Enjoying Yourself Too Much

What in the PRC really
did impress him?

A deeply depressing political weather front has swept in from the East with the return of our dire Prime Minister to these shores. As gloom ridden as this news is I suppose that at least the feeling is likely to be mutual. Most of us feel a bit of sadness when a holiday comes to an end and judging by the first known pictures of Gordon Brown looking genuinely cheerful, especially in China, and considering the hopeless mess of a government he returns to head, at least in name, it's hard to believe his feelings are any different.

I'm not going to make advance any fatuous theory that Brown is some form of wholly reconstructed Maoist, nor that he would like reduce the real democratic powers of the British people all the way down to that enjoyedenforced in the People's Republic other than in the ways dictated to him by Brussels.

It was though a bit disconcerting to see the very apparent warmth of old Incapability in the company of those who, for all the modernisation of their Economy and the opportunities that this may offer to this country, remain serial abusers of human rights with a typically warped leftist view of the relative positions of the citizen and the state. One can only imagine his fantasies about Hain, Harman, Alexander et al. when he heard about the Chinese method of dealing with incompetent or corrupt officials, especially if the bullet is still rechargeable to the family.

For all its economic liberalisation, in many regards China also remains one of the last naive believers in the centrally imposed 20 year plans and all such failed authoritarian dogma, so I guess with North Korea still being somewhat beyond the pale it's hardly surprising the Brown clearly enjoyed this leg of the trip so much. So much did he seem to enjoy his time there that I struggle to remember another visit by a western leader where the obligatory words on human rights where so few in number, nor so quietly and indirectly spoken.

Sadly the grin was wearing off a little even before heading home during his visit to India. While Indian democracy is imperfect, with some areas perennially subject to allegations of ballot irregularities and intimidation, it does look on the whole to be a vibrant and more or less functional pluralistic democracy and is getting better on this front with age. Not, perhaps, a comfortable place to be for a man who seems hell bent on several fronts on alienating his own electorate who he seems determined to treat with utter contempt on many fronts.

I really can't help feeling that Gordon would fit in so well into China's central committee, assuming that they make him chairman of course, in a way so painfully different to the way he abrades against every instinct of most people I speak to here, in terms of what we expect from our own leaders.

I'll even offer to buy him a ticket back to his spiritual home.

Another Beneficial Crisis

Shane Greer ponders whether Gordon Brown may have been the target of the Boeing 777 which crash landed at Heathrow today. Considering the dour one's ability to drain the life force from anyone within a two mile radius through force of personality, I'd have thought that the CAA might list the presence of the Prime Minister as one of the potential causes.

Seriously though, for a vehicle the size of a modern commercial aircraft to suffer what sounds like such a complete systems failure and for the passengers and crew to walk away with only a handful of minor injuries is a great testimony to the skill of the pilot who flew it and of the engineers who designed it. To transition from a run of the mill, doubtlessly computer assisted approach to a seat of the pants recovery from potential disaster at the end of a long flight shows just why the training is so rigorous.

Naturally though there are always those who emerge from such near disasters with less credit. To be fair Brown's PR team did not whisk their man to the other end of the runway to help grateful survivors down the escape slide, however the greenies seem to have scented blood, or at least aviation fuel.

News 24 has had a delightful interview with someone from the 'Green Sky Alliance' or some such set of progress hating goons. Apparently, today's near disaster is a death knell for the prospects of there being a new runway at Heathrow, as the more flights there are, the more accidents there shall be also. Naturally this is almost certainly true, but also completely irrelevant to the case for or against a new runway at Heathrow, so as long as there is no proof of a likely increase in the relative rate or severity of incidents, a case the spokesman didn't even attempt to make.

More remarkable was the spokesman's claim along the lines that 'aircraft are as safe as they ever will be'. Like many such dubious claims from the environmental lobby it is easy to accurately restate their proposition to prove it's absurdity; try 'There will never be any further progress in aircraft safety' for example, it's not exactly a proposition I'd put much money on.

I suspect the beneficial crisis rapid response unit of the EU will also be up to full speed by now looking for some tenuous European angle to demand further transfers of powers from the CAA to the EASA despite the regular criticisms of the latter's questionable performance.

Watch this space.

PS Apologies for the lack of posting for the last week, real work and real beer and an irritating technical problem have got in the way, as has a bout of 'Hain Fatigue' - kicking dog's when they are down gets a bit boring even with NuLab mongrels.

Educational Failures

A Government of Slightly More Talents

The Thunder Dragon snorts the fires of righteous derision at Ed Balls' inability to name the colours of the rainbow and I'm a bit annoyed!

I'd actually been watching the committee session during which he revealed his ignorance to the world on BBC Parliament, but had had switched over before his faux pas on the electromagnetic spectrum, in disgust at his thick-as-pigshit grin and his inability to understand that debate in committees is meant to be at least a little more mature than in the commons chamber. Indulging in every answer avoidance technique of his mentor he seemed blissfully unaware that even the said Brown shapes up just a little bit for his equivalent session.

Like I had to do today though, you can still enjoy things being Ballsed up here for a few weeks.

While there is little doubt that Balls is an over promoted, under performing twat you would think that spending time in a cabinet with Zippy as Foreign Secretary, George as Chancellor, all ruled over by Prime Minister Bungle Brown, he'd know a bit more about rainbows.

Apologies in advance for making comparison between well-loved children's' TV characters and the pond scum who rule us presently. To make up for it here is an excerpt from the said show that didn't quite make it to air.

An Expensive Failure

Counting the Cost

I've got a sneaky feeling that if, on some Inland Revenue form or another, I signed off on a turnover figure of £82,000 rather than a true figure closer to £200,000, I'd be out of 'oops sorry' band, even were the figures put together by some underling or another. The repeatedly useless Peter Hain though is a politician where different, much lower, standards prevail.

