I may have broken the law, but, I am not sure which one.

Anyone who wants to can buy me the re-mastered Abbey Road album for Christmas. "I guess I'll have to buy the White Album again". We must, for if we borrow it off a friend and copy it, well, that's piracy. Never mind the fact that I have bought Abbey Road already, and the White Album, on vinyl, eight-track, cassette and CD.

I went from being a Cliff Richard fan (those who were there will remember there was not much else but Dickie Valentine and Joan Regan, and against that back-drop, Cliff was more a rebel than Johnny Rotten ever was)

The Rolling Stones passed me by. They were rude, overtly sexual and they urinated in Motorway Service Stations. They also took drugs. Well, let me clarify the last point; they were reported as taking drugs - The Fabs took drugs as well, but, as George said, the press never got around to them.

In 1967, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were sentenced to prison for having a small quantity of cannabis resin, nine months in fact, though the sentence was overturned on appeal. It was an article by William Rees Mogg, the then Editor of The Times, who used the phrase "Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?" that is thought to have influenced the establishment in favour of Jagger and Richards, and consequently the successful appeal.

I mention this as a preamble to the article today, by the same William Rees Mogg, that makes me wonder if we just let history repeat itself. Rees Mogg rails against the fact that we are all being turned into law-breakers:

I suspect that the last 20 years of legislation have indeed had a net negative effect on British society. They have certainly created a society in which there are literally thousands of legislative traps into which anyone may fall.

he writes.

It is bad enough that we have become a thoroughly bureaucratised society, in which the phrase “law-abiding citizen” had become self-contradictory. Yet the Prime Minister believes that we need more regulation..

Yes indeed, more regulation. Every day, people like you and me are being criminalised, often without our knowing (at least that is what Baroness Scotland believes). We can, at any moment, fall foul of a hundred petty rules and regulations, now enforcable by myriad official snoopers who have and do abuse the powers given to them to combat terrorism. In their eyes we are all potential enemies. The question is, enemies of who?

International Blasphemy Day

Yes, I could not believe it either, but it exists. Here is their manifesto:

Blasphemy Day International is a campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a day to promote free speech and stand up in a show of solidarity for the freedom to challenge, criticize, and satirize religion without fear of murder, litigation, and reprisal. Blasphemy Day takes place September 30th to commemorate the publishing of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. The purpose of Blasphemy Day is not to promote hate or violence; it is to support free speech, support the right to criticize and satirize religion, and to oppose any resolutions or laws, binding or otherwise, that discourage or inhibit free speech of any kind. While many perceive blasphemy as insulting and offensive, this event is not about getting enjoyment out of ridiculing and insulting others; rather, it was created as a reaction against those who would seek to take away the right to satirize and criticize a particular set of beliefs given a privileged status over other beliefs.

Fair enough. It is the result of a pluralist society. The trouble is, Christians are now being persecuted for simply stating what they believe. I have no problem with people doing their worst - God, my God, is a lot bigger than that, and so am I, but in a pluralist society, I have a right to say what I want to.

I don't argue with those who are anti-Christian, because there is no point. They don't understand anyway - how could they, for they are lost? What I do not propose, is to call for their death, since it seems a bit rude. Let's leave that to those whose names we cannot even mention any more, for fear of arrest on trumped up charges.

Graham Norton is officially Homophobic!

Latest in the sorry saga, the plague of the new millennium, Political Correctness, with yet another example of how

Political Correctness Will Eat Itself (see earlier post HERE)

Graham Norton has been censured for being, and wait for it...

HOMOPHOBIC!

Apparently he made a cheap shot reference to a Lesbian stereotype. Well, big deal!

Story HERE

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6246157/Graham-Norton-reprimanded-by-BBC-for-homophobic-joke.html

I just love it. Shades of the Peoples' Front of Judea versus the Judean Peoples' Front.
Yet another example of how PC will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

Meanwhile, and elsewhere, Hollywood luvvies are queuing up to heap praise on a child rapist.

Obviously the time is right for Gary Glitter to release a "Greatest Hits Remastered" album in the good old USA, and while we are at it, you know, Hitler had his good points - I'm not suggesting anything showy, just maybe a little statue or a special day to acknowledge Adolf's contribution to German Industry or perhaps a monument to commemorate Isoroku Yamamoto's re-modelling of Pearl Harbor.

£/Euro parity?

Hans Redeker, of BNP Paribas:

There is going to be euro strength, and sterling weakness, down to euro repatriation. I assume that by the end of this year the pound and euro hit parity and sterling may even fall further.

Of course, this won't affect the Pound in your pocket, because it will probably become a Euro.

(source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6240784/Mervyn-Kings-Swedish-visit-rattles-pound-over-policy-fears.html)

Interview with Geraldine of Geraldine & Ricky

Another post in an occasional series, where I track down the stories behind unusual album covers.

This time,TREES TALK TOO, the hit LP from Geraldine and Ricky.

