Mancunians Rejoice

The Council House (aka Wastelands) was actually full today, because Manchester City were playing United. And happily United cruised to a 1-0 victory against the Berties, known as that to United fans because of 'Bertie Magoo The Bitter Blue'.

So, here is a little ditty sung by the red three quarters of Manchester after a few pints and a derby win over City:

My Old Man Said Be A City Fan - (tune of 'Don't Dilly Dally On The Way')

My old man, said "be a city fan",
And I said "bollocks, you're a tw*t!",
"I'd rather shag a bucket with a big hole in it,
Than be a city fan for just one minute".

With hatchets and hammers,
Stanley knives and spanners,
We'll show those city b*stards how to fight (how to fight),
"I'd rather shag a bucket with a big hole in it,
Than be a city fan! (all together now)".

The only part I take issue with is the fact that my old man, like any self-respecting Mancunian, would never have told me to be a City fan.

The Bitch Is Back Again

Jacqui Smith says here that the arrest of a Tory MP was not Stalinist. That means it obviously was because she's a lying Stalinist old bag.

Annual Police Terror

No sooner do the Christmas decorations go up than traffic plod (pictured left) begins his Scrooge-like terror campaign against the motorist.

I have just got back fom Lancaster where plod are stopping every fourth or fifth motorist for spot checks. It seems that they were out earlier this week stopping people en route to work in the morning. The idea being that they have a quick whiff of your breath in case you are still a bit pissed from a party the night before, or in case you are in the habit of having sherry trifle for brekkie.

I blogged some time ago about how Mrs B was stopped in Lancaster around Christmas last year, plod was most miffed when she was evidently sober as a judge.

So I will now recycle the same old joke:

Q: What's the difference between a police traffic car and a hedgehog?
A: A hedgehog has the pricks on the outside!

The Headmaster Ritual

I've spent some time this week in a couple of local schools and it was a tremendous experience. If you read the newspapers and watch the TV news you get the impression that kids do nothing but run around stabbing each other, and the occasional teacher. Not so in these schools.

In both I found the pupils to be polite and attentive and the teachers dedicated and professional. Neither was a particularly 'posh' school, I would guess they were full of kids with parents ranging from middle class to working class, in fact the full spectrum. Note no upper class as they have been wiped out after decades of socialism and pinko liberalism.

My last school experience had been in a particularly pretentious private school where the juniors were made to wear Dicken's style smocks. And yes that was this century! I used to think that if I had kids I would send them to private school, not a chance now.

Anyway, as I do occasionally I will now indulge my Morrissey/Smiths addiction with The Headmaster Ritual. Here is a link to the live Smiths' performance on YouTube, and below are the words. Singalong now:

Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools

Spineless swines
Cemented minds


Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old suit since 1962


He does the military two-step
Down the nape of my neck


I wanna go home
I don't wanna stay
Give up education
As a bad mistake


Mid-week on the playing fields
Sir thwacks you on the knees


Knees you in the groin
Elbow in the face
Bruises bigger than dinner plates


I wanna go home
I don't wanna stay


Da-da-da ...


Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools


Spineless bastards all ...


Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old jokes since 1902


He does the military two-step
Down the nape of my neck


I wanna go home
I don't want to stay
Give up life
As a bad mistake


Please excuse me from gym
I've got this terrible cold coming on
He grabs and devours
He kicks me in the showers
Kicks me in the showers
And he grabs and devours


I want to go home
I don't want to stay...


Da-da-da ...

Of course you could always change it from Manchester to wherever you want, such as Merseyside.

Prostitutes And The Womens' Institute

In its never ending move to manage every aspect of our lives the NewLab puritans are once again turning their attentions to sex. In this article we read about their attempts to 'Stasify' the WI by getting them to grass up ads in local papers that are a bit naughty.

Forgive me but if a lonely fellow wants a bit of sexual comfort, and a girl is happy to make a few bob providing it, then why not? As ever the puritans cite the worst possible cases, such as human trafficking, but again that is a consequence of prostitution being effectively illegal. In fact here is a Q&A on what is and isn't legal.

