Diana Watch

“So when is Margaret's funeral, I will definitely come?”

“It's on the 14^th,”

“Oh that's my birthday,”

“I'm sorry about that,”

“Oh no, it's nice to have something to do on your birthday.”

Oh thank the lord, all will be well, Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams are friends again and the original Take That (the campest sounding band name ever, except for Gay Bikers on Acid, maybe) are back together again!

 It seems that Labour really did have a bit of an idea of what they were doing with the economy after all.

 Revised figures from the Office for National Statistics released on Friday show that the UK economy grew by 1.2% in the second quarter of this year. Now I believe the second quarter is April, May and June. So Gordon Brown in charge April and some of May and then the coalition took over but only tinkered.

 What is encouraging is the fact that most of the growth came from the construction sector, which grew 8.5%. Building is usually one the first sectors to suffer in a recession but one of the first to recover.

 As you can see from the graph this is the 3 quarter of growth in a row and this growth includes an 11% drop in air travel mostly down to ash cloud based delays.

(I may have stolen this from the BBC website)

 So when the Tories and the LibDems took over all was coming along nicely, let’s hope that they don’t mess it up to much with this recent wave of privatisations.

The Government is pretending that the cuts in spending are for “Austerity” reasons but I don’t think anyone is really buying that any more. This has become ideological.

 Many of their ideas won't save any money but they have handed control over to private companies.

 For instance, the scrapping of NHS Primary Care Trusts and the handing of commissioning services directly to GP's.

 Well that's not privatisation, GP's are the NHS you might say.  Well that is sort of true. GP's surgeries are commissioned by the PCT's to work for the NHS but they are privately run companies who make profits for the shareholders in that company, usually the Partners in the practise.

 There is also an interesting new development is the Partnership Collective, basically a company that is run by GP's that manages lots of Surgeries. Usually they start in one small geographical area but they soon start bidding for services nation wide.  They do the managing, centrally, and local Doctors and Nurse do the work. Much like a big company because they are a big company.

 I work, on Friday afternoon, for one such company called The Practise. I think that their choice of company name does sound like a Dr Who baddies organisation (the computer system is called System One, even more sinister if you ask me) but an OK employer. Again, private company making money for the owners of that private company.

 Very shortly after the Governments announcement of the PCT scrapage scheme, The Practise organised a meeting with other local GP surgeries and offered to do their commissioning for them, for a little bit of cash obviously.

 So which ever way you look at it the money for buying services from the NHS will go to private companies, which is privatisation isn't it?

 The Government's attitude was also laid out in an interview on Radio 4's PM program when they were discussing the scrapping of the Audit Commission.

 The Government spokesman brought up many anecdotes about waste with the Quango such as hiring conference space, in which they held a conference by the way, and the excessive use of pot plants (I have no idea what the excessive use of pot plants is but the BBC sent a reporter to this spokespersons office and it was filled with pot plants). He also bought up a contract that the Audit Commission had with a bagel shop. When they had a meeting that clashed with lunch they got some bagels in, OMG the waste! I'm pretty sure that that is a nice thing to do and quite usual but I digress. These were all examples of waste within an organisation that was described by Eric Pickles, Communities Secretary, as bloated. Really, a man with as many chins as him really should choose his hyperbole a little more carefully, again digression, sorry.

 When it was pointed out by Eddie Mare that “isn't that the sort thing that the companies the Government will use to carry out the duties of the Audit Commission will do and do do”, the reply was well “yes that is true but I don't care what they do with the money that we give them, they are a private company” Ok, I might be paraphrasing but that was the jist.

 So nothing will actually change except to introduce profit as a motive.

 So on to the awards,

 The Award for Being A Massively Twatty Company of the Week,

 So you will have heard about the 33 Chilean miners who are trapped underground.  It seems that they are going stuck there for quite a while as, in order to rescue them, a whole new mine shaft has to be drilled. They may be not be rescued until Christmas. Trapped in the dark at 36 degrees C, everything they need has to be slide down a tiny tube.

 Because the mine is not working, the company that runs it is facing some financial difficulties, the Government will be paying for the rescue and THE WORKERS MAY NOT BE GETTING PAID!

The Award for Super Twat of the Week (and pretty much every week to be honest),

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Axl Rose. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has even a passing knowledge of his history with Guns N Roses but Friday night at the Reading Festival he gave one of more Divaish performances.

