PEACE IS OVER?

Ok.  Now I know one must not drink and blog, but I have been hoping that what I have heard through the tv when sober has been some sort of aberration.  I am SICK of hearing from politicians and businessmen that the idea of "peace" is some sort of pipe dream that will never actually happen.  I am fed up of seeing documentaries about the 1960s - and about John Lennon in particular - that refer to his Lennon's ideas and his  hope for the future as  being "childish" and outdated.  In this postmodern age, the belief is prevailing that "peace" is an inachievable nonsense that is as ridiculous as a 16 year old child still believing in Father Christmas. 

PEACE is a simple idea.  That does not mean it is childish or immature.

  PEACE is an individual choice.  Right here, right now.

WAR is over,   if  you want it.  Anyone who cannot grasp this concept is unevolved.  Anyone who chooses  not to grasp this concept is deluding themselves.

PEACE will never exist while the industrial military complex substitutes profits for satisfaction of the soul.

PEACE will never exist while the military enter schools and convince children that the best way to escape the poverty of their surroundings is to join the army.

POSTER BOY OF REASON?

Joe Glenton bobbed up on the local news again today.  He joined the army in 2004, and in 2007 went AWOL from the war in Afghanistan.  In 2009, his court marital began in Bulford, Wiltshire.  Glenton argued that because he believed the conflict was illegal (and said he would produce an expert in international law who could prove that), he was not a deserter but simply an absentee without leave.  In March of this year he was jailed for nine months - ironically the same amount of time he went between deployments in Afghanistan.

My first reaction about this case was that  Joe Glenton's argument was ludicrous.  A soldier cannot join up and then pick and choose which battles he is willing to fight.  If we're going to get down to brass tacks here, surely all wars involve illegality of one sort or another,  one of the simplest forms being the fact that it is against the law to take the life of another human being.   It surely must flicker across the frontal lobe of anyone joining the army that at some point or another they might have to kill another person, or do something else they generally don't agree with for the good of the unit.

I do not agree with the war in Afghanistan.  I did not believe the war in Iraq was legal or justified in any sense.  But I am not in the army.  Unfortunately, if one is a soldier, one must put up and shut up. 

In the army, a person is simply a number, a body to be used in the fight against the enemy, who or whatever that may be.  The army breaks you down and builds you up, into a fighting machine that obeys orders.  That is why to function in civilian life can be difficult and ex-soldiers complain that the army's provision for mental health issues is poor.  A soldier is simply a flesh and blood cog in a huge war machine.  The army is only interested in a soldier's short-term killing potential, not their long-term mental fitness.  Unfortunately, with flesh and blood comes emotions and feelings - and thoughts. 

 Army guidelines (and unfortunately, that's all they are) recommend eighteen months between tours of duty.  Joe Glenton got nine months before he was sent back into the killing zone.  This is an attitude towards its soldiers which appears to be prevailing in the army at the moment, certainly in America.   Minds deal with stress in various different ways. Glenton has post-traumatic stress disorder.  He disappeared from Afghanistan for two and a half years before handing himself in.  Now the anti-war lobby are holding him up as a martyr for their cause. 

In war, no one ever really wins.

IT'S A ROYAL WEDDING!

Apparently Prince William is getting married to Kate Thingummy.  I think I caught a subtle and tasteful announcement about that on one of the television news broadcasts yesterday.  The media are almost wetting their pants with excited anticipation over the wedding.  I can honestly say I am genuinely unmoved in every and any possible way.

I used to be vehemently anti-royalist.  Such news a few years ago would have sent me reaching for the "off" button on the remote control as I frothed at the mouth and swore about the over privileged lifestyles of the elite.  However, I had to rethink my beliefs as it actually occurred to me: if I was so anti-royalist, what would I do about them?  I'm British, and the idea of lining people up against a wall in a cellar and shooting them doesn't sit well with me.  Nor, for that matter, am I any good at embracing the concept of change. (I finally got settled into secondary school and all of a sudden I had to go to university.)  Who or what would replace the Queen as figurehead of the Commonwealth?  It would certainly make a good series of The X-Factor... 

So I relaxed into a routine of total and utter indifference to the royal family.  Mohammed al Fayed could benefit from a similar attitude. 