Like drugs, prostitution would be cleaner and less dangerous, for all participants, if we were just a bit more grown up and legalised it. Instead Harriet Harperson is playing the Roundhead again. Watch out Christmas, you may be banned next!

Creeping ID Cards

The following is a letter in today's Torygraph signed by, amongst others, Gerard Batten UKIP MEP, Phil Booth of No2ID and the great Brian Eno of the orginal Roxy Music line-up:

Creeping identity cards

Sir - From today, the Government is issuing what it calls "ID cards for foreigners". These will affect students and those marrying Britons.

Over time, residents from outside Europe will be fingerprinted and have to account for their movements. Later, so would we all.

Refugees and the unskilled poor have nothing to lose, but successful foreigners such as Robinho or Kevin Spacey, and the overseas students who subsidise our universities, have a lot of choice over where they study or exercise their talents.

Some will decide Britain has become too unfriendly. When America introduced more hostile visa conditions three or four years ago, Bill Gates complained that Microsoft could no longer hire some of the best software engineers.

If this scheme is continued it will lead to less fee income and lower international status for our educational institutions. British students will have to pay higher tuition to make up, and will have less money to spend with local businesses. Fewer of the world's leading performers in every field will choose to make their homes here.

We value the contribution that these people make, economically and culturally, to our institutions and our society. We think our country should treat them as guests, not criminal suspects.

Phil Booth, National Coordinator, NO2ID
Guy Herbert, General Secretary, NO2ID
Prof Ross Anderson, University of Cambridge
Mark Ballard, Rector, Edinburgh University
Anthony Barnett, Founder, openDemocracy
Sophie Barrett-Brown, Chairman, Immigration Law Practitioners Association
Gerard Batten MEP
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch
Shami Chakrabarti, Director, Liberty
Barbara Cohen, Discrimination Law Consultant
Dr Rachel Lara Cohen, Warwick University
Kevin Eldon
Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive, TaxPayers' Alliance
Brian Eno
Mohammed Esharif, Chairman, Exiled Journalists' Network
William Heath, Ideal Government
Becky Hogge, Executive Director, Open Rights Group
Gus Hosein, Privacy International
Sally Hunt, General Secretary, University and College Union
Chris Huhne MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary
Helena Kennedy
Prof Douwe Korff, London Metropolitan University
Crispian Mills
Henry Porter
Adam Price MP
Philip Pullman
Lucy Porter
Simon Richards, Director, The Freedom Association
Alexandra Runswick, Unlock Democracy
Samuel Tarry, Chairman, Compass Youth
Neil Tennant
Mark Thomas
Martyn Thomas
Lisa Tarbuck

Old Labour Still Cocking It Up

Every day feels more like we have travelled back to the bad old days of the 1970s. I don't claim to be a financial wizzard but commonsense says that the government is cocking up the economy, as socialists always do.

In an effort to back up my instincts from various sources I found John Redwood's explanation of why it is wrong. It makes sense to me.

Gaunt Sacked

I've blogged before about my views on Jon Gaunt. In a nutshell I think he's just a big gobby nitwit with little to offer, however, that does not mean I want him sacking, just that I don't like him.

In yet another erosion of free speech Gaunt has now been sacked by TalkSport. His crime? Calling a Nazi councillor from Rebridge a Nazi for supporting a ban on smokers fostering children.

Jonestown 30 Years Ago

It is one of those events that still seems unreal but sadly, 30 years ago this month on November 18th, 900 people died in the Jonestown Massacre in a tragic suicide pact. The man responsible was a frightening megalomaniac, messianic figure, Jim Jones.

Sadly people still get drawn into cults as witnessed by Cultwatch. Thankfully few end up dead but people still face terible difficulties within cults which can become worse, to some extent, when they eventually escape.

Part of the cause of the Jonestown Massacre was the return of an ex-member to the compound in the South American jungle with a US Senator, part of a group trying to investigate conditions in the compound.