As much as it has been amusing to read of Hain's deputy leadership bid team fighting like rats in a sack over exactly whose incompetence has dragged the bad name of Labour further into the mud, at heart it is a deeply depressing spectacle.

The idea that the availability of more than double the declared funding would not have affected campaigning choices, something that Hain himself must have at least some hand in, beggars belief, even if he didn't do the book keeping himself. If you look at a five figure quote for some activity it looks very different with £200k in the bank instead of less than half that. The alleged unawareness of the Prime Minister, once again, of the developing story until the last possible moment again strikes another familiar off-key note, or at the very least betokens a 'see no evil...' approach of deliberate ignorance.

Of course though, it is a story with a happy ending, in that there was at least a little poetic justice. To have spent more than double the amount of every other contestant in a race and still only come fifth out of the six that made it to the start line must have been humiliating enough, even before the realisation sunk in that the winner was one of the most easily dislikeable performers on today's political stage.

I have to admit that I used to find Hain one of the less offensive senior figures in the Labour hierarchy. Of late though he has joined a growing band whose demeanour and simplistic form of argument by unfounded assertion was something that I never had a lot of time for, but I accepted to politically work a once inexplicably popular and modestly trusted Labour government, but seem hopeless incapable of adjusting to their newly reduced circumstances.

I suspect that there are many who, unlike myself, would dearly love to be able to vote Labour without a bad smell in their nose next time around, having seen a party truly contrite and self-aware of the faults that prolonged exposure to power has brought to them as to so many others. From the likes of Hain, as well as many others such as Balls and Harman and the Prime Minister himself, I doubt an apology will ever seem truly sincere as it may do to an extend, for example, from the likes of a Miliband or Darling as similarly useless as they may be in other respects.

As long as the likes of Hain linger, so will the bad smell. It's actually less to do with individual offences against the law or general decency, but how their lack of grace under fire even if they can abase themselves just far enough to say sorry.

Fog in the Channel...

Salut France, we share you're pain(s)

...continent cut off. Sometimes it's a case of 'if only it were true', but it does seem that we are not fully cut off from hearing the news of chronically stupid ideas that in the current climate may be in danger of drifting over the channel.

I'll actually skip over Sarko's silly little idea for taxing Internet access to subsidise last generation state broadcasting operations as it's so retarded that nobody who is not a card-carrying Brownite could regard it as anything other than a badly timed April Fool's joke. I have often expressed my admiration for Sarko, in particular his disrespect for the conventions of decaying French political shibboleths and who can begrudge him throwing a bone to his old school statist classes once in a while while his mind, or at least some part of his being, may me preoccupied elsewhere - and who can blame him?

From another perspective we should also remember that M. le President's predecessor toyed with the idea of an even more impractical 'per e-mail' tax, so perhaps we should be happy with even the smallest of baby steps away from the completely wrong direction. It is true that we should be wary of the stimulation that the idea of a brand new virgin tax may be causing in Mr Darling's underpants. We should also be ready to repel the general French assumption when it comes to the EU, that anything stupid that France does should be enforced on a pan-European basis. For the moment though, I'm prepared to see this idea as being, at worst, a submerged rock that only a ship as badly piloted as the truly rotten ship 'SS Labour' coming across the channel could hit.

Like most moderate Eurosceptics, I leave swivel-eyed xenophobia to those within the EU machinery with their hatred of anything outside the tiny outcrop of Asia where we live, especially if happens to be a more functional democracy than anything Europe has to offer. For all that, even if I'm going to lay off the executive branch of French government, I can't help treating taking the piss out of this decision from their judicial branch, especially as I can equally imagine some decrepit creature in our own courts coming up with the same nonsense.

Basically, a French newspaper has been fined for a piece of journalism on the state of the French champagne industry because they failed to fit in a suitable rider on the horrors of alcohol into the same article, thanks to the legal intervention of a set of busybodies whose name transliterates to the 'National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction'.

This is completely nuts (some people may suffer an adverse reaction to eating nuts including breathing difficulties and, in extreme cases, anaphylactic shock reactions), but I find it hard to believe that there are not elements in our own country's common sense elimination brigades that will be going to bed over-excited over a new line of attack tonight.

The march of government for the lowest common denominator goes on.

Oh Ye of Little Ability

I suspect that if I ever sat down with a psychiatrist I'd be tagged with some kind of 'depressive' label, but actually I'm not. True, when I wake up I have a tendency to let everything that is wrong with my life run through my head, but I put that down my irresponsible use of the Today programme in conjunction with a clock-radio.

Usually, once sentient thought has blown away the cobwebs of the latest "eating lasagne can take five seconds off your life" story, I'm actually quite cheerful as long as Big Brother (the TV show) or Big Brother (the Labour ideal of governance) are not mentioned, and if Ground hog day doesn't strike.

Unfortunately, on Monday we had day-glo have-a-go half-wit Hain, dismissing, without benefit of a single number, let alone calculation, the Conservative proposals on incapacity benefits on the grounds of being too expensive. Today we had even more modest proposals that the able-bodied shouldn't be able to claim unemployment benefits indefinitely as long as we remain an country with many opportunities for employment, dismissed by the same tosser as:

"...hugely costly and the Tories can't fund it, it also won't work."

Source: BBC News

It would have been good to see that an extra day's thought had allowed Mr Hain to come up with a more considered response, backed up with real figures and real analysis behind it rather than following what remains of his own party line, that of the Lib Dems and every pressure group in the BBC Rolodex, in relying on baseless assertions, but then I guess he might have other things on his mind right now.

