The New Diary of a Nobody

The People Deserve a Better System of Government.

2007-10-11T13:53:00.001+01:00

In the last few weeks we have seen the blackest, dirtiest and most unwholesome picture of our parliamentary democracy. We have seen a new Prime Minister, uncertain on his feat, pulling cheap political tricks. We have watched as the leader of the opposition sneered and jeered and howled "liar" in everyway he could get away with. We have watched the leader of the third party leap up and down in indignation like a bizarre jack-in-a-box. And the rest of the political establishment have just lobbed detritus at each other like chimpanzees at a tea party.

And this unedifying spectacle has been refereed and egged on by a blood thirsty press, wallowing in the fallout of every carefully placed political bomb and jibe. None of this is new; our political system, in all its ancient glory is perfectly set up for such playground squabbles, the deliverance of not political servitude but bully-boy war mongering that echoes the worst of "Tom Browns School Days", "If.." and "Grange Hill."

And we, the voters, the paymasters, the supposed inheritors of this once great democracy, can only watch, ignored by the players, as they use our schools and hospitals and fields as their weapons, our taxes as their war chests and our country as their personalised battle field.

It is time for a change.

Our political system has changed little in the last few hundred years. Although legislation has broadened the qualification of those that can stand for parliament, and indeed those that can vote, once through the hallowed gates into the so-called Commons, a change comes over all that removes them from the common place to another world. A world of privilege, opportunity, and nepotism that is unrecognisable even to the old world school tie of now nearly defunct City institutions.

In this secluded village two systems attempt to work together. On the one hand, the work of committees supported by all parties yet reporting to the government; on the other a medieval tournament of division that is held together with threats and bribes and scandal by vicious whip touting sergeants.

The electorate, the proletariat, the merchants and the landowners, have little real insight to this world. For all that it is televised and recorded; it is kept on quiet sub channels and away from those who might just need some sort of guide to what the hell is actually going on. But where it is brought to the mainstream public consciousness, it is first edited and regurgitated using personal agendas and bias as a sauce, to be served up as a pie fight with the blood thirsty howls of the barbarian as its leader.

This is the system designed by our forefathers in a day when the general public, the great unwashed, were not supposed to see the mechanics, were supposed to be happy with their lot and would have little interest in anything but the result. The press of that day reflected the system with detailed analysis from the Thunderer and its peers and nothing much in the rags; very similar to today in many ways.

Except now something has changed. The politicians have noticed that while for the last hundred years they have been sneering and jeering the people who pay their salaries have simply lost interest. The voter feels disenfranchised. When and if they do vote many will just vote as they have always done, a very few will vote actually based on what is happening locally, and the rest will vote based on the last snippet of news or brash headline from a scheming, conniving editor, doing the bid of his or her power hungry Magnet. The rest simply don’t vote at all, and that can be half of them.

One need that has been identified by politicians is for more regional representation. But their solution, not wholly welcomed by society, is to add additional regional layers of government. At what cost? And would we see more time and money wasting arguments coming from these new assemblies? It is a typically political and impractical solution to, however, a very real problem.

Can this be Changed?

The short answer is probably no, simply because the very people that have to ratify any change are the people who are benefiting most out of our current system. Billy Bragg, pop star, occasional poet of the people and voracious campaigner for a changed second chamber, has found this out the hard way. Whether you agree or not with the fine details of his idea for electoral reform of the Lords, most, I think, would agree with the aspiration of his campaign. And yet, despite much publicity and momentum, real change in the House of Lords is still many moons away.

But that does not mean that an attempt should not be made. This is our country, our way of life, we should be sure that the system that underpins they way in which decisions are made actually produces well founded ideas propped up by knowledge and expertise that is grounded in good sense and research. The current system, by its very gladiatorial nature, seems to produce good policy by accident rather than design, if it produces anything worth while at all.

But any change has to be not only in the way things are organised, but in the very culture of the system. It is pointless changing the committee system if before any reports or recommendations the ability of free thought is taken away from participants on the grounds of party loyalty. It is crazy making rules that ensure that we have the most representative parliament - male and female, Asian and Caucasian and African, Jew and Gentile and Muslim (and atheist?), gay and straight, single and married - if when this stew pot of people take their seats they merge into an ugly parody of colours: Blue and Yellow and Red. It is daft to elect a politician on the grounds of their support for a local institution if their party then has a national agenda against such support. And it is pure madness for a politician in opposition to come up with an "urgent policy" if then they are to say that no one else can pursue it because they are in a different party; for instance the one actually in government and able to do something.

I watched David Cameron today look at Gordon Brown as if he was something nasty on the sole of his shoe; behaviour of the kind that would have earned me a smack from my Conservative supporting mother when I was young. And yet, both he and Gordon Brown purport to be highly intelligent men both capable of taking on the reigns of government and making something of this country. How? By sneering? By ridicule?

My initial reaction was that it was a pity that Guy Fawkes did not get the job done back in the 17th century. But I realised that this debased system was creating a worse problem than two school boys poking at each others eyes. Because, where politicians have talents, have strong ideas and a sense of duty, their abilities are being wasted by a system that does not allow them to have considered opinion. And challenge, when it comes, is either from others wrapped up in the same system or from the media who really do not care a damn for the future of the country; that is not their job. So the challenge is as meaningless as the original idea.

Take the report by Iain Duncan Smith on our "broken society." The report, on the face of it, has contributions from many worthy contributors. But it fails at the last hurdle because any conclusions it makes (and it makes many) are tailored to fit the reader; those tried and tested blue-rinse Tories. So the report calls society "broken" when, despite high crime figures, the actual percentage of brokenness is small enough that most people would never have noticed had not the report told them about it. And the report decides that it is the fact of getting married that stabilises a family, when it is probably as accurate to say that it is stable people that tend to get married. So much work, so many words, so many contributions, yet the summery is but the meanderings of a political junkie and based little in reality.

I repeat; it is time for a change.

Tearing down the Temple and Starting Again

The Houses of Parliament are a quite stunning complex of buildings; one of the largest parliaments in the world they are dripping with history, despite the fact that much of it really isn’t that old. In 1834 a fire caused by burning outmoded tally sticks in a stove, burned most of it down. After much public debate the chambers that we know today were constructed. The design seems to owe much to the jousting tournaments of yore when supporters of the two competitors were ranged on opposite sides of the fray. It makes for fantastic pictures, but maybe not for such good governance.

In most democratic governmental chambers around the world the layout is more in the round, with even the leader of the parliament sitting in a nonexclusive position. Indeed, when the frighteningly expensive Scottish Parliament was built in recent times this was the design approach taken. With a few exceptions, this design leads to a less confrontational style of debate. Less confrontation means more constructive debate, it is as simple as that.

And to further prevent the creation of psychological barriers, MPs would sit not grouped by party but by region. Not only would this, to a certain extent, "split friends up" like at school, but would encourage regional representation. If the MP sitting next to you has a problem with his or her area, then this problem may well also affect you. Whatever party the two of you are from, it would not be difficult to see how you may end up clubbing together. This is good representation and goes some way to addressing the lack of representation of regional issues.

I believe it is time for a new Parliament building, though I would hesitate letting a world class architect anywhere near it. Parliament is meant to be for the people, so this building should be, ideally, designed by the people and commissioned by the people, and at a cost that the people are prepared to pay.

Offices would be without status; all politicians would get exactly the same size private office; functional, clean, simple and neat. The offices may also be arranged by region as we have arranged the seating in the chamber.

Committee rooms would all radiate from the central chamber to remind members that it is the central chamber that carries the decision, not nefarious deals done in side rooms.

With the exception of dealing with security matters, doors would be of glass, there would be no locks, no restrictions, no barriers. All business conducted within these parliamentary walls would be open to scrutiny at all times by all people; though I concede that private rooms would be needed when dealing with sensitive issues concerning members of the public. But use of these would be to strict rules.

Canteens would be healthy, simple and open to the public. Members of Parliament are meant to be representatives of the people, not above the people. If they are having their space paid for by the people, they get to share it with the people.

Over all, the design should not just promote a culture of cooperation and equality, but should shout its intention to the world so that the public never forgets why it is as it is, and never stop reminding MPs of how they should be.

Changing the Rules of Engagement

Gordon Brown, in his first few days as Prime Minister, said he wanted to create a new politics and a new government. He wanted a government of the Talents, and he would not be restricted by party lines as from where he got those talents. In some small ways he has done this, but I doubt that he has achieved it to the extent that he would have wished.

The trouble lies with how our party system is governed. A political party is meant to be, in my near unreachable, idealistic world, a collection of people that are drawn together by common ideas on how a country can be made a better place. However, in reality, a political party is a tribe bound by common ideological principles that bear little relation to what is possible or practical or would be any good for anybody, let alone the entire population. I believe that historically Labour has suffered more from this malaise than other parties, but not exclusively.

In this tribal system any policy has to be judged as worthy against an ideological test. Basically, does it fit with what we believe, comrades? If a policy does not fit, then it is discarded even though it may have been the perfect solution. Strangely, Tony Blair was the oddity in that he really didn’t care whether a policy fitted comfortably with his party or not to the extent that he more or less changed the name of the party to fit the new policies. This was rather refreshing. Though it is arguable whether the policies he followed actually had any useful merit, the one thing they were not was tied down by a straight jacket sown by zealots.

In a truly democratic system, any one should be able to bring an idea to the table. To a small extent we have that now in the form of a private members bill. Unfortunately, since these often do not have the support of the major, or even minor, parties, they seldom see the light of day; hunting being the one exception.

Let us take the subject of climate change. The major political parties have been commissioning reports left right and centre to prove their green credentials. However, once they have their conclusive report it is then squeezed into a natty policy suit and presented as "the urgent thing we must do about climate change - if we ever get into power that is." Of course, the government of the day is unwilling to take up any part of the oppositions report, even if it has merit, because, well, they are the opposition!

And the opposition, should the government take any ideas, will use it as an excuse to call the government a thief and a charlatan.

This makes you wonder how much ANY politician actually cares about Climate Change. Or is it just another vehicle to catch votes at the next election?

In our new system, all politicians would have equal opportunity to bring forth policy ideas. The government’s job would be to take these on board and decide, through debate and vote, which will actually make up the business of the next parliament. There are probably a thousand potential pitfalls in this as I have laid it out, but there has to be a better way than the idea strangling one we have now.

Communicating with the Outside World

Life blood to any politician is exposure. And I doubt any system we could design would remove that need. However, how that communication is managed, and how the press fit in, needs some serious rethinking.

The most obvious case is the rules that should govern Government Announcements. Although I understand the need for information to be given to Parliament, it is also essential that it is given to the people - they are the paymasters - and given directly, not second hand via friendly newspaper editor.

Not just the government, but politicians in general must make their primary responsibility to the chamber and its machinery. It would be made illegal for a politician to make any comment for publication where their name is not firmly attached and they subsequently can make themselves available for scrutiny in the chamber. We really must see an end to "unnamed government source." It is probably the single most disenfranchising statement a journalist can make. "I know who said it, but I am not telling you!"

ALL government announcements, as a point of law, MUST be made formally to the chamber in the first instance, and immediately followed up by a detailed explanation to a publicly distributed news release - a sort of government funded newspaper and website combination but without any editorial comment, etcetera. This must happen BEFORE any interviews with the all important independent press.

And, talking of the press, in so much as it will be illegal for a politician to brief "off the record" so any organisation publicising such briefings would also be committing an offence. It the press wants to print scandal, fine, but the scandal will have to have a name.

Politicians say they are eager to "reconnect" with the electorate. But their actions do not reflect this intent. So we need to force them to reconnect by putting the electorate FIRST in any communication or consultation.

And in debate we must also force politicians to clean up their act. If Gordon Brown says that he wants to have a window tax to fund housing projects, I do not want to hear what David Cameron thinks of Gordon Brown. If Cameron agrees, I want to hear that. If he disagrees, I want an alternative. Too often, in this country, the only noise to come out of a politician’s mouth is their personal opinion of their adversary. We are fed up of this static that blinds the system. Our mothers had it right when they said, "It you have nothing useful to say, say nothing." About time our MPs started taking that advice. The speaker of the house must have the power to stop a politician who does not contribute to a debate in such a way as to positively forward a good idea. In practice that means much of Prime Minister’s Questions would be in trouble.

Regulating the privileged few

MPs and member of the Lords were until the mid-nineties self regulated. After that point the rules of conduct, of privilege and of standards have been regulated by an independent Committee on Standards in Public Life. However, this committee, though independent of government has been criticised for being subject to pressure from Parliament. In 2002 Elizabeth Filkin resigned as commissioner after a whispering campaign. She had upset many well connected committee members and MPs after her investigations of several high profile members on both sides of the house, including John Reid and William Hague. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/commons/story/0,,614633,00.html

In our brave new world, an independent panel selected from people who have no connection to the MPs (so most of the public) would have complete control of what MPs can or cannot do. This would need to be a robust organisation with powers to investigate individual allegations of misconduct and prosecute, challenge and sanction where appropriate. Its responsibility would also include the second chamber (the House of Lords currently has no appointed Standards Commissioner). I suspect some of the rules that would come about would be things like:

An MP is an employee of the state and is not allowed to moonlight in any other paid job.
An MP may not sit as a company director or be a partner in any organisation or hold any office in any private or public company.
An MP may not be a consultant to any organisation, company or charity whether such consultancy attracts enumeration or not.
MPs salaries may only be increased inline with inflation.
MPs constituency offices and employees will be supplied by the state and cannot be paid for through the expenses system

This would probably result in a considerable loss of income for some MPs. If they were unhappy over this, the question would have to be asked whether they became an MP out of duty or for reward. If it transpires to be the latter then it is arguable that they are an inappropriate candidate as a Member of Parliament. It has been argued before that if you do not pay MPs substantial amounts that you do not attract the best candidates. Bearing in mind that an MPs job is not administrative and does not require high level managerial expertise (that is the role of the well paid top civil servants) then I would think this argument fails to hold water. And if in the process we reduce the number of QCs who become members of parliament, who are better suited to adversarial games than honest discourse, then that would be no great loss.

Lobbying is another area where the rules allow MPs and lobbyists to abuse and misuse the system, such as it is. We need to change the way lobbying is carried out by making it official and available to all. Any company, organisation or individual who wished to lobby parliament has to first work with their local MP. They have to apply to the MP directly and are not allowed to employ a lobbying company. The MP is duty bound to help them with their request and not put up barriers to their request being put forward.

The actual lobbying is done by the MP publicly in front of the relevant committee. Lobbying is not a matter for private communication. Because it would be made illegal for any money or favours to change hands, a private person or small charity should have equal power to lobby as a massive multinational.

The other often major bone of contention is in the registry of members interests. This lists MPs earnings outside of their salary and things like investments in companies, especially where those companies may have any involvement in government. It is not practical to ask someone to sell everything if they wish to become an MP, but they need to be divorced from at least some of their interests and have the carrot of independent earnings removed from temptation. A friend of mine ran a small but successful radio production company for many years. He was then asked to head up a department full time at the BBC, an offer to good to miss. However, as part of the deal he had to agree to either close his production company or hand it over to someone else and play no further part in it. It was seen as a corporate conflict of interests. This is common in the wider world, and the same criteria should be applied to MPs. In practice, this would mean Kenneth Clarke could not be a board member at British American Tobacco and an MP at the same time.

Of course, it would be unfair to prevent MPs from doing local engagements like charity auctions, speaking and so on. However, as these would be seen as part of their job they will doubtless be happy to do these on a voluntary basis.

Certain aspects of the job like foreign jollies have already been tightened up, but there are still gaps in the system where an MP forks out money and then claims it back as expenses. This has previously brought claims of nepotism as one or other MP has employed a member of their family for a nice fat sum paid for out of the national purse. If additional expenditure was managed directly by the parliamentary accountant’s office (so they pay salaries for MPs and assistants and rent for the office etcetera) then the MPs would have much less room for sneaky manoeuvres.

The Honours System

The origin of most honours systems lies in patronage to a monarch, and ours is no different. Lords were given titles and land either because they had done something for the crown or were going to do something, like give it money. It is the oddity of the recent "Cash for Honours" scandal http://politics.guardian.co.uk/funding/story/0,,1972222,00.html that what they were investigating was the very thing the system was set up for in the first place.

Today, however, there is no place for such an archaic system, but I do believe that society needs to honour their own in some fashion. I would therefore propose that the entire honours system be removed from our governmental system in entirety and placed back in the hands of the Monarchy.

Since our Monarch has no direct political influence or motive (I would suspect that she has had little great approval for any recent governments) there would be no political corruption possible. The Monarch, as part of her role, would then appoint a wide ranging committee to control nominations for awards. We would keep the titles and awards as they are since they are familiar and respected by the public. But they would no longer hold any political patronage.

Without the creation of political "Lords" we lose the present system that floats the House of Lords. And that is therefore next on the list.

A New Second Chamber

I feel at this point I should shut up and just hand over to Billy Bragg http://www.secondarymandate.org/ Although his idea is far form perfect, at least he has had one, which is more that most have managed.

A second chamber, sometimes called a Revising Chamber, has always been a bone of contention. The arguments against it being elected is that is just becomes a clone of the first chamber and nothing much is achieved. The argument against it being appointed is that it becomes corrupted by nepotism and favour.

However, I feel these arguments only have any validity within the present governmental system. If that system is changed, these arguments no longer present a problem.

Appointing a second chamber is always tempting because of the ability to cherry pick the most talented who would not otherwise consider going through the duress of an election. But the problem is that this is always someone else’s appointment, not yours, and how can you trust another’s motives? And who gets to appoint in the first place? The government or Monarchy? We are back where we started. In addition, you only get part timers this way.

I lean towards a completely elected chamber. However, I would be interested in examining the case of a "Chamber of Independents." This assumes that party affiliations (taking the whip) are disallowed. You cannot stand either as an official member of a party or by being supported by a party. You must be independent.

This second chamber would be much smaller than our new Commons, and the members would be elected on a regional basis. Apart from not having a party, these members would also not have the same kind of constituency responsibilities as MPs; their regions would simply be too large. But they would have area offices with staff so that they are well versed in local issues and with the local council.

This would be a full time role with full time attendance expected; either in the second chamber or their local office. All members of our Chamber of Independents would be expected to scrutinise policy as it came up from the Commons Chamber and any previous expertise would be used as appropriate. Medical Doctors would expect to find themselves sitting on health committees, for instance.

I would give these now hard working Independents an additional responsibility. Since they are regionally elected, they would become ambassadors for their Local Council to the parliament. They would not have an active part to play in local level politics, but when the council needs representation and advocacy at parliamentary level, the Independent would be the person called upon.

Making Votes Count

Much of this essay has been spent, in one way or another, in an attempt to reconnect our system of governance with the people who commission it. And indeed to make the public realise that they are the commissioners of our government, not it’s subjects.

But I cannot in truth address this issue without bringing up the thorny matter of Proportional Representation. The debate has moved significantly since I was young with PR being adopted in parts of our system, for instance both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have some elements of PR.

It is felt by some, the Liberal Democrats in particular, that PR is the curative for our lack lustre voting record. However, voting numbers have been falling all over Europe, most of which uses one PR system or another. But it does engender cooperation and I feel that as long as people still feel that they are being represented locally and regionally, can still get hold of their MP and have them work for them, then the advantages of a system or PR would outweigh the disadvantages. But I am no expert here and am willing to hear the various arguments for the various systems. I can say, though, that I think time is called for our head to head, first past the post system.

I want my vote to have meant something.

Conclusion

What I propose here is not some carefully worked out plan, for I do not have the tools to engage in such an enterprise, and is without doubt full of holes. It is instead a gut instinct approach to what I think is a very real problem: our parliamentary system is quite simply inappropriate for our society. It has probably been inappropriate for some considerable time and it is doing us no favours.

Politicians from all sides would argue that it must be fine for look how much stronger our country is now compared with 20 years ago. But I would argue that the country has become stronger despite the politics not in spite of it. I do not deny that our government has achieved some important goals; the minimum wage and independence for the Bank of England in recent times, and legislation to attempt to depoliticise the Unions from the previous government. But it is also true that where there is success, politicians will take credit and where there is failure politicians will be quick to blame someone else.

