drat --- missed …. Again….!!!Daily Blog Home Page Blog Index
18 12 08
I’ve been rather busy, so haven’t posted for a while. There’s been the complete inhumanity of man against man in the Mumbai attacks, as terrible as it gets, armed terrorists against innocent people. It can’t get more cowardly.
In part, I have been silent in respect for the Mumbai victims.
So, to other news lately.
Parents are spending about a third less this Christmas. I’m just surprised they haven’t had to cut back more. Our spending on Christmas is very greatly reduced this year, even compared to previous years.
This year we’ve even had a spate of very small Christmas cards, as people cut back. Cardiff has been exceptionally quiet for the time of the year, even with all the sales offerings.
The bank rate cut puts people living on income from savings, at risk, especially some of the very elderly.
The low exchange rate is terrible news for people living in Europe or America on UK pensions. They have lost about a quarter of their income at present.
With it being almost parity between the £ and the Euro, SURELY it’s time for the UK to join the Euro. Prices in the shops wouldn’t need adjusting, just the £ symbol.
If it gets any worse people wanting holidays abroad will be in for a TERRIBLE deal, as will people trying to survive abroad on pensions from UK.
People retiring in the private sector where the pension depends on interest rates on the day of retiring are losing out enormously too.
Quite how anyone not in the two good salaries situation will get a mortgage in future, who knows?
Welsh AM’s say ‘local schools are not a place to meet’. As often the local pub(s), shop, post office, church hall have already closed, where else (!) are local people supposed to meet?
The VAT cut is more a cut for the rich than the poor. Now incapacity benefit is under threat to help pay the rich more. Perhaps our job plan is to emigrate to the little known planet Bono, woof, woof where jobs ACTUALLY EXIST!!! Put James Purnell where he belongs, cleaning toilets!
Wales vs UK binge drinking – no contest!!! We in Wales can hold our drink!!!!
We had good reason to drink when WALES BEAT THE AUSSIES!!!!
Police arrest civil servant and search office without a warrant, for giving out embarrassment material to press. Yes we do live in a Police State.
The police barge in on innocent people with 4 squad cars sirens blaring, handcuff them and hold in cells for 11 hours before they are able to tell the police their arrest is a mistake.
1. The police should use PROPORTIONATE force,
2. They should STOP bullying
3. They should stop being OFFICIOUS for trivial offences, except when dealing with REAL thugs.
Human Rights vs the law. WHYEVER should DNA be kept from trivial or unproven offences, unless extremely serious? For adults or children?
I am very seriously concerned about the ‘routine’ use of tasers by the police. What if the police use them against eg peaceful protesters? They have caused many deaths where people have eg heart conditions. At least a gun can be used just to wound, but guess what, the police in Britain SHOOT TO KILL. Next we will have criminals using tasers against the police, then what?
The Mint is owned by the Government AND makes a very good profit. Guess what, they want to sell it off.
We have children from poor families getting £30 per week money for being in the 6th Form, and proposed paying all their fees and a grant for University. This puts most middle class children at a great disadvantage as their parents simply can’t afford to top up grants. WHY should parents who have worked desperately hard to succeed see their children penalised? Means testing doesn’t take lifestyle and actual disposable income into account.
Born conjoined twin baby Faith remains in intensive care with doctors battling to save her after her sister Hope died following the essential operation to separate them. It’s a very rare condition where most conjoined twins don’t survive the first 24 hours after birth. They used to use the term Siamese twins simply because more occur in SE Asia, NOT in any way racist, but political correctness has to prevail... We can only pray that twin Faith survives.
NHS lack of capacity for beds why? Ongoing constant mismanagement, lack of sufficient funding priority, misdirection of funds, beds grid-locked through lack of care places? We pay more than enough in NI contributions...
A fifth more stabbing victims in recent years. Knife crime NEEDS to be dealt with as a very high priority.
In our locality, the biggest problems are people parking right across pavements and especially DOG- FOULING.
Someone in a remote village has paid £300 to keep streetlights on , at least until March. What’s wrong with using TIMERS set to switch ALL street lights off between 1am and 5 am with perhaps 1 in 5 lamps kept on for safety.
It’s nearly Christmas time again. First the Bishop of Reading decries Christmas cards, then Rowan Williams the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury decries over-use of Carols, and Christmas (chocolate) advent calendars.
