DUFF & NONSENSE!

'Rock Ape done good'!

Reluctant, as I am, ever to say a good word for the 'Rock Apes', otherwise known as Royal Marine Commandos, there cannot be praise high enough for L/Cpl Matthew Croucher who, whilst on a patrol with four other commandos in Helmand Province, snagged a trip-wire and saw a hand-grenade roll out at his feet.  Without thinking he hurled himself backwards onto it hoping his back-pack would take the worst of the blast and thus save him and his comrades from injury.  The ploy succeeded although it blew his pack to pieces and left him deaf and bleeding from the nose.  He refused a 'casevac' and insisted on staying with the patrol because he knew the Taliban would come looking for whoever had set of the booby trap.  He was right, and in the ensuing firefight he killed one of the enemy.

If that doesn't deserve a VC, I don't know what does!

The Sunday Rumble 30/3/08

A reason to detest the 'Oirish' : During the 'troubles', a prize euphemism that is just so typically 'Oirish', there was one reporter/commentator I always trusted - Kevin Myers. He was born in the Republic but educated in England and this duality allowed him to mix with both sides of the divide which he did very much at 'street level'.  It thus provided plenty of opportunity for his sardonic but realistic observations to range across all sides in the war.  He has a piece in the Sunday Telegraph today in which he looks back in anger at "the grotesque legacy of the Good Friday Agreement".  He confirms what I have long suspected, that we, the Brits, were within a whisker of defeating the IRA who were riddled with informants and suffering huge casualties.  It was Major and Blair who sold the pass following the sustained bombing attacks on London during the '90s.  However, what has been forgotten is that for 30-odd years the Republic refused to take any helpful, indeed, even any humanitarian, measures to assist in the defeat of the IRA:

• "And it has to be said, war is what the Republic of Ireland tolerated.  Even after the British Conservative party had abandoned its strategic and historic alliance with the Ulster Unionist Party, and insisted that constitutional nationalists must be brought into government in Northern Ireland, the Irish government continued to allow the IRA to use its  territory as an operational base."
• "No IRA atrocity - La Mon, in which a dozen Protestants  were incinerated alive by home-made napalm, or the murder of the British ambassador and his secretary in Dublin, or the extermination of the Mountbatten boat party of children and octogenarians, or the Remembrance Sunday massacre at Enniskillen, or other beastialities too numerous to list - was enough to make the Republic of Ireland destroy the evil in its midst."

As Myers points out, there is blame enough to go round, and round again, but the one thing that is a certain is that the war could have ended at least a decade earlier if the Republic had sealed its border.  Its failure to do so, with the implicit acceptance by the majority of Irish voters, is a disgusting and dishonourable stain on their history.  That's why I don't like them and if any idiot comes on here to tell me that I'm being racist I will happily agree, but then again, when a group of foreigners with the connivance of their general public try over 30 years to blow the arms and legs off me and mine, I tend to get rather shirty!

Hurrah! A recession:  There's always a silver lining, and it's an ill wind that blows no-one any good, and ... perhaps that's enough wise, or dumb, old saws.  Even so, as we head in to exceedingly rough economic weather, perhaps even storm force, there is a good side.  During the 'good' times, 'Hash Broon' ladled out state money (or my money as I fondly think of it) to anyone and everyone provided they had a strong union.  Of course, the services that were provided not only failed to improve, they actually declined - just look at your local schools as but one example. Now, however, he can no longer buy himself popularity because, what I like to think of as the providers of last resort, the tax-payers, simply cannot afford it any more.  He is forced to borrow zillions just to keep up the funding that he has already committed himself to, so there's no chance of increasing the spending.  He will, in fact, already is, trying to save money by reneging on his international obligations to fight the good fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, but this will come at a huge price in terms of our standing in the world and our relations with our biggest and most powerful ally, the USA. But the good news is that the pressure on the home front, particularly those departments of state with insatiable, Billy Bunter appetites will be ferocious.  Already, 'Postman Pat' Johnson, the Health Minister, is proposing a voucher scheme by which patients will be able to tout their 'business' to what they think is the best hospital available which will force NHS Trusts to become more efficient thus leaving the inefficient to wither on the vine.  Existing and proposed plans to cut the national welfare bill will be forced through by a desperate government irrespective of its political colouring.  Perhaps, at long last, the state behemoth will be cut back to size.

Wind in the Willows:  Another area of state spending (for which, read: taxes on you and me) likely to come under pressure are all these spurious so-called anti-global warming initiatives.  Christopher Booker repeats yet again in the Sunday Telegraph the malicious folly of wind turbines and now, the latest wheeze, the £20bn, repeat, £20bn, Severn Barrier:

• "Its 300 hundred turbines would, we are told, have a 'generating capacity' of  '8,640 megawatts (MW)'.  But, as even the Sustainable Development Commission tacitly recognises on its website, these would generate, thanks to the variation of the tides, only 22% of capacity, namely 1,900 MW.  This is £10 million per MW, even more than the £8 million per MW of those ridiculous off shore wind turbines"
• "One modern nuclear power station costing £2.7 billion, could generate almost as much electricity as the barrage at barely an eighth of the cost.

He goes on to point out what is hardly ever mentioned by the HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) that the Severn Barrier, just like all those wind turbine sites, will still require a plethora of newly-built, traditional power stations to provide back-up power when the tides or the winds are not operating.  If, like me, you wondered why we put on such a sycophantic show for that funny little Hungarian-Frog and his gorgeous babe, sorry, wife, you should understand that when (not 'if') we go nuclear we will have to buy it from the Frogs because, over the last few decades, all those anti-nuclear dipsticks have forced us to fall behind in the latest technology.

'HilBilly Blues:  I wrote on another blog that I was thinking of opening a book on how long it would take 'Miss Spoke' Clinton to file for divorce starting from the day she admits defeat in her presidential bid.  I reckoned that it was 10 to 1 on that she would do so within a year.  Of course, a lot would depend on the Clintonian finances, it being a truth universally acknowledged, that 50% of  f-all is, er, well, exactly that!  On the other hand, if good ol' Bill has been minting it with all these mysterious, international, wheeler-dealer contracts he's been engaged in, then why would she wait longer than the day after to get shot of the old rascal?

"I'm gonna tell you a story ..."

For the benefit of my American readers my title used to be a sort of catch-phrase over here for a while.  It suits me to re-use it even though I am only going to tell you part of a story, to be precise, just chapter 1 of the story.  You all know of my disgraceful predilection for 'pulp fiction', particularly the American variety in which the necessarily huge body count at the end seems fairly realistic compared to an English setting!  Part of my liking for this genre, if I may use a somewhat literary expression for what many of the literati would dismiss as hack work, is the terrific and almost diabolical imagination of the writers as they continue, over and over again, to come up with new twists and turns to their story-telling. 

One of my favourite writers is Dean Koontz.  Unfortunately (from my point of view), many of his tales involve the supernatural, and that is an area which fails utterly to involve me.  If I cannot believe the basic proposition then I cannot accept the story.  However, when it comes to straightforward crime stories, he's up there with the very best of them.  I have just picked up a second-hand copy of The Good Guy, and what follows is a synopsis of chapter 1 which will not spoil your enjoyment of the rest of the book in any way.