To me, the royal family are just there, like vanilla ice cream or the weather.  I don't know them, they don't know me.   It's not like they're a friend of a friend and I might have to send them a wedding present.    The royals are apolitical, have no tangible influence on anything and basically live in a bubble of advantage that they have reached by nothing  other than an accident of birth.  Neither my immediate, nor my wider world will be rocked in any way by the implications of this engagement.  Although I might pop out for a walk when the royal wedding is on.

ONLY IN AMERICA...II

Fox News is a tedious, scaremongering channel at the best of times. I tune in occasionally to see how crazy our neighbours across the pond are getting, and whether it's time to run to the hills.  One afternoon, on a live link, I actually counted twenty five squad cars chasing after two suspects who had allegedly robbed a 7-11. Tonight's Fox Health Extra was particularly ludicrous:

"This is Jane Doe," a woman's voice boomed, "and she is particularly worried that her hands are looking way older than her face."

Yes, you read that correctly. A woman in America has absolutely nothing better to do with her time than worry about how old her hands are looking in comparison with the rest of her body. And because we're dealing with America, there is a treatment for old lady hand syndrome. For 750 dollars a pop, a surgeon will laser your hands for twenty minutes until they look young again. A couple of ice packs later, you're ready to go.

"It will take from three to five treatments for the best results," the presenter booms. (Quick calculation: that's as much as 3, 750 dollars...) "and the treatment will last up to three years."

Or the patient could just take their 3, 750 dollars and flush them straight down the toilet. Because there is no such thing as old lady hand syndrome. It has been made up by plastic surgeons to fleece vain and gullible individuals to part with more of their cash, to make what they believe are their vile and claw-like appendages match their glowing, youthful new faces.

One obviously needs plenty of spare cash if living forever is to be a viable option...

THE QUEEN'S SHIT LIST

The Palace has dragged the Royal family kicking and screaming into the 21st century by organising a Facebook page for the Queen.  Whether they want to or not, they will embrace and love this new techonology.  It will be a fantastic PR tool,  and will prove to the seething masses that the Royal family are just like them.  However, the person who had this bright idea hasn't been a regular Facebook user, or done much research about the internet.  The internet is a fabulous encyclopedia of knowledge and information.  However, it is also a repository of bile and hate and misinformed opinion (remember the bizarre outpouring of sympathy for Raoul Moat?)  Quite predictably, within the first few days of its existence, the Queen of England's brand spanking new Facebook page has been hijacked by users leaving abusive messages about the Duchess of Cornwall.

Now, if I was thinking about leaving a message in a similar vein, I might think twice.  Why?   Because the Queen of England has security officers who keep an eye on her.  MI5 and MI6 work for her - she's the ruler of all she surveys.  You drop a nasty line to the Queen (who will never look at her Facebook page, let's be honest, it's just a PR coup) and before you know it, you've been traced through the Internet as a potential troublemaker.  In this day and age, the feasibility of what might occur is enough to land a person in court.  If a person is capable of venom towards a major royal personage, what's to stop them being a threat to THE ROYAL PERSON?  A couple of nasty words to Prince Charles' second wife and the perps' feet won't touch the ground.


What am I trying to say?  Think twice.  For some reason, people get access to a computer and all of a sudden it's easy to say terrible things because it's a faceless confrontation.  Ironically, once opinions are written down, it's harder to take them back.  If I had been involved in the Raoul Moat fiasco, I would be investigating the background of every person who stuck up for his actions through the medium of the Internet.  It's only the fact that the police are underfunded that is stopping them from doing this type of thing.  They have to spend their money on fast cars and helicopter fuel in order to chase thieves and search for bodies.


Take responsibility for your cyberactions, people.  We live in crazy times.  Technology is advancing at an incredible rate.  Some time in the near future, the Internet police will become a reality and then we could all be in trouble.

Money, money, money...

There is an advertisement doing the rounds at the moment featuring a certain silver-haired comedy god.  The more times I see it being beamed  through the cathode-ray tube, the more ludicrous it becomes.  