Geraldine Funkel and Ricky Garr were an American Duo who had a number of quirky,minor hits between 1963 and 1965, (remember The Aint no flies on Dick and Fanny?) until a plane crash nearly ended their career and nearly killed Ricky. The duo were busy with a tour of Southern states when their single engined Cessna lost power and landed hard in a field. Geraldine was thrown clear and sustained leg injuries, but Ricky was trapped in the flaming wreckage. Doctors saved him, but could only rebuild his shattered body by reducing him in size and the use of extensive plastic surgery. Many say the pioneering work was used years later on Michael Jackson. The Trees Talk Too is a reference to the couple's early concern with green issues and HRH The Prince of Wales, to whom the album is dedicated. It has the well known chorus:

If I could be
a leafy tree
we could talk
just you and me
and save the world
eternally.


Sadly, Ricky died last year, due to complications arising from his injuries and a dependence on homeopathic medicines. They have a son, Simon Garr - Funkel.

I met Geraldine at a Cliff Richard fan convention and concert. Apparently she is a big fan. When I asked her about the last years with Ricky, she told me,

"It was difficult. He just sat in a corner muttering to himself. Sometimes I think he couldn't do anything without a hand from me - his confidence was shot after the crash and because his voice had gone falsetto and Robin Gibb kept pestering him"

Geraldine has retired from full-time singing and runs "The International House of Flapjacks" in Oakland, Ca. I left Geraldine to go after Cliff. She was hoping to do a duet on "Livin' Doll", but first handed me a blueberry flapjack, which I thought was a nice touch.

I think I've got gout

Yes, it sounds like the sort of thing Dr Johnson had, along with Scrofula and warts. Henry VIII had it.

Walking down Rose Street today to collect my Eterna watch from the repairer's, I suddenly experienced a sudden excruciating pain in my foot, near my big toe. And I mean excruciating. It reduced me to a whimpering, limping bundle of misery. It has happened a few times before and it lasts about 6 hours or so, but can linger.As yet there is no swelling, but I have had arthritis before and it can be progressive. So off I must go to the quack I suppose. That'll be the marathon off then. Of course, it may not be gout, which is apparently exacerbated by the consumption of rich foods and beer.

Anne Robinson launches anti-ageing cream

Unfortunately, too late to save her. The Cream, called, "The Leakiest Wink" is on sale in the UK from Friday. Ms Robinson,91, was unavailable for comment.

Of course, I am having a little joke. This is not Anne Robinson, but a look-alike called Sonia Rykiel.

This is the real Anne Robinson. Isn't she a stunner? The lips don't lie!



A carp with big blobby lips

Roman Polanski vs Gary Glitter

As far as I am aware, Gary Glitter has never been charged with rape, sodomy or giving drugs to a thirteen year old in order to commit rape or sodomy, both of which Roman Polanski has been charged with.

France has turned Polanski, not into a pariah, but a cause celebre.

What the feck is going on? Who is the victim? They cannot both be, unless of course one's preference for underage sex is ok if you are a feted film director and not a crap 70's Glam Rocker. Polanski is out there collecting awards and Gary is wiped from all those BBC clip shows about Glam Rock. It must be something to do with how talented you are, which somehow does not seem right to me.

Well done Swissies by the way. It's a great country, and since they are not in the EU, they can do what they fucking like.

PCWEI

Political Correctness Will East Itself.

It has been my contention all along that Political Correctness will collapse due to internal conflicts in its logic, for example, in the world of PC, Gay is good, Muslim is good, but the two cannot peacefully co-exist, providing a very difficult paradox for people who cling to it for emotional support and because they are stupid.

The latest is the case of two police women who took turns to look after each other's children. (Women GOOD, children GOOD, childcare GOOD, unregulated babysitting BAD) Ofsted were tipped off about the arrangement and the ministry of correctness was called in.

The Story is HERE

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6852372.ece

As usual with the PC brigade, this is yet another example of an aggrieved individual ratting to the authorities about a what is essentially a private issue, purely to make mischief. (See the case of the Muslim convert who has managed to have a Christian couple arrested because she lost an argument.)

I say Good! The sooner people realise that these rules (and their enforcers) are absurd organs of repression and political control, the better. It's a case of the rozzers getting a taste of what it is like to live in a police state, and particularly sweet to me because they are that feted 'minority', wimmin with childcare "needs".

Yes, PC will eat itself, and sooner or later all those dick heads who thought it provided a wonderful answer to all the problems of the world, in place of an intelligent worldview, will find it bites them on their own bum. And I hope they get a nasty infection from the teethmarks.

Is Gordon Brown on Medication?

Gordon has denied it. That means nothing, he is a serial fibber. Take a look at this "official" portrait. Then vote in the survey.

an unexpected quarter

Sometimes, allies come from the most unexpected quarters. Sometimes, we don't recognise who our friends are, until it is too late. I have made an art out of courting the wrong people, only to find that the right people have been there all the time, quiely waiting for me to ask them.

And so it is that I find myself being in agreement with Roy Hattersley. His piece in The Times today amounts to a capitulation of New Labour. Not that he was ever really a fan of New Labour. His libellus begins:

The Labour Party is suffering, as it has suffered since 1994, from sacrificing its reputation as a party of principle...