A young, fit-looking man walks into a quiet neighbourhood bar with very few customers in it  and goes to the dimly lit end to nurse a beer in solitude.  After a while a second man comes in clutching a large envelope and after looking around at the handful of people makes his way over to the next barstool to the young man. He is slightly irritated and hopes the guy will not strike up a conversation - but he does just that.  It is a somewhat dis-jointed and even mysterious exchange which the young man does not fully comprehend but he does realise that the stranger has mistaken him for someone else he was supposed to meet.  Anyway, suddenly impatient, the stranger pushes the envelope over saying "Half of its there.  Ten thousand.  The rest when she's gone".  Before he has time to re-act, the stranger gets up and leaves.  Our hero, dumb-struck, opens the envelope, peeks inside and sees a huge wedge of notes and the photograph of a woman with a name and address.  As he struggles to work out all the implications of his situation, another man enters the Bar, looks around and makes his way over and sits down.  "'You're early', said the killer."

Oh, my hat!  When I read that, I almost crooned with pleasure.  What a set-up!  If this doesn't turn out to be an absolute corker I'll eat the bloody book.

Additional: Well, it was a corker, with a truly monstrous, psychopathic killer and non-stop action to keep you from admitting that the whole thing was tosh, up until the last couple of chapters when the action stopped and the explanation was given and the total implausability of it all could be ignored no longer.  I give it *** to **** stars.

I'm an FFFFFF-er, and proud of it!

On the other hand, I might only be an FFFFF-er; although, there again, it's possible I'm actually an FFFFFFF-er.  Sorry about the confusion but it's difficult to keep count of the 'F's.  Perhaps I had better spell it out: I am a Fundamentalist Fighter For Freedom For Fish. Ah, good, I was right first time, six 'F's.  Sorry, sorry, this must all be very confusing for you, I had better explain.

Sky News has been weeping buckets over the last few days because those cruel Canucks are out and about on the Arctic ice - you mean there's any left? - bashing seals on the head.  Such emotional sentimentality appears to sit uneasily at Sky given the reputation of its proprietor, a man who, by all accounts, would have difficulty spelling "emotional sentimentality"!  Anyway, as an FFFFFF-er let me tell you what those lovely, cuddly, cute, little fur balls do when they're not being bashed on the heads by Canucks - they're in the sea eating zillions of little fishies, that's what!  Now little, or even big, fishies are not cuddly and cute.  They don't come across very well on TV.  In fact most people rarely see a fishie, and when they do it's usually covered in batter or breadcrumbs!  Still, slippery, scaly and slimy they may be, but fishies are entitled to a life.  All they want to do is swim around and have lots of baby fishies, but before they get a chance, along comes a carnivorous great seal with a huge gob full of teeth and chumps its way through the entire school.

I mean, come on, people, this sort of species favouritism smacks of discrimination.  Fishies have rights, too, you know!  So, for f-f-f-f-f-f ...  goodness sake, go and club some more murderous seals - now!

"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie" - but this one's a 'rat' not a mouse!

How very appropriate that Scotland's premier poet provides exactly the right words to describe 'Ratty', a Jock who lives down to his name!  He wrote a post on March 22nd in which he attempted to clarify his, er, thoughts on the Iraq situation.  As regular readers of his blog and of his occasional contributions here will guess, it was a useless mish-mash of ignorance and emotion.  For example, he vomited forth a stream of vicious invective against any and all Republicans for, amongst other things, the Vietnam war and so-called death squads in central America. I pointed out in impeccably polite terms that it was a Democratic president, indeed, a Democratic hero-president, who initiated the 'big surge' in Vietnam, not a Republican, and that the next Democratic president continued the war and that finally it was a very suspect Republican president who got the Yanks out of it.  Still, mere facts are of no importance to 'Ratty' when he has the urge to open his mouth and let his belly rumble.  As for the so-called death squads, I asked him if he was referring to Nicaragua which is now a thriving democracy in which the previous Marxist dictator lives and works without let or hindrance and, indeed, I believe he intends to stand for his parliament; but I never received an answer because I suspect that by now 'Ratty' was crying in his bathroom - he is easily given to tears, I gather.

Now I should make clear that I am not against vicious invective, how could I be, I occasionally stoop to it myself, but when I do, I fully expect a bucket-full back in return and as I stand there dripping wet and picking the, er, detritus out of my hair I do not complain!  But, you see, 'Ratty' is one of those ignorant bullies who loves himself when he dishes it out, he positively preens before the avid admiration of the dolts who take him seriously, so it is not surprising that on the receipt of any incoming no matter how mild, he wilts on the spot.  He lacks even the minimal guts required to just ban me, as others have done.  Instead, still convinced of his own 'cleverness' (never quite a compliment in the English language) he resorts to something which I consider to be quite despicable,  he re-writes the words of others leaving them under their original signature.  I point that out so that anyone foolish enough to visit his site should beware of anything purporting to be by me.  I shall continue, for as long as it takes - and because I am retired I have all the time in the world - to contribute comments to his site and watch him re-write them so often that even his own admirers will cease to flatter - unless he bans me  and thereby admits to being a censor.

Finally, his posts are usually written in execrable English which, in anyone else with an iota of self-awareness and a glimmer of intelligence, might give them pause before pontificating in writing for the public.  If I tell you that he is employed in some capacity in that farrago known as the Scottish judiciary system, see below, you will not be surprised.

MacCocklecarrot in the European City of Culture

Once again I was dutifully squelching through the corpses of the murdered in order to keep my roll-tally up to date (see Murder Inc., passim) when I came across this story, the outcome of a murder I tagged last September.  All I had at the time was a note that a man of 24 had been killed in a flat in Paisley, Glasgow.  Now the miscreants have appeared in court and have been found guilty.  They are a young man of 20, his partner, a girl of 18, and her sister who is 17. The youth is Stephen Price and he stabbed the victim not once, not twice, not even three times - but 80 times!  That takes real dedication to the task in hand, that does.  His girl friend helped out by stabbing the victim a couple of times more and then, blood-stained, they both posed by the body so that the other girl could take their photograph on her mobile 'phone.  All three then went to considerable lengths to cover up their part in the crime.

The Jock MacCocklecarrot in charge of this trial, Lord Brodie, had plenty of time to think long and hard over his sentencing decision because he waited for a psychiatric report on Price - why, I do not know.  The content of this report was not reported but m' Lord Brodie-MacCocklecarrot having taken 5 weeks to ponder the punishment, it would have taken me 5 seconds on a bad day, finally came down with his judgement - a minimum sentence of 15 years.  Thus, all you Glaswegian Jocks can look forward happily to the future knowing that this homicidal thug will be back on your streets in 2023.  What about the girls, you ask?  Well, his co-murderess, the one who got in a couple of stabs of her own, drew all of 7 years but you can all relax up there in Jockland because when she comes out she will be, er, "supervised" for 3 years - so that's alright then!  The other little hag drew 27 months in a youth detention centre and she will be "supervised" for a year on release.

Do we have a law and order problem?  Of course not, just ask your average Guardian reader, it's all got up by the Daily Mail. Nothing wrong with Glasgow either - European City of Culture, wasn't it?

Additional: In my fury as I spat out the story above I forgot to pass on a friendly warning to my e-friend, Clairwil, who lives in Glasgow and who reported recently on an alarming incident in which she was menaced by half a dozen 'MacYoufs' late at night.  She, a very feisty lady, is made of sterner stuff than me, so much so that I was almost impelled to report her to Social Services for cruelty to yobs. But, please, Clairwil, have a care!

America gets lucky - but only if I get help!

This is a personal post to my few American readers and any of my much-travelled British readers, too. Next year is an auspicious one for me and the little 'Memsahib'.  We shall both, fingers crossed, reach 70 and it will be our 45th wedding anniversary!  The last time such an important anniversary occurred was when we both reach 50 and celebrated our 25th anniversary with a trip to Boston and New England in the Autumn which was glorious.  Anyway, I am minded to repeat something like it next year and as I am determined to see 'Noo Yawk' before I die, I have a cunning plan.  It seems fairly easy and cheap to fly from here into Newark.  There, I thought I would hire a car and go south aiming for Virginia which looks good from a map, and where I would like to have a two base holiday, first in the mountains, and then down on the coast.

