So Bribery is OK Then?

Ah, the children of Dorchester how my respect for you grows. Wednesday night saw the town’s late night Christmas shopping event. Charity stalls and the like lined the street (and one stall from some church or other that claimed to be “Radically Inclusive”, what the hell does that mean? Am I a member against my will?), good cheer abounded, live music played out and it was fun.

 Half way up the high street was a puppet show. A puppet show that was trying to link the virgin birth of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ and….. wait for it…… the X factor. A bit of a stretch, “and Jesus had the X factor” well, that’s a no from me what do you think Cheryl?

 Despite the lure of free mince pies it had basically attracted three under 5’s, some cold looking parents and a dog from the Save the Greyhounds stall just down the road. Dorset County Museum, on the other hand, which had some people dressed up as Sci-Fi characters was rammed.

 Now some may say that this is because it was very cold and the people were just in the museum because it was warm, I on the other hand would like to think it was a proof that Dorchester’s children care far more for Daleks and Darth Vader than they do for the sky fairy.

So we wanted be hosting the World Cup in 2018 but lost out to Russia, bit of a shame but hey, we would only have complained about it endless anyway.

 So what was it that lost us the bid? If you read the Daily Mail, which I really hope none of you do, then it may have been the video presentation to FIFA from the FA that was the problem.

 The video attempted to show how the Premiership is the biggest and most supported league in the world, and this lead, in the words of the Mail to a “very un-English presentation”. By this they seem to mean it has lots of people who aren’t white, well that’s the insinuation from the photographs they have chosen to illustrate the article with.

 The article opens with “Gosh, didn't we look global. So multicultural, so diverse” and then goes on to complain about the lack of clichéd stereotypes in the film and as we know, there is nothing that the Mail likes more than a clichéd stereotype.
 They also complain about the soundtrack of the piece which is Elbow’s One Day Like This. To quote the Mail “Someone remarked that the lead singer sounded as if he was yawning.” Now, they can be as racist as they like (obviously they can’t that is just a joke) but I will not except any form of criticism of the lovely Guy Garvey. You have pushed me too far this time Daily Mail! I am writing a stern letter to your Editor, now where is my favorite green crayon?

 The other theory is that it was the British press that lost us the bid. Note how few people are saying, “maybe the bid wasn’t very good or maybe FIFA wanted to go to Russia because they hadn’t been there before”.

 Anyway back to the villain of the peace, our press. We have a free press in this country and this, when all things are taken into consideration, is a good thing so if the BBC wants to run a program that claims that FIFA officials took bribes then it damn well should and if the Sunday Times wants to claim that too then hurray for them.

 Both organizations were attacked for running/broadcasting their pieces, some going as far as to call them “unpatriotic”. Is exposing corruption unpatriotic or do these people want us to turn a blind eye to illegality?

 If this week has shown us anything it is that the British Establishment (I don’t think I have ever used that phrase before) really doesn’t mind a bit of bribing if it directly effects us. Corruption when it is by Afghans, bad, corruption by FIFA, we’ll turn a blind eye to it, they might give us the World Cup.

 It is an all pervading attitude as well. One of the things to come out of the Wikileaks thing was that British Trade ambassador Prince Andrew doesn’t mind a bit of bribery and is rather resentful of it being investigated. It is reported by Tatiana Gfoeller, Washington's ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, that “he railed at British anti-corruption investigators, who had had the 'idiocy' of almost scuttling the Al-Yamama deal with Saudi Arabia" and he criticized Guardian journalists - "who poke their noses everywhere" - for investigating the deal. Should we investigate corruption? Apparently not because we are involved. Good to know.

 Some awards now for this chilly week,

The Award for Clearly Being Set Up By Your Daughter of the Week,

Celebrity fainter and not a Doctor Gillian Mckeith claims not to have a television yet a producer Nick Johns claims that she wanted a DVD player so that she could watch the X-Factor because she was missing it but that is just an aside. No, no, the fun part comes in an interview with her daughter. Skylar McKeith-Magaziner was interviewed on This Morning and was asked about whether or not her mother had seen the program before to which she answered "No, we don't actually have a TV, so I've just seen some clips, but she has never actually seen the show." Fair enough I suppose but it might be an idea to do a little research, although Gillian is not renowned for doing research. Do you see what I’ve done there, I’ve insulted her work!

  Anyway later in the interview Skylar says “Um, well, I kind of forgot about the bushtucker trials”, so she had seen clips of the trials but neglected to tell her mother. Oh that is funny.

The Award for Mass Straw Man Creation of the Week,

This week saw the launch of a campaign by some Christians called “Not Ashamed” which claims that Christians are being discriminated against or barred from involvement in public life. It is supported by Bishop Michael Nazir Ali and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey. That is LORD Carey. He is 1 of 26 Bishops of the Church of England sit in the House of Lords simply because they are Christian bishops.

 Anyway, what evidence did they present? Umm, none. Obviously humanist groups thought that this was slightly silly. The British Humanist Association said “The increasingly desperate attempts to work up a victim narrative of “Christianophobia” by these activists have no basis in reality. The assumption behind it is that there is a groundswell of discrimination and persecution of Christians in Britain, but this assumption is false. Time and again the various claims of discrimination against Christians that have been tested in the courts have been assessed by impartial judges and found baseless.”

 “Discrimination against non-Christians is in fact far more widespread than discrimination against Christians, and Christianity is still overly privileged in the UK. In almost one third of our state schools, preference is given to Christian parents in admissions over non-Christians, and to Christian staff over non-Christian staff.”

