A Universal Truth

So, who knew? Going to second-rate universities to gain rubbish degrees in made-up subjects is no guarantee of a job? I've been saying this for years and years. (And years) If I'm honest I probably wasn't really university material either. But at least when I went up it was as part of a genuinely small minority to do so. Having a degree opened doors back then.

While I was there I encountered a mysterious breed of nocturnal creature – the MBA student. The Masters in Business Administration was a feared and coveted award and its shadowy apostles would work late into the night to meet ferocious deadlines. Most of the devotees were much older than we and being from overseas gave us our first contact with the fierce work ethic of the orient.

Twenty years later, when I took my own master’s degree, I learned that this once mighty ball-breaker had become almost the entry level for many management jobs and the often mediocre students frequently had little or no experience in any kind of paid employment.

At what point did the cart start dragging the horse? When did the system decide that if we opened up education to deliver infinite choices for niche courses with no prospect of employment, this would somehow benefit our workforce? Or the country, for that matter? 

Oh, silly me, neither of those have anything to do with it, have they? No qualification makes a blind bit of difference if the aptitude or the interest is not there in the first place; it’s all about pandering to the gods of diversity and inclusion. (And massaging the youth unemployment figures.) 

In the Olympic park right now are many athletes little more than children, who have sacrificed much to achieve their goals. They have put in true, hard work in pursuit of little reward, for few of them will go on to make a living out of their passion. Once we would have universally applauded their efforts, win or lose, but such endeavours mean nothing to the sort of idiot who tweeted hurtful scorn at young Tom Daley for missing out on a bronze medal in the synchro diving 

Twitter put on its best bonnet of outrage and went on the warpath, illiterate insults were traded for impotent threats, the subject trended worldwide and pretty soon the police were on the case. Really? Is this how we do things now? Is that what the Internet is for? 

Much has been made about how, in the ‘Information Age’, children don't need knowledge when they can Google everything. Strange, then, that all this technological empowerment seems to throw up remarkably few modern Leonardos, Faradays, Darwins or Brunels. I venture that it would take mere days for any of those great men to gain mastery of the keyboard and rather than be at a disadvantage against today’s tech-savvy kids they would wipe the floor with them. 

You can’t polish a turd, make a silk purse from a sow’s ear or improve a pig with lipstick. So let’s put away the cosmetics and pick up the scrubbing brush; scrub away all this entitlement bullshit and get back to some decent, honest hard work and discipline. 

Maybe then we’ll end up with a few more Tom Daleys and fewer of the sort of idiots who will believe codswallop like this! 

No, seriously... they are the future!

Sick and Tired

Back in 2004, when Anastacia sang that she was sick and tired of being sick and tired, concerns had already been rising for a decade about the growing numbers of working age Britons 'on the sick'. "Boo! Nasty Tories!" came the cry because back then we were in the euphoria of Gordon Brown's 'no more boom and bust' economy and the nation's socialists were convinced that it could only be boom and boom for the welfare state. Milk and honey and plenty more where that came from.

But where was it coming from? Why, the lovely bankers of course! Those loveable financial prestidigitators, conjuring up endless streams of free money from... from... oh there was no need for us to worry our pretty little heads about it. Here, have some more money and buy yourself something nice. Venture any opinion on the unsustainability of such an arrangement and you were castigated and labelled a Victor Meldrew; a relic whose principles of thrift and fiscal propriety were exactly what had held us back all these years.

But, of course, we were right all along, as we knew we were. Just as throwing money at the problem has never worked for education and the NHS, neither has it done anything to control the raging tide of personal entitlement that has driven our national character underground for year after year. So now, just as we're getting our mojo back a little, courtesy of the Jubilee, the Tour de France and the Olympics, maybe we can raise a little bile to greet this news, hidden in the background noise of the medal count:

A cough? A bit of a bad back, feeling a bit fed up? No problem; sign here and get on the sick. 3.2 million now claim disability living allowance, costing £13.4billion per year. And many have not been reassessed in a decade or more. While Britain's best are out there fighting for gold and glory a good proportion of the malingerers will be sitting in front of the telly, watching, while you go out to work to pay for them.

A typical DLA claimant

Well, I am sick and tired of paying for the sick and tired. In the race of life there are winners and there are losers. And in racing they shoot horses, don't they?

Taking part

Some fascinating little squabbles on Twitter regarding the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and Danny Boyle's political affiliations and intentions.

Conservative MP Aidan Burley, sparked a wee Twitter row by commenting on the leftie multicultural bias, as he saw it, so plenty of leftie multiculturalists showed their true colours by demanding his execution. Or at the very least, his resignation.  One Tweeter gloated that DB had used a Tory government's money to fund a Socialist statement - except, of course, the government doesn't actually have any money of its own, so that was a moot point. Apart, of course, from the irony that the majority of government spending of your money is wasted on socialist projects seeking to subvert human nature itself.

I hear that the saintly Billy Bragg, whose Twitter profile says "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice." also got in on the act and showed what a good actor he is by spouting the usual ill-thought-out, inflammatory, class-war statements, in apparent contradiction of his peace-and-love byline. I say I heard about this as I only get to see his Tweets when others re-tweet them - he blocked me ages ago for daring to agree with somebody who disagreed with him. Such a sensitive [arse]soul.

None of any of that matters. The whole spectacle was magnificent and quirky, celebratory and proud and very inclusive. If you choose to see messages - and symbolism was everywhere - then that's fine too. Britain is still [just] a free country and if a movie-maker wants to engage in a bit of politicking, so what?

Nope, there is something quintessentially British about the whole Olympic spectacle; the notion of doing your very best, meeting with triumph and disaster and treating those two impostors just the same. The opening ceremony, far from being divisive, seemed to repeatedly centre on the very, very British characteristic of joining together and becoming more as a result. It's promising to be a fantastic two weeks of sporting mayhem, so let's just get on and play the game, eh?

Vitai Lampada

("They Pass On The Torch of Life")

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night,

Ten to make and the match to win.