The problem for people leaving groups with megalomaniac leaders is that they are branded, by those remaining, as heretics or traitors and can be hounded for years. The reason being that the megalomaniacs in charge fear that others will begin to question so they have to smear and attack in order to defend their positions. Sadly 900 people died 30 years ago for the ego of a madman.

Not So Smug Britons

One of the first signs, to me at least, of a degree of anti-Americanism in a person is when they attack Yanks for not knowing that Ulam Bator is the capital of Mongolia, or that the River Keer runs through Carnforth, England. I then usually point out that the U.S.A. is the size of Europe so we are not comparing like with like. This survey, for National Geography Week, shows that there are plenty of dense Britons too.

The other thing that really riles me is when Britons self-flagellate over our perceived lack of foreign language skills. The answer to that is that we are just as skilled as any other people but which language do we learn? Dutch? German? Mandarin maybe or French? Then how often do we get to practice and use it? The problem, if there is one, is that English, like it or not, is a universal language. If German was the universal language we would be fluent in German as others are now in English, from necessity.

In Paraguay in 1991 we met a girl who worked at the airport who was learning English. She decided to be different at college and learned French because all the others were learning English. It was a mistake, she never got to use French as the world seemed to all speak English, she was then catching up.

It's All Bollocks Really

What is happening to the world? I was unfortunate enough to pick up a copy of the Daily Mirror today a Preston station and had forgotten, it's that long since I read it, what a load of sanctimonious crap it contains.

It seems the Mirror has started a new puritan campaign to clean up the airwaves and get rid of bad language. Tell you what, if there is bad language on TV or radio either switch off or switch over, easy. The targets for their righteous indignation today were those notorious foul-mouthed miscreants Ant and Dec. Yes, those loveable Geordie cheeky chappies who get the hearts of the nation's grandmothers fluttering whenever they pop up on our screens.

And what torrent of foul and disgusting language had they unleashed on an unsuspecting nation? My, they had used the word bollocks when it was only 20 minutes past the 9-00pm watershed. To compound the felony they had used the word not once, not twice but three times. And it wasn't even gratuitous, a contestant on 'I'm a Celebrity.....' had actually eaten a kangaroo testicle, otherwise known as a bollock.

Strange to think that the Daily Mirror's view is that everything else in the world is so perfect it has a fit of outraged self-righteous indignation and moral outrage at that. All bollocks in my view!

Racial Politics

I have often worried about the impact of the politics of race and was interested to read this article by Alvaro Vargas Llosa of the Independent Institute.

His argument is that Republicans in recent years, probably from desperation, focussed so sharply on a perceived immigration problem that they pushed away a high proportion of Hispanics who had previously supported them. However, those same Hispanics, in referenda held on the same day as the presidential poll, voted right of centre on many social issues. The Republicans shot themselves in the foot and drove some of their supporters into the arms of Obama.

The left set out to scare ethnic minorities into supporting them, the right exaggerate the perceived dangers from immigration to garner support for themselves from the majority. This article points out that it is the libertarian politicians who look at people as human beings first and foremost, regardless of race.

What Might President Obama Do?

Here is an interesting take by David Boaz, of the Cato Institute, on what Obama may do when he takes over as President.

Like the Conservatives when in power here, he points out that under successive Republican governments the state has grown rather than shrinking as they declare they want when seeking office. Could it be that the Republicans in opposition will revert to their roots and once again become a libertarian type of party?

If you look at the Conservatives after 11 years in opposition here I wouldn't hold out much hope.

Food Heaven

Mrs B and I are considering a holiday in England next summer and Devon and Cornwall look the likeliest venues. After reading this story it is now highly probable, and no prizes for guessing where we'll be visiting.

Buried Together

In some areas people are going to be buried in twos to save space. It's strange but I've never fancied cremation for myself but see the sense in this proposal.

It seems pretty obvious that the intention is primarily for loved ones to be buried together, but I immediately began wondering who it might be nice to be buried with, other than my other half.

In terms of being buried with a hero my current one is the writer Patrick Hamilton. Otherwise, I would just go for bust and like to go for a world record and be buried with about 650 politicians, the contents of the House of Commons. That would merit a posthumous honour for services to the country.