The “project” was rarely defended on its merits. Winning became new Labour’s guiding philosophy.

A pretty conclusive damnation of Labour and Gordon Brown in particular, the latter being described thus:

The man who promised to move away from government by press release has wasted his time sending messages of condolence to the husband of a dead reality-show “star” and support to a talent-contest finalist.

Wow!

Like me, Hattersley is not convinced that the Conservatives are winning on merit, but merely by default. The Tories are, or rather Cameron is, Blair Lite.

It is true to say that the Tories are having the free ride of their lives, and yet, at the bottom of it all, when you look at them, one finds one's self asking, "what's the difference?" Both parties are happy to go along with this bloated, bureaucratic monster that governs us. Both are happy to send our soldiers to fight absurd wars and both are happy to tax us until it stings. The Tories are not talking about pulling out of the Lisbon Treaty and neither are they talking about reeling back the criminalisation of the middle classes, under a welter of petty legislation and local bullying by councils. All this, mind you, is done under the watchful eyes of spin doctors and press officers. Both parties are happy to change little and routinely lie to us. There is a lot of talk but very little real change. Our choices at the next election then, are rather shite choices. (I exclude the SNP from this because I still believe they are the only party that is offering real choice to the electorate - you may not agree with them but they are at least being different.)

In the end, we are at the fag end of a fashion. It's a fashion for the appearance of things, rather than the reality; a fashion, so prevalent now, for simulacra. The days of moral absolutes are long gone. Opinions are tempered by the need to homogenise everything for public consumption.

Hattersley's plea for "principles" is not a voice crying in the wilderness, it is a voice belonging to the past.

UPDATE: (for those who mistakenly thought this was a post in admiration of RH ..

the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be colored by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices. (OW)

The SNP have lost my vote today

Bendict Brogan has a story today about Strathclyde Police, who appear to have overstepped their remit by setting up their own passport control at Prestwick, demanding that domestic passengers produce passports.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100011026/bit-by-bit-alex-salmond-is-getting-his-way/

(hat tip to Rab)

This has only come to light because a troup of Conservative MPs including Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary arrived at the airport (from England) to be confronted by the local plod with the demand that they produce passports.

Of course, no police force or anybody for that matter, has the right to demand identity papers from UK citizens who travel in the UK.

After all, this is not a police state.

Now, I am all in favour of border controls, but being English myself, in Scotland, am I going to have to wear a yellow star from now on too? If this story is factually true, then the SNP have lost my vote, as from today.

UPDATE:
I may have been a little hasty.

I wrote this late at night, somewhat the worse for wear. I do not, however, accept the contention that "this has nothing to do with the SNP". They govern, they are in charge of Strathclyde Police - either that or they have lost control of them. The SNP is responsible for the policies of Scottish Police forces, and since this is not a matter of law, but of something that has been made up on the spot, Alex Salmond should be very concerned. There is no law in this country that requires people to carry ID or specifically, passports, for the purposes of domestic travel and accordingly, demands to see one are absurd and an abuse of rights.

As for my voting intentions, I am not fickle, I have voted SNP since arriving here Seven years ago.

stats

Not that I worry about this, you understand, but occasionally I take a look at who is reading this and how many there are.

It fascinates me that hundreds of folks are crazy enough to visit this blog every day, from all over the world. It's interesting because I don't have an obvious angle like a lot of bloggers - though I admit that I am unlikely to be read by those on the far left. In fact I seem to piss off people and collect others on a regular basis, either that or just bore them.

I can only say, a big thank you for your interest (except for those who are looking for pictures of ladies bits)

Someone in Kentucky reads this! Kentucky is famous for the Derby, which lasts for less time than I do, and is famous for its Bourbon, which takes its very special flavor (sic) from the limestone water in those parts. So Kentucky guy - show up and tell me why and how you got here!

And come to think of it, tell me where you are in the world. And thank you again for dropping by.

F1 Renault update

It seems that my take on the Renault F1 affair was accurate:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6845194.ece

That is, that Briatore is a lying thug and Pat Symonds is a nice guy who went badly wrong. Briatore is still squealing like a stuck pig, threatening to sue everybody. Yeah.

All has been revealed by a mystery witness who was party to the conspiracy to deliberately crash an F1 car in Singapore last year.

What has come out, and what I did not know, is that Flavio Briatore was never a motor racing fan, he was a huckster, albeit and expensive huckster, for Benetton clothing and had no idea about the "sport" when he became head of Renault F1. It all goes to back up my contention, and Damon Hill's by the way, that Formula One motor racing is now a show and has little or nothing to do with sport or good form and that Bernie Ecclestone is too close to Briatore and vested interests in the Team's survival to be in any sense neutral about the ridiculously light penalty that Renault have incurred.

Off on a technicality, actually.