The premise is this:  said silver-haired comedy god is seen to be a fool for being stuck in his ways and not listening to his progressive, more open-minded screen daughter when the roof of their fictitious house starts to leak rather badly.  Instead of calling a plumber or a roofer, what is the first thing she does?  Rings a company that has spent years building up a reputation for helping stranded drivers by fixing their cars.  Not a company that has spent years building up a reputation for reliably fixing your roof.

Think about it: would you let a vet treat your grandma?  Even if they assured you they were competent?  (Actually, don't answer that...)   Or ask a plumber to mend your car?  Or let a lawyer fly you to Malagar?  We all know farmers have to diversify, but businesses?   It's just an extension of how the Post Office treat their customers when all the customer wants is a stamp:  "Did you know we offer insurance?  Would you like a mobile top-up today?  Can I relieve you of all your cash before you leave our establishment?"  

IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK THAT COMPANIES SIMPLY STICK TO WHAT THEY ARE GOOD AT?

Customers increasingly seem to be seen less as people who would like a half-decent service and more as cash cows with unlimited supplies of cold, hard cash that companies would do anything to get their hands on.  There seems to be a headlong chase for money in this climate of cuts and hard graft and it seems unBritish in the extreme.

"DECISIONS, DECISIONS..." DRACULA'S INTERIOR DECORATOR.

HELP! MY PATIENCE IS WEARING THIN...

So now there has been (another) boom and bust in the housing market, the television programmes about houses have changed.  Gone are the heady days of  "Property Ladder " - where people bought houses to tart up and sell for a massive profit, and " A Place in the Sun" - where rich Brits pretend they want to buy a house on the continent in order to  enjoy a tv jaunt abroad.  Sarah Beeny's new programme is entitled "Help! My house is falling down!"

A simple concept, fuelled by the actions of simple people. Every week the programme begins with the following declaration: "Mr. and Mrs. X bought a house, unseen, without having a proper survey done".  Now, I'm no genius, but the point of having an expensive survey done is that potential buyers do not need to have even more expensive work done on their house once it actually is in their possession.  Once owned, it is very difficult to offload a problem house onto another buyer, because other people aren't that stupid...

The voice-over then proceeds to state the bleedin' obvious in very a slow and menacing manner, restating the terrible problems over and over, and underlining the mountain of money needed to put them right every two minutes, attempting to build the tension until a) you switch off, or, b) you actually begin to care about the twittering fools and the albatross around their collective neck.

Just in case you are thinking about switching off, the producers of the programme introduce some  fascinating science bit half-way through, where the hapless Mr.and Mrs. are taken to a lab somewhere and shown that their house is/isn't about to fall down with the help of some fabulous gadgets!

Frankly, the programme should be re-titled: "If  You're a Retard, Don't Buy a House".

OVERHEARD IN A PUB

"...And she says that the windows in Carlisle are the cleanest of any town in the country!"

SUPERMODEL WITNESS AT WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL

Yes, you read that right, folks.  I couldn't believe my blurry eyes when I took a squint at the news this morning over a cup of crappy coffee.  

"Supermodel Naomi Campbell testifying at war crimes tribunal at The Hague" proclaimed the banner headline.  What the..?!  She couldn't possibly have committed any war crimes...could she?  Or was her ego now so huge that she was the dictator of some tinpot little country far far away, imprisoning people for crimes against fashion? I decided I must be in the throes of some hypnopompic hallucination and swore to watch on until my cat spoke actual words to me, then I would know I needed to wake up.

The actual events were slowly revealed.  Backwards.  First of all, Naomi testified that she had been in receipt of "dirty rocks".  She received dirty rocks?! Had she been in the company of some leering porn star who was known for his insanitary habits?  No: two mysterious strangers had knocked on her door in the middle of the night proffering a bag of "pebbles" (I presume this was Ms.Campbell's slang for diamonds), which she accepted.

The testimony hinged on the fact that the judge(s) at The Hague wanted to know where these diamonds had come from.  Had they come from the Liberian dictator and champion grudge holder Charles Taylor? who apparently managed to escape prison in the U.S. by sawing through the bars of  his jail cell and nipping back to Liberia where he had a score to settle with Master Sergeant Samuel Doe, his former boss.  Ms.Campbell couldn't say for certain.  She "presumed so". *

I am not sure what the purpose of this testimony was.  If it was to prove that Charles Taylor had his hands on blood diamonds, it didn't really achieve anything, since "presuming" something is not the same as "knowing" something.  However, Ms.Campbell did drop Nelson Mandela - famous black activist and icon for freedom and equality - right in it, since it was at his dinner party that she met Charles Taylor.  Oops.