Kurt Wallander-Great News

It seems that Henning Mankell's Inspector Wallander will be making his Britsh TV debut on Sunday November 23. At least an Inspector Wallander fans' website believes so.

If you like your detective stories dark, atmospheric and slightly disturbing then you will love the Inspector Wallander stories. He is based in Ystad, Sweden and the stories really evoke the atmosphere of dark Scandinavian winters, but there is also a heavy element of social observation and comment running throughout the tales.

I am sure that Kenneth Branagh will make an excellent Wallander so the next few Sundays, from 23 November, will be spent in the west wing of Chateau Beaman watching the telly. I can't wait.

Hitler's Demise

I have been trying to put some kind of order into my collection of DVDs and videos today and thankfully managed to find Downfall. If you have any degree of interest in WWII then you really should watch this film.

It is German, with English subtitles, and tells the story of the last days of Hitler from Traudl Junge's perspective. Frau Junge was one of Hitler's personal secretaries and a fascinating character who seemed to be in denial about the true horrors of Naziism until her death in 2002. This view of her was reinforced when I saw an interview with her filmed in the year of her death, Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, when I was doing a history course in London in about 2003.

The power of Downfall is that German actors played the parts of the Nazi hierarchy for the first time since the war. In some ways the DVD extras, which include interviews with the main characters, are just as fascinating as the film. The actors discuss their feelings as they worked on the film, and the response of the German public to them as the project developed.

The most frightening part of the film, and the whole history of that time, is the terrifying level of loyalty that Hitler commanded. Even as the Soviets were on the outskirts of Berlin Hitler was convinced that the Reich would survive and victory would still be theirs. His henchmen continued to believe him, although many army generals were less deluded.

His paranoia, and that of his followers, reached such a pitch that even to the day Hitler committed suicide, those who dared to even question eventual victory were being put before firing squads. The film frightenigly depicts the fear that pervaded Berlin as those, even at that stage, who were seen by Hitler and his henchmen as disloyal were dragged from their beds to be shot.

The fact that the film is German makes it all the more powerful and the special effects are some of the most graphic and realistic I have ever seen. I think Mrs B and I will be having a special viewing on Saturday night with a decent bottle of red. I can thoroughly recommend it.

Health Fascists

This really has pissed me off. I heard about it yesterday when I had a break from grafting and was having a brew at a butty wagon.

When will people wake up to this creeping fascist state and actually do something rather than sit in the house or the pub whining. If I want to eat rabbit food I won't go to a roadside butty wagon or a greasy spoon. If the owners of aforementioned dining facilities want to start selling yoghurt and rabbit food then that's their decision.

What I hope one of them does is humanely put down the first environmental health/salad/yoghurt inspector who turns up at his establishment and proceed to spit roast him and serve him on burger buns with fried onions at £2-00 a time. I'll have some of that.

And if they insist on forcing butty wagons to sell stuff they were not invented for then why not force veggie cafes to serve me a nice rare sirloin or duck breast? After all who looks healthier to you, somebody who loves a full fried brekkie or a pasty faced, skinny, anaemic looking veggie?

Old Film Found

This story is fantastic. Old film dating back to 1925 has been found in an archive in Worcestershire. For anybody nearby it seems that the films, having been restored, are now being shown to the public in small venues in the Midlands

Mitchell and Kenyon films of pre-WW1 Lancashire also provide a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people at that time. M&K used to spend the day filming everyday scenes then would charge people to watch them in a marquee in the evening. Of course they had a tremendous audience of people desperate to actually see themselves on film for the very first time.

Film and TV provide invaluable material for historians and, whether documentary or drama, provide a glimpse of life, values and social behaviour of the era. It's a shame so much old film was lost in the 1960s and earlier when film was so expensive it had to be wiped clean and used again.

Jon Gaunt And Health And Safety Nazis

I'm no great fan of Jon Gaunt and didn't listen to the show that got him suspended from TalkSport Radio, but on what I have read he has my sympathy on this one.