Technical details. When it comes to the law, technicalities are food for lawyers. Technicalities are the stuff precedents are made of. So when the Attorney-General, the highest lawyer in the land, is found to have broken the law (one of her own) on a technicality, we must all understand that it was a genuine mistake, and that these things happen and that intent, mens rea must guide those who judge.

Well, that is how it is supposed to go. Some years ago I had an auto accident (no other vehicle was involved) and was required by the police to produce my documents, which I duly did. Not a problem, for I am by intent, a law abiding citizen. Except that, somewhere, in the chain of bureaucracy leading from the desk clerk at my local police station, to the DVLC in Swansea, someone had not spelled my name correctly. I learned, by way of a summons, that I was to attend court, some hundred miles away, to explain why I did not possess a Driver's Licence.

This is where I found that the burden of proof fell to me to convince several petty clerks - faceless, emotionless, morally neutral and possibly brain-dead clerks, that I did indeed possess a Full driving licence and had done for many years. This is the point at which the law falls into assdom. It is the point at which normal ordinary and particularly middle class white people become an easy target for box tickers and quota fillers.

A good point, along with anecdotal evidence appears in The Times, where Melanie Reid says,

Overregulation has transferred to us the onus to behave like office clerks in every facet of our own lives, or suffer the consequences. It has trapped ordinary, responsible people and businesses in a web of pseudo-offending. From the authorities, there is no leeway, no slack to cut, no discretion, no room for commonsense, no amnesty; because Lady Scotland and her like have deliberately managed such things out of the system. Honestly, is it any wonder we are gleeful?

Quite. Baroness Scotland is a victim of her own willingness to criminalise the middle classes. Serves the stupid woman right. The only sad thing is, £5,000 to someone who is already overpaid and who has fiddled her expenses to the limit, the sting is nothing like as bad as it should be. My only long-term joy in this is that she wont be in government in a year's time; gone with all the other shysters and fiddlers and unelected megalomaniacs.

ultracrepidarian

If you want to see the spectacle of WW totally out of his depth and truly splatted by a master, then go to

http://charlescrawford.biz/

Charles is a friend and and, being a former Ambassador for Her Britannic Majesty, does actually know what he is talking about. Plus, he is a nice guy.

Quote of the Day

"This Cucumber has a life of its own"

(Mrs Weasel)

When the law is a hammer to crack a nut

So the "victims" of the E-coli outbreak at Godstone Farm are doing a class action to sue the ass of the owners of the farm. How sad. It's the countryside, you twerps. If your kids really must pet animals and then not wash their hands, I am afraid it should be the parents that should be sued for child abuse.

Meanwhile, in the West Country, a nurse has been re-allocated to other duties for refusing to remove her gold crucifix. At the same time, a Christian couple who run a B&B have been arrested on some trumped up charge for arguing with a Muslim and allegedly suggesting that her headware was a form of "bondage". My take on this, as a Christian is, hey guys, it is no big deal to remove jewelery, and secondly, if you open a B&B and then insult the guests you are not the perfect host. What pisses me off of course is that the public authorities in these cases, seem hell bent on discriminating against Christians. This being the West Country, and a hot bed of Witchcraft, it would not surprise me at all to learn that someone in the Police or the Health Services is a member of the local coven and is pursuing a vendetta. Far fetched? I don't think so. If you don't believe in Evil, watch Gordon Brown or read what Philip Pullman (recommended reading in all our schools) has said about the Lord Jesus Christ. Funnily enough, Pullman is strangely silent on Islam. Now I wonder why that might be?? (By the way, Pullman need not fear for his life, we Christians do not issue Fatwahs. No, Pullman should fear for his soul.)

UPDATE:

Cranmer has reported on the emergence of a Pagan Police Association:

PC Andy Hill of Staffordshire Police, a practising Wiccan (basically, a witch) has founded the Pagan Police Group UK

Renault F1 - politics wins

There is no doubt in my mind that the winner in the "crashgate" affair is the internal political set-up of Formula One, namely, Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley.

It has been clear all along that the departure of Renault from F1 would cause a chain reaction, with other teams leaving in its wake. This could not be allowed to happen, and so, just like a Muslim Peer who gets two weeks in a cosy nick for killing a driver whilst driving and texting, Renault are off with a suspended sentence. Contrast this with the eye-watering fine ($100 million) McLaren got for exchanging engineering data with Ferrari or the departure of Ron Dennis after he advised Lewis Hamilton to lie to a stewards enquiry.

The difference is, Mclaren feuded with the FIA and had a poor personal relationship. Renault have been the darlings of the pit lane and the result is that the most hideous and most dangerous bit of cheating in its history has been swept under the carpet.

And it's Bernie what done it (who just happens to have very considerable business connections to Flavio Briatore)

It stinks. Anyway, as I said, F1 has long ceased to be an arena of the brave and gifted and is now merely, a circus. Our mistake is to see it as a sport. It has no more relation to "Sport" than Giant Haystacks and Kendo Nagasaki - and is a lot less entertaining.

Try this for a change..

I have another blog, and occasional one, that has been going for a few years..

http://fromthewildwood.blogspot.com/

Please go over and take a look.