So, my question is, can anyone, by any chance, recommend an area or a specific location which is easy on the eye, comfortable accommodation, a few good bars and restaurants around but not too busy.  I'm not really expecting much in the way of responses but it would be silly not to ask.  I can, and have, looked on Google, but you can't beat a personal recommendation.

After that, I plan to drive back into 'Noo Yawk', and try and soak up what I can in three days!

Any personal friends who read this, please do not mention it to the little 'Memsahib' because I want it to be a surprise - she doesn't know it but I plan to sell her into the white slave trade!

'Jailhouse Crock'

According to the little 'Memsahib's' Daily Mail, which she kindly allows me to skim-read provided I iron it afterwards, at least two murders a week are committed by criminals on bail.  Before my Lefty readers pooh-pooh the whole thing as a Daily Mail rant let me inform them that the figures are the results of a series of questions posed under the Freedom of Information Act.  One interesting detail was the fact that last month, 60 murder suspects were walking free on a street near you, perhaps, but, er, under bail conditions - so that's alright then, but try telling that to the recently widowed Mrs Newlove whose husband was slaughtered by just such a violent thug who was out on bail.  Consequently, as I sat down to my daily, mournful ritual of compiling the murder statistics from the BBC news sites, I was not too surprised to read that two youths, 16 and 17, arrested following the murder by gunshot of another youth in the Brixton area of London, had been set free on bail.  The message to any potential witnesses to the murder is quite clear - watch it, we're out and we know where you live!

Additional: More details have emerged concerning a murder in Hackney that I had already logged.  The victim was Jamie Simpson, 33, an assistant manager at the local Matalan store.  You can see his cheerful picture, here.  He had worked at the store for three years.  I don't know if he had any family but he was described as "a reliable and diligent member of staff".  So, a steady young man with prospects for a good future - until three youths waited until the late evening cashing-up period last Saturday and then pounced on him in a violent robbery that ended with Mr Simpson being stabbed, fatally, in the neck.  I don't know if any of those young thugs were on bail but it is yet another deeply depressing example of how the innocent pay the price because sopping wet liberals cannot nerve themselves to bring back the rope.  I assume that our Home Secretary was again, wisely, not walking the dangerous streets of Hackney, as she confessed, but she should be told that some people who live and work there have no other choice and it is those people who look in vain for the protection that a govenrment is supposed to offer.  "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime."  They should pin that lying slogan on the corpse of 'Tony' Blair as he swings from the gibbet he deserves.

"Public Announcement: The end of the world is running late"

My God!  It's all true!  I mean all that global warming stuff that I have pilloried for years.  I shall be forced to recant and to grovel before all those prats, sorry, wise men like, er, 'Dim' Lambert - too, too humiliating.  Still, there it is, in black and white, in the august and authoritative Washington Post, no less:

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

Oh, but hang on, what's this  ... the date ... oh, I see, er, November 1922!  Good grief, you mean this has been going on for 86 years?  Well, my flabber is truly gasted!  I mean, how come there's any ice left up there at all? 

I'm not a suspicious or cynical man, as you all know full well, but I think some one's taking the piss - it wouldn't be that 'Dim' Lambert, would it? Well, I mean, he is Australian, you know!

Hat tip and full story to the always excellent Anthony Watts.

Olympian Pomp & Circumstance: stop giggling!

As I scurried round the kitchen this morning with the little 'Memsahib' thumping imperiously on the floor above to hurry me along, I half-watched the Olympic ceremony of lighting the torch.  I didn't know whether to laugh or throw up!  Sundry Greek 'youfs' and 'youfettes' stood around looking very solemn but uncertain in their phony ancient Greek costumes like so many extras from an old Cecil B. de Mille film having a tea break.  The setting didn't help, looking a bit like the scrofulous end of our village recreation park.  A travesty of a ritual then took place, ending with a young girl pulling a dove from its cage and then, after a suitably dramatic pause, releasing it into the sky.  I fell to my knees in my kitchen and prayed that it, in turn, would release a suitably large dollop of shit over the stuffed shirts arrayed below it.  I don't know if it happened, one can but hope.  Also, I heard a story on the radio that the Olympic flame was to be lit by means of the sun's rays but that there was considerable doubt as to whether or not the sun would actually shine, er, despite all this global warming!  Another prayer was dispatched, this time to Zeus in case the first one was lost in the post!  Of course, no ceremony these days is complete without its very own demonstrators, and exactly on cue they rushed some Chink cove in a suit giving a speech and waved their flags for about 2.5 seconds before the Greek police fell off the end of their fags and intervened.  Made my day!  Needless to say, the chief honcho of this Olympic racket, oops, sorry, movement issued a statement saying how sorry he was that Tibetan protesters had interfered with his ridiculous piece of Olympic kitsch.  Naturally, not a word of sorrow for the plight of the Tibetans currently being shot, imprisoned or 're-educated' by the smirking, smiling Chinks who are hosting this festival of drug cheats.  Personally, and you all know that I am at heart a kindly man, I hope everyone who takes part in this farrago, or goes to see it, ends up with galloping emphysema from the foul, disgusting pollution that is such a suitable backdrop for these, er, 'games'.

Now, Mr and Mrs McCann, start suing bloggers!

On the whole, but with certain exceptions, I rather like the blogging fraternity but what always irritates me is their naive assumption that some how they are not part of the real world.  Thus, many of them have it in their thick but empty heads that they are immune, or above, the laws of libel, and if they're not, they jolly well should be because, er, like, blogging's really, really important, innit?  Well, no, it's not, actually.

Tonight two major newspapers have printed large front-page apologies to the McCanns for stories they wrote implying that they, the McCanns, were responsible for their daughter's death and for hiding her body.  Their lawyers obviously spelled out the grisly truth that any attempt to defend this action in a court would result in crippling financial damages, so they have simply surrendered, paid a hefty amount to the Madeleine fund and been forced to print their apologies in big type on their front pages.  Others may have to follow suit. 

Now I hope the McCanns will take on some of the filthy blog sites that far from implying their guilt, made, and constantly repeated, direct accusations to that end.  I hope their lawyers will now turn their sights in the direction of 'Blogdom' and rip into these disgusting, vicious bloggers whose ignorance is only exceeded by their stupidity.  They need look no further than a certain murderer whose release from jail was an insult to the memory of the elderly lady whose head he bashed in with an axe and who then joked about her having a headache.  I refuse to link to him but I will certainly be more than happy to provide details to the McCann's lawyers, along with the names of certain other sites, if they ever contact me.  In fact, thinking about it, I might well contact them!

There's a slant-eyed yellow peril to the north of Kathmandu!

The world watches closely to see how the Chinese deal with their little embarrassment in Tibet.  Nowhere will it be watched with greater concentration than in the other provinces of China.  I cannot pretend to any specialist knowledge of that huge country but I do know that if the centre weakens the ever-present centrifugal forces will begin to throw off bits and pieces here and there where local chiefs have a desire to run their own affairs without interference from Peking.  I suspect that the Party will use ferocious force to put down the uprising in Tibet pour encourager les autres, whilst possibly raising the temperature over Taiwan in order to raise up patriotism against the USA.  Also, it is often forgotten that China is home to an enormous Muslim population and they, too, will watch the outcome with considerable interest.

Well done, 'Stumpy'!