As depressing as it is, I fear that I must return to the distasteful subject of Hain once more tomorrow once, in a more sober state, I have re-read what I just think I have read on a mainstream website, about that other little matter afflicting him, this time on his 'forgetfulness'.

It's a true achievement of Gordon's government of all the talentless, that even Blair's bland and irrelevant can rise to the level of truly dangerous incompetence, but then I guess there is an issue over the type of role model they have.

Break for the Border

A More Free West Lothian Question?

I was quite excited when this BBC article popped up on the news reader, detail the UK government's truly abysmal ranking in a report by Privacy International league table on protection for civil liberties and how much better Scotland, when considered alone, ranks.

I'll have to be honest and say that to an extent I was disappointed when I got round to reading the report in question today, as it did seem to be based on rather subjective criteria, even if it's conclusions are very much in line with other similar studies and commentary from both within and without this country.

On so many issues, from the size of our DNA database, to the number of surveillance cameras, to the scope of the proposed ID card database coupled with it's cousins that are even closer to being a reality for the NHS and the country's children, there is pretty clear tangible evidence that the UK is light years ahead down the track to the complete surveillance society.

As such, any report that spells it out so clearly is to be welcomed, even if it could have punched harder with solid facts and a less arguable methodology behind it, especially from an organisation which is traditionally very sound on both.

Our relative wealth, and commensurate ability to break through technical barriers is rapidly overcoming the head start that certain former more authoritarian regimes had in reversing the roles of citizen and state in the last century. Indeed, amongst the new European democracies covered by the report there is are clear signs that their citizens and possibly even their governments have learned the lessons that our own masters arrogantly think do not apply to them; lessons which a distressingly large, though mercifully dwindling number of 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' sheep are too stupid to ponder even for a moment as long as it 'keeps the immigrants out'.

The report's findings on Scotland are also interesting and once again they do at least bring some structure to the general impression that they at least care about the aspects of liberty involved in many of these matters, even if in many cases their ability to act is severely constrained by the elements that are reserved to Westminster. It shouldn't be forgotten either that this sentiment is not constrained to the SNP, with the former Labour/Liberal administration already having made a number of hostile noises about the nascent Blair/Brown police state before they were turfed out office.

With all other parties north of the border united against most of Westminster's actions in these areas and the tartan wing of Labour itself hostile it does seem likely that Scotland, for the immediate future, will remain infertile ground for the growth of the NuLab surveillance society.

Perhaps in that there is some limited grounds for hope.

While I use the example I am about to quote with a due sense of dread, and understand that there are many huge differences between the cold-war era and the case in hand, some of the political calculus remains the same.

For all its greater size and supposed economic might, East Germany could never quite overcome the existence of a smaller, at least geographically speaking, more liberal state, more in tune with the instincts of its citizens, sat right on their borders, with a pretty similar culture and an even more similar language.

Many of the wonders proclaimed by the Scottish executive are, as anyone can see, as about as substantial as their own-brand mist. I do though wonder if we in England, might start to look over Hadrian's wall for an understanding of the proper role for the state and its agents, as others once looked over a newer and uglier concrete edifice once did.

Yes, I do go too far, but at least when I listen to MSPs of all parties on the box, they do still seem to understand that there is a balance to be struck, whereas this side of the border one of the major parties, sadly the the badly-governing one, seems to see it is a matter deserving only of lip service.

The Business of Government Goes On

A case for Incapacity Benefit

As appalling as it has been for the country, at least the tenure of Brown as PM has had the benefit of bringing a little unpredictability to British politics. Every time you think that the very nadir of competence and honesty has been reached, it seems that the bar can be lowered further.

Reaction to Conservative proposals on benefit reform has though been much more traditional fare where it has been scarcely worth the wear and tear on the contact lenses to read the reaction from the Government, Lib Dems and various interest groups, so predictable has it been.

As the The Guardian succinctly summarises the policy:

Controversial proposals to remove benefits for three years from people who refuse their third offer of a job are to be announced by the Conservatives tomorrow.

Source: The Guardian

I don't really think any sane person would believe that having 2.6 million on incapacity benefits at a time when, we are told we need vast swathes of immigration to fill jobs is remotely a tenable position, but this is a benefits issue, an area rarely illuminated in the glare of common sense.

It would appear that in some cases 'conservative_benefit_change_response.doc' has simply been attached to the appropriate distribution list and e-mailed without even reading the proposal, as seems to be the case with mental health charity Mind:

A spokeswoman for Mind, the mental health charity, said: "David Cameron needs to bear in mind the 40% of IB claimants who have mental health problems.

"Continuing stigma and discrimination also means many employers will not hire people with mental health problems."

Source: The Guardian

To help out what appears to be a very overworked Mind spokeswoman, I shall underline the key phrase: "refuse their third offer of a job". Listen, think, speak...it really does help.
Even the access to a large support staff is no guarantee of successful critique though, as Peter Hain demonstrates admirably in the same article:

"Their plans to interview 2.6 million people would also be prohibitively expensive."

Source: The Guardian

OK, so interviewing 2.6 million, even in the unlikely event that there isn't some simple pre-filtering that can be done on this number, with the real likelihood of making some compensating cost savings is prohibitively expensive, where as interviewing the entire adult population of the country for their ID card, for negligible gain other than in satisfaction to bureaucrat egos is not?

While we are on the subject of Hain and unhealthy orange glows, what do the Lib Dems think? Some bold blue-sky thinking coming down from their new leader? A realisation that welfare reform is possibly one area where they could be an honest broker in real change? No, they are still the party of 'real opposition', at least to anything that the government opposes:

Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman Danny Alexander said: "Once again, the Tories have missed the point about welfare reform. Millions of sick and disabled people want to work, but the government has failed to provide the tailored support they need to find a job."

