DUFF & NONSENSE!

Old Duff's Almanack 2011

Trouble!

More trouble!

Even more trouble!

Double trouble!

Trouble in the rubble!

But inbetween, an occasional smile, perhaps a giggle or three and even one or two bellows of laughter.

In other words, same old same old.

However, let me wish all of you the very best for 2011.

In which I express all of my sympathy to the Aussie cricket team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Heh-heh-heh!)

 

Krugman writes krap - again!

Yeah, yeah, I know, I promised to give up this 'kkk krap' when my old e-pal Oliver Kamm disappeared into Rupe's seraglio which demands payment before entry.  I meant to keep my promise, really I did, but then I stepped into some Krugman and all my good intentions went the way my New Year resolutions are likely to go. 

Krugman has spotted that commodity prices are up, up and away and insists that:

commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices.

Naturally, for a man of Krugman's inclinations the answer is simple:

It will require that we gradually change the way we live, adapting our economy and our lifestyles to the reality of more expensive resources.

Ah yes, and how will we achieve this change to the way we live?  He doesn't say but one has a distinct feeling that in Mr. Krugman's mind it involves some sort of global government to ensure that we all share the miseries of dwindling raw materials equally.  Thank God  this nonsense has been hit with a counter-blast of common-sense based on historical experience from Donald J. Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek in which he reminds Krugman to heed the memory of the late Julian Simon and his famous bet with another arch-alarmist, Paul Ehrlich.  I haven't the time to paraphrase Boudreaux's letter to the NYT, so here it is in full:

Paul Krugman argues that economic growth in “China and other emerging economies” will cause real commodity prices to trend upward from here on in (“The Finite World,” Dec. 27).

It’s not true that vigorous economic growth necessarily makes resources more scarce.  In fact, history shows that, because of human ingenuity, the opposite is not only possible but prevalent.

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution in the mid-18th century, available supplies of coal, petroleum, iron ore, and most other resources have increased significantly – and, as a result, their real prices have fallen.  These rising resource supplies and falling prices occurred during a time when human population increased by a factor of ten – from 700 million to nearly 7 billion today, at least 4 billion of whom are now part of industrial economies.  So the increase in the number of persons integrated into industrial economies over the past two-plus centuries – from near-zero persons 260 years ago to at least 4 billion persons today – is far larger than is the number of Chinese, Indians, and other peoples now being integrated into industrial economies.

If economic growth since the industrial revolution coincided with increasing resource supplies, why should we expect that continued economic growth will suddenly start to have the opposite, dreary effects predicted by Mr. Krugman?

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

 

Joke of the Year!

I am, as several of my unfortunate e-pals will testify, one of those irritating people who pass on what I call, in an excess of good humour over accuracy, 'funnies'.  So far I have resisted the temptation to reproduce any of them on these distinguished columns but as this is the festive season I have made an exception with this one which nearly caused me to fall off my chair laughing:

In deference to The Archbishop of Canterbury and The Royal Commission for Political Correctness, it was announced today that the local climate in the UK should no longer be referred to as ....''English Weather".

Rather than offend a sizeable portion of the population it will now be referred to as 'Muslim Weather.'

In other words - 'partly Sunni, but mostly Shi'ite!

Well, it made me laugh.  Feel free to pass it on.

 

Agit-prop 101

Lesson 1 for Lefties: If you lack a 'victim' then invent one!

 Well, it didn't take them long to latch on to little, cherubic-faced Bradley Manning,

the soldier accused of leaking classified American documents to WikiLeaks.  His defence lawyer, quick to realise the importance of changing the public mood towards his client, looked around for a really useful idiot on the Left and settled on Glenn Greenwald, than whom, etc, etc.  The lawyer whispered in Greenwald's ear describing the 'cruel and unusual' conditions of Manning's incarceration in a military prison as he awaits trial.  Greenwald could hardly type the words fast enough for Salon.com, and a wail of protest has now arisen in Leftie circles who have at last found a victim worthy of their noble attention.

Of course, nowhere in Greenwald's breast-beating, tear-inducing, wail of pity for Manning's plight was there a mention of a very simple and effective course of corrective action, if in fact a correction was needed.  For that, I had to await a piece by Jed Babbin in The American Spectator.  He points out that if Manning's lawyer thought there was a real abuse of his client, all he had to do was lodge a complaint to the Inspector General of the Marines.  As Babbin, a former Deputy Under Secretary for Defence, tells us:

The IG is entirely independent by law. Commanders and civilian military chiefs cannot overrule his decisions to investigate, and it can have access to classified material at the highest levels. The IG can get access to the prisoner, get psychiatric experts to examine Manning, and interrogate any and all who are in charge of his imprisonment.

So the remedy, if you really do care about Manning's well-being and treatment in prison, is quite simple and Babbin, in a BBC debate with Greenwald, challenged him, personally, to make such a complaint.  So far, none has been made, possibly because, as Babbin points out, there might be implications for the accuser:

In the BBC debate, I asked Greenwald why there is no IG complaint, and he had no answer. I challenged him to make the complaint himself, which he could do if he has a legitimate reason to make the accusation. We shall see if he does. He probably won't, because of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001. Under that law, knowingly making a false accusation to a federal law enforcement agency is a federal crime. I'm betting neither Greenwald nor any of the others involved will make that complaint. (My emphasis)

I'm betting the same way because, of course, none of the Lefties involved are the slightest bit interested in little Bradley Manning, all they want is a victim with which to beat up the country they detest more strongly than any other - their own!

 

The way we were

What a coincidence!  Only the other day I was writing about coincidence and guess what?  Another one has just turned up. What a coincidence of coincidences! (That's enough 'coincidences', get on with it - Ed.) Right, well, it was a dark Christmas Eve night and the bloody snow lay all around, deep and thick and even and I was - and please, ladies, do not become over-excited at this - disrobing (well, struggling to get my Long Johns off, actually) prior to going to bed when I decided to check my e-mail and, lo, there was one from my very good e-friend, Sister Wolf, who is always such a tonic I that I really do think she should be available on the NHS.  (Today, she has a piece on 'Vulva Diversity', an indispensible subject, as I'm sure you will agree, but one not to be faced until after dinner and a couple of large scotches!)  Where was I?  Oh yes, my e-mail from 'Sis' which contained one of those YouTube Film-thingies (sorry for the tech-speak but do try to keep up!) which was a film of Britain in the Christmas of 1941 made by the old GPO Film Unit but narrated by an American news correspondent.  It is quite short but intensely moving.  Yes, yes, of course, weakness and bad behaviour did not suddenly stop during the blitz, but it was far outweighed by the guts and determination of a civilian population of all ages and all sexes, and from the young to the elderly, suddenly engulfed in a maelstrom of fire and death and destruction.  This was, indeed, their finest hour.

Ever since I saw it I was determined to link to it on my blog but I have never quite mastered the knack - well, I have higher things on my mind, like providing you with a steady supply of the beautifully polished gems of rational thinking I produce - of linking to these film-thingies but fortunately 'Sis' provided such a link and I can only hope that it works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGK5EsGzKIg

What about the coincidence, you all ask with but a single voice?  Well, 'you could blow me down with a feather' (a common saying of the 1940s which I include in order to put you in the right nostalgic mood) but today I was checking back on recent posts at The Coffee House and came across this one by Fraser Nelson on the subject of this very film which, strange to relate, appears to have been 'tweetered' around the world at high speed.  Nelson points up some typically stupid remarks by David Walker, partner to Polly Toynbee (so how stupid does that make him?), which I can't even be bothered to reproduce here, but most important Nelson has the film itself on his post so if my link fails, try there.  It really is worth seeing the way we were -I was about two and a half at the time and luckily I had been evacuated from London to a super family near Guildford.  Looking at that film and catching sight of odd landmarks in London which I have walked past fairly often, and seeing them then, leaves me shaking my head in wonderment - it really was a different world.

 

Let's get warm by setting fire to the Met Office!

In Britain's long and glorious history of really well-thought-out and deliberate cock-ups, has there ever been a bigger waste of space and oxygen than that devoured by the Met Office and its compliment of eye-ball-swivelling HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics).  It must be clear even to those who desperately do not wish to see that this entire anthropological global warming frenzy is the equivialent of one of those weird sects which arise from time to time in places like Arkansas, ooops, sorry, Mississippi and it can only be a matter of time, as we slowly but surely freeze over, that they will all depart for some South American jungle and commit mass suicide.  "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished"!  Then, at last, we in Britian can rush off, well, skate or ski slowly, to the Met Office and enjoy a bonanza bonfire party as we burn the whole wretched edifice, a monument to grandiloquent stupidity, to the ground.

I need hardly remind my fellow, shivering Brits that this is the third freezing winter in succession and, moreover, it is likely to be the coldest December since records began back in 1659.  All of this comes against a background whine from the Met Office High Priests typified by a statement last summer repeating the old mantra that the chances of our enduring a third cold winter in a row was exactly the same as it had been three years ago, 20 to 1 against.  As Richard North points out:

the odds against a third such "random event" were not 20 to one but 20 x 20 x 20, or 8,000 to one.

Richard North reminds us that recent long-range weather forecasts have not just been slightly wrong but more or less 180 degrees wrong and such was even their embarrassment that they have now ceased to provide such forecasts.  Thus, they claimed not to have issued any forecast for this winter, however they failed to take into account the eagle-eyed Met Office watchers:

Immediately, however, several blogs, led by Autonomous Mind, produced evidence from the Met Office website that in October it did indeed publish a forecast for December, January and February. This indicated that they would be significantly warmer than last year, and that there was only "a very much smaller chance of average or below average temperatures". So the Met Office has not only been caught out yet again getting it horribly wrong (always in the same direction), it was even prepared to deny it had said such a thing at all.