We cannot change human nature. Politics is, has always been and always will be attractive to those with a large ego and the arrogance to support it. But what we can change is the system that allows them to get away with it.

We need a system that not only makes the politician accountable to parliament but to the electorate. A system that is so open, and where its rules are so well publicised that there really is no where for the opportunistic MP to hide.

The public are the ultimate employers. Through elections we hire and fire. But so often we vote globally rather than regionally, so that we retain the bad MP in favor of our preferred party. A change of system could change that; could mean that MPs have to work closely together as a matter of course, and in a way that is both seen and understood by the public.

Finally, a word about the Forth Estate: The Press (or media).

The press have become part of the political establishment. They argue that they are representing the public. Andrew Neil has said that directly on This Week on the BBC. But he fails to appreciate that we do not want him to represent us. We did not elect him, have little in common with him and certainly do not empathize with him. Journalists are monumentally unqualified as representatives as they are so often slaves to their corporate masters’ agendas, or their own small Westminster village mentality.

A new parliamentary system that is not only far more open but is highly communicative and able to be scrutinised by the public will go a small ways to surgically removing the media bunion from its backside. And perhaps the press can go back to doing what they should be doing - reporting the news rather than creating it.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, said Bert Lance in 1977. Except it is broken, and we are paying for it. About time it got fixed.

Technorati Tags: Government, politics, commons, parliament, media, election

A New Home for the New Diary?

2007-09-24T10:50:00.001+01:00

The Rat has moved and taken up residence with the bear and the boar!

Confused?

Come and see me at my new home here.

News Articles
The New Diary of a Nobody
A Rat's Tale
Reviews
Food and recipes from the Bear
Music
Cartoons

So much more than I could ever squeeze into this little cage and with a lovely new design. It's a real home for Boars!

PLUS

The Bear is putting up some of his FAMOUS RECIPES:

Chicken Soup - a proper winter warmer from the Bear
Tomato Soup - not your tinned rubbish, but fresh and succulent
Piri Piri Chicken - the way that Nandos DOESN'T cook it!
Basic Bread - a straight forward, high quality bread recipe to build those biceps
Scrambled Eggs - this is how you should be cooking it.
Haddock Pie - a wonderful fishy lunch for sunny days

What more could you want?

Come and JOIN THE FUN!

Nobody.

Nobody is moving

2007-08-21T01:19:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note to say that this blog has not been forgotten, it is moving.

I am currently building a quite over complicated affair with a thingy called Joomla that will have all kinds of wonderful things!

First of all it will have news sections that I can use for just straight commenting and reporting.

It will also have a recipe section, because food it so important, don't you think?

And of course it will have the continuing New Diary of a Nobody.

But why am I doing this?

Well, I started writing the New Diary of a Nobody as a diary, with one paw in the modern world, and yet one eye very firmly fixed on Mr Pooter, the original Nobody Diarist. But I became distracted and the diary forgot to be a diary and just became a list of comments.

The new site will, I hope, rectify this by separating current affairs and my not always wonderfully charitable comments about them, and the Diary, which is and should really be about what confronts one over breakfast.

So, I am programming away, and when I am ready I will post an address.

Nobody

The world of the sad little git

2007-07-11T15:31:00.001+01:00

Today I have received a little deluge of comments from one sad little hopeless git.

He, for I assume it is a he, has found my quiet little blog and decided not to comment on what I have said, but to simply insult me.

I do not know this person
I doubt he knows me.

He strikes me as someone who would never dare say these things to my face.

In one post, he says he is doing this because he is bored at work. He should feel himself lucky - I doubt he would have work if this attitude of his were better known.

I do not understand this type of person.

It is similar to the kind of people who write viruses for computers and then giggle Beavis and Butthead style to themselves as they see peoples machines and sometimes even livelihoods eaten away.

Or the spotty little sad chap in school who drops nasty little notes into some girls locker. Then hides behind a tree to see if he can glimpse her knickers.

Or the kids that throws mud at an old ladies window, because somehow frightening the living daylights out of her is seen as funny.

Ian Duncan Smith talks much of a Broken Society and blames, unfairly, the role of unmarried and single parent families.

Maybe he would be better to focus on why there are so many nasty little people like this person flinging insults at me. Maybe he can find one of the Tory's famous islands to put them all on.

But then they would have to get on with each other, and that they would find impossible.

The Internet has become a haven for such people. They can hide behind it, be anonymous, giggle till they drool at the wave of sickness they spread.

But the one thing I can guarantee - they don't boast to their mummies about what they did in work today.

Technorati Tags: bullying, harrasment, mental illness

All bets are off then!

2007-07-11T14:36:00.001+01:00

Brown reviews casinos

Diary Entry for Wednesday, 11th July 2007

It seems that our Green may have been saved a fate worse than death! I and the other residents had been most disturbed that one of the houses at the far end was planning to open a roulette and craps room.

In our quiet little backwater this seemed most inappropriate. Dear Mrs Benedict was the fist to denounce the plan. She is a staunch Catholic, but errs further to St Francis than the mainstream of that era. Although she has a most noble home, gloriously bedecked with tasteful objet d'art, she is in constant state of guilt over the sin of personal possession. That being the case, you need only imagine her views on gambling of any kind - especially formalised!

Mrs Peach was the second to foray. She bashed on my door to announce the fact of the project. This was a scandal, the good lady announced from the very depth of her magnificent girth, and the post mistress would have been most upset by the news, had they not already closed the post office.

There was another side to the argument. The far end of the green is less affluent than our end round the monument. It leads onto our regrettably decaying shopping high street and establishments such as the football pub complete with large vulgar TV screen. IT was being promoted that this establishment would provide colour and gayety to the area, jobs for the unemployed, and bring money in.

This is where I started getting very confused. For I have, on occasion, been forced to spend an evening in such establishments around the world. My experience is that they are often built in the cheaper, areas of cities to save money. That the local economy benefits in no way whatsoever since the casino also offers accommodation, restaurants, shops, entertainment - anything and everything to keep people indoors. And that the only gayety that is provided is some pretty garish bright lights.

And of course, the one set of people who cannot afford to go to the casino are those that live next door.

Now, legislation as it stands, means that the establishment cannot open, but my local Labour MP assures me that there is a great demand for it and so they are changing the law. Great demand from whom? Everybody, apparently. And she proved it by showing me a piece of paper. Sure enough, it said "every body want a casino in the Green." And it was signed by Ricardo Castilliano (Sicily & Las Vegas) Ltd. Independent researchers.

Well, that was that. It was researched - though all in the green were a little confused that nobody had actually asked them.

Now, you can probably understand my relief when the First Lord of the Treasury stood up today and more or less said, to hell with that idea and sat down again. Actually he announced a review, but you could see the outcome of the review all over his face.

I think I might grow to like this First Lord!

Nobody

As long as he has nice teeth

2007-07-11T13:29:00.001+01:00

A lazy day today. It is not that I have nothing to do, it is just that I have little will to do it with. This is a common malaise; not just common to me, but common to all that use eclectic thinking as a way of life.

The most prominent of these types are the politicians and the media who together strive to lead/control our world as much as practically possible without getting shot.

Nick Robinson today has posted a short and neat article about Political Cross Dressing. He is referring to the issues of housing, education, health and welfare and how the two main parties of conceit, the Tories and Labour, seem to be unclear as to which colours they are wearing for which issue.

He is concerned, it appears, that there is worry within the Brown camp that the Boy David has stolen the moralistic high ground.

It is an interesting issue this. When does the practicality of running an institution such as a country become a fight for ideals rather than useful action? Nick points us helpfully to an article by the Guardian's Jonathan Freeland. Jonathan is discussing the US political climate and argues, with some good reason, that US voters want their politicians to achieve things for their lives, but they want them achieved through heart-appealing rhetoric, rather than to be sold to them with statistics, tables and ven diagrams.

I have sympathy with that attitude; a friend of mine's mother once noted that she would vote for the man who had the nicest teeth. Actually, this is not such a whimsical ambition. It was not so much the nice smile as looking for the type of person who would care about having a nice smile. Any woman of a certain age will remember her mother liking a particular suitor for his neat and tidy dress sense. It was seen as a sign of success, of stability, of intelligence.

Likewise in politics, an MP or Senator who is seen to have an emotional bond with an issue can be, at least in the short term, more convincing a champion of that issue than someone who demonstrates a solid technical understanding of how it works.

However, I think this only works so far, and perhaps not as far in this country than in the US; despite my friend's mother's fixation on dentistry.

Therefore, it may be a little premature for people to condemn our new First Lord, just because he is number orientated. Because the politics of passion is more complicated than simple speech making or crying in the right places. Blair got this one right - almost instinctively. While he was seen as being passionate about any subject, he ensured just enough grasp of the figures for people to feel he had a real grasp of the subject. Remember here that little criticism of Blair stuck prior to the Iraq war. Since the war, many people have decided that since he got that wrong, every thing else MUST be wrong. The logic is appalling, but there is nothing logical about politics; well, not if the press have any say in the matter.

And this is a good place to bring in the press. In Jonathan Freeland's piece he cites the book "The Political Brain" by Drew Western. Western spends pages and his psychology background, to explain that the political brain is an emotional brain. Well, we kind of know that! (I refer you to the dentures once again.) But this assumes that people only react using their political brain. He tested people by confronting them with political speeches; those that hit home most were the ones that appealed to the emotional receptors in our brain. However, people don't just think of politics when confronted with speech making. If you are cueing in hospital your political brain may crave for a solution, but your pragmatic brain would rather an answer to "how long will I have to wait."

And it is this second approach that, I believe, better describes peoples day to day aspiration need from the political establishment.

So, they may warm to David Cameron's tirade against the Broken Society, but when they need a house, they will love Gordon Brown for saying he will build a house exactly "here."

Davis Cameron has taken on Blair's impassioned role - but it is not the only major role in politics. The Son of the Manse with his pragmatic approach can also fulfil the nations need, but with one proviso - will the media, who love a passionate battle, let him?

Nobody

del.icio.us Tags: Brown, Cameron, politics, speech

Technorati Tags: Brown, Cameron, politics, Nick Robinson, BBC

Daily Mail Incites Hatred

2007-07-10T13:47:00.001+01:00

Standing in a queue at my local supermarket is a pain, but it does afford one the opportunity to gaze at the headlines of the various national newspapers.

Distance means that I cannot read the whole article, just the headline, and so it is a good test as to a headlines intent.

Following the Conviction of the four cowardly idiots yesterday for the attempted bombings of 21st July last year, the Daily Mail ran a headline making a massive deal over the fact that the terrorists were refugees on benefits.

So what?

What is important is that they were 4 criminally minded thugs who wanted to kill innocent people. Who cares where they came from?

99.9% of vicious nasty crime in this country is caused by home grown, white, British thick heads. Racists attacks are caused mostly by British Nationals.

Now, I know that the Daily Mail is simply xenophobic and nationalistic. And I know they never feel more pleased with themselves than when they are hating someone, but do they really think that by inferring that the problem here is that the convicted were refugees is really going to help anything?

No. It will just increase divisions, turn more ignorant white nationalists to organizations like the BNP, and make life worse for everyone.

Yep. I have no problems in saying that the Daily Mail incited hatred.

Don't we have a law against that yet?

Grumpy Nobody

Technorati Tags: Daily Mail, hatred, politics, 21/7, refugees

Up Sticks and rush to save the Queen!

2007-07-03T23:25:00.001+01:00

The old carbuncle, my dear housekeeper Mrs Bi-Monthly, decided this morning to turn the household into an over chlorinated public bath. Or at least that is how it felt to my embattled nasal passages.

The result of this campaign was that I resigned myself to find quarters elsewhere in the city. First stop would be to St James and lean on the favour of my Club's Doorman. However, my untimely arrival seemed to have put the gentle soul's nose out of joint as he was having some of the brass work re-guilded.

Next stop, therefore, was to the Commons, and a restful loiter in the Gallery above the chamber. If you have not been there I would recommend a visit. It give a magnificent view of the commons and as long as there is nothing major happening is a good place to relax while the business chatters on below.

Not this day, however. Three things occurred. Firstly the new Prime Minister decided he would flex his ample vocal muscles to the delight or otherwise of the assembled. Secondly, he decided to rewrite, or at least write, the constitution on the spot. And thirdly, he did not have the foresight to brief the hacks, so the whole flaming crew from paper and TV were packed into the gallery desperately trying to remember their shorthand.

To be fair, the new First Lord of the Treasury had some interesting things to say. You may wade through it here.

But a quick summery might be put at returning, or bringing, more power to the common man. Hmmm. So that would be away from the Monarchy then? The Royal Prerogative, perhaps? That will make a few of the old Lords Jittery down at the club! I didn't think that GB was a republican, but with phrases like Bill of Rights and WRITTEN constitution knocking around, and passing more powers to the commoners, and a threatened statement about the future of the Lords before the Holidays - well who knows?

Worrying times indeed!

However the reactions of the Tories and the Lib Dems brought things down to earth. Quite a lot of what Brown said you would think would find favour - especially with Ming the Meaningless, and even with the Boy David, when in his more liberal mood.

But no - faced with the possibility that Brown might just find favour with the British People, they upped drawbridges and just accused him of having blood on his hands.

Well, they obviously want change then!

All in all, a most disquieting day. I am not sure what I fear most. The Old Carbuncles spring clean at home, or the First Lords hosing down of the constitution in the commons.

Nobody

Technorati Tags: politics, Gordon Brown, bill of Rights, constitution, monachy

Monday's child is full of woe!

2007-07-02T23:15:00.001+01:00

Diary Entry for Monday the 2nd of July

Sunday dawned wet and feverish, which is somewhat off putting when one considers that the date hailed it as the first of July. I remember a time when July greeted us with sparkling mornings as the dew was lifted from the grass by the breaking sun, warm lunches and long evenings. This July, however, is thoroughly anti-Wimbledon, for those who still partake of that ancient sport of Lawn Racquet Tennis.

However, I who am thoroughly bored of grunting and groaning athletes headed for the cultural challenges of the Waddesdon Manor Art Dance and Drama festival. Hundreds of over eager youngsters tapping and whinnying and over acting them selves to oblivion. One of them belongs to my household, so I went along with well practiced cheery face to enjoy the happenings.

For some reason, the day decided to keep the wetting to a minimum, and we managed to watch most of what was required while remaining mostly dry. And jolly good it was too!

It is an interesting affair. A goodly entrance fee ensures that although the performances may be many moons away from professionalism, the staging and equipment is first class and run by professionals. At least, when mistakes were made they came through the speaker systems with a clarity and precision the like of which is a treat for a school performer, if a little painful for the less than doting members of the audience.

Returning home, and I decided to treat the family to one of my little fish suppers: baby clams cooked in a fennel and tomato soup, grilled fillets of salmon, calamari, grilled tiger prawns and a bowl full of soft rice with courgette and red capsicum.

Eventually I find my way onto the Internet to survey the weekends events. The normal mix, some dreadful flooding and the odd political note was almost completely drowned out by the continuing attempts by people to blow us all up.

This is really quite upsetting and bewildering - why should they want to blow up some kids in a nightclub? Or a family on their way to holiday?

Oh, I understand that baffoons like Gorgeous Galloway think that it all our fault, and that Lord Ahmed thinks we should just go around saying sorry to everyone, and perhaps start worshipping his god to be on the safe side, but personally I think all that is a load of baloney!

I really don't think our current stack of radicals and terrorists are doing this because we have upset them. They are doing this because they don't like us. They don't like the way we can laugh at anything, including them. They don't like the fact that we protect gay rights. They don't like that we think women as equals to men. And they really hate the fact that some of us simply do not believe in their god at all.

This is not especially a Muslim thing - there are Christian idiots out there who hate the same things. It is a fanatics thing, and this world does not need fanatics, of any shape or belief. The BBC today asked how safe do you feel in the UK? MY sole comment was simply we did not run from the IRA, we won't run from this lot either; it is business as usual.

Talking of the BBC, I noticed that a bit of my blog ended up on Nick Robinsons blog under "blogs linking here." I better start saying nice things about him! No, give me just a minute, I'll think of something ...

Nobody

Technorati Tags: Waddesdon, bombs, George Galloway, Lord Ahmed, Nick Robinson, monday

Smoking - It's a dogs life!

2007-07-01T23:44:00.001+01:00

Welcome to the Dog Inn, Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, which is, apparently, the last bastion of the great, smelly English smoker.

For it's Landlord, a certain Anthony Blows, supporter of the daft UK Independence party, contributor to The Big Debate web site (current postings, erm about 9) and server of fillet steak and onion rings (do people really still do that to fillet steak?), has decided that he is in a mood to defy the smoking ban that came in today across England.

At a potential £2500 fine a go, this is no mean thing to decide. But he is being supported by the rather disgraceful Freedom 2 Choose lot, an outfit of bad losers who really can't get their heads round the fact that they have, umm, lost.

Mr Blows is quite verbose on the subject, according to Auntie:

"I'm doing it for the simple reason that this is my home. My wife and I work 200 hours a week in this pub. It's private property and there's no way they can stop us doing it.
"Pubs have been smoking for goodness knows how long and you just can't do that. It's been brought in on the back of a pack of lies."

A pack of lies? Let us try that again: A pack of lies. And which pack of lies would that be? The one that says that 600 lives could be saved each year across the country? Or the one that says all those people who are dying of smoking related diseases caused through other people's smoke are just delusional?

Or perhaps Mr Blows believes that this is a freedom of speech issue? Well okay, I defend his right to make a fool over himself about lung cancer and it's incredibly strong links to passive smoking, but I do not defend his right to blow smoke in my face while he is doing it.

To help him along, I hive stolen a few links from Wikipedia's very informative article:

WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control; First international treaty on public health, adopted by 192 countries and signed by 168. Its Article 8.1 states "Parties recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco causes death, disease and disability."
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General", 2006; One of the major conclusions of the Surgeon General Report is: "Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke."
California Environmental Protection Agency: Air Resources Board, "Proposed Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant" (June 24, 2005); on January 26, 2006, the Air Resources Board, following a lengthy review and public outreach process, determined ETS to be a Toxic Air Contaminant (TAC).
WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer "Tobacco Smoke and Involuntary Smoking" IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Vol. 83, 2002; the evaluation of the Monograph is: "There is sufficient evidence that involuntary smoking (exposure to secondhand or 'environmental' tobacco smoke) causes lung cancer in humans. [...] Involuntary smoking (exposure to secondhand or 'environmental' tobacco smoke) is carcinogenic to humans (Group 1)."
"An individual male never-smoker living with a current or former smoker is estimated to have an approximately 9.6% chance of dying of ischemic heart disease by the age of 74 years, compared with a 7.4% chance for a male never-smoker living with a nonsmoker. The corresponding lifetime risks for women are 6.1% and 4.9%." Passive smoking and the risk of heart disease, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 267 No. 1, January 1, 1992

The Dog In is a very pretty, if empty, little pub, going by the photos on Tony Blow's website, and I am sure it would be a very popular place to visit.

But I wonder how many people don't go there because it is a very smoky environment?

Others have also been busy. Anthony Worrel-Tompson has hosted a dinner for his FOREST friends, an organization magnanimously supported by the tobacco industry.

Apparently, the Director for the Institute of Ideas (which sounds a pretty bad idea in the first place), one Claire Fox will say the ban is sign of our "small minded times."

"These new modern puritans demonise our behavior and preach illiberalism."

That would be the 80% of the English public who back the plan, then. That would be 48 million people to your, well, one. You lose!

Look guys, let's face it. You have been blowing smoke in our faces without giving a damn for several hundred years. I know, I was a selfish smoker too, once. Now it is the turn of the people who think you can take your silly little arguments and shove them right up Worrel-Thompsons back side!

Nobody.

Please note, if any sad people from Forest or Freedom 2 Choose, or their daft, mislead supporters want to comment on this tirade - don't bother. Since I believe that you all now resemble the primary school bully who has been turned on by the rest of the school, I will take teachers advice and simply ignore you.