 Not a surprise that they think that this is silly but what about other Christian groups? Surely they will be on side, well no and stop calling me Shirley. (RIP Leslie Nielson)

 Christian think tank Ekklesia said that there is ‘no evidence’ to back up the ‘Not Ashamed’ campaign.

 Ekklesia Co-Director Jonathan Batley commented, “Christians should not be ashamed of our faith but nor should they be afraid to listen to others and learn from them.  What they should be ashamed of however, is the reputation that they are developing for exaggeration, misleading people and discriminating against others.
‘Since 2005, when we first predicted the growth in claims of 'persecution', we have been closely examining individual cases and what lies behind them. We have found no evidence to back up the claim of the 'Not Ashamed' campaign that Christians as a group are being systematically marginalised in Britain. We have found consistent evidence however of Christians misleading people and exaggerating what is really going on, as well as treating other Christians, those of other faith and those of no faith in discriminatory ways.”

Well that will be enough seriousness I think.

This week saw the death of Leslie Nielson who I was a bit of a fan of but what clips to show? How about many?

Have a great week. Oh and don’t forget the podcast, you might like it.

Diana Watch

Look, it's very simple, if you don't password protect your Wifi I will use it, hence here we all are. Hello from Kent! Come on in the water's muddy.

I think that I may be becoming a little paranoid. Every time I see a story in the press about changes to the NHS all I can see is a concerted conspiracy to dismantle it by a government that values profit over all over things. It's a subtle(ish) accumulation of things, some within the white paper and some coming from outside.
GP's, who have already been technically privatised and are run for profit, will take over commissioning from the PCT's. They already ignore standard NHS terms and conditions for their staff and, in a letter to the BMJ, it has been pointed out that Foundation Trusts will be also be able to ignore Agenda for Change but that is not really my point here.
The Government have announced this week that NICE will be stripped of it's powers to say which treatments should be available on the NHS and GP's will decided for themselves which drugs they prescribe without any guidance.
A new treatment comes on to the market and NICE review it. Does it work? Is it cost affective? Show me the evidence! If it works then you can prescribe it within the whole NHS and if it doesn't then you can't. Sounds like a good idea to me.
This simple idea has got rid of the “system” that existed before where some Health Authorities prescribed some drugs and others didn't. The press hated it, quite rightly (here for instance is the Daily Mail on that very subject. The first paragraph reads “Patients with cancer, heart disease and mental illness are being denied drugs and lifesaving treatment thanks to a postcode lottery of care in the NHS”), and it was nicknamed “a postcode lottery” i.e., where you lived effected what drugs you could have. It was agreed that this was a bad idea and we needed a centralised system and some joined up thinking and that is what we got.
NICE has been controversial in some areas of the press because they have restricted access to some really expensive, not very effective (or least not any better than existing treatment) drugs, mostly for cancer treatments. In fact, it is the same press that was critical of the postcode lottery that existed before (here for instance is the Daily Mail on that very subject. The first paragraph reads “The scandal of patients being denied drugs just because the NHS rationing body decides they are too expensive will end, ministers have declared.”).
I have a question for these people, what would you do? We don't have unlimited amount of money so we can't do everything, so give us some ideas, all you do is complain and criticise but never offer any alternatives.
Oh, as an aside, a lot of those charities/patient advocacy groups that get quoted in the papers are set up/funded by Big Pharma companies to act as lobbying organisations for certain drugs and treatments.
There are some important practical points in transferring prescribing decisions to GP's such as how do you expect them to keep up with all the new drugs that come to market? There are hundreds of studies a year and they are not always as open and straight forward as they should be. When do they think GP's have time to read all these studies? Aren't they supposed to be seeing patients? If they only read the abstracts of the articles/studies because of time pressures then they will be lead astray as many article abstracts have been shown to misleading.
Anyway, back to my rambling point. So a private company can already set up a GP consortium and now they will be able to prescribe which every drug they like, ignoring such boring, unimportant things as evidence.
This is were my worst case scenario thinking bought me. There is very little standing in the way of a GlaxoSmithKline opening a chain of NHS GP surgeries and prescribing only GlaxoSmithKline drugs. “Have you been to a Glaxo surgery before?”
OK, at the moment there are still a few hopes to be jumped though and barriers to be crossed, fords to be ummmm, forded and boxes to be ticked, but they are mostly PCT based. So we are safe at the moment because the PCT's are quite useful and no one would want to get of them, oh hang on a minute.....

That is all for this week as I'm not really supposed to be doing this.
There will definitely be no blog next Sunday (I know I said that last week but things change) as we will be in Nottingham I think for some art event or other, not sure if I'm honest but I will take pictures and if they are ok I will show you. Have a great week.

Diana Watch

“Well, there used to be a bloke called Peg who had a wooden leg. He used to set himself on fire and then jump into the Lido to put it out”

“What would Health and Safety think of that?”

“They don’t let you do anything these days.”

It was announced at the beginning of the week that Catherine Walker had died. She was a very successful fashion designer but differed from many others in her field by shunning the limelight and not doing runway shows.

 She was, however, famous for one thing that interested a certain section of our press. She provided frocks for Princess Diana.

 How did they mark the passing of this talented designer, successful business woman and founder of a Cancer Charity?

 Well, to be honest, most of them were pretty good about it. A short story on an inside page that played up the Diana connection. The Times had it on the front page with an accompanying photograph of Diana that at least Catherine Walker was in,

Not so the Express.

Really that is just a little bit rude. Covering the death of someone on the front page and then having a picture of someone else.

Friday the 1st of October saw the introduction of the much hated (by the Mail, Express and Church Groups, people who really know about bigotry) Equality Act.