WWW has been going also for a long time, and so it is fitting, I think, to trawl the archives for something that is maybe worth a second look, or a first one if you are new to this blog.

So, try this...

http://wrinkledweasel.blogspot.com/2006/06/album-cover-models-of-60s-kelly.html

Renault and F1

Each year I look forward with actual excitement to the Formula One motor racing season. And about a third of the way through the series I get distracted and forget to watch it. To be honest, the bit I enjoy the most is the pre-race banter - the pontification, the bitchery and the mild curiosity about who Martin Brundle will manage to bag an interview with on the grid. I love it when he gets Bernie, who is the funniest man on the planet and can deliver the most outrageous lines totally deadpan. The races themselves are interesting to watch on a small screen for about ten minutes, max. I would of course love a pit lane pass and a hospitality package with one of the drivers, but knowing my luck it would be Kazuki Nakajima.

And so..

Team principle Flavio Briatore and Technical Director Pat Symonds have left the pit lane.

They will, quote: "not dispute the recent allegations made by the FIA concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix"

As good an admission of guilt as there is. Bernie said, "I am surprised" (just like Captain Renault in Casablanca, just like that.) Deadpan, but very funny, considering he has admitted he knew all about it from Piquet months ago.

I am not surprised about Briatore, or his initial reaction, which amounts to the threat of a malicious prosecution against Nelson Piquet. Briatore is a thug. But Pat Symonds is for me the man who will lose the most out of this. He seems to me to be a decent bloke. How he could have been a party to this is a mystery to me.

Sport is big business. The rugby world and now this have been rocked by stories that would be thrown out of the first script meeting if they had been fiction.

I suppose the real crime is that we take it far too seriously.

And now for the bad news

Two bits of news leapt off the screen for me today.

The first is about Gordon Brown lying about spending cuts. Lying? Gordon Brown?

"The Treasury papers show that the Government is actually expecting the average cut to be 9.3 per cent. "

That was from the The Telegraph, but the lines that froze me on the spot:

The leaked papers also show that by 2013/14, the Treasury expects to be paying out £63 billion on interest payments on the national debt.

Can that be right?

And then there is this, from The Times:

The number of young people out of work hit a record 947,000 in July as total unemployment hit in Britain hit 2.47 million.

Official data today showed that the number of jobless 16-24 year olds jumped by nearly 60,000 in the three months to July to the highest level since 1992, when records began.

What appalls me about these two stories is not that the news is very bad indeed, which of course, it is, but that the general public have believed Labour lies for so long that we are in a parallel universe where 20% of the population still intend to vote Labour. Why? What do they think will happen? That it will only get better?

The guy from D-Ream who wrote and performed "Things Can Only Get Better" on the 1997 election night now works for CERN as an Astro Physicist. I hope the bugger disappears up his own Boson.


On a much lighter note, my kids are staying with me (both in their twenties). They hate my new car, a Peugeot Partner Quicksilver.

"But it's so practical" I bleat.
"It looks like a disabled car. It looks like it's for mental people" they chime.

On the way from the airport, they are gurning and waving maniacally at other motorists to make the point.

"but look at all the stowage space!"

"That'll be to keep the feeding tubes and spare nappies"

The Young are so cruel.

So what's your verdict on the Peugeot Partner Quicksilver?

Does it make the cool wall or does the driver look like a nob and do the passengers look "special"?

Keith Floyd

When Keith Floyd burst on to the scene, what seems like an age ago, he transformed the way we think about food. Elizabeth David invented it, Egon Ronay pronounced on it, but Floyd turned it into fun. Posing as a sybarite, Floyd was anarchic, boozy and occasionally boorish, but never dull. (If you want to know what my father was like, Floyd was an uncanny clone, replete with culinery skills, real bow tie, bonhomie, a very nasty streak and a lifelong attachment to alcoholism, fags and women.)

He demonstrated that cooking was best done with a glass of wine in one hand and a naughty leer in the eye. There is no doubt he was the first celebrity chef and more or less fathered the genre (and probably some of the chefs).

Keith Floyd did not so much teach you how to cook (Delia did that). What Floyd did was to teach you how to enjoy cooking.

May he rest in peace, surrounded by ladies and good Burgundy.

Yeah, they look right together

According to today's Telegraph (which tells us what we already thought)

In a letter to Gordon Brown, Paul McKeever, the chairman of the Police Federation, said he was ''shocked, appalled and disgusted'' that the UK agreed the murderer (of PC Yvonne Fletcher) would go on trial in Libya.

The Foreign Office has conceded that any trial for the shooting - which took place outside the Libyan embassy in London 25 years ago - will take place in Tripoli.

The agreement was reportedly struck three years ago, when trade deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds were being negotiated.

When the lives of British Citizens, especially the lives of those who are charged with protecting us, are traded for oil, you know we have reached the moral rock bottom

I want to see Brown and his government strung up from lamp posts.

