The NHS-Let's Cut the Crap!

I get tired of people drooling over anybody associated with the NHS. Referring to nurses as 'angels' is puke inducing and should stop. Yes, there are many great doctors and nurses in the NHS, inevitably as it is a state controlled near monopoly, but there are also a lot of idiots and skivers, as you find in any walk of life.

My beloved recently blogged about the appalling treatment her mother continues to receive at the hands of the health service. They turned a pretty lively older lady into a housebound shell of what she was before they got their hands on her. You can read it at Rosie's Forum.

Last week I heard a self obsessed bag on the radio informing the presenter that she needed a holiday "probably more than most people because I work in the NHS" she said. Oh really? Of course the rest of us laze around all day picking our noses don't we?

When I spent a night in hospital about three years back it was so grim it prompted me to stop smoking to minimise the chances of having to go in again. In the morning I found a great pool of clotted blood under the bed from a previous occupant. It took me three hours to summon somebody for a glass of water, then when I needed the loo it was an hour before I could get somebody to help me get there.

Recently somebody I know was suffering terribly from depression. She is manic depressive, euphemistically called 'bi-polar disorder' these days, doesn't sound quite as much like a form of madness I suppose. Well we eventually persuaded her to see her GP who claimed to have a special interest in depression. She had a chat and he sent her away with a telephone number to ring if she got any worse. She did, and she rang the number. It was an Age Concern day centre! Useless.

Returning from one of her many visits to see her mother in Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester, my beloved showed me a photo she had taken on her phone. It was a particularly filthy and unhygienic lavatory with 'these bogs are filthy' daubed on the wall in felt tip. They weren't public toilets on the local housing estate, they were the toilets in the hospital.

Today I read about a complete bastard called Edward Ruddick, a nurse found guilty of stamping on a dementia sufferer. Thankfully he's in chokey now, but for only 6 months.

I always used to warn people that countries with 'democratic' in their name were usually anything but. Similarly anybody with 'care', 'carer' or 'caring' in the name of their job title, or their employer's name, needs keeping a very close eye on.

Sunday Drivers

They really do piss me off, not just Sunday drivers but weekend drivers on the whole. This weekend was particularly bad as I had to drive to Clitheroe on Saturday and Manchester on Sunday, and it's the back end of the holidays so the M6 in Lancashire was full of them.

Why do the prats sit, mile after mile in the middle lane? Or lane two if you prefer, or the second lane. They really do piss me off, so much so that I can feel my blood pressure rising and end up screaming words of abuse that I didnt even know I knew when I see one ahead.

Then, as if that's not bad enough when you try and pass them they start to accelerate, so you start passing them at 70mph but reach 80mph by the time you succeed. As soon as you pass them they then return, still in the middle lane, to a serene 65mph and drop right back. Bastards!

But when you glance to your left as you pass them you see some silly bleeder, nose an inch from the windscreen, gripping the steering wheel so tight their knuckles are pure white with veins bulging. They stare ahead with a look of concentration that makes them look like they're desperately trying to break wind because their lives depend on it. If they are that scared when driving on the motorways piss off and use the 'A' roads.

I can just imagine Cecil turning smugly to his beloved Celia as he hogs the middle lane and saying: "Oh look behind my dear, three lanes of the motorway all jammed up and the road ahead is perfectly clear. Think we timed our departure just right". No you moron, it's jammed because you are sat in the middle lane doing 69mph, while the inside lane is empty, thus causing a tailback from Lancaster to the Scottish border! You are screwing up the bloody motorway network you tit.

Then you get to J32 of the M6 and there are four lanes. Yes four lanes for them to screw up. So Cecil the nobhead stays in what was the middle lane, but has now become lane three for a few miles and hey presto, he's fucked up the whole motorway network, quite possibly causing traffic jams as far back as Inverness, or at least Aberdeen now.

Thanks to these prats we effectively have a two lane motorway network. What the pillocks do is effectively close the inside lane, unless you want to be highly dodgy and overtake on the inside. So if you are one of those tits who sits in the middle lane mile after mile when the inside is empty please leave a comment explaining why you are such a selfish, useless, moronic prick of a motorist.

I think we should be allowed to force them off the road. Preferably at the top of the Thelwall Viaduct or the Dartford Bridge. What a satisfying splash that would make.

Are You Racist? Take the Test!

Following my earlier post today, here is a test to check if you are racist or not.

The original puritans ducked women in the village pond. If they drowned they were not witches. If they didn't they were.

Today's puritans like to see racists everywhere. Are you one? Take the test and find out.

Q. Do you have any black friends?

A. No. Then you are obviously racist.
A. Yes. All racists say that. You are obviously racist.

At least a dead 'witch' had cleared her name.

Morrissey and the Chinese

Morrissey's done it again, and the Guardian reading pinko liberal misfits are spitting feathers and accusing him of racism.

If you don't know Morrissey is a musical genius and dedicated vegan and animal welfare campaigner. Personally I have no problem with eating meat, indeed foie gras is one of my favourites, and I enjoy the odd bullfight. But in a free world we are all entitled to our likes and dislikes and are free to criticise those we disapprove of.

Morrissey's mistake has been to take free speech literally, how very naive. In a magazine interview he described the Chinese, because of their appalling treatment of animals generally, in circuses especially, as 'almost a subspecies'. Fair comment in my view. Even as a dedicated meat eater there are limits and I think the Chinese, as with their human rights record, are a pretty vile mob. Their treatment of humans is what really angers me, and the fact that the pinko liberals prefer to ignore it and instead slam the USA for the odd execution just highlights the left's stinking hypocrisy.

It's worth Googling Morrissey to have a laugh at the bleeding heart liberals' response to his commonsense. Here is a good starter, The Guardian's coverage.

Here is a clip of Morrissey on meat:

Poor Old Hare Krishnas in Leicester

We have a Buddhist temple up the road in Cumbria where monks and other Buddhists head to for retreats and things. Our local train from Lancaster often has Buddhist monks in their saffron robes heading up there. I still get a shock when I pass through the carriage to find, when I reach them, that they are not Tibetans but often Mancunians, Scousers or Cockneys. I find it quite eccentric, but admit to liking it, as far as I know Buddhists don't tend to hurt people.

So I was saddened today to hear that a Hare Krishna temple in Leicester has burnt down. Thankfully nobody seems to have been seriously hurt.

But it does remind me of a wonderful verse from Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before by The Smiths:

I was delayed, I was way-laid
An emergency stop, I smelt the last ten seconds of life
I crashed down on the crossbar
And the pain was enough to make
A shy, bald, Buddhist reflect
And plan a mass murder
Who said lied I'd to her?
Oh, who said I'd lied because I never? I never!
Who said I'd lied because I never?

Tell you what, why not listen to the whole wonderful song?



I hope the Hare Krishnas in Leicester soon recover.

Paloma Faith

I have had a great day, working with somebody who is a bit of a hero of mine, so here's a bit of music to ease in a relaxing Friday evening:

Tony Blair: The Turd That Won't Flush Away

I was roused from my slumber this morning to find myself back in a living nightmare that I thought we'd left behind, Tony Blair talking bollocks on the radio. Shit, I must have dreamt his departure and he is still in charge, talking about how perfect he and the 'New Labour Project' were.

Then I thanked God that I heard the word 'were', he must be in the past. I was just in a nightmare after all. Except I wasn't, he was pushing his autobiography on the BBC, the presenter cooing over him in typical sycophantic, arse licking BBC style.

If you buy his book you deserve to have a white hot poker inserted up your Khyber Pass. He will need little encouragement to write the sequel and then we'll have to endure the slimey turd beaming and talking shit over the airwaves yet again, so don't be a prick, don't buy it!

Interesting that his autobiography A Journey translates into Eine Fahrt in German. Quite apt for Blair, the turd we just can't seem to flush away.

