I didn't quite catch that...

I’ve never been a fan of Tony Blair. What with him being a twat, and a deceitful manipulative twat at that, and having the hand on the tiller as the ship of state was run onto the rocks, he hasn’t done himself a lot of favours in my eyes.

That said, he would be a nice figurehead for the EU. Because he’d symbolise the organisation perfectly – lots of talking, lots of lies, a dose of manipulation and generally all round a silly idea.

Gordon, however, clearly didn’t think so. Because we all know that the best way for Gordon to sink anything is for him to offer it his full support. Which is what he did to Blair, with predictable results:

Earlier Gordon Brown said Mr Blair would be an “excellent candidate” but Downing Street is now less optimistic.

The BBC has learned No 10 has signalled that a defeat for Mr Blair’s candidacy is now “a clear possibility”

I do love it when these two fight amongst themselves. It’s only difficult to say which one I’d like to see lose…

Incidentally, don’t you love how the EU has produced another of its famous BackRoomDeals to steamroller the Czechs into accepting Lisbon? Fine outstanding piece of representative democracy, cock-bags…

Do you recall all that fuss about reclassifying cannabis a while back? One of the few liberal things that the government of Blair had done (downgrading cannabis to a Class C drug) was then undone by Brown. Who has never knowingly done a liberal act in his life.

I remember at the time thinking that it was nothing more than Gordon’s version of puritanism at work, what with him not being a scientist and consistently dismissing the opinion of scientists when the decision was made. Seems I’m not the only one.

The row over the reclassification of cannabis has been reignited after the government’s chief drug adviser accused ministers of “distorting” the evidence.

Professor David Nutt, who heads the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, says it does not cause major health problems.

He accused ex-home secretary Jacqui Smith, who reclassified the drug, of “devaluing” scientific research.

So far, so sensible. But wait, there’s more:

Public concern over the links between high-strength cannabis, known as skunk, and mental illness led the government to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C last year.

Hold on a minute, that isn’t how I recall it. I must have forgotten the massive criminalise cannabis marches and the talking heads demanding stiffer penalties.

Oh wait, no, I didn’t forget. That just didn’t happen. The concern was driven by government and by government’s fake charities, and by one or two newspapers. It was not taken up by the public and it was not driven by scientific opinion. It was governmental concern, and that was it.

But the BBC doesn’t seem to think that the government and the public can be treated as different things. Funny, that.

Full disclosure: don’t use, never have, can’t be bothered. But the principle doesn’t change if you smoke dope or don’t – it’s still a nonsense to have it criminalised.

Given where I work, and where I worked before, I’m spending quite a lot of time getting up to date on swine flu, and all the stuff related to the vaccine related to said flu. Just now, I’m about to head into work where I expect that a box of the vaccine will arrive.

I’m just not sure what to do with it. The advice from uk.gov suggests that everybody should be getting stabbed with the needle, but other countries disagree.

Women in the Irish Republic have been advised not to take the vaccine within the first three months of pregnancy.

However, the Department of Health in Northern Ireland said all expectant mothers should be vaccinated including those within the first trimester.

I’m not an expert (on just about anything, to be honest), but the people I’ve heard talking about this that aren’t in the UK Department of Health (or have degrees) are concerned about giving anything to women in the first trimester, let alone a vaccine that has no data against most of the concerns raised.

So now I have to go and explain to them that the closest country to the UK has differing advice, and that it’ll be up to their clinical judgement again.

That’ll go down well, honest.

Recently, I’ve been getting mighty hacked off with the post. The strikes and the shoddy service in the last couple of months have screwed with some work things and some personal things, and I share some of the confusion about what they’re meant to achieve.

But a couple of quotes that I’ve only heard today are making things a little clearer for me, and both of them were in the same article.

