitterest opponents. I love the almost guaranteed emergence of a new star on the world scene and the drama of the penalty shootout (normally in the Quarter-Finals where England will lose). I love tournament football, there really is nothing like it. You can keep your Monaco Grand Prix, your Olympic Games, Six Nations, Wimbledon, Superbowl, hell, even The Ashes (which I also love), they are all fine events, but none of them compare to the World Cup.

I could write a huge missive about what is wrong with the game, and there’s plenty, but once every four years a large proportion of the country is brought together, collectively willing our players not to make an arse of it in the Quarter Finals against Portugal/Germany/Argentina/Brazil again. It is a good thing.

However there are one or two things in a World Cup year which are equally as predictable as England’s Quarter-Final exit. There will be the tut-tutting about working days lost when England are playing. There will be pursing of lips about the promo offers on booze in supermarkets and pubs. There will be children sent home from school because they’ve copied Beckham’s latest fashion statement (this year it’s called the ‘foot cast’) and someone somewhere will be banned from flying the St. George Cross.

Imagine my shame when I realised that is was my own home town.

Taxi drivers in a Kent city are upset after being told they are not allowed to fly flags from their vehicles during the World Cup football tournament.

Canterbury City Council has said attaching England flags to cabs would breach rules on what can be displayed on public service vehicles.

Why? What bloody harm will it do? No. People won’t get offended. It’s the national flag of England, for crying out loud. You wouldn’t see the same about the Saltire on cabs in Elgin or the dragon in Merthyr, would you?

Larissa Laing, from the council, said: "We accept that many taxi drivers want to be patriotic and we have been fully supportive of them wearing England shirts.

Oh, that’s nice. Isn’t that nice? The nice lady from the council will let the people in their own private businesses wear what they want. A big cheer for her.

"However, it is a public service vehicle and as such there are very strict rules and what can and cannot be displayed on a taxi and sadly an England flag, or any flag, cannot be displayed."

The rules ban any signs, letters, motifs, emblems, or marks from taxis.

Yes. But why? This is one of those we just want you to ask our permission so we can hum and har about it before making a great show of very generously granting the request which you so humbly put before us.

Larissa Laing almost won authoritarian fuckwit of the month. Almost.

The thing is, what do they do in places where there’s no World Cup participation? How does one show one’s absolute idiocy and total removal from pragmatism and reality then? Let’s go somewhere where the team didn’t qualify. Let’s go to Northern Ireland.

There was a policeman, sat in his vehicle, having objects thrown at him by a group of youths. What did he do? Did he shoot them? Did he hit them with his asp? Did he run them down? Did he refer them to an inclusivity outreach diversity community cohesion liaison officer? No. He played ice-cream van music over the speakers of his police car.

Young people were throwing bottles at a Land Rover vehicle in Lisburn last Saturday when the officer used the tannoy to play the tunes.

A police spokesperson said an officer had used humour to defuse the situation and the trouble had stopped.

However, senior officers are believed to have spoken to the officer involved.

I’m hoping that when they spoke to him they said. ‘Well done, you showed initiative, guile and humanity. You are a credit to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.’ I’m betting they didn’t.

Ah, no, they didn’t.

"The youths stopped throwing the bottles. However, police accept that this was not an appropriate action.

"The officer has been spoken to by a senior officer in order to establish the circumstances of the incident."

Hang on, are you suggesting that you wanted the officer to get out to hand out a kicking, running the risk that he’d get one himself, or to sit waiting for backup to arrive and hand out a kicking, whilst running the risk that they’d get into his car and give him a kicking?

Look, I’ve problems with the way policing is done in this country. I’ve a problem with the way some police officers act. Senior officers will back these horrible little SS wannabes to the hilt. Show me an officer who acts in exactly the way we’d all want an officer to act in a difficult situation and you feed him to the lions. Really? Seriously? WTF? Look, these kids deserved a good, hard kicking, but he was obviously on his tod, what he supposed to do?

So we’ll leave the authoritarian fuckwit of the week award to Cllr Angela Nelson (SF):

Angela Nelson told the Andersonstown News that the officer's actions "beggared belief".

"The PSNI are put on the streets to do a serious job and that is to keep order on the streets and face down anti-social elements. This is like a sick joke.

"It goes against everything we are trying to solve and eradicate in the area."

Now, I’ve no love for either side in Northern Ireland, it’s like Israel vs. Palestine but with wetter weather and better music, they can all go to hell, but people still vote for them, so there you go. Anyhow, I’m betting that the kids were Protestant and the SF lot are disgusted that they didn’t get the kicking they so richly deserved, or the kids were Catholic and the Protestant humiliated them instead of calling for the inclusivity outreach diversity community cohesion liaison officer over his radio.

Jesus Christ in a World Cup Willie costume on a pogo-stick, what is wrong with these people?

The One That Wants To Know How Anyone Could Be So Stupid. . .

You thought I was talking about this, didn't you?



I'll just leave it at this.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

It doesn't matter Gordon, there's always someone who drops a bigger bollock, you just have to know where to look.

Ah, here we go . . .

A lost sailor has had to be rescued after running out of fuel circling a small island when he thought he was sailing around the UK coast.

The Sheerness lifeboat and the Thames Coastguard assisted the man who ran aground off the Elmley Marshes on the Isle of Sheppey on 19 April.

With only a road map for directions, he set off on the river Medway, from Gillingham, and headed for Southampton.

But the RNLI said the man had "ended up travelling round the Isle of Sheppey".

Probably a local, not for nothing is it known around the Garden of England as 'Six Toe Island'.