I very rarely remark on the subject of 'celebs' and their doings, mostly because I've never heard of the majority of them and I have to ask the little 'Memsahib' who they are and that only increases the contempt with which she views me!  However, unlike that 'Cocklecarrot' of yesteryear, I have heard of the Beatles, and thus, of Sir Paul McCartney and his travails in the High Court with his former wife, Heather Mills.  She appears to be universally disliked by the press who, from a quick glance at the papers in my local newsagent this morning, spent the previous evening finding the most ugly photographs of the lady for their front pages.  I, of course, take a completely neutral stance over this contentious issue but I cannot help feeling that anyone who chucks a glass of water over a lawyer cannot be entirely bad. This event produced a classic headline in The Sun ("We love it!"), as follows:

"Mucca Chucksa Cuppa Water Over Macca's Lawyer Shaka"

How do they think them up?!  Some dandruff-ridden reprobates from Canary Wharf are even attempting to work out, given that 'Stumpy' used to be a call girl and the fact that the former Governor of New York, Mr. 'Spittingwithrage' Spitzer paid his tart £2,000 a night, whether or not Sir Paul would have been better off renting her by the hour.  Unfortunately the hacks' ability at sums ends at the tenth digit on their trembling hands so we shall never know. Anyway, I wish to thank 'Stumpy' for all her efforts which, whatever they might have brought her, have certainly added to the gaiety of the nation.

The Sunday Rumble 16/3/08

What's 'Dave' for?  I ask that question in both of its meanings, that is, what utility does the Rt.Honourable 'Dave' Cameron possess as a political leader, and what policies does he support?  It's not an unreasonable question given that 'Hash Broon' has spent money like a drunken sailor for the last 10 years and now that the wheels have come of the gravy train he is forced to go and borrow £43bn, repeat, £43bn, which we will have to pay back.  A few obvious policies would be to get the state to withdraw as much as possible from our lives by selling off whatever it is they own and run badly, like schools and hospitals, and to cut taxes so that we, the customers can re-stimulate business with our own money.  But today it is reported that the Tories will not cut taxes in their first four years.  Indeed, 'Dave' is full of bright(-not) ideas on how he is going to spend our money by giving new mums home visits by nurses despite our hospitals being short-staffed, and giving couples a year off when they have a baby.  To re-enforce the message of this bribe we are given a reality(-not) TV report on breakfast with Cameron and kids.  Now that the dandruff-endowed rats of Canary Wharf have been given, courtesy of dim 'Dave', himself, the green light on the Cameron brood, especially the retarded one, I hope they live down to their reputation by sinking their yellowed teeth-stumps into that family for ever.  It was a cynical, stupid, cruel and ultimately useless piece of agit-prop for which his innocent children will pay the price over the years to come.  Search as I might, I can find absolutely no reason to vote for 'Dave', but a lorry-load not to!

Where I would vote if I could:  I almost feel sorry for Lefties in the States having to choose between that puffed-up cobra full of venom that is 'Lady Hilary Macbeth' Clinton, and that amiable know-nothing, black, Cheshire cat who is nothing but a smile.  I have considerable doubts concerning Sen. McCain not helped by Oliver Kamm's endorsement in which he insists that McCain is not a conservative.  To be fair, it is incredibly difficult to pin any of these politicians down as to what they do or do not believe in, probably because they don't believe in much of anything.  However, McCain does appear to have some basic tenets, for example, there can be no doubt that he is a patriot having proved it in one of the toughest tests ever. Also, he has stated very publicly that he is a free trader.  If either of the other two get in and do what they threaten by way of protectionist policies then my advice to you all is sell everything you can, especially investment savings, pension funds, the lot, and buy gold - if you can afford it now that it has gone over the $1000 mark!  So my vote would be for McCain because I want a militarily strong, rich, confident, free-trading America.

Macbeth: Keen-eyed readers will have spotted my reference to Macbeth above, and if you suspected that perhaps that play was in the forefront of my mind then you would be right.  After my production last year of Hamlet ("Brilliant " The David Duff Times: "Definitive" The David Duff Echo: "Superlative" The David Duff Klaxon), I took this year off/couldn't get a job (delete to taste) so now I have to put myself forward for a production next year.  Our Play Selection Committee, in an act of collective philistinism, failed to choose any of the modern plays that I put forward for consideration.  However, because we are a Shakespeare Society, in which at least two of our plays every year must be by the country boy from Stratford, there is always something for me to have a go at.  Next year is our 75th anniversary year so in honour of this splendid birthday they have offered up 3 Shakespeare slots and one of them is Macbeth.  Like all the Shakespeare's I have directed, to begin with I both know them and don't know them, by which I mean, that not being a university-educated Eng. Lit. man, I know several of them by repute, or by having seen an occasional production, but none of that means I really know them.  So if I get the job, and it's very much an if, then its back to the books time with good old Harley Granville-Barker, Quiller Couch, Frank Kermode, Wilson Knight and all the other great scholars who forgot more about Shakespeare than I'll ever know. But of course, above and beyond all those great academics, it is the text itself where-in a director must immerse himself in order to do what a director has to do - serve the writer!

The Darwinists continue to wriggle on the hook:  An amusing review on (yet another) book attempting, desperately, to explain why altruism has not been extinguished in the human race as Darwin's theory insists it should be.  Always the 'Darwinistas' come back with all sorts of explanations which either miss the point, or attempt to turn the point around by saying that altruism is really selfishness in disguise.  I mean, how desperate can you get?! All quite pathetic as well as ignorant and why they should insist on a monopoly of teaching their religion in, of all places, science lessons is quite beyond me.

Murder Inc. #30 (Mar 08)

• My amateur effort to keep track of the murdered body count in this "scepter'd Isle" since July 3rd 2007, as the government and the liberals insist that crime figures are falling and there is no need to look again at sentencing policy. 

My sources are the BBC News sites which do not necessarily report every homicide on the main regional bulletins, so this is not an exhaustive list. However, quite often, several months later, the accused appear in court and that is often reported so I pick up some cases which passed me by at the time.  For my purposes, men and women are 17+ years and children are 16- years.

TOTAL SINCE 3/7:  369 men:  122 women:  53 children: 

CODES: EN= England, SC=Scotland, NI=Northern Island, WA=Wales.

Against all experience and hope, the little girl missing for over 3 weeks has been found alive so my child murder statistic has been adjusted downwards, but fear not, there have been a further two in the first 2 weeks of this murdering month of March!  Included is an incident which appears to indicate that security on the Queen's highway has reverted to medieval times with a woman on a bicycle having a verbal dispute with 4 women in a car who promptly got out and stabbed her to death.  Well, I suspect they were frightfully common people so the posh educated liberals won't turn a hair let alone change the law.

Mar 1st - Mar 16th

• EN: M'chester: Man 25 stabbed, men 66, 70 arr (beware pensioners!)
• EN: Enfield: Man 30 stabbed during argument, man 62 arr.
• EN: Doncaster: Man dead in drive, woman 39 arr.
• EN: N'castle: Man 22 stabbed 13/2 died in hosp, 2 men arr.
• EN: Deptford: Man 17, stabbed last week dies in hosp, Man 18 arr.
• EN: Warrington: Man 19, head injs, gang fight dies in hosp, man 23 arr.
• EN: Workington: Man dead in car at docks, police suspicious
• EN: Edmonton: Boy 16 attacked 2 weeks ago, dies of head injs.
• EN: Tipton: Man 39 shot, died in hosp, man 36 arr.
• EN: Burnley: Man 50, stabbed trying to stop fight in park, man 20, boy 16 arr.
• EN: Poole: Woman (?) killed by arson fire at house, son 49 arr.
• EN: Plymouth: Man 30 found dead in stairwell in Dec, police say murder
• EN: Hull: Man 24 stabbed during ass in car park, man 23 arr.
• EN: Torpoint: Baby 1 mth, head inj, died in hosp, man 30 arr.
• SC: E'burgh: Woman (?) dead in flat, susp death, man 37 arr.
• EN: Hackney: Man 43 stabbed in street, woman 40 arr.
• EN: M'chester: Woman 25 killed at home, man 25 arr.
• EN: Fakenham: Man 60 stabbed at home, man 40 Arr.
• EN: Skegby: Woman 71 beaten to death at home, neighbour man 43 arr.
• EN: L'pool: Man 17 killed in fight between Somalis, 2 men 21, 22 arr.
• EN: B'pool: Man 40 stabbed in leg died of septicaemia, woman 29 arr.
• EN: L'pool: Woman on bike stabbed by 4 women in car
• EN: Stockwell: Man 19 shot, died in hosp
• EN: Edmonton: Man 18, beaten/stabbed to death in his mother's flat
• EN: L'pool: Man 64 killed by arson fire at home
• EN: T'side: Man 33 stabbed (Oct 07) for bad debt, killer gets 15 yrs
• EN: Newark: Woman 26, head injs, died in hosp, man 39 arr.
• EN: Icklefield: Man, headless & handless found near garage block