Source: The Guardian

Let's be fair to Alexander, not only is he one of the more honest people in UK politics bearing his surname, but he is right to point out that the plans on a carrot side could do with a bit more fleshing out, but in general it seems that he too has missed the point that the proposal applies only to those who have rejected job offers, not those unable to get such an offer. There is still the implicit presumption against any application of the stick, anyone who listens to one end of the claimants involved in their willing acceptance of life on the taxpayers' payroll should realise that both are desperately needed.

Looking at the numbers involved and the high bar set for having benefits withdrawn it does appear to be a modest proposal. Personally I'd love to see a more ambitious target and for each and every penny saved over the basic target to fund an increase in Incapacity Benefits so those who are genuinely unable to work, for reasons physical or mental, can live the kind of dignified life that a modern society like ours should be able to offer once the abuse is stopped.

Despair and Hope

The Nightmare Returns

A while ago I celebrated the news that Celebrity Big Brother was to be axed, only for my joy to be somewhat tempered by the news that it was only to be axed for 2008.

Come 2008 and I have the same feelings in the reverse, with the news that in fact it was not axed, merely changed in format bringing the despair before the silver lining of the news that it's viewing figures have collapsed and the notable lack of interest in proceedings in the pubs of the Village.

OK, still over 3 million did watch but, just like all those lawyer jokes end and with apologies to Jackart, it's a good start.

That said, perhaps the new format, where I understand that the celebrities set tasks for the house mates, does show some promise. It could even, for the first time, make me seek celebrity.

"So...you've got the extension lead and the toaster?"

"That's good...and you are sure that everything is plugged in?"

"Yes, that is when it is all red and glowing inside."

"Now...you know how you were complaining that the water in the bath wasn't hot enough..."

This assumes of course the non-availability of an accessible gas main and hacksaw.

The best news of all is that five minutes after reading the BBC article I've already forgotten the names of all involved, so my count of known contestants remains proudly on three.

Risk Management

Like several other people I am very pleased to discover, originally via Mr Paine, the return of Theo Spark in a new blog guise. Not only is it as much of a visual delight as its predecessor, but his much hat-tipped publicising of a very funny presentation on the dangers of blogging was a valuable reminder to go and pay a long overdue visit to the TED website.

I have to admit that for me, Yossi Vardi's warnings of blogging biohazards was pipped at the post by this, from Gever Tulley, on 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do:



I just wish the live audience had been full of UK health and safety fruitcakes, so I could have enjoyed the the thuds of them hitting the floor as they collapsed and the sounds of their heads exploding.

I'm not sure about the idea of giving kids pocket knives but I know I did all of the others and, as much as it may beyond the capability of the killjoy brigade to understand, playing with fire did not make me into an arsonist, driving my dad's car a little in an empty car park didn't make me into a joy rider, and so on and so forth. As for dismantling obsolete domestic appliances, it did actually help create an interest in engineering, even if it was ultimately bacterial genomes that I learned to pull apart at university rather than old TV sets.

The only trouble we got in to from any of these activities was when my friends and I burned a dozen copies of one of our school books. In my defence, I should say this was long before I had any knowledge of the negative connotations of book burning and as an English set-book I still feel that Steinbeck's 'The Pearl' is a rare exception that more than merits such treatment.

Usually when you hear children asked why they get involved in various kinds anti-social behaviour or crime, the word 'bored' appears more often than any appeal about poverty or 'social exclusion'. If I'd grown up in the risk-averse, antiseptic kind of environment the government and a hundred and one self-important campaign groups seem to think is best world for kids I know I'd have been bloody bored too.

Cat Eats Dinner

More cash on the bonfire

In view of the couple of unpleasant real 'dog bites man' or, rather more usually 'dog bites small child', stories in recent weeks it seems inappropriate to use the usual cliché for reports such as this from the Guardian. Also, items like this crop up with greater frequency than savage attacks by dogs often of breeds wholly inappropriately kept as pets by morons.

Yes, it's another admission of the inability of the public sector's inability to implement a system any more complex than Windows Notepad (Mac users insert name of simplest OSX/Leopard accessory) without pissing a few million up the wall and then writing the system off.

The highlight is:

Joe Harley, programme and systems delivery officer at the Department for Work and Pensions, said the government's £14bn annual spend on IT could be used to build thousands of schools every year or to employ hundreds of thousands of nurses in the NHS.

"Today only 30%, we estimate, of our projects and programmes are successful," he told a conference. "It is not sustainable for us as a government to continue to spend at these levels. We need to up the quality of what we do at a reduced cost of doing so."

Source: The Guardian

Disgusted? Yes. Shocked? Still a little bit, yes. Surprised? Not in the least.

The rent-a-bullshit-excuse line will be for some unnamed civil servant to waffle on about what the measures of success were, and how not all of the under performing systems were completely canned.

As I've posted in the past, I'll be the first to admit that the private sector doesn't achieve 100% success, and when I started out in what eventually became CRM (Customer Relationship Management) around 60% of systems failed to achieve all of their objectives and most overran in terms of costs and time scales, but that was a long time ago. In the real world things have moved on massively while if, and it's a big 'if', there is progress in the right direction in terms of the commissioning of government IT systems then the term 'glacial' comes to mind.

Of the couple of dozen systems I've managed the implementation of, only two ultimately failed to meet the commonly agreed measures of success for the project, and neither overran by enough to even trouble the client's bean counters. I'm ashamed of the two that failed, even if it was largely because I was too young and green at the time to tell the sales person where he could go when he asked me to sign off on the scope document. I'm not sure that a civil servant with a pretty secure job and 'only' tax payer's money to play with would even take away that basic tough lesson from the experience.