As a graduate of the 'Hitler-Stalin School of Management' I do feel very strongly that someone is to blame and that a jolly good bonfire like that produced by the Met Office going up in flames should not be wasted.  At this point I rely upon one of the chief Met Office watchers, Christopher Booker, who points the finger at some cove called John Houghton:

The real question, however, is why has the Met Office become so astonishingly bad at doing the job for which it is paid nearly £200 million a year – in a way which has become so stupendously damaging to our country?

The answer is that in the past 20 years, as can be seen from its website, the Met Office has been hijacked from its proper role to become wholly subservient to its obsession with global warming. (At one time it even changed its name to the Met Office “for Weather and Climate Change”.) This all began when its then-director John Houghton became one of the world’s most influential promoters of the warmist gospel. He, more than anyone else, was responsible for setting up the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and remained at the top of it for 13 years. It was he who, in 1990, launched the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change, closely linked to the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia (CRU), at the centre of last year’s Climategate row, which showed how the little group of scientists at the heart of the IPCC had been prepared to bend their data and to suppress any dissent from warming orthodoxy.

According to Booker, the technical reason why the Met Office is perpetually wrong is an example of that great IT truth, "crap in, crap out": 

The reason why the Met Office gets its forecasts so hopelessly wrong is that they are based on those same computer models on which the IPCC itself relies to predict the world’s climate in 100 years time. They are programmed on the assumption that, as CO2 rises, so temperatures must inexorably follow. For 17 years this seemed plausible, because the world did appear to be getting warmer. We all became familiar with those warmer winters and earlier springs, which the warmists were quick to exploit to promote their message – as when Dr David Viner of the CRU famously predicted to The Independent in 2000 that “within a few years winter snowfall will be a very rare and exciting event”. (Last week, that article from 10 years ago was the most viewed item on The Independent’s website.)

But in 2007, the computer models got caught out, failing to predict a temporary plunge in global temperatures of 0.7C, more than the net warming of the 20th century. Much of the northern hemisphere suffered what was called in North America “the winter from hell”. Even though temperatures did rise again, in the winter of 2008/9 this happened again, only worse.

In the meantime, of course, our future plans for energy supplies and infrastructure are in the hands of the deceitful Mr. Chris Huhne, the famous lesbian-straightener.  This man has swallowed the HAF religion whole and is determined to plaster the country with windmills which, I would remind you, is an energy source whose product is only available because of skip-loads of dosh from tax-payers, or you and me, as I like to think of it.  As I write, the total energy produced by these windmills in the last 24 hours was precisely 1.2% of what was required.  In order to produce enough by this means it would be necessary to move the people out and cover the entire land in these ghastly, ugly, noisy machines which, I remind you, only operate when the wind is just right, not too much and not too little.  Courtesy of Richard North I give you the very excellent 'NETA Electricity Summary Site'.

Alright, alright, I hear you, loud and clear, and, well, if you insist, I agree, let's throw Houghton and Huhne on the fire, after all it is the 'Will of the People'!

 

I bring you tidings of comfort and joy . . .

. . . Australia all out for 98 . . . (YEEES!) . . . and England 157 for no wickets!  In line with our strictly neutral approach to news and, of course, our innate good manners this blog will refrain from remarks aimed at our Australian 'cousins' like, 'why not try American rounders?' or 'good job you hand-picked a pitch favouring the home side' or 'the only ashes you're likely to see are the ashes of Ricky Ponting's career', and similar jibes and jests which are entirely against the spirit of the game.  Also it should be stated clearly, lest past remarks by this blog are taken out of context and twisted against us, that we here at D&N never doubted for a moment that our brave South African English lads would come good and that the description of them as 'a bunch of tossers' was a reference to an obscure cricketing term.

Now, is there any champagne left over from yesterday  . . . ?

 

A book that almost left me weeping

I must have read hundreds of books in my life, most of them 'pulp fiction' and instantly forgettable, a few of them serious academic works in various disciplines.  Some have excited me, some have filled me with wonder, most have just amused.  But today I have just finished a work of fiction that left me blinking furiously in an effort to hold back my tears.  It is a book the like of which I have never read before.  I will never forget it.

I have admired the writer before on this blog because he wrote the book upon which the superb film No Country For Old Men was based - his name is Cormac McCarthy.  In 2006 he wrote this book called The Road.  My wife asked me what it was about, what genre, and I could not answer.  It is, I suppose an apocalyptic vision.  A man and a boy, his son, wandering in a devastated landscape.  It is like a cross between Lear's wild, wind-swept and tormented heath, and the emptiness of Vladimir's and Estragon's universe as they wait for Godot.  It is an appalling vision, cruel and harsh and meaningless and yet . . . and yet . . . perhaps, just perhaps, there is within it a tiny gleam of hope.

I understand a film version has been made but I will delay before watching it because somehow I just cannnot believe a film can reflect the tension of McCarthy's spare, bare narrative style - the very essence of that old phrase, 'less is best'.  I even forgive him his little affectation of refusing to use inverted commas.  Regular readers will know that I am not by nature one of life's sentimental sillies but this book has moved me profoundly.  If you have not read it, I urge you to do so.

Finally, and in a different and rather more cheerful vein, I would like to wish all my readers, and especially my regular commenters, a contented Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

 

Anyone know the Spanish for 'sucker'?

As my regular readers know, the highest accolade I can bestow on any news item is my WDP (Whinny of Delicious Pleasure), and this one has me screwing up my eyes with ecstasy as I whinny away - hya-hya-hya!  The WSJ reports:

The Spanish government is expected to adopt a proposal in the next few days that will cut solar-PV subsidies by as much as 30%—including for existing power plants, according to industry officials. [...]

Spain is one of a number of cash-strapped European countries that have been forced to review their generous system of subsidies for renewable energy, in order to lower electricity bills for consumers struggling under austerity measures and public spending cuts.

The 'los suckeros' (I believe that's the Spanish for 'suckers', if not, it should be!) are weeping buckets:

"If they proceed on this path, they'll endanger not only our investment, but the whole sector," said Mr. Murley, who represents a group of 20 pension-fund managers and strategic investors in the Spanish solar-photovoltaic, or PV, industry.

Oh, Mr. Murley, I do feel your pain, really I do, but may I ask, in the nicest possible way, what a senior and strategic, no less, investment analyst like yourself is doing entrusting your clients' money on the word of a government?  Hello! . . . hello! . . . Mr. Murley! . . . are you reading this? . . . governments are made up of politicians and all politicians are lying liars by definition, remember?!  Yes, of course you remember, it's just that you thought that with all those global warming alarums you were onto a right little earner with your so-called carbon-free devices which cannot produce an iota of energy without some whopping big back-handers from the government and all the poor sods who are taxed by that government.  Well, you never really believed all that crap about global warming, did you?  I hope not because if you did you're a bigger fat-head than you already appear to be.

Oh dear!  My whinny has suddenly been cut short!  Well, being a bigoted old Brit, I always enjoy a good laugh at foreigners' expense but I have suddenly remembered that our government, led by that incredible cure for lesbianism, Chris 'the Humper' Huhne, has talked Dave 'Wind Turbine' Cameron into handing out 'loadsa' money to people like, er, Mr. Murley.  Bugger!

 

Europeans learn how to kowtow

Two minor pieces of news in the last few days indicate how the geo-political, tectonic plates are shifting eastwards.  First, there was the meeting in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, formerly the residence of Madame Mao, between the 'Grand Panjandrums' of the Chinese National Socialist 'Communist' Party and a bunch of Eurocratic Commissars.  The latter have been practicing their kowtows like mad prior to this visit because, according to Patience Wheatcroft in the WSJ, they were desperate to get China to underwrite forthcoming European bond sales:

As much of Europe continues to struggle with its mountainous debts, China has let it be known that it will be prepared to help out by buying bonds from stricken Greece and Portugal but part of the price will be enduring lectures from the new paymasters.

Nothing very definite seems to have been announced, the Chinese giving nothing away other than a lesson in inscrutability!

The other, and more ominous, news was that China has decided to build its first aircraft carrier.  I emphasise 'first' because as sure as winter follows summer they will build more and then trouble can be expected.  The whole point of aircraft carriers is that they are a means by which a nation can project its military power.  In other words, they are aggressive, not defensive.  There is no need, per se, for us all to turn to jelly at the prospect of China flexing its military muscles, all great powers do it, but it will need very careful and subtle handling by the only other great power in the world - the USA.  In writing that, of course, I assume (hope?) that Obama will be out in 2012 and that the USA can return to its full strength and potential.  Should it fail and instead continue with this recent period of steady decline "sans teeth, sans eyes ... sans everything" then the world will enter an exceedingly dangerous age.  All those 'useless idiots' who screamed their anti-Americanism will have what they wished for - and they're welcome to it!

'Free' libraries cost a fortune!

One of the 'avante guarde' of the mob who rushed the defences of D&N the other week in outrage at my mild remarks concerning little Alfie 'Whateverhisnamewas', the recipient of a well-aimed (and deserved) smack from a police baton, is a young lady blogger whose blog is called 'vickim57' and whom I shall henceforth refer to as 'Victoria', being a guess at her true name and guided by my dislike of diminutives.  Victoria is a dedicated 'Barnetonian' (I think that's the generic title for those unfortunate enough to live in the London suburb of Barnet.)  However, her love of all things 'Barnetonian' very definitely excludes anyone and anything which is unrelated to the Labour party which, I am led to believe, puts her in a minority because Barnet has a Tory administration.  Anyway, all of that is by the by, what I wish to bore on about today is a subject which was raised at her blog in a post entitled "Save Barnet's Libraries". 