• By providing these bare details I hope to impress on you that these are not just statistics but were real human beings with families, friends and a future before them - just like me and you, really!

• My amateur effort to keep track of the murdered body count in this "scepter'd Isle" since July 3rd 2007, as the government and the liberals insist that crime figures are falling and there is no need to look again at sentencing policy. 

'I ain't done nuffink wrong!'

Two recent cases of children in danger and distress.  One of them, a young girl of fifteen left alone in India with her 25-year old boyfriend and his family whilst the mother went off on a tour lasting weeks was eventually drugged, raped and murdered.  The mother of nine children was once convicted of attempted murder when she cut a man's throat. The other, a girl of nine, abducted and missing for over three weeks but thankfully found alive.  This mother has seven children and called the little girl who went missing and her brother 'twins' because they were the only two from the same father.

A few eyebrows have been raised here and there and questions asked concerning the behaviour and life styles of the two mothers involved.  I cannot imagine why!  They have done no wrong.  The reason is simple - there is no right or wrong anymore!  Ever since the '60s, posh, middle-class, university-educated toffs have told them that, in the jargon of the day, they should 'let it all hang out', inhibitions are bad for you, promise-keeping is dead, personal responsibility can be foregone because the state will tidy up after you no matter how much detritus you leave behind, binge-drink, shoot-up, shag away, but above and beyond all other things - have fun! (Was ever a word more literally gang-banged out of all meaning?)

You may ask (er, you did, didn't you?) why such posh, educated people should advocate behaviour in which it was obvious that the young and the innocent would be the smashed, crashed and crushed victims.  Well, I'm glad you asked me that question because the answer is easy - because those posh, educated, middle class people wanted to binge drink, shoot up and shag for Britain themselves!  Any attempt to restrain their perverse and perverted life styles produces howls of anger and cries of censorship and personal liberty.  They deny vehemently that there is any connection between their library of pornographic films, their liking for the occasional sniff of cocaine, their desire for a Saturday night out in which they will become totally drunk and obnoxious to everyone else.  Hey, they're just having fun!

So, the two ladies above should consider themselves excused.  They need have no worries and cares, they should just carry on as usual.  Pity about the kids, of course, because they won't be having much fun at all, in one case, not ever.

Of course he's bloody black!

A great hullabaloo has arisen in the Land of the Free because, and this is an irony of such succulent sweetness that I will savour it for ever, a lady of hitherto impeccable liberal stock, a doyenne of the Democratic party's  'Great & Good', who once stood as a vice-presidential candidate alongside Walter Mondale, and was a senior figure in the 'HillBilly' campaign, has opened her refined mouth and - horror of horrors! - told the truth!  She said this:

• “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Needless to say she was sacked.  Well, actually she resigned but I'm sure Hillary has ways of making you resign!  George Neumayr in The American Spectator sums it up beautifully:

• "The radical chic of which Tom Wolfe wrote has caught up with the paternalistic left, producing new fodder for farce. As they held Park Avenue parties for black activists and bankrolled their candidacies to safe and obscure posts, they could appear progressive while remaining safely in control. But the role of following blacks rather than leading them is a little too discombobulating for them to handle. And so they are reduced to grumbling like racists at the "luck" of a black candidate winning yet another state in the South."

The sight and sound of so-called liberals hoist on their own petards is hilarious.  Less amusing is the plight of ordinary Democrat voters faced with a choice between a likeable,black, male know-nothing and a dislikeable, white, female know-nothing.  Makes old 'Dubya' positively appealing!

The Frayn Brain Drain

I shouldn't bother reading this, if I were you.  I'm feeling sorry for myself and given even a hint of encouragement I shall begin to wallow in self-pity.  As my regular readers know all too well by now, this blog is maintained by a steady injection by me of conceit and arrogance, bluster and prejudice.  True, it is occasionally enlivened by a facile gift for deadly insult, but the sad fact is that behind all this huffin' and puffin' there is something of a void.  I am aware of it but, like everyone with a weakness (that means you!), I try not to dwell on it. But then along comes bloody, bloody Michael Frayn with his book, The Human Touch, and blows away all my little pretensions - and I'm only on page 46!

Oddly enough, Frayn and I share something in our lives despite being complete strangers to each other.  Many years ago he served in that well-known oxymoron, Army Intelligence, as did I.  However, it was an indication of our differences that he served in the very brainy signals intelligence branch whilst I grubbed and snuffled around in the gutters of the all too appropriately named, counter-intelligence.  Then, later in our lives we both took an interest in theatre.  He became a world-renowned playwright with shows in London and on Broadway, whilst I became an amateur director gagging for a chance to direct one of his plays in a theatre that holds a hundred people.  Some time ago, totally unaware of each other (he still is of me), we both took an interest in philosophy, particularly the philosophy of science and the implications of quantum mechanics.  I read some books which I half understood and attended some lectures of which I understood even less;  he, not only wrote a brilliant play (Copenhagen) based on the ambiguities of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, but he has now written a book of such tremendous excellence that I can hardly find the words to praise it enough, in which he sets off on a journey of intellectual wonderment through the thickets, forests and mountains of science and philosophy and the place of the human in this vast, cold, dark, mysterious universe - and, dammit, he does it with the lightest of touches.  His torch is his intelligence which shines ahead of him illuminating the path for author and reader alike, and as all the very best tour guides should do, he laces his musings with humour and obvious good nature.  Who could resist a writer who comes up with this acute piece of drollery on the subject of the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics in which it is proposed that at every possible juncture between two  (or more) possibilities, a parallel universe is created in which every possibility is acted out without the knowledge of the original particle concerned:

• Reading Deutsch [Dr. David Deutsch, the leading proponent of the 'many worlds' theory one of whose lectures I once attended] has encouraged me to adapt his approach to solving another mystery which has vexed theorists for many years - the single sock problem.  This is the converse of quantum interference, where a single particle apparently acquires virtual partners.  It is a matter of common knowledge that pairs of socks , while passing unobserved through the closed system of a washing machine, are repeatedly reduced to single socks, or at any rate to pairs consisting of one actual sock and one virtual sock undetectable by observation.

Do not suppose that Frayn's book is just knockabout fun at the expense of science and its practitioners.  This is a very serious enquiry by a layman equipped with nothing more than his own wit, intelligence, scholarship (in the sense of reading deeply and widely) and curiosity in order to come to some conclusions concerning the seemingly never-ending puzzles of this universe and our place in it.  It is exactly the sort of book that I wish I could have written but, alas, returning to the title of this post, it is Frayn who has the brain whilst what passes for mine is going down the drain!

A couple of corkers!

