WILDLIFE COPPERS

Just been watching the regional news on TV. Poachers are going around killing deer. Several clips of the boys in blue (our police force, agents of the state) dealing with the situation. For goodness sake is this a priority? All over Britain old ladies are being hit over the head for their purse, pensioners are being mugged, virgins are being raped, and all the police can do is worry about whether the deer are having a good time. In fact after all the damage the deer have done to our garden I would say a jolly good thanks to anyone who gives them a hard time.

GORDON BROWN

The media publicity over Gordon's condolence letter goes on and on. The son of Jaqui Janes was killed in Afghanistan and GB wrote her a letter of condolence. She was upset because it contained numerous (25 according to her) spelling mistakes. The story ended up in the "Sun" newspaper. GB then rang to explain that no insult had been intended but this call was recorded and again reported although the BBC played Jaqui's voice but only a written transcript of GB's part of the conversation as he was unaware that a recording was being made. Well I'm no fan of GB but I'm with him on this one. It's well known that he has eye problems (he's blind in one eye) and his handwriting is poor. Documents for his perusal are often printed out in large type. Jaqui says the letter was impersonal — well he wasn't her son's best pal and is writing as prime-minister so that is possibly true to to some extent. But at least he hadn't just signed his name at the bottom at the bottom of a pro-forma letter typed by a mini-skirted secretary. And no normal person would think that he deliberately set out to be insulting or unfeeling. It was a mistake — let it go. And if the transcript of the telephone conversation is correct ("....there was 25 spelling mistakes....") then Jaqui's grammar isn't 100% either.

GARY MCKINNON

It's almost a year since I posted about this wretch who continues to evade his due punishment. It becomes clear that lots of people are sorry for this hacker. I am so sick of people who create problems for people who just want to use their computer safely that I would happily see all hackers/spammers horsewhipped or executed. And as that is not realistic then at least extradited to USA where they will not be be dealt with by nice men in red dressing gowns and black sash (otherwise the judiciary of England) but by people who are a little more serious about protecting people against criminals.

And today's press reports on a case where two police officers spent time documenting an incident where a doctor left his 7-year old in a car for 20 minutes whilst he (the doctor) went into the bank. The son was happily playing with his games console. He knew how to open the car door. He was not locked in. He was quite happy. The policemen are happy too as they have gained a few points towards the government targets and whilst they were dealing with this this "crime" they could not be called upon to deal with rapists/murderers/terrorists and the like.

DRINKING

I'm getting a little confused. The Scottish Executive (sorry — Scottish Government as they prefer to be called) have made it clear they want to discourage the consumption of alcohol. Sometimes they refer to the behaviour of yobs on our streets and sometimes to health issues. As far as yobs are concerned one can only only ask why not deal with the perpetrators rather than penalise all drinkers. If people are urinating/vomiting in the streets or being violent or intimidating law-abiding people they should be severely dealt with. As for the health issue we seem to be following the same route as was taken with smoking. From informing people about the risks to heavy-handed regulation. So when a drinks company decided to close a factory I would have thought the Scottish Executive would be delighted. What better way to restrict drinking than close down the factories that make the stuff. But no, they're up in arms and hassling about a few hundred jobs rather than celebrating the thousands of lives that will be saved by people being unable to buy their favourite tipple. What hypocrisy!! Similar concerns apply to the closure of a steel works in England. Millions of "green" people in UK have been determined to de-industrialize and go back to the Iron Age. Our own government in Westminster puts a "carbon tax" on industrial effort in an attempt to put back the clock 2 millenia. And yet politicians are worried about the closure of a plant which must have a huge "carbon footprint". Make your mind up guys.

WOOTTON BASSETT

Have just been watching the BBC evening news and another lot of hearses passing through the small town of Wootton Bassett which I used to pass through quite often when I lived not very far away and visited Swindon in the 1970s/1980s. Our soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan have for the last few years been brought to RAF Lyneham (before that it was Brize Norton) and Wootton Bassett is the first town on the hearses the route. The good, decent, and ordinary people of Wootton Bassett had a tradition of quietly lining the route and silently paying their respects to the fallen. It seems to have started in a very informal way almost by accident and gradually grew as shopkeepers closed for a few minutes whilst the cortége passed. A very humbling and moving experience. Until that despicable organisation the BBC got hold of it and started to publicise it. So the event is getting the "I want to be on TV" treatment. Clearly many of todays crowds have no connections with Wootton Bassett or even Wiltshire. They are there to be on TV. Today some of them even clapped. Clapping at a funeral. What is this nation coming to? Thanks to the BBC and its mission to entertain rather than inform Wootton Bassett is now a on its way to becoming a funfair. I did read a press article just a few days ago which led me to believe that many townspeople would prefer the old informal quiet showing of respect to our fallen troops rather than publicity induced razzamatazz. A townsman pointed out that it has been suggested that "High Street" should be renamed "Highway of Heroes". The suggestion came from a person living over 300 miles away. Unfortunately my belief is that the decent people of Wootton Bassett (and England) are going to be submerged by a mass of people who want to turn a once dignified demonstration of respect for the dead into a funfair.