Nikki Sinclaire MEP: Let the People Decide

Nikki Sinclaire seems to be the only MEP actually doing anything worthwhile, indeed actually doing anything other than creaming in the cash! As well as actually fighting on behalf of her West Midlands constituents she is also running a high profile campaign calling for a referendum on our membership of the EU. You can visit the website at Have Your Say.

As the party conference season approaches she will be taking her campaign to the conference fringe of the serious parties, Labour in Manchester and the Tories in Birmingham. She will also be at the UKIP conference and the Lib Dems.

I think I'll be joining her team for some fun in Manchester!

Fat Fighters on the NHS

Last week I had an exchange of banter with my old mate Steve Allison. He believed in the abolition of the seatbelt law, but advocated the charging of costs to resulting accident victims if they ended up in hospital. I disagreed with making them pay for treatment and we agreed to disagree.

Steve has now been elected to UKIP's National Executive Committee. I'm sure some much needed commonsense will make a difference. But I can't help wondering what happens if, as is highly likely, the experience drives him to some kind of mental breakdown. As it's self inflicted would he be happy to pay for treatment I wonder? Only kidding, congratulations Steve and good luck.

There are various areas where I completely agree with the principle of not providing free treatment on the NHS. One such area was highlighted in the media this week, fat people. I'm no skinny beanpole by any stretch of the imagination, but I paid good money on great food and wine to get the size I am, not obese but definitely over weight. If I now decide I need to lose weight I will lose the weight, as I gained the weight, by my own effort and not expect you, the taxpayer, to foot the bill. Fatties should get a grip and find some willpower, the NHS wasn't founded to pander to your weakness but to help people in genuine medical need.

I am, even as an ex smoker, sick of the way that smokers continue to be oppressed and bullied. However, why the hell should the NHS spend money on 'smoking cessation services' as they call them? If somebody wants to give up smoking then use your willpower and stop, as you will if you really want to. I don't see why our taxes should be squandered on people too weak to do what I presume they must want to do if they contact their local 'NHS cessation service'. Wimps!

Then there is your 'gender realignment' treatment. Of course they use these euphemisms to mask what is really involved. If Arthur one day wakes up, and decides he wants to be Martha instead, then fine, that's his/her prerogative. But don't expect to have your widget lopped off out of my taxes, go private, or privates! And before anybody, usually with a vested interest, whines about not having treatment leading to psychiatric problems that cost the NHS much needed resources, that argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny considering the years and years of physical and mental treatment of transexuals as they change sex.

Any cosmetic treatment should be only available privately and not on the NHS. Of the two other issues that concern me specifically, abortion as a contraception and the very existence of the NHS itself, I will be gassing off about both in the coming days and weeks.

Gammer and His Familiars

There used to be a great old Victorian pub in Openshaw, Manchester called the Gransmoor. It is now no more, another victim of exorbitant taxes, the smoking ban and cheap supermarket booze. But in the late 70s, like so many pubs in Manchester and elsewhere, the place was a venue for local bands. It was here, around 1977, slightly underage, I discovered Gammer, later incarnated as Gammer and His Familiars. I last saw him at the Band on the Wall in about 1980.

Here he is in 1982:

David Cameron's Big Society

Any authoritarian regime depends on the populace bullying itself. Look at the old DDR where, after the collapse of communism, some people discovered from the Stasi files that their spouses had only married them to spy on them for the state.

Things aren't that bad here yet, but in Consett, Co Durham locals are copping speeding drivers themselves and reporting them to the police. The police then send them a nasty letter.

I've always believed that Cameron's Big Society will just pass power to the small minded, local busybodies, rather than abolishing much of our ridiculous legisation. This proves the point.

Full story.

Manchester Jewish Museum

We were in Manchester today wondering what to do in the afternoon. Some time ago I visited the Manchester Jewish Museum , I was doing some research on the British Union of Fascists, who were very well supported in the Cheetham Hill and the Salford areas. The Jewish Museum has some wonderful audio work with interviews of Jewish people who arrived, or whose parents arrived, at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. So we went to visit.

Admission is less than a fiver and we expected to pass an hour wandering around the former synagogue. In the end we were there nearer three hours and enjoyed every minute. The volunteer guides were extremely helpful and well informed, and the exhibitions and displays vividly portray the life of Jewish migrants in one of Manchester's poorest areas. The stories of many of the immigrants and their rags to riches stories were inspiring and in many cases humbling. Anybody with even a passing interest in history must visit this museum, it really is inspiring.

Financing a museum is a constant struggle and the Manchester Jewish Museum is no exception, they need all the help they can get so visits by paying customers are crucial. If you can't visit I'm sure they would appreciate donations.

Legalising Drugs

Like armed forces personnel who open up about underfunding as they retire, Sir Ian Gilmour waited until retiring as President of the Royal College of Physicians to suggest that prohibition of drugs isn't working. He also suggested that an element of legalisation may prove more effective on a range of levels. But at least he's done it.

Now the government prove, once again, how stupid they are by threatening to refuse benefits for junkies who refuse treatment. So, are they more likely to say "oh, go on then I'll go cold turkey"? Or are they more likely to go and hold up the local corner shop to finance their next fix?

It doesn't take a genius to answer that one does it?

Education

It's that time of year when we see what a mess successive governments have made of our education system. The only reason there is such competition for university places is because necessary qualifications are being given away.

Last year I remember seeing a lad who had got four top grades at 'A' Level. After his exams he had gone to India for a few months helping in a school in his father's birthplace. They were still doing the internationally recognised GCEs rather than GCSEs. He was amazed at the difference in standards and admitted that he would have struggled to even pass his exams if he had taken them in India, let alone get top grades. That said it all really.

Years ago, when they got rid of selective education, the politicians laid the foundation for today's educational mess. I've never yet been convinced by a supporter of comprehensivre education that it is good or successful, it is based on the most small minded and spiteful class warfare of socialism. 'We are all equal, we are all the same and we will impose that belief when educating the young' sums up comprehensive education.

I went to grammar school, my wife went to a comprehensive. I was given a good start, my wife has got on in life despite her education. I was fortunate being a Catholic in that our schools in Manchester became comprehensive years after the others and we still had the 11+ untl 1976. There was a great social mix at my grammar school, probably as near representative of the populace at large as you could find. At my wife's comprehensive they were virtually all kids from the surrounding council estate with a high level of unemployed parents and an atmosphere of failure and despair.

At my wife's comprehensive only a handful of children went into the sixth form. At my grammar only a handful didn't go on to sixth form and only a handful didn't go on to higher education. Having said that those few places were filled by lads from secondary moderns who had achieved academically at 'O' Level despite having failed their 11+. The system didn't confine 11+ failures to the bin, it nurtured them in a way that suited their particular talents. I know plenty of lads who failed the 11+ but went on to develop hugely successful businesses or developed academically later in life and then went on to university or college as mature students.

What we now see is university being 'comprehensivised'. Even our radical coalition government wants to stop so many people from 'better backgrounds' getting into unversity to make places free for people from 'poorer backgrounds'. Why not just have them selected on merit, whatever the social make-up that produces?

What comprehensive education has done is ensured that the middle clsses have a better chance than those in poorer areas. On sink estates the parents don't care, the councillors are often ill educated and don't care which is why so many parents are desperate to move to 'better' areas so that their kids have the chance of a decent education.

What next? Manchester United forced to take kids into their academy who can barely kick a ball in the interests of fairness? The Halle Orchestra having to take me on as a saxophonist to prove they are not elitist? No, that's stupid. So why do it in education?

Robert Palmer

A classic from the 1980s:



Go on then, one more:

100 Days of Coalition Crap

So we've had a new government for 100 days. Big deal!

Clegg's authoritarian attitude to the smoking ban illustrates what a bunch of statist, patronising pinko liberals minced into government when the Coalition was cobbled together to satisfy the egos of Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and company. OK the smoking ban isn't the most important single issue, but Clegg inviting the public to suggest laws that are to be scrapped, but qualifying it with a refusal to even consider reforming the smoking ban, shows what stinking hypocrites those in government really are. And mugs are falling for it.