Point 1: Royal Mail estimated that the backlog peaked at 30 million items and has dropped to 5 million. The CWU claimed that the peak was in excess of 100 million. Which means that the two sides don’t agree on what the size of the workload of RM is – the union clearly thinks that the business moves three times more mail than RM does. So Royal Mail is changing the business to cope with a workload of x, and the CWU is making demands based on the profit margin and workload caused by 3x. I know which set of figures I’d think is more likely, too, considering my own experience of diminishing post in work and home.

Point 2: a quote from the CWU:

CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward said the dispute was “fundamentally” about jobs but the issue of the Royal Mail’s £10bn pension deficit also needed to be resolved urgently.

He said: “There’s no prospect of us building a successful future for the Royal Mail and for the workforce unless the government actually deal with that issue.”

So it’s not really something that RM can cope with, the CWU are expecting the government to step in and fix a pension hole. ANd they know that the next government isn’t going to be as sympathetic to big union activity, so they’re having to pick fights now, while the current government is in the financial of the unions and has a backbone of rancid jelly.

It makes a little more sense now. Not a lot of sense, but a little more…

As mentioned, the past weekend was spent in a small town in Belgium, largely because of the film about it. But it was bloody good fun once we got there.

First off, the B&B was most excellent. Nicely situated, nicely appointed and owned by some really nice people. And the best bit was that breakfast turned up every morning in a massive basket without any interruption. If we go back to Bruges, we shall be staying there again. Oh yes.

Secondly, we knew going out that there would be some nice buildings, a fair bit of really nice chocolate, and a fuckload of really nice beer. All of that came to pass, but more so. The chocolate was excellent, the buildings were really quite something and the beer was… epic. I have found the place where I want to live and die, the place where I want to have my wedding and my wedding list. I have found, in fact, the world’s greatest off licence.

There was also a lot of craic. The six of us ate well and drank well, and there was much nonsense talked about many subjects, some of which we even remembered the following day. We haven’t had a weekend like that in quite some time, but we shall get a repeat performance sooner than that. Oh very yes.

Last evening, TLF and I, and some others, went to see one of the random BBC Electric Proms performances. Don’t worry, I took the opportunity to point out that it was silly that the BBC were doing such things, and that they shouldn’t be involved etc etc etc, but since one of the characters involved in the singing was a mate, I thought i should go anyway.

And it was surprisingly good. Better when the Choir stopped being treated as a sideline to a full Doves gig and started being properly involved, because surely the randomness of having 40 Bulgarians doing odd things to the song was the whole point. The random dude on the sitar was also worth seeing. Magazine, less so.

Plus, on the bonus front, at one point yer man Jarvis Cocker (still bearing an uncanny resemblance) was hanging about eighteen inches from us. Which was nice, although he left before one of the girls had an opportunity to pimp out their friends to him.

And now, I’m heading off to St Pancras (again), this time for a tour of bits of Belgium that have recently featured in some comedy dwarf filmage. Should be fun.

Wish me luck…

I may be fairly new to this whole ‘living in London’ lark, but there are some things that I’m starting to get a grip on. The attitude on the road, for one.

I’ve only had cause to drive into the centre of London once, but even out here in the wilds of zone three, the drivers are lunatics. Roundabouts are insane, truckers are mentalists and bus-drivers all need lessons in using the middle pedal. But the absolute worst are the cyclists and their motorised brethren.

The cyclists, as even the Commons is aware of are largely immune to such things as “red lights” and “lane discipline”, and that’s before they tart diving onto the pavement just to avoid a bit of traffic. However, the politicians probably want to do something silly lie enact new laws that won’t work – my solution i just to have an occasional patch of upurned drawing pins on the pavement at strategic points. Pedestrians would see them and avoid, but the faster cyclists wouldn’t, and would thusly end up out of pocket until they learned to use the road. Win-win.

As for the motorcyclists, they’re often as bad. Actually, the proper motorcyclists are OK, it’s the mopedists that annoy me. Because they’re in an unhappy space between the motorcycles (who have to do a test and everything, and are generally aware of their limits and the limits of their machine) and the cyclists (who aren’t, but who aren’t heavy enough to kill someone under normal circumstances and traffic speeds). Mopedists are generally still on their L plate, and many of them are to be found on the pavement on occasion (well, I’ve nearly been knocked down by them twice this week on my walk to work. And I’ve only walked twice…).

