English. Don't let it die of ignorance

Every day we mangle our precious language. We use words we don’t understand, or use the wrong words to describe what we might not mean. Occasionally, hilarious clangers, such as ‘escape goat’, remind us how little care we take over verbal expression, or how reluctant we are to challenge received Norman Wisdom.

Other examples of misused phrases include ‘for all intensive purposes’, ‘play it by year’ and ‘that’s a mute point’. Add to the mix the proliferation of so-called management speak - meaningless pumped up expressions that allow corporate clones to miscommunicate with each other - and we are perilously close to little more than grunting… albeit in a form of English. 

If I ever hear utterly redundant phrases such as ‘going forward’, or tautology like ‘me, personally’ or the ridiculous ‘from the get go’ I know the speaker has nothing to say and will use too many words to say it. I’ve already closed my ears and pretty soon my eyelids will follow suit. I’ve been known to snore loudly in meetings and not miss a single important thing. 

We also use phrases from the past whose origins are lost. How can ‘now then’ mean ‘hello’, for instance? But, English changes; all languages change with common usage. Useful phrases from one age – ‘balls out, ‘big-wig’, ‘dyed in the wool’ – often survive with their meanings intact, while others die out altogether or change their meaning. I’m not against change; I’m against wrong. 

And the wrongest of wrongs must surely be the ubiquitous ‘should of/would of/could of/must of’ and any other variants you can think of. Wrong because it is simply incorrect; but even more wrong because users don’t seem to realise it. You hear it pronounced ‘of’ instead of have, which is bad enough but far too often you see it written down, even in newspapers and official documents. It’s only a matter of time before the OED lists it as acceptable. 

This is how propaganda works. Say it often enough and loud enough and eventually people will accept as true something which palpably isn’t. The Conservative political philosophy is as far from being evil as you can get, but Tory may as well be pronounced ‘Lucifer’ for many. Labour’s fiscal policies are demonstrably unworkable, unfair and destructive, yet somehow ‘welfare dependency’ is interpreted as caring. 

If you can’t even be bothered to check whether what you say means what you intended, what are the chances you’ll bother to check the provenance of the news of the day? Ignorance breeds more ignorance and eventually the truth is lost altogether. How else did the gigantic despotic experiments of the twentieth century get off the ground? 

The USA has just had its say and produced an outcome many disagree with and some even fear. But at least the USA IS one nation with no real threat to its identity. But a United States of Europe? English isn't just a language, it's a whole way of life. We should of got out when we had the chance...

England, my England

I'm confused. I live next door to people I don't know. I'm not that bothered about knowing them and given that no overtures have been made, I'm guessing they're quite happy with that arrangement. In the main we rub along okay. They occasionally have a party and make a noise, I occasionally tell everybody on Twitter how annoying it was and that's about the limit of our interaction.

I have no doubt that should our road get flooded, or an earthquake blight our little corner of England, we would help each other to safety if needs be. Then, being British, we'd maybe shake hands, or shrug, say something enigmatic and insincere about not grumbling and get on with our separate little lives. Thereafter maybe a wave of acknowledgement in passing or a hurried "hello" on the infrequent meeting.

But should they decide to have relatives over to stay I'd be mighty pissed off to arrive home and find them camping out in my living room. Similarly, a raid on my kitchen cupboards, the uninvited use of my car or the viewing of Eastenders on my telly, under my licence would earn them a look of my sternest disapproval. I would show them the door and lock it after them.

I wouldn't pay them to go somewhere else, nor would I be evenly remotely interested in chipping in to pay for something I don't want in a part of town I never visit, for the benefit of people I will never know, who haven't asked for that help and don't even need it in the first place. That would be utterly ridiculous. None of that has anything to do with me. I should be free to choose who I assist. Or not.

That's how I'd like it to be with Europe. The sometimes annoying neighbour, who we could occasionally help out in a crisis, but who would otherwise just keep the hell out of our affairs. And there's no reason in the world why that couldn't be the case. For all the bollocks spouted about how we can't do this and we can't do that, of course we can. We simply announce we're shutting the door and locking the larder. How hard can it really be?

Europe, you outstayed your welcome and it's time to go home. And if anybody still believes that the EU is a force for good, you should cast your eyes over this recent Telegraph article. And when, over the next two years, you start to see lots of YOUR money being spent on the campaign to persuade you that the EU is a good thing, please remember that this is exactly what happened in 1975. Don't get fooled again.