 He and his band of hired hands came on stage on hour late, at 22:30, despite being told that they had a curfew of 23:30. Because of their late arrival, no apology to the thousands of paying fans, they were allowed to play until Midnight. They left the stage after playing “Night Train” and then the power to the stage was cut as the 23:30 curfew was part of the licensing agreement but Twaxl wanted to play on.

 He returned to the stage, no power remember, and the drums began the intro to “Paradise City” which Mariah Wannabe Axl tried to sing through a megaphone. After about 5 minutes of this pantomime he left the stage.

 So elements of the crowd were less then friendly to him and booed after ever song and began chants of “what a twat” (see it's not just me)

 He then threatened not to play at the Leeds end of the festival tonight (Sunday) saying “ Unfortunately due to tonight we will not be at Leeds...” no mention that it was his own fault that Friday night's show was a bit rubbish.

I think that will do for today, a bit negative, sorry. I hope you all have a great week.

I've Got 99 Problems But Trying To Form A Government Ain't One

This really is only a short post but I have to put it up here because I can't reduce it to 140 characters and stick it on Twitter.

So we still have no Government (although things seem to be ok without them, maybe we should carry on) and the parties still seem to be negotiating and offering things to each other. My question is this, is this the worst of all possible outcomes for the LibDems?

They have 3 options,

1, Join (formally or informally) with the Tories.

This will piss off most of their party members because they will be giving power to a Right-Wing party that sits in Europe with people that Nick Clegg described as “Nutters”.

It will piss off everyone who voted for them because they didn't want the Tories in but could no longer vote Labour.

This will also loose them their support with the Left leaning press.

2, Join (formally or informally) with Labour plus the other little parties.

This will piss off most of their party members because they voted to get rid of Gordon Brown and the Civil Liberty abusing Labour Government.

It will loose them any floating Tory-lite voters who, for whatever reason, decided to vote LibDem this time.

This won't really effect their coverage in the Right-wing press because they already hate them for being reasonable in the first place.

3, Pull out of all negotiations.

This will impress no one, well maybe only really hardcore party members (can you have hardcore LibDems?), it will piss of Labour and Tory supporters who will describe the LibDems as irresponsible for not helping to form a Government.

This will probably loose them all sides of the press.

Whichever way they move it will loose them support in the press and, probably, voters. This situation is fantastic for the 2 biggest parties as there is the distinct possibility this will crush the LibDems.

I do not envy Nick Clegg at this moment in time.

Diana Watch

Dear Moany Football Managers,

                         Both teams have to play on the same surface, stop moaning. You lost because the other side scored more goals than you not because the grass hated you.

                                                Martyn Norris

Can you guess which paper has had Princess Diana on the front this week? Of course you can, now you have GCSE Media studies, it’s the Sunday Express,

 I'm not going to take up too much off your time this week because I have got some homework for you.

 Now I'm not saying that you have to read them all the way though because they are really, really dull but here are links to the main parties (and UKIP's) manifestos

Tory, Lib Dem, Green, UKIP, Plaid Cymru

The BNP

There doesn’t seem to be a manifesto for this election on their website but on past performances I think that we can safely assume that it would basically be “Go home Darkies” and would use the word Indigenous a lot without ever spelling out what that means.

The SNP

I can't find a manifesto on their website but they claim to have one. It may possibly be this though,

 Thank you to the BBC for providing this list of all the parties standing and links to information about them.

 OK, that is hard work I know so let's just get on with the awards,

The Award for the World's Most Self Destructive Snack,

 Are you scared of American Imperialism? Worried that the rise of the Religious Right in the US threatens rationalism in that country? Don't understand the appeal of Glee? If I was you I wouldn't worry too much because they will all be dead soon.

 Ladies and Gentleman I give you the KFC Double Down.

 The bread of this bacon and cheese sandwich has been replaced with deep-fried breaded/battered chicken burgery things. 

 If a heart attack could be represented as a food stuff, this is what it would look like.

 The Award Naked Opportunism of the Week,

 This goes to both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

 The Government sent out a leaflet saying that the excellent 2 week guarantee for woman with suspected breast cancer to see a specialist was under threat for Tory plans.

 These leaflets were delivered to thousands of homes and, naturally, some of the people who got one had had breast cancer or know someone who has (a bit like how cold reading works). Because people are stupid and self-centred they assumed that the leaflets were targeted at them and have complained about it.

 They were not targeted at anyone, it was just a statistical certainty that this would happen but that didn't stop both the parties weighing in.