According to Victoria (what a lovely name that is, so redolent of times past), Barnet's libraries need to be saved and I was provoked to ask a simple question - why?  Now I confess that I do not have any detailed knowledge on the economics of libraries but I would bet the deeds of my house on the fact that they cost a fortune and, these days, only serve a tiny minority of any population.  Today, we have the internet and internet cafes.  I need hardly tell you, dear reader, that the www possesses, at a guess, something like 95% of the sum of all human knowledge.  Of course, it might be argued that some people still remain ignorant of how to access the web but my reply would be to ask why I, as a tax-payer, should support a minority in their ignorance?  If they want to know something that badly let them learn!  It might also be argued that the vast majority of all books circulating in and out of libraries are works of fiction not available on the net.  This is true but they are very available, to quote an old expression, 'at a good bookshop near you'.  Again, library defenders will complain that books from a bookshop must be purchased to which I would respond that books, and the numerous special offers that accompany them, have never been cheaper.  There is also available in every High Street in the land several charity shops all of which boast groaning shelves filled with second-hand books for sale at incredibly cheap prices.  Just yesterday I picked up a Cormac McCarthy and a Jeffery Deaver for a £1 each!  My opponents in Victoria's thread suggested that book sharing is cheaper than buying and I agree which is why my friends and I always pass round amongst ourselves anything we have picked up which others might enjoy.

Others complained that only libraries could stock specialist books required by a tiny number of students specialising in particular subjects.  My reply to that is that if they are students their universities should stock the books in their own libraries, and if not, the ever-ready Abebooks.com has access to most book-sellers in the English-speaking world and copies of almost anything can be obtained from them, even out-of-print books.

So I repeat my call for the severe cut back of district libraries and, if we must have them, let it be just a core of them situated in the main County Towns or Cities and stocking only specialist or out-of-print books and not current fiction.  Then my council can cut back on my ludicrously huge Council Tax!

 

 

This blog has now dug itself out of the snow and re-opened for business!

Sorry, sorry, sorry, for the long absence, although perhaps it's been a relief for you!  I have been otherwise occupied.  First there was the irritation of digging (oh alright then, brushing) the snow away only for another dollop to descend.  I think we have had at least 5" - what was that? - now look here, all you Jocks, and Scandinavians, and Canucks, and (with one adorable exception) Alaskans, can just stop giggling and sniggering now!  5" of snow might be un-noticable to you but to a southern softie like me it transports every minor shopping expedition into the equivalent of Scott's expedition to the South Pole - and we all know how that ended up  - another glorious British failure!  And that's just getting to the shops, once you there its like being in the front row of a rugby maul at Twickenham - you can have no idea of how vicious old ladies can be with supermarket trolleys.  On top of all that we had a visit from 'SoD', plus friends for lunch, so, of course, Christmas decorations had to be found (and repaired!) and then displayed, all of which set off a barage of criticism from the 'Memsahib' and required a stream of minute adjustments until she was satishied.

Finally, I must confess to what we used to call in the army, a self-inflicted wound.  Well, not exactly a wound, in this case, more of a folly.  I have taken up swimming!  Throughout my life I have been prone to fits and starts of fitness training.  At one time it entailed what the army used to call 'a road walk and run'.  We used to do lots of those because army imagination was severely limited and anyway no one knew much about games and a road walk and run was easy to organise on so-called 'sports afternoons'.  Anyway, this habit stuck with me into middle-age until one day when I staggered home and decided that it all hurt far too much, so I stopped.  Later, I tried going to the gym and I must say I was astounded at the difference in available equipment which provided at least two dozen different methods of utterly knackering yourself.  Having a pain threshold set firmly in the minus scale I decided, after a while, that it, too, hurt far too much so I gave that up, as well.  Anyway, a month ago, conscious of the fact that my in-built lethargy was approaching that of those enormous 'fat-knackers' you read about in the papers who have to be lifted in and out of bed with a crane, I decided to try our local swimming pool.  It is simply wonderful!  Six mornings a week I leap stumble out of bed at teh hitherto unearthly hour of 7.00/7.30 am, quick shave and down to the Sports Centre and into the pool.  I do a few very fast gentle, not to say, genteel, lengths and then I tuck myself into a corner of the pool and do some exercises in the water.  When I'm puffed out (after about 2.38 mins) I do a few more gentle swimming, hop out and under the hot shower, change and go home - where I would, if left to my own devices, take to my bed for the rest of the morning but of course, I am very definitely not left to my own devices so I don't can't.  Anyway, I now sleep like a baby at nights but, best of all, even in this cold weather I now warm myself on the glow of self-achievement.  I bore all my friends with telling of my exploits - and now I am boring you, too.  Still, there's nothing like holier than thou sanctimony.

I shall reply to various comments later on.

 

Aussies thrash England by 267 runs

This blog has now suffered a complete nervous collapse requiring bed rest and a constant intake of fluids beginning with tea but ending with Scottish 'water'.  According to the experts, the English batsmen are incapapble of batting on anything that fails to resemble a billiards table.  The word is that the Aussies are planning on moving the wicket at the next ground to an area that has not been so well prepared allowing the ball to bounce around as though it were on a trampoline.  This is precisely the sort of dastardly, under-handed trickery we have come to expect from those ex-convicts.  Choosing a wicket to suit your own home team is frightfully un-English and rumours to the effect that we use pile-drivers to flatten our pitches is simply scurrilous gossip put about by Aussie malcontents.  I understand Ponting has broken his finger, pity it wasn't his arm!  Bad loser?  Moi?

(More tea, nursy, quick!)

Time to choose

The Europeans rush hither and thither with titchy little fire-extinguishers whilst the mighty Euro blazes away like a Californian forest fire.  There can only be one of two mutually exclusive outcomes; either the break-up of the Euro currency group, or, an even closer political and financial union leading to a true United States of Europe.  Either of these results have the latent capacity to wreak havoc on this country unless we analyse very critically and then take a reasoned and intelligent decision based on a careful weighing of national interest above party and electoral interests.  And at this point, of course, we turn to 'Call me Dave' and the 'Not-the-Tory party' party.  (Oh no, God help us all!)  The problem is immediate and obvious because we all know now that the sole interest of concern to "the heir to Blair" is, like the hero he seeks to emulate, his chances of getting back into No. 10 at the next election; everything else is simply weighed in the balance and either placed in the 'Helpful' or Unhelpful' side of his personal equation.

However, none of that stops us, or me, at any rate, from a consideration of possibilities.  I admit from the outset that part of my motivation is somewhat irrational in that it stems from my view of our past in which the independent Kingdom of England, with or without its Celtic fringe, has done reasonably well over the centuries.  At the most fundamental level geo-politics rule and the fact that we are an island is crucial even in this global age.  It places us in the continent of Europe but not necessarilly of Europe.  An air of detachment, which is a constant source of irritation to our neighbours 'just over there', is part and parcel of our geo-politics.

I think that this 'detachment' should now be made more real than apparent by our withdrawal from all European Union structures.  This should be done in as amicable a way as possible because, of course, we would wish, and need, to trade with our neighbours.  Fears that they might spite us in trade terms for our impudence in leaving can be discounted, they need our trade as much as we need theirs.  Nor should we fear that they will detest us for our independence because - they already do detest us for reasons good and bad! 

I would like to see us develop a society and a situation not unlike Singapore, another Island beset with neighbours who do not love it.  However, for us to become a vigorous, self-confident entity like them will require some major changes in our society.  For a start, the soppy-soft, feminised educational system needs to be torn away from the control of the unions and the local authorities and a hard headed - and hearted - policy of ramming home to pupils a shorter but more technocratic curriculum is essential.  To succeed on our own we will need a workforce educated in a way that will make it easy for them to aquire knowledge in the latest industrial techniques.  So-called universities should return to being polytechnics and the few centres of excellence in the older universities should deny entry to anyone who fails to reach a sufficiently high academic standard.

A similarly ruthless approach to welfare will also be needed. The institution of marriage should be encouraged by the tax system and the habit of divorce made harder to achieve.  The notion that family is a far better system of welfare that anything a government can invent should be promoted constantly.  The idea that parents should care for young children, and young adults should care for elderly parents is one that should be encouraged by all means available to government.

To begin with our armed forces should be shrunk to a minimal size with small cadres of expertise maintained in certain key areas ready for a time when the forces might expand again.  For the time being we face no direct threat to these islands and have no need of a large defence force.  The only two exceptions are the nuclear submarine force and the small special forces units we already possess because they both punch well above their weight.

In domestic policy the government should make every effort to encourage business, both large, small and new set-ups.  A flat rate of tax on all income should be introduced with no exceptions so that tax avoidance accountants go out of business!  Company taxes should be globally competitive and applied equally over all types of business.

I maintain that under such a range of policies within 10 years we would be prosperous again, and in 30 years we would again be a powerful regional nation and with the expansion of our armed forces, one that would have the capacity to project its power globally.

Will this, or anything like it, happen?  Not a chance!  But a man can dream, can't he?

 

England bowled out for 187 - useless tossers!

 

This blog has officially thrown a tantrum and returned to bed in a near terminal sulk!

Additional:  But Ponting's out for 1, so this blog, with tremendous bravery is fighting off its depression and has now risen from its bed.