What really has struck me in the last 100 days is the demise of the Liberal Democrats. They are losing members at an alarming rate and are getting hammered in council by-elections such as Bilston North Ward in Wolverhampton, where they even came in behind UKIP and their vote dropped over 10% on the last electon.

But Simon Hughes is now obviously jockeying for the post of post-coalition leader with his call for Lib Dem backbenchers to have a veto over govenment policy. Hughes isn't daft and can see the end of Nick Clegg in the not too distant future. When the Coalition collapses the Liberal Democrats will be left with a rump and Hughes will be the ideal leader for the type of activist that will be still milling around come that time.

In May I gave the coalition two years before it collapsed. I would now say that it is more likely to collapse around May 2011, if not earlier.

Taking the Piss out of the President

This really is a good one:

Mumps Bridge, Oldham

Today is a sad day. In the interests of 'urban regeneration' Mumps Bridge is being demolished. The name of the bridge and nearby station produce a wry smile in many, but the message on the bridge is the best thing about it.

For years when I was a lot younger I used to cycle in the Pennines, and often used to cycle into Oldham under Mumps Bridge. It just won't be the same after today not being welcomed by Seaton to 'Oldham, home of the tubular bandage'.

Idiots and Nitwits!

This country looks increasingly beyond help. It is full of nobheads and titheads. Yet again Jeremy Clarkson is being used as a scapegoat.

It seems that Clarkson overturned a Reliant Robin a couple of times on Top Gear. Then some bloke had his Reliant Robin turned over a couple of times on his driveway. Immediately the bloke is in the press blaming Clarkson for his beloved three wheeler being turned over. Bollocks!!

Did Clarkson turn the three wheeler over? An easy thing to do by the way. No he didn't. Did Clarkson tell them to do it? To the best of my knowledge, no he didn't. Blame the jokers who did it, not poor old Clarkson.

What next? If I go out and slaughter a load of old people do I expect Harold Shipman to be blamed because I saw a programme about his activities? Do I blame watching The Sweeney for robbing a bank or kicking a villain in the nuts? No, course not, and Clarkson isn't to blame for a gang of jokers turning over a Reliant Robin.

Then I heard a complete prick on Radio 2 blaming us, the populace, for the latest tour company going bust. Obvious really, if we didn't want cheap holidays they wouldn't cut costs and end up broke. Twisted sodding logic that.

So if enough of us demand cheap Rolls Royces will they cut the prices, then a bit more, then a bit more until they go bust. No you dickhead, they won't. Instead we buy Reliant Robins. If you can't afford a month on Mustique you go to sodding Pontins in Filey for a week.

I'm sure a high proportioon of people in this country have their brains surgically removed at birth.

Have a Great Really Free Weekend

Here's a bit of John Otway and Wild Willy Barratt from Whistle Test about 33 years ago:



Pure class!

Mission Statements, Straplines and Similar Bollocks

For years I have found the idea of mission statements and straplines a waste of time, often bizarre and frequently downright corny and stupid.

Take Lancashire County Council for example. As you drive into the county you are greeted with signs proclaiming 'Lancashire-A Place Where Everybody Matters'. Oh aye. Does that include the wife beater, the rapist, the paedophile, the mugger, the murderer, the bank robber and all the other undesirables? Thought not. So you see, the welcome sign is pure bollocks.

Schools are great at this waste of time, effort and money. Signs proclaiming 'Most Improved School' merely tell me that you were crap last year, and maybe all the other schools were so good that any improvement you managed would have been more than the better schools' improvement, so you are probably still a shite school.

Take this bullshit mission statement from Easyjet:

“To provide our customers with safe, good value, point-to-point air services. To effect and to offer a consistent and reliable product and fares appealing to leisure and business markets on a range of European routes. To achieve this we will develop our people and establish lasting relationships with our suppliers.”

However much you fill your mission statement with impenetrable jargon and buzzwords it should still read: "We want to make as much money as possible". Yes even in schools and hospitals because ultimately they are all in it to pay the bills.

But one of the most unusual developments in bullshit in recent years has to be the overuse of the word 'solutions'. I'm tired of the number of businesses I see nowadays that include that word in their title. Computer solutions, logistics solutions and so on. If I contact somebody to sell me a computer it isn't a problem for which I need a 'solution', I'm just buying a computer. If I want to send a parcel to China, it's not a logistics problem needing a 'solution', it's a wish to send a parcel.

The daftest one I've seen recently was Fred Smith: 'Plumbing Solutions'. Whatever happened to Fred Smith: Fixin' 'Effin' Leaks'?

Smokers? Evil Bastards!

I used to have a friend who had a bit of an interest in conspiracy theories, not the completely loony David Icke style, slightly more credible, but still conspiracy theories. One of his more interesting ones was about the venemous assault on smokers, this was in the 1980s before the smoking ban.

His theory was that the increased incidence of cancer had been concerning governments for a long time, they were desperate to find the cause. Eventually they found a link, so his theory went, and the evil cause of many forms of cancer were petro-chemicals. That was that then.

But no, the governmnent then looked at what it could do. The petro-chemical industry, as well as being crucial to our existence, was extremely powerful. The government was scared it couldn't win a battle to clean that particular industry up. So what could they do?

Eventually they had the idea of creating a scapegoat in order to placate the population at large, who were increasingly concerned at cancer levels. Hey presto, the government decided to hammer the tobacco industry instead.

The second strand to his theory was that the government, in attacking smoking and the tobacco industry, would use it to assess the power of propaganda in a free and democratic society. Which is what got me onto this post today.

As for the first part of his theory I doubt it very much, although I do think there has been exaggeration of the effects of smoking, especially passive smoking. Wherever you have a new ideology you get the zealots who go to the far extremes.

What got me mulling this over again was seeing this week, for the first time, the government's latest propaganda attack on Britain's last, legally oppressed and officially villified minority, the smokers. If you haven't seen it the goverment commissars are not happy with just banning smoking and forcing people outside buildings for a drag, oh no, that isn't nearly enough. They are now ordering you to smoke seven miles (or was it seven paces?) from the building you have just been kicked out of. You see, the smoke may just seep through the bricks, or waft through an open window thus killing the occupants.

The propaganda element of this theory has worked incredibly well. In fact that element could have seen off smoking but Blair, the great dictator, just had to prove he was boss and brought in the ban. But what effect has the propaganda had?

Two personal examples prove the success of the propaganda. We have friends who still smoke, I gave up about three years ago as did my beloved. But when our friends come for a meal they insist on going out onto our balcony for a fag. We insist that we are not the tedious ex-smokers who claim to need the smell of smoke surgically removing and have to burn the curtains and redecorate the house when they've gone. But they have been conditioned not to smoke indoors any more. Although the power of numerous bottles of Cahors often reverses the effect of the propaganda by about 2-00am!

The second example is a chap a few doors down who, even in the blizzards last winter, could be seen shivering on his doorstep, less than seven yards from his home admittedy, no longer allowed by himself or whoever, to smoke in the comfort of his own home. I can't help wishing he would find some backbone and sit in the comfort of his armchair, with a nice glass of single malt, drawing on a Marlboro or Benson and Hedges.

So I finish with the view that not only has the propaganda about tobacco worked wonderfully well, but it has also shown what a nation of intolerant, self-obsessed wimps we have become, ready to ask how high when the state tells us to jump rather than sticking two fingers up in the great old English tradition.

Speeding Motorists all Middle Class!

Yesterday I blogged about an article claiming that all the English are prejudiced, today it's an article claiming that speeding motorists are all middle class. Who could be making such a ridiculous statement I hear you ask? Well, it's none other than the outgoing, thankfully, chief constable of Cambridgeshire police, a certain Julie Spence. I must say she does look like a right old battleaxe in the photograph with this article.