Mr Harley is right to highlight the scale of the waste. It's not something we can simply shrug our shoulders at and assume that this level of failure is just the way it is when big business IT interacts with the public sector. More civil servants need to find a career better suited to their limited abilities. Perhaps even more importantly, some large service providers need to spend a very prolonged period on blacklists before they can once again suck at the teat of the taxpayer — I've seen how some keep the billing clock running and it would make a lawyer blush.

The overall spend on government IT will and, in many ways should, continue to grow as new opportunities arise to thereby offer better and cheaper services. It makes it all the more essential that we get these projects right.


Oh, and back to dangerous dogs...Yes I do have sympathy for those affected, but I'm not linking to the stories because I can't bear to read one more '...we never though Tyson would do a thing like that' line, no...really?

Heat, but Little Light

A Health Hazard?

I don't mind doing my bit to save the planet if, that is, it needs saving; the common sense stuff at least. I do almost exclusively use public transport, but then I live in Greater London, one of the few places in the country where this is remotely possible. I do most of the basic recycling that lies within the bounds of reason for my relatively modest consumption, albeit more from a general aversion to waste than any great belief that it is saving planet Earth from some rather nebulous potential catastrophe.

I have also replaced over time most of the high wattage bulbs in the flat with energy efficient equivalents. This has not prevented me enjoying the beginning of a skirmish between two of my more loathed self-important interest groups, the zero-risk-tolerance health lobby and the enviro-fundamentalist likes of Al Greenpeace, over the news that energy efficient bulbs may present one or more health risks, above and beyond churning mercury into the environment.

With both lobbies being granted most-favoured busybody status by the current government I suspect that health and environment ministers may find themselves firmly impaled on the horns of a dilemma. It would have been better had this happened when the incumbents of these rolls were the truly appalling Hewitt and the increasingly irritating Miliband, but you can't have everything. Better still, according to the BBC article, their own Disability Discrimination Act may come back to haunt them, as those with sensitivities to the conditions in question may be able to claim a legal right to have access to old style incandescent bulbs.

The Devil, on the same news, also points out that their room for manoeuvre is somewhat limited, as since this is an issue of petty bureaucracy and limiting choice for the consumer that the EU is supporting an outright ban anyway. I did think that it wasn't a done deal in Brussels, but I shall defer to his marginally greater loathing and much greater knowledge of what the scumbags over there are up to.

In an earlier article on other alledged health risks with the bulbs, a campaigner on behalf of those who suffer from migraine pleads:

"We would ask the government to avoid banning them completely, and still leave some opportunity for conventional bulbs to be purchased."

Source: BBC News

I fear the spokesperson's words will fall on deaf ears, for in the world of officialdom, a banning that is not complete and absolute is like having sex wearing a reusable 19th century condom. In the case of our lords and masters in Brussels an even greater climax can be obtained by combining the ban with a little bit of protectionism for European markets for the substitute product. Common sense and pragmatism are forms of wrongthink for those bureaucrats whose limited talents deny them the capability to employ either.

Even for those who can't complain about a medical condition, there remains the simple fact that for anything other than basic functional lighting that energy saving bulbs are absolutely useless. Anyone who believes otherwise has either made the fatal mistake of reading a Greenpeace press release or some manufacturers carefully worded non-claims, or in the alternative considers that a couple of bare fluorescent tubes in their kitchen/dining room constitutes 'mood lighting'.

For all the appalling devastation I may be causing I will be stockpiling, in advance of their banning, a collection of the 20-40 watt standard incandescent bulbs and even lower wattage halogen bulbs (also fundamentally incandescent technology with an uncertain future) that I actually use in very limited quantity on a day-to-day basis. Their eco-friendly cousins will serve admirably for illuminating the smallest room in the house, and for when I'm doing my rare whip round with the vacuum cleaner.

On another minor rant...Is there anybody out there who actually believes the claim that part of the extra cost of these bulbs is offset by extended lifespan? In my own case, in a modern flat with a healthy mains supply, they seem to have an attrition rate the same, if not worse, than their predecessors. I understand that this is because it is unwise for them to be switched on for less than fifteen minutes, but am unsure how I am meant to get round this problem, especially in the case of the aforementioned toilet lighting.

I can only assume that at some point our ever helpful government will spend a few million to help educate us on the answer:

"Pee slower to save the planet"

"Take a shot in the dark to save the human race" (probably coupled with a "Men - Sit down...it's now the law" reminder for obvious reasons courtesy of the leader of the Commons)

"Cross your legs, not your fingers for the future of the Earth"

Never forget, the capacity of Government for stupidity is the only truly limitless resource our planet has to offer.

New Year Irresolutions

Champagne bottles ranging in size
up to the mighty Kennedyaboam

Before I whinge, let me wish one and all a happy and prosperous New Year. Yes, slightly belated, but bugger all else happens on New Year's day so I didn't get round to a blog post either.

This is not my favourite time of year, other than its association with alcoholic excess, for a hundred and one reasons entirely unconnected with the motivations that make me spout my usual collection of poorly informed bile on this blog. These though are very personal ones going back many a year and there is still a a dormant, yet not extinct memory of writing off the dross of the year past and hoping that something good happens in the year to come.

After all, science teaches us that a violently inclined, over-excited white rhino, whose pension scheme was well and truly shafted by the last Chancellor, could spontaneously appear in the row of Commons seats immediately behind the Government front bench midday on any given Wednesday when Parliament is sitting and take its pent-up sexual frustrations on anyone who happens to be leaning over a dispatch box. It's about as likely as our current administration introducing a half decent bill in to the said chamber, true, but as long as it doesn't violate the fundamental rules we can still live in hope.

I'm the sort of person whose likely date of giving up smoking was severely retarded by Patsy Fuckwit's smoking ban, so it goes without saying that I don't really do New Year resolutions where every man, with or without a dog, can watch you fail to keep them, but I will try not to just seethe inside as much as I have done over the festive season and will get back to sharing the rage and what occasionally passes for my take on common sense, from here on in.