Europe, in or out?

A very easy decision to make? Or a logistical nightmare?

Politicians afraid of making decisions will lead you to believe the latter. So much of this or that is dependent on European stuff an' t'ing. If we pull out we risk exclusion and worse. Our trade will be affected, our world standing will be eroded... will we sink forever or just thrash about in the shallow end? How will we feed ourselves, defend ourselves, feel good about ourselves?

The plain and simple answer is right there in the midst of that thrashing about, shilly-shallying and dilly-dallying like a procrastinator's wet dream. The time is not right, they say. It's what they've always said. If you put off until the day after tomorrow what you should have done the day before yesterday, pretty soon it's the middle of next week and before long a month of Mondays has passed you by like the flicking corners of a school exercise book stick-man cartoon and you're starting all over again on page one.

Sometimes (often) it is far better to make a decision and live with the consequences than to agonise about whether to make the decision at all. Occasionally procrastination is fortuitous - wait long enough and the problem goes away. But Europe isn't going anywhere and for better or for worse it has declared its hand. The Nazis Eurocrats want nothing less than a fully fledged Federal Superstate.

~~> And we don't. <~~ 

Right there. There's your answer.

We don't want what Rompuy wants, what Barroso wants, what Merkel wants.We don't want to be involved with it and we don't want it imposed on us. The only real option is out, right out and stay out. Daniel Hannan has been pushing and prodding at this for yonks; it's about time somebody listened.

Britain on its own would have no hiding place, nobody else to blame, nobody to pick up the tab, nobody else to bail out. We could stand on our own two feet, as we have for centuries. Britain on its own could finally start to make a real difference for its people, unshackled by the Über-Socialism of an aspirationally challenged European Juggernaut. (Did you ever notice how much German you need to describe Europe?)

If only we had what the balls for it.

All Prime Ministers want to leave a legacy but few of them have a real choice in what that legacy is. David Cameron has a real opportunity here to do the right thing for Britain and be remembered, possibly even revered, as a deliverer. Churchill saved us from the Nazis, Cameron could save us from their natural successors. Gotta be worth a punt, eh, Shiny Dave?

Or shall we put off the procrastination for another day?

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

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?

Wired!

In my day job I try and play a positive role in maintaining the competence of workers in a pretty straightforward field. Electrical installation work isn’t exactly rocket-surgery[sic] and since the first days of the Wiring Regulations (1882 - 130 years) testing has been a necessary component of the job, yet most practicing sparkies have only a rudimentary grasp of the principles.

Last night I was assessing a supposedly experienced tester. Once the test rig had been safely isolated I left him for ten minutes to get on with it and returned to find nuts and bolts, springs and things, popping and fizzing round the exam room while he wrestled with deadly killer croc-clips and test leads.  It was like a kitten with a ball of wool… and a stick of Semtex. Given that an absolute minimum of dismantling should have been involved, this was like Armageddon; Electricalypse.

Once the fires broke out, I decided to terminate the assessment, enough is enough. His blackened eyebrows still sparked and sizzled slightly and a wisp of smoke rose from his new Afro hairstyle... “How did I do?” he asked, hopefully.

Cut the red wire... NO! The blue!

When you hire an electrician you’d like to think they know what they’re doing, wouldn’t you? Most of them have an impressive sounding list of qualifications but the simplicity of Ohm’s Law is lost as they struggle with the deep and complex relationship between Volts and Amps and Ohms. Yet, it’s easy enough to remember:

Villa = Is x Rubbish

The truth about electricity

If few of these trained professionals can really tell their amp from their elbow, how can they be expected to tell a talented politician from a mere chancer? Or distinguish between a plan for economic doom versus commercial boom? These are the people who choose, once in a blue moon, who gets to make the important decisions as to just exactly how much more money we're going to piss down the European drain. Or to what extent we will continue to emasculate our armed forces. Or how much more of the third world's population we plan to crowd into our precious little island home.

One-man-one-vote democracy doesn't seem such a good idea now, does it?