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame.

But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote -

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

The sand of the desert is sodden red,

Red with the wreck of a square that broke;

The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed his banks,

And England's far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks -

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the School is set,

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind -

'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938)

Fake 'em all!

Eleven year-old Liam Corcoran walked through five security checks unchallenged and ended up on a flight to Rome. The poor, confused lad appears to have mingled  with some other children, then simply followed them to board the Boeing. Naturally it has caused a retrospective hoo-hah, but at the time, officials who were responsible for counting heads, searching bags and checking credentials appear to have accepted his right to be there without question. Who, after all, would suspect a pre-teen to be travelling unchaperoned?

Not all juvenile adventurers manage to pull it off, however. In Newquay an intoxicated under-age drinker tried to blag his way into a pub using a fake ID in the name of Rodney Trotter of Peckham. After his ill-conceived stunt came to nothing he went on his way, minus the card, leaving the management wondering if he'd have had more luck under the pseudonym of Trigger. (Alright Dave?)

And recently, Stuart Elliott from Hull was exposed as the latest in a long line of a modern-day 'Walts' (after Walter Mitty) peddling a fictitious back-story of heroic derring-do, based on a dubious peripheral connection with the boys at the sharp end. (He could tell you what he used to do, but then he'd have to kill you.)

Fortunately none of these people will ever be in charge. But,wait? Is that a youthful Nick Clegg I see, wandering aimlessly onto the political stage by tagging along with another group of boys, not of his own family? And where are George Osborne's credentials to be drunk in charge of the economy? Has nobody checked his papers? And just this morning I hear on the news that Vince Cable believes he'd make a good chancellor. (So which of the proper parties were you planning on defecting to, you daft old sod?)

It seems the political world is awash with fakers, chancers, wannabes and fools. It does seem that they are the only people mad enough to ever crave a job in power. And while the current incumbents are hardly the stuff of legend, the Labour alternative embraces such colossal levels of delusion as to somehow believe, even after their craven attempt to bring the country to its knees, that more of that self-same same medicine is what's needed. In fact, so gullible are they, they swallowed the line that Tony Blair is a socialist!

We have seen the rise and rise of the 'professional' politician; those who play politics for politics itself and appear to have no connection with or understanding of the world at large. At least the USA once had the good sense to accept that in the world of Walter Mitty nothing was real and elected a Hollywood actor to the highest office in the land. He did okay, too.

Come 2015 I'm voting for Brian Blessed!

It don't add up!

Hmmm, The Daily Mail headlines the tale of the unemployed accountant. I'm not sure why they felt the need to highlight his plight, or why this story had any merit over and above the thousands of similar tales of financial woe. Or, more pertinently, why anybody would really care; he is an accountant, after all.

According to the article: "...the Timpsons drove two cars [and] enjoyed two foreign holidays a year [and] an affluent life in their four bedroom semi-detached house which they bought 12 years ago for £300,000 [and] felt so financially comfortable they remortgaged their property and took out a £50,000 loan in a bid to build their dream home on a plot of land they bought nearby in 2005..."

‘You assume as an accountant you will always be needed ..."

You would also assume, as an accountant, that he'd understand the fickle nature of money and instead of living high on the hog, would have salted away as much as possible for when times got difficult. Surely, he would never have advised employers or clients to borrow and spend like there was no tomorrow? Silly me - that's exactly what 'leverage' was. The buy-to-let market was all about borrow and spend... and hope.

For years small businesmen have been so terrified of finances and running foul of the taxman that they have paid the hourly rate for a qualified accountant, only to have a junior back-office clerk add up two columns of figures, subtract one from the other and fill in an online tax return. It was only a matter of time before some would wake up and realise an accountant was an unnecessary , non-deductible luxury they could no longer justify

If I and many like me watched in incredulous horror as the thrift model was overtaken by the ever accelerating credit economy and wondered just when that bloated, wobbly bubble was going to burst, surely an accountant should have been much more informed and wary - especially with his own money.

Interesting that this story appears on the same day as Exchequer Secretary David Gauke's rash condemnation that those who both paid and accepted cash-in-hand were just as bad as the bankers. Shame about the today's Daily Telegraph lead story that the cash economy is neither wrong nor immoral. Early polling suggests 75% of the readers also support that view. (Why aren't the government spin doctors stamping heavily on these almost daily ill-thought-out leaks?)

The root cause? Human greed, plain and simple. The possibility of getting something for nothing, or more for less, is a prospect that raises a gleam in the eye of humans rich and poor, big and small, the world over. As for tax avoidance, surely it is one of the principle aims of accountancy? Public servants, private businesses, charities and individuals have always been advised, nay encouraged, to avoid paying more tax than they had to. (SIPPS, ISAs Gift Aid to charity, etc)

Pugh cartoon from the Daily Mail

Our society runs on, promotes and excuses greed at all levels. Consumerism is pure greed. Saving is healthy, responsible greed. Addiction is greed, profiteering is greed. false accounting is greed, market-fixing is greed. Theft is greed and even murder is often motivated by greed. It's there, at the heart of the drive for human survival and advancement. Like it or not, greed gets you out of bed in the morning.

Now, if I put my other fist in there?

In the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gecko said "Greed is good". He was wrong, it's much, much simpler than that, Greed is human.

So, now it's agreed we're greedy fuckers, can we shift the debate back, not to who is to blame (all of us) but how we're going to fix it?

The Russians are coming!

I picked up this story about pensioners in rehab yesterday. As Janet Street-Porter points out, rehab is a relatively new invention, so it's impossible to conjure up any meaningful statistic to compare current geriatric alcohol dependency today with the situation decades ago. She refers to Joan Bakewell as Tsarina for the elderly - and that's what's getting my goat today. Why Tsar or Czar, to give it its more usual modern spelling, in the first place? Why not Chief, or Manager, or Adviser, or any of the other perfectly acceptable English words to describe the function?