Slainte Mhath!

Last Orders?

First we came for the witches...

Just before Christmas, the Devil highlighted some worrying statistics concerning the health of the licenced trade in England in recent months. The Christmas period has, in a limited way, allowed me to witness this first hand in two very different parts of the country.

In the Village, the pubs and bars, with very few exceptions, were like those of a ghost town compared to years past in the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas. Usually anything bar Monday evening would see the level of custom somewhere between heavy and heaving.

It should be said that according to a contact in the pub trade that the Village is somewhat notable for strange seasonal swings in business out of line with generally accepted patterns, but the same could never be said of my old home town in the heart of the Yorkshire beer belt?

Yet here again the pattern was similar, with the rather nice pub that was my local from before legal drinking age until I started my long drift south was closed down, apparently having run into financial difficulties despite a fine location and, the last time I was there, a solid customer base. According to more expert opinion on West Yorkshire hostelries, in the form of my father, this was not an isolated problem, with his typically pessimistic prognosis being that the pub "was on its way out".

It would, of course, be easy to lay the blame directly at the door of the most significant act of national government apropos the premises in question, in the form of the smoking ban, but this, I'm sure is simplistic and, while doubtless significant, not the whole story. There are changes in lifestyle that may play a part and many may applaud, and there is the fact that visiting the pub is becoming an increasingly expensive pastime.

If there is any truth in the imminence of the £4 pint, reported widely before Christmas, due to the rise in world grain prices, the future does not exactly look rosy, especially for those without the strength that the numbers of the large chains can bring.

With the risk of sounding like Jim Hacker having watched my dad's entire boxed set of 'Yes Minister' over the last few days, the Pub is a real British institution; except, of course, to those in the government who believe that great British Institutions are things like ID cards. It does seem to be an institution though that is under some threat at the moment and as an Industry that has shown itself very capable of moving successfully with times and fashions it is hard to conclude anything other than that much of the current threat must come from some of the extraordinary external factors, most of which in some form stems from Government actions.

In this context, even a raise in excise duty in line with the RPI next time around can only be interpreted as an overtly hostile act. True, it's a racing certainty that there will be some sort of concession for the likes of the Scotch Whisky industry, considering the Prime Minister and Chancellor's personal political needs, but if anything I would have thought that the impact of a rise in the cost of raw materials would be less for such a product than in the case of a simple pint of beer.

HMCE revenue from wine, beer, cider and spirit duties is forecast to cross the £8 billion mark in 2007-08, just under 5% of HMCE revenues, even before you take into account VAT receipts. It's a healthy enough take already and it's about time the government realises that they have their knife at the throat of the golden goose.

The problem is that it is easy to present it as a 'moral' tax on health grounds, but it should be noted that the reported fall in pub trade has not been accompanied with any similar statistics on falls in the problems associated with the down side of alcohol consumption. Freed from the constraints of providing a high staffing ratio, a convivial premises or, for that matter, a quality product you can still buy loopy strength lager from the supermarket for about 70p a can, so why should there be any such change?

Incidentally if I buy a pint at Base Camp, I am guess I am paying around 46p in VAT to the Treasury, buy the cheap supermarket alternative and the figure drops to around 13p, so perhaps the puritanical element that still holds such sway over our hopeless government should not take unalloyed pleasure over the sight of the damage they have caused.

It's time to give the licensed trade a break. Even if it's beyond the wit of ministers to understand the concept that less tax doesn't always mean less revenue, surely they can find some way to make the burden fall more heavily on the sales of cheap and nasty booze that can more easily find its way into the hands of those under age to consume it, without further damaging a sector that, while not without its faults, is still fundamentally an asset to the country. This is also, to any intelligent person, not the time for the government to once again satiate it's nanny fetish with further smoking restrictions, such as exclusion zones near the pub door; were only there any signs that the current government was composed of intelligent people.

Perhaps also they may choose to reflect on the nature of those areas which will resent the loss of local pubs, and those parts of society where the pub plays has the highest significance in local social life.

Some day the time will come when those in Labour's heartland will realise that Labour only represents them to the same extent that other parties such as the Lib Dems at one extreme and, sadly, the scum of the BNP do at the other, and in terms true empathy with their day-to-day lives, the metropolitan elite that is the bedrock of the NuLab project comes a poor third.

Labour's agenda of clumsy paternalist puritanism can only hasten this time.

Christmas Wishes

Thunder Dragon very politely apologises for tagging me with the '8 Christmas Wishes' line, but he need not have done so...compared to the many less voluntary (at least in my mother's eyes) activities that accompany my annual pilgrimage back to God's own county it is an absolute pleasure to tackle this.

First though, because without it this posting would not be taking place, I must give thanks for the rise of the 'silver surfer'. True, my father cannot remember the password for his own wireless networking, but armed with an old modem cable, a Stanley knife, some Blu-Tack and a vague memory of how a network patch cable should be wired I've managed to secure a direct connection to the router.

Secondly, but chronologically only, my best wishes for the Christmas season to one and all. I'm only just over the six month mark in terms of active participation in this strange blogging world but, from that limited perspective, it's good to know that so many people actually do give a damn about some of the big issues of our time, even if many may come up with very different diagnoses from the same symptoms. Yes, on occasion some may offend from time to time, or even outrage, but better that than the idle indifference or even hopelessness that the fusion of modern politics and the modern mainstream media seems to spawn.

I might agree with the unlikelihood of some of the more political wishes expressed on other blogs coming to pass, and disagree with the desirability of others being inflicted on us all, but for all the more personal hopes and dreams, may they all (subject to any conflict of interest with those listed below) come to fruition in the coming year.