Nursery Crimes

Many nursery rhymes are said to be partly political in origin. With this in mind I bring you important new updates:

Georgie Porgie, put VAT on a Pie…

Herman Van Rompuy sat on a wall;
Rumpy-Pumpy had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men,

Couldn't put Herman together again, because Federal Europe allows no royalty and somebody has to consider the human rights of the horses.

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run!
They can clearly get by without disability living allowance.

Baa, baa, black sheep, Oh... [<~~ link]

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill lived happily ever after on the punitive award for damages.

Frere Jacques, got your knackers,
Merkel too, Herman who?
Have a referendum, have a referendum?

A vote for you, a vote for you...

(Now, do it again and this time give the right answer!)

Repeat this one out loud in your best French accent until you get it!

(Answers in a comment)

Un petit, d’un petit

Ça t’en â valle

Un petit d’un petit

A d’agrètte falle

(Geddit?)

Have a lovely weekend!

It's Digital, Man!

I can't be arsed with all this Greece nonsense. They are going to be enslaved, exiled or invaded and there's nothing any politician really cares about it, so long as they can stay in office by pandering to the uneducated, egocentric wiles of their increasingly dumbfounded electorate and keep telling them what they want to hear. Why change a winning formula?

So, sod the economies and the concerns of Greece, Italy, Spain Ireland and whichever knave in the house of cards is next on the world stage, professing to have the first clue as what is needed. Sod ‘em all and let’s look closer to home. Good old Blighty.

The UK is a pretty affluent country, you know? Of course we got troubles – who don’t, innit? – but Birmingham didn’t seem to think so yesterday. From the teeming masses out on the spend I saw little sign of a country in crisis.

There is nothing – and I mean NOTHING for sale in the Bullring that anybody actually needs. From the bizarre bubble-wrap skin of Selfridges, to the plethora of games and gadget shops, sunglasses huts, coffee emporia, perfumiers, chocolatiers and jewellers, there is sweet F-A that anybody needs to live on. For a country that’s supposedly broke it’s doing a great job of looking like a consumer paradise.

Every other outlet sells mobile phones with enough computing power to get man on the moon, or run an army from exile; the sheer capability of these things is truly awesome. But look who’s really using them and for what purpose.

The digital native, it is said, needs no formal knowledge-based education, for all knowledge is at the fingertips. What use is there in teaching history, geography, the sciences, language and maths when you can carry your brain in your pocket? (Something, incidentally, that men have been doing for millennia.)

Educationalists posit that ‘digital immigrants’ (that’s us crusties, folks) have trouble teaching digital natives because of the proliferation of a new language and new social paradigms. Educationalists, it seems can always come up with another pseudo-scientific reason not to educate. This, however, is a simple case of the tail wagging the dog – who is supposed to be teaching whom?

If the aimless, lardy simpleton waddling along New Street, glazed eyes fixed to a tiny screen, is an example of the digital native (and it certainly is) then you have to ask yourself at which point this genius is going to transform our brave new world.

For every Alpha entrepreneur, using technology in a new and interesting way, you have a million drooling Deltas using the same technology to order pizza. Aldous Huxley’s novel, while not great literature, was nevertheless prescient… and far more stuff needs cleaning than inventing. As long as you keep the drones happy, the world keeps on turning. 

Hmmm, (shudder at the thought) maybe the Eurocrats know what they're doing after all?

Euro Scepticaemia

I heard a rumour the other day that the Labour Party was considering offering an in-out referendum on Europe should they win at the next national apathy competition we call a general election. As the number of disenfranchised and thus voting-averse indigenous Brits grows in comparison with the rising tide of politicised incomers, whose presence here is gifted by the EU’s interference in our right to determine our own demography, there’s a good chance of that idea backfiring on them.

We’ll see. I think it a fair bet that nobody other than UKIP will dare offer that option and support for UKIP will dangerously damage not-so-Shiny-now Dave’s chance of getting back in for a second term. Something even his own side seem to be determined to prevent; Nadine Dorries courting popular opinion in a daring attempt to... what? Claim a scalp before she crosses the floor? It was certainly a brave resignation speech!

Whatever happens, however, I am resolutely for ‘out’ in the same way I was resolutely against ‘in’ in 1975, when they wouldn’t even let me vote. And here’s why. (You should note that, in the absence of any concrete figures, I’ll be making up my own, picking and choosing my ‘facts’ as I please, just as any government or opposition does. My numbers might not be accurate, but they ‘feel’ about right and until anybody actually tells us the truth – and they haven’t in knocking-on forty years – my numbers are just as good as anybody else’s.)