 The act aims to provide protection for workers by banning discrimination by employers and covering areas such as age, disability and pay. It brings together 9 different bits of legislation into one easy to follow act.

 Ah, Britain moves, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century. No one can be discriminated against in the workplace on ground of Race, religion, sexual orientation, age and a big long list of other things I haven’t thought of but nasty bigoty types have. A utopia has been reached, we are all equal. No man or woman is above any other. It is Brave New World (but without the drugging) and not 1984. Who could not be happy at such an event?

 Well, entertainingly, both ends of the spectrum.

  British companies don't like the Act. "Businesses are really concerned," said Abigail Morris from the British Chambers of Commerce.

"The government's own impact assessment shows that this is going to cost £190m just for businesses to understand the legislation, and this at a time when we really need them to be concentrating on creating private sector jobs and driving economic recovery."

What she seems to be saying is, “we want to carry on exploiting people, discriminating against older people and paying women less because it increases our profits. Equality=Cost and we don't want that.”

 Well at least we now all know that I suppose. Business cares not for the workers. Is it any wonder that the Unions are getting twitchy?

 I know that some see it as too easy to mock the Daily Mail but some times they make it too easy.

 On Friday they published, on their front page, an article that complained that this was the “Death of the Office Joke”. Now, if you tell a racist, sexist, misogynist or anti-religious joke, you could fall foul of this legislation.

 What's wrong with that? I don't know about the place where you work but we don't tell that sort of joke, it's not very nice.

 They also have a problem with what is called Third Party harassment. According to the paper  “It creates the controversial legal concept of ‘third party harassment’, under which workers will be able to sue over jokes and banter they find offensive – even if the comments are aimed at someone else and they weren’t there at the time the comments were made.” Yep, nothing wrong with that either.

 There is some argument however for a freedom of speech infringement here; do you have the right to offend? Is this legislation attacking your right to be a twat and it is possible that the answer to that question is yes. It is a defence that the paper often uses to defend it's self and did when Jan Moir wrote her awful article about the death of Stephen Gately, but for some reason they decided not to go with that, curious.

 Maybe it is because the nasty Moir woman attacked “Modern” comedy earlier in the week. “This cruel, witless modern comedy is beyond a joke” she said. Her argument seems to be that we are no longer picking on the correct groups of people such as Gays, blacks and non-Christian religions.

 So in Mail-land you should have the freedom of speech to attack anyone you like no matter how offensive you are, unless the Mail thinks you shouldn't. It's no wonder their readers are so filled with impotent rage, they have no idea what they can and can't do because their paper keeps confusing them.

 But how about those that campaign for equality, what do they think of the act? As it is supposed to be anti-discriminatory surely they are as happy as a pig in the sort of thing that pigs are supposed to be happy in. What do, for instance, the British Humanist Association think about it? Well they are not happy either. They say that it gives “excessive privileges to religious organisations”. Oh dear, just when we thought we were getting somewhere.

 I thought, given the coverage in the right wing press, that everyone had to be treated equally in the workplace but it seems not. According to Naomi Phillips, BHA Head of Public Affairs, ‘Through wide exceptions that exempt religious organisations from significant parts of the law, the Equality Act gives excessive privileges specifically to religious groups, permitting them to discriminate against not only gay and lesbian people but against the non-religious and those of other religions.” Bugger. Oh well, it seems that we still have to carry on campaigning for equal rights for EVERYONE. Everyone, religious people, atheists, woman, gays, whoever, treated the same. No one group will be better than another. Please can we make that happen?

I've rambled on again haven't I? Sorry. Let's do some awards then,

The Award for Helping to Make Scientology Look Even Sillier of the Week,

Usually this award would go straight to Tom Cruise he seems to be on a mission (and not an impossible one, sorry, that was awful) to bring Scientology down from the inside by making himself and therefore, by association, his “religion” look ridiculous. This week, however, he has had some help.

 Firstly there was a Panorama programme on BBC1 that had a bit a, admittedly flawed, look at what some may describe as the cult.

 Then Councillor John Dixon, who was suspended from his job after the “Church” complained about him tweeting “I didn't know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off”, was cleared of any wrong doing and that he had not breached the councillors' code of conduct.

 The final blow in a bad week came when the Charity Commission announced that it would recognise Druidism as a religion for Tax purposes. This is funny because they have refused to grant the same status to Scientology thereby making sure that it is not considered religion in this Country, well done us.

 Ha, where is your Xenu now hey? Trapped in a volcano or something I think, to be honest I can't be bothered to wonder waist high through the levels of bullshit necessary to find out.

 

The Award for Bad Planning at a Sporting Event of the Week,

Maybe this should go to the organisers of the Commonwealth Games who have had one or two problems in getting ready for the event that starts today in Delhi but that would be too easy and I think that some people have been a little mean to them in recent weeks. No, no, the winner must be the person who thought that it would be a good idea to hold the Ryder Cup in Wales. In October.

 What did they think would happen? Wales is not exactly renowned for its tropical weather and October isn't one of the UK's sunniest months. Surprisingly enough it rained on Friday and play was abandoned. Oh and then it rained yesterday afternoon and play was abandoned. And it’s rained again this morning and play is yet to start (at the time of writing)

 I also heard, through the medium of Twitter so I don't know how accurate the story is, that the US team didn't bring any wet weather gear with them and had to buy some when they got here. Great research there. Planned about as well as the invasion of Iraq. It seems that the motto of America is “I'm sure it will be fine”. This is what happens if you watch too many Hollywood movies.

OK, enough moaning from me, I'm sure you have things to do. Have a lovely week and do try the Dorchester Online Radio Company podcast you might enjoy it, although you may not, it's the risk we take. Have a lovely week.