The PC brigade throw the word "Nazi" at anybody who they disagree with, whether they do show sympathies towards the National Socialist German Workers' Party or not. Why such uproar when one of the PC brigade gets it thrown back at them? Let's face it, the word Nazi means bugger all these days it is so overused by most of us.

I wonder if Gaunt, and last week Clarkson, would have copped so much stick if Brand and Woss hadn't been such plonkers. I fear now that any group who dislike a particular broadcaster will be able to organise themselves, fired up with righteous indignation, to make enough complaints to the authorities that the wimps in charge will suspend or fire said broadcaster.

RIP free speech.

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Happy Hour

Those miserable sods in the House of Commons now want to abolish cheap booze and happy hour in pubs and clubs. I suppose they went us all to be like them which means we will, instead, have to have a misery hour.

I am currently finishing off Through a Glass Darkly, the biography of Patrick Hamilton by Nigel Jones. Hamilton wrote his finest work when hitting the bottle, at one point drinking three bottles of whisky a day. Drinking over £2000 of booze a year before the last war took some doing, quite an admirable feat in my view.

Bruce Robinson writer and director of Withnail and I, and others, got through numerous bottles of red wine a day to get the creative juices flowing. Dylan Thomas and many others were also extremely heavy drinkers and were none the worse for it. Apart from dying young perhaps.

If any of us wants to drink ourselves into an ealy grave that is our choice. Making alcohol more expensive only means that the desperate will cut down on other things, such as the government's dictat to eat 5 bits of fruit and veg a day, and die even earlier in even more squalor.

Lest We Forget

For the Fallen
Laurence Binyon, September 1914

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at the familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Nice Mr Morrissey

It's strange but with Morrissey you either love him or loathe him. I think the man is a genius and my sister, Julia, thinks he's pretty good too. But, being an old hippy, her and Barry's first love is Bob Dylan. Julie, Mrs B, thinks he's a great poet but a crap musician. That's life.

But I find that when life hits you there is usually a Morrissey song that provides a soundtrack. Since my very remote brush with fame yesterday, of which I blogged, the words of 'Paint a Vulgar Picture' have been playing on my mind, one verse in particular. So, as I do occasionally, I am providing you with the words, powerful in themselves but much more so if you listen with the music. These words are from The Smiths' last album, 'Strangeways Here We Come'.

Paint a Vulgar Picture
Lyrics by Stephen Morrissey
Music by Johnny Marr

At the record company meeting
On their hands - a dead star
And oh, the plans they weave
And oh, the sickening greed

At the record company party
On their hands - a dead star
The sycophantic slags all say :
"I knew him first, and I knew him well"

Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package !
Re-evaluate the songs
Double-pack with a photograph
Extra Track (and a tacky badge)

A-list, playlist
"Please them , please them !"
"Please them !"
(sadly, THIS was your life)

But you could have said no
If you'd wanted to
You could have said no
If you'd wanted to

BPI, MTV, BBC
"Please them ! Please them !"
(sadly this was your life)

But you could have said no
If you'd wanted to
You could have walked away
...Couldn't you ?

I touched you at the soundcheck
You had no real way of knowing
In my heart I begged "Take me with you ...
I don't care where you're going..."

But to you I was faceless
I was fawning, I was boring
Just a child from those ugly new houses
Who could never begin to know

Who could never really know
Oh ...

Best of ! Most of !
Satiate the need
Slip them into different sleeves !
Buy both, and feel deceived

Climber - new entry, re-entry
World tour ! ("media whore")
"Please the Press in Belgium !"
(THIS was your life...)

And when it fails to recoup ?
Well, maybe :
You just haven't earned it yet, baby

I walked a pace behind you at the soundcheck
You're just the same as I am
What makes most people feel happy
Leads us headlong into harm

So, in my bedroom in those 'ugly new houses'
I danced my legs down to the knees
But me and my 'true love'
Will never meet again ...

At the record company meeting
On their hands - at last ! - a dead star !
But they can never taint you in my eyes
No, they can never touch you now

No, they cannot hurt you, my darling
They cannot touch you now
But me and my 'true love'
Will never meet again

T'Internet

I've had two strange experiences this week. One was when a woman serving me in a shop said how much she enjoyed my letters in the local press, the second just now when I bumped into a neighbour out shopping. The neighbour said how much she had enjoyed my blog this week. It feels strange somehow, even though you obviously want your stuff to be read. Being famous must be very bizarre, I don't think it would suit me.