Remember Keith Hellawell Labour's 1990s Drugs Czar? I do, because he's the first one I really remember. The title annoyed me then and it annoys me now, but now they're everywhere. We have Czars in our eyes and reach for the Czars. Czars for this and Czars for that, Czars for tit and Czars for tat. Czars for cancer, Czars for industry, Czars for immigration, Czars for bars, Czars for cars, cars for Czars, and no doubt a Street Czar named Desire.

Back then the term just confused and annoyed me, but now I've got Google... and Wikipedia. And it turns out it's all the fault of the USA, and it's a much older phenomenon than I'd imagined. Over there the term was adopted early in the twentieth century and has clung on despite the ridiculous connotations with Imperial Russia and despite the public opprobium heaped on such transparent chronyism. Why not just call them government stooges and be done with it?

Czar Czar Galore

I'm not sure I can recall a single case of a so-called Czar's role ever coming to any helpful conclusion... which is bizarre. So, should we send all the Czars to Zanzibar? Clearly, we need to look into the effectiveness of the system, to which end I propose we appoint one, last key Czar to oversee the study. This is a search to rediscover the nation's soul, so it's very important we choose the name carefully.

Soul Czar.

Repeat after me and say it loud: soul czar, soul czar, soul czar,soul czar soul...

Baron Strangling

Yes, yes yes, the big boy stole your pocket money and ran away. What are you going to do about it? Everybody wants to use phrases like global elite to put a label on the bad guys so we can, what, feel a bit better about it? Name calling once they’re out of earshot is ineffectual; name calling while they’re still in range is never going to end well. These are very big boys indeed.

Of course it’s unfair, but the robber barons have been with us forever in one form of another. Today, hand-wringing governments are slowly trying to work out how to curb their excesses, while newspapers and blogs are daily reminding us of them. Meanwhile, huddled cohorts of rebels (read ‘unemployed’) rant about the 1% and talk about evil. They imagine a sinister, world-wide plot to enslave us all, when in reality all the big boys are doing is what human nature allows them to do and keeping it for themselves.

So come on, what would you actually do? Grab a pitchfork and storm the big house on the hill? Dismantle the estates and leave them to crumble? Strip out the yachts? Scrap the fleets of expensive cars and rip apart the private jets? Drive them from the land? The sound of stable doors flapping forlornly in the wind is almost deafening.

But look, somebody has to make all that stuff. Bricks don’t get laid by themselves, furnishings don’t get delivered by some unseen hand and somebody, somewhere was paid to stitch the leather upholstery in the Bentley. As much as you might not want to hear any of this, there is no point in going on the rampage. (And there's absolutely no point in engaging in punitive strike action. Fat cat union leaders are just another form of robber baron.)

In foreign climes, the Royal Navy is grippoed into submission by generosity. A ‘grippo’ is an offer of hospitality, such as free access to the golf course, parties or excursions. Much of such hospitality is offered by British ex-pats, eager for contact with their estranged countrymen. In his turn, Jolly Jack Tar makes hay by engaging in a spot of ‘baron strangling’, in other words kicking the arse out of the opportunity. Many’s the time Jack’s returned on board having spent a week drunk at somebody else’s expense.

In times past honours were handed out (bought) by landowners filling the king’s coffers with gold to wage wars. Nowadays we gong just about anybody and far too freely. If honours can be bought – and clearly they can and are – why not institute a system that rewards those who actually stay and pay their full share of tax?

You've got to be choking!

 So, why make ‘wanker’ gestures at the filthy rich, when they can’t see or hear you and don’t care? Why make them angry and drive them still further offshore? Why not make like Jack, make 'em welcome, tax them fairly (the same as everybody else; the higher tax rate is a major factor in tax avoidance) then keep 'em here and keep ‘em spending?

Just a thought. 

1984

If you write the letters 1, 9, 8 and 4 in a cartoonish script, then rearrange them and look at them upside down in a different sequence, squinting through the bottom of a beer glass, you see the world in a very different way.

In George Orwell’s [some say] prophetic novel, Winston Smith works as a records clerk in the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history to match the constantly changing current party line and obliterating anything which contradicts the will of the omnipotent government.

These days there are Winstons in every field – politics, religion, business, even the sciences – people whose job it is to deny the facts, distort the truth and spin their way into and out of the history books. Historians like A. J. P. Taylor, Richard Starkey, Niall Ferguson, et al, purport to get to the truth, but it’s not so long ago that David Irving was jailed for holocaust denial. So who can you trust?

So busy are the Winstons it sometimes seems as if the majority of the world’s population are lab rats in a huge experiment to find out just how far human credibility can be stretched. The Olympic conspiracy is bizarre and far-fetched, but some people, it seems, are determined to believe almost anything.

On Europe alone, there are regular outrageous claims to be swallowed whole; every day a new distraction and so many bail-outs that they become commonplace and unremarkable. How many crisis summits now? How many puppet administrations? How many times have we had six days to save the Euro? In the European parliament, Nigel Farage is the only little boy who sees the Emperor’s dangling bollocks, but nobody listens to him. 

It seems impossible to spin the story of the Muslim horse rapist in any postive way, but Winston’s working on it and will no doubt come up with an Allah-approved version. It seems no story is so outlandish it can't be excused or 'differently explained'. But surely, even Winston Smith himself would have his work cut out to rewrite Tony Blair’s history to make it palatable and pave the way for his return to British politics? No, you say, never! And yet heeeeeere's Tony!

Wenlock and Mandeville plot New World Order

If you write the letters 1, 9, 8 and 4 in a cartoonish script and different sequence they look like the Olympic mascots spelling out 1489 - the year of the sinister Treaty of Medina del Campo - you want a conspiracy theory? I'll give you a conspiracy theory!

The problem with families

I see the experts have been at it again with this report into criminality in so-called 'feckless families'. You have to love an expert; they pour millions of pounds and years of research time into discovering what most of us have known all along.