'An enemy of the people'

I see that that creepy Australian, Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, has succeeded in being granted temporary freedom under bail.  As I noted before, his revelations have so far proven to be stupefyingly boring but that should not blind us to his true nature.  There are a cadre (I use the word deliberately with all of its old CP connotation) of people in our society who are explicitly and fanatically opposed to the western democracies, or to be precise, the implicit leader of the western democracies, the United States of America.  Several of them came forward with much publicity to support Assange in his legal dispute. 

Now, whilst I both like and admire America, that does not mean I approve of everything they do and nor does it preclude the possibility of disputes, but, we share much more than that which divides us.  Never mind the nonsense of the mostly but not entirely mythical 'special relationship', we do base our societies on the rule of law and the practice of political democracy in which at least every few years the will of the people is tested and proclaimed and lived by.  This results, by and large, in a friendly and mutually sympathetic relationship of a sort which would be impossible with, say, Russia or China - or even most of Europe, in my opinion.  But people like Assange are bitterly opposed to all of that.  Their hatred of America, in particular, and her friends, in general, is all-consuming.  They will do almost anything to attack and subvert us.  They are in every respect the friends of our enemies.

In Ibsen's brilliant play, An Enemy of the People, his 'hero', Dr. Stockman, begins the play by appearing to be the idealistic opponent of an entrenched and corrupt town administration.  It is only later in the play that we begin to see that Stockman, for all his idealism, indeed, perhaps because of his idealism, is in fact a fanatic who would sacrifice and destroy anything in pursuit of his aims.  To paraphrase what they announce at the front of books and films, any similarity to Mr. Assange and his supporters is entirely co-incidental'!

It is also important to understand that despite the mostly trivial nature of the information so far divulged, we have definitely been attacked and damaged.  It is critically important that frank exchanges of information and opinions be maintained between governments and their embassies abroad and the activities of WikiLeaks has subverted this process.  In a hugely complex global mesh, it will be even more difficult for world leaders to take considered opinions if the advice and information they receive is reduced to bland banalities.

Still, it's an ill wind that fails to blow someone's hat off into the sea and provide us all with a sardonic laugh.  Thus, the sight of sundry 'feminastis' rushing to the defence of Mr. Assange as he faces accusations of rape and other sexual offences against 'wimmin' is just too delicious for words.  I shall whinny my appreciation!

 

Crikey, boring Bob 'Wotsisname' says something interesting - and intelligent!

As Churchill once said of Attlee, that he was a modest man with much to be modest about, so one could say of Mr. Bob 'Wotsisname' that he was and still is one of the most forgettable ministers of the last government.  He only impinged on my consciousness when he became the tedious, and to all appearances, gormless Minister of Defence.  It would, perhaps, be unfair to describe him as totally useless in that job - Andrew Roberts once suggested that our troops would be better off if he stayed on holiday - because it would take a Superman to slice through the Gordian knot of inefficiency and corruption at the heart of our Defence Ministry.  Like most ministers in most governments recently, he was simply 'not fit for purpose', but then, neither was his party leadership.

However, yesterday, perhaps prancing in a Spring-like mode now that he was free of both ministerial duties and the one-eyed, brooding Norman Bates Gordon Brown, he actually came out with something sensible.  According to The Daily Telegraph:

Bob Ainsworth MP, who ran the Home Office's drugs policy between 2001 and 2003, will say that drug trade should be taken away from criminals and handed to doctors and pharmacists.

The sale of drugs would regulated, under Mr Ainsworth's plan, with the most dangerous being proscribed by doctors.

No doubt I will be corrected if I am wrong but I am certain that up until the late '50s that was the system in the UK but for some reason it was changed.  I suppose it might have been pressure from the 'neighbours' who, with the explosion of drug-taking that began in the '60s, thought we would become an off-shore manufacturing base.  There is some merit in that and if Ainsworth's ideas are ever put into practice we would need to switch police resources into closing down illicit drug warehousing established for the purpose of exporting.

Even so, Ainsworth is surely right, the so-called 'war against drugs' is futile and the incipient corruption which goes along with it is like a cancer in our society.  The costs are now colossal and the price of heroin is actually dropping!  Drugs are readily available not just in cities but in every town and large village in the country - so what's the point?  At least if Glaxo and their like manufacture the stuff for the government to dispense via the Health Service they can be taxed on their profits which is more than you can say of your 'friendly' neighbourhood drug-dealer!

So, well done, Bob, er, whatever your name is, I knew you would come good in the end!

 

 

'Teeter ye not!'

My enormously clever and witty title to this post will completely fox most non-Brits and anyone under the age of 30.  It is a play on the catch-phrase of the late, great, British comic, Frankie Howerd, who in mock shocked and highly camp tones would, after some very naughty double entendre, instruct his audience, "Titter ye not!"  I have changed the verb to 'teeter' and I aim the injunction not at my audience but at the current European leadership, for they are teetering on the edge.

Moody's are threatening a further downgrading of Spanish bonds, European stock markets have dropped - again - and yet more riots are breaking out in Greece.  We have not yet heard the last from Ireland or the beginning of the end for Portugal.  All eyes turn towards Germany, the only entity capable of saving the obviously sinking, or at least, disintergrating, ship.  How the Kaiser, or Hitler, would have swollen with pride and pleasure at the prospect of most of Europe grovelling to them in supplication.  But alas, 'Kaiserin' Merkel is not at all happy, in fact, she finds herself in great discomfort between a rock and a hardplace.

Yes, the 'Kaiserin' wants very much to preserve the Euro arrangement the way it is because it allows fiscally strong Germany to borrow money cheaply on the markets and sell its manufactures into the other countries of the Euro union.  They, on the other hand, can only borrow on Shylock terms which means that their manufactures cannot compete.  However, the neighbours are so hard up they might go broke which would leave Germany holding a lot of useless unpaid invoices.  Of course, were she to agree to the issuance of a new Euro bond which would be guaranteed by the entire union, then Germany as part of that union would have to borrow at a vastly more expensive rate than she now enjoys.  The 'Kaiserin' is also uncomfortably reminded that German tax-payers, who do not necessarily see or understand the bigger picture, are extremely reluctant to bail out their neighbours whom they regard, accurately in my opinion, as cheats, liars and extravagant spendthrifts.

Something has to give.  All the colossal amounts of money thrown at the problem so far are the equivalent of sticking plasters at the scene of a multiple motorway smash-up.  The Euro union, like the tragic hero in a Shakespeare play, has a fault line down the middle, hitherto disguised, or at least, ignored; but now a cold, implacable universe has exerted a sustained and irresistible force upon it and the fissure is widening.  Terence Roth in the WSJ puts it this way:

The EU is splitting along three fault lines. The "core" of more-or-less fiscally sound countries clustered with Germany; fiscally enfeebled nations threatened with default; and EU members outside the euro-zone no longer in a hurry to join the mess.

Unless, of course, member states agree to a full political and financial union (which should have been done from the very beginning) but that would definitely entail a round of new national referenda which, I would hazard a guess, stand about as much chance of succeeding as the famous snowball in hell!  So the Euro stands teetering on the window ledge on the 10th floor and down below urgent emergency service officers try to talk it down whilst rough, uncouth yobs, like me, in the watching crowd yell, "Jump!"

 

 

Do it, Dave!

I have been festering quietly for some time on the loony antics of that old, parliamentary Ancient, Ken Clarke who has been let loose in his ward where, with his incipient liberal Alzheimer's running amok, he capers about inflicting as much damage as possible on the feeble institution we call our system of justice - stop giggling! - before 'Dave' plucks up the courage to manacle him down to a bed in a padded cell and, in the finest traditions of our 'caring' health service, forget about him.  It really is as though 'our Ken', aware that this is his final performance on the national stage, is determined to have one last fling irrespective not only of the damage to his own party but also to those who count least in his mad, rheumy, old eyes, that is, you and me, the (fairly) law-abiding members of society!

I cannot list all the loony, liberal notions he is determined to inflict on us all for fear of vomiting.  Suffice to say that if he is left to carry out his mad intentions you can expect the crime rate to rocket to the moon over the next ten years.  Only one man can save us from streets and neighbourhoods filled with swaggering, murderous villains and Calibans, and that man, I regret to tell you - is 'Call me Dave'!  (Where are you going, come back, Australia's full up.)  I understand and feel your panic because somehow, in some indefinable way, 'Call me Dave' does not inspire confidence as the Gary Cooper-type, prepared to strap on his gun-belt and take on, eye-ball to eye-ball, the insane, red-faced, sweating psycho who currently runs our 'justice' system (I heard that gigggle and I won't tell you again!) 

Of course, I could be wrong, I frequently am, but I cannot see 'Call me Dave' acting ruthlessly to put the mad, old fool out of harm's way because that would require some belief in a political and legal philosophy, a notion he rarely allows to ruffle the smooth complacency of his premiership.  No, we are forced to depend on the Tory backbenchers to ram a bit of steel up his backside and that is somewhat akin to depending on the French army to hold your right flank!(*)  It will be up to them to impress on 'Dave' that a continual stream of media stories over the next four years (will it be that long?) telling us all of the ravages and rapes, thefts and murders, by vermin who should have been locked up will not do his government any good at the next election.

Of course, sacking 'our Ken' only a few months after having appointed him will also indicate to a rapidly disillusioned electorate that 'Call me Dave' has the judgment of a jug of sludge.  Thus, will suspicion cement itself into fact. 

(*) Another typically ignorant, Brit dig at the French army who, of course, are as brave as any - but, hell, if we can't all enjoy a bit of stereotyping, where's the fun?