She claims that it is speeding motorists, and parents parking badly outside schools, that are of most concern to the populace of Cambridgeshire. Well, in that case, Cambridgeshire is the place to live. No murders it seems, unless you live in Soham of course, but that doesn't count in her pea-sized mind obviously as a speeding Ford Mondeo wasn't involved, just a homicidal maniac.

Just to prove her complete idiocy the following quote is from the article:

“Speeding is middle-class anti-social behaviour,” she says. “People think we should be able to get away with it. They wouldn’t tolerate lawbreaking by somebody else but they do it themselves without thinking.

“It all seems OK until something tragic happens, like their child dies because of a road traffic accident.”

Well then here's a thought Julie. A true deterrent would be warning motorists that if they speed, and get caught, their first born will be thrown under a speeding car as punishment. I'm sure that would work you pathetic old hag!

Most people who drive, I would say well over 95%, have been guilty of speeding, probably on a regular basis, but have never been involved in an accident as a result, let alone killed a child. Emotive language such as that does absolutely nothing to deter the rational human who often does 80mph on the motorway or 35mph in a 30mph zone.It is bad driving that causes accidents usually, rather than speed, or even the child running out into the road. But the anti-motorist obsessives could never accept the child being guilty of causing the accident, it must have been the motorist. That emotive 'child killer' argument is now verging on immoral.

What drew me to this wretched woman's interview, is her blanket swipe at the middle class, as if good working class people never speed. What absolute nonsense. These blanket attacks on the middle class wouldn' be tolerated if they were about other groups, such as ethnic minorities, gays, religious groups. Well certain religious groups, and unles your name is Dawkins. If you made a statement such as, 'black people have big nostrils' (see my post yesterday) the self-righteous liberals would be down on you like a ton of bricks. But it's OK to attack the whole of a particular class it seems, at least if they are middle or upper. Then the police wonder why we are losing faith in them and we increasingly see them as the enemy.By the way, I think I am probably working class, so it is not self-interest that is driving me.

This mad woman should visit any inner city area, especially after dark, and see the number of working class kids speeding and doing handbrake turns, often in other peoples' cars, yes thieves as well as speeders. Where I grew up in Manchester it is almost a spectator sport, and not a middle class person about.

So, good riddance to Julie and let's hope the nutter in North Wales, Richard Brunstrom follows her soon.

We, the English, are Racists!

I read the Sunday Times, but don't know for how much longer; it's fast becoming yet another of the things that makes me very angry. Today it was the turn of patronising pinko liberal nerd David James Smith in an article entitled 'England's Green and Prejudiced Land'. The biggest pile of self-obsessed politically correct bollocks I've read in a very long time.

You see Mr Smith is maried to a black woman, and sees racism in everything, especially when he moves from Fulham to Lewes in Sussex. The fact that two women in Lewes told his wife there was no racism in Lewes was evidence of their truly remarkable ignorance, according to Smith, because racism is obviously everywhere in England.

According to Smith the fact that there are are so few other black people in Lewes is evidence that the place is racist. As is the fact that his wife was greeted in the street by people she didn't know, proof that she stood out because she was black. Well, she would stick out, as I probably would on the streets of Nairobi. Whereas I would see that as the locals being friendly, Smith wants it to be racist, because he decided that England,especially Lewes it seems, is racist, and went out to prove himself right.

But the worst act of vile, evil racism was a young child saying that his son, of mixed race, had big nostrils. What an evil racist child he must be to say that. Actually I think the child was just being a child, honest to the point of brutality. You see children tell it as it is, absolutely straight. When a 'grown up' can misconstrue that as 'racist' I think it says more about Smith and his ilk than it does about the child or the level of racism in England.

But the most evil thing about his time in Lewes was having to live next door to a 'neo-Nazi'. Some time after he had moved he found that the first next door neighbour he had in Lewes was a BNP member. Did the man do wicked things to Smith and his family? Did he send them threats or throw bricks through their windows? No, he was a bit quiet and surly. Smith only found out he was BNP when their membership list was leaked on the internet, a long, long time after he and his family had moved.

But what really pissed me off was this line:

Lewes is a genteel town for liberals and libertarians on the edge of the South Downs.......

I am Chairman of the Libertarian Party, have many libertarian friends, and have yet to find a single libertarian to be racist. So why does Smith use that line in his ignorant and bigoted article smearing us all, you, me and every other Englishman, as prejudiced I wonder?

Of course racism exists, but articles such as this one merely anger those of us who oppose racists as well as opposing those who see racism around every corner, where it doesn't actually exist. Sadly, Mr Smith and his kind fuel the BNP.

Mr Smith is the true bigot, riddled with prejudice and self-obsession.

Sack the Bastards!

The Co-op claim that the staff in this story, who refused to serve a squaddie in their Croydon store, were acting on their own and that it wasn't company policy. So the cashier, and the store manager were, presumably still are, clueless morons.

I've never liked the Co-op and will not be using their stores in future, until I read that the two morons in Croydon have been sacked.

This World Really Is Mad!

I hate DIY with a vengeance but, every now and then, my excuse to my beloved that I don't want to deprive a skilled worker of his livelihood doesn't pass muster and I just have to get on with it. This weekend was one such occasion, so I bought an electric screw driver.

All you have to do is stick one of two bits into it, like a drill, charge it up for six hours and off you go. Hours of fun. But no, this one came with three pages of instructions, a bit excessive I thought. But then I saw the seven pages of health and safety warnings. Yes, seven pages. But I suppose there are people out there who may decide to use it on their teeth or for scratching their testicles.

Coincidentally, nothing to do with incorrect use of electric screw driver on any part of my anatomy, I had to call into the doctor's surgery today. In the waiting room I saw a notice asking anybody wanting a chaperone when they see the doctor to speak to the receptionist. A sodding chaperone!

I can only conclude that it is for people who are terrified that they are going to be 'tampered with' if the doctor has to lay a finger on them, especially on their intimate parts. What a nation of mard arses we've become. Pretty soon we will need to have a third party present at every consultation, to protect the doctor against claims of sexual abuse, or just plain physical abuse.

What a mad, mad world.

Lloyd Cole

Been working in Clitheroe most of the weekend, but for some reason kept thinking about times gone by, like seeing Lloyd Cole at the Apollo, Ardwick in about 1982. He is so underrated:

European Investigation Order

If you doubted that we no longer have control of our government, and therefore our lives and our destinies, then this latest handover of power to the EU may convince you. No great statements to the media, just a sneaky mention in Parliament, then reported on the Parliament website. Theresa May (pictured) is the minister responsible.

Home Secretary, Theresa May MP, made a statement to the House of Commons on 27 July 2010 on the Government's decision to opt into the draft European directive on the European Investigation Order. The European Investigation Order has been designed to help law enforcement agencies in EU states share information.

From Parliament UK.

So much for the government handing power 'back to the people'. They didn't tell us they meant people in Brussels, Strasbourg and every police officer in the EU!

Watch the Video.

European Investigation Order in Hansard.

And when Dave achieves his ambition of speeding Turkey into the European Union, just remember Midnight Express.

The Coalition's Big Society

There are two words that seem to be used in every political statement at the moment, and they fill me with dread. They are 'society' and 'community'. They are used, especially by politicians and interfering busybodies, to justify a very dangerous trend, namely passing power down from government.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that power should be as locally devolved as possible, a large part of the reason I see no point in European Union membershhip for example. But before any power is devolved they should look at what powers can be scrapped completely first. After all, dodgy forms of devolution produce disasters like the Scottish government.

The politically correct will attack you if you make generalisations, especially those such as all French people smell of garlic and all Chinamen wear flipflops, and rightly so, they obviously don't. But when they want to impose their wishes on us they justify their interfering ways by claiming that 'society' would be better for it or that 'communities' would benefit from it. Well I mustn't be part of either because this week I heard a harridan from the anti-motorist group Brake which, incidentally, enjoys the benefits of charitable status while hectoring you and me about how our cars kill children, and her views on improving 'communities' scared me. I do not believe that speed cameras make for 'more liveable communities'. If they did estate agents would pretty soon start putting speed camera locations on property details to attract buyers. No, she was talking bollocks frankly.