Over the years experts have revealed some 'startling' correlations:

• Children educated at grammar schools go to better universities.
• People who work harder usually earn more money.
• If you pay more in benefits than for work, people will choose benefits.
• Flooding a region with immigrants increases racist attitudes.
• The bigger the government the greater the cluster-fuck
• The European Onion[sic] - see above. And now,
• Problem families are, ahem, 'a problem'

The 1942 Beveridge Report identified five "Giant Evils" in society. (How much better if that had been 'Five Giant Elvises'?) These were named as squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease. And Louise Casey's £448million, three-year study has discovered what the neighbors would have told her in minutes - the five giant evils have proved to be more resilient than all the misguided efforts to eradicate them.

Charles Darwin posited the principle of natural selection, in which nature favours the survival of those mutations most suited to exploit their environment. In this case the environment is the welfare state and it seems the fittest mutations are the very same incestuous, abusive, criminal scum themselves. Many of nature's most successful species are parasites, which not only manufacture more copies of themselves, but do it at a faster rate than anything else. (Is this starting to sound familiar yet?)

For years governments have engaged in sticking plaster policies - treating the symptoms, not the disease - in the hope that the ailment might clear up on its own. (Or sometimes in the certain knowledge that they'd only be in the job for a couple more years, so sod it.) But after decades of increasingly expensive treatments it's clear the cancer has spread. 

The only way to get rid of many parasites is to destroy the host and even the Labour Party experts are now catching onto the fact that society as a whole is no longer willing to foot the bill. But the host has grown too big and, as the Eagles once said, "They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast."

Maybe not. But isn't it about time we starved the fucker to death?

Does my country look big in this?

So, I didn’t blog yesterday; I have much ground to cover, hence today’s is a bit of a collective rant.

Over the weekend, @PlasticAussie posted on Twitter, this link about ‘Ping Pong Poms’ in which the narrow-mindedness of Western Australians is criticised. "A cat stuck up a tree or an out-of-control house party is more likely to get a run on the 7pm news than the Syrian uprising or the economic crisis that the rest of the world is facing …" Well, I’m sorry love, but isn't that just an example of a certain sense of proportion?

Australia has never really entertained the notion of itself as a major player on the world stage - maybe it's time we reined in our own ambitions? Big isn’t always beautiful as many large organisations have come to find out. In staging the biggest sporting competition on Earth we are not only thrusting ourselves once more into the international limelight but risking exposing our credibility – or lack of it - to the scrutiny of the whole planet.

G4S is the biggest security company in the world, but as with all large organisations, they have a charge sheet of incompetence that stretches back years. The widely reported G4S Olympic security fiasco is simply the latest in a predictable series of blunders that naturally arise whenever the human numbers get big.

The NHS is another behemoth whose very size mitigates against its competence. Size matters. The more people involved in anything, the greater the odds of catastrophe. And in our current big-state nightmare incompetence is practically a watchword for anything the government – any government – lays its hands on. Such as the utterly inept twenty-four-year accounting cul-de-sac that is the DWP.

The unforgiveable rise in our population during the last government’s tenure is yet another example: The article states one reason as “robust fertility levels” Oh yes, robust amongst whom? Among the hard-working middle classes that carefully cost out their decisions and pay for all the others? I rather think not. Ironically, nowhere is fertility more ‘robust’ than in the sector of the population we fear the most and are most directly responsible for the sheer size of the Olympic security operation in the first place. 

Oh yes, it all fits. In the ridiculous pursuit of universal individual liberty and happiness, we have lost control of our borders, our population and our culture. And with it, our old place in the wider world. We have pandered to the absurd notion that given freedom, humans can be trusted to behave responsibly and make good choices. We have embraced a big is beautiful ethos that finds its absurd apotheosis in this story, which frankly, is a whole load of arse. 

Does my enormous arse look big in this?

See? That's what letting people make decisions leads to. Do we want our country to look like the biggest arse on the globe? It strikes me that striving for a bit less freedom and happiness in the world would go a long way to sorting out the trouble.

The tip of the iceberg

A controversial ban on circumcision has roused a pointed protest in Germany.

Muslim and Jewish groups are tumescent with outrage, Rabbis and Imams coming together to stand erect, side by side.

"At the end, it's no laughing matter", spat out one prominent member "and we won't be shrinking from our responsibilities to our members." At the crowning moment, the very apex of his speech, he ejaculated, "This has to end! There must be a cut-off point!" and to roars of approval from the swelling crowd, "Stop dicking about with tradition!"

Likening the ban - as always - to the atrocities wrought in the holocaust he delayed his climax until the last possible moment, "We will not give headway until this matter is resolved to the satisfaction of all parties!" The crowd subsided, happy and spent after all their exertions.

A protesting Nazi penis, yesterday

What did your last slave die of?

[singing] Ru-pert, Rupert the bear, everyone sing his name! Nobody was more surprised  than I to hear what Rupert's Bear's friends, the dear old gypsies, have been up to. After all, the loveable Romany rascals are renowned for their deep sense of social justice and their celebration of diversity, with the odd big, fat wedding or bare-knuckle fight thrown in for shits and giggles.

But it seems that, what with the lucky heather and clothes peg trade being in decline and all, this much-maligned, yet gravely misunderstood community has had to reluctantly resort to slavery to make ends meet. Surprised, I said, but really Rupert and I were shocked! I mean we had no idea that these normally exemplary, law-abiding folk, who never do any more harm than cleaning up the odd tonne or two of live copper cable from along the railway embankments as they go about their traditional a-roaming, could ever contemplate such a thing.

Rupert told me he's afraid that, as well as lawless racist thugs, inbred retards and thieves they'll now be branded as slave traders too. I put him straight though and told him that such a thing would be a grave slur on their traditionally peaceable character. They're not slave traders at all, Rupert, I said; they're slave owners. A very different thing altogether, I'm sure you'll agree.

Rupert then asked me how low we have sunk when in the name of diversity we can tolerate these sub-human worms. The same applies, Rupert said, to all those seeking to impose radical Islamic on the UK, plunder our savings, import criminals from the east or squander our national wealth on supporting the European Marxist project. I replied that he couldn't consolidate all these disparate groups into one convenient hate target, but he said he could and he bloody well would. And then he stomped off to go and have a rant with Tiger Lily.