1. It’s Christmas-time, when else can we listen to Carols
2. The presents and Trimmings help MAKE Christmas for children and grown-up children.
3. Yes we DO know about the Christmas message.
4. Christmas with just the Christmas message, no drinks or feasting is hardly CELEBRATING!!!!
31.12.08
Win some, lose some, danged if you do, danged if you don’t. Israel is criticised for air raids on Hamas targets, simply because of rocket attacks against Israeli townships. Yes there have been civilian Palestinian casualties, but there are going to be a lot more Israeli casualties if the region isn’t stabilised. Even Egypt is wary of Hamas rule next to its own borders, because it encourages insurgency within Egypt. Hamas has at its disposal longer range rockets which threaten many Israeli townships. The bottom line is that Israel HAS to do whatever it can to try to defend itself. When the peace envoys fail, there is only one way to stop to stop terrorists, with proportionate force.
Woolies that great British institution has secumbed. How much of Britain is now owned by the French, Spanish, Persians, Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese and Americans? Most probably! Generations of Brits have met friends at or outside Woolworth stores, alas, alack, no more….
Then we have oil companies and energy companies and credit card companies and some banks making obscene profits, about which our patriotic (sic) government does nothing. When most folk’s money is creamed off paying for necessities, is it any wonder most high street retailers and many out of town retailers are struggling and going under…..
Then we have the wimps and woosers at the Welsh Assembly over law making rights such as Davydd Ellis Thomas. Are they petrified of Westminster and the Electorate? Scotland and the Scottish assembly has managed law making of its own accord for over TEN YEARS now excepting levels of UK taxes, social security, defence, international relations and broadcasting. So WHY CAN'T WALES?
At the New year’s approach we look backwards as well as forwards.
If we look at some of the catastrophic mistakes of the past 50 years made by British politicians - Eden's disastrous Suez adventure; Macmillan's hopeless decision to let Beeching tear up half our railway network and to use motorways for freight transport; Wilson's catastrophic failure to deal with the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in the then Rhodesia (which is directly responsible for the chaos of Zimbabwe today); the espousal by all pre-Thatcher politicians of those Keynesian economic policies which have once more become insanely popular throughout the Western world; Heath's desire to destroy the old counties and wreck local government; Thatcher's continuation of the work, her demolition of the coal mines and coal miners, and her failure to provide a suitable government for London after she rightly sent Red Ken Livingstone packing.
With government, the government has to at some point pay its way. Borrowed amounts can be deferred, but not indefinitely. The trouble is we’ve had governments who spend more than they can afford, often on half-baked legislation for too many years to count recently in Britain. We’ve had legislation (largely unenforceable about fox hunting, when it costs farmers £250 a night for a marksman who will almost certainly only maim a fox, to die in extreme pain over several days or more). There’s family and working credit which costs a fortune to administer, when the same ends could have been met through the tax allowance and child benefit systems. They’ve wasted more millions than we can count on failed and completely useless major IT schemes that should never have been attempted at all.
We now find that back in the late ‘70s, Britain had just enough ammunition to fight a 2 day conflict against a major power. Times probably haven’t changed. The worry is if such a conflict were to occur, the only option after the first week of fighting would be our nuclear arsenal, thank heavens that Sarah Palin with her gunshot diplomacy never made it to the White House.
Some of the REAL issues in the UK for 2009. Worst pensions for most British citizens in Europe, whether living in the UK or abroad, food prices are continuing to worsen as the pound slips and slides below the Euro, coldest winter for years, with energy prices at their highest. More and more jobs disappearing out of sight. More and more of the remaining jobs being or becoming part-time and grossly underpaid. Much of our taxes bailing out people who have grossly overspent on mortgages.
Then some of these vastly wealthy corporations cut more jobs indiscriminately and widely to INCREASE their wealth…….
At least in Britain we can speak the truth out loud. In some African countries people (and British citizens too) are imprisoned for simply criticising the country’s government.
The British Bulldog Gordon Brown, blinkered to all this and ploughing ahead with even more grossly expensive legislation, and stating that for most of us we should be proud of being British, down-trodden and the under-dogs of most of Europe. People our way tell others to emigrate, Canada, Australia, where there are jobs and opportunities. We can’t even say will the last person in Britain turn out the lights, as soon none of us will be able to afford anything, let alone lighting.
Gordon, weakest pound in thirty years, mass unemployment, poverty stricken pensioners, and the list goes on. The wealthy are becoming MUCH wealthier, the majority of us MUCH poorer. Under a ‘Labour’ government……
As we all know, Gordon Brown is in the pocket of the German and Swiss bankers, and probably lined up for millions under the counter payments when he’s KICKED out of office.