I had decided that maybe she had inserted herself into the trial at The Hague because she needed the attention, but sources say that Naomi Campbell was summoned to The Hague.  It must be like receiving a summons from the headmistress for hanging  around the wrong type of people at school.  Do war crimes trials really need this type of publicity?  As long as Geri Halliwell doesn't make an appearance in the near future, we'll probably be ok.

*In an interview on one occasion it was put to Charles Taylor that some people thought he was little better than a murderer.  He quickly - and illogically - shot back: "Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time". 

POISON APHRODISIAC

The biggest news this Sunday is that a man in South Africa has decided to poison the horns of the rhinos that he is responsible for so that poachers will think twice about killing them for their alleged horny aphrodisiac properties.  The poaching of animals is fairly routine in this area, mainly due to two factors: poverty and greed.

When I was attending Animal College  - with lofty ideas of being able to protect other furry/woolly sentient beings with one wave of a certificate - the theory was being put about that it would be a good thing to breed endangered white rhinoceroses in South Africa and up their numbers so that hunters would pay to shoot them.  Very imaginative.  It would kill two birds with one stone, as it were: get a breed of animal off the endangered register and make money from the people who enjoyed killing.  I could never get it off my mind that this was somehow bizarre, like the argument in Britain that certain breeds of cows, sheep and pigs which would otherwise be extinct could be bred for meat, thereby keeping the gene pool alive.  I suppose it would be fair enough if they were tastier than other breeds, otherwise: what is the point?  I find it quite distasteful, and representative of the usual arrogance of the human race: "Look, these animals wouldn't be alive if it weren't for us, aren't we benevolent and clever?"

There is also the argument that it is only the good-looking, fluffy breeds of animal that people are interested in saving.  This is an observable truth: look at the many campaigns for saving tigers.  The biggest argument against global warming for a large part of the population is that polar bears will have nowhere to live. They will have to rock backwards and forwards in zoos, their furry coats going ever-so-slightly yellow.  Imagine the cost of the giant freezers if they had to live in safari parks...  If ever the Great White Shark dwindles in numbers I cannot imagine anyone ever donating to a whip-round, except possibly dispossessed Bond villains who would like to rehome one in their private mansion.

In conclusion, the latest information from South Africa is that to avoid rhinos being hunted by poachers or tourists with wallets full of cash and guns bulging with bullets is that their horns will be poisoned in the hope that belief in their mythical aphrodisiac properties will wane.

So education isn't working then. 

WTF???!!!

ARTIFICIAL GRASS, WHAT A FABULOUS IDEA!

I am rapidly coming round to liking the idea of artificial grass.  I used to wonder why it existed,  it just seemed like another 20th century invention: "We can make it, so we shall!" (like alcohol-free lager, or touch lamps, or Beadle's About).  "Only lazy, stupid people like fake grass," I surmised, and felt smug in my conclusion.

Well, I've changed my mind.

My mother is the proud owner of a very green and lush lawn.  It's not very old, it was a replacement for my father's flower and vegetable garden, the theory being it wouldn't take much work to look after a lawn.  Would it?

Most lawns are dry, brown, compacted earth affairs that you can run a mower over once a fortnight and leave to look after itself.  My mother's lawn has an agenda: it wants to be the tallest, greenest, lushest, wettest bit of grass in existence and nothing any human being tries to do about it will deter it from it's mission.  Since the earth is spongy and wet, no lawnmower known to mankind will have any effect on it whatsoever.  So we must tame it with the use of a strimmer.

Oh, the strimmer.  how I hate it so.  Strimmers should come with a label attached, explaining that only men should use them and that any lady who does so should be aware of the consequences:  your lack of upper body strength means that you will be knackered from swinging it about, and your tiny lady hands will go into spasm from holding it and trying to keep it going at the same time.  (My hands are s-still sh-shaking as I write).  The end result looks like the head of one of those kids you see whose mum has saved a bit of money by cutting their child's hair themselves.