Have mercy!

Allow me to introduce you to Assan and Alusan.  They're twin brothers born in a displaced persons camp in Liberia. They were both born blind and had never seen their mother or each other.  Their mother, Ellen had fled her homeland of Sierra Leone only to find her supposed refuge in Liberia turned into a civil war zone.  The boys were born with multiple cataracts and were totally blind.  But then the Mercy Ship arrived in the nearby port staffed with a full medical team who went to work and now the boys can see.  Now the boys have a chance.  Now the boys have hope.

Look, I know it's Christmas time and the charities are coming at you from all directions but please, please, consider Mercy Ships for a contribution, especially now because a big donor has promised to double all donations received this month up to £60k.  So, if you can send them a fiver (less than the price of two pints) he will make it £10.  If you can manage more, then the likes of Assan and Alusan will be enormously grateful, I mean, how valuable is the gift of sight?

And remember, none of the staff on the Mercy Ship are paid!  They are all volunteers who take unpaid leave from their normal jobs in order to offer their services free of charge to the Mercy Ship.  This has to be the most cost effective charity anywhere in the world.

Go here to donate by credit card:  http://www.mercyships.org.uk/give-money

Thanks.

 

Well, I'll be twittered - and I was!

About 1,200 times yesterday and there are still some late-comers 'twittering in' as I write.  As I enjoyed my morning swim today I was thinking of the responses in the 'Comments' sections and composing in my head a suitably lofty, condescending dismissal of them all as pig-ignorant, foul-mouthed, illiterate morons typical of those in receipt of what is laughingly called 'igher edukashun'!  However, I have just re-read them and admitted to myself that only some of them fit that description.  Many of them were well-written complaints, confused and misguided, in my view, but at least they were what I call 'conversational', that is, one could respond in the hope of a productive exchange of opinion.

Let me clarify my considered opinion.  First of all, the shenanigans last week was a riot, not a demonstration.  The participants fell roughly into three groups.  The first were those somewhat dim innocents who actually believed they were attending a demo.  The second were those who knew it was going to be a riot but, having a modicum of intelligence, made sure they were well back from the front line.  In this posture they earned, so to speak, the medal without risking their darling little heads.  The third group were those who knew it was going to be a riot because that was what they intended it to be from the very outset.  They were the ones breaking the windows, setting the fires and charging the police using what implements they could lay hands on.  It is in this last group, I suspect, that weedy little Alfie Meadows insisted on placing himself.  That he then received what he was looking for, or at least, what he should have expected, that is, a smack on the head from an irritable copper, is almost certainly what he was hoping for from the beginning.  "Seek and ye shall find", the good book tells us, and thus little Alfie sought and found and will, I am sure, dine out on it for years to come, even if his notion of dining out is chicken nuggets from his nearest take-away.

Anyway, that's all "blood under the bridge", as Edward Albee put it wittily, so let me widen the discourse.  I have already remarked on the desecration of the Cenotaph but let me suggest that those impeccably Left-wing rioters have also desecrated one of their own beloved icons - well, I say, 'beloved icon' but I suspect the vast majority of them, being utterly ignorant of their own history, have never heard of it.  I refer to the Jarrow March, or the Jarrow Crusade, to give it its proper title, so called as a means of distancing itself from the rodents of the Communist party.

This march was organised as both a protest against conditions in Jarrow in 1936 and also as a plea for a new steel works to be opened there and thus offer jobs to local people.  It was superbly well-organised, disciplined, respectful, won the hearts and minds of millions and - achieved absolutely zilch!  It remains to be seen whether the rioting students will do any better than the Jarrow marchers.  There are two factors which indicate that they just might get something.  First, the Poll Tax riots in which large-scale violence was used achieved all of its aims thus setting a precedent for mayhem.  Second, this coalition government has already seen its Left-flank, Liberal wing virtually collapse under the pressure and the spineless boobies in the centre led by that "straight-backed, chinless wonder", 'Call-me-Dave' Cameron, do not strike me as any sort of Praetorian Guard ready to stand and protect us from the ravages of the mob.  We shall see!

Finally, let me muse on the subject of higher education.  The mass flattery and bribery of the socialists in both the Labour and Conservative parties over the last 30-odd years has misled millions into believing that they are entitled to spend three years at a 'university', almost irrespective of any academic ability.  This was, and remains, a typical governmental promise of the sort that even an old second-hand car dealer, like me, would blush to utter.  All those 20 to 30 somethings currently struggling to pay back even a fraction of what they owe for their 'uni edukashun' have at least learned one thing in that hardest of institutions, the University of Life (I, personally, achieved a Third!), that is, never, ever, trust a government promise.  That might well be the most valuable thing they will ever learn!

Of course, there should never have been any cap on the price charged by 'universities', they should be free to price themselves as they see fit.  This would have two happy results.  First, the 'universities' would have to think long and hard as to exactly how much to charge for a three year course in Basket Weaving, or whatever; and secondly, the students (and their mums and dads) will have to think even longer and harder as to whether or not a debt of, say, £30k, is worth running up for the benefit, mostly - and here I base my judgment on the experience of 'Son of Duff' - of learning how to drink and shag, and the doubtful promise of a degree in Advanced Flower Arranging.

Consequently, I am looking forward with relish to the sight of a shrinking 'university' sector and the dole queues lenthening even further as the useless 'tutors' join their erstwhile students on the unemployment lines.

 

Compare and contrast

I have been under bombardment today from the kiddies creche who swamped my in-box in their hundreds because I had 'dissed' (I believe that is the correct jargon) their 'hero', little Alfie Meadows, in the second post below.  Here, once again is the photo of this proletarian hero:

Looks like an amiable sort of a lad but not perhaps the sort of man you would want with you in a fire fight.  Apart from any other consideration, he isn't awfully bright, is our Alfie.  Instead of milling around in the middle of his mini-riot, he allowed himself to get pushed within baton range of an irritable copper.  "Knock, knock, who's there?" was the joke in his particular Christmas cracker but somehow I don't think he's seen the funny side of it yet!

Now let me show you two photos of a real hero - Cpl. Furguson of The 4th Rifles:

He earned a Military Cross.  It didn't cost him a £27k loan to be repaid when he was earning, say, £80k a year as a result of gaining a 2:1 in Flower Arranging at the East Acton Polytechnic University.  No, no, it cost Cpl. Ferguson "both legs, an eye, and fingers on both hands".  God knows what his earnings will be in the future but well short of £80k a year, I suspect.

Now, be honest, which man would you prefer to have by your side in a real fight?

First it was umbrella trouble(*), now it's . . .

. . . hurdling!  As it happens I have some experience of hurdling.  Don't ask me why but back in the mists of time when I was around 15 years of age I became very keen on it as a sport.  Straighforward sprinting was boring, and middle- and long-distance running hurt too much, well, my pain threshold was on the minus scale even in those days!  Now, whilst I am not claiming that hurdling was difficult, it did require a sort of minimal amount of thought and working out.  The length of your pace and your take off point for the first hurdle had to be measured and that decided the point at which you started, for me, as I recall, it was 3" behind the start line because that took me to exactly the right launch point.  Then there were the paces between hurdles to be considered so that you could sprint but still take each hurdle without breaking your stride pattern - and so on.  All this preparation produced a feeling of great satisfaction when, occasionally, I managed to sprint down a line of hurdles clearing all of them without breaking step - even if, as usual, I did finish last!

So I say again, you do not need to be 'Brain of Britain' to master the sport but, alas, it seems to have completely foxed the 'Brain of America'!  I am led to believe that his favourite sports are golf and basketball.  Do you think he lobs his golf ball towards the holes and hits the basket-ball with a club?  I don't know, but I think we should be told!

 

See, that's what a university education does for you.  £9k a year?  Cheap at the price!

My thanks to the usual suspects at 'IHTM'.

(*) http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2010/08/dumb-brella.html#tp

 

Thinker, think thyself!

This little bit of irony is one to hug and nurture.  Apparently, the yob 'youf' hit on the head by a police baton and who then required brain surgery (I wonder if there was a 'finder's fee'?) is a student of philosophy.  As he convalesces in hospital he might care to ponder an age-old philosophical conundrum concerning causality.  Usually, it is put in these terms: if a nut is placed on an anvil and smashed with a hammer, is it the hammer or the anvil which is the cause of its untimely demise?  Or, to put this in terms which will be more easily understood by our particular philosophy 'student', if in a riot situation you place your head in proximity to a police baton is it the baton or the owner of the head who is the final cause of a thumping headache?  At this point philosophers will drone on for hours as they tie themselves in knots of inscrutable linguistic logic which, fortunately, we need not attempt to unravel.

 

Our 'Hero of the Revolution' is called Alfie Meadows - sweet-looking little fellow, isn't he? - and he attends Kingston 'University' (note well the inverted commas!)  According to The Mail but with my emphasis:

Alfie's mother, Susan Meadows, 55, an English literature lecturer at Roehampton University, said her son had described the blow to his head as 'the hugest he had ever felt'.

If those were indeed her actual words then I am forced to record that I would hesitate to spend 9 bob let alone £9 grand being taught English by this lady.  Apparently, she too was in attendance at the riot but in a different area and therefore, sadly, her head was not in the immediate vicinity of a police baton which, I am beginning to think, is rapidly becoming the essential classroom-aid de nos jours! 

However, as Alfie nurses his bump in hospital I only wish to be kind and in that spirit I offer him the lyric of that old song: What's It All About, Alfie?