5 MILLION, that’s 5,000,000 people in BRITAIN having to chose between food and warmth for heating….. that’s a LOT of people eating beans on toast wrapped in their overcoats INSIDE their cold houses…….
Many parts of Britain are POORER than poverty stricken parts of Spain or Turkey. Cold turkey for comfort for most of us……
So we look to 2009 with a great deal of apprehension.
Anyway, Best Wishes for a successful and prosperous year ahead of us.... HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!!!!
22 01 2009
Happy New Year All!!
Chinese year of the OX starts 26th January, my Chinese sign is (metal) rabbit, ie keen crafty, wise, rational, temperamental, sensitive and motivated by attention to detail, but articulate, talented, and ambitious and determined, self-reliant and forceful. Can also avoid Ox’s hooves, but am resilient enough if I get hit by them! Should be an interesting year….
The next year of the Rabbit, cooked Chinese style (of course!!!!) is 2011!
Cannabis users caught (after a warning, and If the warning is actually recorded locally) to get £80 fine and no criminal record. Sounds like the first government tax on ‘the weed’ !!!! More seriously further offences could lead to high fines or even imprisonment. Most ‘joint’ users will just stay out of sight, or emigrate ….to Holland!!!
Things have at last settled a little in Gaza, can only hope the ceasefire holds.
Barack is US President and we have a new world order/ era in place, except for wild hotspots such as Afghanistan / Iran etc.
Our banks get the hugest bail-out yet, the £200bn with the previous £37bn gets them nearly £250bn. The only hope for tax-payers is that international borrowing rates for the government stay low. It makes any future tax cuts very unlikely, even if we have the luxury of a change of government! Not looking forward to the next budget!
Trouble is if they put it in people’s pockets, misers like the energy companies would just up their antics, causing us all just the same misery. At least the banks may now accept a few more bad debts where people simply can’t repay their debts.
Sure to be huge public sector pay demands even with jobs threats, as the £1.5bn to match inflation that they wouldn’t pay, is peanuts compared to the £250bn bank bail-out.
Someone loses their house every 10 minutes headline. Gosh they’ve hardly time to sit down, but joking aside, House re-possessions have almost doubled in 12 months. The Englishman’s castle is in very grave danger of being re-possessed, despite Government ‘assurances’ to the contrary. How many Government ‘assurances’ have worked out in practice ? (hint - a round extremely low single number less than 1) !!! yep 0, you guessed it!!!!
Now Court costs for householders who fall behind on their council tax or utility bills are to soar.
The charge on those taken to magistrates' court for not paying their council tax or utilities bills will leap from £90 to £250 - a rise of 278 per cent. GUESS WHAT – THEY CAN’T AFFORD to PAY the bills in the first place. Orders will be for £2 a week/ month for the next millennium, and charities will pressure for increased BENEFITS to pay off these costs – Feeling the whole country’s just gone entirely loopey, I do?
This just seems like a back-door method to reduce benefits, or is it just to take money from claimants to pay back to claimants ????? or more likely LINE LAWYERS AND SOLICITORS POCKETS….
Factory worker ticked off for having a girlie calendar gets '£1.2million revenge' by scattering peanuts about a food factory! PC doesn’t always rule!
Schoolgirls sent home for ‘too blonde’ hair. 'Unnatural hair colours are blue, purple, green and bright red. Blonde is a natural hair colour!
These people who go about causing BIG problems about titchy matters, if they are matters at all, need DEALING with....!
We live in a world where people are getting extremely petty, often under the auspices of political correctness, but time comes when they have REAL problems to deal with!
Sadly more than 1,000 travellers face eviction after Appeal Court rules giant camp in Essex is illegal. These people can’t afford normal housing. There’s nowhere for them to park / live legally, and Councils can’t won’t house them. Where are they supposed to live /set up camp? Can they perhaps, try camping on land on the route for Heathrow’s third (or second or first!!!) runway.
Let me say straight away GOD RULES OK!!!! There are some excellent signs put up by clerics
Eg. Unlike our local traffic wardens, God shows mercy! …
Love Grand; Divorce 20 Grand….. The Meek shall inherit the earth, if you say so….
Now Open Sundays…. Turn sin days into Sun days…. 2000 years old, still under guarantee!!
God is perfect, only man makes misteaks…. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake, and the snake didn’t have a leg to stand on….!
All our services are different, we leave repeats to the TV !!!! ….. None of our hymns are tested on live animals!!! …. Unlimited warrantees!!!!