Technorati Tags: smoking ban, forest, dog inn, freedom2choose, fresh air

Five Carcasses of Mutton anyone?

2007-06-28T16:42:00.001+01:00

Diary Entry for 28th June 2007

It has been a long day. I have to have walked at least thirty miles, going by the worn carpet between my desk and the telephone. Thirty miles of anguish, thirty miles of expectation, and what do I get?

Well, bugger all, to be honest.

Mr Brown says that he will be looking for Talent. He says that he needs to broaden government to ensure the best of ideas. He says that he will work across the political guide.

And to that end, this old rat has been pacing, and willing, and gnashing the old teeth waiting for the phone to ring. And did it? Nope.

Talking of talent, or not as the case may be, it appears that 5 ancient lambs are off on a world tour. Fabulous. That should brighten up my day about as fast as a stale pork pie. So one of my erstwhile contemporaries called to ask would I be indulging in any tickets. I asked the usual questions:

Have they had singling lessons?
Has Victoria realized that pouting makes her look like she is about to throw up?
Has Baby spice discovered that boring does not equate to stardom?
Has Mel C discovered anything at all?
Please tell me that Gerry has gotten rid of that Union Flag dress!
And what has Mel B does with her locks?

If the answer to any of the first 4 is no, forget it.

As Graham Norton pointed out, reunions only happen when Solo careers have gone ... oh, we see.

Technorati Tags: Brown, cabinet, talent, spice girls

The Rat gets up to date

2007-06-28T15:44:00.001+01:00

Well, tail at the ready, this old rat has just installed Windows Live Writer.

I was a touch nervous as I really don't like anything MSN flavored normally, and in fact have MSN blocked on my router.

But I have installed it and am trying it right now!

So paws crossed, eyes shut and tail firmly clenched ...

CLICK!

EEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!

"pant pant pant"

Er ... I will be back shortly!

del.icio.us Tags: windows live writer, microsoft

Ah, the racists nibble back!

2007-06-26T19:12:00.000+01:00

Diary Addendum - 26th June 2007, about half past seven.

Some 18 months ago I wrote a short post about a bigoted little site called Majority rights, or some such. It basically said they were a horde of puerile gits and we should ignore them.

Much to my surprise, today someone posted a comment to this very old article. It read:

Dismissing opposing ideas as "racist" or "against human rights" is easy and callous, but regrettably all too common. Perhaps you discourage your readers from visiting the site lest they agree with some of the arguements made? Best to put your head in the sand and not participate in a debate - why, you might be persuaded that you're wrong. And we wouldn't want that now would we? (I have left his spelling mistakes)

Now this person is either part of that rather horrific little enterprise, or just a cowardly, sad little fellow; for all their wonderful words, they had not the guts to put their name, even a nick-name to the comment.

So I have rejected the comment (as it would have been buried many posts ago and out of people's gaze) and put it here so we can all giggle at it in our own, wonderfully multicultural time.

You see, unlike with many subjects where there are more than one justifiable argument, with racism there is no justifiable argument - it is hideous, destructive and full of loathing and bigotry, however it is presented.

Oh, come on, if I am not allowed to be nasty to racists who try and cover up their paranoia and fear of other cultures behind so-called learned texts about sick ideas like "Ethnic Racial Interests", then who can I be nasty to?

All together now - laugh at the bigots!

Nobody

It's a Sheep!

2007-06-26T15:23:00.000+01:00

Just rushing by, and really can't stay long!

It appears that one of the more garrulous Tory Darlings, one Mr. Quentin Davies has finally gotten fed up with Boy Cameron and has done a flying leap across the house to join the Labour benches.

A Europhile by nature, this precocious individual has had an unremarkable career in the diplomatic service, followed by hi-jinx with industry and finally ended up in a Tory safe seat in 1987.

Since then he has held several posts under Thatcher and was a member of the treasury select committee. In opposition he had a front bench cushion with Bill Hague speaking on Social Security (as one of the richest of the house he is well versed on that!) then he did Northern Ireland with IDS and International Select Committee with Dracula. During this time he and one of his shepherds got fined for mistreating sheep, whatever that means.

One way or another he has quite a lot of experience and, as we all know, Och Aye Brown is head-hunting.

Still, interesting to see how he fits in.

In his parting shot to the Boy he said: "Under your leadership the Conservative Party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything ... Although you have many positive qualities you have three, superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions, which in my view ought to exclude you from the position of national leadership to which you aspire and which it is the presumed purpose of the Conservative Party to achieve." Ouch!

Toodle pip!

Nobody

And Baaaaaa!

Quentin Davies

Get Rich Quick Scheme for Young Victoria

2007-06-26T00:12:00.000+01:00

Diary entry for Monday, 25th June 2007

It seems that the world of celebrity has never been in better shape. As I write these very words, little skinny Victoria (Beckham, by marriage) is running to the bank with a little windfall gained from Star Magazine. (Sorry, it is a Google cached page as they are off-line at moment)

It appears that the ignoble tome published some article where a crew member mumbled that VB could be “full of herself and not very nice.” Now, although all of us at one time or another have probably suffered far worse slurs than this, when you are such a little wall flower, like our Victoria, these comments really cut to the core.

It is all that thing about image, I suppose. It has become frightenly important in society these days. Time was that image was all about who your father or mother was. Riches were not so much earned as passed on, and the magazines were respecting of the people that filled their pages, and therefore justified the cover price.

Mind you, most celebrities of that time did hunt on a weekend, and magazine editors were all too aware that there is a fine line between guest and prey, if you get my drift.

Of course, times have changed, and it is now the celebrities who are wary of the editors. This is fine for those who have come from nowhere to fill that job vacancy of “being famous.” But for those born to it, it has become most tiresome. Many of the traditional celebrity families have gone into business, shoved the stately pile into the trusting hands of The Trust or English Heritage, and are far more likely to be found parking their Yacht in lesser know ports like Puerto Andrax than getting fleeced by the paparazzi outside of some club. Not all succeed, though. One royal prince has made a couple of errs in that direction and as for certain Heiresses, especially to hotel chains, well, this is what happens when the parents have no notion as to when and how to debut their daughter. She ends up doing it herself all over the internet!

Back to Little Mrs Beckham, I can’t really see her causing over much trouble, except if she got panicky. Many years ago, when the Spice Girls first launched their debut single, they came into the studio to record a syndicated radio interview. While they were there, we also asked them to record some A Cappella little idents for various DJs – the resulting flattery would help get the interview played. A little wobbly on their platform heels, they did an okay job – nothing so bad that a bit of reverberation wouldn’t sort out. And since Mel B had been performing in Cabaret in Blackpool for several years already, I kept her voice strongly out the front.

As for Victoria, however, initially I thought she hadn’t been singing the level was so low. But a little fiddling and I realised she was there – bless her, but I think the girl was nervous.

Remember, these were early days for this lot, and despite their brashness and bravado, and desperately trying to live up to the “girl power” image their management had dreamed up for them, they hadn’t yet come across many knackered old sound engineers like me, who tended to keep proceedings going at an almighty pace, and has an unfortunately good ear and hatred of using Auto Tune.

They did okay in the end. None of them are stunning singers or musicians or actresses or beauties or anything else really. But together they were a bit of fun – and sometimes that is all that is needed.

So, Little Victoria, go and bank the money and tell the nasty little magazine to go and stick it’s head in a bucket!

Nobody

Wet voting papers at dawn!

2007-06-22T14:43:00.000+01:00

Diary entry for Friday, 22nd June 2007

I can get very miserable at times. It takes a certain combination of unnecessary lumps in my life to achieve the state, but on occasions, a little like an obscure alignment of planets, things come together and I feel heaped upon!

The first one is tiredness. This I get in random amounts with no basis on the amount that I have had in sleep the night before. It is very computer orientated – or should I type “oriented” as lazy people do these days? Back in earlier eras, the quill was a very important form of communication. It had a certain method about it that brought the mind in line with the paper, or papyrus if you are that old, long before the need arose to start with the words.

First one picked ones feather – not too fresh, unless you enjoy being chased by next door’s prize goose. Next involved a gentle settling into ones favoured writing chair. Now, out with the knife, and a thoroughly therapeutic trimming of the above feather. Lay down the cut and split quill at the neat groove at the top of the lectern, and take from within blotter, ink and paper – always in alphabetical order!

Pour a little ink, not too much, into the ink well (expertly polished by the man, or course) straighten the paper, lift the quill, ink it and begin.

To be honest, by the time that rigmarole had been completed one had more or less written the piece in your head and the process of writing might as well have been copying.

Today however, I pressed the W on my computer and empty and hungry page leapt before my eyes. The machine might as well have yelled WRITE at me as it did so. Oh, the pressure of having to be so immediate is quite exhausting!

The next planet in my unhappy constellation is Europe. It is that time again. That yearly ritual when we bang heads in Brussels trying to make the Great European Experiment finally work, while trying not to remember that the real reason for this is to stop us Euros from shooting each other. Don’t mention the war, is the mantra. Someone forgot to tell the Poles, however, and they wanted to pilfer some votes from the Germans in return for having so many of their population killed in 1939 onwards. Well, that brought on winter a little more rapidly than expected!

This outing they are trying to get Europe to work with the efficiency of a single country without it actually looking like a single country. Because if it does look like a single country no one will want it.

It is like a family. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins – they all get a lot nicer when they go back to their OWN homes on boxing day, don’t you think?

Trouble is, Europe is one big country really, and always has been – at least since we out-bred, or wiped out, the Neanderthals, or whatever we did to them. You can tell we are – we like beating each other up way too much to be just occasional friends. We just have to be related!

A miserable alignment, I find needs a minimum of three sad planets. In reality, if it has any more one would rarely notice: after the first three one is far too busy being miserable.

Third on my list is Michael “Twinkle Toes” Portillo. (Pron: Poor Tee Yo, or not, as the case may be)

Twinkle Toes, named for his ability to gently hop from one position to another, gives us the outpourings of his mind on a regular basis in the London Times. Being a foreigner really, his take on anything European can be more educated that most – well, at least until he tries to assimilate that into British Politics.

He should know that us Foreigners are genetically incapable of understanding the Anglo Saxon version of how to get on with their European Brothers. Therefore it is almost completely pointless to try.

But try, Twinkle Toes does.

I include this little offering:

“Most voters care little about Europe. They do not like it much and they do not want Britain to be drawn in deeper. They might once have been scared into accepting the euro, but Britain has held aloof since it was created and they can see that we have prospered. If the new constitutional treaty - whatever it contains - were put to the vote, it would probably perish.

“Voters are not obsessive. Obsession is a condition that affects politicians only. Obsession creates a gulf between politicians and their public because it reveals them to be other-worldly. Cameron needs to keep his obsessive’s under wraps.”

M. Portillo

Oh, Michael, dearest Michael! It is not that they don’t care, or understand, they have just been told what to think for so long that they have forgotten to think for themselves!
Hurumph! Do I believe that? No. But Borosso, the President of the wretched European Commission does – and he has the influence of a falling elephant, so that means something.
So, I am miserable. And I am hot. And I really want to compose something meaningful, but I can’t even get through chopsticks without reading the score. How useless am I this day?
I think I shall go into a corner and chew on the end of my tale.

Nobody (And feeling like it)

WE chose who’s honoured, not you!

2007-06-18T20:49:00.000+01:00

Diary entry for Monday, 18th June 2007

It is that delicious time in June when all hard working civil servants run down the school corridors, anxiously cueing up at the school notice board to get the end of year results.

Who will be ringing the bells with their new gong? Will Chiverly-Morris get his bath orders? Has Jiggery-Spitell got an M or an O?

This year it appears I have been disappointed again. It would seem that my book about how The Prophet was a nice man really simply did not upset enough people. Even my publisher, who may or may not have forgotten to publish it.

However, that Rushdie fellow may be not so impressed with his prize. Because, by a calamitous oversight by the Prime Ministers office, someone forgot to consult the Pakistani Government to rubber stamp the final list. Had they remembered this necessity, dear Salman may have missed out on not only a Knighthood, but the possible necessity of going back into hiding.

One has to remember, you see, that there is a large part of this world who believes that they have the right to tell the rest of us what to think and believe; how to behave and which laws to follow. And surprisingly, that is not always the Americans.

In this case it also includes the Labour Peer Lard Ahmed. While conceding on News 24 that he never got round to burning Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses”, he did leave the impression that knighting one of the countries best writers was a mistake and that perhaps letting him publish in the first place was also a mistake, free speech being so important and everything. His free speech not ours, apparently. He also said that there are loads of great writers out there who should have been honoured instead who did not insult a religion.

Perhaps he would be thinking of Michael Palin, CBE, for his script for Life of Brian. He’s a good writer. And I rather enjoyed Life of Brian.

Maybe he thinks we shouldn’t have offered a knighthood to Alan Bennett. After all, being gay is an effrontery to Islam and Christianity. I certainly doubt that I will be offered by favoured Gong after this. Since I am an Atheist and think all religions stink like a dung heap.

So, all in all, between Lord Ahmed and the ridiculous minister of religion in Pakistan and, for that matter the Pakistani foreign minister, my enjoyment of the Birthday Honours has been thoroughly squashed – well that and the fact that I appear to have dropped off the list again ….

Pah!

Supermarket Chuckle

2007-06-15T10:52:00.000+01:00

Side note: 15/06/07

Oh, what a wheeze! With copious amounts of rain falling on our green and pleasant, erm, green, I took to following a little paper trail. I fancied a visit to the Internet homestead of the British Retail Consortium, which as far as I can tell is the mouthpiece of Tescos. I only say this for whenever I hear their representative, Dr. Kevin Hawkins (Safeways), speak on TV or the wireless, they are always defending Tescos.

They are also the brains behind the almost completely indecipherable nutritional info that they have used rather than the delightful little traffic light system that the noble Food Standards Agency recommended after a thorough 2 year study. (But then the food standards agency doesn't have Tesco as its leading member.)

Anyway, while on the website I noted a section about myths in the retail industry. One of these is, apparently, that small, local and totally independent shops are being driven out of business by the big chains and the out of towners. The BRC completely rebuff the All-Party report from 2006, calling it badly argued. They said that their figures didn't add up as if the independent sector reduced as the report claimed that there would be no one left by 2015. However. the BRC forget to tell you that as old shops close, new ones do open - even if they are hounded out by artificially high rents caused by the chains being prepared to offer more money.

Instead, the BRC suggest that one reads the more credible and balanced report by the totally independent, international think tank and registered charity, the IGD. (Who?) Well, I went to find out who this acclaimed and noble body was.

The answer was in the list of trustees for the organisation:

Name	Title	Company
Mr I Bacon	Chief Executive, Sugars, Europe	Tate & Lyle Sugars Europe
Mr D Blackhurst	Trading Director Food	ASDA Stores Ltd
Mr M Coupe	Trading Director	Sainsbury's Ltd
Mr A Garden	General Manager - Western Europe	Procter & Gamble AG
Mr C Hutchison	Vice President, Europe	Wilkinson Sword Ltd
Mr P Kelly	Group Corporate Affairs Director	Compass Group plc
Mr D Kittmer	UK Finance Director, Petcare	Masterfoods (Division of Mars UK Ltd)
Mr S Newiss FIGD	Vice President, Global Customers, KIC	Kraft Food
Garry Price	Chief Financial Officer, UK & Ireland	H J Heinz Co Ltd
Mr V Robinson	Director of Sales	Nestlé UK Ltd
Mr T Smith	Sales Director	Unilever Bestfoods UK
Mr D Turner	Chief Executive Officer	One Stop Stores Ltd (Tesco)

Obviously, a robust and totally independent body

Bah!

Nobody

PS: The tactic during interviews that the BRC have taken against the traffic light system is to make people think that there would be one traffic light (red, green or amber) for the whole of the packaging. In reality, each of the main areas of fat, salt, sugar, etc are traffic lighted. So you might have a red for salt, green for sugar, amber for fat. Clever huh? Read THIS article to get a clear picture.

A hundred trees and not one good word!

2007-06-14T15:20:00.000+01:00

Diary entry for Thursday, 14 June 2007

Falling flat on ones face while stepping out of the old abode is, quite frankly, hardly the most edifying of sights. Nor is it one of the most expected. Though I suppose that would depend on the why one fell.

It started last night. Mrs Benedict, she of the more Catholic persuasion, held a small soiree for those of a literary bent. I, a small time wordsmith, invited as much out of courtesy as anything else, received my invitation but 30 minutes before the expected event. If ever an action were to lead one to believe that one was “filling a suddenly vacant chair,” then that would be it.

Attached to the invitation was a hastily scribed note requesting that perhaps I might say a few words to the assembled guests about literary experiences? It was one of those things that each one of us was no doubt likely to have to do. However, others of the assembled would probably have a little more time in preparation; for instance, finding out a little about the other guests. If I had sent a lad with a message to find out such delicacies, I would have arrived at the house at the same time as he; so it was pointless.

That morning I had been reading an interview with our dear First Lord (otT). It had taken me around 6 minutes to read at a leisurely pace and yet was billed as a thorough comment on his career prior to his impending retirement. It struck me then that the writer must have left out vast amounts of the original transcript in order to cram this witless little piece into it’s allotted column inches. Further study revealed how what was left so neatly coincided with this particular news journals tepid view of our FL (otR).

Ah! Thought I. A subject for the attention of the guests. I shall enthral them with my observances on the nature of modern political journalism in our over communicated environment.

Things never go as neatly as intended, and an argument over a bent penny with a London Cabby left me running the remaining 5 streets to the home of Mrs Benedict. This was especially galling as she lives but 5 streets from chez moi! Needless to say, I was one and a half courses late into a three course supper and had hardly had time to seat myself and offer my apologies than I was upstood once more to give my short deliverance.

Perhaps it was the fine Porter, but four sentence in I found myself in full flow. I offered up the problems I had had in communicating to the press in assured detail, when they had little time but to grab my first sentence and run. I described the spectacle of a rabid press, a feral pack, so desperate for a story that they ignore much else around them. I spoke of my own inadequacies in communicating clearly. I fleshed out the argument that the partnership between press and politics had become so keen as to alienate the general public. All in all it was a sound performance, well balanced, hardly laying much blame, but simply exploring a most difficult subject.

And then this morning came, and one of those details that I had had no time to investigate rose it’s face in a ten foot high pile of tree pulp, laced with vitriol, inaccuracy, and slander.

As I disentangled myself from the pile of First Editions stacked purposefully on my doorstep I realised that my assembled audience had been none other than representatives of the very media that I had referred to. On reading their comments, not one availed them selves of the balance that I so carefully put forward. Not one was interested in my admissions of failings in my own dealings with the press. All had just picked up on one word, Feral, and had built an entire fabrication around that.

Pah! Ungrateful, spiteful, arrogant lot! And to think I had been so kind, too!

Nobody

See also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6748367.stm

The Media, The politician and Mrs Peach

2007-06-13T10:46:00.000+01:00

Diary entry for Wednesday, 13 June 2007

Mrs Peach is a round woman. This is not, in my opinion, an insult, but more of an affectionate nod in the direction of roundness. Mrs Peach is also an efficient woman. Efficient in so much as what ever she starts to say, you can be certain that by hook or by crook, in spite of wind, rain or a blizzard, Mrs Peach will finish saying.

Efficiency and Roundness, all packaged in one person who is determined to delay the start of my, as you should know, important day. Not more important than any other, but important in the way that any day should be important.

I caught the beginning of what Mrs Peach had to say; it was roughly located in the direction of the somewhat unpredictable postal delivery in our Green. I also caught the latter end, the part where, despite protestations, I eventually made my escape. This part centred itself on the fact that our current, but rapidly fading, Prime Minister was going to at last tell the press where to stick it. That is correct; the woman said “stick it.” She didn’t say precisely where it was going to be stuck or, indeed, what “it” was, but stuck it was definitely going to be.