 David Cameron called for an apology and called the tactic “sick” despite the fact that it wasn't a “tactic”. Even the mighty Vince Cable wasn't above lowering himself to getting involved and said there needed to be an investigation to see if there had been any abuse of data protection laws. No there doesn't.

The Award for Having a Dig at a Fellow Sportsman of the Week,

 Golfist Phil Mickelson won the US masters on Sunday. This competition was the much written about return of serial philanderer Tiger Woods to professional golf and the expectation was very high. It blanketed out pretty much everything else in the coverage but he did not win.

 On winning one of the worlds more pointless sports Mr Mickelson dedicated it to his wife.  

The Award for Self Important Self Appointed Busy Body of the Week,

Jim Gamble is the Director of Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop). He has decided, with the help of the Daily Mail, that Facebook is the devil.

 Despite the fact that there is no proof that his idea about having a “panic button” on the social networking site will make any difference to the safety of children using it, he still manages to get himself on the various news programmes and into newspapers to promote himself, sorry, his idea.

The Award for Having the Worst PR Department in all of the Known World,

More good work by the people who work for the Catholic Church this week (I'm getting a little bored of this now. 4^th week in a row that I have to mention child rapists and those that covered up for them).

 They have blamed the Devil, they have blamed the Press and now they blame..... The Gays. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's number 2, has said that Homosexuality was to blame for most of the “problems” that the Church has been having with continually employing child rapists and not the whole celibacy thing.

 Whilst in Chile he said “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and paedophilia. But many others have demonstrated, I have been told recently, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia. That is true. That is the problem.” Oh FFS. What century are you living in? Oh yes, I remember, sometime in the 18^th.

 I understand why they are trying this Blame Others approach. They are attempting to show the faithful that it is the things that the Church preach against that are the problem in a kind of “See, we told you so” sort of way, but it will not wash with the rest of us.

 Don’t expect any change in their policy any time soon though as the Church has only just forgiven John Lennon for his “bigger than Jesus” thing in 1966.

Oh, I supposed I ought to mention a bit of news.

Did you watch the Election Debate? OK, it was a bit dull and they had all “met” far too many people (David Cameron also claimed to have met a black man but I think that that is unlikely) but it does seem to have gone really rather well for Nick Clegg.

 I’m not going to criticize their performances to much though because it was the first ever debate and no one really knew what they where doing. Clearly they had watched the U.S. debates and had noted the tendency to use a heart warming or point making anecdote. Unfortunately they all went over the top and answered almost ever question with a little folksy story. Now all they have to do is practise winking to camera and saying “Y’all”.

 The other problem was the moderator. Alistair Stewart was rubbish. He barely gave them time to answer or rebut and bellowed over the top of them. I’m not sure if Tory loving Adam Boulton on Sky News will be any better though.

Some planes are unable to fly because of a massive cloud of volcanic ash covering most of Northern Europe.

 Whilst most of the papers were concentrating on the effects on travellers and trade, both the Mail and Express decided that the cloud, which is mostly at 25,000ft, will kill you.

 So if you are stuck somewhere and can't get home I do feel a bit sorry for you but to all of those moaning and scare-mongering in the press about food shortages can fuck right off. So what we don't have any asparagus imported from Egypt or lettuce from somewhere in Africa? How about buying British and seasonal? You may remember what food is supposed to taste like and maybe those countries can grow some food for themselves.

 “But I’ve got a business meeting to go to!” yeah, will I have Skype and can talk to people all over the world, on video, for free. Give it a try, you might like it rather than selfishly flying round the world for no good reason.

Oh and I am loving the stories from people who live around airports and can't believe their luck with all the peace and quiet that they are having this weekend.

 Please stop moaning, no one has or will die.

Do you think that your job is dangerous?

 Have a good week and enjoy the sunny weather (as long as it carries on obviously, it's not like you can fly to somewhere sunnier.)

Diana Watch

There really is only one story that I want to talk about this week. It is one of the most talked about and life changing events of the week (well in our house anyway). It could alter the way we live our lives for years to come. If we do not act now, history will judge us to have failed.

 As of July a Scrabble rule change will mean that you are allowed to use proper nouns! You will be able to put company names and the names of celebrities.

 A company spokesman said "This is one of a number of twists and challenges included that we believe existing fans will enjoy and will also enable younger fans and families to get involved." I'm sorry? What?