Diana Watch

“So can I ask you why you are applying for asylum in this country Mr John?”

“Well, I am a Gay man and in my country that is illegal. If I am caught being gay then I will imprisoned or worse, I could be put to death in a series of excruciatingly painful ways.” 

“Well, that is very interesting. So if you are a caught being gay in your country the government of that country may kill you.”

“Yes, that is exactly what could happen. Your England is a reasonably tolerant place. For instance you give Graham Norton his own TV series and he's rubbish.”

“Oh right, ummm...ok..., this is slightly indelicate but can you prove that you are gay?”

“Prove it? How do you mean?”

“Well you could just be saying that you are gay in order to claim asylum here.”

“How exactly should I prove to you that I am gay? Whoa, wait a minute, is that a come-on? Are you coming on to me? Is that how you want me to “prove it” to you? I'm flattered obviously but you’re not my type.”

 No, god no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant, oh actually I don't know. Well, ummm, do you like Rufus Wainwright? How about show tunes? Kylie? How about funny coloured cocktails with little umbrellas in? Judy Garland perhaps?”

 “I'm sorry? Those seem to be very crudely drawn stereotypes. Do you work for a tabloid?”

 “Well, that is a good point but I have one question,”

“Yes,”

“In your own country, have you tried not being gay? Have you considered not standing out so much and doing more, less gay things? Have you thought about not going out so much, staying indoors a little more? In short, have you tried not being gay?”

 Up until the middle of this week this was pretty much how interviews with the UK's Border Agency were like. It was actual policy to advice people to go home and try and be less gay. 98% of those who applied for asylum on the grounds of sexuality were turned down at he first attempt.

 The Supreme Court has ruled that 2 gay men, one from Cameroon and one from Iran, have the right to stay in the UK.

 Lord Hope, who read out the judgement, said: "To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny his fundamental right to be who he is.

"Homosexuals are as much entitled to freedom of association with others who are of the same sexual orientation as people who are straight." That, my friends, is a beautiful judgement.

 The response to this case has shown again that the coalition Government seems to be considerably more liberal than it's predecessor.

 Home Secretary Theresa May said the judgement is in line with the Governments stance (although probably not hers as is not the most Gay friendly MP you have ever come across), adding “We have already promised to stop the removal of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution.”

 Of course not everyone was happy with the decision, can you guess who they might be? Why yes, it was the Daily Express,

oh and the Mail and the Star and most of the other papers to be honest but to be honest I don't care. They are uncaring, unpleasant bastards, everyone. I understand that this subject is like a dog whistle for these idiots, it has the words Asylum and Gay in it thus combining two of their least favourite things, but never the less, their response was rabid and incredibly unpleasant. I assume that no one who works for these papers or knows anyone who works for these papers is Gay because if you did know someone and yet you still wrote that shit, what sort of bastard would you be?

 Why should the reason that your country wants to kill you make any difference to how we treat you? Politics, sexuality, hair colour, religion, ethnicity, what difference does it make?  They want to kill them, that is all that matters.

To be honest the reaction of the press to this story of equality has made me really very angry and upset so I think we should move on to the awards, that and we need to get on because there is a Grand Prix and some football match or other on and (depending on what time you read this) you may want to watch it, I however will be at a fucking Christening. I mean, how bad is their timing? Significant Other has posh friends who care not for such things as sport, bugger.

 Oh and as an Atheist can I be a God Parent? Well I am about to find out. If I am still on twitter at about 8 o'clock Sunday evening there is no God.  I will have stood up in a church and said that I will, should it's parents have died in a tragic Pimms based accident (they are very posh), look after the child and teach it about God. Teach it about how he's real and not made up by people. If I can do all that whilst being and atheist so obviously lying in a church about God and haven't been struck down then there is no God.

 The Award for Very Sensible Decision of the Week,

Some people have really, really bad hair. I believe that the law should be changed so that hairdressers have the right to say “No, that will make you look rubbish”.

 It seems, for the first time that I am aware of, that my ideas mesh completely with that of the Iranian Government. They have introduced government sanctioned hairstyles.

They seem to have taken against, what you may describe as, flamboyant “Western” hair cuts. I will be watching President Ahmadinejad locks very closely from now on to make sure he is sticking to the chart.

The Award for Back down of the Week,

To be honest I am going to try and mention President GoodLuck Jonathan every week simply because he has a cracking name.

 Last week we heard that he had banned his countries football team for international competition for 2 years after their poor performance in the World Cup but this week it seems he has changed his mind. This is basically because of threats from FIFA to remove funding for Nigeria’s football association and stop that countries referees working outside Nigeria.

The Award for Failing to Understand What a Word Means,

To be honest it happens quite a lot but this week it annoyed me. If you are a newspaper and you have a story that no one else has then, and only then, can you use the word “Exclusive”. If another paper has the story as well then you can’t use it and, obviously, nor can they.

 At least the Sun were good enough to admit that others had this story by not using that word,

The Award for Trying to Make Ends Meet (That is a bad pun by the way),

So you type in “large tits” and “nurse” into your favourite porn based search engine and find what looks like a satisfactory piece of film to watch (is critique the wrong word?) and you click on play. That is quite a good set you think to yourself, suddenly distracted from the stilted dialogue and hackneyed plot, they have spent some money on that. You mind is suddenly back on the action when the woman offers to do something that no one that you have ever met (or are likely to meet) has ever admitted to liking or confirm that it is physically possible.

 Those little touches on the set draw your eye into the background of the shot again, really they have worked hard on that, it almost looks like…… No wait, it can’t be, can it? There is no way it could be but it does look at little like that London hospital that I stayed in. I can’t imagine that they would rent out a closed ward to a production company not knowing fully what sort of film that they intended to make, could they?