Unfortunately, and commonly, I did not absorb the middle part of the lecture that may have explained to me the connection between the first part and the last part. However, this would have to wait, and as I circumnavigated the efficient lady, I bid her a sunny day and attempted NOT to run to the waiting hackney carriage.

The Cabbie was a little clearer, in that he separated the two subjects for me (admitting ignorance of our green’s postal service) and concentrating on the speech made by Mr. Anthony Blair, First Lord of the Treasury. It appears that he feels very hard done by, “I mean right hard done by, if you get my drift sir!” The hard donners being the massed feral pack of the media.

One cannot help but have a momentary pang of sympathy for a man who has been media-pummelled so relentlessly of recent. But this pang should be, in truth, but momentary as it is the media not the PM that supplies one’s morning literature. And as I actually put my hand in my pocket to pay for such, I have loyalty if not to the organs, but definitely to my wallet.

Passing past the surprisingly dusty visage of the Labour Party Chairwoman, I had time to disseminate the entire context of the speech; graciously and, one hopes, accurately transcribed by Auntie:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6744581.stm

John Snow, the anchor of the Channel 4 News programme, around a year ago on a rare debate appearance, said that he felt that the news people had got the balance wrong and that in a bid to "confront" the politician the answers required by the viewer were lost. Or something like that. A year on and I would say his style has not changed, though he did say at the time that perhaps it should. And Nicholas Robinson, Aunties reckless young Political Editor, has blogged noticeably about the subject. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2007/06/feral_media_my.html

He appears to be worried that Blair, and indeed others have traded accuracy in their reporting for impact. As if they would!

I kind of see is ire over this but I think journalists have traded accuracy somewhat, though not for impact, but intrigue. Over the years I have had many journalists wander through my line of sight, and I was often bemused by how their infatuation with intrigue, with the Westminster Village, would completely subjugate the heart of the story.

It is that old “affair” argument. Can a minister who has had an affair really do his or her job properly?

In reality? Of course he or she can. And do. John Major, the last First Lord that the Tories managed to put up, seems to be a prime example here. So much was he able to do his job that nobody even noticed he was having an affair till his partner in crime wrote about it in a book many years later.

However, can the politician do their job properly when the masses of the media will not let them alone over the affair?

No, they can’t.

But the public, to whom the politician is the servant, expects the job to be done. Indeed, we pay for the job to be done. But the intrusion of the press, the feral battle for those precious column inches, prevents that from happening.

The intrigue goes further. How often in reports has one heard “sources close to …?”

If a news journalist were submitting such an article to the Wikipedia, it would very soon be marked as not meeting standards as it was full of unsubstantiated claims. And quite rightly too! And yet politicians and journalists alike use this form of news dissemination more and more frequently and expect us, the paying public, to just except it. This is sort of taking us for granted and in the context of “news” rather than “views” should not be acceptable. Politicians and Journalists shouldn’t expect the public trust, they should earn it – with accuracy, substantiated fact and clear, unbiased opinion.

There is also the messy area of personality and celebrity.

When Mr Robinson interviews Mr. Prescott, to some it would be difficult to argue which is the most famous. Or which was just Rory Bremnner.

Dear Reader, it is not in my interest to shun celebrity, but it does well to admit the pressures that such an office can put on the way one delivers one’s life to the masses. Take the postal problems of our green. Now, the round lady may be having problems with the delivery of her favoured periodical, but those such as I survive on the literary content of the large sack of letters that our postman has to stagger under the weight of before he has even the chance to collect post for any other green dweller. Such is the price that has to be paid by the celebrity and everyone within a half furlong radius.

The journalist has become celebrity in this age of the media pack; one who must balance the needs of his editor with the needs of his agent. It would be a brave person who attempted to put those two into any sort of list of priorities!

So, I reflect, as I pick my way through the rubble of what had once been a prospective office. I reflect on the flashing bulbs and incautious pens of the media, I reflect on the departing back of the dusty candidate for the Labour Party deputy leadership, and most of all, I reflect that tomorrow morning I will leave my house, overlooking our green, by the backdoor!

Nobody

Logo Arrogance

2007-06-12T12:34:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | UK | Olympic inspectors to visit site

And at the press conferance we were hit by a wonderful moment of arrogance when Lord Coe admitted that the logo had been signed off by the International Olympic Committee in Febuary - three months before they actually asked the public whether they liked it.

You can really go off people!

Sign the Olympic Logo Petition!

2007-06-11T17:02:00.000+01:00

The debate about the obnoxious London 2012 logo has not yet gone away.

In fact there are TWO petitions to sign. So, why not sign both?

The Go petition has been extended, so you can still sign that one:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/change-the-london-2012-logo-extended-campaign.html

And you can sign one that goes to the Prime Minister too:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Change2012Logo/

What are you waiting for?

Scrap the new London 2012 Olympic Logo - quick!

2007-06-05T01:29:00.000+01:00

The London Olympic committee launched its new logo yesterday to gasps of derision.

Londoners hate it:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/london_2012/article1884503.ece

5000 odd people have posted their hatred on two BBC sites:

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=6494&&amp;amp;&edition=1&ttl=20070605013300

and ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A23431826

13,000 people have signed an online petition so far:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/change-the-london-2012-logo.html

According to the Times, even Ken Livingston, the Mayor of London, hates it.

And people have been writing to the papers, phoning radio stations - you name it, people have complained about it!

But why?

It is simple. This waste of graphical space has just cost $400,000 pounds and wasted an entire year of our time.

Logos have a very fixed role in advertising terms.

They must be instantly identifiable
They must be easy to understand
They must NOT rely on technology to make them exciting since the greatest use is always in the static form
They must convey simple facts - in this case 3 facts: London, Olympics, 2012
They must not try and convey deep meanings as this over complicates them, but help make the complicated bits more accessible and identifiable.
And THEY MUST NOT MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO LAUGH AT YOUR ORGANISATION!

Finally, they really should not cost a fortune. Whether you are a company or a committee, you ALWAYS have more important things to spend money on.

Now I know that the £400,000 is apparently private money, but watch how much public money is spent on trying to make this waste of space exciting - all that extra cash in animating it every which way, thousands of pounds putting it everywhere, hoping the public will grow to love it.

And then there are the sponsors. When they buy into something like the Olympics, they get to use the logo. Except everyone thinks the logo is a joke. How will that make the sponsors feel?

One person on the BBC site commented that this will make Britain a Laughing Stock. Lord Seb Coe, who arrogantly is ignoring the public and defending the indefensible, should start listening, listening hard!

Meanwhile - go sign the petition, and if the downing street lot ever get their fingers out and authorize one of the many attempts for a petition on there, sign that too! Oh, and moan on the BBC site and everywhere else.

It would be nice if the government listened to it's paymasters for once!

Back to this local issue bit

2007-05-04T01:58:00.001+01:00

Teresa May, Tory, has just talked about some "churning" of the vote in local elections where they are insisting on voting on local issues rather than National trends.

Ummm ... these ARE local elections. Why are people meant to voting then Ms May?

Nobody

Fog halts count in Western Isles

2007-05-04T01:48:00.001+01:00

So reads the headline on the BBC.

Fog? Causing a problem in Scotland?

Well I never!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/6622037.stm

The Local question

2007-05-04T01:43:00.001+01:00

In the UK the local council elections are about very local issues and personalities. In my local experience they are also about back biting between candidates that really should not be let anywhere near a local authority.

In the media, however, local issues are ignored and the local elections are seen as a poll for any forthcoming general election.

In this particular election, so far not a lot has happened. Some have gone up one or two seats, others down one or two seats - but certainly no overwhelming, headline hitting catastrophe or success.

Sounds like the voter really cant be bothered to make any particular point for the benefit of the media or the national parties.

Between cups of copy and nipping at Nick Robinson's blog - I remain your very alert:

Nobody

Blogging Mad for the Elelction

2007-05-04T01:38:00.001+01:00

Nick Robinson of the BBC is blogging as he is broadcasting. And we are commenting back as fast as possible.

Has this all got out of hand?

Nick's Blog: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/

What right has the Daily Mail to kill a career?

2007-05-02T09:42:00.001+01:00

Lord Browne, chairman of BP, has resigned after failing to stop an article about his relationship with his former partner.

Jeff Chevalier had a 4 year long relationship with the head of BP before deciding to sell his story to the Daily Mail.

So why did the mail publish this story?

Because through it they could give a malicious, unnecessary and school bully style kicking to someone who earns lots of money. That is it. In the story there were also allegations of improper use of BP resources (denied by every one), but the only real reason is that Lord Browne is Gay.

Oh my god!! Lord Browne is gay!!! Lets all rush to the papers and destroy the horrible little man!

So what?

The Daily Mail, this miserable little paper, really has nothing better to do than kick someone who has been very well regarded in running one of Britain's highest profile and most successful companies.

Unfortunately, in his complete embarrassment, Lord Browne was not truthful about how he and Jeff Chevalier met, and now may face perjury charges. The editors of the Mail must be wetting themselves in their pathetic glee.

THIS is our society, where the bully wins, where publishers think they are the real judge and jury, should decide who runs the country, should promote the religion of celebrity and should do it all so they can take our money.

We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age - this was meant to be the enlightened technology age, but instead it is just the Bully Age.

Nobody

BBC Artcle: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6612703.stm

How the Press exploit victims

2007-05-01T11:36:00.001+01:00

The BBC today is reporting how victims and families of victims of the 7/7 attacks in London are pushing the government for a full blown, independent inquiry into how the intelligence services conducted their inquiries. Click Here

These people are being exploited by the press to CREATE news that just isn't there.

Yes, there were contacts between the Fertilizer bombers and the 7/7 bombers - there were contacts with a thousand or so other people too. This was a massive intelligence operation, but despite that, there is no way that every single contact could have been followed continuously. And, lets face it, at that early stage how was anyone to guess these two people would go on to become suicide bombers 18 months later?

But still, the press sinks it's teeth into the victims. The press knows that the victims have no more valid opinion than the rest of us. In fact, like the rest of us, they know nothing of how intelligence operations of this type are conducted, what the limitations are and what is in reality possible. The press know that the victims can, however, be used for unreasonable, emotional pressure - with real reason other than the presses obsessive desire to make a story far bigger than it is.

So, the press encourage, push, mislead, anything to get the relatives to say the things that make great headlines.

And the victims groups - do they know how they are being used? Do they realise that they are not only the innocent victims of the terrorists, but are now the victims of the medias money making machine?

Sadly, victims, understandably grieving, often do not see how they are being used and abused by the media. Some do - in all of these groups there are always a few families who say nothing, do not go to the meetings or join the protests. But many do - and are sucked up, chewed and spat out by the press.

It is one of the sickest crimes of our modern society.

Naughty BBC Iplayer!

2007-05-01T00:21:00.000+01:00

The BBC is launching later this year an iplayer to enable people to use their new, upcoming on demand service.

Slight catch - it will only work with Microsoft Windows!

If you are a Mac user you might get a version in 2 years time. If you are a Linux user you might as well whistle!

Even the BBC Trust are not too happy about this: Click Here

Does this mean that the BBC have accepted Microsoft's domination of the market without question? Does this mean that they, a publically funded body have decided to help promote Windows Vista and it's build in DRM?

Bill Gates must feel like hugging them!

So, if you are a MAC user, or a Linux user or simply don't think that the BBC should be allowed to get away with this, go and sign the downing street petition - HERE

Why I have a right to ignore fools

2007-03-06T18:48:00.000Z

What is a fool?

To my mind it can be anyone of many things - aside from just occasionally being foolish which affects all. A fool can be the person who feels the need to shout, just when others realise the right thing is to be quiet. A fool can be the person who drives at 100mph, when all evidence says that is dangerous. A fool can be someone who does not realise that the process of growing up includes learning - if you haven't done one, you probably haven't done the other. And a fool can be someone who is determined to lead their life selfishly, even if it flies in the face of all sensible evidence.

People who qualify in this last category?

People who think we didn't go to the moon
Pro Smokers
People who think seatbelt law is wrong
Users of mobile phones while driving
Celebs who think that because you are famous, you know everything
Most bloggers (oops, that's me then)

You get the idea.

The nice thing about this internet thingy is that I can pick and choose my fights. I posted a bit about FOREST below and was immediately hit by a couple of daft pro-smokers. (Apparently one of them has TWO degrees - and that means?)

I published their first post and put a reply. Then I got a couple of additional posts from the two of them. And you know, I suddenly realised that they bored me. I realised I did not want to argue with a couple of selfish individuals who believe that their self interest is more important than my health. I didn't feel the need to justify myself to people who huddle together in lobby groups and reject any research that doesn't conveniently fit their arguments (that would be almost all research then.)

I thought, if I want to argue with people I can do it quite happily when I meet people who I know, who know who I really am, who don't make me justtify myself in the same way that I don't ask them to justify them selves. People who don't spend hour after hour feverishly building up a case for a cause that the vast number of people think of as dated and crazy.

To my mind, arguing the case FOR smoking or even the right to smoke is about as justifyable as arguing for slavery. The argument is 200 years too late.

So, I just deleted the comments, so I didn't need to reply to them, and went back to writing some music for a commission. And didn't think any more about it exept, "What am I cooking for dinner?" Chicken pie as it happens, and I have a pile of hungry, smoke free mouths to feed, so I better get on with it.

Nobody

PS: Probably a few typos and spellos above - think I will ignore those too!

There Are Some Forests I would be glad to see gone

2007-03-03T18:23:00.000Z

Come summer this year, England will be subject to a ban of smoking in public places - Wales will have it come in slightly earlier.

Ahead of this the UK Government is launching a new series of hard hitting ads to promote the idea that smoking in front of other people is really not very nice - it is unsociable and down right poisenous. All true enough, and I doubt most right-minded people will have an issue with any of this. Certainly, medical experts have been hammering on about this for years. So that is that.

Out of curiosity, however, I thought I would wander across to the sites of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) and their arch nemisis FOREST (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco).

ASH, of course, have picked up the story pretty quickly. News and Press reveals an active mixture of good news and bad news (Europe is being a pain) Stuff in their e-news section, etc etc. All more or less up to date. February the 14 was the last entry.

Now onto FOREST. The last entry under News was "California, EU, More Big Smoke Debates" Which is dated 30 April 2004. Up to date then. So, lets get onto Press Office - Seems like last January they were giving away 5 copies of Thank You For Smoking - a comedy about a Tobacco Industry Lobbyiest and there is a Press Release form November last year. Well, that is all wonderfully current!

I have to admit to being totally biased against the Tobacco Industry financed FOREST and their idiotic president Anthony Worral-thickhead-Thompson. The man is either completely blind to medical reality or has really been standing way too close to a microwave.

However, with any luck FOREST will continue to lose so much credibility that they will simply dissapear in a puff of noxious smoke. Going by how slow their site is, I am assuming they can no longer afford a decent server, so are probably on their way out anyway.

So long!

Nobody

EDIT: There are a couple of comments on this article from the PRO smoking lobby below - a group of desperate people who obviously have nothing better to do than seek out obscure blogs like mine and publish their idiocies on there. I could have removed their comments but chose to leave them included. However, I think it is fair to state how I view them:

I group these people with the many daft conspiracy theorists out there - Ignorant fools lead by Selfish people.

Read thier post, but please, don't support their rediculous sites.

Do ID cards need to be such a problem?

2007-03-02T15:49:00.000Z

One of the biggest debates over the next few years will be over Identity Cards. The whole issue of ID cards is a problem for a country that has never felt the need of them previously, or perhaps, more accurately, has ignored any need for them.

The debate worries me a little because I believe it will be taken over by the two extremes of the argument without looking at any solutions that actually might be halfway useful. In reality it is not even party political debate because if politicians were to be halfway honest, which they are not in this case, oppinion across the parties is all over the place.

So here I am going to put down my two penneth worth, and in so doing propose a basic ideology of a system that might work. I have taken as the start of my argument the thought that we are probably going to end up with some kind of system at some point in the future, so how about we get it right.

I originally posted this on Charles Clarkes 2020 Vision site in response to his arguments for identity cards. He made the point that:

"The issues are contemporary and controversial both within and between the political parties. But I believe that such databases are important for our liberty, our security and to defend our democracy."

You can read his article here.

Identity Cards - A New Approach

I think we are looking at this whole identity business backwards - bringing the policies forward based on reaction to events rather than a considered idea of whether these are useful. First, let’s break down where we need to establish identity, just in rough.

We need it to register for tax.
Obviously we need it for passports.
And we need it for benefits.

And where we don't need to establish identity

We don’t need it for walking down the street,
It is not needed for paying bills in shops, online, etc
Nor for just breathing, to be facetious.

So, there are times we need proof of identity and times we do not. This is making the assumption that most citizens are law abiding, of course, but that is a stance we SHOULD take.

Now, let’s look at a system that supports the above "needs."

The first, and most common need, is probably paying tax - though this does not need to apply to everyone. So, I apply for identity when I get my first job at, say, 19 years old. The Taxman requires basic data and needs to be able to access that data. I supply the data, and give him permission to access it. This includes my date of birth, place of birth, current address, etc.

Now, I want to register with a doctor and dentist. This requires me to supply data. Some of the data required by the NHS already exists - I just have to give them permission to access the bits they need. Any bits that are exclusive to the tax man (like my tax records) the NHS cannot access as I have not given permission.

Now, I want to go abroad, and need a passport. I now supply the additional data required and give the required permissions.

You get the idea. In all this process I am in direct control of my own data. I have to give permissions to agencies to be able to access only the data that they require.

In theory, I can refuse to give data and permission. However, I am not going to be able to get a passport if I do that, so that would be idiotic. Though, keeping that as my right is essential for the transparency of the thing.

Now, notice, I have not mentioned Identity Cards here. There is a very good and technical reason for this. We don't need them. Even supporting your arguments, Charles, we still don't need them.

Let me explain. I go into the DHS to get benefits. They want me to confirm my identity. Under your system I hand them my identity card which is full of data. They plug it into their machine. Their machine then goes of and does a query on the central database to confirm the data is as presented. To make sure that I then belong to the card, as it were, I allow a retinal scan and the taking of one thumb and one finger print and that is compared to the card data and the remote database data. Wow!

Alternative system: I walk into the DHS, they sit me in front of the retinal scan, which scans me. I enter a pin to bring up my record for comparison - the machine verifies it is me and I get my needs met.

You have not had to produce 60 million really expensive cards.

In addition, because the central database is permission based on a record by record basis, the database needs to be very basic. Rather than spend several billion setting it up, you grab a handful of top database designers from the open source community, and they put the whole thing together using MySql (which is both robust and free, by the way)

The expensive bit is the scanning equipment - but you are going to need that for what ever system you go for, sorry!

The main advantage to this kind of approach is that you are asking people to volunteer their information, rather than forcing it out of them, in return for services that are part of life. If they wished, they could avoid being on the database entirely, but they would have to live as a hermit in a cave somewhere.

It does not stop criminals - but then, they like to drop out of existence anyway, so no system will cover them.

The additional advantage is that once someone is on the system, they are both responsible for and in control of their data. They are the only person who has complete access to ALL their data in the normal course of events. Not even the government would have that access. Government departments would only have access to the data that is relevant to the service they supply.

Of course, the police and security services could apply to court for access to all data, and this job would be greatly simplified compared to now. But there would be no automatic right.

If people are in control of their own data, the Big Brother scenario is les relevant (though that would still worry even me)

My system, and its presentation, also has another little political bonus.

Since people would be controlling their access to services that are supplied by our government, under the way this system works these really would be seen as SERVICES ready for use by the public when they need them.

This really is returning government control to the people and fulfils my personal political mantra:

An MP is the employee of the People – not the other way around!

Nobody

Bullingdon Club Louts and David Cameron

2007-03-02T13:32:00.000Z

The BBC's Newsnight program have commissioned a very nice painting of David Cameron, Current leader of the Tories, and his Bullingdon Club drinking pals. Why a painting, well it seems that the owners of the photo have withdrawn permission for "commercial reasons."

What a pity!

Never mind, the Telegraph still have it on their site:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/14/noxford14.xml

If you are into that sort of thing.

Nobody

Reep what you snow!