There you go Gordon, what do you think of his efforts?


Yes, my sentiments exactly.

The One That Is Thinking About A Bicycle Race. . .

Well, I've been reading and catching up. I've come to the following conclusion:

When I was a kid, I heard a story (probably apocryphal) about a bicycle race at a village fair/fete/carnival in the inter war years. I'm a little sketchy on the details. In essence the story was about a farcical race between the menfolk of the village. There were prizes for first, second and third places, and the second prize of a canteen of cutlery was more attractive (to the wives of the men at least) than whatever it was that was on offer to the victor. As a result the field jockeyed for position right up until the conclusion of the race where everyone did their level best to be second. It was a race where no-one wanted, or perhaps more properly no-one dared, to win.

This to me seems exactly what is going on with the current election campaign.

It is most likely that Gordon will go and see Herself at some point this week and ask for this rotten parliament to be put out of its misery. We will then be without a government. To me this is a thoroughly desirable state of affairs and I see no reason to rush and hold an election after parliament is dissolved.

Everyone is expecting a dirty campaign, but the evidence of the past few days suggests that it will instead be a parade of politicians of all hues taking it in turns to blow their own feet off with ever more powerful firearms. Somewhere around May 4th we may actually see someone launch a tactical nuke against their own foot.

I'm not going to link to many of these stories as they've been covered ad infinitum in places linked to on here, but it really is a most startling display of stupid, wrong and hubristic soundbites and stunts. It really does make me wonder if it is on purpose, because surely no-one can be that stupid, can they? If they can, it doesn't bode well for May 7th.

In no particular order, we have the Labour party who decided that it was a good idea to compare stand-for-nothing, bland as American cheese, plastic man Cameron to Gene Hunt. No, you see, the whole idea of launching poster campaigns featuring your opponents is to make them look bad. Why on earth would you portray them as as cool, entertaining, decisive and admired a character as exists in popular culture today? The reason Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars have been so successful is that the main character is the complete antithesis of the double-speak spouting faceless and charismaless figures we have now. What were you thinking?

Then Mandleson launches a frankly amazing attack on the head of Barclays for his salary and/or bonuses. This is a bank which has remained stable and taken not one penny of public money. In other words, Labour attack one of the few successful financial companies this country has for their very success. What? Still, at least he didn't say something along the lines of 'he's taken 63 million pounds not by building business or adding value or creating long-term economic strength, he has done so by dealmaking and shuffling paper around.'

Oh hang on, that's exactly what he said. Tell me, my noble Lord, how did you make your cash? Hmmmm?

Fuck me.

The BNP, threatening to have a break through election, have now decided that the best way to cement 5th place in the polls is by threatening to kill each other. That's either a PR masterstroke or their levels of swivel eyed lunacy is beyond what I'd thought possible.

Then there's Chris Grayling, shadow Home Sec. He saw fit to get involved in the spat that blew up ages ago about some Christian couple who didn't want two gay men staying in their B&B. For what it's worth, I quite agree with him. It's their bloody house, it's their choice. The fact it marks them up as arseholes is neither here nor there. But really, why is he getting involved in this? It is this sort of thing which is none of government's business whatsoever. Keep your nose out. Private business, which means none of your's. And really Chris, what did you think was going to happen? Of course the Righteous were going to point their fingers and scream and stamp their feet. Witch! Witch! Burrrrrrrrrn him! You'd have been much better keeping your mouth shut there, old chap. Still at least he sort of pointed out the obvious when he revealed 'secret' Labour plans to get shot of front line immigration staff.

Well, colour me surprised. Firstly, the irony of Labour effectively promoting their open door policy as a tool of social engineering coupled with an explosion in the number of staff paid from public funds to errrrm, not control the people coming in. I wrote about the PCS strike recently, and how the compo package for those shown the door had been cut. Of course jobs were next. Really, Tories, if this is a secret to you, you can't have been paying much attention, can you?

Obviously Cameron isn't trusted because as far as I can make out, he isn't being let out to speak, or he's being very clever in realising people just don't really get him and so it is better to let others do the talking.

People like Johnson Beharry who talked about wanting to knock Gordon Brown out. Well, join the queue old chap. The thing being he actually had the chance to do so. If he'd done that, he'd have been odds on favourite to win every election going. Especially leader of the Labour party.

The Limp-Dims have also been strangely quiet. This is a good strategy. Not because it will win them any more votes or seats, it's just best all round if they say nothing. Everything they say is ridiculous, and it seems that they'll be perpetually happy with their 35 to 40 seats, no real power, no real responsibility but their own carriage on the gravy train. Result.

Apparently, a hung parliament would be disastrous for the UK. Really? As opposed to the current situation which is Panglossian in its brilliance. The politicians are being very coy. The truth is, this is an election that anyone with any designs of a long term future would do well to not win. Cameron and Brown will have personal disasters if they lose, but neither can afford to win. If we're lucky, we'll see a cull at the top tables of the Big 2 when the dust settles, and we'll see the parties turn to people like Carswell and Field who are well positioned in hiding behind the barn as the shit starts to fly.

A little bit of destruction is good for the soul, and those who stand to be destroyed deserve it completely.

My prediction? Boris to jump into the first half-way safe Tory seat that comes up at by-election. Whatever the result on May 6th, we're going to see a bigger change in the Tories post-election than we will in Labour, unless the polls are hopelessly wrong and the Tories are heading for a big majority, which I doubt.

The One That Is Disgusted. . .