The Yanks have nicked le Carre's crown!  Years ago John le Carre wrote one of my favourite top ten books, the Spy Who Came in from the Cold, then he started taking himself seriously and turned from spy stories to novels and as you all know, in my view, novels are for girly-men! However, fairly recently I discovered the books of Alan Furst, whose depiction of the seedy under-belly of Europe before and during WWII, and the various misfits, crooks and eccentrics who brush against the fringes of the intelligence world, is quite simply terrific. His evocation of the times is so accurate his tales almost read like memoires.  Also, quite often his stories fail to end with a bang but tend to whimper out, which makes them all the more life-like.  Now I have discovered another super spy-tale-teller, Joseph Kanon.  I have only read his first book, Los Alamos, which is set, as you can guess, in the New Mexico desert where that unique and amazing constellation of all the scientific talents occurred before the end of the war and which produced the first atomic bomb.  It features that real-life, Laurel and Hardy-like duo of Oppenheimer, the scientific genius, and Gen. Groves, the bluff, professional military engineer, both of whom drove the Manhattan project through to completion.  It is an intriguing (in all senses of the word!) and immensely intelligent story which seems to me to capture the essence of life in that most bizarre of communities.

A couple of corkers - Alan Furst and Joseph Kanon - go read!

Brainless 'wimmin' - be afraid, be very afraid!

An exceedingly brainy woman, Christina Hoff Sommers, has written a very worrying essay on the non-subject of the fact that very few women make much progress in scientific studies.  She examples the phenomenally stringent and rigorous Math 55 course at Harvard:

• Each year as many as 50 students sign up, but at least half drop out within a few weeks. As one former student told The Crimson newspaper in 2006, “We had 51 students the first day, 31 students the second day, 24 for the next four days, 23 for two more weeks, and then 21 for the rest of the first semester.” Said another student, “I guess you can say it’s an episode of ‘Survivor’ with people voting themselves off.” The final class roster, according to The Crimson: “45 percent Jewish, 18 percent Asian, 100 percent male.”

However, in America women earn more PhDs than men in what might be called the 'soft' subjects in the humanities, social sciences, education and so forth, but in the 'hard' sciences they are only achieving some 24% of the PhDs granted each year. Cue entry of the 'feministas' whose ignorance, fanaticism and prejudice is only exceeded by their militancy and their influence amongst equally brainless male members of Congress.  Why should we worry?  Because these wretched 'wimmin' are already well on their way to destroying education both 'over there', and 'over here'.  If they now succeed in dragging down the efficacy of the 'hard' sciences then we shall lose out in all those essential disciplines that have contributed so much to the welfare of Mankind in the past 250 years.

Ms. Hoff Sommers has written a closely argued essay that I urge you to read in full rather than any poor effort of mine to precis it.

The law is an ee-aw!

Well, that title was one of my cheap cracks, I'm afraid.  It's true that in many ways the law is an ass but the Volokh Conspiracy provide a tragic example in which the law was hog-tied by its own inviolable rules designed with the best intentions to safeguard individuals embroiled in criminal charges brought by the state.

Here, briefly, is the story.  Some 26 years ago two young defence lawyers in the USA were appointed to defend a man likely to face a charge of murder.  The man actually confessed his guilt to them, but then another man was charged for the offence in his place.  The two lawyers were bound on pain of disbarment by the strict convention that safeguards client/lawyer privilege and were thus unable to say anything as the innocent man was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.  He served 26 years and only now, on the death of the guilty man, have they been able to speak out.  The Atlantic discusses some ways that might mitigate this dreadful impasse should it arise again and the comments to the Volokh post add some more.

All in all, one of those delicious moral dilemmas so beloved of novelists, playwrights and Hollywood film-makers - until, of course, you realise that an innocent man spent 26 years in jail!

The Sunday Rumble (9/3/08)

In praise of ... the bacon 'sarnie'!  Is there anything better on a lazy Sunday morning than a bacon 'sarnie'? (Yes, yes, I just about remember that, and where-as a few years ago any hint of it would have the little 'Memsahib' reaching for her karate kit, these days she just sniggers!) Anyway, I have just enjoyed my Sunday ritual and each time I smell the bacon cooking I am instantly removed backwards some 50 years to the long-demolished Smith-Dorrien Centre in Aldershot, a sort of volunteer canteen for the troops raised in memory of some old General who either won the Boer war or lost the Great War, I can't remember which, anyway, his canteen was the place we weedy-reedy recruits would go for our morning break.  It was staffed by ladies of immense girth with arms thicker than the PTIs and when asked, politely, for a bacon 'sarnie' would bawl out their mantra, "Wiv, or wivou'?"  Only the rawest of raw recruits would ask "Wiv or wivou' - wot?"; us old sweats of more than one week's service already knowing that it referred to the magical ingredient without which no bacon 'sarnie' is truly worthy of the name - HP sauce!

'Broon' does nothing - good man!  It is, of course, the avowed policy of this fair-minded, tolerant blog to put the boot into 'Broon' as often as possible and preferably from his blind side!  However, it must be admitted that from time to time even that monument to Jock stupidity must, if only by accident, do something right, and today, courtesy of 'Her Majesty's Sunday Torygraph', I can inform you that 'Broon', the incredible sulk, has refused to pick up the 'phone to that gangster who runs Russia.  Our own exquisite 'Ministry for Foreigners' is in a terrible tizzy over it which is all the proof you need to be certain that 'Broon' is in the right.  Britain has no need to cosy up to that ex-KGB thug until he begins to behave in a civilised manner, for example, by not murdering his fellow Russians in British restaurants!

Beyond parody:  The lovely ladies over at Stroppyblog had me in stitches earlier this week when they advertised a potentially terrifying "Million Women Rise" march, part of which would be in support of the Southall Black Sisters organisation of which I have written below.  In their efforts to recruit as many marchers as possible they included this passage which is beyond parody:

"It is a women and children only demo but the male supporters of SBS are still encouraged to come and stand on the sidelines (as it were!) to offer their support."

What a hoot! You only have to change the genders and they sound for all the world like those retired majors who used to run golf clubs into which the ladies were only permitted on certain specified days and only in certain specified areas. 

Pro-Ams: My enjoyment of my bacon 'sarnie' was nearly ruined by the sight on my TV (not the sound which I almost always turn off) of Mr. 'Nick-Nick' Clegg, the sixth-former who now runs the il-Lib-non-Dem party.  Apparently they are holding some sort of conference despite it being March not October.  All the parties now seem to have extra conferences during the year and I couldn't help wondering why because they must cost a fortune and the Westminster politicians hate them.  However, trawling the blogosphere, I think I have the answer.  The Pros obviously feel it is necessary to give the Ams something to do.  You only have to visit Susan Press's  site to see what I mean.  This bundle of unremitting socialist energy is always either off to some one else's conference or demo, or organising them herself.  She never stops.  She never achieves anything, either, which is something she is gradually becoming aware of, as can be construed from the more heartfelt of her bitter but honest comments. The Pros at Westminster realise the fear and loathing with which they are regarded by the rest of us but they can happily ignore the likes of me and you, but the Ams, like Susan Press, with their incessant activism, need to be tossed a bone or three to keep them happy.  Thus, they are provided with more and more conferences at which they can nod and applaud or boo and hiss - and then write about it all on their blogs.  Of course, they haven't changed a single thing but, hey (as some one or other used to say), it makes them feel, you know, like, really, really, committed - and indeed, most of them should be!