I am quite close to borrowing a sheep to do the job for me - although I don't think it would be able to operate the strimmer properly because of it's hooves (drum roll and cymbal crash...).  Or a flamethrower.  That would sort it out.  The prospect of artificial grass is looking sweeter and sweeter.  Although, I suppose you don't get the same type of eco-system with plastic that you get with chlorophyll...

Rare sighting of the Virgin Mary captured on camera.

FILMS IN UNDER TEN SECONDS #1

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

(A man - our ASSASSIN - dressed entirely in black is on a rooftop aiming a gun at someone.  Another MAN in a trenchcoat and trilby taps him on the shoulder)

MAN:  Mr.Bourne?

ASSASSIN: ...I might be...

FIN

ANTHOLOGIES

When are music fans going to realise that the fabled "Anthology" release of a particular band or performer is never going to live up to expectations?  I realised this after borrowing someone else's anthology collection of John Lennon's solo work.  I am a huge fan of Lennon, but I discovered that I don't want to hear every hallowed squeak, fart and swearword inbetween the laying down of some of his most famous tracks.  That's why the tracks are famous: they are polished, edited and finished to perfection.  If "Imagine" began with the words: "F*ck off, Yoko, and put that soddin' bag away," it wouldn't have touched people's souls over the years in quite the same way it has.

However, the worst parts of an anthology have to be the hallowed squeaks, farts and swearwords in between some of the less successful recordings.  Because not only are the songs a bit rubbish, but so is the conversation.

The excuse for these "Anthologies" is that it lets you follow the creative process, you can  hear the way the artist reaches the finished product.  Cobblers.  It's just a way of raking in more money, especially from artists who are d-e-a-d and not able to produce any more work.  Squeeze their back catalogue 'til the grooves bleed, whack on some original artwork by the musician themselves (even if it's terrible, because apparently musicians are great at all arty farty stuff - just ask Paul McCartney), then box it up, overprice it and wait for the money to roll in. 

To own an anthology of someone's work is simply a reflection of one's own vanity. It just proves to other people how much of a massive fan of [insert band/performer's name here] music you are.  It does not necessarily mean that the work on it is better than the original.  Because that means they would have released the work collected on the anthology, and not the finished article on the original which earned them squillions of  Earth pounds.

SEVEN SIGNS THE APOCALYPSE IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

• Katie Price becomes a nun.

• Simon Cowell opens an orphanage for disadvantaged children and doesn't make them sing songs for his record label.

• Prince Phillip says something civil to a person of ethnic origin.

•  Someone English wins a sporting contest, just once.

•  The Daily Mail stops frightening its readers with tawdry horror stories.

•  Cats and dogs start living together in perfect harm-o-neee.

•  Heather Ayrton gets laid.

THE DAY FROM HELL...

It is 4 o'clock in the morning and I am wondering whom I hate more:  my dentist, or the NHS hospital I attended yesterday.  My dentist filled my tooth and left me with the face of one of the family members in Les Dawson's candle joke.  The NHS took me in for a routine ladyproblem and left my insides feeling as if  the surgeon had played them like a Nepalese damaru drum.

I was the lucky victim of a hospital cancellation which, in turn, left it too late to cancel the dentist appointment.  They need at least 24 hours' notice of the fact that your mouth will not be appearing at their surgery that afternoon, or the black-balling process begins and any tooth-related problems you have in the future will have to be solved with a piece of string and a door handle...

So began my day at the hands of the sadists.  

Add to this the appearance of the chirpy Scouse exterior decorator who had finally, after three years found space in his busy schedule of window cleaning to come to paint the house.  Frankly, I'm surprised I didn't top myself.  I couldn't even say: "Have you got fifty pee for the parking?" (at the hospital), so  I  didn't even  bother contemplating the idea of telling him to:  "Eff off..."

Hospital is a special kind of humiliation for people who cannot possibly avoid admission.   They have odd things going on in awkward places:  "No, really, I know I have a brain tumour but I'll just try and sleep it off."  Weeing in cardboard bowls, the draughty gown, the endless, endless waiting...  Some people are so sick that the hanging around doesn't bother them (so surely they must be in the right place).  However, even when off my nut on morphine I was acutely aware that another five minutes on the day ward and I would be trying to crawl home using only my lips...