So t'internet works, to a degree. It took me years to blog, as it did to get into computers to any degree. But my neighbour works in a field that really interests me at the moment and she suggested I join a particular internet forum specialising in that area. Now I have to admit to being a Luddite, still, when it comes to internet fora. I have only ever registered on two, one a football forum for Manchester United fans the other one for Ice Hockey fans, Manchester Phoenix specifically. To be honest they weren't really my cup of tea.

But I might give her suggestion a try, it might be third time lucky and could open up a whole new career. Who knows?

Pass The Sick Bag

The Obama effect continues.

The Labour Party is now "institutionally racist" according to that luvly liberal chappie, Trevor Phillips. But when you look at the likes of David Lammy, Keith Vaz and Shahid Malik who but their own mothers would want them to be Prime Minister?

Ever thought Trevor, that the reason we are unlikely to have a black PM soon, if that is the case, is because unlike a political bandwagon jumping tart like you most blacks are smart enough to see how rotten politics is and avoid it like the plague?

Kenyan Obamas

Now, I don't want to sound churlish, but am I the only one who is tired of the race obsession surrounding Obama's victory? Yes he won, and won convincingly, but black people only seem to have voted for him because he is 'black' and white people only seem to have voted for him because they want to be seen to be progressive and cool. Witness the drooling over him on Question Time last night with Bonnie Greer almost weeping with emotion whenever she mentioned his name, and the other panellists not far behind.

If you were Obama's white family wouldn't you be a little pissed off to have been shunted into the background so utterly completely. He's black, don't mention the white mother any more than you mention Bob Marley's white grandfather. Oh yes, apart from when his white grandmother was dying and he could go for the sympathy vote.

To me Obama is a man whose mother was white and whose father was black, end of story. If a white man became leader of a black country you can bet the world wouldn't be drooling over him just becaue of his colour. And if his father was from Accrington I bet the people of Accrington wouldn't be carrying on like this.

Glenrothes

No real surprise with this result in my opinion.

But I can't wait to see the faces of Cameron, Salmond and Clegg now their smugness should have been wiped off. Though Tories and Lib-Dims weren't expected to do well they did so exceptionally badly it made me smile this morning.

And Salmond, remember, your party is a major protest vote party, nothing more nothing less.

Results in full
Lindsay Roy, Labour: 19,946
Peter Grant, SNP: 13,209
Maurice Golden, Cons: 1,381
Harry Wills, Lib Dem: 947
Jim Parker, SSCUP: 296
Morag Balfour, SSP: 212
Kris Seunarine, UKIP: 117
Louise McLeary, Solidarity: 87

The Bitch Is Back

Here we go with the further rolling out of the government's despised ID card scheme.

Two airports are to introduce ID cards for workers as part of a pilot scheme, pardon the pun. But the link to the BBC website outlines other plans for gradual compulsory/voluntary introduction.

I don't think I've seen such a slappable face as Jacqui Smith's before. Oh, course I have, I forgot Hazel Blears.

The Difference Between Clarkson And Brand

The difference between Clarkson and Brand is that Jeremy Clarkson has a brain. Don't forget the tasteless and tedious Brand wrote a book and called it "My Bookywooky". The brain of a comatose snail obviously.

So this furore about remarks Jeremy Clarkson made about lorry drivers killing postitutes is just puritanical bandwagon jumping.

The big difference is that Clarkson didn't phone a murder victims family gloating. So get off his back.

Honda SS50

Steve Allison's Blog has a post, complete with picture, of a Suzuki moped, the type he had in the 1970s. That got me all dewey eyed and nostalgic for that great summer of 1976, the heatwave. I'd done my 'o'-levels and spent the summer posing around, trying to impress the girls, on my red Honda SS50, just like the one on the left.