But he has a point, hasn't he? There is something deeply wrong with a society so afraid of giving offence that we shrink from a solemn duty to protect out shores and our citizens and our way of life from such invasions, liberty-taking and wrong-doings. Instead, I work all my life and end up with nothing except an obligation to keep paying for the cunts; whichever particular branch of cuntery they espouse.

So, next time you have a slave turn up at your door and ask, in the traditional Roma accent, "Would y'be after wanting y're droive Tarmacced, bejaysus?" you might want to consider that we're all slaves now and ask yourself how we got into this godawful mess. More particularly, what do we intend to do to dig ourselves out and do we, as a society, actually have the stomach for it?

We put down dangerous animals. Humans are the most dangerous animals there are and more dangerous still when there is no perceived restraint to their activities. Those who most endanger our society, by whatever means, should not be given mere prison sentences, they should be locked down forever, or else transported, preferably to Rockall or a desert, or better still left to dangle from the end of a rope.

Do have a lovely weekend. xxx

Mental

Grist to my mill to see this Daily Mail article which considers a supposed human right to claim benefits and lead a comfortable standard of living. Yet this isn't a comedy sketch and nobody is laughing. (In fact, the removal of the sense of humour from the national psyche seems to be yet another part of the Socialist project to destroy all that was once good about the British - will the last comedian standing please turn off the lights?)

We live in a world where, it seems, individual rights take precedent over the rights of the majority; over the national good. From a once-upon-a-time where children were to be seen but not heard, today the mewling infant is given immediate succour and an example is set for the rest of its life. Scream and ye shall gain.

From the shrieking demands of various left-wing special interests, we end up with the ridiculous notion of equality AND diversity being conjoined in a single oxymoronic phrase. All must have prizes, all must be happy and if governments have to pay people not to riot, which is what we're really talking about here, so be it. Anything rather than face reality.

And the reality is that equality is a delusion that could only be swallowed whole and supported by the mentally ill.

It used to be a joke when, in the nineteen seventies, the criminals' arrest mantra "I know my rights" began to be taken up by one and all in a disturbing swell of individual entitlement. Now, everybody knows that the rights of the criminal far exceed the apparent rights of their victims. Habitual offenders hypocritically demand personal rights to trespass even as they deny those rights to those they trespass against.

Where is the right not to be burgled, the right not to feel a minority in the country of your ancestors, the right not to have to hand over every penny of your life's earnings to get what others - the idle - get for free? If you have the right to choose indolence, surely I have the right NOT to pay for your choice?

The only winners here are natural criminals. By natural criminals I mean those who want what I've got without having to work for it - a dole-monkey is no different from a burglar. Or a criminal defence lawyer, for that matter. Because those who aid and abet crime are themselves part of the crime.

Once upon a time two things would have been certain in the case of Hannah Bonser, the cold-blooded murderess jailed for killing a teenager for no reason whatsoever. The first is that it would probably have never happened. The second is that she would have been swiftly tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. But, her human right to deliberately interfere with her mental balance, coupled with her human right to therefore do what the fuck she wants, has led to a defence (thankfully failed, yet paid for by us – we’re all still victims here) that she was not accountable for her actions. 

You’d have to be mental to believe that this system of abused human rights legislation ought to be extended still further; even thinking about it is enough to drive you round the bend. When will we say enough is enough? Last year's rioters were criminals or the criminally stupid. Maybe the next crop will be judged merely criminally insane and thus not responsible for their deeds. 

Shoot me now.

What a mess!

As I wrote the other day, allegedly the nation’s children are starving. But is that really true, or are they just in want of the right type of food?

A discussion on Twitter the other night brought back fond memories. Said discussion centred on an age-old Royal Navy favourite - the cheesyhammyeggy. The name is practically Germanic in its efficiency - a noun that includes the formula for its construction - cheese and ham on toast, topped off with an egg. Naturally there are variants - brown sauce or red? mustard or black pepper? Or all four? - but in an ever changing world the cheesyhammyeggy remains steadfastly, resolutely cheese and ham and egg. If only economies were that stable or governments that reliable.

It got me thinking about the price of eggs (and cheese and ham,naturally) and the armed forces' daily messing rate (DMR). The link explains the principle and as you can see, the cost to feed fighting men is around £3 per day. That's per day, mind, not per meal. Obviously forces catering takes advantage of bulk buying but two things are for certain - soldiers sailors and airmen don't starve and within that budget they get a varied, interesting and balanced diet. (Although they'll go for cheesyhammyeggy every day if given the choice!)

Every time the subject of childhood obesity is raised we get the same tired old complaints that mothers can't afford 'proper food'. This ignorance coupled with sloth and the inexorable rise of greasy takeaways that blight our streets blinds a whole class of people to the possibility of not only being able to afford, but being able to really enjoy 'proper food'. Jamie Oliver tried hard to convince schools and individuals, crippled by poor nutrition and low aspirations to at least find some pleasure in food. He seems to have failed because as Paul Weller wrote “the public gets what the public wants”.

The trouble is, the public doesn’t really know what it wants, but it’s been duped into thinking it wants more and more processed fat and sugar, rather than the stuff it needs. On the nutrition front it’s time more people took a leaf out of the book Clare Harper (Follow her on Twitter) is compiling to pass on to her boys as they leave home – all mum’s recipes from quick and easy to complex and impressive (now also including cheesyhammyeggy) – so, like generations before them they can cook from scratch, rather than rely on ready-made offerings of dubious provenance.

Part of being a proper student, surely, is the simple joy of hunting down the cheapest cuts of meat and veg and experimenting with bubbling pots of spag-bol, curries and stews – wholesome, filling, peasant food - cooked with passion and eaten with friends and hilarity. But unless somebody enthuses them with the possibilities, what chance do they have of finding out for themselves?