The Euro panzers park on Westminster Green

I may be wrong but I don't recall ever posting on the subject of the EU and I am only provoked to do so now by a mildly interesting thread over at Oliver Kamm's place.  I  describe it as "mildly interesting" because my remarks constitute about half of it!  Anyway, it has given me pause and made me try and think more exactly why I dislike the whole enterprise.  I have always agreed with those who say that the first duties of a government is to protect its people, enforce a legal system and protect the currency.  So let me dwell on those aspects in comparing our twin governments, the elected one in parliament and the unelected one in Brussels.

There are now, and always have been, disagreements over what constitutes our grand strategic national interests at any given moment.  However, as Britons occupying a relatively tiny island we can at moments of great peril more easily recognise the nature and strength of any threats that come our way.  Sharing this island, of course, makes it that much more certain that the vast majority, in the end, will help to defend it.  But let us consider the vast, unwieldy construct that is the European Union.  If, say, Serbia with Russian support attacked Kosovo would we feel it right and natural to go and defend it, assuming that  'plucky little Kosovo' had become a member of the EU?  More to the point, were Britain to be threatened by an outside force, would 'plucky little Kosovo' fight for us? Are the Swedes and, nearer to home, the Irish, ready to lay down their lives in defence of the European province formerly known as Great Britain?  Well, perhaps being small nations they couldn't do that much anyway, so could we, in extremis, confidently turn to Paris and Berlin and expect them to spend their blood and treasure on our behalf?  Would we do the same for them?  Put that way, of course, and the answer is obvious, no, everyone would look first at their national interest and the likely size of the butcher's bill before committing to anything, in other words, it would be an example of the "same old, same old"!  So why on earth bother with all these ridiculous treaties that bind no-one.  We stand to gain far more by nestling up to Uncle Sam from whom we can filch some help on defence systems including nuclear weaponry thus allowing us to sit back, keep our atomic powder dry and only commit ourselves when we choose to do so.

On legal matters I can only propose that the greatest legal system never to be invented is English common law.  None of our system, which arose by the gentle accretion of year on year decisions made by judges in the light of their own circumstances but which bore in mind the precedents of the past, is compatible with European law which is based on the diktat of a half-mad, jumped-up, Corsican bandit with delusions of grandeur.  God alone knows our own judges are capable of great folly but at least they arise from a shared heritage based on the democratic rule of parliament.  The majority of judges in Europe have only just emerged from this or that brutal dictatorship and their experience of legal procedures in a democracy is about 25 years old!  Do I want a Latvian, a Pole or a Romanian to lay down the law for me? No, and nor do I expect the citizens of those countries to accept legal rulings by the very many Cocklecarrots we have over here.

Finally we come to the protection of the currency. The argument pointing out the absurdity of one interest rate to cover two dozen different nations has been rehearsed so often I cannot be bothered to repeat it again.  I had hoped that the Italians would have 'Belgranoed' the whole silly edifice by now but you can't rely on them for anything - except charm, and good food.  How deliciously enjoyable would be the irony that in the end it was profligate, old Uncle Sam who, with his open-handed lending, brings the global economy to a shuddering halt and thus delivers the death knell to this monstrous invention of a single currency.  Alas, my amateur studies of history warn me that outcomes produced by crisis often turn out very different from expectations.  Should we hit really hard economic rocks, and that is balanced on a knife edge at the moment, it might provide those power-mad lunatics in Brussels with an excuse to insist on even greater controls on the spurious grounds that bound even tighter together Europe could weather the storm. 

Eventually, this European monstrosity will decay and fall and when it does so I suspect there will be intense strife and pain.  As so often in our history, we seem to be sleep-walking towards this coming disaster and I'm afraid that when it comes it will be no good complaining that nobody warned us!  You might be able to claim in mitigation, as you plead for forgivenes from your children, that you were lied to, there is no doubt about that, as anyone can see from a perusal of the government pamphlets issued at the time of the last referendum - I am grateful to 'Cleanthes' of "The Select Society" for pointing me in the right direction.  All I want and hope for is an independent Britain, armed with a judicious mix of nuclear and conventional forces, making its own laws in its own time-honoured way, signing treaties where it sees fit to do so but keeping its sovereignty safe, trading freely with whoever on the globe wishes to trade with us based on a currency that is free to float. That is the only sort of Britain I care about.

Farewell salute to a brave man

The BBC report the death of Leon Greenman, 97, the last English survivor of Auschwitz.  In 1943, Mr. Greenman was living in Holland with his Dutch wife and 3-year old son when the Germans rounded them all up.  His wife and son perished but he survived to be rescued finally by the Americans when they liberated Buchenwald.  Returning to Britain he maintained a steady campaign to tell the world the truth concerning the concentration camps. In a final and bitter irony, when interviewed in 1995 as part of the 50-year anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the BBC found Mr Greenman living in a prison of his own making with bars on his windows and letter-box because he had been targeted by neo-Nazis.  Perhaps an example of 'sick' transit gloria!

Welsh Cocklecarrots cock-up - again!

I have mentioned before the propensity of the Taffy 'Crown Non-prosecution Non-service' to allow murderers to cop a plea of manslaughter because it saves them the trouble of convicting for murder whilst judges condone the practice because they have no desire to rock the legal boat and miss their chance of a higher bench to upon which to park their fat arses. Today we have another example in which a Swansea drug addict had an argument with his female partner who returned from the kitchen with two knives.  A fight ensued and having relieved her of these weapon he stabbed her not once, not twice, but three times.  He then, and here I urge those of you with either a full stomach or a sensitive disposition to read no further, helped himself to some heroin concealed in her private parts.  When arrested he came up with a string of lies to avoid his culpability.  Mr Justice (don't laugh) Saunders sentenced this piece of half-life to an indeterminate sentence, but before you congratulate him, he allowed the perp to apply for parole in four years and indicated that it should be granted if the defendant could convince some dopey social worker that, 'honestly, guv, I've really given up the 'H'.'  Someone should try injecting Mr Injustice Saunders with a shot of commonsense!

"Rubbing the poor itch of your opinion"

Thus, did Caius Marcius, a.k.a., Coriolanus, describe, in the words of Shakespeare, the ordinary people in the process of attempting to choose a leader, and that, I would hazard, pretty well describes the attitude of most of today's professional politicians.  What a peculiar relationship has evolved, both here and across the Atlantic, between us and them, the governors and the governed.  We loathe them, and they despise us right back!  It is slightly more difficult to discern this 'mutually assured damnation' in Britain where a certain reticence still survives but, God bless 'em, you can always rely on the Yanks to tell it the way it is.

In Coriolanus, the hero, having won his laurels by an act of stupendous courage, is forced by age-old custom to walk in the market place, naked beneath a thin robe in order to show his scars to the people and thus gain their 'voices' in the general acclamation which will install him as a Consul of Rome.  Watching the seemingly endless acting-out of the American presidential selection process, the similarities are too big to miss.  In the play, Coriolanus hates demeaning himself in such a humiliating fashion but with so many of the American candidates it would take a platoon of marines to stop them! They seem possessed of some peculiarly pathological mentality that drives them to any degree of self-humiliation and self-abasement in order to shin up that greasy pole to the very top.  This is especially apparent in Hillary Clinton, a driven woman whose creepy ambition seeps from every pore and orifice of her being. I wouldn't put this demented woman within five miles of the nuclear trigger because she wants it so badly!

Of course, not all of us feel this way, indeed, perhaps worse than the vaulting ambition of the psychotics seeking political power is the fanaticism of those who wish merely to bask in the reflected glory, or even more dangerous, those who quietly, and mostly anonymously, insinuate their slippery fingers onto the levers of such power.  Turn over any stone in nu-Labour Westminster and such creatures wriggle out, blinking in the unaccustomed daylight, with the words 'Special Adviser' tattooed on their backs.  Or better still, cruise round some of the political Blogs and listen to the shrill chorus of this or that faction who, blind to any wider, more complex world view and devoid of the slightest scepticism, are simply happy to chant their favourite mantras, over and over and over again.