BBC MOSTLY

So today that wretched organization we know as the BBC is being a little snide about Royal Expenses. The BBC has just sent 400 (yes, that's FOUR HUNDRED) employees to the Glastonbury Music Festival — a small event for weirdos who like to shag a lot in rain and mud. That's not much short of what they sent to the Peking (sorry, Beijing — have to be totally PC where BBC is concerned). Of course they're all Guardian readers. The fact of the matter is that if the head of state was chosen from the ranks of the BBC or Parliament the costs would be far more. Just imagine Tony and Cherie as Lord Protector/Lady Protectress. There is no limit to the greed of many of our MPs.
And I see Madoff got 150 years. What a fool!! If he'd come here he could have killed and raped and dozens and our lily-livered judges in red dressing gowns would never dream of such a sentence. Huntly Open Prison and out in 3 (years not centuries).

OLD AGE PRISONERS

There were lots of hands up in a Coventry police station a few days ago when the sergeant asked for volunteers to capture an 86-old on behalf of social services. Much better than dealing with real criminals. The old lady, Betty, had been put in a nursing home by social services but was not enjoying it and was discouraged from wlaking in the garden. Her daughter took her home to live with her and the rest of a close family. The house had been kitted out to suplly her mother's needs. Her mother's outlook on life took an immediate upturn. Then after just a few days social services arrived with police in tow. Betty was bundled into a wheelchair and into a waiting van. Then off to prison — nursing home. How can this sort of thing happen?. Of course if Betty was a fanatical terrorist and illegal immigrant Shami Chakrabati would have her out in quicksticks but no-one cares about the Bettys of this world apart from their families.

PEERS OF THE REALM

I see the MET, Britain's so-called premier police force, have decided not to follow up charges of corruption against four Labour Peers in the House of Lords. Well what a surprise! They seemed to think that Parliament would put so many obstacles in the way, as has happened in the past, that it wasn't worth the candle. We live in a banana republic run by a bunch of spivs and no way are our police going to get on the wrong foot with their political masters.

CRIME PAYS

Many people were killed during the troubles in Northern Ireland. The families are now to be given some compensation — £12,000. Or at least that is the proposal. And so are the families of the murderers. Some killed by their own bombs, some shot by government troops. A banana republic idea that could only be made by people unable to differentiate between right and wrong.

ADOPTION

Here we are back in so politically correct banana republic Britain. A couple have been looking after two of their grandchildren — a 5 year old boy and his younger sister. Apparently the mother had a heroine addiction. Naturally the old couple (well he's 59 so hardly a dodderer but suffers from angina which is being managed and his wife is diabetic) love the grandchildren and can be relied on to provide them with a good, loving and caring home. Edinburgh social services have decided that because of their medical condition and possible death sooner rather than later they cannot be regarded as totally suitable. So they are taking the children away and having them adopted by a homosexual couple. Of course being a deviant doesn't guarantee everlasting life and one or both could fall under a bus tomorrow. To borrow a phrase I read recently of all social groups the one which is most dangerous to children is social services.

CORRUPT PEERS

So four members of the House of Lords have been accused of using their position to enrich themselves. Basically offering to influence legislation in return for money. Naturally they deny it and we shall have to wait for more information before sitting in judgement. But I am not surprised. The old (post-war) House of Lords was a mixed bag of characters with some peers being convicted criminals, drug addicts, rogues, colourful characters as well as a good number having a wide experience of life in business, the armed forces. Of course many chose not to sit in the House or did so only on a few occasions. I suspect that although the ones who did sit were also a cross-section of humanity (apart from their blue blood of course) they were probably skewed towards those with positive characters and many served their country well.
Now the House consists mainly of people elevated from the Commons together with other placemen chosen by the government. They are not elected. As the Commons has a large number of rogues, slime dogs, scum, scoundrels it is obvious that a chamber derived from such a source will be equally squalid. Ad so it has proved.