The Award for Pot Calling the Kettle Black of the Week,

Eric Pickles has launched an irony free attack on “Non-Jobs” that some Britain's councils advertise. This man is Communities Secretary. 

The Award for Being A Bit of A Dufus,

You remember last week when it was pointed out that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had not seen/ignored evidence that Jamie Oliver's healthy school lunch thing had actually done some good, well he also said that the number of pupils having the meals had gone down. He was wrong. Again.

 The School Food Trust carried out a survey that showed that the number of pupils having schools meals was up 2.1% in Primary Schools and 0.8% in Secondaries. Whilst that isn't a massive rise it is still a rise, the exact opposite of what Mr Lansley said.

 Whilst we are on about the lovely Government, what do you think is the best way to fund advertising for anti-obesity drives? The last Government thought it was a good idea to pay for them themselves with public money as it is a public health issue. This way you get no interference from fat food floggers. This is not the way that the new Government goes about things.

 Andrew Rapidly-becoming-a-twat Lansley has cut the Governments budget and hopes that the short fall will be made up by companies whose products make you fat. 

 If there was ever a doubt that the Tories weren't as right wing as they used to be I believe that this one thing has cleared that up. You make people fat and we'll clear up the mess but we won't try and damage your profits by telling people not to eat your products. We were wondering would you do that?

 The Government seem to expect Mars to advertise the Mars bar on one hand and then voluntarily pay for some adverts that say that Mars bars are bad for you. I'm sure that Cadbury want to pay for something that tells you not to eat Cadbury products because they are not good for you.

 Can I just make it clear that I don't like Andrew Lansley.

I'm sure you are wondering “Is there still oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico somewhere between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day?”. Why yes, yes it is but BP, or British Petroleum as the Daily Mail and Express really hate hearing them called, are really, really trying to stop it now. As long as the weather holds. And the new top fits.

 I'm not saying that I am overly influenced by popular culture but every time I hear someone saying “Spy Swap” I have an image in my head very similar to this,

If it doesn't take place on a foggy bridge it doesn't count.

The sun is still out so let's make the most of it, take the week off week. If we are really honest with ourselves we will realise that most of us won't be missed, not really.

 Have a fun week.

Diana Watch

So do they think I am a sucker? This person was so keen to get my money that she e-mailed me twice on the same day,

 “Trust & Good Faith. I am Mrs Sara Faraj, I am 62 years old from Kuwait, I am

suffering from along time cancer of the Lungs which also affected my hearing

ability and my brain.  My husband died in a fatal motor accident. Since his

death I decided not to re-marry, I sold all my inherited belongings and

deposited all the sum of £23M GBP and Two Trunk Box (Family valuables/

Personal Jewelries) with a Private Bank & Securities. I need you to help me

carry out my charity work. Reply through my private

email:sarafarajthomas@advir.com”

 Londoners, are you devoid of all human kindness?

 We came to your quite nice city yesterday and, as is my want, I tried to make people smile on the underground. All you have to do, if you want to join in, is smile at people first, it's not very hard to do but it is pretty much imposable to win the game by getting them to smile back. You lot really don't like to smile do you?

 Yesterday, as others pushed to get onto the grubby little train before allowing those getting off to do so making the whole affair much more difficult than it needs to be, I paused to allow a lady with a pushchair time to get on without getting squashed. I would consider this normal behaviour but judging from the reaction of this lady it's not normal in the London.

 “Thank you, thank you very much. That's really kind of you, thank you.” She seemed surprised as if this had never happened to her before. So I ask again, Londoners, are you devoid of all human kindness?

 We were in London for the opening of a new shop. Significant Other is a keen knitter and is very taken with a shop in Islington called Loop. They have recently moved premises to a slightly more prominent part of the borough and they opened for the first time yesterday.

 They were offering free gift bags for the first 100 customers. Who knew that so many chubby women had such pointy elbows? Bloody hell, these people had absolutely no respect for personal space. This was a shop for the socially inept; it was like Games Workshop for these with jumper bumps.
You can read a more positive view of the visit here as Significant Other has blogged about it.

 Enough about the fun bits of my week, how about some news.

And so familiar Tory policies start to leak out. Last week we had David Willets trying to make sure that only rich people could go to the best Universities and now we have them dropping proposed Labour Government legislation that would have seen Landlords and Letting Agencies properly registered and regulated.

 The purpose of this regulation was supposed to offer some sort of protection from shoddy treatment for those of us who rent but this is not the free market way. Oh no, you and I exist to get ripped off and fucked over by already wealthy people.

 The new Housing Minister Grant Shapps said “It would be difficult to put together and expensive”. So what? I don't care! People need and deserve protection from less honourable rich sorts of people.

 I am not the only who is a little pissed of by this, Ian Potter, operations manager of the Association of Residential Lettings Agents, said: “We are extremely disappointed with the Housing Minister’s decision to scrap the previous Government’s plans for the regulation of letting agents. This move risks seriously hampering the improvement of standards in the private rented sector, [its] reputation and the ... role it plays in the wider housing market, as well as failing to protect the consumer, who has nowhere to go when there is service failure or fraud.” Even the people who represent Landlords think that this decision is poor, that's how bad it is.

 Whilst I'm having what could best be described as a moan the Government have also started a review of health and safety legislation under the guise of reducing red tape.