The nation is hungry all right. It's hungry for some decisive leadership and some new recipes – meaningful welfare reform, sensible taxation, effective justice (social and criminal) Euro-arse-kicking and getting back a grip on our own affairs. Instead we get the same old unimaginative, feeble, high-fat, high-sugar, lethargy-inducing fare of pointless Lords reform, useless posturing and nobody daring to upset the status quo. Isn’t it time we cooked up a storm and unleashed it on Whitehall?

Any old iron

Sitting at my desk I can hear bird song. Bird song and the assorted rattles and coughs of the bin men and neighbours stumbling into the day. Bird song and bin men and - hark!- what's that? I am transported back to my youth when, for a few bits of scrap, the Rag and Bone Man would hand over a balloon. Heaven only knows what he did with our offerings, but he and his horse seemed happy enough to plod through the day, collecting other people's junk. Noble scavengers, recycling our rubbish aeons before it became fashionable, politically correct and environmentally unsound.

Nowadays several 'scrappies' come round every day, not once, not twice, but - it seems - all bloody day long! Not content with a dobbin and cart they patrol the streets with a loud-hailer and a tuneless "Scrap-eye-earn" on an endless, amplified loop. No balloons either - turn your back for five minutes and anything metallic disappears into the cavernous maw of their truck: unwanted tat, discarded tools, old cookers, garden gates, drain covers, railway track, signal cable... you name it, they can sell it on for cash through a network of illegal, under the radar, scrap merchants.

Where there's muck there's brass and if you don't keep your eye on your belongings they won't belong to you much longer. It's not beyond the crafty tinkers to employ diversionary tactics either; while one knocks at your front door, another is in the back garden, hunting down anything of value to flog off. Which is much the same as the government appears to be doing this week...

Reduced to scavenging the diminishing national savings pile for any scrap of worth, the squabbling over [probably] unconstitutional Lords reform is diverting attention away from the rich pickings in your back yard. Just when you've finished pouring money into the pot and picked up the meagre pension you've paid for all your life. Just when you thought you had nothing of value to give away, look what they've found behind the greenhouse. Nick Boles wants to means-test the little extras that make life bearable for many senior citizens.

Of course, 'means-testing' doesn't mean that such small comforts will be taken away entirely from those who most need them. Yet. But it's a step on the way. As individuals learn the state can not be trusted to spend our taxes wisely - giving away a fortune to Europe, welfare dependency and NHS bureaucracy - those who are able will protect what they've got, while the rest will see their pitiful belongings scavenged by the rag and bone man of socialism, to recycle into votes.

Isn't it time to stand up to those who want to put the British virtues of thrift and fair play on the scrap heap? Do we really want it to be every man for himself? At this rate we'll all be saddling up Hercules and hitting the streets. (Baggsy I get to be Albert!)

Reet Elite

It's school sports day once again and in the last race of the day - the whole school hundred metre dash - all the children are neck and neck. Parents watch with baited breath as they near the finish line. Then, one child starts to edge ahead. The crowd lean forward in their seats and, as one, urge "Slow down! Slow down!" But it is too late and Johnny's mother hangs her head in shame as Fast Johnny breasts the tape ahead of the field.

She'd brought him up to  be equal. She'd been fierce in her determination for him not to excel in any endeavour. What mattered to her most in life was bringing up the perfect, equal child. After all her efforts, she just knew he had to be the ultimate - more equal than all the rest put together. But, despite her best efforts he'd shown himself up to be - she spat the word - elite!

The word 'elite' has recently gained new currency as the number one pejorative hate-label for anybody looking to lay blame for perceived injustice. Here it is levelled, probably correctly in this case, against bankers. But it is tossed around freely to refer to political and religious elitism whenever an argument needs to be won (or at least drawn!). In education, so corrosive a term has it become that we end up with today's story about 29-Resit-Boy and a pitiful indictment of the blind rejection of anything so repugnant as individual excellence - all must have prizes.

Conspiracy theories abound regarding shadowy groups like the Freemasons, Opus Dei and the sinister-sounding New World Order. Today's Lords reform debate originates from the same fear of the power of elites. The Left frequently conjoin the words to mint the phrase 'power-elite', making it sound all the scarier.

So, where where do you want to stop your elitism? Were you ever a Sixer in the cubs? Is a 'Team Leader' a symbol of an oppressive hierarchical society? How dare households have a head? How would 'first past the post' voting work? Or PR for that matter? And - this is crucial - who would lead the fluffy little ducklings all in a row to swim in the park pond?

We've just had Wimbledon. And footie's Euro 2012. Yesterday was the F1 British Grand Prix and this month London hosts the Olympics - the most blatant worship of elitism.in the world.

You want equality? Really?

Solar, so good.

A certain Mr Hitler knew the benefits of propaganda; say something often enough and emphatically enough and it becomes true. So it is with the Greens. Yes, you heard me, I'm comparing the Greens to Hitler. So fervently do they believe their claims that they never question their validity, so sure are they of their mission that they never think for a moment of the suffering they cause. To the ecology warriors, individual pain is nothing when you're saving the world.

But does the world need saving? And from whom? In my lifetime I have lived with the promised threat of nuclear Armageddon, rising sea levels wiping out whole countries and oil running out by nineteen-ninety. I watched as the predictions of wholesale skin cancer caused by the depletion of the ozone layer failed to come to pass and I observe, with wry amusement the roller-coaster of contradictions on nutrition; I forget now, is fat/sugar/coffee/chocolate/wine/etc good or bad for you this week?

So, if we can't say with any certainty whether or not Cadbury's might kill you, how is it likely that anybody knows what's really happening on a planetary level? It was called Global Warming for a long time and then, when predictions failed to fruit, it all of a sudden became Climate Change. (Notice any similarity with the equally unfathomable, name-changing European Confidence Trick?) So, come on The Greens, is the temperature getting higher or lower (good game, good game!)