I was going to write about Kent police admitting that their actions at the Kingsnorth climate demo were illegal. I've not much time for the ecomentalists, but they were treated in a shocking fashion that sets worrying trends for demonstrations of any ilk in the future. Will anyone be held to account? Doubt it.

I could have mentioned the suspension of the issue of student visas in northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh, but to be honest, that's like barring the windows on your house when your front door is painted blue with gold stars and hanging off its hinges.

What I am writing about connects to a posting I made the other day about Togo's withdrawal from the African Cup of Nations; the final of which is to be played tomorrow evening.

As previously stated, football is a game I love, and I have been dipping in and out of the tournament. It has been an odd affair, some superb football, quite the worst pitches I can remember seeing in a major tournament in years, some terrible refereeing and some equally poor lapses in discipline from the players coupled with crowds that some English 4th division clubs (I still work in old money) would be disappointed with.

African football is a riddle, and it is easy to be patronising about it. For many the zenith will be the memories of Cameroon's incredibly entertaining squad making the quarter-finals at Italia '90 before a couple of poor defending decisions allowed England to eliminate them. They were certainly a very popular side; the tournament began in Milan with them causing a huge upset by defeating the defending champions Argentina, although their tackling was brutal, including what amounted to an assault by Benjamin Massing on Claudio Caniggia. He got a standing ovation for it, and his second yellow of the match.

The European press were cooing about them, talking about their positive, attacking and care-free football. What they really meant was tactical naivety and them being an entertaining sideshow, as long as they didn't really hurt the established nations. It was almost as if they were the warm up act for the real footballers. African football was fun, but it was disorganised and should know its place.

Twenty years on, and things have changed a great deal. Those Cameroon players of 1990 were journeymen, in the main earning their living on the fringes of France's first and second divisions. No African had really, really made the grade, Eusebio being the exception who had left Mozambique as a youngster for Lisbon and represented Portugal. Now African players are amongst the leading stars of the leading clubs. It is hard to imagine Barcelona's recent success without Samuel Eto'o (now at Inter Milan), or Chelsea without Didier Drogba, Jon Obi Mikel, Michael Essien. These are accomplished professionals at the top of their game and the envy of other clubs and other professionals around the world.

And yet, something seems to happen when the Cup of Nations rolls around every two years, there's always one or two events which gives the tournament an element of farce. A little switch goes off which seems to make those involved think, 'Ahhh yes, Zaire vs Brazil 1974, that's what we need more of.'

It's a shame, because African football deserves better than that. But is it any wonder that this clowning, this reverting to stereotype happens when the African games is run by the biggest clowns of all?

At the time of the attack on the Togolese bus my immediate reaction is that they were right to pull out of the tournament, that the tournament should have been pulled and that it was madness to host it in Angola in the first place. To be honest, the fact that the tournament happens every two years devalues the tournament (as it does with the Copa America, where many of the European based players stay at home) as does the fact that it is held in the middle of the season, taking the players away from the clubs that pay them an awful lot of money to do their job.

However, the game's governing body, CAF have acted in a very shoddy manner by announcing that Togo will be banned from the next two tournaments as a result of withdrawing from the ACN because their bus was attacked by some nutter with a machine gun, resulting in fatalities.

It leaves me almost speechless, it is amazing that having been put in very serious danger and paying for it with their own blood, that they are then punished. Togo's government (more of which in a moment) are understandably pretty bloody un-chuffed and are talking about legal action. The European clubs will be delighted, it means they'll not lose so many players at the busiest time of the year, watch the value of Togolese players sky-rocket if this ban sticks.

And here's the rub, from the early days of players in England travelling in third class whilst the directors sat in the first class carriages on the trains to games, to now when the administrators feel that their decisions, their tournaments and their incomes are more important than the players and supporters and their safety; football, not just in Africa, is in danger of eating itself.

FIFA will probably not be happy with CAF's actions. What they will be less happy with will be Togo's government getting involved, FIFA hate this. Any intereference from the government in the national federation of any country means instant suspension, getting FIFA to abide by any court decision is very difficult, even the international court of arbitration for sport. They view their grip on the game as absolute, they will tolerate no dissent, but football is too important for that. Battles between the EU and FIFA/UEFA have been avoided thus far, but it is inevitable.

The next big one will be the issue of TV rights, and clubs, rather than leagues, owning the rights to sell coverage. It is a foregone conclusion. The clubs will win, it is them after all that people want to watch, not a committee of old men in blazers. The relationships between companies like Adidas and Nike (the latter pretty much own the Brazilian national team, whilst the former are so closely integrated into FIFA as to be almost symbiotic, Sepp Blatter is an Adidas man through and through), the confederations and clubs is an interesting one, but when push comes to shove, clubs pay the players and people watch the clubs.

When the TV debate is won by the clubs, then football as we know it will be dead within ten years. The administrators can't see it. The club shareholders don't care. The fans won't realise until too late. Competition and player development will die as the clubs who cannot sell their rights, or generate sufficient income from the sales will die out. With that so will the sport, except in one country - the USA.

The American Major League Soccer has very shrewdly followed the plan set out by the most succesful sporting franchise model in existence - the NFL. American football follows some very anti-American practices to ensure its business is sound, its advertising revenue is strong, its TV packages equitable and most importantly that its league is competitive and fair. The Superbowl is next weekend, at the start of the season, no-one knew who would be going to Miami, it could have been any one of the 32 teams, and the same will hold true next season (except the Cleveland Browns, who are always, always terrible, I don't know how they do it).

When football collapses, the MLS/NFL model and the Americans will take over the football world. It'll be a huge shock, but will probably be for the better.

The One That Is Carrying On In The Same Fashion. . .