They’re a menace. And my solution is to paint all mopeds with L plates day-glo pink and replace the horn with a big loudspeaker that says “anyone driving this conveyance is a twit”. Can’t go wrong, can you?

Many, many moons ago, I mentioned something about organic and fairtrade food. I said that, come recession time, people would stop buying it and concentrate on cheaper staples. And that would be very unfortunate, especially for the fairtraders, because times like that would be the very time when those that fairtrade supposedly helps would need the money the most. That was, I think, reason VII why I wasn’t a massive fan.

Lo and behold, hints at the BBC are lending credence to the first half of my assumption.

Supermarkets are among the relative handful of businesses to have prospered during the recession, as others have struggled to stay afloat.

As household budgets have been cut, shoppers have been seeking out bargains in preference to pricey alternatives. For example, sales of organic vegetables slumped 19% in the past year.

And now, we eat the basics, that taste the same, look the same, have the same nutritional value, and cost a shitload less. Which is nice.

There was ever so much fuss about this little protest back at the start of it, wasn’t there? A nearby MP came on and claimed that the fuckwits protesting were in the right¹, despite that being a clear lie.

And then the protesters found out what happens when someone comes up against a big company with a bit of determination and a plan.

Personally, I think that E.ON’s operation was brilliant. The only improvement that I’d have put in would have been carefully deployed water cannon – you can’t beat a water cannon for such things. For three reasons:

1. Water cannon are very good for pushing back fucktards from fences, and don’t damage the fence.
2. The hippies need the water. Showers being a concept unknown to them.
3. High pressure water would do wonders for all the iPods and expensive cameras that said hippies nearly always carry. And they’ll not have charged them from anything other than the mains, will they?

Three reasons, and that’s without the most excellent visual image that high pressure hippy bowling would provide. Wins all round.
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¹ – I can’t find it online, but the quote I heard from it was something along the lines of “this power station is morally equivalent to piping the exaust from a car into a child’s bedroom” – if I had a list of people who need slapped silly, then Alan Simpson (MP / fucktard) would be on it.

Peter Hain: what a cock.

The BBC could face legal action over British National Party leader Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time, Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has warned.

The show is due to feature Mr Griffin, Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Tory and Lib Dem panellists on 22 October.

But Mr Hain has written to BBC director general Mark Thompson arguing the BNP was “an unlawful body” following a court ruling on its membership policy.

Mr Hain, back in his day, was a strong opponent of the disgusting practice of apartheid. And his opposition was sensible, if some of his aims were not. But now, when he’s relatively close to power, he’s become blinkered. He now supports using the full power of the state to quench the views of the minority (in this case, a horrible racialist minority). The BNP has some election success behind them, largely because of the ineptitude of the ruling party, and now a member of that ruling party is trying to say that they are ‘unpersons’.

Not the way to go about it. How about getting Labour to stop pandering to the extreme right on immigration and instead making the case for immigration head on. Those of us who have shifted into England from elsewhere aren’t exactly ruining the country; definitely less so than some of those who were born here and claim to be acting it the country’s best interest. Make that case properly, and the BNP will wither. Keep talking about ‘British jobs for British workers’ and scaring people about those nasty brown folk moving in, and the BNP will flourish.

And banning them will just make them the victims, and we know how the English love an underdog…

175 years ago, the Palace of Westminster burnt to the ground. To the rapturous applause of everyone.

Today, if the same was to happen, I imagine that much the same applause would happen. Although we’d all be kept back behind a secure perimeter by many large men with many large guns. Some things do change; luckily the unpopularity of politicians does not.

Something that has never sat well with me, over the years, has been the attitude of the UK to its Parliament. Nowadays, most people would be exceptionally happy to see the institution destroyed, although the building is a masterpiece that many would mourn. Back in 1834, it’s obvious that many people were happy to see said institution fall to the ground as ash. But still, every year, the country spends time celebrating the failure of an attempt to actually make it fall. Why? Surely young Guy should be venerated, not vilified? Does not compute.