The whole problem with Cameron's 'Big Society' is that the state has far too much power and is far too intrusive. Cameron's plans sound to me like they will merely be delegating that power to other, more local people. The problem with that is that local goverment is crammed full of interfering busybodies just wanting to dabble and interfere in their 'communities', and believe me they are extremely dangerous, I saw them when I was a councillor for four years. Yes, there are many good people involved in local politics, but the mad, or plain insane, have an energy that drives them on to more and more activity when the sane are happy to leave people alone.

Like most people, I suspect, I just want to live my life without being constantly mithered by either civil servants or local commissars. Stick your 'Big Society'.

David Cameron-What a Turkey!

David Cameron must be really, really stupid. Since sneaking into Downing Street he seems to have decided to play some kind of a student prank on us all by saying exactly the opposite of popular opinion. Bear in mind he couldn't win an election and is only in power because of a coalition with a party of misfits that managed to lose seats at the May election.

He is suddenly fighting for Turkey to join the European Union because, he claims, they are in NATO so therefore should be in the EU too. Maybe he also believes, using that logic, that the USA should be in the EU too. Then he really goes to town on those of us who don't want Turkey in the EU by tarring us all as Islamophobes. Prat!

To be honest if we were outside the EU, which we should be and one day will be, I wouldn't give a damn whether Turkey was in or not. But as long as we are in, and have open borders with the EU, I do not particularly want a border with Iraq and Iran, which is what we will effectively have if Turkey joins.

Furthermore, the larger the EU becomes the bigger a minority we become, and the more remote from government when decisions are being made. So when Cameron claims he wants to give power back to the people, how does giving more and more power to an ever expanding EU achieve that particular aim? In a word it doesn't, it's more bull from Cameron the turkey.

Britain is Finished

I've been away on a course for most of this week and it has felt a bit like living in a bubble, or a parallel universe. But sometimes the real world comes crashing in like a nightmare.

Another participant on the course told us the tale of his 18 year old niece on election day, May 6th. He saw her in the evening and she was really angry about the cock up at her polling station. He assumed they had run out of ballot papers or something, as had begun being reported from elsewhere. But no, she was angry and had refused to vote because Nick Clegg, who she had liked in the TV debates, had been left off her ballot paper.

Like other participants I wondered what the had happened to our education system. Maybe, if I had children of school age, I would have to send them to private schools. I've never rated the compreensive system and this just proved my point, yet again.

Then I came blinking back into the daylight of the real world and lo, our glorious leader, Eton and Oxford educated, had opened his mouth and proved himself to be as thick as the girl above. We were junior partners to the Yanks in 1940? God help us.

So my conclusion is that if I had children of school age I would have emigrated by now. In fact with a useless prat like Cameron in charge, and a colourless gimp like Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister, emigration is probably adviseable anyway.

Councils and Consultants

I rarely read our local paper, it's the Lancaster Guardian and is about as shite as the proper Guardian, but I just happened to peep at a copy this morning and I was shocked.

My local council, Lancaster City Council, spent over £1m last year on consultants. Over £1m! That is an absolutely scandalous waste of taxpayers' money. A proportion of that went on consultants paid for legal advice, despite having their own Legal Services Department.

I won't bore you with all the detail, but it is on the Lancaster Guardian website if you would like to see the article.

I recently came across a media consultancy that charges a reported £1,500 a day plus VAT to tell councillors and council officials how to work with the media. That despite most of the councils they work with actually employing media/PR people already.

I do not accept that any reasonably sized local authority in this day and age needs to employ ridiculously expensive consultants, they must have all the expertise they could need on their payroll already. If they don't they are doing something wrong.

Consultants are the obvious place to start cutting and millions and millions of pounds could be saved in local government at a stroke, without affecting essential services.

White Christians Persecuted in Britain (The New Inquisition)

There has been, rightly or wrongly, a growing perception in Britain that so-called equality legislation works against the majority population and in favour of minorities. This perception is not just about ethnicity but about religious freedom too.

This view is supported in a report by the think tank Civitas reported in today's Daily Telegraph.

The fanatical politicaly correct interference in attempting to make us all the same has created an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion. I do not believe that there is a determined effort to crush the white Christian population, although the Labour governmnent had a good try, I think it is more cock up than conspiracy. A climate has been created by the equality legslation whereby people go so far to prove they are not guilty of an 'ism' that they unintentionally piss off some unsuspecting section of the populace.

Wherever the state interferes there is confusion at best, at worst confontation and pain. The abolition of all equality legislation, be it gender, race, sexuality or anything else, is the first step to people living together in peace.

Government Cuts, Propaganda and Charities

It's absolutely crucial that the government cuts, cuts and cuts even deeper. There are several reasons but firstly the government squanders money and in the process grabs more and more power over us, the innocent populace. Also the govenment doesn't actually have any money to spend, it thieves from the likes of you and me so it is actually squandering our money. Forgive me, but I think we know best how to spend our money.

Today the NCVO (National Council of Voluntary Organisations) is whining that government cuts to local authority funding could seriously damage some charities. Good, that's life. I've spent most of my life as a volunteer and over 20 years working in the charity sector and in that time I have seen the voluntary sector go from a healthy, independent, largely self-financing sector to an overstaffed, bloated, taxpayer funded bureaucracy. Many charities and voluntary organisations have been nationalised.

Of course when charities take the easy route, and accept taxpayers' money, they immediately lose their independence, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Their campaigning edge, especially in the world of medical chrities which is my background, has been blunted. They've sold their souls and the last government were experts at buying them off.

And voluntary means just that, voluntary. If I support the Citizen's Advice Bureau I will choose to support it financially. If I don't support that charity I do not want my money being forcibly taken from me and given to them through taxation. I don't accept the bleeding heart liberal cry that charities will die if they don't get government funding. If they are worthwhile people will happily cough up the cash. If they don't survive, it's because they don't deserve to survive because people don't support them. It's quite simple.

So don't listen to the pinko liberal self-serving propoganda from the vested interests in the voluntary sector. Cuts are a good thing and the more and deeper the better.

Which brings me nicely to a classic song from the eighties that reminds me of life in Glossop, Derbyshire, the wild days!

Ladies and gentlemen I give you Propaganda with The First Cut:



Now I'm off to watch Le Tour de France on ITV4.

More Bullshit from the European Union

The European Union is at it again, indeed when does it ever stop? Its authoritarian march towards supreme power and total control of our lives carries on relentlessly. I am only really concerened about UK withdrawal from the monster, it's up to other countries what they do, but I sense an ever growing scepticism throughout Europe to the EU. So what has caused my anger today?

For starters it's their lack of acceptance that the private sector is just that, private, and should be interfered with by the state as little as possible, ideally not at all. But no, where the EU see human interaction they want to control, regulate and legislate against it.

The leviathan is now concerened that there are not enough wimmin in the boardrooms of private companies. So what? Most of my working experience has been in the charity world where, I would guess, women are at least as well represented in senior management positions as men, maybe even disroportionately better represented. Do I care? Not a jot as long as they can do the job. By the way, I wonder what the EU think about the proportion of male/female primary school teachers throughout Europe, not just here?

Of course the EU is only 'flagging up the issue' at this stage, confident that the private sector will change the perceived imbalance. But as with every dictatorship behind that 'flagging up' is the threat that under the Lisbon Treaty, they have the power to enforce 'equality' if it doesn't happen voluntarily, or naturally.

Then there is the prospect of EU police forces having access to all your records: DNA, bank accounts, telephone and email records, everything that the British state has access to. This proposal is being floated under the European Investigation Order. Then it's only a hop, skip and a jump to Inspector Cutabollockoff kicking your door down at 4-00am to drag you off to Bucharest Central for interrogation. The British police and the British state scare me, this really brought me out in a cold sweat when I read about it.