I hope you all had a pleasant Public Holiday period. I now have enough stock to open my own branch of Sock Shop.

When the council sent around their cunningly worded invitation for me to surrender huge amounts of my money to them, they included a little booklet, telling me the sort of thing that they'd be wasting my cash on instead of making sure that roads and pavements were gritted during a cold spell and organising a sufficiently regular rubbish collection so my bin area doesn't resemble some Monrovia suburb in summer.

Nowhere in that little booklet did it explain to me that they'd expend energy and resources in making sure I didn't get upset. To be honest, from where I'm sitting, the whole raison-d'etre of the council is to upset me. It's like the Python argument sketch, I'm paying for it. Perhaps it's OK for them to upset me, but not for anyone else to upset me? Perhaps I'm just unlucky not to live in an area governed by the sensitive souls of Suffolk council.

Neither have I ever heard of someone being prosecuted for upsetting someone. I don't recall any offence of 'causing upset'. Bodily harm, certainly. Alarm and distress, yes. Causing upset? No.

What am I whittering on about?

A bingo caller has been advised to stop using phrases such as "two fat ladies" for fear of offending his audience.

John Sayers, who runs charity games in Sudbury, Suffolk, says he was told by a council clerk the traditional bingo call could upset some players.

Oh dear, here we go.

A town council spokeswoman said it was "sad" they had to give the advice but they had to be "politically correct".

Why did you have to give the advice? It's all very well sitting there, wringing your hands, but did it not, perhaps, occur to you to mind your own fucking business and not get involved? As radical as it may sound to you, people do not actually want nor need grey little fucks from the council overseeing every aspect of their lives. It's sad that I have to give this advice, but I have to point out the bleeding obvious, and this could hurt, you really aren't that important or wise and people couldn't give a pair of dingo's kidneys what you think.

The 75-year-old, a member of Sudbury Town Council and former town mayor, said the clerk advised him to cut the traditional comic calls in case the authority found itself facing legal action.

And why would the 'authority' (over what do they have authority? Certainly not me.) face legal action? Is this a council run charity games event? If so, why? As we've already explored, I pay the council to grit the roads and empty the bins, not to run bake-offs and jumble sales.

"The concern was that if there might be two large ladies in the audience when I said 'two fat ladies 88' or someone might think I was looking at their legs when I said 'legs 11'," he said.

"I was advised that someone might take offence and we could end up being taken to court."

Fear is king, let's pick out the key words in those lines, shall we? might, might, might, could. As in 'The Emperor Klang might arrive with his planet destroying starship, and he might have his stormtroopers with him. He might decide to invade Earth and take control of Sudbury council which could lead to significant congestion outside Matalan.

Why would someone take the council to court for offence caused by a fairly standard practice in one of the country's most popular activities? And why would the judge not just tell her to stop wasting his fucking time?

A council spokeswoman told the East Anglian Daily Times: "In particular with John being a councillor we have to be politically correct."

If John is a councillor then there's a very simple way of dealing with him if he pisses you off. You take his job away from him by placing a little X against someone else's name. Good God, does this mean the council is legally responsible for the conduct of its elected officials? Or is it because you just CAN'T HELP STICKING YOUR FUCKING NOSE IN WHERE IT ISN'T WANTED YOU ODIOUS LITTLE TWATS? Just asking, like.

She added: "It is very sad because it is part of the fun of bingo but unfortunately in today's society people take it literally."

No, no they won't. And if they do, so what? What damage is done? None. None at all. Which by happy coincedence is also the degree to which you live your life in the real world. What she meant to say was:

"It is very sad because it is part of the fun of bingo but unfortunately in today's society people in the public sector are shit scared of losing their jobs and so have to do things to demonstrate that we actually do stuff to earn our money, problem is we're so institutionalised that we can't even do that properly so pick on stupid stuff rather than tackling the problem of asylum seekers jumping over garden walls and eating people's trees."

Good grief, anyone reading that news story would think we live in Utopia. 'Hey, Zlargan, look at this place, they've got everything sorted to such a degree they're concentrating on the un-intended offensiveness of bingo. Freedom, no war, no hunger, no-one living in the streets, they must even have sorted out the problem of space refugees jumping over garden walls and eating people's trees.'

'Nice one, Yavvor, let's tell the Emperor Klang and invade, we can cause considerable congestion around Matalan.'

Unfortunately we don't live in Utopia, and it isn't because we've got the big problems sorted, it's because our elected reps don't have the balls, the vision or the intelligence to sort the big stuff out. They make a fuss about the little stuff in the hope we don't see the big stuff hiding behind the sofa and under the rug.

The One That Is Going Thieving. . .

I’m going to nick a load of lead and gold and silver.

Apparently it’s OK to steal, as long as you do it from a large organisation. Well, there are few larger than the established Church of England.

Father Tim Jones, parish priest of St Lawrence and St Hilda in York, said stealing was a "better moral thing to do" than robbery or prostitution.

But probably worse than parking over the lines of a bay or leaving your bin lid open.

Father Jones has defended his remarks and said such action was "dreadful" but sometimes people's only option.

The priest's comments were made in a sermon to his congregation on Sunday where he said stealing from large national chains was sometimes the best option for many vulnerable people.

He said: "My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift.

Would it be considered bad form for me to attend his next service and pocket the contents of the collection plate as it makes its way around?

Remind me what was that Seventh Commandment (in Christianity)?

Oh yes, You Will Not Steal.

Can’t this moron be arrested for incitement?

The One That Is Asking 'What Is WRONG With These People?'. . .