Also: it’s a shame that they replaced the old ramshackle building with the “new”masterpiece. Not because I don’t like the building, but if you put a bunch of politicians in a shit building, they’ll spend time trying to improve it – distracting them from screwing with the rest of us. But if you put them in a fantastic building, then they’ll spend all their energies trying to remain there, and that requires almost constant screwing with the populace. and we’ve seen the effects of that in the century or so that they’ve been in the Pugin masterpiece.

Really, I think that Westminster should be converted into something more useful (a museum, perhaps), while the politicians are put into portacabins in some brownfield site. Should buy us a few decades of lesser interference from them, methinks…

Why people, when considering ditching an apple product, always seem to only think about doing so because they want to use another Apple product.

I mean, there are always¹ alternatives, and better alternatives, to everything that Apple makes. So why bother paying the premium to get rid of one and replace it with another? Brand loyalty? Slavish devotion to the Cult of Jobs? I just don’t understand that.
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¹ – Well, I say “always”, sometimes the alternative comes along a little later. It took maybe six months before viable touch-screen alternatives to the iPhone came about; of course, non touch-screen alternatives had been about for years before said device.

There’s a wonderfully scary quote widely attributed to Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin:

The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic

I don’t imagine that there is much point claiming that young Iosif wasn’t responsible for the deaths of millions. Between carrying out actions that lead to WW2, to the gulags, to the purges, to the man mad famines, to the construction of the Iron Curtain, the general feeling is that anywhere between low millions and scores of millions. Some have mentioned 800,000 people being directly executed during his thirty years in power.

So that’s a lot of death, and definitely more on the statistic side, rather than the personal tragedy side of history.

So this story really confuses me.

A Moscow court has rejected a lawsuit filed by the grandson of Joseph Stalin claiming a Russian newspaper had defamed the Soviet dictator.

Yevgeny Dzhugashvili said an article published in Novaya Gazeta claiming Stalin personally ordered the deaths of Soviet citizens was a lie.

He had requested a public apology and damages from the opposition newspaper.

In all honesty, can you defame Stalin? One of the most despicable examples of a man in the history of the world? What could you possibly say that would be worse than the truth? And why the hell would anyone ever admit to being related to a creature like that?

Apparently, MPs are all angry about being asked to repay some expenses. As if it wasn’t the payment of those expenses in the first place that was the unfair aspect of the whole thing.

Of course, it’s never totally realistic to impose new rules after the fact, and expect them to be met by everyone. So a little whining is to be expected.

However, I’ve got me a nice new suggestion. An aspect of living in London that has surprised me is the lovely personal correspondence from the local MP, asking leading questions designed to make you realise just how good a job they’re doing. And said MPs likely send this out to every household in their constituency, at least once a year. On our dime.

So, why not rewrite the rules a little to make sure that one of these little mail shots contained their expenses breakdown? Why not inform the constituency, in total, of just how much the politicians are making off of us. We know that they’re able to collate these statistics (hence those lovely stories in the papers over the last few months), so why not cut out the middleman and give it to the customer direct?

I know I’d read them carefully. And I know that a lot of people would be more careful with their vote, given that level of information…

Once more, Gordon Brown is out, showing his true genius.

He’s demonstrating to both us and the rest of the world just why he’s the best person to get us out of recession. Because to do so he’ll just have to retrace the steps he took to get us into recession.

Note: I said retrace. However, Gordon seems to think that I said repeat. There’s a subtle difference, but I think an important one. Retracing the steps would maybe undo some of the damage, whereas repeating them is just going to make things worse down the line.

remember, back in the day, how Gordon sold all of our gold at a time when prices were at historic lows, and then he lowered them even more by flooding the market? He’s just about to do the same.

Gordon Brown is to announce the sale of £16bn worth of assets by the government in a bid to shore up public finances.