 Before the election campaign David Cameron had said that he wanted to do this and sighted well worn, Daily Mail type, examples of Elf and Safety gone made. One of his examples was schools making the pupils wear goggles to play conkers. If it was true that that would be a bit ridiculous but it of course it wasn't. One headmistress did it once. So when the review was announced you would have thought that they wouldn't have just gone with cheap, Daily Express-lite, examples wouldn't you. Oh no.  When interviewed by the BBC Lord Young, who has been asked to carry out the review, used this example, under current laws “firemen could say they wouldn't go to a fire because it was too dangerous”, umm, I don't think they can.

 His point was that the Emergency Services should be exempt from H&S laws because they are "paid for doing a job that involves risk", well to a certain degree I would agree with him but should they be exempt from all legislation? Of course not, that is silly.

 The real problem with area of law is not the law it's self but they why that some use it and the Government, to their credit, do want to clamp down on Ambulance chasing and some rather excessive personal injury claims. It is fear of these claims that forces councils and schools into over zealous interpretation of the rules, erring on the side of excessive caution. But again this must be watched.

 We, the small people as Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP Chairman, might describe us, (there is a man who needs to get his statements cleared by PR person before he says them. If you are in a hole, stop digging is the phrase but this really doesn't apply to BP, maybe because they think there might be oil at the bottom of that hole.) do need to have some protection from injury because someone couldn't be bothered to do their job properly.

 Health and Safety laws exist to stop us being exploited and put in danger by bad employers. If you are doing a dangerous job then the HSE is there to make sure that you are protected correctly.

 It does seem that the Government are, again, trying to make laws to aid rich people increase their profit margins at the cost of the workers, comrades!

 Best I join a Union I think.

It's awards time again. I have been trying to get Stephen Fry to present these but I haven't had a reply yet so you'll have to put up with me again, sorry about that.

The Award for Really Not Understanding What the Fuck You Are Saying,

 Thursday's Daily Express confused me no end. Apparently yoghurt can help end the “misery” of hay fever. Before I carry on I do feel sorry for those with hay fever, it's horrible, now back to mocking a “newspaper” for idiots.

 The paper claimed that a new study showed that yoghurt can help stave off the effects of pollen by “boosting the immune system”. WTF?

 1, You, as long as you are in reasonable health i.e. not immunocompromised, you can not “boost” your immune system, and 2, as far as I'm aware, the reaction you get from some pollen touching your mucus membranes causing your eyes to stream and your nose to run is a massive over reaction from a really rather active immune system, if anything your immune system needs deepening down.

 The article persists with this false premise all the way through. To be fair to the researchers involved I think it was probably the Express that misinterpreted some paper or other rather than some bad research, however the only way that I can think of that yoghurt may help those who suffer from hay fever is if they completely smoother their faces in it therefore making it impossible for the pollen to get though. Effective but impractical. 

The Award for Short-Termism of the Worst Sort 2,

 Rarely do we have a repeat of an award (I think it may have only happened once before) but this week is one of those weeks.

 On Thursday the Government announced that it was going to drop or postpone about £2bn worth of  stuff announced by the last lot. Some of these cuts are perfectly reasonable I suppose if you don't have any money left but one of them stood out from the others.

 A company called Sheffield Forgemasters was promised an £80 million loan to help buy a 15,000 tonne press. Now not being versed in such things I have no idea what that is but I do know that it would have used to make specialist parts for nuclear power stations and would have provided up to 400 jobs. If fact it would have been so specialist they would have been only the second company in the world to make these parts. That's second company in the WORLD, not country but WORLD! Jesus, what are the Government thinking?

 Oh and and they seemed to have axed the rather excellent free swims program for children and the over 60's. Oh and the refurbishment plans for Libraries. 

The Award for Thing That Has Made Me Laugh More Than Anything Else This Week,

 I know it's lazy to just put YouTube videos on here but this really is very funny,

The Award for Best Radio Program About Numbers and Statistics,

Ok, so I am assuming that there isn’t a great deal of nominations for this rather specific award but I give you the winner, Radio 4's More or Less.

 If a person makes a claim using statistics or numbers and someone points it out to them, they will investigate it to find out whether it is correct or not.

 Last week Lord Digby Jones, head of the CBI, claimed on the Today programme that we should stop having a go at banks because they pay 25% of all tax that the Treasury receives. Is this true they asked? Umm, no. Their own investigations showed that if you were incredibly generous to the banks they pay about 12.5% of all the tax, still a large amount but 50% less than Sir Digby claimed. Was he available to say where he got his made up figures from? Was he bollocks!

 This week the Daily Telegraph was caught out. They published a story that claimed that we are all paying £4000 per year for public services pensions. They said that this figure came from the new Office for Budget Responsibility.

 Now, one of them, I'm not sure which one although my money is on the newspaper, got this quite wrong. The actual figure is £400 which is considerably lower. They have now changed this on they on-line edition but have not, as fair as the programme is aware, printed an apology.

 You can download past episodes from I-tunes, they really are great and not in anyway dull.

The Award for The Easiest Joke of the Week,

Outside of a church in MONROE, OHIO stands, or at least stood, a really big statue of Jesus. I mean really big, 65ft big. Some have referred to it as the “Touchdown Jesus” as his arms are held aloft in a similar pose as to that taken by an Umpire/referee in American Football just after someone scores a touchdown.

 Anyway, it cost about $250,000 to build and has stood there since 2004 offending no one, unless they were cursed with eyes.

  It seems, however, that it was not people who were offended by the oddity, oh no, because on the night of the Monday the 14^th of June there was a thunder storm and the statue was struck by lightening and burned down. A much higher force seems to have taken a dislike to this depiction of his son and decided to do something about it.

This giant erection was insured though for a cool $500,000. If you were at the insurance company you now that you would love to be the one dealing with this claim and then refuse on the grounds that the lightening strike was an “act of God”, you know you would.