The hat-trick today was the EU announcing, in true Mussolini style, that they will get the trains running on time! How? By forcing member states (or vassel states if you prefer) to adopt their new railway timetabling software. Bollocks! The last time I had a train cancelled was because the driver was in bed with a hangover, or at least he hadn't turned up for work. We all know about the wrong type of leaves on the line, the old signal failure excuse and the engineering works that have been screwing up the West Coast Mainline since about 1880. Typical EU delusional bollocks.

So what's the answer? Well pressure groups are all very well but too often preach to the converted. We all know that a majority of people in the country today would be happy to see us withdraw from the EU, but they are unaware of a credible political party advocating that. Also, while 50%+ would probably like to see us out of the EU, only about 8%, if that, will vote in a general election on that single issue, they vote on a whole range of issues from health and education to tax, law and order and all the others.

Furthermore, and I know from experience, that politicians who, rightly or wrongly, bang on, and on, and on about nothing but the EU turn the electorate off. Withdrawal has to be part of a cohesive manifesto including the whole range of government activities, preferably hacking away at the activity of government, and freeing people from the current invasive, authoritarian state that is crippling freedom and liberty. That is the only way to get into Westminster where real change can become possible.

If you think that no such party exists then I suggest you visit the Libertarian Party website. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Customer Service? Bollocks! (Part 2)

Following my post yesterday about B&Q, specifically their totally incompetent Bamber Bridge store, there is a further development.

After being told that their delivery vehicles, drivers and goods fall into a black hole, never to be seen again, if they venture near Lancaster on a Friday, the problem has been solved.

After preparing for a Saturday delivery of my flooring, because of the above insoluble problem, I received a phone call late yesterday afternoon. The greatest scientific minds in the world, led by Stephen Hawking no doubt, have solved the problem of the de-materialising trucks and my delivery will be here this aftenoon, between 5-00pm and 7-00pm depending on the time warp factor no doubt, or maybe the traffic. Kicking arse does work, even with mongs and simpletons it seems.

Then there is the problem with Topps Tiles, or should that be 'Bottoms' Tiles because they are a bunch of arseholes too? But that's similar to the B&Q experience and too raw for me to recount at the moment without resorting to single malt, and it's far too early.

Bastards!

The FIFA World Cup 2010

After all the bullshit spouted about the World Cup in South Africa, it has taken the down to earth decency and honesty of a former Rugby Union player to tell it as it actually was. Namely:

The standard of football was shite.

If Spain play the most beautiful football the world has ever seen how did they manage no more than one goal in any game, the point of the game being to score goals?

'Top class' footballers are spoilt, petulent brats who are more than happy to cheat, including the Spaniards.

Africans are not all happy smiley people in bright clothes, many live in abject poverty under brutal dictatorships.

The awe and wonder that the tournament happened without major disaster/cock-up is highly patronising towards Africans, but typical of the PC brigade.

The Vuvuzela is not a great African tradition, it's an oversized plastic childrens' horn that pisses most normal people off, and only surfaced about 10 years ago.

Some of the above has my personal interpretation to add a little spice but here is Brian Moore's full article, it is well worth a read.

Customer Service? Bollocks!

Some stores are just too big. If they are furniture or DIY stores asssociated with very strong colours too, such as blue and yellow or orange, then they must be avoided.

In fairness the big orange DIY store, let's call it P&Q, is usually fine, not just because they employ older staff in orange aprons either, but because all the staff are generaly pleasant and helpful. But their store at Bamber Bridge near Preston is shite! The big blue and yellow furniture shop is shite everywhere, apart from their meatballs which are nearly as good as mine, but that's another story and seems to be a man thing.

To cut a long story short we ordered nearly £1,500 of flooring last Sunday from the big orange store (P&Q). Ten minutes after leaving the store I got a call, they had cocked up the order. No worries, I went back and it was sorted. Or so I thought. They promised to phone me within 15 minutes to confirm the order. What seemed to blow their minds was that I was ordering in one store but the flooring was to be delivered from another.

Over an hour later I got a phone call querying the order and asking me the price. Asking me the price! I was honest and told them the price per square metre. They told me it was actually double. Oh shit! But I then realised, me not the man in the orange apron, that he had quoted the pack price, which carried about two square metres. My price was actually correct. I then took my seat to watch the cricket.

During the next three hours I had three more phone calls. The last two, an hour apart, from two different people confirming that the order was fine and would be delivered on Thursday (today). Great stuff. So I arranged the fitter for 8-00 Saturday morning.

Yesterday lunchtime, the day before delivery, I got a call telling me that only part of the order was available and that the rest would be with me next week some time, there had been a fault on their system. A conversation then ensued. I told them I wanted the problem resolving within an hour or I expected a full refund.

Half an hour later I was told that they could complete the order but it might have to be Friday rather than today. I asked him to check and confirm as either day was fine. He later phoned me back and confirmed that the delivery would be on Friday (tomorrow). That was fine, no problem. The problem, with patience and perseverance on my part, had been resolved.

Half an hour later the phone rang. There was an apology, they don't deliver to Lancaster on a Friday. Well under the circumstances, and £1,500 spent couldn't an exception be made? No. I asked to speak to the manager. She would phone me back within 15 minutes. So I trawled their website and found their customer service number, which is in Scotland, and in true Monty Python style, I registered my complaint in very high dudgeon. They were very sympathetic, good training I suppose, but it would take 24, or maybe 48 hours for my complaint to hit their system.

An hour later the store manager from Bamber Bridge rang. Absolute waste of space. She sounded like a Little Britain tribute: "Computer says no". She even had to ask a colleague for the surname of the person I had been dealing with, which gave her a good giggle I know because she didn't cover the phone properly. Her story was not a system fault, oh no, she told me they had found that part of our original delivery was damaged. She was worse than useless and I can see why that big orange store in Bamber Bridge is such a shambles.

So last night I went off to watch Lancashire, always a pleasure especially when trying to put an afternoon of shit behind you. Then, at 7-00pm I got a text message from P&Q, maybe on the Orange network, confirming delivery this morning. So when the shite is it coming?

This morning I phoned customer service to check as each time I have phoned the store in Bamber Bridge it has been answered by a caveman who can only grunt. Delivery was confirmed for tomorrow and the attitude of the manager, and the stupid text, have now been added to my complaint.

What a nightmare. But the worst thing is probably sat on the end of a phone while these huge companies play stupid music down it interspered with the odd message telling you how important your custom is. So why can't they be arsed hiring enough staff to save you hanging around on hold for half an hour every time you ring?

And from the government down, don't you just know that the more they harp on about how important you are, how valued you are, how you are in their thoughts 24 hours a day, that they are really just dreaming up more and more excruciating ways to give you a damn good metaphorical bloody seeing to and charging you ever more for the sodding privelege?

Bastards all!

By the way, it's B&Q, I changed the name to protect the guilty.

Jean Michel Jarre for Bastille Day

OK, Bastille Day was yesterday but I was too busy. So to make amends here is a clip from Jean Michel Jarre's excellent Rendezvous Houston for my French friends for yesterday:

Banning the Burqa

The French MPs have once again exhibited the Gallic love of authoritarianism by voting to ban the burqa, having banned the crucifix from classrooms and elsewhere some time ago.

One of the arguments used to support a ban on the burqa is that some muslim women are allegedly forced to wear it. So how does banning all muslim women from wearing it display tolerance and freedom?

I don't like the burqa myself but that is not grounds for banning it. I don't like Marmite but don't want it banned. Any person, political party or group supporting a burqa ban and claiming to be libertarian is either lying or seriously deluded.

Jon Gaunt, Ignorant Pigs and Nazis

If you didn't know Jon Gaunt lost his job as a shock jock, a kind of poor man's Howard Stern , for upsetting a politically correct prat from South London if I remember. As the politically correct moron was gobbing off his authoritarian bile on a particular issue Gaunt likened him to a Nazi and I believe then called him "an ignorant pig". For this he was referred to Ofcom and sacked by the wimps and farts at TalkSport.