The prime minister will give details of initial sales which could raise £3bn – including the Tote, the Dartford crossing and the student loan book.

Yup, he’s selling property and processes and debt at a time when nobody wants to buy such things. It’s a fucking firesale – everything’s just got to go quickly, and without caring about the price. Because Gordon knows that he’ll not be about long enough to have to deal with the aftermath – if he can just stave off national bankruptcy until after the election, he’ll have done everything the party need to do to survive. Except, y’know, have a country to service, what with the damage he’s done over twelve years, but that’s not really important…

The news that dwarfs in China have opened their own theme park isn’t sitting well in my head.

That’s largely because most of me is conflicted, torn between four different threads of thought.

1. It’s nice that there is enough freedom for them to decide to settle into their own town of like-sized people and just get on with it.
2. It’s also nice that they’re able to then freely decide to run said town as a money making exercise and charge entry for the people who want to see a freakshow.
3. Hang on, it’s motherfucking China. It isn’t free. So who’s behind this, then?
4. It’s oh so very wrong, but I think it would be bloody funny to go and see said place. Hell, even the firemen and policemen are dwarfs. How cool would that look?

Yes, I’m going to hell. I knew this a long time ago…

It’s nice to see that finally someone is making a difficult spending cut. Not one that will cost people, not one that will actually save money, but one that will be deeply unpopular for reasons that few people could articulate properly.

Christmas could be cancelled in the Newry and Mourne area unless residents stump up the cash to pay for festive decorations in their local towns and villages.

Sinn Fein councillor Terry Hearty said that while Newry city and larger towns like Warrenpoint might get an official tree, small villages could lose out.

The cost-cutting measures were taken after local representatives asked officials to keep rates down by making savings in all departments.

To me, that smacks a little of the kind of officialdom that talks about cancelling the Red Arrows if the RAF gets a funding cut, or goes on the news moaning about nurses if the NHS needs to trim its budget. Someone in an office has thought Oh, if we just threaten to cut the Christmas trees, this little belt will be un-tightened sharpish and we’ll be back to the good old days.

I hope that it sticks. Partly because it needs to, and partly because small village trees tend to end up looking pathetic and vandalised after ten minutes anyway…

Here’s a shocker for you: as soon as it rains, pedestrians in London turn into complete cocks.

Normally if you go for a walk, the only problems you have to manoeuvre round are excessively fat people, pushchairs and wheel chairs. And that’s OK; one of them every few hundred yards is no bother at all.

But when it rains, everyone becomes a hazard. Between hoods and umbrellas, peripheral vision goes right out the window, so nobody is aware that you’re trying to get round them until they’re rushed out of the way. And suddenly even the most waif like pavementist decides that they’re entitled to sufficient space for their umbrella, rather than move it in any way to minimise its width.

So, instead of my half hour dander from work leaving me my usual chilled and relaxed self, yesterdays left me a) damp and b) annoyed.

Still, I still managed to get home quicker than if I’d taken the bus. So that’s alright…

Given that Data Protection legislation requires that all users of CCTV inform people who is operating said CCTV system; and that good practice is to minimise the number of people who have access to the take from those cameras to reduce the scope for voyeurism, how does one reconcile this programme with a) the law and b) common sense.

I wonder how much it would cost in legal funds to process a full data access request from anyone living in Stratford…

There had to be one, didn’t there. and I’ve discovered the thing that may just annoy me the most.

London local news.

We all know the deal with local news. A little bit of journalism, a little bit of whinging about Westminster now giving out enough money, a silly campaign, a funny looking cat, and then over to London for the serious news. The London news then deals with the big shit, as well as all the stories about London that are big enough to be of interest to the entire city.

So what’s left for the London local news? They still do the silly campaigns, they still whinge about any cuts that may be made, they still do the funny cats. But there doesn’t seem to be any actual journalism – all that is important to the whole story is covered in the national news. So they spend that little bit more time whinging and campaigning. And it’s bloody annoying.

So, I’ve discovered the downside. Good to get that out of the way, I think…