What's it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give
or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie,
then I guess it's wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,
what will you lend on an old golden rule?
As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie,
I know there's something much more,
something even non-believers can believe in.
I believe in love, Alfie.
Without true love we just exist, Alfie.
Until you find the love you've missed you're nothing, Alfie.
When you walk let your heart lead the way
and you'll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie.

There you are, Alfie, there's more philosophy in that old lyric than you'll find in Kingston Polytechnic 'University'!

 

 

'Fuck the memory of your war dead!'

My love of irony sometimes turns sour and this picture, courtesy of The Mail, provides a sick-inducing re-action deep in my gut.  The irony, of course, is that the millions of men and women who died in a supreme struggle to preserve our liberties had no idea that the liberty they died for would include the freedom to desecrate their memories.

The stench of a cancerous moral corruption which we have allowed to grow unchecked for the past 50 years is now all-pervading.  Here, at last, we see the over-ripe, rotting fruits of progressivism.  No point in looking to Parliament for leadership, the Palace of Westminster and its inhabitants are even more maggot-ridden than the rotten carcasses they are supposed to lead.

God help us all!

ADDITIONAL:  Lest you have failed to fill the nearest fire-bucket with vomit here is an additional irony that should do the trick.  The pig-ignorant yob swinging from the flag on the Cenotaph is the son of a zillionaire pop star who could afford £9k a term university fees let alone £9k a year.

UPDATE:  According to The Telegraph, the young man concerned has issued a fulsome apology:

He said: "I feel nothing but shame. My intention was not to attack or defile the Cenotaph. Running along with a crowd of people who had just been violently repelled by the police, I got caught up in the spirit of the moment.

"I did not realise that it was the Cenotaph and if I had, I certainly would not have done what I did.

"I feel additionally mortified that my moment of idiocy has distracted so much from the message yesterday's protest was trying to send out.

"Those who are commemorated by the Cenotaph died to protect the very freedoms that allow the people of Britain the right to protest and I feel deeply ashamed to have, although unintentionally and unknowingly, insulted the memory of them.

"Ignorance is the poorest of excuses but I am sincerely sorry."

As someone, myself, who has had cause, many a time and oft', to apologise for misbehaviour, I believe that is a handsome and gracious apology and should be accepted as such.  Of course, it does not detract in the slightest from my generalised comments.

 

Hamlet: Rory Kinnear/Nicholas Hytner

I went to my local cinema complex last night to see a 'simulcast' (I think they call it) of Nicholas Hytner's production of Hamlet with Rory Kinnear as the Prince.  I am happy to join all those who have given Kinnear 'rave reviews' for his performance.  Above all else, Hamlet is a thinking prince, a Renaissance Man, a man who is struggling to apply reason to a world which, suddenly, with the death of his beloved father and the hasty marriage of his mother to his uncle, appears like a shaken kaleidoscope to have been turned completely topsy-turvy.  The appearance of the 'ghost' of his dead father is yet another indication to this rational young man that he now inhabits an irrational universe.  His feigned madness, played strongly by Kinnear, serves to underline the all too real psychological breakdown he is suffering.  A simply terrific performance, balancing the mood changes in a way that was totally missed by David Tennant's recent, psychotic, eye-ball-swiveling effort!

So such a pity then that the production as a whole did not satisfy.  Hytner, like so many contemporary directors, was carried away with his cleverness.  Thus, quite properly, he offered us a modern Danish court under constant security surveillance as befits the regime of a new ruler whose credentials are not quite 'kosher'.  Thus, in almost every scene grey-suited security men could be seen in the background wearing ear-pieces as they whispered into their 'wristwatches'.  Not a bad idea but it was over-done and one could not help thinking that poor old Claudius had the world's worst security service since they failed to warn him of any of the approaching dangers.  The constant sound of jets roaring overhead added nothing except my relief that I no longer live anywhere near Heathrow!

Patrick Malahide played a somewhat subdued Claudius.  He certainly put across the craft and the guile but in my opinion, and judged by the regicide he successfully pulled off, Claudius is a virile man of huge energy and, shall we say, big cojones and he failed to put that across.  Instead we saw a somewhat bureaucratic Claudius.  His prayer scene in which an audience should see a 'lying liar' struggle to tell himself the truth simply came across as yet more cynicism.  James Laurenson doubled the roles of the Ghost and the Player King and fell short in both.  The first failure was not perhaps entirely his fault.  Hytner decided that the Ghost should be 'realistic' and thus Laurenson appeared and whilst he was somewhat 'chalky-looking' there could be no doubt on the audience's part that he was real.  I know that smoke and haze and a slight echo in the voice are considered somewhat 'old hat' for the Ghost scenes these days but they are used in order to keep the doubts alive in the mind of the audience.  This was important in Shakespeare's day when, by and large, the ignorant groundlings would believe utterly in the existence of spirits where-as the 'clever Dicks' from the Inns of Court, being Rennaissance rationalists like Hamlet, would not.  The nature of the Ghost needs to hover over this uncertainty principle!  The Player King is a chance for every actor to ham it up which provokes Hamlet's (Shakespeare's?) strictures on how to deliver the lines but Laurenson's quiet intelligence offered no target and thus, if memory serves, Hamlet delivers them (somewhat cut, I think) to the Player Queen who was equally undeserving of them.

Regular readers will be all too familiar with my wails of protest at the manner in which my money (as you know, I always think of taxes in very personal terms, it helps keep the wound fresh and livid!) is spent by the profligate 'lying liars' who sit in command above us and I do know that the Royal National Theatre, who for reasons best known - and kept - to themselves refuse to use the 'Royal' title, are in receipt of skip-loads of dosh so you would think they could afford some decent costumes, even contemporary ones, which might convince us that the people we were viewing actually lived and worked in a palace.  Whilst it is quite probable that modern princes and their friends and courtiers frequently resemble members of a grunge rock group, I can't help thinking that on certain occasions, such as a private theatrical event in the palace, or a young lady brough before the king for interview, would change their clothes and look a bit more respectable.  In my own amateur theatre group we are forced by lack of money to keep costume costs to the minimum but the RNT has no such excuse.  The whole production looked like a power struggle by local councillors in some hard-up, local authority.  Needless to say, as in just about every theatrical production I have ever seen which featured 'soldiers', they all looked like 1-week old recruits clutching their Kalashnikovs (sooo butch, darling!) and badly in need of a drill sergeant.  Finally, I would like to complain at the lack of humour.  Yes, yes, I know there are not a lot of laughs in Hamlet but there are some - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the Player King, Osric and so on, and Shakespeare makes them available because the very best tragedy always carries a thread of comedy, but Hytner sternly forbad any laughs, or even the chance of a slight smile.

So, a terrific Hamlet let down somewhat by a lacklustre Hamlet - but worth seeing if it tours anywhere near you, or if it comes out in DVD.

 

"My cup runneth over"

Regular readers will know that I am a connoisseur of irony and when several examples come along together in nice, big, juicy dollops I nearly hug myself with the sheer pleasure of it all.  Later on today the vote will take place on student fees and you will hear the high-pitched whinnying from here to where-ever you are.  All my life I have detested the 'il-Lib-non-Dem' party, not just for their posturing and their rank hypocrisy, but also for their betrayal of the true values of a proper Liberal party.  In recent decades they have preached their cant from the safety of the political sidelines but today, it is as though the most vociferous 'footie' fans, you know, the ones with gobs big enough to match their bellies and with an endless stream of opinions as to how the team could and should do better, are suddenly given the manager's job.  The result, of course, is catastrophic.  At the first whiff of gunfire this rabble of cranks, loudmouths and simpering 'all things to all men' patter-merchants and phonies takes flight in all directions, not just split down the middle but shattered into pieces. 

Perhaps nothing sums up their despicable cowardice in the face of tough, political decision-taking than their dis-honourable second-in-command, Chris Huhne, who has let it be known that he can't possibly leave the 'very important work '(!) being done at the climate conference in Cancun and return to Westminster for the vote.  Well, what else do you expect from a man who dumped his wife of 26 years and the mother of his three children in favour of a lesbian who was 'married' at the time to another woman.  Well, as the Frogs say, 'chacun a son goat', or something like that, and it would be his own business except that during the election and only a few weeks before he decided to "ditch the bitch", as our 'cousins' put it so delightfully, he made extravagant claims in his election material as to the depth and strength of his marriage.  Of course, his refusal to return to Westminster for the vote will not have been swayed by the luxoury hotel in Cancun which houses the British delegation, as The Mail reports:

After a hard day at the negotiating table, what could be nicer than a soak in your personal double Jacuzzi with a view over the Caribbean?

Such luxury will greet Cabinet minister Chris Huhne – and 45 other British Government delegates – during international global warming talks in Mexico.

Mr Huhne, the Liberal Democrat Energy and Climate Change Secretary, will be enjoying the facilities of the £240-a-night Moon Palace Golf and Spa Resort in Cancun for the United Nations summit.

But then further irony has been added to my already over-flowing cup.  According to the ever-excellent Anthony Watts - and, please, do try to contain your mirth - the climate ooops, sorry, silly me, it's always 'weather' when it goes against the HAFs - the weather in Cancun is at an all-time low! (Oh do stop it, please, you're setting me off . . . I told you no sniggering . . . oh my giddy aunt, you couldn't make it up . . . oh God, I'm hurting . . . ! )  Never mind, as Huhne shivers away at his global warming conference (look I've told you once, I'll not tell you again!) no doubt he can swap stories with his mate, Chris Barker, a millionaire Tory minister and expenses cheat who managed to 'ditch his particular bitch' but then went off in the opposite direction to Huhne by setting up house and home with a bloke!  I wonder if all four of them are out there?  I mean, the possibilities are endless, 'know wot I mean, John, nudge-nudge, wink-wink'!