The Myth of Equality

Equality is a word that I view with deep suspicion. Do you mean we are equal, or do you really mean, "It's time I had a turn". Let's just take an example, for example adoption. It is now the case that Gays and Muslims are favoured over Christians and White people, even, to the extent of excluding close relatives of the child. The Grandparents of a child were exluded from adoption in favour of a gay couple and threatened with being cut off from them if they complained.

The five-year-old boy and his four-year-old sister were being looked after by their grandparents because their mother, a recovering drug addict, was not considered capable.

But social workers stepped in after allegedly deciding that the couple, who are aged 59 and 46, were "too old" to look after the children.

They were allegedly stripped of their carer's rights and informed they would be barred from seeing the children altogether unless they agreed to the same-sex adoption.

Elton John, 62, now wants to adopt a young child. That's ok then.

Recently, it transpired that the same local authority who gave us the Baby P case was sending out children to be fostered by the family whose son is a convicted terrorist.

So there is equality and there is equality. No, there is no equality as I know it, merely a shift of hegemony.

Where does this come from, this shift from a strand of society that is generally considered to be caring and responsible, to those whose values are not mainstream or desirable? For the answer, you need to look no further than those in Government - for the most part, middle class, privately educated, Oxbridge graduates. They appear to have a sentimental idea about equality which bears no relation to real life, real individuals or the concept of good. It is cynicism, and cynicism turned into social policy, mediated by moral vacuity and an eye on what sounds progressive and vote-catching, meted down from an ivory tower.

Straw exchanges justice for cash

On the 17th April this year a group of people gathered in St James' Square to honour the memory of PC Yvonne Fletcher who was shot by someone in the Libyan Embassy. Nobody has ever been arrested for this hideous crime and yet it is perfectly clear that those in the embassy at the time knew full well who was in there, with a rifle.

The Daily Mail reported:

investigators believe the bullet, which sparked an 11-day siege, was fired by a sniper who intended to hit protesting Libyan dissidents.

The siege only came to an end when the killer and more than 20 embassy staff were allowed to leave Britain under diplomatic immunity laws.

The murder triggered the collapse of diplomatic relations between the two countries but Scotland Yard detectives have never given up hope of identifying the culprit.

Detectives from the force's Counter Terrorism Command flew out to Tripoli two years ago to collect evidence and statements as relations thawed but no-one has ever been arrested.

The trip followed three visits in 2006 and one in 2004 when officers met members of a Libyan inquiry team.

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: 'The murder investigation has always remained open and the Metropolitan Police remains committed to identifying those people responsible for killing WPC Fletcher.

Well, yes, the Police may be committed to apprehending the killer, but not so those in power in this country who value money over justice.

The Times has this:

The Libyan killer of a British policewoman will never be brought to justice in Britain after a secret deal approved by Jack Straw.

The Foreign Office bowed to Libyan pressure and agreed that Britain would abandon any attempt to try the murderer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, shot outside the Libyan embassy in London 25 years ago.

Anthony Layden, Britain’s former ambassador to Libya, said this weekend he had signed the agreement with the Libyan government three years ago, when Straw was foreign secretary. At the time Britain was negotiating trade deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds with Libya.

My revulsion over this story is impossible to put into words. This is your government. A Government of liars, war criminals and dirty dealers.

Not really an Enigma

I was fascinated by Gordon Brown's "apology" over the treatment of Alan Turing, the computer genius and homosexual who was treated like an animal as part of an experiment into chemical castration, at a time when being gay was on a par with paedophilia.

This was in response to a Downing Street petition (they are usually ignored) signed by several worthies, to the effect that Turing should get the posthumous apology. Fine as far as it goes, but where does this hand wringing after the event stop?

I have said it before, should we demand that the Romans apologise for enslaving Britannia in just under 2000 years ago, or apologise to Oscar Wilde?

Brown clearly thinks he is on a safe wicket here, but if I was Alan Turing, the idea of being dredged up to make a failing leader look popular, I would be turning in my grave. The past is the past. We are neither responsible for it, nor should we forget it, but instead use it to inform and enlighten our future.

Mental as Anything - A tale of Two Browns

Derren Brown seems to have confused a lot of otherwise rational people by pursuading them that he can predict lottery numbers. I didn't see the show, but "Mentalism" (what magicians call this kind of trick) is one of the easiest to do and one of the most stunning when it works. All you need to do is to play a trick with time itself - that is, you convince somebody you wrote down the prediction before it happened, when in fact, you wrote it down after it happened or, you forced the result. I used to do magic shows myself, but never did mental stuff because to be honest, it does not require any skill whatsoever, though it can go wrong with disastrous consequences. (I remember a magical acquaintance from way back who nearly throttled himself on a gallows, after wrongly predicting the fake noose from a collection of real ones.)

I don't really do rumours, because by their nature they are speculative. But there is a story going around, now making its way into the MSM and held to have considerable credibility, about Gordon Brown's state of health - particularly his mental state, and specifically the allegation that he is taking strong anti-depressants.

The source of this revival of interest in the Prime Minister's mental health comes this time from

http://www.notbornyesterday.org/brownhealth.htm

What it interesting is that a number of newspaper columnists are starting to back this story up. It looks as if this is an open secret among Westminster Villagers.