 Why do you think that young people need to be patronised by making the game easier? It is fun because it is hard, that is the point. Do we encourage children to play football by making the goals bigger? Do we get children to play “Battleships” by making the board smaller? Do we make teenagers seem more clever by making GCSEs easier? Ok, bad example (and I’m not sure if that is actually true) but my point still stands; making things easier does not make them more appealing. It does, however, make them less valuable. Have you ever been allowed to win by someone else, at anything, not just games? It is a totally empty feeling, even children understand this and they are stupid.

 JFK said “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard” He could have been talking about playing Scrabble.

 They also said that the changes will “introduce an element of popular culture into the game". Why is that a good thing?! I don’t want to have my scrabble board looking like a copy of Heat magazine. I want it to look like a scrabble board.

  Significant Other and I have discussed it and this is a rule change that we will not be implementing in the Norris household.

Ok, I suppose there was something else of some importance that happened this week. Gordon Brown has been to see the Queen and asked her if he can have an election and she said Yes (Do you think that she has an option? Could she say “No, cos I think that you will loose and I don’t want that twat Cameron in charge”? It seems unlikely).

 A clear Tory policy has emerged of not telling the truth about Nation Insurance. “We will not implement this 1% NI rise because it is a tax on jobs.” No, you will only raise it by 0.5% won’t you and “a tax on jobs”? Now this is a revelling line.

 What they mean by this is that it is a tax on businesses (rich people who fund the Tory party) but they have no problem with a rise in Income tax because that only affects workers.

 James Caan (out of off of Dragons Den) pointed out on Newsnight that the 1% rise will cost about £15 a month per employee. Will that stop a business employing a person? He said not. If they want a person they will employ them. He also pointed out that the NI rise only comes in when the employee earns about £20,000, how many shop workers earn that much? The job that I applied for at Millets (and didn’t get) paid £6 per hour, I don't think that I would have earn that much. So is the Tory plan nonsense and are their business friends only trying to preserve their profits? Yes, yes they are.

 The business men who queued up to side with their puppet, did I say puppet I meant Party, and say that Gordon Brown was wrong didn’t really fool anyone, despite David Cameron referring constantly to them.

 One of the people supporting the Tories was Sir Stuart Rose of Marks and Spencer whose company, this week, posted a health profit for last quarter of the year and estimates that it’s full year profit will be between £620m-£630m. Not really struggling then in the recession. They probably can afford an extra 1% on employees earning over £20,000 and not really notice it.

 Combine this with their calls for a reduction in Health and Safety legislation to make it easier for companies to kill you, their lack serious plans for increased regulation of the City and plans to reduce Inheritance Tax and you have to ask yourself, whose side are they on? I don’t think that it is yours.

 They are also a little hypocritical (I know this will come as no surprise) over income tax. On Tuesday the new top rate of income tax came in to force going up to 50% for those earning over £150,000. The Conservatives criticised this ferociously and, with various business groups, said that high earners would leave the country. Well they had one years notice and it seems that they haven’t.

 Despite this friend-protecting rhetoric they have no plans to reduce it.

 Whilst we are talking about tax and benefit changes can I bring your attention to these?

 Mothers will now be able to donate all or part of their maternity leave to their husband/partners. At the moment mother can take up to 52 weeks of fathers get 2 weeks but now the mother will be able to take 6 months and then go back to work and the father/partner can take the next 6 months.

ISA limits have been raised to £10,500 per year (so good for small savers then).

Sick notes have now been replaced with Fit notes. Instead of just being signed off sick your GP will be able to suggest what work you are fit for. Whilst there are a few problems with this, GP are not Occupational Health specialists for instance, overall this is great. Research seems to suggest that the sooner people get back to work the quicker they get better.

Now, as I have said before, I am no fan of Labour. I have watched my civil liberties disappear faster then the Twin Towers came down since 2001, they have taken us into 2 wars, 1 of which may be illegal and the Digital Economy bill is a disgrace but all of the above ARE great things and they should be applauded for these things.

And while I’m talking about Government achievement, the economy may do much better than predicted. 

According to the OECD the UK economy may grow at an annualised rate of 3.1% for the second quarter of 2010 which is much better than most other countries in the G7.

 Let me continue, if I may, with more slightly dull economic numbers.