FOOD LEFT-OVERS

So WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) is going to send people out knocking on doors and telling them how to use up food waste and scraps rather than throw it away. A very laudable aim but smacks to me of yet more nanny state. At first it will be a pilot scheme trial but doubtless they have ambitions to expand. WRAP of course is a quango so employs dozens of quangocrats with nothing better to than dream up ways of annoying the general public and spending the taxpayers' hard-earned cash.

HOKEY COKEY

I'm expecting the fuzz to come knocking on my door at any minute. This is for crimes I committed many years ago when I was barely a teenager. You see the local methodist chapel (Patmos Chapel) sometimes had social evenings. Often the night would come to an end with dancing the Hokey Cokey. Now I learn this is an anti-Papist hate activity. We certainly weren't made aware of that at the time although perhaps the insider elite knew what they were doing. My grandmother actually had a thing about "church people" (she meant Church of England) so perhaps she was in on the secret too. As Alan Cochrane has pointed out in his comment on the matter many thousands of people have enjoyed the fun knowing nothing about the alleged origins of the song. Now everyone does know perhaps some people will use it as an instrument of hate. At the next Old Firm match I wouldn't be surprised if it was sung with extra vigour. In case anyone missed the story the name Hokey Cokey is alleged to come from "hocus pocus" which in turn is a skit on the words of consecration "hoc est enim corpus".

Was a little amazed yesterday to see that we in UK are being advised to wrap our Christmas presents in cloth rather than wrapping paper. It seems a lot of gift wrapping paper can't be recycled and if people stick in the paper recycling bins the whole lot counts as being contaminated and off it goes to landfill. Well I think it probably is helpful to know that — it's certainly not made clear at the recycling receptacles in our local Tesco. I assumed the press got hold of this story from some guy in a government ministry with not much else to do. But no!! The message comes from an agency (quango) set up by the government. It's called "Waste and Resources Action Programme" — acronym "WRAP". Last year it cost the taxpayer around £80 million. Think about it. UK is almost on its knees, a total breakdown (well it's getting that way) of law and order, and the hard-pressed taxpayer is expected to trump up £80 million to pay a bunch of quangocrats to tell us how to wrap our prezzies. These are the sort of people the country can do without.

CHRISTMAS CHEER

Young children of Arthur Bugler School (Stanford-le-Hope, Essex) spent a long time rehearsing for an appearance in the Corringham Winter Festival. Then they had to pull out because their Christmas carols did not, in the view of the event's organizer, "dovetail" with the festival's theme. Carols are too religious.

At Southwold in Suffolk people have been dashing into the sea on Christmas Day often in fancy dress. Last year £8000 was raised for charity. This year nothing because the Health and Safety wallahs have decided it's too dangerous. The heavy costumes might pull people into the icy depths where giant squid are lying in wait to devour them. Of course it's very cold and these are adults so I would imagine they're not going to swim far out to sea or hang around too long. And of course they're having fun and helping others. Gordon Brown and his Presbyterian friends can't have that.

And Stephen Coulter has ordered his Dorset congregation not to sing the well-known carol "Little Town of Bethlehem" because the iamge it evokes is different from the political situation of present-day Bethlehem. I have some sympathy for this but can't help feeling it's a little over the top. Some of these well-known hymns and carols are an important part of what binds people to the Church.

JEWELLERY IN SCHOOLS

Recent press reports say that Kioni Lansbury, a 12-year-old girl, has been ordered by her school not to wear a "purity" ring — which she says she wears because she favours sexual abstinence. The school in question is The King's School at Ottery St Mary in Devon.
Well sexual abstinence is not a bad thing for a 12-year-old to believe in. And I see no reason why schools should not forbid pupils to wear jewellery. After all when I was a pupil over 50 years ago I was expected to wear a funny cap on the journey to and from school — to be doffed if I met a teacher. And as recently as the mid-1990s I worked in a school that had problems with girls' uniforms. The sixth-form girls were allowed to wear any appropriate dress in lieu of the school uniform that younger pupils were expected to wear. Needless to say some pushed the boundaries and wore things totally ridiculous in a school/work context such as miniscule skirts or pretty dresses more suitable for a night-club. As the appropriate/inappropriate boundary is rather indistinct and hard to enforce it was pointed out that it would simpler to go back to an "everyone wears uniform" rule. In the same way a rule forbidding jewellery altogether stops those who might decide to wear tiaras or earings dangling 5 inches below their ears.
But what annoyed me about this school was the reason they gave. The head teacher is quoted as saying "Kioni cannot wear the ring because it would be extremely dangerous in PE, technology, or science lessons" (usually this argument is also applied to cookery classes). Really? If schools are such a dangerous environment perhaps all pupils should be forced to wear hard hats and yellow jackets. This is the Health and Safety Brigade at work again. I have some knowledge of school science teaching and I know that many female science teachers do not remove their rings or other jewellery on entering the laboratory. And after a spell of supply teaching I can say the same of cookery teachers. The fact is that this school does not want female pupils to wear jewellery and are seeking to justify that attitude with a totally spurious reason. I'm surprised they haven't found a reason connected to global warming which is another phenomenom used to justify all sorts of things.