The Award for Thing I Want Most This Week But May Have Difficulty Trying To Hide From Significant Other,

At London’s International Fine Arts Fair you can buy may a beautiful objet d’art but one will stand out form the others. It is significantly cooler and much, much older than everything else there. It is the fossilised skull of a Tarbosaurus bataa, which is related to a T-Rex I’m told.

 It is being sold by a bloke from down the road, well Dorset-based fossil dealer Chris Moore, for the  perfect reasonable £125,000. Now I am good for it but I was wondering if one of you could lend me it for a short period? Anyone? Hello? Is this thing on?

 Have a good week my freinds, I am hoping to make jam tomorrow.

Diana Watch

“I didn’t get into Vet School so I became a Doctor.”

Has there been a Princess Diana based front page this week? Of course there has,

but the Express also distinguished themselves on Wednesday by completely ignoring the devastation being caused to the Gulf coast of America, the animals and fish that are dying and the peoples whose livings are being destroyed such as shrimp fisherman. They even ignored the rather poor response of BP to the situation, they instead went for the incredibly selfish, self centred approach, how does it effect you pension? 

 Because BP is such a massive company and makes so much money in profit and pays such massive dividends it has a disproportionate amount invested in it by pension companies. If these people had any decency at all they would put pressure on the board of this company to sort their act out, to make safety and the environment the top priorities for BP rather than the pursuit of naked profit, after all shareholders exist to hold the board to account, in theory.

 Despite polluting the Gulf of Mexico and being landed with the enormous bill to clean it up, as they should be, which has all helped to contribute to some of the worst PR that BP has ever had they decided to compound it a bit more by paying a very large dividend to it shareholders, probably to try and keep them quiet.

 BP have made some success this week in trying to stop the oil flooding out of it's pipeline (let's try and stop saying “spill” as I spill a drink and that only makes a small amount of mess, this is a little more significant) by cutting through it and managing to fit a cap and they have started to siphon some of the oil away to ships on the surface but still not as much as is leaking into the sea.

It really hasn’t been the most cheerful of weeks in the news has it, what with Israeli forces attacking an aid convoy and the shootings in Cumbria.

 What we have learnt this week is that real people behave much better than people who work for 24hr news channels and newspapers. On the whole the members of the public that have been interviewed have behaved with dignity and respect and seem not to have a bad word to say about Derrick Bird,  meanwhile those doing the interviewing have pushed for more and more lurid details.

 The levels of speculation have also been at stratospheric levels, I have heard about 5 different reasons for why Mr Bird decided to shoot all of those people none of which seemed to be based on any facts.

 I was surprised that there seemed to be a psychologist’s viewpoint for every newspaper’s pre-existing narrative, which was nice. “Have you got a point of view that you would like reinforcing with the help of a professional? Then call Rent-a-shrink, we will say exactly what you want us to, as long as the price is right.”

 There has also been some awful commentary in pretty much all of the papers with is summed up in this nasty, pointless piece in the Telegraph titled “There's no rush, but can we all agree that Derrick Bird had no business owning guns?” No, no we can’t, hindsight isn’t a clause in the gun licences that he held.

 The thrust of this article seems to be that he wasn’t the right sort of person to be owning a gun and by that, and the fact that the “writer” of this piece felt it necessary to describe Mr Bird’s house as “a mid-terrace house in a not very rural English village”, I think he means not posh enough.

 So we have had people say that he shouldn’t have had a gun licence because he stole something in the early 90’s, everyone should have a gun and then passers-by could have shot him and now, not posh enough to own a gun. Ah the British media, home of reasoned debate.

 Oh and Richard Littlejohn managed to get Eastern European immigration, who he accused of gun smuggling (please don’t click on that link as it is to the Mail’s website and they don’t deserve the traffic), into his piece about it and be rude about the Police Officer who did the Press briefings and Chief Police Officers in general, what a man and by man I really mean uber-twat.

 I really don’t want to go on and on about Israel because someone will accuse me of being anti-Semitic which I am not, maybe a little anti-Zionist but even then I would concede that Israel has the right to exist but it does not have the right to occupy parts of other countries or murder people on aid convoys.

 The Israeli blockade of Gaza started following the Israeli show of strength that demolished a large number of buildings and infrastructure last year. This includes a sea blockade which may or may not be legal which is what the aid convoy was trying to break.

 They were attacked in international waters which many have seen as state-sponsored piracy but if the blockade is legal than they are within their rights to have boarded the ships if they thought that they were carrying weapons etc which is the now standard Israeli Government response to pretty much any situation.

 One of the things that are not being allowed into Gaza is building materials, such as cement. This does seem a little harsh as the Israeli conscription army (that, by the way, is the reason that so many Israeli Army operations go wrong, pissy teenagers with guns, although they claim that it was Marines that stormed the boats) flattened a lot of it but it may fall into the hands of terrorists. Now, if the grumpy Ambassador had pointed out on Radio 4 that Hamas regularly build tunnels for smuggling into Egypt and Israel then at least it would have been a relevant argument but he didn’t, oh no, he said, and I quote, “They could use it for weapons”. Really? Could they? How? Are cement bombs as scary as this man thinks? Probably not if I’m honest. If you wonder around your local arms fair it is unlikely that you will see many hand grenades made of cement. They would sort of look like a pebble. Oh no, wait it all makes sense now!

