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

Oh, I've done something a little rash. I am a fan of a podcast called the Pod Delusion and I thought it might be nice to get involved. So I sent in an MP3 and I am on next week’s episode. Now this is a nice thing, someone else thinks that the piece I did was funny, but I've just seen the running order for next week. Oh my, there are some serious topics and some serious people on there and I'm not one of them. Suddenly I'm not so confident. Oh well, what's done is done. It's out on Friday and is available on Itunes. Really, this isn't false modesty; I'm a bit scared now. *SPOILER ALERT* Although if you read this blog regularly you will have already read the piece I submitted, it is the thing about Co-workers with colds.

In a country were being Gay is illegal you would have thought that that countries government couldn't have made it any harder (tee hee) or unpleasant for it's, already scared, homosexual community. But wait, what's coming over the hill, is it a monster? Well yes, kind of. The Ugandan Parliament is debating a private members bill that “prescribes life imprisonment for anyone who “stimulates the sexual organs” of someone of the same sex, with the death penalty for anyone whose same-sex partner is under 18 or disabled. It would allow people to be imprisoned for failing to report an instance of homosexuality.” (quote taken from here) That's life in prison or death. Nice.
I don't think I really need to go on about why this is not the correct course of action, in my opinion, for the Ugandans because if you are reading this then you are probably a nice person. The reason given by many politicians in that country for the introduction of this bill is that they don't want their country to be westernised. That's right, they claim that being Gay is a western problem and didn't exist in their country until we turned up and ruined everything. Now I do feel bad for the way the white man, especially the English white man, used Africa as his own but I don't think that that was our fault. The slaughter of thousands of people on the continent and the rape and pillage of it's resources, yes. Garnering an interest in soft furnishing amongst some of your man folk, umm, no, that wasn't us.
The bill also threatens the sanctity on confession because it states those in authority (A priest hearing confession) who do not disclose to the police knowledge of a homosexual activity with 24 hours of learning of it could face up to 3 years in prison. Now you would have thought that the Catholic Church would be up in arms about this, after all, the Seal of the Confessional is absolute and there are no circumstances (according to Code of Canon Law 1388) were the priest can break this privacy without instant ex-communication from the Church. However it seems that the Ugandan Catholics dislike gays more than they like their own rules as that have yet to make any statement on this issue at all. Also suspiciously quiet on this issue is the Arch-bishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Despite being head of the Anglican Church and, therefore, in charge of those Christians who aren't Catholics, he has, at the time typing this, said nothing on the subject. Members of his church want to put people to death for being gay and he says nothing, which is some great moral leadership right there. And Christians try and paint atheists as moral free.
Oh, and it seems that a lot of the laws count for anal sex between Heterosexuals as well.
The reason that I'm going on about the response of the Church to this is because, well, how can I put it, umm, it was their idea. Uganda is a very religious country. Most of their politicians are religious people. It is also quite poor although doing better then many of their African neighbours. Whilst the Government is spouting anti-Western rhetoric it churches are taking millions of dollars directly from Right-Wing American Churches and Church Groups such as the rather sinister sounding, “The Family” ( I believe that that was the name of a Dr Who baddie). The Family, also known as “The Fellowship”, also seem to have the ear of the President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni. They are said to have cultivated a deep relationship with him. Many members of this group and others attended a conference in Kampala earlier this year were this law and other Gay related issues were discussed. One of the people who spoke at this conference was a man called Scott Lively. He is the author of a book called “The Pink Swastika” and he blames the holocaust on gay people. So as you can see he's a nice bloke and this is the sort of person influencing the Ugandan church and their politicians. Oh dear.

So Ofcom have released the list of the top 10 most complained about television programs and it makes surprising reading. The first thing that surprised me was (despite the Daily Mails best efforts) the lack of BBC programs on the list. Only Question Time made the list and that was the one with Dick, I’m sorry, Nick Griffin on. The rest are from commercial broadcasters, as you can see,

1. The X Factor (ITV 1): 5,975
2. Big Brother (Channel 4): 1,154
3. Britain’s Got Talent (ITV 1): 708
4. Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 4): 428
5. Question Time (BBC1): 364
6. Coronation Street (ITV1): 336
7. I’m A Celebrity…. (ITV1): 217
8. FA Cup 4th Round Replay: Everton v Liverpool (ITV1): 205
9. Jeni Barnett (LBC): 195
10 Boy and Girls Alone (Channel4): 183

The second thing that struck me was how few people actually bother to complain. Yes, nearly 6000 people put in the effort to phone or email Ofcom to moan about The X Factor but after that it drops off pretty quickly. In order to make the top 10 you only need to get 183 complaints. That’s hardly trying.
I think that it is entirely possible that Ofcom may have published this list a little early. I have heard that there are going to be some very offensive programs on over the Christmas period.
The BBC are planning on showing an episode of Antiques Roadshow were Eric Knowles goes mad. He smashes the vase that he is supposed to be valuing, rips off all his clothes and runs round attempting to find tin foil for which he can fashion a protective hat.
Over on ITV they have their own controversial programs. There will be a Christmas special of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway in which Dec forces his greased up, erect penis into the unwilling arse of Ant (I don’t actually know which one is which) and the public get to vote as to whether he cums inside him or on his face. (Too much?) You will be able to buy the tie-in game for the Wii just in time for the season of giving. And there is an entire episode of The Thick of It where no one swears at all.

David Cameron has announced changes that he would like to see in health and safety legislation. He doesn't like the culture which has grown up which forces children to wear goggles to play conkers and makes trainee hairdressers use fake scissors when practising.
Whilst he has chosen some slightly silly examples (although see how quickly middle class, Mail reading parents would sue their child's school if they got a bit of conker in little Tarquin's eye) I think what this really is is an attack on important laws that protect you and me at work. Tories don't like rules and red tape that restricts the ability of business to make money, especially if they have to spend some of that profit on making sure their workers don't get killed. If you are an 18th or 19th Century Mill owner then the Tories are the party for you.
Some of their true colours are starting to stick out under the hem of the frock of social justice and environment friendly policy that they have donned in order to get themselves elected.
White Collar crime in general, not just corporate manslaughter, is not taken very seriously in this country. May I recommend the excellent Radio 4 program “Thinking Allowed” which did a very good 3 program series on white collar crime. You can download them from Itunes if you can no longer get them from the BBC website. Listen to fraudsters try and convince you that the lose of their reputation is punishment enough for stealing millions of pounds, it is shocking, the arrogance of these people.


The Award for Story I Care Least About of the Week.

Some golfist called Tiger something crashed his car. Other things may have happened. Is this what our news coverage has come too? As Paul Weller once said “The public gets what the public wants”, do you want this?

The Award for A Continuing Very Dull Argument I keep having With People,

This week a work colleague had a meeting at the new Doctors surgery in Dorchester. I passed comment on the good lookingness of the building, “oh no” she said. When I questioned her, because she is wrong, she said “it's in the wrong place, next to those old buildings”. I was going to shout at her for being a historyless doofus but was stopped by another co-worker.
I have said it before and I will say it again, at one time all buildings were new. Once the Taj Mahal was new. Once St Pauls Cathedral was new. They were built next to buildings that had been there for a while and people had got used too. And look at our new surgery anyway, it's lovely,



I know that one of my readers doesn't like it and that might explain why she moved to Canada (We miss you xx)

We're off to a naming ceremony of our friends first born now. We're not really sure what this entails but we are about to find out. My guess was smashing a bottle of champagne over the poor little mite but let's see.

Have a nice week all, I'm off to build some nice new raised beds for my allotment.