GANNET ORPHAN

Have just watched the local news on BBC Scotland which devoted several minutes to the fate of a gannet marooned on Bass Rock after its parents flew off to warmer climes. I asked my wife how they knew the bird needed rescuing and was told that if I'd listened properly I'd have known that they'd been watching its every move because it was tagged. I'm surprised whoever looks after the fish hasn't been given prime air time to complain that one of their main tormentors has been saved. I expect that in recent weeks a good number of birds have died within a hundred yards of my garden. How are they being remembered? Why was nothing done to save them? I suppose if a millionaire heiress leaves all her estate to the RSPB specifically for the benefit of Bass Rock gannets that's her privilege but even so why do those BBC morons think it merits so much airtime?

HOUSE OF COMMONS

Have just watched Michael Martin's statement today on the police intrusion into an MP's office in the Palace of Westminster. It is totally clear that he and the Serjeant-at-Arms connived in this intrusion. He says he wasn't told they needed, but didn't have a warrant. For God's sake if the principal officer of this country's prime legislative body knows nothing about police powers then who does. This wretched Scot, who should have been impeached many moons ago, is but a puppet of the Metropolitan Police who in turn are puppets of the Labour Government under our Dear Leader ( a term more appropriate to North Korea) Gordon Brown. Some reports suggested that about 9 anti-terrorist officers were involved in Damian Green's arrest and search of his office and home. Well I'm sure the wimps would rather do that than tackle real terrorists.

ROADSIDE FOOD

Guildford branch of the SS — sorry I mean the borough council's Environmental Health has threatened not to renew the licences of roadside traders who do not have the council approved items of healthy food on the menu. The traders are the sort of "greasy spoon" outlets that park in laybys and offer such things as hamburgers, cheeseburger, hot dogs, pies, sausage and all the things that they know they can sell because this is what their customers (one trader says his customers are lorry drivers, builders, scaffolders) want to eat. These people provide a useful service and some go round our industrial wastelands selling at the factory gate or just next to the office. The council wants people to have healthy food so any sausage should be low-fat (=tasteless), grilled (not fried) and served with wholemeal bread. Jacket potato with a selection of fillings is another. The menus will be checked during routine hygiene checks. Well I have no problem about throwing away the licence of unhygienic traders who are caught sticking their hands in a cholera infested lavatory bowl or wiping their bottom before handling food and spreading typhoid all over the place. But this new initiative is a total abuse of their powers. Encouraging people to eat healthily is fine (though a lot of money is being thrown this way) but dictating to them isn't. Now the country is going to the dogs perhaps we could save a bit of money by getting rid of some of these council workers.

RUSSELL BRAND

For reasons which I am unable to fathom Russell Brand seems to be a successful "star" and his mate Jonathan Ross is one of the BBC's most highly paid performers. This puerile couple recently put what they considered funny messages on the answering machine of Andrew Sachs who used to appear as Manuel in Fawlty Towers. The level of the one-sided exchange can be judged by the fact that Russell bragged that he had shagged Mr Sachs's grandaughter who is in her early twenties. As I don't follow the gossip columns I don't know whether he's telling the truth or not but a report today suggests that he quite often boasts on air about his sexual conquests. Under pressure the pair made an apology of sorts though it was almost an insult in its own right. But what is truly amazing is that the programme was recorded and the BBC chose to broadcast it. Are we really paying our licence fee to an organisation which thinks this sort of "prank" is OK? I'm sick of being told that the purpose of the TV licence is to ensure that the BBC can produce high quality programming. Clearly it doesn't. What sort of staff do they employ? The sooner the BBC staff get their P45s the better.

In the same vein, but not just a BBC issue, is the whole subject of foul language on television. Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay both host shows in which foul language is the order of the day. Lots of ordinary people do not like it. Complaints are coming not from geriatric prudes or virginal nuns but from normal people. Men and women who may well swear themselves at times but don't want the stuff tumbling out of their telly into their front room. Especially if they have children.