But it doesn't matter, does it? With the incredible power of modern-day minority lobbying they have infiltrated the minds of a generation and infected the politicosphere and just as with welfare, the NHS and fluffy kittens, created a criticism-free zone. That is, feel free to criticise, but expect to be labelled a right-wing, frothing loon for having the temerity to challenge heir touchy-feely, all-join-hands doctrine.

So, back to Hitler, by which of course I mean back to the German Solution [<LINK]. It's because of Nazi Green propaganda that Merkel's minions have been coerced into paying through the nose for solar photovoltaic microgeneration on  a scale which is anything but micro. As the article itself says, "Photovoltaics are fundamentally incapable of replacing any other type of power plant." and "From a climate standpoint, every solar plant is a bad investment," and yet it is climate change that is the stated reason behind every one of these expensive mistakes.

The moral of the story? Stop looking for international solutions to problems we don't have and just help yourself. You'll do more for your planet (and your pocket) simply by switching off unused equipment, not running heating with all your doors and windows open and wearing a jumper instead of wearing out the thermostat. Oh and voting for a party - any party - with a healthy level of scepticism for any form of political intervention in social issues. Good luck with that!

PS: Especially for Rachel - because of her comment below:

I'm Starving Here!

Starving children? Have we gone stark, staring mad? At the same time as an increasing proportion of children are being diagnosed as clinically - in some cases, morbidly - obese, others are said to be starving. But hey, hang on a minute, starving means dying from lack of food, not being malnourished by an over-reliance on sugary, starchy, so-sweet-and-fat-they-can't-be-found-in-nature food. So, actually starving or just poorly fed? Either way it is scandalous.

'Chaotic parenting' is blamed. Chaotic sounds like they're a bit woolly; well-meaning but d'oh! Chaotic sounds like, "What am I like?" as they 'accidentally' go on a bender, leaving the two-year-old in the care of the family Rottweiler. Why do we have to dress it up in forgiving language when it is nothing short of criminally irresponsible parenting?

Or let's get to the nub of this because it is really about undeserving parents, isn't it? Some people do not have the wit, the morals or the capability to be decent parents. Some people will only ever be able to breed clones of their unworthy selves - welfare dependent, criminally inclined, social misfits who will live their entire lives as a drain on the state. They'll take up proportionately more resources - education, healthcare, prison - than all of those who have to pay for them and that is simply untenable.

Of course we should look after those who are old or young, sick or dying. We should also have the compassion to offer help for those who truly need it in times of hardship. But we can't go on ignoring a major failing of our age - attempting to grant to all that which they wish. It might make the middle classes feel less guilty about their own successes but it will ultimately drag us all down. It is not compassionate to allow the unfit to breed; all you're doing is perpetuating the problem, creating more needy (and un-needed) children and bringing more hand-wringing dilemmas to your door.

But the solution is simple. Do away, entirely, with 'child benefit'. It doesn't benefit the child, but it does encourage the feckless to breed. Get rid of the supposed entitlement of all woman to have children. Some must simply never be allowed to reproduce and the biggest benefit you could hand to their children is never to be born in the first place. Make having children too expensive and difficult for the undeserving and be prepared, as a society, to swiftly remove the accidental progeny of their unthinking liaisons. Make having children important, as you all believe, not casual as it is right now.

Some starving children, yesterday.

There are no non-selfish reasons for having children - they don't ask to be born. Isn't it about time we abandoned the freakish notion that it is a noble purpose to become a state-sponsored breeding machine. And what do I say to these kids, who grow up with a sense of entitlement and believe I am their mate? I say, "Fuck off, it's 'Sir' to you" as they hand me my change.

Copyright Capers

Well, despite almost every video on Youtube that doesn't feature cats or babies having a soundtrack of music still in copyright, today it was decided that I would be punished for my dire infringement. One viewer got this on screen:

Another got something similar. Several others clicked, got content blocked and simply moved on to pastures new. Weirdly, I can watch it on any of my internet enabled devices without any form of warning appearing, whether or not I'm logged in under my user name... but it seems I'm the only one!

So, sod you, YouTube. In future I'll just post up a low-def copy here instead! Like this:

I hope you enjoy it!

For full screen try it on Vimeo.

The Big Bonus

A parliamentary inquiry has discovered the secrets of the universe – the Big Bonus, the so-called God Principle.

The Big Bonus is an elementary incentive within the standard model of incentive economics. On 4 July 2012, Bob Diamond announced the formal confirmation that an incentive "consistent with the Big Bonus… exists with a very high likelihood of 99.99994%". However, MPs still need to verify that it is indeed the expected bonus and not some other new incentive.

The existence of the Big Bonus was predicted almost 50 years ago to explain how bankers manage to acquire so much mass when other particles have very little. ‘Mass’ is, of course, bankers speak for ‘money’. Mr Diamond used the rather simplistic analogy of the Higgs boson to explain The God Principle. This principle describes why bankers need to acquire ‘mass’ in such significant quantities in order to be allowed to even exist within their own universe.

Of course, ordinary people can’t be expected to understand the workings of these mysterious incentives, so here’s a useful cut out and keep guide:

And that, my friends is the secret - when you haven't any coal in the stove and you freeze in the winter and you curse on the wind at your fate. When you haven't any shoes on your feet and your coat's thin as paper and you look thirty pounds underweight - the simple secret of the Mark or Yen, or buck or pound, that makes that clinking clanking sound, that makes the world go round!

None as blind

So, they're going to have an inquiry into the blacker-than-black hearts of the evil bankers who dared to lend the money that allowed the greed of ordinary mortals to get the better of them and bring economic Armageddon to the known world? As with so much in politics the outcome has already been decided and now we just want a token witch or two to burn at stake.

In education, a clamour for evolution-denying, ever-better results led us down the path of progressive teaching methods and voodoo assessment principles to give us GCSEs in Trolley-Dollying and the highest graduate unemployment rate ever seen. Despite the obvious distractions and unproven efficacy of edu-tech, governments threw ever more precious money at 'educators' in the full knowledge it would be wasted on such toys. From a news article today "The public has been forced to endure years of denials that grade inflation exists even though they can see it 'with their own eyes'..."