2007-02-08T12:38:00.000Z

With the snow this morning came joy - for a time.

By seven thirty we knew that both schools attended by the young cubs were closed for the day; something unheard of when I was young! I work from home, and the girls mother was off today anyhow, so everything was rather well timed. By just past eight, they were out on the green, rolling ever growing snowballs towards the plan for the morning - a snow man!

I stood there for a moment. I had work to do this morning, mixing a jingle for someone's radio commercial. But the temptation was far too great! The client could wait a little, and I donned hat and gloves and set out to take charge!

It took us an hour of hard work, but then the fruit of our labours stood proudly in the middle of the green; a five and a half foot snowman - complete with arms, smile, round tummy and short stocky legs. Raymond Briggs would have been impressed. Work beckoned me back and I left the girls to play. What a wonderful start to a day!

A little later, news filtered up to my office that someone had knocked off the head. Then I heard that the girls had been building a snow wall, but some local teenagers had kicked it down. Then I saw the local young thugs walking out onto the green. Since the girls were still down there I wandered down too. Inevitably I ended up confronting this group of 13 to 15 year olds. Intelligent lot - all they could come up with was telling me I smelled. I turned away and left, realising how pathetic they were. When I came back they had destroyed the snowman completely - grinding its winter good wishes into the dirt.

I am powerless to do anything. If I had clipped the little brats round the ear I would have been hauled off and imprisoned for child abuse. They knew that and just gathered round trying to intimidate me. I am a little too long in the tooth to get intimidated that easily, but it was depressing.

What has become of our society that we have let it become thus? This is not the governments fault, this is not the fault of poverty or deprived backgrounds (these kids come from normal everyday families), it is our fault - us as a society. We have got ourselves into this positions by hiding behind closed doors, from tripping ourselves up with our own rules and regulations, by removing our support from people like the police.

When I was young, if someone caused trouble and the police turned up, the local mothers would point at the villain and tell the police "He did it!" And the police could then do something. Now, we keep quiet, we run away, we even blame the police, the government, immigration, the EU, Iraq, the man in the moon - everyone we can think of rather than blame the people who are truly at fault. Us.

There is a saying "The people get the government they deserve." This is ill-observed. It should be "The people will get the society they deserve." I don't know the answer, I wish I did. But I do know that the answer lies with us, nowhere else.

And in the meantime, the snow will melt, this little crime will be washed away, and another set of selfish brats will think they are kings of their very small world. I can only hope that they will never amount to anything and never make any mark whatsoever on their own or anyone else's life. They have not earned that.

We have photographed our snowman - for a very short time, he was a very brave snowman!

Telling a Story

2007-02-05T12:25:00.000Z

Scrabbling around in my mother's attic, I have found my father's old Jetel Ukulele Banjo. Four strings tuned to "my dog has fleas" and a direct descendant of the Hawaiian uke this is a most simple of instruments. And yet, despite it's apparent lack of class this instrument has the ability to make people laugh with George Fornby or cry with Israel Kamakawiwo’ole and his version of Somewhere over the rainbow - you know that one that almost wrecked us all when Doctor Green died in ER.

You see, it is not the instrument, but the story - how we tell it, how we feel it, what it is meant to achieve - that in the end is the carrier of the message.. Good story telling is a very powerful weapon. News people know this, but they do not always act responsibly, using the story telling weapon to further their own agenda (whether that is political or financial) rather than for the benefit of the public.

The natty headline, the witty prose - these all can whip a simple tale to a global incident, all without the writer, the story teller, having to leave their seat. Especially with television it is easy to believe that the pictures tell the story, that the voice over is only a helpful narrative, and pictures are not easily deceiptful are they? But again, the pictures, the film, is just the Ukulele - the words are telling you what to look at, how to interprate what you are seeing.

A most marvelous case recently was following the foot in mouth ongoings by Jade in the Big Brother House. As a reaction to her less than race tolerant outbursts television news showed us pictures of effigy burning by crowds in India. Indeed, the racism displayed was abhorrent. But those pictures - what was wrong with them. "Protests across India!" We are told. Now, I have filmed protests and riots before. If we are sensible, we find an upper story building, or the top of a lamp post so we can give a broad vista as to the thousands present and, incidentally, try to avoid getting flattened in the rush. These images however, were from a very low, close angle - the very center of the danger zone! Except if you looked closely - especially between the legs of the "thousands." About 4 legs back the crowd ended - and in the distance we could see people calmly walking along the other side of the road, minding their own business. Crowd? It was about 20 people.

This does not mean that Jade should be let off for her comments, or we should believe her well rehearsed tears. But it does mean that the story is being told inaccurately.

If you submit an article to Wikipedia (and anyone can write and edit stories for that noble tome) readers will give you a hard time if any claim is not properly cited and referenced. "Unnamed source" will not do it - because is it is unsubstantiated by a known and authoritative source, then how can we be expected to believe it? This applies to any and all encyclopedia or reference or trusted work. And yet, the news media expect us to believe anything and everything they say without being able to back up a word of it.

Channel 4's Sarah Corp wrote an article about her current trip to Iran at the invitation of the Iranian government to see, with others, the nuclear facilities. It is a good story, potentially, but could be so mishandled one way or another. To accept everything at face value would be daft at the least. But to dismiss everything too could be equally misleading. Sarah has a responsibility to report and justify what she sees and what she is told. But if her opinions are not backed by citation and reference, will her report have any more value that the press releases of the current Iranian government?

I leave you with a small anecdote:

A salutary lesson: I used to do a lot of work on newsreel footage. One of the clips that came past my screen was a German Ministry film of life in a concentration camp before WW2. It showed a happy group of children singing songs at Christmas time and having a party. Apparently the journalists invited to the event thought it was lovely.

Nobody

It is all spinning needlessly out of control!

2007-02-02T14:41:00.000Z

Channel 4 news blog today is looking for a strong interviewee to comment on all the hiatus surrounding the Cash for Honors scandal (or not) and Blairs imminent future (or not). The story needs to be "knocked on" they quote the editor as saying. I assume by that the editor would like to see the story pushed up to the next level of media hysteria.

But should this be happening like this again? If the media were to shut up about the whole affair until the CPS reported, and instead reported on meaningless little stories like global warming, Iraq, Afghanistan, the state of my socks, would they be doign the public a disservice? Yes, the public might have a right to know what is going on, but does that mean we need to be force fed speculation, leaks, complete guess work, misleading headlines, etc? What service is this actually doing the country?

If we are getting bogged down in this affair it is not the affair that is doing it. I don't see the police running round telling the whole of government to down pencils and sit on their hands. Despite the protestations of David "throw his rattle out of the cot" Cameron, government is not, and in fact cannot be paralyzed. I would imagine that Cameron's own MPs are busy sitting on committees and conducting debates and doing constituency work.

The problem here is in the hands of the Media and the Pundits - and I include many politicians in that grouping. They have got their leads out of their masters hands and are running a muck in the park. Like dogs with irresponsible noses, they cannot see the woods for the trees, and the trees smell of sensation. Trouble is, the rest of us stopped living in trees a hundred thousand years ago or so - about time the media evolved to catch up!

Press almost hysterical over Cash for Honours

2007-02-02T00:38:00.000Z

Channel 4, like every one else could do nothing but Lead on the news that the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was questioned as a witness by police last Friday undertaking the Cash for Honours enquirey. Since that interview, or course, Lord Levy (Also known as Lord Cashpoint) has been rearrested and questioned on suspicion of Conspiracy to Pervert the course of Justice - though he was not charged.

Is this investigation picking up a pace to some fantastic climax as a government is pulled down by the scales of British Justice? The press would certainly like to think so, and of course they may as yet have their wish granted.

Equally plausible, however, is that the investigation is coming to a natural and rather uneventful close and the police are doing a final round of last minute interviews to help close the books. There is the worry here that they will throw a charge at someone just so it does not seem like they have been wasting time.

Of particular note today is the release of information about that interview last Friday. The Police requested of Blair that, for "operational reasons," the interview was kept quiet. Blair told very few people, not including his press people. The Police for their part also kept the knowledge of this interview to a minimum. Now, remember that there has been some ripe rumors concerning a mole, either in Downing Street or at Scotland Yard. The press have been reporting on this mole while using the info like crazy. Certainly more than one press shaped person must know from where the leaks are emanating. But suddenly, with this news black out, the mole was silenced. The press are furious!

We should know at the time, they squealed! It is our right!

Should they? Is it?

Personally I think the press have no automatic rights whatsoever. We, the public have rights - but not through the press, by ourselves on our own behalf. The press are just indignant that they have been caught out! Jon Snow at Channel 4 points out that the police requested silence as they did not want Levy to know that they had questioned Blair again. I think that is pushing it a little. I doubt me that Levy is a flight risk or that he has not been planning for all eventualities. This is a highly intelligent man - an accountant who was a highly successful impresario in the 60s and 70s. I cannot see that him not knowing that Blair had been interviewed would make a difference one way or another. He protests his innocence, and that is perfectly possible. Being innocent does not mean that one sits down and twiddles your fingers, however.

So what would those operational reasons be? I wonder if a little bit of Mole flushing has been going on ....

Toodle pip!

BBC muck up casino coverage

2007-01-30T11:06:00.000Z

The scene:

News 24. Three reporters at three location. Blackpool, Cardiff, the Dome. Two newscasters on the edge of their seats.

The countdown to 11:00 when the Casino Advisory Panel will make its announcement.

We jump from location to location - black pool the favorite, Cardif and the Dome nipping on the heals.

11:00. 11:01. 11:02 - the tension is unbearable. People frantically refreshing their browsers on the CAP website and then ...

YES!!! Its .....

Manchester?

Where?

And there you have it. The winner is Manchester and the press isn't there.

Other winners on smaller casinos are Milton Keynes (sadly), Leeds, Solihull and others - but not Blackpool, not the Dome and not Cardiff.

For the full report go here.

Bobby gets republican support

2007-01-28T23:08:00.000Z

I doubt whether the republicans in Northern Ireland refer to the police as Bobbies, but at least they have just voted to support and recognize them.

This will mean that they will be part of community initiatives, sit on local police boards and, I suppose, dial 999 when they have a problem.

But one wonders over all these years, who did republicans call when their handbag was stolen? When a drunk driver caused injury to a child? When youths broken into the house and wrecked everything, just for fun?

Sean Sexton is a notable collector of early Irish photographs and staunchly republican sympathiser. I asked him this question once many years ago in the Toucan in Soho Square.

“We phone the police, of course.”

“But don’t you hate the police?”

“Now that depends on why you want to call them!”

But then, republican or no, Sean had lived in London a long time. He also added that if it were a really bad crime, there were always some lads that would sort it out for you.

Still this is a move in, I hope, the right direction.

After the political fighting and the war of words and hate and violence, then we will have the war of trust. I fear that will be a very much longer war than we have had thus far.

I am British, born in London and cannot pretend to understand the really deep undercurrents in Northern Ireland. But I recognise political posturing when I see it. And from all sides I have seen little else over these years. Yes, trust is going to take a long time.

Perhaps if the police were called the Bobbies of Northern Ireland, then people would be more accepting. But then again, Robert Peel, for whom the humble Bobby is named, also established the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1812 when Home Secretary, so perhaps that would be asking a bit much!

Now, to the home office.

I have had an interesting thought that is not to do with Home Office bashing – the sport of the moment, unhelpfully.

One of the arguments against Sarah’s Law is that paedophiles will simply go underground and we will be worse off than we already are. The 300 odd missing people from the register shows how difficult this is to manage (forget the blame game, this is just the practical reality) – and this is a tiny percentage of the numbers who are on the list. If we give them more reason to do vanishing acts, how many will be missing then?

The Tale of the Missing Exclusive

2007-01-26T17:43:00.000Z

Last night on ITV News:

EXCLUSIVE!

Police find delected emails on hidden Downing Street computer Network
Evidence of a cover up!
The Real Reson behind The Arrest!!!!

Or words to that effect.

Apparently, according to the "exclusive" report, during questioning a witness inadvertently let slip that downing street had a second, hidden IT system. Police were quick to investigate, and discovered a trail of emails, secretly deleted after their investigation began. These emails referred to giving donors to the Labour Party "Ks" and "Ps", thought to be Knighthoods and Peerages.

This was really the exclusive to end all exclusives. This was Watergate in Downing Street. This would rock our democracy to the core.

The trouble is, even before broadcast Downing Street had issued an unequivical statement saying there is no second network, there have been no emails of that type and the police had not approached Downing Street about this at all.

Oh, dear.

You see, when something has even the hint of truthfullness in it, you can be sure that Downing Street will come out with something like "we cannot comment at this time," or "We do not want to impede the investigation," or similar. Outright and clear denial, however, is not the normal reaction.

So, have ITV completely cocked up? Have they lead on a fabrication?

Today, on ITVs website, there is no mention of the story.
There is no mention of it on Channel 4s website.
The BBC has only the short denial article from yesterday.
It is absent on the Sun website, the Mirror, the daily mail and only mentioned in the Times in passing.

So where has the story gone? Is this some amazing conspiracy where Opus Dei has asked the Knights Templar (run by Cherry Blair) to threaten editors if they do not squash this government damning report? Of is it a case of a complete media fiasco followed by some rapid and very embarrassed deleting of stories?

The Latter, me thinks. Well done girls and boys!

Catholic Adoption Problems

2007-01-25T11:21:00.000Z

It is a troublesome problem.

The government is bringing forth new legislation to stop discrimination against gay couples. As an affect of this legislation Catholic Adoption Agencies would no longer be able to turn down a couple purely because they are gay.

The Catholic Church has said it would like an exemption to this law or it will have to close its 10 adoption agencies. These handle around 4% of adoptions in the UK, but about 30% of the very difficult adoptions involving older children or children with problems.

It would be very problematic if these agencies were to close.

I am puzzled by some of this row. The Catholic Church has used potential closure of the agencies as almost a blackmail tool. In one breath they say there concern is the fate of these children, and yet they seem to be prepared to abandon them, to let them fall, over a debatable piece of doctrine.

On the other hand, the political press has transformed this issue into one about cabinet splits, Blair's loss of authority, etc, etc. The BBC has even said "this has turned into a debate about the Prime Minister’s authority ..." while conveniently forgetting that it is them and Nick Robinson (their political editor) that has done the turning.

They seem to not be able to understand that this is a very difficult issue whichever way you look at it, and I would be worried about a cabinet that DIDN'T go through all the options and discuss this issue both politically and ethically at length and with passion.

The media have been reporting that Blair and Ruth Kelly are pro an exemption. However, there has been absolutely no substantiation for these claims. They are just reported as if we ought to automatically believe them. Again.

Now Blair has come out and said he is personally in favour of Gay Couples adopting. So how does that fit? Is he lying, or have the Beeb been caught making it up as they go along.

I do not agree with many of Blair’s decisions, but I do believe that he is almost radically into the whole idea of fairness and equality. And I think Ruth Kelly holds a similar stance. Therefore, whatever their religious beliefs, it is hard to see that they would turn away from those core principles quite so easily.

To add to the confusion, the Arch Bishop of Canterbury has come out in support of the Catholics by saying that you should not legislate over a matter of concience. Does that mean that some one can discriminate against Jews if ther concience or teachings tell them they are devils? In which case we should allow radical muslims to be antisemitic and to ban Jews from their shops and streets and businesses ... does this sound familiar? Does the problematic archbishop realise what he has just said? (As an aside, if ever there was someone who should keep thier mouth shut, it is he!)

From my point of view, as I have no religion, I err on the side of sorting out the discrimination. But for somebody with deeply held religious beliefs I can see tha this is a mind bending puzzle.

More on Milton Keynes

2007-01-15T23:24:00.001Z

Ooh what a bitter sweet debate!

I do love stirring from time to time.

Since I posted on John Gummer's blog a whole host (well, 17) people have responded with mixed feelings. It is interesting that out of the couple of thousand who must have read the article in MK Today, only 17 actually bothered replying. And I suspect that half of those only did so because I ruffled a few precious little feathers.

But there is a seriousness here that should neither be overlooked nor clouded by John's initial observations.

Milton Keynes was designed for the benefit the shopping centre, not the other way around. When all you who support Milton Keynes offer your continued support, make sure that the non-elected members that are involved in the growth of this town really do have YOUR best interests at heart.

When the theatre (and it is a good theatre) was launched, its own little district was billed by the council as "Just like Covent Garden." We know that that is far from the truth.

For instance it has been suggested that ALL premises in the theater district serve alcohol in plastic glasses (Bar-me already does). That says much about the area.

The food there is rubbish, plastic and as desposable as the glasses. It is as pretty as a breeze block.

You have to ask how the planning descisions were taken so that small, independent companies did not even have a look in at the site. It was simply advertised nationally to the chains.

A council is meant to protect and build a LOCAL economy. When they proudly announced the revolting Escape, a corrugated iron edifice that can be seen clearly from Ivinghoe beacon, or a couple of years ago trumpet the arrival of Debenhams, or inflict the most expensive and rip off German Market, you wonder who they are really working for.

Nothing Taller than the trees - where did that philosophy go?

Communities will grow up where they are allowed to. And communities within the older, pre MK areas are fighting on - and good for them. Some have already lost, like Bletchly and Fenny Stratford.

When the shopping centre opened all those years ago, it more or less killed off that bit of the local economy overnight. The councils idea of supporting a the locals is to allow a great big hyper store and then have a couple of small units shoved round the back. It looks better on the planning consent.

It takes two groups to kill a community:

Massive stores and chains who spend millions over long periods to push their way through planning. I did the sound on a couple of proposal videos some years ago, you would not believe how they operate. These videos cost Thousands and are only played to the council.

And it takes a council of idiots to be duped by the sell and sign on the bottom line.

Sadly, the public often have little real say in any of it.

Milton Keynes has been built on this principle.

I wrote a song about it:

You tear the heart from the land to build your city,
A million tons of concrete, don't you think it's pretty?
It's all about sleeze wrapped up in big money,
And you hope we dont mind that you find it funny,
And I am Crying
You keep us crying.

You can hear the whole song HERE

Joss

PS: According to the sign I live in MK11. How nice!

All Hale John Gummer!

2007-01-10T14:05:00.001Z

John Gummer, not normally someone with whom I can find much to agree, has laid out his opinions on Milton Keynes in his blog. He starts:

"Once hailed as the great example of 20^th Century living Milton Keynes does have its good points. The shopping is ‘brilliant’ and the snow dome ‘fantastic’– it’s just the living that can be so lonely and confining."

For the rest go here.

I have replied to him on his page - but I repeat it here for the record:

My Dear Mr Gummer
Your tirade against Milton Keynes will probably find far more support than the blinkered Dr Starkey will have you believe. Indeed, her political view point is well known for her support (Alluded to on this page) of the 70,000 new homes about to drown the exsisting TOWN of Milton Keynes.
But, while looking at the problem, you have rather missed the more vital point. Yes, the Redways are somewhat empty, and even I would be careful in some parts of this place, however, please feel free to put the weight of your critique on the planners and politicians that are building a future for retail in this place.
We all know how Milton Keynes was designed - a central retail park to be supported by an instant town. What provision was offered as an incentive to people was very thin - just enough to make the marketing work. I remember being involved in one of the marketing waves in the late seventies. The recording session was populated by representatives of the Retailers making sure that the increase in population benefitted them directly. I remember someone commenting that after all Milton Keynes exsisted for the benefit of the retailers, not the public.
Nothing Has Changed. When you look at the plans for the future its central resourse is a wonderful, bright, new, modern, shopping centre. Again. Oh, and suitably high rents so that only the rubbishy, bland chains can afford to be there.
"Love the City?" Some will. Many know that this place is one great big suberb with all the conveniences and none of the things that makes a city, or much of a town either. Personality? No. Culture? Well, if the council call surrounding the theatre with tacky clubs and greasy chain restaurants culture then the council must be very untravelled! High Quality living? Well, all the cultured people have stayed in the villages and use Milton Keynes as the shopping centre it is.
At the end of the day, Milton Keynes is exactly what the planners wanted it to be - London Overflow.
PS: I am writing this as the local paper has published an article asking people to deluge your blog with defensive articles. I though I would get in fast and defend you!