I used to listen to Gaunt occasionally but found him annoying, especally his habit of referring to himself in the third person such as "Gaunty did this" or "Gaunty thinks the other". But if he really pissed me off I changed channels. Gaunt broke no laws but was sacked for offending somebody, somewhere, in some way. How our freedom of speech has been eroded by the pinko-liberal corrupting politically correct morons currently in charge. Personally I found everything Blair did or said offensive, shame I couldn't get him sackd for it. Gaunt will continue to fight his case and is appealing, I wish him luck.

Today I heard him interviewed on the BBC by Richard Bacon. Of course Bacon was all for regulators censoring what the public hear because the wet fart didn't think presenters "should offend people". When pushed by Gaunt he couldn't define what he meant by "offensive" quite obviously, because what causes one person offence doesn't another. What the patronising plonker (Bacon) seemed to be saying was that if there was no regulator, costing us £144m a year by the way, then the airwaves would be filled with presenters effing and blinding all day. Well you, Bacon, might be that kind of ignorant prat, please don't assume that all people are as sad and pathetic as you.

I agreed with Gaunt 100% in his assertion that an individuals off button is the best form of censorship.

Oh yes, the BBC isn't covered by Ofcom, it is self-regulated by the BBC Trust.

Trouble in Belfast

It's not been a good few days for those fond of orange, what with Holland losing the final and Orangemen getting attacked as they marched in Belfast.

The last time I was in Nothern Ireland, about six years ago, there was widespread cynicism verging on ridicule about the officially stated arms decomissioning. Real people, not idiot politicians like Blair, knew that the peace process would only last so long.

Let's face it, if you put murdering bastards like McGuiness and Adams in positions of power eventually they will grab for more power until they have complete power. In the last twenty years they have been proved absolutely right in their belief that the bomb and the bullet can get them what they want.

No wonder the pair look so smug when you see them on TV. OK the trouble at the moment is nowhere near previous levels, but let's see how long it takes.

Rape and Anonymity

There was a debate on the radio today about how parliament is split along gender lines on the the question of anonymity for those accused of rape. I don't see why. I've always wondered, especially when a rape accusation proves to be purely malicious, that mens' identities are not protected until charged and a trial takes place. Womens' identities, as victims, are quite rightly protected so surely what is being advocated by the government is gender equality.

Angela Eagles, a Labour shadow minister, was arguing that this would make women less likely to report rape. Why? How many women, having been raped, would even consider the anonymity of the accused when reporting the crime? I would say none. That is a spurious argument that shows a lack of real substance to those opposing the measure.

Aside from murder I can think of no worse crime than rape. Anonymity is the only way to protect an innocent man from the 'no smoke without fire' brigade, be that family members, friends, neighbours, colleagues or the malicious, self-righteous lynch mob.

Back in England

Landing back in Blighty we picked up on the bizarre drama of Raoul Moat. At first we thought armed police were trying to track down the former lead singer of the Mavericks, a bit of a shame because I quite liked them. Then I remembered that the singer is Raul Malo.

No, Raoul Moat is the musclebound psycho, probably pumped up with steroids, who is hiding in the woods in Northumberland with a gun. We did hear of the shooting when we were away but were not aware that the UN had sent in special forces from armies throughout the world to track him down. Well, the police in Northern Ireland are in on the act as, are the Metropolitan Police and numerous other forces' armoured units and we did actually hear on one radio station, while driving up from Dover, that the SAS were milling around. But surely the SAS would have had him by now. After all, Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave in the Hindu Kush is one thing, a derainged bodybuilder kipping in a bivouac in Northumbeland is another, surely?

Mind you, hearing the police press conference yesterday, some woman who sounded like Cilla Black and a bloke who sounded about as enthusiastic as Alan Shearer on moggadon, it's no surprise they are spending over £500,000 a day trying to catch him and achieving sod all.

Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the forces of law and order does it? Then again, if you call your son Raoul, and he's growing up in working class Newcastle, and he's a ginger, then you're storing up problems for the future really, as we now see.

Au Revoir La Belle France

Impersonating a mole in the morning, coming up for air somewhere near Folkestone. So goodbye to France for now, we'll be back soon no doubt, we can't stay away.

Here then, is our little tribute which I'm sure will be taken in the spirit in which it is meant:



Or if you don't like that then berets off and stand to attention for this:

Labour Party Pillocks

I can't believe Labour Party supporters. It's 20 years since Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister but the sad lefties in Britain still whine about her and blame her for all the ills of today. In fact they whine more about her today than they did in 1992 or 1997.

Then today I heard some Labour Party pillock complaining that the ConDem government in the UK are still, ten weeks after the general election, blaming today's problems on Labour! Only ten weeks, after Labour spent 13 years wrecking the country? What an utter pillock.

But of course, ten weeks ago people were so unfair on the Labour Party. After all they have so many good ideas and policies to bring a brighter future to Britain, yet voters seemed determined to judge them on their last 13 years of government. How damn unfair.

No wonder Labour supporters are so bitter. They are all pillocks after all!

Le Pont de Normandie

As the end of a holiday approaches it's always a little sad. But then you think of the renovated Schloss awaiting you, your little furry pets and that first chicken madras. It's not a bad life.

Then tomorrow, as we head for Calais from Honfleur, we will have the pleasure of crossing Le Pont de Normandie.

Le Tour de France-Bradley Wiggins

You can keep up with Britain's hope in Le Tour, Bradley Wiggins, by following Dave Brailsford's Blog.

Up to now it sounds, after two stages, like carnage with the peleton crossing the line en masse today in Spa after Wiggins, Armstrong the Schlecks and others crashed on what sounds like a typically bad Belgian road surface.

Chavanel leads at the moment.

Holidays In France

We've been coming to France for years and have never known it as quiet as it is this year. There are few British tourists, fewer Dutch and even fewer German tourists about than we've ever seen at this time of year. We've seen two Italian registration plates, which is unusual although there has been a gradual decline in the numbers of Italians over the last ten years.

It's not as if we have stayed in one place. We drove from Calais to Bergerac via Blois then back via Bordeaux to St Jean de Monts then via Nantes to Honfleur, over 1,500 miles up to now.

Talking to locals there are bars and cafes closing down as there are pubs closing down in the UK. Many British people who moved here are returning to the UK, especially those who need to work as the French are reluctant to employ foreign labour.

We were out for a meal tonight and most of the restaurants around the harbour were empty, or at best had a couple of tables occupied. Some have slashed their prices, the really empty ones haven't.

Interestingly we have seen more Irish people than any other nationality in the last few days. Maybe a last hurrah before the Celtic Tiger is slain?

Gay Marriage

It seems that the new British government, or the coalition government as it is constantly referred to, is carrying on where the old one left off. Rather than scrapping the equality apparatus that causes so much resentment they have put Lynne Featherstone in charge. The only thing worse than a patronising Lib Dem interfering and trying to equalise, is a patronising Lib Dem called Lynne Featherstone being in charge.

They are now talking about forcing the introduction of a religious element into civil partnership ceremonies. It is odd for two reasons in my view. Many religions do not accept homosexuality and I doubt that gay couples would choose to have an element of a religion that condemns homosexuality in their civil ceremony anyway. Secondly If a religion that is fully accepting of homosexual relationships wants to conduct a civil partnership, or a marriage, then why did the existing legislation disallow it?

This shows why state approved equality is a joke. Just leave people to get on with things. All couples in relationships should have the same legal rights under the law, end of story. But if one religion is happy to bless a relationship fine, if another religion is not prepared to bless a relationship then that is their right. It has bugger all to do with the state.

Why I'm Glad Ghana Lost

Sat having a coffee at lunchtime I heard a little English boy asking his mum what all the noise was about last night. She told him they were all cheering on Ghana in the football match. He then asked why they were all cheering Ghana on. She replied that it was because they were the last black team left in the tournament. How bloody crass, patronising, pathetic and in some perverse way racist is that?