Tearing myself away from the juicy possibilities in Cancun, let us return to Westminster and drool over the final irony.  The 'il-Lib-non-Dems' have agitated for years to impose proportional voting (PR) on us all, not, of course, because it is fairer, they couldn't care less about that, but because they saw it as their only way to jam their smelly feet into the governmental door which had slammed shut on them for so long.  This year, by a chance they never envisioned, they slithered into government by the old, first-past-the-post system.  It will never happen again because in this, their first chance for nearly a hundred years, they have steered themselves into such a spectacular car crash that no-one bar a few cranks will ever vote for them again.  And best of all, the British voters now see what PR voting always produces, coalition government, so the referendum should sink with all hands - and good riddance!

Thus, we can now all kiss goodbye to the 'il-Lib-non-Dems'.  Farewell, it wasn't very nice knowing you, you won't be missed, and your once great party will end up as a footnote in the history books. (Right that's it - I told you - no sniggering - that'll be a hundred lines for all of you!)

 

Do the Qatari Muslims know what's coming?

Look, don't blame me for printing pictures of all these half-naked, beautiful, lady 'footie' fans, blame those rascals at I Hate The Media.  I had intended to write one of my usual, highly intellectual posts on the coming clash of civilisations when 'footie' fans in their hundreds of thousands arrive in strictly Muslim Qatar.  Of course, being an old-fashioned British gentleman I had intended to illustrate it with some suitable examples photographed at places like the Kop End, you know, big hairy men covered in tattoos with XXXL bellies bulging through their string vests looking for someone to punch as they sink their tenth can of lager and England, in their usual finest tradition,  go out in the first round.  However, because of all that global warming it's freezing cold today, as it has been for the last 14 days and is forecast to be for the next 14 days, and these young 'gals' give me a rather nice warm feeling.  I apologise to my lady readers for not producing a picture of a nice hunky-looking male 'footie' fan but be fair, when have you ever seen one?

 

Well done, ladies, I'm sure the immams of Qatar can hardly wait to see you all!

 

An absolutely gloat free post - no, honestly . . .

"England thrash Australia by an innings and 71 runs to win the second Test in Adelaide and take a 1-0 lead in the Ashes."

I feel your pain, Australia, no, really I do.

The West's secret weapon in the Afghan war

I read this story some weeks time ago and saved it as the basis for a post the following day and then, of course, forgot about it.  So, better late than never, and also because good news is hard to come by, allow me to introduce the conqueror of Afghanistan - 'Afghan Elvis'!

 

Or, to be precise, pop star Farhad Darya, who recently performed in Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.  So what, you might ask, not unreasonably?  Well, the reason to be cheerful is that the Taleban hate music, an outlook they share with Plato, and when they were in control the only permitted music was religious chanting.  Pop music was forbidden, which is yet another proof of Duff's Theory that no-one is totally bad!  Anyway, a few thousand Afghanis crowded into a local arena and watched 'Afghan Elvis' do his stuff and a good time was had by all, including a small selection of British officers seen waving red-stained hands, an Afghani way of showing appreciation (can't think what that signifies!)  Security was in the hands of the Afghans themselves and everything passed peacefully.

I mention this odd, indiosyncratic event, not for itself, but for what it portends.  The fact is that there is a war between Islam and the West but it is not primarily a war for resources and land but a cultural war.  The development, at an ever increasing pace, of modern cyber-communications means that it is only on the uppermost slopes of Everest, or the very deepest part of the Amazon forest, that you will find any relief from the insidious bombardment of western 'culture' at its worst, and it doesn't get much worse than pop music and all the inherent corruption that goes with it.  But the gloomy fact is that 'The People' - everywhere - love it.  They tap their feet in Peking, they wave their arms in Tehran, they listen in private in Riyadh as they sip their illicit single-malt scotch, young girls squeal together in Jakarta and, as we see now, the men, at least, enjoy the antics of 'Afghan Elvis' in Helmand Province

When I saw the story I was instantly reminded of Sir Tom Stoppard's superb play Rock 'n' Roll in which he pointed up the rebellious nature of young people in Czechoslovakia (as it was then in the '70s), whose love of rock and roll was only increased by the disapproval of the authorities, and which gradually raised their political awareness to revolutionary action.  The hatchet-faced Imams and their political henchmen hate this manifestation of western 'culture' and to be honest I am not totally unsympathetic, but then, I confine my disapproval to grunts from an armchair (or moaning on this blog) to which no one pays any attention, rather than chopping peoples limbs off and stoning girls to death.  Anyway, no matter how hard they try to stop the ears of their people, or cut them off, the cyber-waves always get through and in the end the liberty verging on licence that is at the very heart of rock and roll will out.

 

Another Royal Wedding: 'Kaiserin' Merkel and President Sarkozy

Young Jo Johnson - well, I have to call him 'young' because in his photo he looks about 16 years old, although to be fair, just about everyone looks 16 to me these days - I'm even beginning to take a fancy to that young gal Widdicombe - where was I? - oh yes, Jo Johnson, formerly of The Financial Times but now Conservative MP for Orpington,  suggests that in the very near future 'Kaiserin' Merkel and President Sarkozy will announce their engagement and shortly there-after the nuptials will take place.  Readers of a delicate disposition need not linger long on images of the wedding night!  Enough metaphorics, here is Johnson's forecast:

As it’s prediction season, here goes… My crystal ball, for what it is worth, foretells political and economic union between France and Germany, perhaps within the next 12-24 months. Europe needs a gamechanger, one that creates an insurmountable firebreak against the speculators. Crises have historically been the motor of European integration and a full union, much like the panicky one Britain offered France in June 1940, might look tempting. It would provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies, finally fulfilling the founding fathers’ dream of “ever closer uni on”.

He spells out the imperatives which will eventually drive Europe to resort to actions previously only whispered sotto voce in the corridors of Brussels.

Refinancing at current market interest rates is for some peripheral economies becoming unthinkable. Barring a phenomenal injection of liquidity by the ECB, they will continue to move closer to sovereign default. Unless their financing needs are removed by overwhelming intervention, the question is whether Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Greece can restructure their debts - extending maturities and adjusting interest rates to affordable levels, with the issuance of new Brady-style bonds - without causing the collapse of the euro-area financial system and the break-up of the euro itself.

At the moment, Berlin is, according to Marcus Weller of the WSJ, reconciled to being a lender of last resort:

But Sunday's agreement among euro-zone leaders to establish a permanent rescue facility for overly indebted members suggests that rather than turning its back on the euro, Germany is doubling its bets. Put simply, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her allies have concluded that the euro is essential for Germany's continued prosperity. (My emphasis)

Again, I remind you of the late Nick Ridley's caustic but accurate remark, "It's all a German racket!"  German industry dominates the continent.  Its factories, its workers, its industrialists and its shareholders (frequently the government), all depend utterly on exports to other European countries.  They cannot contemplate for a second any of the euro nations going broke and bringing about the destruction of the common currency.  My notion (well, mostly other people's because, hey, what do I know?) that Germany might break away with a few other northern nations to form a New Euro is dismissed by Waller because such a currency, let's call it by its proper name, the Deutschmark, would instantly become immensely strong and ruin Germany's growing trade with China, India and the other emerging nations.  Until now, it had not dawned on me that Germany actually rather likes a weakened, devalued euro which is so beneficial to its own domestic industry.  Of course, the German people who have to stump up the 'dosh' via their taxes are exceedingly unhappy not least because, not being clever economists, they cannot see the sense in it.  Fortunately for the 'Kaiserin', the German system puts Trade Union leaders on the boards of the main companies, so they see the need for it, and anyway, when did any German government in the last 150 years pay the slightest attention to what its people wanted?

Needless to say, the French would not hesitate for a second before walking up the aisle and then leaping into bed with Germany, they have 'previous' in that sort of thing!

 

Incomprehensible headlines: #1

I'm out to lunch today and thus no guarantees can be given for the standard of the post I intend to write later on this afternoon!  Suffice to say that it contains startling news of a forthcoming marriage.  Remember, you will read it here first, er, well, you will provided I don't over-quaff at lunchtime.

In the meantime, let me confess that the older I get the more incomprehensible are the headlines in the papers.  Here is an example from today's Telegraph:

Stacey Solomon crowned Queen of the Jungle

Who is Stacey and over which particular jungle does she rule?  And, even more important, in a very deep and fundamental way, do I give a rat's arse?

 

Frank Lewis: Gone, alas, to that great NSA in the sky

Odd, isn't it, how coincidence occurs?  Last week I was up to my armpits in code-breakers, cryptanalysts and the Japanese Code Purple.  Today, in The Telegraph, I read of the death of Frank Lewis, one of that 'Band of Brothers' recruited by one of the truly great code-breakers of WWII, William Friedman, who broke Code Purple used by the Japanese Foreign Service before and during the war.

Lewis was not particularly mathematical but he was one of America's very best crossword setters.  From 1939 onwards, a facility for solving or setting crosswords was enough to get you called in for a confidential interview and then, if successful, off you went to some secret location to join intellectual forces with some of the most brilliant minds of the age.  You may gauge something of the convoluted turn of mind possessed by Lewis from some of his witty crossword clues.  Here are some of them, the answers are at the end - so don't look:

Little skipper (6)

Change of heart (5)

S (7) 

Upbraided after dinner (7)

He designed his puzzles for The Nation magazine to which even devout Republicans would subscribe, despite it being impeccably liberal, simply to enjoy his crosswords.  During the war he spent time working at Bletchley Park and after the war he continued in his cryptographic role with the National Security Agency.  He died aged 98 leaving a widow to whom he was married for 74 years.  So, farewell, 'Swank Filer', as he once referred to himself in a cryptic clue, and thank you for your service.