Anyway, back to the task in hand then. I'm not a complete anorak, so like anybody else I have a few hopes and dreams, one in particular, that I'm not prepared to bare my soul, or anything else, over here, so here are the top eight wishes for 2008 I can share here:

• Ken Livingstone to take up the post of Newt Keeper at Caracas Zoo at the personal invitation of fellow crackpot Chavez, as Mayor Johnson orders a job lot of P45 forms from HMCE for his predecessor's trough swillers.


• To borrow one of the several I could have done from TD: For the premises already leased to be used as ID card interrogation centres to be redeployed as low cost office space for innovative start-up enterprises following the scrapping of the scheme by Gordon Brown's third Home Secretary.


• England to take a Six Nations Grand Slam, or at least the title while Saracens win some their first silverware in a decade, or at least get to a final.


• The media, even the 'serious' media, to get the likes of the Beckhams, Winehouses, and without wishing to sound callous Princess Diana and Madeleine, into some sort of perspective.


• Gordon Brown to flip in public, so that even those that would like to see the continuation of a Labour government realise what a potential menace he is.


• For all the trouble spots of the world, but perhaps especially Zimbabwe, Iran and Pakistan, which if they dealt with their respective political problems could very quickly become valued members of the world community, at least some glimmer of hope next year, and for Russia not to have joined my personal list of deeply worrying countries in twelve months time.


• Lib Dem activists to realise that the generation of Conservatives with whom they could not do business are a dying breed, and their alternative in 2008 or 2009 may be to prop up an astonishingly illiberal government for outdated tribal reasons.


• That those who are having a much less comfortable Christmas than most of us serving in the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan understand that for all the fair words and foul deeds of those in power that they have the best wishes of the overwhelming majority of the country behind them.

It's just ticked over midnight as I post this, so I guess it's a bit late to tag anybody. Best wishes to one and all, I'm heading downstairs to raid the wine rack.

Christmas Wishes

In the true spirit of Xmas, some bloggers are turning their mind to what kind of festive gift they would offer their best beloved politicians. I can't really outdo some of the thoughtful gifts that have been suggested for these well-loved (swap 'well' with 'self' and it starts to sound honest) characters.

Throw in an afternoon of Xmas shopping in Dante's twentieth level of hell (Kingston-upon-Thames) and my cup of human kindness runnethed under so badly I began to wonder what they themselves would be asking for:

Dear Santa,

My name is Gordon and everyone tells me that I am a good boy, apart from nasty people who are fibbing, and not doing proper fibs like what I do.

I don't want much this Xmas because I got a good present already this year, but my friends are cross with me 'cos I broke it. I was trying to look after it, honest, even my best friend (Ballsey, not the pretend one) says so.

I would like something called a 'spine' though. Everyone says the head boy at school before me had one, but he wouldn't let me borrow it. Lots of people got cross because he had one, even his mates, but it made him look cool. Can I have one too, pleasssssssse!

I'd like a new woolly jumper too, or if I can't have that I'd like some good policies. Whenever I have to play top-trumps with that rotter Cameron at break on Wednesdays he always wins even though he doesn't have many policy things, but his are OK and mine are rubbish cause I don't have enough time to write them out before they go wrong. Even when I borrow his cards I get into trouble for not writing him a "thank-you" letter!!!! He is nasty to me, Santa, even nastier than my friends even if they only pretend to be nice even though some of them say there should even be another head boy!!!

If I can't have some of my own or some of Cameron's can I have some of the orange gang's? (shhh Santa...don't call them that or some of them get cross)...They have loads!!!!! Like if they play against snotty Murdoch in the lower school they have one lot, and then they hide those and use other one's when play against Toynbee junior...that is cheating Santa...you should not give them presents at all!

Finally, can I have some 'charisma', I think it's like some kind of after-shave or something. I don't think that bully-boy Cameron or crappy Cleggy even shave (he is sooooooooo cross because his mate Huhne does and they almost made him house captain as well!!) so why can't I have some!!! It's not fair!

Thank you Santa,



Gordon
xxxxxx


PS Cough up you beardie fucker or I will tax the hooves off those bloody reindeer of yours, bang you up until the middle of January for your illegal Al-Queda inspired overflights of the UK, and wait until headmaster Barosso finds out that you do different stuff in different countries!!!!!!! He'll make you write out 67 squillion lines in Latin, or French or whatever it is, and even getting smelly Miliband to do it for you doesn't get you out of it.

Play ball, and I'll send you some new elves for your sweatshop to help you because they are not fagging for me properly. Give me my presents and you can have Miliband, Smith, Harman, that little Scottish lass and the bloke with weird eyebrows that always is creeping around me just because he grew up in the same village as me and her. Deal?

Measures of Success?

Measuring Achievement?

It's been a bit hard to blog anything for the last few days as my heart's really not been in it, or anything else for that matter. The rip roaring excitement of the Lib Dem leadership election wasn't quite enough to snap me out of it, actually as it happened that particular bit of breaking news wasn't even enough to snap me out of a very light post-luncheon snooze this afternoon.

Luckily for me, though probably not for future generations of school children, some later news on the government's highly suspect plans for 'Advanced Diplomas' has at least partially roused me from my slumber.

According to a BBC report, the University Admissions service, UCAS, has decided that the proposed new diplomas should be worth more than three 'A' levels on their points system. Fortunately, the BBC manages to summarise the salient bit of information in just one line in one of its information boxes:

Advanced - takes broadly the same time to do as three A-levels, worth 3.5 A-levels

Source: BBC News

Where the article is a little light though is on where this 17% increase in pupils natural ability and effort or teaching efficiency is going to come from, however I can already envisage the government of whatever political colour it may be at the time, crowing over such a radical success, however illusory it may actually be.