Throughout this World Cup I have found the attitude of the pinko liberal classes sickening and patronising, nothing new there then. Little black fella hero, big white European man bad. Obsessing about the emerging footballing nations, such as Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria and Ivory Coast but bollocks to emerging nations such as North/South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and the USA. No, they aren't black enough are they?

Yes we all have teams we favour when our own nation isn't playing, or has been thumped by the Germans in our case, but isn't choosing your team along racial lines a bit, you know, racist? I have a soft spot for Paraguay myself, not because of any patronising attitude to little Latinos but because I enjoyed spending some time there a few years ago. I suppose that makes me the racist by not supporting them for the 'right' reasons!

The British Abroad

It's time for the truth. When on holiday we tend to avoid other British people, especially in France and especially ex-pats. There, that feels better.

So let me now get really bitchy. It's the posh buggers who really tend to piss us off. The ones who sit in cafes talking very loudly about whatever career made them so wealthy, usually now retired, and how tourists are spoiling their favourite bastide towns. Of course they are on holiday, but it's the 'plebs' who are the 'tourists' in their eyes, meaning everybody but themselves.

They then rattle on about the marvellous food at Chez le Ripoff in Chateugorleymand-Sur-Le-Rive Planchette, a definite throwing down of the gauntlet to somebody like me. So that night you tootle off to lower the tone of Chez le Ripoff. After pate ou salad followed by duck ou steak ou pizza finished off with glace ou creme brulee ou assiete de fromage, yet again, you leave the place as it shuts at 9 00pm, wondering what the crashing old bore was on about, it was the same menu as in every other restaurant in every other town in France. Apart, of course, from the one regional speciality such as cassoulet, snails or tartiflette. That's the problem with so many British people who drool over France, they believe the myth of French food.

Then you get told by some herbert on the next table in the cafe you really must visit the market which opens tomorrow at 8 00am, but be sure to get there early. So you crawl out of your pit and stroll around the market. Wow, look at that selection of sausages and salamis. Wow, look at that cheese stall. Wow, look at that fruit and veg stall, and that one there, and that other one. Wow look at that caravan selling rotisserie chickens, just the same as those in Carrefour but three times as expensive. In fact you see that all the stuff is exactly the same as in the supermarket, but at least twice as much. But we must keep up the myth of the wonderful French markets, after all we're British.

We went on a short trip down the river from Bergerac this week, very nice it was too. But we had to keep our heads down as there was a foursome of crashng bores from the Home Counties over the aisle, or is it gangway on a boat? Anyway, they actually complained that on the hour long trip we hadn't seen a single chateau, and there had been one on the leaflet. The poor girl had to explain that the leaflet was for trips by the same company in various locations, this one had no chateaux. They were still chunnering about it, very loudly, an hour later in a cafe in the old town.

Then there are the boring ex-pats. Obviously not all of them are bad, we were with a great couple of ex-pats this week, but being sweepingly generalistic ex-pats are to be avoided comme le plague!

We met a couple this week, twenty years in the Dordogne, who still spoke as if they were the heroes who had colonised Mars rather than Eymet. Their big proof of assimilating was going to Catholic mass, even though Anglicans, it really gave them that French feeling. Bugger me, I've been going to mass for 50 years, I must be a Frenchman! They still moaned about the heat, and how cold it was in the winter. They moaned about the French breakfast cereal, but knew where to buy British. Of course they kept up with Eastenders on satellite and couldn't do without their Sunday morning fru ups. They were aghast that we weren't contemplating moving there for good. Why stay in England?

Now then, Eymet, a place only to be visited with a submachine gun and enough live rounds to obliterate all the ex-pats. There is even an ex-pat cricket team and every cafe table seems to have an obligatory retird colonel gobbing off to an ex-pat retired engineer about how things in Blighty are falling apart. Course colonel, we're just waiting for your coup so you can save us all, run up the flag at 6 00pm every night and raise your gin and tonic to Her Majesty, just how you do every night in Eymet.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Ignore that self-knocking British bollocks too, usually by British people trying to be oh so Francais, about dress sense. It is definitely the Germans who are the worst dressed, closely followed by the Dutch with the French coming up on the rails. Give the British their due, sartorially we are currently way ahead but of course, the British love knocking themselves, don't they?!!

Le Tour de France 2010-Rotterdam-The Beautiful South

Aujourd'hui est le jour. le Grand Depart of Le Tour de France 2010. This year, for only the fourth time in its history I think, it leaves from the Netherlands, Rotterdam to be exact.

Can Lance Armstrong (pictured after training in Rotterdam yesterday) make it an incredible eighth win? What about Mark Cavendish from the Isle of Man and Preston based Bradley Wiggins ? And it's all on ITV 4.

Finally, has there ever been a better excuse for introducing Rotterdam by The Beautiful South?



Move over nancy boy footballers, the true heroes are about to take over the wonderful word of sport.

Pete Reidy

Here's another belter from Pete Reidy:



Keep up the good work Pete, another belter.

Back on t'Interweb

After living in splendid isolation since last Friday, with no access to the internet, we are now in a Campanile in La Roch-Sur-Yon with wi-fi, the French are catching up slowly, and can't think of much to say after a 6 hour drive. But here is what little there is:

England were crap.

Capello was crap.

Gerrard was crap.

Terry was crap and is a useless prick with no brains or talent.

Take away the foreign stars around most English players and they are shown up for what they are; crap.

That's it.

La Belle France

While the West Wing is being renovated we have left the staff looking after the workmen and decided to migrate south, just about to partake of foie gras and a nice bottle of Monbazillac in Blois. Our final destination, due there tomorrow in time for a hearty lunch, is Bergerac.

What has struck us on our slow meander down France is that the schoolgirls look like schoolgirls rather than apprentice slappers like so many English schoolgirls. We had also forgotten how delicious the French bread is and what good service you get in cafes, hotels and restaurants. Not forgetting the glorious sunshine, duck, wine and armagnac. Might even catch a day or two of Le Tour.

So blogging will be rare these next couple of weeks as we will be guzzling top class food and wine, paying little attention to the world outside.

Au revoir!

Bastard State

I got a letter this morning from the DVLA telling me that my photo on my licence is about to expire, just as many of us will physically expire soon under the weight of red tape and bureaucracy.

So I have a form D798 to complete, a passport type photo to get and a £20 fee to pay. Thieving bastards!

Why can't they just look at my photo, nod sagely and conclude that yes, that photo was me at 40 and they can see that I am now fatter, balder and carrying a few more lines as a result of a combination of 10 years high living and state induced stress? Too simple I suppose.

The Good Old Days

Just found the following ad that was in cinemas before the new puritan era, late 70s or early 80s I think:



The ads are still better than many of the programmes on TV or films in the cinema.

Wayne Rooney, England and the World Cup

Wayne Rooney was spot on having a go at the jeering England 'fans'. Yet again the fans of the national team have proved themselves to have no class. Real football fans don't jeer their own team after a game as the players leave the pitch. Criticise them in the bars after the game yes, but don't boo your own players.

A lot of real football fans don't bother with England games because of the poor support. If you are a United fan you will have to listen to your own players, in England shirts, being abused by the jealous fans of other clubs and you may even cop for personal abuse or even physical violence yourself if a United fan.

So they spent a load of money going to South Africa. If they did that expecting England to win then they must be clueless about football and stupid too. Spending a wad of cash does't mean your team will win. That's the difference between supporters and fans, fans are fanatical which is illogical, supporters are going for the entertainment and, if they don't get the entertainment they want, they react the way England's supporters did last night.

I used to travel all over Europe watching United before the Glazers took over and yes we would criticise a poor display on the plane home, but cheer the lads off the field after the game. England supporters have no class.

To put it in perspective you have a shit day at work. How would you feel about all your colleagues booing and jeering you as you leave the office? Then how would you feel about going back to work the next day?

Good on you Wayne, bollocks to the jeering fans!