  

 

Truant

Earth

Largess

Dessert (the inversion of 'tressed', meaning 'braided')

 

But did her lips move when she said it?

Look, I like women wrestling in mud, OK?  I am not ashamed, every man's hobby is inexplicable to everyone else, so you stick to your model railways, or bashing harmless gold balls, or looking at your stamp collection to remind you of the time when the sun never set on the British empire, or whatever.  Me, I'll just settle down with my bag of popcorn and watch the ladies get at it!  Of course, when I say "wrestling in mud" I don't mean literally - my dear, simply too, too tacky - no, no, I mean like the forthcoming heavyweight bout between Sarah 'Grizzlie' Palin and Hillary 'Chipmunk' Clinton for the World Championship, or 'the presidency', as they call it 'over there'.

According to CBSNews:

At a town hall meeting appearance in Manama, Bahrain on Friday, Clinton denied intentions to run for either president or vice president on the ticket with President Obama, who defeated her in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

Several questions immediately arise.  As I wrote in my title to this post, did her lips move when she said it?  Secondly, why would she say it in the arsehole of the world (*) Bahrein and not in America?  Perhaps because by, so to speak, muttering it under her breath far away she could always claim misreporting or whatever when she changes her mind as Obama sinks slowly in the West.  Mind you, she did offer one reason why she would not run for the presidency which struck me as something of a clincher:

When her current position is over, Clinton "would like to continue working to improve lives for others," she said, adding that she will "probably go back to advocacy work, particularly on women and children and probably around the world." This marks the first time Clinton has publicly discussed alternatives to political office in her future.

In returning to advocacy work, she could follow in the footsteps of her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who has largely turned to humanitarian work through his Clinton Foundation since leaving the White House. (My emphasis)

Of course, now I understand.  It's that old, irresistible Clinton love of the international gravy train which puffs the not very Great and the definitely not Good along on an endless stream of hot air and on which every carriage is stuffed full of dollar bills - or should I call them, in honour of the man who has made the most of them - 'dollar Bill's'!

Mrs. Clinton has formerly worked extensively for the rights of women and children. She went on to note that while she has had a "fascinating and rewarding public career," she particularly enjoyed her time as a lawyer for the Children's Defense Fund, which advocates for abused and neglected children, as well as her women's rights work, according to Reuters.

Take cover, Ladies!  However she ends with what struck me as a very much more convincing reason - her looks:

In addition to personal passions, Clinton also noted the strain of the job of president as a deterrent towards seeking further election.

"Every president, if you watch what they look like when they come into office, you can see their hair turn white because it's such a hard job," she said.

'Vanity, thy name is woman'!

(*) Of course, today Bahrein is a splendid modern city-state but 50 years ago it wasn't and I spent a year living in a tent on the end of runway #2 of Bahrein airport as part of my personal mission to save the world for western democracy.  The natives did not appear to be too impressed or even terribly grateful but the flies, all 6 trillion of them, loved me! 

If only we had Donald Bell of Bradford Park Avenue Football Club

He was the sort of footballing chap you need when you're 20-2 down, as we were yesterday, and only ten minutes to go!  Faced with similar odds against him during the Battle of the Somme and in the face of an obdurate enemy, Lt. Donald Bell of the Green Howards and a former professional 'footie' player, charged across no-man's-land pausing only to throw a hand-grenade from 20 yards (his throw-ins, I suspect, were legendary) with such accuracy that he destroyed a machine-gun post, he then went on, single-handedly, to kill 50 of the enemy, capture the trench and take 143 prisoners!

He wrote to his mother two days later: ‘I must confess it was the biggest fluke alive and I did nothing. I only chucked one bomb but it did the trick... my athletics came in handy this trip.’

He was awarded the Victoria Cross but within 5 days he was killed in action.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333094/Victoria-Cross-medal-awarded-football-hero.html#ixzz172u4Dvun

 

Let slip the dogs of Wapping

The proprietor of this blog is never too proud to change his mind - when he can find it!  Thus, let it be known - and make sure 'my mate Rupe' hears about it - I am, after all, prepared to pay to get behind his paywall if, but only if, the dandruff-ridden rascals he employs get down into the sewers of Zurich and find the shit that undoubtedly emanates from the FIFA High Command.  When it comes to muck-raking he has no need of advice from me but I would suggest that a recce group be sent to Moscow - however, they should beware because they tend to shoot journalists over there!  In the meantime, I am looking forward to the Sunday papers, some of whom, I suspect, were holding back on stories lest they be blamed for the insulting debacle that took place yesterday.  Go get 'em, boys!

Quote: "the Russians bought the whole thing, lock, stock and both smoking barrels, months ago!"

Thus, you can now see clearly, dear reader, how wise you are to read Duff & Nonsense and thereby gain absolutely dead accurate information and forecasts ahead of everybody else!  On the subject of the World Cup, I told you 3 days ago that "the Russians bought the whole thing, lock, stock and both smoking barrels, months ago!"   Whilst the commentariat assumed that 'Don' Putin was staying away because he did not wish to be associated with failure, I was certain that he couldn't be bothered to go because he knew it was in the bag!  According to The Mail, we failed even to get past the first round.  I should also stress that this is yet another manifestation of the fact, resolutely ignored by all and sundry despite the apparently never-ending examples of it, that England is thoroughly disliked, not to say, detested, by most non-English people and almost any chance of poking us in the eye with a sharp stick is rarely ignored.  That is not a problem for me but I just wish it would not keep coming as such a surprise to so many others, especially the Great and the Good above us who think that buckets of lick and spittle will make them love us.  Only to our faces, sucker!

To finish on a more positive note, my very sincere congratulations to Eddie Afekafe, hitherto totally unknown to me, but obviously an outstanding young man whose work and achievements deserve greater recognition. 

 

When is a leak a crime?

It is not often that this blog fails to make up its mind but on the subject of the WikiLeaks controversy I must confess to a serious case of ifs, buts and maybes, and yes, I do find this fence perfectly comfortable, thank you for asking.  I suppose, beginning at the beginning, that governments can claim property rights and even attach those rights to information although some libertarians might put forward a respectable case for saying that governments, being the servants of the people (stop snorting!), can never 'own' anything because all rights reside with the people.  As in so many other matters, libertarians tend to the extreme and I think it is fair to say that government could not function without the need to assert property rights over information which it deems to be confidential.  However, in the case of the WikiLeaks imbroglio, the rights claimed by the US government can only apply to citizens of the USA.  I understand that a young soldier is already under arrest and investigation as a suspect in the stealing of the US government's 'property'.  However, unless anyone can demonstrate otherwise, I can see no US judicial action that could be brought against Juan Assange, an Australian.  Any potential harm to American servicemen and/or American sources of information must have been absolutely minimal given the months of notice that Assange provided before publishing what was passed to him - and it is important to emphasise that he could, and probably would, insist that he took no active part in purloining the information, it was simply given to him.  As a non-American citizen why should he not publish?  One might go further and suggest that an American government imbued with an excess of generosity and intelligence over fury and spite might grant him a medal for showing up the incredible stupidity, amounting almost to dereliction of duty, in allowing 'their' information to be so easily available to everyone and his uncle from the president down to ordinary private soldiers.  Finally, should Assange ever find himself before an American court, surely a wise judge would seek to define precisely the depth and extent of the damage inflicted.  As I indicated in a previous post, so far the information released, whilst it might have been embarrassing to the parties concerned, has indeed left me opened-mouthed - but with yawns not shock!  And anyway, I have yet to know of any politician anywhere who has ever been embarrassed by anything!

 

It's expensive, it's useless, it's mendacious - so flog it off!

Who could the old boy be banging on about today, you ask yourselves?  Actually, my title has the makings of a new Christmas game - Guess the Culprit!  I would not be surprised if several of you went for the BBC but, alas, not this time.  This time, as I slump here, knackered, having helped clear the snow from my and my neighbours' paths, I point my gnarled, bent and freezing old finger at the Met Office.  What a collection of utterly useless incompetents they are.  After forecasting(!) several BBQ summers all of which were almost washed out by rain and unseasonably chilly weather, only a month ago they told us all that:

Britain can stop worrying about a big freeze this year because we could be in for a milder winter than in past years.

This amazing forecast came to us courtesy of the brand, spanking new, all-singing, all-dancing computer which cost us (or me, as I prefer to think of it) £33 million!  Needless to say, but I will for the benefit of my foreign readers, this has not only started as the coldest winter on record for decades but the earliest coldest winter in decades.  If we were all freezing in January nobody would be too surprised but this started in November. 

If as I suspect and I can only suspect because my knowedge of climate science hovers around the 0.01% level (however, that is evidently not much lower than the dimwits at the Met Office), that the biggest influence on global climate is the sun, and that according to the 'brainiac' sun-watchers, it looks as though 'he is not going to put his hat on and come out to play', then we are in for some global cooling.  As I have said before, whilst global warming has some enormous benefits for mankind, cooling has very little and indeed, brings with it enormous dangers to poor people everywhere.

I understand that 'Call me Dave' is very, very concerned about my 'happiness index', whatever that is.  So perhaps one of you lot could tell him that it would warm the cockles of an old man's heart if he flogged off the Met Office tomorrow.

I am grateful to Richard North and his excellent blog.