Interestingly enough, just below the article in MK News that so derides John Gummer is another:

"Cops hunt gang after man is stabbed outside restaurant."

The restaurant in question is outside the town centre and on the shores of one of the lakes Dr Starkey refers to.

EDIT: I have been corrected - the restaurant is not on a lake but in the safe, tranquil setting of Shenley Church End. My mistake. Nobody

Media and the idiotic Tara Flood Slam Ruth kelly

2007-01-08T11:53:00.001Z

The situation: Ruth Kelly, former education minister, has a child with learning difficulties. In consultation with experts who look after her child she is sending her child to an independent school who can help the child best. That is the entire story.

"Does this prove that Labour education policy is failing?"

"All this after Labour closes hundreds of special need schools?"

This not from antagonistic opposition politicians but from the BBC. And in fact the opposition has said "This is a private matter."

Now Tara Flood of the Alliance for Inclusive Education has joined the fray without, I suspect, actually checking on the facts. She is furious that Ruth Kelly, as a minister, should have made this decision for her own child. No, she should do what Tara Flood (whose has never met the child) says and send them to a local mainstream school whether that is good for the child or not. "Segregated Education," Tara Flood provocatively labels Ruth Kelly's personal, private and advised choice.

While I do believe that many children with educational difficulties can benefit from mainstream education, I am also aware that many fair much better in specialised schools where all the emphasis is on special needs, not just some of it. Including everyone might make Tara Flood feel better, but it is not always right for the child.

As for the school in question being independent, very specialised schools often are and the council pays the fees where they need to use them. This makes more sense than the council paying the high capital costs of setting up a school them selves and then having to attract people from out side the council area to make it worthwhile doing.

Of course, the BBC on their Have Your Say page say in bold:

"Former Education Secretary Ruth Kelly, is expected to make a
statement later on reports that she is sending one of her children to a
private school."

A nice provocative statement, and nicely misleading. But then, that is becoming the overriding trait of the BBC these days.

Boris? Or BBC Bias?

2006-10-04T22:45:00.000+01:00

Now, forgive me for being cynical, or is there a rather large difference between the BBC's coverage of the Conservative party conferance and their coverage of the previous two - the Labour and the Liberal?

No, they couldn't be! This is the BBC!!!

Take Boris J (Please!) This buffoon has derided Jamie Oliver's attempts to try and influence a healthier generation and proclaimed that people should eat what they like.

"Look," he said today, "Jamie Oliver goes into schools and feeds them healthy food and the minute he goes away they all just eat what they like."

The man is not only a fool, but an ignorant one; basing his remarks soley on the actions of some idiot mothers pushing chips through school railing. If he had been a labour minister last week he would have been shredded by Nick Robinson et al - but as much as Cameron laughed off the incident, so the BBC laughed with him.

And this has been the pattern of the week. A party potentially split by differing opinions on tax, has been praised by the BBC. A speech by the leader that threw away much that the Tory faithful (and funders) hold dear, was almost cuddles by the Beebs Political Editor.

Is this revenge for the governments and Huttons reaction BBC's stupid handling of the "Dodgy Dosier" affair? Do the editors really hate this government so much that they would so obviously steer their coverage of the three conferences on a path so littered with bias?

Apparently they would. Nick Robinsons blog at the Beeb Website is simple and without critisim:

"To those who claim this is all style and no substance, his answer is that the test of substance is not policy detail, it's about having the character to say difficult things and make tough choices."

The Tory spin doctors could not have put it better. Ug!

BBC NEWS | Nick Robinson's Newslog

2006-09-07T22:31:00.000+01:00

So and so briefed this...Brown suporter briefed that ...We KNOW that this has happened ...It is well known that ...And so we have put up with years of reporting about Blair V Brown. A story that is a colusion between MPs with a personal power agenda and the press and media who love this story above all other stories.The story is probably true - or at least some of it. But how do we know? We don't - we simply rely on the reporting of comments made by "senior downing street official," or similar.I, and I suspect vast ammounts of the British Public are sick to death with it. Not sick to death with Blair V Brown but of the rporting of it. 20 minutes News at 10 spent on the story just in that one bulletin. Meanwhile Bin Laden releases another video, N-Power puts up prices, Burundi rebels sign a peace deal.If the Labour party want to infight, let them fight. But can we get back to the "running the country bit" please? If you guys dont give them column inches on this story, they will have to sort them selves out. The only time I want to hear about Blair resigning is when he actually does it. My kids school bus was 30 minuted late this morning - that was far more important.Read more at www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nic...

What is British anyway?

2006-06-29T15:03:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Murray receives weblog hate mail

SO Andy Murray made a daft joke about England losing the World Cup. So What? I was born in England and I hope they lose too - we get less football shoved down our throats that way!

The more fundemental question is does this highlight a growing schism between Scotland and England? Is there more resentment building from both sides to the trials and fortunes of the other?

Erm, no.

The Scottish and the English have been at each others throats for a couple of thousand years or so. It is not suprising really - they share so many of the same routes that, as brothers, it is fairly amazing they have completely finished each other off by now.

Of course, the nationalistic idiots on both sides will completely deny any common heritage - sacrilage that! But then nationalism spends so much of its existance in a denial of anything that might be called practical or useful, that it forgets that it is meant to be creating some sort of political system.

My partner is Scottish - lived on the East Coast till a handful of years ago. She, like so very many other Scots, voted against devolution as a complete waste of money. She felt that it would be a doubling of somethings, a half hearted split of some others and would engender disatisfaction. I think she has probably been proved right. Or at least not wrong.

The people who would be happy with it are probably still happy with it. The ones that wanted more are fed up and the rest just get on with their daily lives and are pretty pleased that it is not soley them that has to pay for that rediculous eye-sore of a parliament building.

So, not much change then. Some people, Alec Salmon for example, still look for English criminals under every stone, and the rest just wonder where all their money goes. And as for sport, well, if you want any sort of change, and the rough chance of a winning formula, perhaps some bright person should invent the idea of a UK football team. Sounds rediculous? Well, how many teams are representing the United States, who are way more devolved than we? Fifty one? I don't think so!

BBC NEWS | Politics | Murdoch flirts with Conservatives

2006-06-29T00:36:00.000+01:00

Okay, forgive me for being a little churlish here, but as to whether any of our (British) political leaders "Conincides" with Rupert Murdoch (American/Australian) views is of no interest to this limey in anyway whatsoever. Infact, of so little interest should it be that I would really like to see the views of the owner of News Corp be buried in the back of one of his cheap tabloids together with the girlie ads.

Murdoch would have been very recogniseable to Awesome Wells as a latter day version of Citizen Cane; a media tycoon who's power and influence extends through his own outlets with dictatorial precision as he instructs his editors on what they should publish.

I feel he has no right to use his power to sway an election in a country where he does not even hold a vote. I feel that as a publisher he has no moral right to dictate political policy through his publiushing interests. And yet he feels duty bound to give or withdraw his backing in a loud and influencial way to parties within a political system that is nothing to do with him.

I therefore issue this Challenge to both David Cameron and Gordon Brown - tell Murdoch to go and stuff his support. The next election should be decided on issues, not the whims of a man who only has his own business interests at heart!

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Israel warns of 'extreme' action

2006-06-28T17:47:00.000+01:00

I get confused easily. I know I do. But some situations are just designed to confuse me more than others. And any situation which involves two suprisingly similar peoples striving head to head for mutual destruction is guarenteed to confuse me most of all.

Make no mistake - the Palestinian/Isreally conflict is nothing to do with Jews and Arabs, though many would love you to believe so. It is about land grabbing colonialism where one side wants what the other side has, for the moment.

In this sort of situation, rediculous action appears to require over zealous reaction. We steal your soldier - you bomb the hell out of us. You shoot our leader, we blow up your busses. And the spectators of the world, the countires and organisations and charities just stand on the sidelines shouting foul.

Is there a solution here? Of course there is! Stop fighting, go home, feed your families, do business with each other. The Israelies and the Arabs are some of the oldest and most successful traders in the world. Maybe even the most devious, from time to time. They should be making fortunes from each other and anyone that passes by. That is what they do - that is what they have ever done. Unfortunately, they also seem to take pleasure in killing each other. It is not logical. The history behind it leaps from one momentous piece of bad logic to another. It is 3000 plus years of stumbling round idealism, slavery and biggotry. And yet, you only have to look at them to be able to say, "You are brothers really, aren't you?"

And maybe that is the problem - for no war is as bitter as the one that is between brothers!

What a silly campaign, this FOREST lot.

2006-03-26T02:40:00.000+01:00

Neil Rafferty, Scottish spokesman for the pro smoking lobby Forest has been critisising the Scottish smoking ban (comming into force in 4 hours time)

"The ban will do nothing to improve the health of the nation, but it will give a warm glow to those who enjoy telling others what to do. The anti-smoking fanatics will use the ban to victimise and stigmatise smokers even further. " Says Raffert.

I have to declare an interest at this point. I smoked for many years and gave up two years ago. Now, first of all I would like to say that even when I smoked 60 a day I thought Forest was the most dishonest, stupid and corrupting intitution. I was once told by a fourteen year old that they smoked because Forest, who know what they are on about, said it was alright really.

The ban on smoking in public places has one flaw, however. It is years too late. If it had come in 20 years ago, I would have probably given up then. That would have been 18 years less of nicoteen in my body. A drug, Mr. Rafferty would might like to know, that is considerably more poisoness than Heroin.

Of course, on Forests own site they do things like portray major health scares as "The phantom menace." They promote a book by Jo Jackson, a musician who has "researched smoking issues in depth over the last three years and has become increasingly sceptical about the overblown hysteria whipped up by recent anti-smoking propaganda".

And his qualifications for such meaningful reserach? Oh yeah, he is a musician - very authoritive that. Personally I will rather take the words of doctors I have worked with over the years and their enourmous catalogues of smoking related deaths. They don't need any research, they don't need lobbies such as Forest distorting facts. They have seen it for themselves in the blood and guts of the dying.

But then unlike Forest, doctors are not funded directly by the tobacco companies - a group who have sistematically lied about the dangers of smoking for decades.

Give it up, Forest, most of us, even those who smoke, wised up to you years ago.

Personally, I would like to see the end of the sale of tobacco. My health would have been way better without it. And of course Forest would cough and splutter into nothngness.

Rat

Read about the Scottish ban: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sco...

Islam has an uphill climb

2006-03-26T00:10:00.000Z

For a moderate muslim deperate to show his neighbour that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, they must want to hide their head in their hands at the news that a man may be excecuted in Afghanistan for converting from Islam to Christianity.

The sin of Apostasy (rejection of a faith) has troubled religion through the centuries. It is a uniquely paranoid crime, levied by insecure and contolling officials against those that may bring their religion into disrepute. Why should a people, united by a faith, worry that a single person of their number decides to walk a different path is beyond me. Why such a crime should be inshrined in law is rediculous!

Islam, as a world religion, has had bad press of late. Some of this is foisted upon it by rediculous groups such as the BNP. Much of it by the unwelcome fanatics and fundamentalists (the curse of many religions). But some, like this instance, is purely from within.

Islamists want to be accepted by the rest of the world, and for the rest of the world to welcome them, and yet seem suprised that we will not accept their right to excecute for adultery, remove hands for theft, issue death threats for people who write books, dress up as suicide bombers to react against pen and ink drawings and now, to kill because someone changed their mind.

No human being has the right to treat others so, what ever the culture, what ever the belief system. It belongs to a different, more violent age, the age when many religions, Christianity included, was punctuated by bararism. The dark years of the dark ages.

In the modern era, when we should be demonstrating that we, this difficult, egotistical human creature, have learnt better ways, can tolerate, educate, discuss and peacefully disagree, Islam, at least in some of its practices around the world, is being left behind. It has to change, not just in the peaceful communities we see in the UK, but through out the world. Maybe it is time that Islam as it seems to exsist here should take the lessons of peace it teaches to the people of Afghanistan, Iran, and other countries. Maybe then Islam will be more comfortable and learn to live with the rest of the world.

See article at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor...

Backers and Backbenchers

2006-03-24T15:17:00.000Z

Just a thought - what is the difference between a backer and a backbencher?

In the case of the Labour Party I would say that the backers are more useful. At least they help the party move forward!

In the case of the Tories, well it is nice that mummy and daddy are so involved with little David's/Tarquin's/Nastasia's (delete or add as appropriate) political career.

Rat

BBC NEWS | Politics | Tory lenders 'feared reprisals'

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

Do you like junk mail or telephone sales?

2006-03-24T14:51:00.000Z

Warning - this is about a nasty industry and their attitudes. You may find it annoying.

In the UK there are two little useful services - the Telephone Preference Service and the Mail Preference Service. Both have been set up by the direct marketing industry to comply with a 2003 law making it unlawful to use direct marketing (calls or post) to someone who has said they dont want it.

The idea is simple. You sign up to these services and then they put you on a list used by Direct Marketing Companies and you don't get any more calls or post. And it almost works - I have signed up and the number of people I have to swear at on a daily basis has certainly reduced, though it is far from zero.

However, the Direct Marketing industry is, lets face it, one of the nastier manifestations of the marketing and retailing industry. And they do like to have the last say if they can. So their web sites open with a long article telling you all the reasons why you should NOT sign up. Top of the list, of course, charities. You will be denying these worthy institutions a major source of income! How could you!!!!

And when you sign up to the Telephone Preference Service they send you a confirmation letter - and a plea about chrities again with the option of changing your mind!

If that doesn't totally convince you, then they go on about how you will be missing out on valuable offers that you will want!

What a load of dross. Firstly, I have never seen any offer come through my letter box that I want! All I do is chuck it all away!

Secondly I have never recieved a phone call with something that I want. If I want anything, I go and get it, from the company that has the best value, the best terms, teh best quality, and is polite to the point of subcervient. Anything less and they can go jump!

As for charities, I have NEVER recieved an unsolicited phone call from a charity. The only charitable stuff to land on my doorstep is posted by hand by the charity itself. For the MPS and TPS to go on about denying charities income is devious, inaccurate and completely misleading - just like most of their offers.

If they were so worried about charities, then they would offer an option where you could eliminate everyone except charities. It is a tiny amount of code in a database - dead simple to set up. Cost them pennies. But do they do that?

No.

If you want to keep charities, you have to not sign up, and contact directly yourself all the companies you want to avoid!

How dispicable can and industry get?

Very Ratty.

Mon Dieu! Ou est le President?

2006-03-24T13:32:00.000Z

French is a beautiful language, I would hate to see it die. As I would hate to see the death of English, Italian, Russian, Chines, Hindi etc.

However, lets be practical - we have to communicate, and if that means that we have a common second language, that is good. English is the obvious choice as, thanks to the British Empire originally and later American Films, English is the most commonly spoken second lanuage on a contry to county basis. English is also a highly developed modern language with the ability to absorb words from other languages easily thanks to its fragmented origins.

And then there is the fact that many modern computer languages use English as their base.

Lastly, English has to be one of the most emphatic languages. It's large vocabulary and succinct grammer make it one of the shortest languages in the world - perfect for advertising! It is the language of marketing, of science and of money. It is the world language of air traffic control, of telecomunications.

M. Chirac. We do not hate you or your language - I love the french, thier food and some of their ideoogy. But to walk out because for practicallity someone uses English, which you speak, is petulant, childish and dangerously nationalistic. You make a mokery of your own country - About time you went.

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Chirac upset by English address

Who is to blame?

2006-03-24T13:20:00.000Z

As a man is convicted of the tragic deaths of the Chnese cocklers two years agao, a company that bought the cockles is said to be not culpable by the jury.

This may be legally so, but is there no ethical culpability? David Eden and son, David Junior, have based ther defence on the idea that since the government and local officials knew what was going on and how dangerous it all was and yet did nothing, it is not the Edens fault if they decide to exploit the situation - it is the governments fault.

What rubbish! They knew the danger, they encouraged the illegal unregulated trade. They knew the cockling was done at night and bad light. But it wasn't their problem, so they let it happen. Who cares if people die, eh? As long as its someoen elses fault.

What ever happened to being a man. To standing up against wrong doing, whatever the legal situation? To always doing right by your fellow man, whom so ever he is?

Perhaps this is missing from the Edens. They certainly seem to be very succesful buck passers.

BBC NEWS | England | Lancashire | Man guilty of 21 cockling deaths

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng...

The Great Nationalism Scam

2006-03-24T11:41:00.000Z

I am not a believer in conspiracy theories - they normally result from the ignorant, though sadly intelligent, not being able to make sense of logic and deciding that the totally illogical is far more reasonable.

I don’t like the idea of Plots, as these often seem like more carefully worked conspiracy theories, rather than a group of people, more by chance than skill, actually managing to pull something off.

I am, however, rather fond of the good old scam. Now I am not talking about sending money to Nigeria, though this uses simi8lar principles, but the good old fashioned scams - the ones traditionally pulled by politicians, advertising men and even journalists, when they realise that their future pay packets rely on the interest from the great unwashed.

Before we look at the particular scam called Nationalism, why does a scam work?

For any scam or con to work it is necessary for the scammee to be totally taken in by the scammer. This, it would appear, needs to be a subtle process where truth and untruth are carefully interwoven to produce a plausible package. Certainly this is the route taken by newspapers who have a stance that is not matched by the news of the day. Thanks to statistics and the fact that any FACT is normally equally supported and undermined, and a good writer can make any story point the way they want it to. All they need to do is demote those contradictory annoying bits of information to the pile labelled "irrelevant" and what is left should do the job for you.

However, such subtlety and cleverness is not always needed. If the information itself is not totally plausible, that is not a problem as long as long as the scammers them selves are plausible. African dictators are good at this one. They become larger than life, almost god-like, and then use this power to tell the people pretty much what they like. It kind of works along the line of, “If I want your opinion I will give it to you.” They few that see through the scam tend to disappear, of course.

So, that is scamming for you. But why do I say that Nationalism is a scam?

The best way to identify a scam is to look at the true interests of the scammer. Lets take a retail group – say a supermarket – and examine where their interests lie. A supermarkets true interest is in growth. By growing it can support a wider infrastructure. This is more stable, allowing the business to be a more reliable money making proposition. This interest is not solely one of the management but works all the way down the ranks. Long term employment is a major concern of most working people, the proletariat, and a stable company will always be popular with its work force. Supermarkets have also interests in the happiness of their shareholders. Major growth moves may rely on investment rather than sales and happy investors will cough up money – unhappy ones have a tendency to sell.

Rather low down, therefore, are the products – the food, clothes, etc. But it is these products that attract the money, the customer, into the store. But products cost money, and the customer is averse to spending more than a set amount. For this all to work, therefore, it is necessary to make as much profit on each item as possible. And this is done by reducing quality, playing with quantity and screwing the producers. But don’t the public object to all of this? No. Most people couldn’t tell a good piece of meat from a cheap, water bloated piece of meat – they rely on the supermarket to tell them the difference and they lie. Don’t believe me?

Go back a hundred years to a butcher and no self-respecting housewife would by a piece of Beef for Sunday that wasn’t well-hung, nice and black and tasty as hell. The trouble with well-hung black beef is that you have to store it for a few weeks, and storing costs money. If you are trying to sell in bulk, you better have a nice quick turn around. This was a problem for the up and coming supermarkets. So, they started to perpetuate a lie, supported by the wholesalers. This came in two favours. Firstly they started spreading the story that black meat was rotten meat and dangerous. Which it is not. They then said that only bright red, lean meat was really good. They were growing beef herds a lot faster by now in sheds, however, and the meat could be a bit pale. So they dyed it.

A hundred year later and the lies have eventually stuck. My local butcher still has well hung meat – but it is in the back. If he displayed it people would think his meat rotten and stop shopping there. The supermarkets have won, and we are the worse of for it. But most people don’t realise it.