I was scrolling through BBC teletext this evening. I don't have a screen capture of it, but thankfully it is reproduced to a lesser extent on their website.

The first story on the news page (101) on BBC teletext is entirely predictable:

Darling 'must cut £36bn', IFS think tank says.

Fair enough.

Scroll to page two and the top story says:

UK to have dedicated space agency.

Errrrrrm. Guys? Hello? HELLO! Anyone home?

For crying out loud. . .

The One That Is Still Banging On About DNA. . .

When I posted the reply I got from Julian Brazier the other day about DNA retention, my comment was that the Tory line was ‘an improvement, even if a slight one.’

I fear I may have done Mr. Brazier and the Conservative party an injustice. Now that doesn’t mean that the Tories are a shining beacon of civil liberties whom angels shall surely sing to their final rest, it is just that Labour are so, so, so wrong and so, so, so repulsive that the Tory position is as preferable as a nice cup of tea and a biscuit is to having one’s internal organs removed by a narcoleptic orang-utan with use of a plastic spoon whilst he plays the hits of Phil Collins on the kazoo.

What could possibly have made me reveal this train of thought?

A sortie over the blogosphere this evening has drawn two items to my attention.

Firstly Julia M/Ambush Predator writes a thorough fisking of some of the worst, most objectionable, 14 pints of Stella induced cloudy piss ridden. . . well. . . tosh from the Postman who somehow now holds one of the highest offices in the land. I won’t post any excerpts here as I’ll only go and post the whole bloody thing, do go and read it if you have a minute or two to spare.

The second item, slipped most unobtrusively into a post written by Mr. Civil Libertarian (he who was until recently ‘Their contempt for you is total'), is a heads up about a posting over at Labour List (God help us). Kudos to Mr C.L., I can’t stomach Labour List, after a few minutes I realise that a mixture of salt and plutonium dust poured into my eyes would be less irritating. Anyhow it’s from some arseclown called Matthew Zarb-Cousin and it contains the following passage:

“Do you want to live in a society where everyone is considered a potential criminal?”, asked Will Self on Question Time last Thursday. The reality, and I hate to break it to you, Will, is that everyone is a potential criminal.

Ladies and Germs, I give you the Labour party. The only thing which is missing from the article is the patronising little chuckle and knowing look as they point out that when they say everyone, that doesn’t include MPs, peers and any Labour Party officials. They would never commit a crime such as a traffic offence, or fraud, for example.

The One That Finds It All Too Easy To Believe. . .

It’s laughable really.

I know it is ACPO, so normality doesn’t really apply in their bizarre little world, but really, do police officers absolutely need a 93 page, two volume manual on how to ride a push-bike?

The TaxPayers’ Alliance call it:

an absurd waste of police time and thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money.

Which seems fair enough to me.

Has this come about because rank and file police officers are incapable of riding a bike? If so then I would submit that they’re probably not safe to be let out of the house, or is it that ACPO think that rank and file police officers are incapable of riding a bike without step-by-step, idiot proof instructions from them?

I reckon it is the latter, and unfortunately it explains a great deal about ACPO and our police service.

The One That Is Calling For An Undertaker. . .

He is ill. Very ill indeed. I believe it to be terminal. There is no point in calling for a Doctor. There's nothing he can do now, anyhow, it is a Friday evening, there is no hope of persuading the man to make a housecall.

Calling NHS Direct proved fruitless. You see, when I called the surgery, they merely told me to call NHS Direct, the Doctors simply will not respond if one falls ill at the evenings or the weekend. After speaking to the young lady at NHS Direct, explaining the symptoms, she suggesting calling the Doctor. I told them I had tried, without success. I had best go to A&E then, was the advice.

Of course, the A&E department was closed three years ago, there is now just a minor injuries unit. The nearest A&E department is over twenty miles away. I'm not at all convinced the old man would survive the journey on the potholed road from here to there.

We'll have the dour man with the dark suit and the tape measure then.

Undertakers will always do housecalls. One of the conditions is that the object of their attentions is dead. To steal a phrase from Monty Python, 'he's not at all well.'

The Underaker is a busy man, but he acts with decorum and gravitas. 'What are the symptoms?' he asked, when I requested he wait for the death rattle.

My response was to tell him about the auto-immune condition, where the immune system, supposed to defend the body against harm, attacks perfectly healthy parts. Strange things, auto-immune conditions, always entertaining. The Undertaker was interested, and leaned forward in the chair he was sat on, outside the bedroom door, 'Oh yes, do tell.'

I explained how the defence system did its best to wound a part of the body that bore no threat to it whatsoever. It had done no wrong, yet is was punished all the same.

'Amazing' replied the Undertaker, 'is this common?' I explained that it was all too common, and whilst a small episode like this was not fatal, it was an indicator of bigger problems, a signpost which, if researched, could uncover things that the body was unaware of and were only seen if one looked very hard indeed.

The Undetaker later revealed to me, in a moment of explicit candour, that hs is no man of medicine, he informed me with a wave of the had and in a most self-depricating style, that he is more akin to a meat packer or a butcher. He knew, he said, which bit should go where, but had no understanding of the internal workings.

He pressed me on the bigger problems. I recounted how the first auto-immune condition was similar to the body having a slight falling out with itself, but the main, more hidden problem, was like all out war. The body was, in effect, using weapons of mass destruction on itself, in a catastrophic civil war.

The Undertaker gave a sigh. He told me how one of the certainties in his job was that he would make regular visits to the care homes in the area. It always seemed to him that either the body went, or the mind went. The nursing staff always seemed to display a sense of almost cruel relief when someone with a perfectly functioning mind, but trapped in a contrary body, departed. It was almost like a release from an inescapable prison.