Without the risk of terrorists bombing buses, we now have the risk of God created lightning striking buses that say there’s ‘probably’ no God. ‘Quite possibly, or is that very surely, God may take action on this one!!!!
The difference, and it is a very profound one, is that us believers KNOW there IS God. To us, Life, Love, the Universe have an intelligent purpose, controlled by God. The probability of the Earth being suited to life, ie land and plentiful water, Oxygen in the right proportion with nitrogen to breathe, at the correct orbital distance and size from the Sun, not too much CO2, magnetic poles to protect us from Cosmic radiation, an Ozone layer to keep out harmful rays from our own Sun is minute in the extreme. The list goes on, very complicated organic structures which it seems very unlikely to ‘happen’ just by chance. The beauty of the natural world, the structure of leaves, plants, animals, fish insects, and of course us humans, is so intricate….
Think how many things people CAN do, not what they can’t do. To not believe in God puts LIMITS on human endeavours. Why would an atheist want to learn something new eg at age 90+ ?
To just learn to speak and to listen is probably the most complicated thing we do in life, (except possibly falling in love with the ‘wrong’ person or at the ‘wrong’ time. ….!)
This also gives us a nobler cause, above that of just (sometimes) looking after our own kind. We enjoy living in the world God has given us, and God (mostly!) enjoys our actions and company.
If Atheist’s don’t want to conform to God’s laws, there’s every chance that the more there are of them, the greater chance of them disembowelling each other! They want to enjoy life, other atheists may think otherwise, they’re here once so what the heck! If I didn’t believe in God, there are a few people I’d have cheerfully disembowelled by now !!!!
Then there’s life after death. Atheists are right about one thing, they haven’t got any either way, whether they are right or wrong. Or they might just wake up one day in Hell! What does it profit a man if he winneth the argument (or the national lottery ….!) yet lose his own soul?
Another church sign says Happy Easter to our Christian believers, Happy Passover to our Jewish believers, and to atheists, GOOD LUCK! ……
Anyway, back to the buses, wait an hour, then the wrong one, or wrong sort arrives… I’m not putting myself up for target practice by God, if I can help it !!!!
Though there are terrible incidents to prove otherwise sometimes, I think mostly, Americans are more humanitarian to each other, simply because beyond a certain point, they might get their head blown off by the other guy!
Oops, that’s Britain, ‘Father beaten to death in front of daughter for refusing to give a gang of yobs a bottle of wine he was carrying’.
A mother-of-three was hacked to death with a meat cleaver in front of her terrified teenage daughter, according to family friends in Cumbria. Though thankfully they’re rare, when you think of the Yorkshire Ripper, Fred West in Gloucester and the Yorkshire moors murders, it makes my blood boil when the Police arrive in force at a very minor domestic incident.
Perhaps they should take a meat cleaver at NHS managers. Patients could be forced to go without meat in hospitals under controversial new NHS plans. They plan to force patients to eat meat-free diets. Apparently the additives in animal food and methane given out prrrrp!!! by the animals is a green issue. I’m confused, animals eat grass which is GREEN!!! Dinosaurs gave off far more methane than cows!!!
Anyway prrrrp (loud f**ting noise) to the NHS for their ingenuity (or COMPLETE lack of common sense), no meat, no chocolate treats, no crisps, no sugary soft drinks. THINK SURVIVAL MODE if you have to be hospitalized!!!!! You might even be better off accosting a neighbour and getting hospital treatment in prison……
The plain fact is that without meat, far more of the world would face STARVATION. No doubt the NHS managers go out for their T-BONE STEAK DINNERS after work hours. Or eat SUMPTUOUSLY during working hours OFF the premises. **** O** NHS Bureaucraps….!
The plain fact is. Meat is expensive in Britain and ANY RUSE to cut bills!!!!! Or is it to free funds to give NHS managers even BIGGER bonuses, 10% pay rise per year plus ever increasing bonuses……. Never mind us riff-raff – make 2.75% go further….
With these sorts of ‘ideas’ they should be given 100% pay-cuts, ie, the order of the BOOT !!!!
When you are preparing a meal, the last thing you need is an unwanted caller at the door - especially one armed with advice about what to do with the leftovers.
But in a Government initiative to reduce the amount of food that is thrown away, officials are quizzing householders on their doorsteps about food consumption and how best to make use of their freezers. (while house catches light and burns down while you are ‘stuck’ at the door answering silly questions…. Or at the very least the food burns in the saucepans…..Better tell them if you’ve got ‘unhealthy chips’ on the hob!!!)