Spiteful Britons

Tax exiles should not be called Brits
If Lewis Hamilton wins the F1 Championship the media will be full of headlines about a "Brit" winning something. But remember this, after being brought up and educated at the taxpayers' expense he went to live in Switzerland so that he did not have to become a taxpayer himself.

All tax exiles should be deprived of their British passports.
C S, Harrogate, North Yorkshire

How sad to read the letter above on Teletext. It just goes to show how petty minded and spiteful so many people are. No wonder NuLab is taking us back to the1970s, it seems like swathes of the population still have the small-minded spitefulness of
1970s style socialists. Or perhaps it's just Yorkshiremen.

Pork Sausages And Bacon

I wouldn't apply for a job in abortion clinic so Muslims, if they refuse to touch pork sausages and bacon, shouldn't apply for a catering job like this.

A World Champion

God bless Lewis Hamilton. Back where we belong.

His Dad questioning the lack of sporting decency from the Brazilian spectators was cool too. Good on you lad!

Groundhog Day

Yet another data cock-up by HMG. The good thing about putting sevices out to private companies is that the government can try and hide behind them when personal data is left in a pub car park, like this!

But it doesn't wash. The government screams about ID theft to justify ever more intrusive surveillance of us, then repeatedly does its best to give away our identities, and any personal data it has on us to any old passerby.

So the next time some muppet says, about ID cards, CCTV etc. "nothing to hide nothing to fear" give them a good bollocking and point them in the direction of
No2ID.

The Perils of Poetry Reading

Step forward Elizabeth Bailey, principal environmental health officer for East Cambridgeshire District Council. Now pelt the old bag with rotten eggs, tomatoes and rotting fish.

Here is the story of how this Hitler in skirts has banned a poetry reading group from holding readings in an Ely pub.

Here's what the bureaucratic bitch said:

"We have licences for all sorts of reasons - fire and police need to check it is safe - it is not just us being petty. There need to be certain checks in place."

And here's what the pub landlord had to say:

"It's trivial and pathetic. We've got a licence for 200 burly men to bounce around to whatever music they want, but not for a small number of quiet people to have a talk.

"When they give recitals it's not even amplified. They just get up and speak."

Ms Bailey should be immediately suspended, preferably from the same lamppost as Russell Brand.

Supporting A Team Called City

We often joke that my family have never tolerated mixed marriages. People then point out that I'm a Pape married to a Protestant. That is correct, what my family would never have tolerated would have been one of us marrying a Manchester City fan.

My family, on both sides, have been United fans as far back as anyone knows, probably back to the days when they were known as Newton Heath. So it still feels strange that one of my local teams now is Lancaster City FC, who I am off to support this afternoon. The fact that they too play in blue, as well as being called 'City', doesn't help. You see this tribal thing in us Mancunians runs deep.

But the most important thing is that since 1995, when the Glazers took over Manchester United and we returned our season tickets, we have been watching non-league football, and it has been fantastic. No prima-donnas earning more in a week than I'm likely to earn in a year or more, and not getting ripped off by clubs at every opportunity. Good banter between fans with no segregation or fighting, well very rarely any fighting. The whole thing is honest, down to earth fantastic value and has renewed the faith of many former Premier League supporters in the game itself.

Over the last ten years there has been a steady trickle of supportrs leaving top flight football, disillusioned or just priced way from the game. Non-league is thriving because, like junkies, we really do need a regular fix of football.

So it's off to watch a local derby at the Giant Axe, Lancaster City versus Chorley. Even if it's a bit chilly you just wrap up warm and treat yourself to a cup of Bovril and a hot pie at half time. Heaven!

Police State Further Tightening Its Grip

Here we go again. Grampian police are now testing people for drugs as they enter pubs in Aberdeen. Nice to see that real crime is so non-existent in Scotland that police have the time to mither the odd person who has had a joint before going out for a pint.

Let's just legalise drugs then we could make the all police redundant and save a fortune in taxes. Howard Marks would appreciate that I'm sure.

Interestingly Grampian plod claim the test is voluntary, but if you don't volunteer to be tested you don't get in the pub. Bastards!