I mused on the point, would it be better to have lost one's mind and be unaware of one's predicament, than to be imprisoned with no chance of parole? I came to the conclusion that it was.

However, the Undertaker was labouring under a mis-apprehension. Not only was the body at the end of a slow and attritional campaign of self-destruction, but it had also undergone this internal battle with a great and debilitating insanity.

Firstly, the ailing old man had descended into a psychopathic episode. Unaware to recognise the damage he had done to others, uncaring for those he had hurt; selfishness and disregard had become his mark.

A bi-polar condition had also taken hold. With the old man consistently acting against his own counsel, suffering delusional states of self-perception where one has acheived the impossible, arguing with his better nature, miserly one minute, surrendering his childrens' inheritance, gratis, the next.

The poor old man now lies in bed, coughing and spluttering, his compexion as grey as the weather outside his window. He decries his body as a traitor. He insulted the doctors who had tried to minister to his needs as charlatans and snake oil salesmen and has damned his descendents to penury.

Not many will mourn his passing. I think back to the Undertaker's account of the response of the nurses at the care home and think to myself, perhaps it is for the best.

The Undertaker sits in his wheel-back chair on the landing, the slow ticking of the clock marking the old man's last few moments. He has reached into the inside pocket of his frock coat and is reading a small volume he obviously carries for inescapable delays. This is a man used to waiting.

He waits tonight, and with the trace of a tear in the corner of his eye, he remembers what a grand, proud and respected man Mr. Britain used to be.

The One That Is Saying 'Enough. Stop Now'. . .

It really does beggar belief. I can think of no pithy or salient introduction to this absolute arsewater, so let's just jump straight in, shall we?

Police have been urged to avoid using greetings such as "evening" and "afternoon", because the words are "somewhat subjective" and could cause confusion among those from different cultural backgrounds.

It's the Muslims, must be, they don't have afternoons, not proper afternoons like Christian people, their's are probably different. And because Senior Police are so consumed with the feeling that we aren't all just members of the public, this imaginary afternoon problem must be stamped out.

A spokesman added: "Terms such as 'afternoon' and 'evening' are somewhat subjective in meaning and can vary according to a person's culture or nationality. In many cultures the term evening is linked to time of day when people have their main meal of the day.

"In some countries including the UK, the evening meal time is traditionally thought of as being around 5-7pm but this might be different say for a family say from America who might have their main meal earlier and thus for them 'evening ' may be an earlier time.

This is just an avoidance of the old dinner/tea debate, isn't it?

'Hello? Is that the IPCC? This un-PC came around my gaff and accused me of having my tea, at dinner time, he thought I was common. I'm incredibly offended, I demand a five figure sum in compensation and that the officer be cast into a dark pit.'

That seems a little unlikely to me.

Confusingly, staff are also barred from using the word "homosexual", for which they are instructed to use the term "gay", while they are warned against using the phrase "straight", and told to say "heterosexual".

Right, well, that makes perfect sense then. I'm not gay and have no strong feelings on the gay/homosexual word debate, I understand that queer and poof are not well thought of, so that seems fair enough. Being straight (deep offended intake of breath) I don't particularly care if I'm referred to as straight, heterosexual or even just hetero. I was even called a 'Breeder' once, I think it was supposed to be perjorative, not that it bothered me.

I'm not a breeder, by the way, I'm a civil servant. Perhaps there's money in breeding? Perhaps I could do that instead?

Anyhow, let's think of the chiiiiiiiiiildren:

A number of organisations, among them Essex Police and Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, now instruct staff to avoid the phrases "child, youth or youngster".

The 52-page guide used by both organisations states that such phrases could have "connotations of inexperience, impetuosity, and unreliability or even dishonesty". It also states that addressing someone as "boy" or "girl" "may cause offence". Instead, officers and firemen are instructed to use the phrase "young people".

Well now hang on a moment, if you call the nearly dead 'old people' the indignant whining from the Righteous reaches such a pitch that dolphins start knocking on their front doors asking them to leave it out as it's giving them a headache. Surely this should be 'younger people'?

Now I really am offended.

London Fire Brigade instructs its staff not to use the terms "businessmen" or "housewives", because it says they "reinforce outdated stereotypes".

Does that mean that a married woman who raises the kids is an outdated stereotype? What about all those men who wear those off the peg suits and sit on the train into London everyday, on their way to an office where they do God knows what, but the end result seems to be a paunch, baldness, stomach ulcers and an aneurism? Are all they outdated stereotypes as well?

This, people of non-judgemental, all perfectly equal gender is what happens when you have a phalanx of equality and diversity officers.

Mrs. Snowolf has responsibility for the disability stuff at her place of work, most of it goes right over my head, the legislation seems to be complicated in the extreme, but given the phone calls she gets from other places for her advice, she seems quite good at it.

She writes the policy, makes sure it is applied and then puts the policy on the shelf. Once in a while, the policy is reviewed to make sure it is still current. Simple. If you employ Equality and Diversity Officers once all this stuff is done, they're left with nothing to do, so they have to dream up enemies, slights and struggles to be fought.

It's all bullshit, no-one is going to be offended because a Police officer rolls up at 1720 and says good evening, when you consider the evening to start at 1730.

Why not spend money on fighting crime and fires rather than agonising over what part of the day it is?

Give me strength. . .

The One That Warns Your Wall Does Not Belong To You. . .