Was it ever thus?  Possibly, but reading history I do get a sense that, at least here in Britain, in the 19th and early 20th centuries the 'big cats' in the political jungle, though they fought hard for power, did so on the basis of a personal vision, they had a sense of where they wanted to take the country.  Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that many of them were gentry and toffs from what was quite literally, the ruling classes.  The need or requirement to actually grovel and ingratiate themselves with the people was not necessary and if it had of been, I suspect many of them would have demurred on the grounds of good taste.  Did Anthony Blair, Esq., have a vision beyond simply oiling his way to the top of the pole by saying whatever was fashionable, and then hanging on to the job for as long as possible?  I never thought so, and still don't, despite the eloquent blandishments of Oliver Kamm who urges his virtues on us as part of a campaign to make 'El Tone' president of Europe.

I have always clung, and still do, somewhat desperately as my grip loosens with cynicism, to the saving grace that at least we get a chance to turf the rascals out every five years, but if all we get back is more of the same, what's the point?

The Sunday Rumble (2/3/08)

The Sob Sisters: Somewhere down there I mentioned an amusing exchange of views between me and the Sob Sisters of Stroppyblog.  I thought it had come to an end but returning from the excitements of Mudeford in February I found that the thread had continued from the bizarre to the absurd.  Apparently I had used the word "coloured" to describe Blacks and Asians.  I was sternly admonished by the dominatrix who runs the site never to use that word again.  Laban Tall popped up unexpectedly (and uninvited, going by his stance on such matters!) to ask what the initials of that racist organisation, the NAACP, stood for? The only answer was to the effect that words had changed their meanings in the last 100 years since the NAACP was formed, but the lady seemed unaware that the organisation itself had failed to change its title.  Anyway, she challenged anyone to find a contemporary use of the word 'coloured' and so I obliged with two, both used by, er, coloured people!  I need hardly add that during the course of this exchange in which, apparently, caring for the feelings and sensibilities of others is paramount, I was referred to as "shit for brains" without so much as a murmur of disapproval from the 'hostess with the mostess - er, 'mostess' humbug, to be precise.

War in our time: All the unnecessary brouhaha over Prince Harry, plus the excellent TV series by Ross Kemp as he followed the fortunes of the 'Vikings', see below, left me shaking my head in wonderment.  I remember, when the Falklands war began, assuring my son that we would almost certainly win because modern warfare was highly technical and required an officer corps of considerable intellectual quality to manage it (I use that word deliberately), something that I doubted the Argentines had in sufficient strength.  Moving a brigade group of 3 battalions, each of 600 men, plus a gunner regiment, an engineer squadron, a recce troop of light tanks and all the logistical back-up, from A to B in a manner that will maintain its readiness to fight in an instant if attacked, then deploying it into line for battle whilst maintaining communications with air support and HQ formations, is an immense job requiring the highest level of ability from the command structure.  However, that was then, and then I could see that the soldiering was not that different from my (peaceful) exercises in the art; but today, the technicalities of fighting, even, or perhaps especially, in an alien environment like Afghanistan are almost beyond description.  Just watching Prince Harry calling in precision air strikes via various computer and radio communication networks was the cause of much head-shaking and jaw-dropping from an old soldier like me.  All I hope is that our 'skools' and 'yoonieversities' can maintain a steady supply of bright young men (and women) to keep this standard up.

Cameron - Man or Boy? Interesting mutterings in the prints recently wondering whether or not 'Dave' has what it takes to do what it takes.  Apparently, Tory HQ has suddenly realised that we, The People, are filled with fear and loathing when, on occasions, we are forced to contemplate our politicians.  Both main parties have,  since the demise of 'that woman', been at great pains to ensure that they hold hands in the middle of the political spectrum so that no-one can hate them for their middling-piddling policies.  Unfortunately it is precisely those ineffectual concoctions spun together by poll analysts that are now beginning to make many people exceedingly irritated.  However, even worse, the personal and financial behaviour of our masters from any party is now so reviled that we hate and despise them all.  Cameron seems to be attempting a few trembling, uncertain steps toward breaking this consensus but to me it looks rather unconvincing.  I hope, very much, that he succeeds because there is now, I sense, an unspoken but nonetheless real desire for a politician who says what he truly thinks, and acts on it.  This has its dangers because the opening for a mountebank and charlatan to tell people what he thinks they want to hear is obvious. So, come on 'Dave', step up to the plate and be a man, just like that, er, woman!

Mudeford, my Mudeford: "So, how was it for you?" I hear you ask. Well, don't tell anyone, I mean, I can trust you to keep it quiet, can't I, but Mudeford was startling pleasant! Not just for what it was but also for what it wasn't.  Much of the south coast was ruined during the last century but the strip-development of tens of thousands of hideously ugly 1930s-style bungalows.  If only Hitler had landed and allowed his Panzers to crush all of them - but, hey, you can't trust these Europeans to anything right. However, I am please to report that just east of ghastly Bournemouth there is the pleasant town of Christchurch with its magnificent priory Church.  Here, alas (well, not really "alas" because the old monster deserved it anyway) I took in vain the name of Oliver Cromwell and his wretched fanatical puritans, so reminiscent of the po-faced harridans who runs various blog sites, who ransacked and destroyed so many artifacts from our old churches. Unfortunately I was to learn in due course that the villain responsible for the desecration of so much of the statuary was actually "'Enery the 8th I am, I am" so I hope the Devil turns the gas up! Next along is Highcliffe with the most amazing folly of a house, called, misleadingly, Highcliffe Castle. It fell into a bad state of disrepair but the local council are in the process of refurbishing the interiors but the outside is quite stunning and I have never seen a stately home of such eccentric beauty. Finally, a bit further on along unprepossessing coast road you come into Mudeford.  It is difficult to describe it because a sort of sand spit curves out and round into the sea forming a sort of bay.  At the end of it is a quay into which the local fishermen bring their catch and a rather excellent shop sells it, fresh as can be and ready for pan, pot or oven.  From the quay you look back across the bay to the coast line which is some 1/4 of a mile away.  Many elegant period houses are infilled with contemporary flats and apartments mostly for sailing types and holiday makers.  Before you groan let me tell you that the local planners have obviously forbidden any development higher than three floors, thus maintaining the existing roof line.  Also, these modern buildings are, for the most part, designed with very clean lines, set at angles so that the usual 'slab-look' is avoided.  From a distance it looks very like a French or Belgium coastline.  Some excellent fish restaurants and pubs serving good grub, plus the whole of the New Forest to wander in at your leisure. "Thank you for having me very nice tell your Mum!" (PS: This was Feb, not sure what it's like in Aug - but I can guess!)

Jewish 'skool' gives Shylock a bad name: The main virtue of the Jewish race is its generally high intelligence but, alas, even that gifted people is not immune from the idiocies of our age.  The Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School in Stamford Hill has decided to boycott the Eng. Lit. exam on The Merchant of Venice on the grounds that it was anti-semitic.  Well, to be precise, nine of the girls took that decision but then the usual feeble-minded panderers and wets came out of the woodwork in support.  "I think this is very positive," said Rabbi Pinter (the headmaster, for God's sake) but then, with a surname like that he was almost bound to come out spouting rubbish. Simon Gibbens, another plonker in totally the wrong job given that he works for the National Association for the Teaching of English (whatever that is!), said: "I do not believe The Merchant of Venice is anti-Semitic. But it is noble of the school to take the view that the individual pupils' views are more important than its league table position."  With gutless cretins like that running our Edukashun Servis is it any wonder we produce not just dolts, but dolts who think they have opinions worth listening to.