A nutter for PM? On heavy sedation? Yes, I know, the words "that would explain everything" comes to mind, but when you consider that Peter Mandelson is the de facto Prime Minister, and when you consider that Brown "disappears" quite a lot, and when you consider that when he does appear he is incoherent and unable to answer simple questions, then, yes, it does explain everything.

Snort Cocaine - kill us all

I have noticed that the elections in Afghanistan are not going well. I notice, for instance, that the United Nations has declared the victory of Mr Karzai a fraud.

I am largely ignorant of Afghanistan. All I know is that our brave young men are dying there in support of a bent puppet leader. I fail to understand why we are there, knowing full well that historically, the country has been resistant to conquest and we are conducting an un-winnable war for very little demonstrable reason.

Karzai, as I understand it, was put in place by the Americans. Well, I know one thing for sure.You cannot interfere with the evolution of a country. The Prime directive (as Trekkers would say). We will lose this war and Afghanistan will return to a lawless society propped up by the production of heroin that is destined for the Western World.

If you believe in the retribution of God, which I certainly do, you may notice that it is the decadent Western World, with its voracious appetite for getting off its face on drugs, is propelling the state of Afghanistan into a haven for super terrorists, who will one day come and bomb us. We shall die by our own hand. You have to admit, there is a certain sweet irony about it all.

Every Picture Tells a Story

Yes, every picture tells a story, but it still does not mean the BBC can get away without mentioning the crucial fact that the above individuals are Islamist Extremists. They were going to create mass murder. Their motive was inspired by a religion which is in opposition to the British way of life, in opposition to freedom of speech, freedom of political association, opposition to gender equality, opposition to sexual orientation equality and a lot more.

Elsewhere, a protest against people like this being allowed to live here descended into chaos and violence. I don't know the facts, but it serves the interests of the liberal left to make sure that it did indeed descend into violence. Maybe it got violent because people are angry about the way our leaders are appeasing those who want to destroy us.

I make no bones about the fact that anybody, including their families, who associate with this kind of atrocity be simply put on a plane back to whatever shithole they or their parents came from, including those who were born here. It is no longer about nationality, it is about heritage and the right of indigenous British people to enjoy a way of life born out of courage and determination and honour and a striving for the rights of all, not the few.

Ironies Too

Regular commenter, Strapworld, has drawn my attention to a blog that seems to pick up stories that nobody else covers.

Last Tuesdays post on http://ironiestoo.blogspot.com/

has the following:

"At a joint press conference yesterday, screened live on France 24, while Britain was on its Bank Holiday, Merkel described the procedure by which the German Parliament will assume "control" on all EU matters undertaken within the EU under the terms of the soon to be ratified Lisbon Constitutional Treaty.."

Anybody know more about this? The blogger found it hard to find any MSM reports on this (though that may not surprise some of us), though I suspect the remarks were in the context of the press conference, which was about the rules on banking.

Thanks, Strapworld for the link

How do I look?

We are used to seeing a seventy-three year old Silvio Berlusconi with fake dyed hair and now there is a revelation that diminutive French President Sarkozy demands that he is surrounded by little people when he makes a public speech.

The Times reports:

President Sarkozy has been caught again compensating for his small stature. Last June, you may remember, he was snapped standing on a stool to match the height of President Obama during the D-Day ceremonies in Normandy This time, we hear that a busload of short people was driven in to stand behind the President when he visited a factory.

Insecurity affects us all sometimes, but I'd rather world leaders did not suffer from it on a chronic basis.

Gordon Brown has no truck with hair dye, but has to be heavily made up so as not to be mistaken for a tub of lard. Brown's insecurity is shown by a retreat into infantilism, as evidenced by his nose-picking and insane schoolboy grin when he is told off.

We live in a world of fakes; simulacra that assume a mantle of reality because the media conspires to make it so. It is a measure of the Sarkozy administration's arrogance and belief in simulacra that enabled it to respond to the "little people" story, not with a denial, but with the comment, ""totally preposterous and grotesque" - as if it was an exaggeration of the truth. No Mr S, it was the truth, you are a short arse, now live with it.

PS The picture of me on the banner is me, but a me disguised as someone I am not. I do not have a parting in my hair or a silly moustache and the last time I wore a suit was at a funeral, nearly two years ago. Now that is preposterous and grotesque!

Monday

This was the week that Gordon Brown's stock (as if he had any) went down several points.

He hardly proved that he was not up to his eyeballs in the Al Megrahi affair. Even more, it has now emerged that he tried to squash attempts by victims of the IRA to seek compensation from Libya for their culpability in the affair.

Minor government member Eric Joyce resigned. He was just another fattened trougher leaving a sinking ship, except that he let slip just how the Brown spin machine continues to assassinate detractors, with the revelation that senior ministers have plotted to smear Army chiefs who don't agree with them. (There is nothing so biting and so brimming with veracity as someone who leaves in a fit of pique.) Joyce was one of those whose expenses reached lottery win levels - a serial trougher over the years, Joyce, as early as March this year was being branded Britain's most expensive MP.