 As you know, the reason for Jews demanding their own state is because God gave them that land in the Bible and they believe the Bible to be literally true, well the bits that suit them anyway. Also in the Bible is a story where David (tiny little boy who, for the purposes of this metaphor, or is it an allegory, will be representing Gaza) defeated the massively overpowering Goliath (for this metaphor/allegory Israel) using only……..wait for it……… a pebble! As this definitely happened (the Bible is literally true remember) then it seems that the Ambassador may have had a point. They could fashion little bits of the cement into to “pebbles” and use them as weapons!

The Award for Best Direct Action Against Direct Action,

A couple of weeks ago I told you about a protest in a Dorset village that wanted a by-pass. They were using the pedestrian crossing constantly to back up the traffic. Genius way to make a point I thought but it seems that someone else didn’t.

 Superglue has been placed around the button for the crossing so that the villagers can't use it.

  Now that is a little rude as it is not just these protesters who use the crossing it is the whole village on a very busy rude but not to worry, it will be replaced and the protests will continue.

 

 The Award for Being a Really Great Car (although the Beetle is my Favourite)

VW Camper van is 60 years old. I love this car/van, I don't know why.

 My brother and I stayed in one once that we had borrowed of off a friend of mine and we went to the Reading Festival. Coming back from the festival at 6 o'clock on a Bank Holiday Monday morning on a roundabout on the outskirts of Reading and the clutch went. We pulled up into a B&Q car park and made a cup of tea on the stove. There are worse ways of spending time.

 I will own one, one day. Maybe.

The Award for Fake Outrage of the Week,

The Daily Mail does like to be offended by many, many things. It also has certain woman that it is obsessed with, usually because they are successful and they don't approve of that sort of thing. If you combine these to things you have....... Lady Gaga doing her normal stage show.

 On the same night as the Cumbrian shootings she was playing in Manchester. Part of the show involves the character she plays throughout the performance being killed. There does seem to be quite a bit of blood. Oh the outrage! Is this the sickest show ever? Does she not know that even Corrie postponed an episode?

 Well to be honest she probably didn't know that. I think that it is a little unlikely that Lady (oh yes, first name terms you know) spends her time lying on her hotel room bed, dressing gown on, coke cans in her hair, watching News 24.

 And why pick on her anyway? Did they complain about every cinema in the country that showed movies with gun violence in them that night? Like arse did they. Did they complain about the 14 episode of CSI that channel 5 showed that night? Of course they didn't. They only did it so that they could have more pictures of Gaga in their stupid paper.

The Award for Making Excuses and Forgetting That Everyone Playing in the Tournament is Disadvantaged, If At All, In The Same Way,

I am pretty sure that at the last World Cup we had exactly the same story as this. Some people are complaining that the newly designed ball that they are going to be using at the World Cup. It's too light and moves about in the air too much, we did have this complaint at the last competition didn't we?

 The new ball is made from 8 panels of synthetic material that is glued together and is, supposedly, a perfect sphere and this is, apparently, very good.

  To be honest I just want some good games, oh and while we are talking about the World Cup a brief mention for Theo Walcott. He was taken to the last one for some reason, maybe children flew for free on BA, but he didn't get a game and now that he has come of age, if you will, has he been picked? Has he bollocks.

 I hope that you have a good week.

The Daily Mail Hates Fun

So I have a new Daily Mail theory (I’m not obsessed you know).

 They want to make Britain as miserable and joyless a place as it is possible (see the 1980’s for details) to make it so that only people who really, really love the concept of Great Britain will want to stay here. Then, after everyone who has no love for this country has left (you know the sort, immigrants, Lefties, Guardian readers), the work to make it lovely again will begin.

 My theory comes from the fact that this “Newspaper” seems to rail against the things that make living here fun. They hate modern art and spending of public money on it. They hate the fact that we are having the Olympics (probably because foreign people will come here to compete or some will see Britain on television and want to visit) and many other things that will make living here a bit more fun. They revel in other people’s failures and misery if they are not the Mail’s sort of person. They are the Schadenfreude Times. They snipe and grouse at celebrities that they don’t think are worthy of fame. They hate high culture, it too elitist, and they hate low culture, it’s too chavy. They hate fun.

 Their latest attempt to remove the joy from our lives came this weekend. They published a story about Lord Triesman, who was head of the English bid for the 2018 (he has since resigned), in which they claimed that they had a recording of him suggesting Spain could drop its bid if rival bidder Russia helped bribe referees at this summer's World Cup. Now, he has said "In that conversation I commentated on speculation circulating about conspiracies around the world," he went on “Those comments were never intended to be taken seriously as indeed is the case with many private conversations."

 Now, whether said this as a joke or as a serious allegation is not that important. What is important is the timing of their publication. They printed the story (which wasn’t that interesting or earth shattering and that they really didn’t need to publish but did anyway) just a few days after our bid for the World Cup had been handed in.

 The paper had the tape for about 2 weeks but choose to publish it now, why? Well a less cynical person might say that they only did it to increase their circulation, a story about a recent event type of thing, but as I say they sat on it for 2 weeks and, according to David Bond’s blog on the BBC Website, at least one other paper was offered the tape but didn’t want it. That paper didn’t want to try and fuck up our chances at getting the World Cup but that didn’t worry the Mail on Sunday. They did it on purpose to embarrass the FA and to try and ruin our bid.

 Football is another thing that they don’t like, probably because it is young men from poor families who are earning rather a lot of money and foreigns own a lot of the clubs, even though having the World Cup here would be great of the country, both in terms of revenue and exposure. On top of that it would be FUN!

We must not let them win. Britain can be a place of music and art, of interesting people, of exciting food, the things that make life worth living. Even in these times of austerity we must continue to have fun and to expose ourselves (not like that my gutter minded readers) to beauty and intellectual challenge. It’s good for you and it’s fun.