I'm not sure what the nature of UCAS is, whether for example it falls under the somewhat overused term of 'quango', but to an extent it hardly matters. It must deal with primarily with public institutions and examination systems whose basic structure is dictated by the government and will know that any suggestion of anything other than continuing success, at least as far as statistics are concerned, will simply not be tolerated.

Already, as the BBC report reminds us, only four in 10 university admissions officers in a survey stated that the Diploma would be a "good alternative" to A-levels and the Russell Group of leading universities has expressed qualms over the scheme. Little good though will it do either group, so addicted now have successive education secretaries become to suspect statistics over the real world experiences of the likes of the universities and employers.

Sadly I suspect that when the scheme extends to more traditional academic areas, limiting choices to broad brush stroke subjects such as 'Humanities', 'Science' and so forth, the voices of the achievement hating 'anti-elitists' will further entrench the worrying drift of the upper end of the secondary education system towards the type of model inflicted on the same pupils earlier in their school career.

December Fool

Ambulance attends scene of
LEGO drive-by shooting

No, not Brown. For once.

Sometimes you see a story and seriously wonder if you have done a Rip van Winkle after a few too many pints of the black stuff and have woken up on April 1st.

This tale from Sky News is a typical example. Mercifully it now seems to be filed under their 'Strange Stories' category rather than in the main news section where I first read it this morning. It concerns a book entitled 'Forbidden LEGO' and, shock horror, it contains details of how to build a LEGO gun capable of firing, erm, LEGO bricks, worse still for some it looks set to become a best seller.

The response from the unnamed, but I suspect familiar quarters, is all too familiar:

But in Britain, there has been concern about the effect the book may have on children.

Source: Sky News

At least Sky have not had the sense of humour failure that those who are 'concerned' have had, as I'm sure their reporting of a commenter worrying that it was a slippery slope leading to the first LEGO nuclear weapon was as tongue-in-cheek as the comment.

From the video clip at sky the gun looks great fun and I'm sure the 'candy catapult' and 'continuous fire ping-pong ball launcher' the book promises are great too.

Without a doubt the most inspired bit of teaching I ever saw in my time at the local comprehensive was a series of lessons in Craft, Design and Technology, one of the few completely mixed ability lessons I did. In the spirit of 'Scrapheap Challenge' and 'The Great Egg Race' teams of two were given 4 lessons to build a machine to propel a ping-pong ball as far as possible, using all the offcuts of wood and metal we could scavenge and with all the tools and resources of the CDT department at our disposal, before the grand test session out on sports pitches.

For once, the whole class was keen to participate and took every detail seriously. I was seriously annoyed that by beautiful but complex mangonel type contraption came second to a machine that consisted of little more than a few strips of springy plywood laminated together. Even in that though there was a genuine lesson in design.

I only did CDT for the couple of years before selecting 'O' level options, but I do remember several people actually discovering that there was at least one subject at school that they actually enjoyed and thought was worth working at.

I'm pretty sure that if it had not involved the firing of projectiles or something equally non-politically correct, like a powered vehicle, the whole exercise would not have gone down quite so well. In a similar way, pre-Xmas chemistry lessons that produced bangs and flashes got everyone's attention without anyone going to suggest terrorism as a choice to a careers advisor.

As for the LEGO book, I shall admit that I succumbed to the temptation of a grown-up Meccano set a few years ago. I fear that once again I may have to nip out to buy a Xmas present for my fictitious nephew.

Caption Competitions

It is, of course, impossible to compete with Mr Fawkes' incomparable Friday caption competition, but this photograph, which I won't risk the wrath of copyrightwallahs by reproducing here, from the Telegraph's story on Brown's tardy appearance in Lisbon today amused me even more than the pathetic sight of Brown being led through the empty room where lunch was being cleared away.

I'm a bit torn over a caption between "Miliband sends tailor's dummy to Lisbon to avoid embarrassment in 2009 leadership bid" and "Sim José! it's true, Sr. Brown has installed an emergency off switch, watch this..."

It was nice to see Sarkozy break precedent and speak a few words in English to the press too today, especially when you could see the amusing insincerity in his "We need Gordon". It was far more likeable than the Cheshire Cat grin of Barroso at seeing the plan of Ms Wallström and himself, one of the of Deception, Demagoguery and Democracy Deletion come to fruition.

Life Out of Office

With Blair making notably little progress in his chosen post Prime Ministerial career relating to the Middle East, it seems that reporters are starting to turn their mind to what he is actually up to at the moment. It appears that the Guardian has found part of the answer in a piece entitled "Blair lands role in Bush's doggie video". Please note that it is "doggie", not the more familiar Blair adjective of "dodgy", nor does it relate to anything remotely pornographic.

The full version of the edited down video from the Guardian is presented in all its appalling splendour below. Be warned though, you will soon want to fast-forward to around 5 minutes and 10 seconds to see that unlike in America where a B-list actor can become a great president, it seems that here in the UK a reverse process applies to mediocre Prime Ministers.



For those that cannot stomach even a short cameo by Blair, here is his part of the script:

FORMER PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR: Congratulations Barney and Miss Beazley on becoming Junior Park Rangers. Well done.

As someone born in Edinburgh, Scotland, it's always good to see the Scots doing well.

Source: whitehouse.gov

For the uninitiated 'Barney' and 'Miss Beazley' are the Bush's two Aberdeen Terriers. It's noticeable that he finds it easier to congratulate dog's of distant Scottish heritage on fictional appointments than certain Scots to real jobs.

Then again, as ever, Blair speaks carefully in saying "it's always good to see the Scots doing well", as until Brown does something well, a somewhat distant prospect, he clearly feels little need to offer the same fulsome congratulations to his former chancellor.