The 'food champions' also offer home cooks advice on what portion sizes to prepare as well as recipe ideas to use up leftover scraps. Anyone got some custard pies or left over food slops to throw at these ‘do goody’ nincompoops – send them out advising people how to feed their cats/ dogs and see the doorstep reception they get Arrghh Woof Woof !!!
(No wonder we all pay a fortune in taxes!!!!)
Royal Mail suspends deliveries to an ENTIRE street because of dog incident. Ok in America, ‘spect the postmen carry guns AND the dogs know it !!!!
Defence chiefs ordered RAF pilots to 'shoot down UFOs'
drat --- missed …. Again….!!!
The RAF has tried to shoot down UFOs on several occasions under instructions by the Ministry of Defence, according to former employee Nick Pope.
I like the ‘tried’ bit, obviously the UFO’s technology far exceeds ours!!!!
Seems a UFO may have flown past Barack’s inauguration, looking at a CNN video!
Hundreds of refugees towed out to sea and left to die by Thai army. Their crime, leaving a desperate life in one country in search of a ‘new life’. VERY SAD indeed….
Number plate 1 HRH expected to smash record by fetching more than £250,000, no doubt Prince Charles will have private bidding up to whatever it takes to buy it !!!!!
A few daft ones … egg boxes to contain a warning ‘May contain eggs’………..
I kid you not (excuse pun!) - Police in Nigeria arrest goat accused of armed robbery. They are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery. Vigilantes seized the black and white goat, saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into an animal to escape after trying to steal a Mazda 323.
When squirrels attack: Workers ordered to walk in pairs as protection against furry fiends
Heard of a ‘second childhood’ but this is ridiculous - Off-licence staff asked two PENSIONERS for proof they were over 18….
Ok you live in exactly the same house, same neighbourhood but you own yours; under government plans, the council house tenant next door (exactly similar except the council owns it!) may have to pay LESS council tax, so as well as being BETTER OFF on benefits than you working, he/ she may end up paying less TAX!! SUCKS, just, doesn’t it!!!!
Not so daft….
Jewish fury as Pope reinstates British priest who denies the Holocaust. The Holocaust is a proven historical fact, in recent history. Yet this ‘priest’ professes to believe in events of 2000 years ago….
We are paying about £140 per household per year in Council Tax to fund retirees from the public sector’s pensions . NOW we know where some of our council tax goes ……………………… This will get FAR more, as MORE higher paid than before people retire.
Ministers said parents have no right to withdraw their children’s details from a government online directory, which will be accessed by nearly 400,000 people and began operating today. How on earth can parents now prevent possible access by paedophiles still lurking within the ‘system’?
Social services banned a mother from being alone with her baby after she took him to hospital with a tiny mark on his ear.
His Mother worried that six-month-old Daniel might have meningitis after she found the blemish.
'They said that if I took [Daniel] home, they would be able to arrest me and put both of my children into foster care.'
But doctors who examined him referred the case to social services who then banned Mrs Craig and her husband Tim, 30, from being alone with the child while they investigated.
But they weren't officially cleared for THREE WEEKS until the child protection conference in which ten people voted unanimously against putting Daniel into care.
Instead of putting millions of public funds into NEW, UNWANTED and UNNEEDED legislation over most of the last ten years, Government should spend /have spent the money ensuring EXISTING legislation is applied FAIRLY, EQUALLY and JUSTLY…..
Now elderly folk in Norfolk, subject to a house break-in or serious harassment from young thugs or awkward neighbours have to wait a DAY or TWO for an APPOINTMENT for them to see a policeman. They need help and reassurance on the VERY same day… … … …
A council elsewhere (East Sussex) has denied planning permission for a special bungalow for a soldier who has lost both his legs in Afghanistan. It may be a semi-rural area, it may be partly out of character, but HEAVEN FORBID stupid planning decisions. SURELY he should have the dignity of living close to his dad instead of having to live forever in a rehabilitation hostel……… (The alternatives, an annex or a converted storage building wouldn't give the ex-soldier the same quality of life... ...)
Whether its Councils, Social Services, Schools, the NHS, the Police or any other public sector for that matter, there should be a LIST telling them what they MUST NOT do…..
Extended power and powers as have been given across the public sector needs commensurate RESTRAINTS which have simply not been implemented. WAKE UP Gordon on this one AT LEAST….
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THIS COUNTRY???? It’s one incompetence or petty aggravation after another…
As the New year Thunders (Thunder of Ox hooves!) on ... ...