Based on this accurate set of statistics and my estimated inflation factor, the annual cost of being in with the in crowd is about £70bn.

In return we receive ‘inward investment’ of about, oh, I don’t know, let’s say £75million, mostly in the form of sports halls, ‘multicultural’ community centres, council tax brochures printed in Urdu, a few floral clocks and the VAT on MEP’s expenses spent over here on imported foie gras, caviar and champagne.

Membership of the EU creates minus-200 jobs each day for British kids and allows a million non-English speakers to run our hospitality and health industries, sending an invigorating £10bn per year back home to fund sex and drugs based crime academies in eastern Europe, its practitioners to be illegally re-imported into Britain in the backs of Norbert Dentresangle trucks. Or by simply walking through our border controls, brandishing unchallenged false passports.

So, taking all of this undeniably fact-based data into account, on balance not only would we be better off out, but we’d return to surplus in under ten years, drive our population down to a sustainable 50 million and build a powerhouse economy while Europe staggers under the weight of its malignant hypocrisy. Go on. Prove me wrong.

Do we want a referendum? Do we bollocks. Do we want to negotiate an undignified, shambolic, apologetic, shuffling retreat? No, sod all that. Sack all the traitorous human rights lawyers, who are at the heart of much of what is wrong with Europe and then march into Brussels, pull up our tent pegs, pack up our kit bags and in the wise, wise words of Malcolm Tucker, fuck the fuck right off. United Kingdom, I dare you to grow a set.

Sign of the Cross

There is a green hill, far away. And with new planning laws coming soon, it’s destined to become a housing estate. It used to be just a short walk to the green hills; now it’s a chariot ride away, but, Judas had sold his chariot for a bag of magic beans. When his mum found out she was so cross she ruined the hot buns she’d just made and threw them into the yard where they fed five thousand hungry birds, one of which was a white dove (who preferred peas).

Jesus, the Mexican gardener, heard the commotion  and interrupted his Easter break to see what all the fuss was about. He was understandably annoyed because Easter was his favourite holiday; he loved bunny-wabbits and chickadees and chocolate eggs of course – who doesn’t – but he also liked the fact that he could have 16 days off in a row while only taking eight annual leave days.

Such canniness was why, faced with a dilemma, people who drove cars with fish badges on them would ask each other, “What would Jesus do?” Well, what he did was come back to clear up the mess caused by Judas’s mum’s ire. He shouldn’t have bothered. The next door neighbour, Lazarus, who was so lazy he hadn’t been off his arse in weeks was furious, so he’d got out of  bed - a miracle in its own right - and called out the local cops and they’d sent a centurion who was busy nailing down anything that moved.

Well, what with all the mess, ire* and everybody getting cross it’s little wonder it all ended up the way it did. “Whoops!” said the centurion, hastily hiding his hammer.

To commemorate and commiserate, to this day the government reminds us of Jesus’ fate by hammering us with tax… which makes us cross. And as a sign of how cross it makes us, some choose to wear a little crucifix. Or put a fish on their car.

You may find this a surprise but I’m no great a believer in anything beyond what is scientifically verifiable. I don’t go with God, but neither do I believe in witchcraft, aromatherapy, crystals, faith healing, homeogullibility or any other such mountebankery. A Belieber I am not, But if you do have a faith and choose to show it modestly, where’s the issue? 

The government bends over backwards to allow burkas – an appearance both alien and slightly threatening to most native Britons. Nobody has suggested stoning Goths on sight for being ridiculous. Hell you can’t even get arrested for putting your pre-teen daughter in a ‘pornstar’ tee-shirt! We allow all sorts of personal expression – idiocy, anti-social tendencies, even extreme social views – they all have a uniform and accoutrements. We even allow people to alter their appearance, often for sinister or intimidating intent. So what in the name of anything that is holy is all this about?

Isn't it about time, in the words of Malcolm Tucker, to just tell Europe to fuck the fuck off?

Oh and what happened to Jesus? It was but a flesh wound and he was back at work by Monday.


(* mess+ire? See what I did there? Honestly, I'm wasted on you lot! :o) )