 Many analysts say that The Markets are “jittery” about the possibility of a hung Parliament or the Countries credit rating being downgraded over the size of the deficit (this is so unlikely as to not be worth talking about). If this is true then The Markets are reacting in a very strange way. They are going up. The FTSE closed on Friday at 5770.98, up 58.28 points on the day. For the year they are up from their lowest point of 3968.40 points, that is a rise of 68%! Does that sound like a market that is concerned about how Labour are running the economy to you because it certainly doesn’t to me.

 Sorry, that was a bit dull but the points had to be made.

The scary thing about the pre-election is the blood lust that the 2 main parties have got up for cutting things.

Alistair “those aren't his real eyebrows” Darling said that they would have to cut harder and deeper (he was also writing porn dialogue at the same time) then anything done by Margaret Thatcher. Really? Fuck off. You are a Labour chancellor. What are you doing trying to keep up with the Osborne’s?

 And then they all try to hide other cuts in euphemism, “We will make efficiency savings”. So you are absolutely sure that these are not cuts then because when big companies merge they make “efficiency savings”. Shortly afterwards an awful lot of people loose their jobs and those that remain have their terms and conditions shredded. So I ask you once again, are you absolutely, completely and utterly sure that these “efficiency savings” are definitely, definitely not cuts?

The Award for Using Words in an Article That Only Newspapers Use,

There are some words that don’t get used enough in modern day English, such as bobbins and poppycock (which is my favourite word in all of the language), and there are some words that are only used by tabloid newspapers. The word “romp” for instance is only used by red top newspapers when they are referring to sex, i.e. “The footballer romped with the model”

 The mighty Daily Mail has decided to bring back a word that hasn’t been used in its correct context since Queen Victoria sat upon the throne. They claimed in an article about the New Dr Who assistant Amy Pond “that viewers were left scandalised” by her short skirt. Scandalised? Really? By some legs?

 Now I would link to the original article but I’m not clever enough and the Daily Mail on-line is like the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984, it is constantly changing things that have been printed to closer reflect the views of it’s witless commentators (and the Google Cached thing doesn’t seem to work for that paper). The article no longer includes that word because they probably realised that it has been used since the “Lady Chatterley” trial.

 I would just like to say to people who were upset, or indeed scandalised, by the sight of Karen Gillan’s (not even bare legs, although that might be the issue, oh I don’t know) legs that they should avoid nearly all female professional sport and it is probably best if you stay indoors for the summer (especially around May the 6^th sort of time).

The Award for Trying to Get Something Really Rather Wrong on to a Plane,

Two women have been caught trying to smuggle a dead bloke in a wheel chair on to a plane at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport. It really is as simple as that.

 They claimed that he was asleep and put sunglasses on him and then attempted to board a plane.

They also travelled to the airport in a Taxi. That is how observant taxi drivers are people, you can pop a dead bloke in one and they won’t notice.

The Award Sticking Your Head In the Sand and Placing Your Fingers in Your Ears,

 For the third week in a row I am forced, mostly by their own stupidity and trying to make out that problems don't exist, to mention the Catholic Church.

 Now I am not a religious man, well actually I am an atheist, and the activities of the worlds various religions are not of a great deal of interest to me except if they are justifying flying planes into buildings or telling AIDS ravaged countries that condoms actually make the problems worse or….., oh ok, I do take a bit of any interest but the Catholic Church is really trying to push the boat out at the moment.

 The Associated Press is reporting that it has a letter that is signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI, in which he resists the defrocking of a convicted sex offender.  Cardinal Ratzinger said the "good of the universal Church" should be considered in such cases.

 Rev Stephen Kiesle was convicted in 1978 for lewd conduct with two young boys in San Francisco and was sentenced to 3 years probation. His diocese, Oakland, had recommended Kiesle's removal in 1981 but it didn't happen until 1987.  Cardinal Ratzinger took over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department that deals that sort of thing, in 1981 and this letter was written in 1985.

 So here is another bit of evidence that shows that Cardinal Ratzinger was aware of the abuse and attempted to cover it up and what did his spokesman, Rev Federico Lombardi, say? Why he tried to play it down of course, saying “The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations."

Let’s end with a song to lift your spirits as I have gone on a bit this week.

I know that everyone else of a skeptical bent has linked to this or embedded it and that I am a little behind the curve here (as I am with so many things, I hear those Beatles are pretty good, you should check them out) but here is The Daily Mail Song by Dan and Dan,

Have a good week. The sun is out and the sky is blue, enjoy yourselves whilst you can as soon we may have a Tory Government.