So, the supermarkets work entirely for their own self interests and will corrupt the message to make sure that those interests are supported. If you cannot supply what the customer wants, change the customer. It is very easy – most people have little in the way of opinions; they almost have an opinion vacuum. All you need to do is fill that void with what you want them to believe, just like that African dictator. That is a scam.

Nationalists, like the racist BNP, use exactly the same techniques. They convince people with little opinion that their life is worse than it used to be (which is normally untrue), that their future is even worse (a bigger lie still) and that the blame lies with the breakdown of a single race society (which actually never even existed.)

It is amazingly easy to do when you realise how ignorant people really are about the fact. Ask many people and they believe the British or the English (depending on the wording of your poll) are a race. No, they are a mixture of a several – in differing quantities depending when your lot actually arrived here. Racial purity, as in most places in the world, is a near impossibility.

Next, lets get people confused about some immigration facts. Most people can’t count. If you ask them what a million people look like, they would probably get it very wrong. March organisers know this. They will say that 100,000 people marched, when the police figures say around 40,000 actually turned up. (The police use high-level camera evidence, which is surprisingly accurate.) However, when people look at the photos they cannot conceive the numbers – it looks like lots, so they believe the bigger figure. A couple of websites later and the figure is now 200,000.

Again, the Nationalists can use this to their hearts content, aided by the fact that the mainstream parties spend so much time arguing figures that everyone is confused. The BNP state in one of their promotional videos: Millions of immigrants come to these shores each year. Actually, it is between 70,000 and 150,00 depending on what unrest there is around. But remember people can count. They see more “black faces” in their high street than they used to – it has to be millions.

The next trick up the Nationalist sleeve is verbiage. People mistakenly confuse quantity for quality – and we know the supermarkets have made a fortune out of that one! But it also applies to words. At the bottom of this article I give a link to an article by Nick Griffin from the BNP, arguing various nationalistic points. The Article is 8500 words long – pretty hefty! It takes an intelligent, well informed person to write that long, doesn’t it? No. It just takes someone who can keep talking rubbish for eternity. And boy, is this a fine example. It rambles, wanders, idealises, confuses – I got about halfway down and started dosing off. Forget the contents, it is ridiculous pointless drivel. But, Griffins supporters will be all the more mislead by it.

Nationalism is simply another word for isolationism. The BNP admit it.

Quote:

1) We (the BNP) are against the war in Iraq;
2) We are against overseas military adventures generally (though sending an SAS platoon to arrest and hang Robert Mugabe, and halt the persecution and extermination of the last white Rhodesians would be the exception to prove the rule);
3) We don't want to export our political system to the Third World;
4) We don't believe in imposing our economic system by force;
5) We don't believe in multi-culturalism;6) We don't believe in laissez-faire economics domestically;
7) We oppose international free trade;
8) We don't believe in 'propositional nations' (That means they only want a nation united by common blood ties - a pure race state, in other words);
9) We don't seek to impose Western culture on the whole world.

Pull up the drawbridge, man the turrets, close your ears and shut your eyes. Create a siege mentality when no one wants to besiege you. This system cannot survive – certainly not on a little island. People will want nothing to do with you. You are not dealing with them, why should they reciprocate? There are plenty of others out there. They idea is doomed before it starts – and the nationalist know it. But, running with the idea, selling it to the ignorant; that is power. That is feeding the self interest. It is not an ideology fit for use, any more than was Marxism. It is not a satisfactory life choice. It is as exciting as living in a supermarket – except most of the shelves will be empty.

It is a scam – pure and simple.

Ratty.

The original misleading and totally ridiculous article is:

By their fruits (or lack of them) shall you know them - Nick Griffin

Who's Christian Voice?

2006-03-21T01:07:00.000Z

It's a joke isn't it! It has to be!

Every now and then, when I am feeling low or less that charitable, I wander off to the organ of that amazingly sexless man, Stephen Green. But I have to say, is it my imagination or has his site gone a bit quiet?

Perhaps his public mauling by Janet Street Porter, truly a better spectacle than even Jerry Springer, has taken the wind out of his sails. Or maybe he has realised his error in his totally sick portrayal of Hurrican Katrina purifying the city from gays. Or perhaps the worst of worst has happened - people have started to ignore him!

Poor little Greenie-poohs! No one love you? After all the hate you have spread, the puritanical bial that you have spouted, the divisions you have tried to create in the name of an old, tired god. Life goes on, one of the gays you so hate said of New Orleans. And so it does. Do you ever so mind that we carry on without you?

Ratty

(Cheered up now for that pointless little rant)

Have more laughs at www.christianvoice.org....

About MajorityRights.com

2006-03-21T00:53:00.000Z

Anyone seen this site Majority Rights? It is the normal thing, "We are not really racisits, we just call black people negroes and hate them a little. But we could learn to love them as long as they go back to Africa and don't marry our daughters."

It is sites like that that make the internet a near waste of space. For instance, their coverage of the sad affair of Mary-Ann Leneghan, brutally murdered by six men (convicted today) consists only of them leaping up and down because no one has mentioned the fact that the men are black. Who cares? They are thugs - that is all we need to know.

I haven't said that the writers on Majority Rights are white, anachronistic, savage, purile, bitter, twisted, anal, pathetic, swivel-eyed little gits (sorry, Mr Cleese) even though they are!

Oh, I just have!

Naughty Ratty!

PS: Don't go and visit their site - let them whither away in loneliness!

Some people don't deserve air time.

2006-03-21T00:45:00.000Z

Did he do it or not? Did he kill his step daughter or is there a killer still on the loose? We shall never know since Sion Jenkins has been formally aquitted as a jury, minds bent hother and thither by a plethora of forensic evidence and scientific argument were, understandably, unable to reach a verdict. Please note - they did not clear him, just could not find the truth. The law has "formally" aquitted him as the process has reached is tortuous end.

For good or bad, people will have thier opinions. Some will say that he murdered Billie-Jo, some will say he did not. Both will be certain they know and both will be talking from a point of total ignorance. Only two people know the truth adn one of those is dead.

There comes a time in these bitter ordeals when one has to quit and lay the story to rest. What ever the truth about Jenkins, he should now quietly disapear. The rest of Billie-Jo's family, who have thier own opinions, are well past the time where they should be trying to rebuild their shattered lives. The outcome is unsatisfactory, but for good or ill it is the outcome we have reached. C'est la vie, mes amie.

So what do ITN go and do? They go and interview the bloke on prime time television!

Why? For what purpose? It is not in the public interest, the trials are all over. It is not going to reveal anything new - everything that could come out has come out. It is not going to make a young girl rest any easier. So what is it for?

Simple, ITV, the master of trash TV has shown once again that it is capable of producing the most tasteless rubish in the form of Voyeur TV. Because that is all it is: voyeurism. And they know it. They will wave the public interest flag all over the place, but will care little whether anyone believes them. They make way to much money feeding the sick, voyeuristic side of society with trash such as this.

Do you think the family enjoyed it as much as the continuously overated Trevor McDoughnut? (A man who would have been nothing without that seaside comic, Lenny Henry.) And when you read the summary - have we learnt more. Not a single thing.

Oh Goody.

Ratty.

BBC NEWS | England | Jenkins 'vilified' over Billie-Jo

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng...

Probation Nightmare

2006-03-21T00:28:00.000Z

Having a couple of members of the family work in the public sector in social roles, though not in the probationary service, I have respect and sympathy for the people who were supervising these thugs.

It is a thankless job, when you think about it. The public are suspicious of you because they think you are some kind of blinkered do-gooder. The people in your supervisory care see you are an impediment to their futre life, what ever that is meant to be. And the government cant be bothered to either give you enough funds or even enough staff.

Your job is simple. Look after people after they are released and attempt to help them make the quite enourmous jump form convict to worthwhile member of society. You have no say on whether the person should have been released or not, that is down to the psychs, your bosses and the prison service. You are given minimal amount of information about the person - like the chances they will reoffend.

Not suprisingly, rather a lot of people on probation commit an offense. What you weren't watching the criminal 24/7? What do you do all day? Huh? Lovely people the forgiving public, with some prodding from the press.

But we have a problem here - people do commit crimes, and a lot of them do it while on parole from a previous crime. Some people have no real interest in rehabilitation. They are not bright enough to realise that they will probably be caught again - they are in the parenial ga-ga land of "Yeah, see me is too clevah to get caught by the bill, right!"

WE need better assesments, we need to be more ruthless. We need to take more heed of not where the criminal has come from but where they think they are headed. And if we are going to use parole, then we better bung some moeny at it before any more people get killed.

It is a tough world this.

BBC NEWS | England | Berkshire | Sixth man guilty of girl's murder

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng...

Music and Words - Dancing Bear

2006-03-20T00:22:00.000Z

Away from the politics for a moment, and onto a pet subject of mine - that of music in advertising. Now I know that this rat is probably a bit biased, seeing that I do write music for advertising, but I sometimes think that the music component often gets undersold.

Let's take your favourite advertising jingle. Most polls show that it is the infamous "Shake 'n' vac" ad written by Johnathan Hodge. Yes, I know it is annoying, but at the time it was recogniseable, cheesey and highly succesful. And this has been the trick of a good jingle, all the way back to "Shrimpams paste have a family traddition," in the 1950's.

The ones that really worked, that stayed the course, were cheesey, corny, clichéd and everything else insulting you can throw at a piece of music. And that was WHY they worked!

So, lets get rid of all this lovely sophisticated stuff, including some that I write, and lets raise a galss for corn, for cheese and most of all for the wonderful cliché. I want to write in a major key again!

"I am an artist!" - I think not!

2006-03-19T23:15:00.000Z

I am acreative sort of rat. I like creative things, I play with creative ideas. I am not sure I have ever managed artistic, but I have had my fun. However, should I ever wish to do something that could be described as art, I will go out of my way to make sure it is appreciated as art by a wide and diverse community.

If on the other hand I want to be a complete and utter idiot, making a stupid protest in an irresponsible way, annoying thousands for the hell of it, and achieving nothing but earning the title of crass git of the year, then I hope someone will slap me before I ever call it art.

"I understand we are in a drought. But I am an artist so I'm not actually wasting water for nothing." Says performance artist Mark McGowan. No you are not. You are a sad little git that needs to be told to stand in the corner. If you were not getting in the way of decent humanity we should simply turn our backs on you till you fade away to nothingness. Or is that what you are afraid of?

Art has been subverted by the millionaires, corrupted by the anal elite, debased by a selfish minority. Art is communication, it is silent opinion, observation or simple admiration. It is a way for one person to talk to millions. But what is called art today, what is done by the Tracies, the Damiens, and the Marks is nothing more than drivel. If you need to explain it for the majority to get it, then you have failed. If most people do not understand you it is not them that has got it wrong, it is you own inability to communicate. And if you cannot communicate, then you cannot wear the artists badge.

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng...

Somebody do something about Ms. Short!

2006-03-19T17:27:00.000Z

Am I the only one (apart from T. Blair, probably) who is absolutely sick and tired of the ravings of Clare Short? This daft politician has such an obvious hatred of Tony Blair that is oozes out of every orafice when she is interviewed.

Now, I am not saying that she doesn't have some reasons to be against at least some of what comes out of number 10, but her opinions have disintergrated into teeth grinding fury of the kind that become more and more rediculous in every telling. Not for her a simple complaint that the Prime Minister is losing contact with the electorate or something similar that might have a plausability about it. Oh, no. She has to go for the full, little zitty kid paranoid conspiracy theory:

"What we're getting is a bubble of these clever people who've captured the state, don't need a party, don't need any members, don't have turbulent people having opinions, who then get money from rich people and run our state without consulting anyone else."

Okay, Clare, calm down. But then she has always been thus. It has not always been bitter but more often than not she has appeared, as my mother would say, "like someone with a bad smell under her nose." Indeed! And in this case the aroma is all Shorty-poos.

There are some people in this world who seem to go our of their way to misunderstand everything everybody says, just because it either does not fit with how they think or they simply do not like the person speaking. It is a perculiar inability to listen accurately. It goes far beyond having bios in your analysis and extends to a one sided filter as the information goes in. The person does not analyse the facts wrong, they are unable to hear them write in the first place. Worse still, these people invariably think they are very clever.

An ancient Persian proverb gets it right:

He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool, shun him.

Ratty

BBC NEWS | Politics | Prescott in the dark about loans

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

Milosevic? Oh, I am sure he was wonderful really!

2006-03-18T14:01:00.000Z

The human, especially the medi infected human has the most amazing ability to forgive once someone is dead. It seems to be particularly prevelent in the West for some reason. So and so - such a bitch, rude to her mother! She's dead? Oh, I will so miss the treasured times we spent together!

And it would have been so easy for the Serbian government to do the same with Milosevic. Certainly, the Butcher of Belgrade seems well loved by at least a percentage of his population. Whether they are made up of those that do not believe the accusations about Milosevic, or whether they are supporters of his ethnic cleansing policy, I could not tell, but they have been out in their droves.

But the otherwise uncooperative Serbian government has stuck to common sense - no state funeral, no let up on his exiled family, no sweeping history under the carpet.

And so Milosevic will be remebered as a slaughterer, though an unproven one. Because, let' face it, when it comes to political figures the dirt stick whatever the outcoem of a trial.

So long Slobby old boy - I feel you will belong to a very specialised but growing little club in the afterlife. Hitler, Stalin ...

Rat Fiend

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Serbs say farewell to Milosevic

Can thousands be wrong?

2006-03-18T13:36:00.000Z

In the case of the Stop The War coalition - yes.

The war may well have been a daft idea, looking back, but we are there now. If you want an overnight bloodbath that would make casualties thus far look insignificant - pull the troops out all at once.

Yes, thousands can be wrong, millions can be wrong. Thousands in Britain thought Hitler would be alright really, and that included many senior polititions and influential, but stupid, members of the elite.

Yes, we may have made a mistake, but not let us be complete cowards and run away from it.

Oh, and can we shoot George Galloway while we are about it? No? Well, it was just a thought.

Ratty

BBC NEWS | England | London | Thousands march in anti-war rally

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng...

So fair thee well

2006-03-18T13:26:00.000Z

And so farewell
The mighty thrust
has withered gently
Into dust
Add pigrims chants
From right of stage
Beckon him on
This mighty sage

Horray! We lose
A mighty sword
That saw our justice
As a menacing chord
That rumbled dread
Throughout the land
"Off with his head"
We die or stand.

But, great relief
The fun and games
Will lose those eyes
That greying main
And as we look
Apon a younger sight
He will slither quietly
Back to the night!

Poetic Ratty

BBC NEWS | Politics | Michael Howard stands down as MP

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

Stand by for the tree huggers

2006-03-18T13:17:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Health | Animal tests 'false reassurance'

In the BBC Article, Dr David Clover says, apparently, that animals are not the best way to test certain drubs - for instance the ones given to the six men the other day. I use the word "apparently" as I am so used to scientist getting misquoted, misunderstood, make your choice.

Animal testing is never the best way as there is no "best way" as such. However, even when a drug is very human specific, as this and many are, animal testing gives very importent information. This drug would have been tested several ways, and you will notice that Dr Glover was not involved in the testing or this drug, nor probably knows much about what tests this drub has thus far been subjected to.

However, scientists will tend to do off the cuff coments not realising that journalists will quote their statement as definitive rather than discursive. And the result is that the rediculous anti testing lobby will take this as fuel to their pointless arguments.

It would be better if scientists could keep their trap shuts unless they are presenting a well researched and rehersed paper - they don't seem to be able to manage ad-libs.

Ratty

BBC NEWS | UK | Prince wins diary privacy battle

2006-03-17T15:43:00.000Z

Fascinating - this article at the BBC website has been rewritten three times.

The first outing was very positive for the prince and negative for that shameful, right wing, ghastly paper the Mail on Sunday.

However, the second outing became anti-prince and pro-newspaper.

This third edition seems a little more balanced.

However, if the Beeb are going to edit articles after publication it seems only fair that they declare that they have done so on the article itself. Or are they trying to cover up shoddy reporting?

Another Thought about the Diaries

2006-03-17T12:40:00.000Z

The Mail on Sunday has Prince Charles PRIVATE diaries without his consent.

That is handling stolen good.

Which part of "hand them back," are the lawyers having trouble with?

The shamefull press are forever damned, me thinks.

A Rat

Read more about it at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/...

Victory for Common Sense - Prince blocks diary publication

2006-03-17T11:20:00.000Z

The Mail on Sunday's assertion that they should published nicked diaries of the Prince of Wales because "they are in the public interest" was always complete nonsense. We all know that this is the type of pathetic act normally commited by spiteful 8 year old girls when they find a "love note" written to a pet enemy - Go tell the whole playground!

The Prince of Wales has every right to grumble about "dreadful old waxworks" and other such descriptions - and in the case of the chinese leadership he was painfully accurate. If anyone cares to read Churchill's war diaries the way he describes various allies is far from flattering. But that was Churchill - we liked him, he can say anything.

The Mail on Sunday has never liked Charles, mostly because they are still defending that indefensible woman, Diana. Any chance to give HRH a good kicking they will make use of with hand-rubbing relish. This most unpleasant publication, read by some of the more unpleasant of society, has deserved to lose this action. I hope they lose the rest too.

As for Charles - good on yer mate!

Read the beeb article news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/...

Molehills, Mountains and Just In Time Management

2006-03-17T09:58:00.000Z

What? Only SIX months to fill in the paperwork? How we will ever fit it in. Let's take two examples, two local pubs and their approaches. This won't tak long.

Pub 1 - Read his newspaper, kept up with the news, got the forms and filled them in. Task completed months before it was needed.

Pub 2 - read the sports news, got drunk with his locals, stuck his fingers up his nose, then remembered the paperwork stashed in his knickers draw about a week before the deadline. Complained about the stupid government not writing the guidelines in "Stupid Gitish" and phones his local paper and MP in that order.

So, lets have a really expensive parliamentary enquiry. Why not tell some members of the public to pull their fingers out instead?

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

MPs Grubby Washing

2006-03-17T09:48:00.000Z

Are we so tardy in sorting out this cash for peerages law? The SNP, rushing on their way to phone Scotland Yard, point to an existing law from 1925 that makes such impropriety an offence. But then, the SNPs answer to anything is "Police!" I suppose it works on the principle that if you can't beat them, dig up the dirt.

The more interesting issue here is a willingness by the two major parties to simply clean up their acts. Even the Lib Dems have been remarkably low key, though they are slightly less steeped in these problems - mostly because no body has asked them. It is very difficult to get involved in a scandalous party if no one has remembered to invite you in the first place!

This is an occassion where, instead of mutual head bashing, or even calling 999, there is an opportunity to actually sort something out properly - with everybody in agreement. Accept Alex Salmon of course, or probably Gorgeous Galloway - but who gives a damn about hsoe two idiots anyway; they have hardly served anyone right.

So, brush down the diplomacy, wheel out the backrooom boys and lets do something possitive. But do remember - better to wash ALL your grubby nickers in public this time round than have a few more slip out of the basket later!

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

Oh, Look - Isn't the US tiny?

2006-03-16T21:50:00.000Z

Apparently this map of the US created from strands of DNA is but a few billionths of a metre across. I can think of some countries that have wanted to do that to the US for years...

Read the proper article at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci...

It is a thirsty world

2006-03-16T21:18:00.000Z

When I was younger I really didn't think I would see many changes in my world. Oh, there was this thing about World War 3 but only paranoid American school kids were practicing hiding under their desks - to the rest of us it was far less of a possibility.

Now I am older I find that my future is being drawn in far darker and harsher detail than was ever invisaged in "On the Beach" or "The Crysalids" or other apocalyptic novels.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Quenching Mexico City's thirst

"Population growth, the over-exploitation of subterranean aquifers, and a failure to recycle limited water supplies have turned a once-fertile region into a barren desert."

Mexico city, once the water logged Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, sat within a broad, deep lake of floating crop islands and tropical beauty, is drying out. 20 million people have drunk the city dry. Water recycling is minimal, and they have a leaking water problem that makes Thames water look wonderful.20 million people and it rains less. In other parts of the world it is worse.