On immigration, despite the obvious overcrowding, the resentment and the subsequent ghettoisation' the last government took us to the clearly visible, uneasy and antagonistic relationship with certain problem communities. Their answer? The thought crime of racism now ranks alongside murder in severity of prosecution and the ship of state presses blindly ahead with this multicultural madness.

Give the public their say and hanging would be brought back in a heartbeat. Instead we have somehow found ourselves in a culture where pursuing the victim instead of the criminal gives the police and the courts the results on which they are ultimately judged. Thieves go unpunished, but at least the ethnic poetry targets are met.

And so on and so forth... Diversity, inclusion, differentiation and a whole legion of 'isms' to obfuscate, excuse and evade the plain and simple truth that democracy died a long time ago.

The great unwashed are certainly unfit to actually run the country - Nobody wants a GCSE-Grade-C-er in charge of a bank, a corporation, the army or the NHS. But stupid as we clearly are, even we know the simple Sir Humphrey* truth that an inquiry will achieve the square root of fuck-all. Look at Leveson - what has that achieved other than being an expensive, diversionary spectacle for those sitting at home all day?

The public largely turns a blind eye to the lumbering machinations of state. As long as they get their gin and 'baccy they can largely be relied upon not to get involved. After all, who really cares if the world keeps turning and life goes on much as before? The government (and opposition, for that matter) has always counted on the natural political apathy of the proletariat to let them get on with their tinkering and legislating and interfering.

But we mushrooms can only take so much. Keep us in the dark and feed us shit, for sure... but don't shove it in our face.

Mushrooms at the gates!

(*If you don't know who Sir Humphrey is you're probably not old enough to be reading this. Run along now and play nicely!)

Foul Ref!

So, the big topic of the weekend has been Shiny Dave and William Vague's slightly contradictory stances regarding the only 'ref' anybody is interested in. Forget Euro 2012, it's Euro-ad-infinitum we're concerned about. Both main parties have arrived at the same mealy-mouthed formula, which goes roughly thus.

The time is not right. We will open discussions on the desirability of holding a referendum on our role in Europe when it becomes clearer what The EU will become. At that time we may entertain the possibility that we might need to renegotiate our terms of membership.

That means precisely sweet FA (<~~ see how I got another footie reference in? Genius, that!) In other words we are too bat-shit scared of making any decision at all and we will continue to throw your money at the European confidence trick until war breaks out, populations starve or... or... or what? Nobody knows. Nobody.

Labour are sitting pretty , jabbing from the sidelines while breathing an enormous sigh of relief that they didn't get into power in 2010. But it is a criminal shame that none of the main parties dare entertain the notion of democracy.

It is an entirely reasonable thing to choose your battles and your battleground wisely and not enter into open conflict until intelligence suggests you have a chance of winning. But the Conservatives have been ripping themselves apart over Europe ever since the failed attempt to rid us of it in 1975. In the twenty-teens it will be the issue that finally killed off the Tories. And if they are so weak, then good riddance.

The EU will never let us renegotiate - would the golf club tear up the rules in our favour and then let  us take the prime tee times for an associate member's fee? Of course not. There are only two paths for the European project now. A federal  Europe of soviet-style gulags, working for the massive machinery of state in return for a meagre standard of living and a media diet of joyous fake news. That, or a break up into self-determining sovereign nations.

The Gulag Flag

So back to the referendum:

1. When is the right time? It's right now. (Not when the govt thinks it will get the answer it wants, which is to do nothing.)
2. What is the right question to ask? Europe - IN or OUT? (Let's actually settle this forty-year issue once and for all.)
3. Any other options? No. None.

I'm not one to put my signature to causes, but on this occasion I believe something has to be done. Maybe (just maybe) enough names on this PETITION and something might happen. Unless the current government do this and do it now, there is only one party with the balls to offer us the choice.

So, Cameron, hold a referendum NOW or I'm definitely voting UKIP and I don't even care if Labour get back in as a result, you cringing, Euro-servile coward.

Pity the children

We all know people who lie and cheat and steal. We are surrounded by them and more are arriving every minute. They infiltrate our society and demand more and more of our time and resources just to keep them fed and warm and to keep them under control. But, being the tolerant souls we are, we let these liars, cheats and thieves trample all over our carefully woven fabric of civilisation.

That's kids for you. As mere clothed monkeys of course they have only one aim in life and that is life itself. Left to develop without guidance they would continue to act amorally and outside the laws that keep the rest of us in check. One of the first essential parental duties is to steadily inculcate the behaviour expected of a fully-functioning, contributory member of society. And then, in adult life, it is our individual duty to maintain those cultural norms. Our prisons are full of those who have been unsuccessful in curbing their natural animal instincts.

But it's not just the prisons, is it? The infantile mental state of believing you can lie and cheat your way through life extends throughout our society. In fact, it seems, the higher you climb - you monkey you - the closer you get to your animal instincts to lie and cheat and steal.

So is it any wonder that those who constantly lie to us about everything believe they can continue to get away with it because history appears to vindicate this course of action? We are lied-to about taxation and spending. We are lied-to about educational performance. We are lied-to about our involvement in foreign affairs and we are lied-to about Europe on a daily basis as if WE were the children.

Shiny Dave will do everything to avoid a meaningful referendum on the gravy train. And in his twisted book, 'everything;' includes a promise to hold such a referendum. A promise which - like all the others - will be broken. But it doesn't matter, does it? Because despite your iron resolve to vote us out of the expensive monstrosity you (and no doubt, I) will meekly accept the lie of a renegotiation.

There IS only one way to deal with the Europe question. We either accept it, go along with its subjugation and become part of a monolithic Marxist state, or we leave it to its own rotting demise and return to happy self determination. Belief in any other option - as has been shown for almost four decades is denial of the plain truth. When children do this - saying they haven't lied or cheated or stolen, we have ways of correcting their behaviour.

So, where's the naughty step for politicians?