I like Banksy, I find him whimsical, entertaining and sometimes downright funny. I'd be delighted to wake up one morning to find he'd gone to work on my wall.

Councils don't like Banksy. He's into graffiti and is bad. His vandalism must be eradicated.

A mural by graffiti artist Banksy, which once featured on the cover of a single by rock band Blur, has been painted over by Hackney Council.

The spoof image of the Royal Family, painted on the side of a building in Stoke Newington, east London, was partially covered with black paint.

But then, if it is their wall, then that's up to them.

The building's owner was in tears as she begged workmen to stop. By the time she persuaded them it was almost gone.

The building's owner? Hang on, what's going on here?

Property owner Sofie Attrill gave consent for the mural to be painted on the building so it could be photographed for the launch of Blur's 2003 single Crazy Beat.

So why were the council of all people painting over it?

Hackney Council needed permission to remove the mural because it was on private property.

But its letters were sent to an address Ms Attrill lived at 25 years ago.

After receiving no response the council served an enforcement notice.

So they needed permission to do it, and when that permission wasn't forthcoming, they went ahead and did it anyway.

Hackney Council was initially unrepentant.

Well, there's a surprise.

Cllr Alan Liang said: "The council's position is not to make a judgement call on whether graffiti is art."

But he later added: "Due to a problem at the land registry unfortunately our letters stating our intention to clean this building didn't reach the owner.

It isn't your fucking building, so why the hell are you cleaning it? If I started slapping paint over a council owned wall, I would expect to have my collar felt for it. It is, after all, not my wall to paint.

And yet, Hackney Council seem to think they have the liberty to paint over any wall they damn well please. One rule for us. . .

I'd be suing the bastards for criminal damage, or getting the muppet in charge of whichever thick as pig shit department perpetrated this act of willful vandalism arrested for same, let's get his DNA and fingerprints recorded.

Fuckers.

The One That Wants To Know Why We Persist In It. . .

The EU, loathe it or hate it, you just can't bloody stand it.

Two stories today, courtesy of Nanny Beeb:

The UK's net contribution to the European Union will rise by almost 60% next year, the Treasury has said.

Well, we can have no argument against that, can we? It is such good value for money, and I certainly sleep well at night knowing that a robust accounting system means that every single penny spent can be explained in a satisfactory fashion.

The Treasury said it was right for the UK "to share the burden of membership with new accession countries".

Really? Excellent! Let's hope that is true across the board. I don't know who the Perm. Sec. at the Treasury is, but I'm betting he's a member of a golf club. Does this mean that if I join his club he'll stand my membership fees? He should also be aware that I have no interest in the rules of golf and no intention of abiding by those rules and will just spend all day poncing drinks off the other members whilst moaning about how terrible things were for me twenty years ago.

"The prime minister has made clear our belief is that it is right for us to share the burden of membership of the European Union with the new accession countries so that every part of the European Union can look forward to prosperity in the future," he added.

Prosperity? Future? What does the Gorgon know about it? He has neither. Give me fucking strength.

And then, when we pass a law that we actually want, we still can't enforce it because:

Dozens of prosecutions under a 1984 Act have been dropped because the government of the day failed to notify the European Commission about the law.

What fucking business is it of theirs?

I think I've finally figured it out. We're the kitchen cat. Our government is the Pantry Boy who has to account to Cook (in the form of the EC) for every action, movement and decision it takes. The Pantry Boy doesn't like this, so gives us a kick as we pass and makes us report to them in the same manner.

Why won't the Tories actually be different to ZNL by listening to their membership and push the question of our continued membership of this Kafkaesque organisation to the top of the agenda?

The One That Knows He Has Nothing To Fear. . .

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I have no beef with the police in general. To re-iterate, I know more than more fair share of police officers and in the main they are people I trust implicitly and I have an almost boundless respect for people who do a difficult job in the face of local and national management that frustrates the hell out of them on a daily basis, and a public which are becoming more hostile and mistrusting as each day passing.

The latter issue is connected very much to the first issue and is then amplified by the actions of officers who simply are not equipped emotionally or have the intelligence to do the job.

My protestations of support become increasingly untenable in the face of reports such as this:

When trainspotter Stephen White noticed some interesting engines, he wasted no time in taking pictures of them for his collection.

It was the start of a bizarre sequence of events involving midnight phone calls, police raids and even, it is claimed, suspected terrorism.

Really, how many more times do we have to go through this ridiculous charade? Yes, I will accept that a Murco oil depot would go bang in a very entertaining fashion and thus could be a target for a terrorist attack.

But, firstly, terrorists like to spread terror. Bombs going off in city centres cause more of a scare than a big bang at Milford Haven. Have no doubt that it would be an enormous bang, I imagine people in Bristol would hear it and say 'what the fuck was that', but it wouldn't create a great deal of terror.

Secondly, how shit a terrorist would you have to be, to be seen on a recce taking photos of a train. You'd be much better off hijacking one of the tankers and setting it up as it sat on the berth. It just doesn't stack up.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Just use your heads, will you? Because if you don't we'll start living in a country where a ten year old girl will be handcuffed and locked in a cell for six hours.

The father of a 10-year-old girl who was arrested, handcuffed and locked in a cell for almost six hours has criticised police for being 'heavy-handed'.

Shannon Blake was apprehended by police and taken to a police station in the back of a van after she slapped a man who shouted at her in a park.

She then went through the ordeal of having a mug shot and finger-prints taken before she was locked in a tiny cell with just a bucket for a toilet.

Yeah, nice.

I will criticise the father who should have taught his daughter that you don't go up to a strange dog and start petting it, as you know nothing about the dog and what its reaction is likely to be. Ask the owner first, kids.