It has rained on me now every day for about two months. I do not exaggerate. July was bad, August was terrible and now, in September, we have had flash floods as well as the daily dose of precipitation. The only consolation is that I have exchanged a modest estate of about 1 and a half acres for a normal sized lawn and the days of trudging around in sodden grass or picking it out of a bunged up lawn mower are over. There was never any point in having land if all you do is run out to cut the grass or kill the weeds during showers. For three years, the greenhouse became a mouldy sepulchre, spawning rotten tomatoes and withered cuttings that belonged in a sarcophagus. Good riddance. We have more space indoors now and have splashed out (forgive the pun) on an aquarium.

Last week I was busy (if you can call it that) working on the music showcase/download website we are developing and seeing live gigs - and there will be more about that when it is fully up and running.

Samoa consists of two main islands in the Pacific and has a population of about 180,000. I mention this because their Prime Minister has decided that they should cease to drive their vehicles on the right and start driving on the left (presumably at a set time and date, rather than a gradual change-over). It will be a laugh, though a lot of Samoans are not happy about it. The move is ostensibly because the PM believes his people will benefit from cheaper imported cars from Japan, Australia and New Zealand. If you ask me, it all sounds like a very lucrative deal has been done. Still, I guess you have worries closer to home...

If you are getting that sinking feeling about working on Monday, maybe it is time to look at your life and see if you need a change. (for a complete lifestyle makeover and a set of really nice pebbles, call 011 34344 4959493 calls charged at £97 per minute.)

BNP should be "whites only" if it wants to be

With the recent news that the British National Party has been forced to admit non-white members due to a conflict with race laws, I believe they should be allowed to admit, or not admit, who they please. In the article in the Telegraph, Nick Griffin describes the laws as "undemocratic and Orwellian". I have to agree.

How many, I have to ask, white police officers are there in the Black Police Association?
How many straight men are there in the London Gay Men's Choir?

It is, in the end, horses for courses. Of course, I would never join a party that excluded people on the grounds of race, but that is beside the point. People should have the freedom to choose. The BNP is a legitimate political party. Just because the prevailing wind and the current hegemony demands otherwise, I see no reason why they should not exclude those who will not act in their best interests.

In the end, what difference will it make? You cannot abolish racism and prejudice. The BNP defines itself by its racist views. Letting black people in is not going to solve that, and indeed would give them more moral legitimacy, and you would not want that would you?

Simon Dee

I felt as if I should write about Simon Dee. It is not often that this blog gets a post because I feel as if I have to do it.

The reason, I suppose, is that Simon Dee stood in symbolic relation to his era. He was a blue-eyed blond. He had the right accent drifting from what was known as "mid-atlantic" into Chelsea poufter. Dee was the Sixties, just as the Beatles were the Sixties. It does not, however, mean that he was anywhere nearly as talented or interesting. In fact Simon Dee was a twit who got very lucky and then could not handle the fame. In those days, as now, Television could make a star out of a nobody. He was a template for the hundreds of ghastly wannabees who infest reality TV these days. We did, however, watch the show. We watched it, partly because there was nothing else to watch, and partly because he interviewed celebrities and partly because we all wanted the Jag and the girl in the mini dress he drove off with as the end credits ran. He had a kind of puerile charm that matched the decadent, fin de siecle feel of the swinging sixties. An object lesson in the way the media picks them up and spews them out, he was, for me, part of what made the Sixties very flawed; the drug-fueled oblivion, the narcissism and the sheer conspicuousness consumption of an emerging new elite who would become what we now worship as the cult of celebrity.

Anyway, he has died - painfully, but thankfully, fairly quickly in given the circumstances. So there he goes, Cyril Henty-Dodd, or to you and me...Siiiiiiiiiiiimon Dee!

Economic Recovery?

Having skimmed the papers, I discern that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are going to try and convince us that the financial outlook is turning positive. They will also cite their management of the economy as a reason.

I disagree.

Firstly there is that niggling, and forgive me if I nitpick around the edges of this, matter of

£683,874,500,500 (increasing so fast I cannot provide an up to date figure, so scroll down to counter on the bottom of this page) National Debt, equivalent to about £30,000 per family.

Then there is the matter of our currency, which has currently bombed against the Euro, the Dollar and most of the other significant currencies.

But wait, I left the best for last.

This week, in an effort to continue his scorched earth policy, and scrape the last bit of money from us before the election, in order to pay for the hordes of fake jobs, scroungers and public employees who vote for them, The rate of fuel duty has increased again by 2 pence, bringing the level of taxation on this basic commodity to 63% on every litre. (You actually pay VAT on fuel, AFTER the duty has been added.)

Fuel is obviously seen as a soft target, but anybody reading this who uses a car regularly is going to be hit. Anybody who runs a business is going to be hit. Soon, VAT will return to 17.5%.

I think we are being robbed.

Further information on this topic is available at

http://www.abd.org.uk/fuel_tax.htm