Some predictors indicate that Africa could lose 25% of its water in the next 50 to 100 years. In constrast other parts of the world could get wetter. The seas could rise, the storms could be more ferocious and the floods more debilitating. And the population will rise because we are getting better at keeping it alive.Anyone ofr a nuclear holocaust? At least it would be quick. Perhaps the Iranians will obige.

Read the BBC article news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor...

So much news! Any ID what is happening?

2006-03-16T16:39:00.000Z

The too and fro of the ID bill continues in its own rather daft way. If anyone has bothered to follow all of this then they are either on the committee or are having a very tired life.

The truth is that if ID cards were introduced tomorrow and they were mandatory, then most people would get one. People would object and you might even get a riot or two. But within ten years it would be a matter only for historians.Will ID cards make life easier? Get the technology right and possibly. But it will only be in the same way that a chip and pin card is seen as better than cash. And is that better? Well, possibly - possibly not. Never seen a major problem with cash personally. It can't be decoded and if anyone steals it, well they get what was in your pocket, but ot doen't give them access to any more.So, cash is probably better. Hmmm. Better ditch ID cards and credit cards, oh, and cheques, IOUs and anything else that is not the real thing. Ah, that would be cash as well then.So lets reject ID cards and return to bartering with gold, silver and tin. Or we accept the lot, but make it workable. You choose.

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

How much a Peerage?

2006-03-16T16:26:00.000Z

I feel in my bones that this is not a particularly life or death scandal, however it once again highlights the fact that Patronage is and has been part of our political system as much as it has been part of the US system.

We have to look again at many parts of our honours system and seperately at the second chamber. Personally, I am in favour of removing the ability for politicians to place honour upon anyone - especially as they often seem to have a limp grasp on the entire idea of Honour in the first place. Let us take it fully back to where it belongs - the Royal family.

If the system were to be run completely and soley by the palace, with no intrusion from the government, then they system could be designed to truly honour those which society wishes to recognise.

However, to really clean up the system we need to change the way political parties are funded and run. The demands on a polical party's purse has become astronomilcal with most of the budget going to mass marketing technicues of one sort or the other. Not only has this proved very expensive but it has put a tangeable barrier, the marketing specialist, between the party and the voter.

If there was a draconian limit on spend, then the party's would be forced to make greater use of traditional techniques, like meeting people more often. Or simply talking to camera rather than spending thousands on pointless images (I know they are pointless - I do this for a living).Either way, if power corrupts then the currency of power is the same as anything else - cash. Remove large amounts of cash from the system and you remove some of the tools of corruption. It is not a cure, but it is a start.

Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

Taking the politics out of the Greenhouse

2006-03-16T12:57:00.000Z

There is a simple problem here: If sea levels rise, the Tower of London will get flooded. This is the trouble when the river you are parked on is more or less at sea level. And will sea levels rise? Well, if the workd heats up - yes.

The trouble is there is dispute as to whether the world WILL heat up in the near future. CErtainly it has gotten a little warmer, but is this really showing a major trend? The best evidence unfortunately thinks that it is - we could be in big trouble. In fact we could be in enough trouble that we will get there whether we do anything or not, and that is a depressing thought.The USA has, however, a different approach. They say that firstly the indications are so small as to be misleading - they may or may NOT be showing climate change. They also are havng tremendous trouble with the idea of one body telling another what it can do - especially of the second body happens to be the USA and the first has anything to do with the UN.To be honest, the USA has a more realistic problem too. As the most powerful, or rather most succesful, economy in the world currently, they have unbelievable power requirements. And they are very worried that climate change will mean they will have to start turning power off. This could be politically destabalising not only for the US but for the rest of us as well.However, the US is taking a very dishonest approach to the problem - at least publically. Rather than confront the situation head on and start looking for solutions that may protect against climate change as well as keeping stbility - taking a lead, in other words - they hide behing a wall of political twists and turns that are as meaningless as they are rediculous.Avoiding a problem is not a solution. In other areas the US has been good, or perhaps over zealous, in getting it's hadns dirty, why are they so backwards in this one that may REALLY matter?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Tower of London on climate list

The Premier Blog?

2006-03-16T12:09:00.000Z

(BBC NEWS - Nick Robinson's Newslog)

From the thousands of blogs out there, this one gets premier positioning on the BBC website. And it fulfills everything a blog should - it is consise, it does not just regurgitate eveything lse, it is personal and, of course, it is free! (Erm, with a nod to the licence fee)

But does it get any more noticed than, say, my own? Well, okay it does a bit, well probably quite a lot, but I do wonder whether the total amount of readers of the blogs of the world actually exceeds the total number of bloggers. I hope this has a magnificent hit rate - it would give the rest of us hope!

Who cares where the votes come from? (BBC NEWS - Blair to defend key schools plan)

2006-03-16T11:04:00.000Z

I get this deep feeling that the job of "running the country" that is meant to be the pervue of elected MPs is being subverted by the need to be political. Okay, so this is not new, not even recent, but it is getting to be a complete pain!

Now, I quite like at least some of what the government is proposing in the current education bill. Well, I would, wouldn't I? I have kids of the right age, I am fed up with the state of education, and the fact that I can do noubt about it, and I also remember and fear the looney left in the education system that tried so hard to cock up my own education.Despite that I am a labour supporter. However, although I have no particular wish to vote for the Tories, I am aware of one thing. EVERY MP in the house is there because they were elected by people of this country. A vote from a Tory, Lib Dem or other carries the same weight as a vote from the Labour back benches.That is called democracy and, as an ordinary voter, I do not give a jot what flavour any particular MP is, but I do care about the result. Yesterday's result was good for me. Let's face it, if I lived in a Tory constituency, the MP I would have to lobby would be a Tory MP - That is who represents me, even though I voted labour.It is about time that the news people stopped focussing on the stupid westminster soap stories and started talking policy.Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

Potter, Potter everywhere ... But who switched the acting off?

2005-11-20T08:27:00.000Z

Something went rather wrong with my organisational abilities last night. There I was, chewing on a nice warm puddle-marinated chicken bone, when down floated this ticket for “Harry Potter and some sort of cup,” or similar. Now, I am not one to pass up a free ticket, even when I can simply squeeze under the door, so I finished off a last tendon, used the grease to slick back the old whiskers and trotted off to the local Picture House.

Since the old tart in the box office, her thick make up slowly sliding down her face under the pounding from a rusty fan heater, refused to notice my attention seeking tap dance routine, complete with special flag waving demonstration using the ticket held in my teeth, I renounced the legality of ticket ownership and squeezed under the door any way.

You know, you really do not truly understand a place until you see it from 3 inches off the ground. Apart from the obvious "wow, doesn't everything look REALLY BIG" part of the scenario, you have to appreciate that the entire sense of the place is different. Okay, so I am not so wonderful at comparisons here because unless I stand on something I ALWAYS see things from this height. So sort out the differences for your self, I will just stick to my perspective.

Lets get one thing straight immediately - When I walk across the room you don’t find half the occupants picking up their skirts and screaming as they climb the furniture. Remember the saying, "You are never more than 10 feet from a rat?" Working on the assumption that this is probably true, how many times do you actually notice a rat? Yeah, right, not often is it? No. You see us rats are pretty good at getting on with our lives without getting caught up too much with the big people. Oh, one or two get careless and get seen, even get caught, but the other MILLIONS of us generally have little problems.

Now working on the principle that the room was around 50 feet long, I tipped a whisker at the couple of other rats that had come in for the film, including one sad, thin fellow who was still trying to give his ticket to someone, and made my way over to the food counter.

I need to back track in time here a bit, to a time before I was a rat, or even before my great-great rat thingy was a rat. Indeed, I need to go back to the time when, in my view, cinema was REAL cinema. Cinema has changed much in the last couple of decades. In the old days there were two types of cinema. The local fleapit showed last month’s big hits, last year’s children’s films on Saturday mornings, and old b-movie romances at four o’clock. In the evening, there were normally two screenings on the one screen, one at around 6 and another at nine. Some showed a midnight movie (normally and older film) at the weekends. It was all pretty predictable stuff. The cinema had one big screen, a dress circle and, if you were lucky, an art deco decoration on the ceiling. It echoed like crazy and the sound was in mono.

The other type of cinema was basically the same, except it was twice the cost, twice the size, showed the latest flicks and had the benefit of being clean! It also, and this is the important part, had a second flavour of popcorn. Now, to you enlightened modernites, this might seem rather a daft thing, but it really meant something. Going to the cinema was an event that far outweighed any interest the film might possess. One used to get tickled with anticipation, teased with promise and excited with expectation. If you were lucky, you went to the cinema by bus, wrapped up in scarves and woolly hats against the cold, and rushed into the theatre blowing steam, and rushing to the Kiosk to get your ration of Popcorn. Did I say theatre? Oh, they were theatres all right! You went to the cinema for the performance, for the play, for the organist before the films, for the dodgy ice cream in the intermission (Wow, what’s an intermission) and then when it was all over, you were released like liberating animals from a zoo and rushed out into the now darkened city, chattering, comparing, commenting, reviewing, desperate to get home and dive into the cocoa pot.

And anyone that ever went to Saturday kids cinema – a thousand noisy kids, laughing at the cartoons, being played jokes by some enthusiastic cinema employee, drinking orange juice through straws and generally raising the roof.

Then one day it all changed. They brought in the workmen, shut off the dress circle, covered the stunning art-deco plasterwork and lights with board, and one cinema became four. Gone were the creaky, velvet covered seats, gone were the worn brass edgings on the steps, gone was the Wurlitzer organ, the intermission and the special shows. Instead we were given four uniform, dull, cheap, featureless boxes with tiny screens and a rapid turnover policy. Gone were the backseats under the balcony (and they wonder why the birth rate has fallen), gone was the old lady who not only knew every seat in the house, but remembered where you liked to sit and what the names of your kids were and gone was the intermission.

And gone too was the treat of the second flavour of popcorn. Now you have loads of different types, in sickenly big buckets. There is no treat involved, it is expected, guaranteed, taken for granted and demanded. No one is excited about it any longer. Yet another subtle moment of fun expunged from the process.

So, now I am at the food counter.

Look, it is pointless as a rat trying to buy anything. It is going to scare the living daylights out of the counter girl and, to be practical; I can’t carry more than one piece of popcorn at any one time. So, I steal. It is not exactly the crime of the century. The booty is normally discarded and on the floor, I doubt anyone is truly going to miss it, and I am normally in desperate need at this point (It is a bit of a hike to the local picture house.) For some reason, a young human looked down at me as I had just liberated a piece of butterscotch popcorn from the carpet and smiled at me. I don’t worry about small children. They are not frightened of me, and I won’t bother them – it works in it’s own way. I winked at the kid and he giggled. However, not one to over egg the entertainment, I turned tail and ran along the skirting board till I got to the right “Screen.”

Why do they call them screens? They are rooms – the screen is nailed to the wall. Daft modern people!

Oh, people often think that rodents are cowardly by the way they run along skirting boards. Rudyard Kipling made a big point of it in his biography of that egotist, Riki-Tiki Tavi. But, rats are not stupid. They are, however, very small. And your feet are very big. If you were in a room full or blundering big feet where would you stand? Running along the skirting board is not cowardly in the same way as getting squished is not brave. Good, I am glad I cleared that up.

There were quite a few rats in for the screening. Not particularly surprising. It was not so much the subject matter of the film, as the wetness of the matter falling from out of the sky that had brought them in. But once here, you might as well settle in and take in the film, I always say. And so we did; a little row of glinting eyes, peering from under the feat of the kids in the front row. Each rat sat back on his haunches holding his piece of popcorn. Oh, yes, there was one exception – there always is. The thin rat had eventually got the hint about ticket had gone on the rummage and staggered in half an hour late dragging an entire hot-dog. Someone will have indigestion tonight, I said from under my jealousy.

Cinema floors are interesting places. There are not many places you go as a rat where feet have stayed stationary for so long. I suppose they do get cleaned regularly, or at least the management think they get cleaned. But then, they don’t see and smell the carpets from my height. Was a minefield of information the carpets are. And you wouldn’t believe how many fleas you humans leave behind. Oh, yes, they are yours not mine. I have different ones, and I count then regularly and know what they are up to. You people just think you are bug free. It’s called arrogance, you know, or perhaps blind delusion. Anyway, what you leave behind on that carpet can tell all kinds of things about you.

Where I was sitting was beneath a child whose feet only just jutted over the edge of the seat. A bit young for this film, I thought, but had reasoned that he might drop a fair amount of popcorn every time he screamed, so it was a good position. I wasn’t the only rat who had reasoned thus and there was a fair amount of scrabbling and jostling going on under the seat.

Anyway, due to his height problems, the kid wasn’t about to leave much in the way of footprints. So we were entertained by the previous occupant. Unfortunately the entertainment was rather off as we were fairly sure that the previous occupant had been spotty, putrid, male, and about 15, going by the rather nasty cheesy smell whofting from the floor. Still, beggars can’t be choosers. And anyway, I had managed to get myself stuck on the bottom of a pile of around ten rats and was unlikely to be going anywhere in a hurry.

The film certainly had its scary parts. We had a constant little rain of popcorn and even a couple of boiled sweets. There had been desperate moment when the kid spilt his cola, but someone on top saw it coming and the whole heap had managed a backward leap in one choreographed moment just in time. It had brought an annoying giggle from the rats under the seat to our right, but little more that a snore from the seat to our left. It seemed as if the thin rat had finally finished his sausage.

Getting out at the end of a film is always a bit tricky. Back to the days when a film was an event, people used to clap at the end of films and often watch the credits, since they were a) short and b) shown while the lights were still out. That gave the part of the audience that were on four feet time to get out unnoticed.

Now, the credits go on for ever, and the lights are brought up quickly to rush you out and allow them to cram another sitting in. This means that, as a rat you need to have your wits about you. The trick is to work out what the very last scene of the film will be and leg it out before the credits start. The ideal film to go and see if you are a rat is, therefore, one with a really obvious plot line, and preferably a loud end that keeps people eyes fixed on the screen for a few moments.

And generally this is not a problem. Most films finish very logically and getting a good punch in at the end is almost a must. Still, if anyone bothered to look down, they would see a very disorderly rug rushing for the exit at around the 89-minute mark. This night was no exception, and we all made it out via the toilets with at least 30 seconds to spear. Even the thin rat, though he was mostly carried out on the wave, to be honest. Rats being highly sociable creatures we then all stared at each other for an exquisitely distrustful moment and shot off in a thousand different directions.

Time for a snack. Actually, when you are a rat the only time it is not time for a snack is when it is time for a sleep. Since I wasn’t sleeping, this meant I should be snacking. And let me tell you, there is nowhere better for a nice second-hand, sweet snack than a cinema. Oh, look! Where did that come from?

The film? What do you mean? Oh, did I like it. Yeah, fun enough. Pity about the acting.

My First Ever Blog

2005-11-10T14:23:00.000Z

There is a bit of me that says that as a Rat I should feel very honoured to be given my own place to write my feelings. It could be argued, after all, that my world is very small; consisting as it does of a cage of little more that a cubic metre, sat in the corner of a room. Further more, many would argue that a Rat is not so well versed in the artistry and majesty of a spoken language; though I would argue that point should it be desirous to do so.

But in the end, I spell the word Rat with a capital R -and that, in my humble and 20-centimetre opinion (excluding tail), says more than enough on the subject!

It is strange in many ways being a Rat. Not that I feel the sudden urge to be something else, as if I have woken up to find I am in the wrong pelt. It is just that I am surrounded by a lot that is very Not-Rat, and I have to relate it somehow.

So I sometimes find it strange.

I don't get out much as a rule. And I certainly have less of the adventure in me than when I was younger. But, from my hammock (or day-bed two, as I refer to it) I get a pretty good view of the television and I often find that I am watching far more of the world than one would expect in my situation. 'Scuse I - got an itch! Don't panic, I am flea-less. But I am sure this pelt is a bit loose. Must find some food to fill it up with.

Now, where was I - oh, yes; the television. Now you have to remember that I don’t get a look in on the remote front. I did try once, but it didn't taste very nice, to be honest. Not as good as a nice bowl of soup. Did I tell you I like soup? No? Well another time maybe. So, without recourse to Remote Power, what I watch is totally dependant on those big things that lump and thump around my world.

Much of what is shown is, to be honest, little more than swirling, meaningless shapes and sounds – little adapted to one of my stature. But on the odd time it does get interesting. I rather like the nature programs, though I have problems with creatures that have mastered the art of flying – something that I have completely failed to do. I did find a feather once which I thought might just do the trick. But I plummeted to the ground just as fast as I had before. It was a pink feather and that was probably the problem. For some reason, the sight of a plummeting Rat waving around a pink feather makes others giggle. How rude!

There was this particular documentary about a sloth, a hairy elephant and a tiger with big teeth. Of course they were just the supporting players – the real interest was this squirrel-like creature. He seemed to be having problems with storage, something to which I can empathise. Wherever he put his nuts, disaster struck. I have the same problem. I spend the whole week carefully storing one half of all that I harvest and then some thick head of a bear comes a long and Hoovers the whole lot up!

I always find more food, or course. And sometimes I get a treat – like the soup I was mentioning. Pumpkin was my favourite. It was really good, if a touch warm. The big lumps don’t always get that one – Rats aren’t used to hot food, we like it tepid. I know, call me fussy, but having been the main source of entertainment round the house for most of my life (which is a long time, let me tell you) I think I deserve some treats!

Talking of wish, I am feeling all limp. CHOCOLATE!!!!!

You can’t be subtle – not a bit of it!

The New Diary of a Nobody

The People Deserve a Better System of Government.

It is time for a change.

Can this be Changed?

Tearing down the Temple and Starting Again

Changing the Rules of Engagement

Communicating with the Outside World

Regulating the privileged few

The Honours System

A New Second Chamber

Making Votes Count

Conclusion

A New Home for the New Diary?

The Rat has moved and taken up residence with the bear and the boar!

Recent articles include:

PLUS

Nobody is moving

The world of the sad little git

All bets are off then!

As long as he has nice teeth

Daily Mail Incites Hatred

Up Sticks and rush to save the Queen!

Monday's child is full of woe!

Smoking - It's a dogs life!

Five Carcasses of Mutton anyone?

The Rat gets up to date

Ah, the racists nibble back!

It's a Sheep!

Get Rich Quick Scheme for Young Victoria

Wet voting papers at dawn!

WE chose who’s honoured, not you!

Supermarket Chuckle

A hundred trees and not one good word!

The Media, The politician and Mrs Peach

Logo Arrogance

Sign the Olympic Logo Petition!

Scrap the new London 2012 Olympic Logo - quick!

Back to this local issue bit

Fog halts count in Western Isles

The Local question

Blogging Mad for the Elelction

What right has the Daily Mail to kill a career?

How the Press exploit victims

Naughty BBC Iplayer!

Why I have a right to ignore fools

There Are Some Forests I would be glad to see gone

Do ID cards need to be such a problem?

Bullingdon Club Louts and David Cameron

Reep what you snow!

Telling a Story

It is all spinning needlessly out of control!

Press almost hysterical over Cash for Honours

BBC muck up casino coverage

Bobby gets republican support

The Tale of the Missing Exclusive

Catholic Adoption Problems

More on Milton Keynes

All Hale John Gummer!

Media and the idiotic Tara Flood Slam Ruth kelly

Boris? Or BBC Bias?

BBC NEWS | Nick Robinson's Newslog

What is British anyway?

BBC NEWS | Politics | Murdoch flirts with Conservatives

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Israel warns of 'extreme' action

What a silly campaign, this FOREST lot.

Islam has an uphill climb

Backers and Backbenchers

Do you like junk mail or telephone sales?

Mon Dieu! Ou est le President?

Who is to blame?

The Great Nationalism Scam

Who's Christian Voice?

About MajorityRights.com

Some people don't deserve air time.

Probation Nightmare

Music and Words - Dancing Bear

"I am an artist!" - I think not!

Somebody do something about Ms. Short!

Milosevic? Oh, I am sure he was wonderful really!

Can thousands be wrong?