But really, is this treatment proportionate to the offence? Must every little infraction be treated in this fashion? Would the CPS run with it? Would most Magistrates approach this case with a feeling of enthusiasm? Or would they just say; 'get out of my courtroom, stop wasting my time, and you, young lady, bloody behave yourself'?

Would it not be best in a case such as this to escort the young lady home and explain to her parents that something untoward had happened? I'm not suggesting that we should return to the days of the policeman fetching the kid a clip around the ear, as recent evidence (see G20 protest) suggests that the track record ain't great. There has to be an application of what was once called 'common sense' but is now unfortunately 'rare sense'.

I despair. . .

The One That Says 'Of Course They Bloody Can' . . .

Rights, rights, rights.

It seems anomalous that in a world where our liberties are being taken from us on a daily basis, you can't move for peoples' rights. There's a very real difference between liberties (the freedom from. . .) and rights (permission to. . .) and over the last ten years especially people have been 'given' rights which overlap and contrast with those of others.

For instance, a publican has the right to deny service to anyone he sees fit. It is his business and his property, hence the marvellous 'Bar Alistair Darling' campaign. If the landlord didn't have the right to bar entry, then that simply wouldn't have happened.

But, hello? What's this? A homosexual couple have just walked in to the Hypothetical Arms. Now I've no problem with homosexuality, it isn't my bag, but then neither is eating sprouts, and I don't hate people who do eat them. Indeed, some of my best friends are sprout eaters. But if that landlord decides he doesn't want gay people in his premises, then he's in a world of trouble.

Well how can you have 'rights' that trump other people's? Does this mean that my 'rights' are less inalienable than others'? Does the homosexual's 'right' to go to the pub outweigh the landlord's 'right' to refuse service to anyone he sees fit? It's a conundrum isn't it?

For what it's worth, I believe it is his property and his business, if the landlord wants to turn away trade and demonstrate he's a twat, then that's his look out. There's plenty of other places where the gay guys can drink quite happily. Even if you weren't barred, because it was illegal, would you still want to give the bloke your money, knowing he wanted to refuse you service but isn't allowed by law?

So imagine my mirth when I read that the Crystal Cauldron Pagan club had been told by the Catholic Church that perhaps Stockport's Our Lady's club wasn't the most suitable venue for their witches' ball and cancelled the booking.

A diocese spokesman said the group was not compatible with the club's "ethos".

You don't say.

"In this day and age I just didn't think that we would get that prejudice from the Catholic Church,"

Said the leader of the group. Why was that then? Perhaps they'd just been sweeping up after the Lesbian Jihadist for Mohammed Jumble Sale when you went in to make the booking? No? You mean to say that this club, owned and run by the Catholic Church, don't want non-Catholic groups using their club? What a bunch of bastards.

"You can't seriously segregate clubs like this by religious values."

Errrrm, yes. Yes you can. Because, and perhaps this wasn't made clear enough, it is a Catholic Club. I doubt the local Mosque will be hiring out its hall for a BNP meeting. I doubt the local golf club would hire out the 4th green for a game of cricket. Nor should they be made to, it is their club and what goes on there isn't anyone's business but their own.

"It's not black witches and pointy hats, and we're not devil worshippers. We respect everybody's religion and we're trying not to have things in the shadows."

Well that's irrelevant, even if there is a racist gag in there. You may respect everyone else's religion, but the Catholic Church doesn't. They respect their own. So quite rightly told you to sod off.

"You don't have to be pagan to come and join us - it's just a fun open night with evening gowns and fancy dress and a fantastic Abba tribute group playing"

Oh, bloody hell. Not a court in the land would convict them. An Abba tribute playing in some church hall in Stockport is never likely to be 'fantastic.' Sounds like a perfectly ghastly evening. It's not often I agree with the Church in any guise, but the Micks have got this one spot on.

The One That Will Tell You What The Bloody Point Is. . .

The Prime Mentalist displayed the sort of lack of undertanding and self-awareness that will come to mark his tenure as what history promises to see as the worst Prime Minister of all time today.

He was reluctant to say anything in support of Darling, so start packing, Alistair. Expect Ed Balls to move into No. 11 when he indulges in the final re-ordering of the deckchairs on his own personal Titanic. Dear God, is that it? Ed Balls? Bloody hell, I'm surprised the cabinet aren't running for the hills, the last thing even the most loyal Brownite needs right now is to be seen to have any connection to this Jonah at all.

He also stated that :

I am not arrogant or unwilling to listen to people but I do believe that if people look towards what needs to be done at the moment, it is to get us through this economic downturn.

Don't you see? You poor deluded fools, why are you wasting your time looking at these venal MPs? What you should be focusing on is the recession, which is nothing to do with Gordon at all, although all the good stuff that came before is all down to him. You'd be a racist, homophobic paedophile to disagree.

Adam Boulton flat out asked him today why he doesn't go to the country. His response? 'What would be the point?'

The point would be Gordon, that everyone, even your own back-benchers and party gophers are thoroughly sick of the sight of you.

He then wittered on about the folly of going to a general election:

"I want people to say of me that he cleaned up the political system having found that things were wrong in it. . ."

Well, you've had 12 years, Gordon. Didn't seem so bleeding important when the farmer wasn't watching the trough, was it?

History will remember you as the man who was the worst PM in history, presiding over one of the most corrupt Parliaments in history and as one of two men who destroyed the Labour party and didn't have the sense to realise the game was up.

I hope the time spent hiding under the table in No. 10 was worth it.