I think I am angry with myself  -  for volunteering for a barbaric procedure which was comparable to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.  Although the alternative would probably be a bit of homeopathy, lavender oil in the bath and acupuncture needles in the affected area three times a week while playing the finger cymbals by candlelight.  Maybe I'll stick with morphine, at least I know that works.

Friday night in...

"It's all right is this wine

For £3.99,"

Said the girl who was holding the glass.

"It's easy to drink,

I'll be shick in the sink,

And probably fall on my ass..."

Attacked by Macaques

A woman who has a phobia of monkeys after her father introduced a "positively evil" chimp into the house when she was a child, was attacked by macacques when she accompanied a friend on a tour of "Monkey Island" near Phuket.   A monkey appeared out of nowhere and bit her on the wrist, refusing to let go.  It was soon joined by others, who had to be prised off her by the crew of the boat that had taken the tourists to the island.

Ironically, Mrs.Darwell had agreed to join the tour in order to face her phobia. 

See the full, unintentionally funny story at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/7835641/British-woman-with-fear-of-monkeys-attacked-by-macaques-in-Thailand.html

Breath of Life...

A cystic fibrosis patient has died of pneumonia after receiving the lungs of a smoker in a transplant operation.  An ex-smoker, obviously, since it is not possible to smoke after you have died - unless you are cremated.

The family are distraught and upset, and have been quoted as saying that if their loved one knew where the lungs had come from she would have refused them.

Let's just get a couple of things straight here.  

An organ transplant is always a last resort,  it is a "life-saving" operation by definition.  if the patient survives the transplant they will have an indeterminate life span, but their life will certainly be longer than if they didn't have the transplant at all.  20% of patients receiving a lung transplant still die in the first year, with approx. 43% surviving into their 5th year.  It's a dangerous and tricky business receiving a transplanted organ.

What this tragic girls' family are basically saying here is that their daughter would rather have died than receive the lungs of a smoker.  An organ transplant is an expensive and time-consuming operation:  the surgeons and doctors want the patient to recover and have a decent quality of life, or it's a waste of time for everyone concerned.  Thus, the donor organs get checked over - it's not any old offal that gets slung into a patient just to stop them whingeing.

I'm afraid what it boils down to is that those damn healthy people with nothing wrong with them JUST WON'T DIE.  Not in the numbers needed by transplant teams - and even then there's no guarantee that perfectly healthy organs won't get rejected by the patient's body after transplant.

This patient received five extra months of life that she certainly wouldn't have had otherwise.  The quality of the life is what is really being debated here: was it worth it when she only got five months?  Unfortunately none of us have a crystal ball, not even scientific doctors and surgeons who give the impression that they do know everything.

Death Machine

There is a disturbing story doing the rounds in the press at the moment.  Every turn it takes reveals another dark twist of human nature.

Two youths - neither teenagers nor men - have died in a  room at the Ramada Inn outside Edinburgh, apparently victims of  a version of  the "Deliverance Machine".  Their friends and family  are adamant their deaths must have been accidental, since they showed no signs of being suicidal.

The "deliverance machine" is the brainchild of one Philip Nitschke.  When attached to a laptop, it can administer a lethal injection at the tap of a button.  It is impossible to accidentally kill oneself with it since the button must be pressed three times.  It could, however, cause a great deal of pain of you dropped it on your foot.

 The deliverance machine now sits in the Science Museum in 

London in all its life-ending glory.

The Deliverance Machine is one in a line of  inventions to aid the administration of euthanasia to terminally-ill patients.  There was also the Thanatron and the Mercitron, and since then, Philip Nitschke has gone on to invent death devices with the most seemingly innocuous objects found in everyday life.  He is also involved in the concept of a euthanasia boat which would sail terminally-ill people through international waters, thereby ensuring that anyone involved with their suicide would not be prosecuted. 

But back to the young men, allegedly found in their hotel room, sitting in chairs which were facing each other and with a webcam in the vicinity.  Sinister implications are being drawn: that their deaths were either filmed, or broadcast over the internet.  They were intelligent students, perhaps their motivation was to die by their own invented hand.  But this is all speculation.  There is only one fact: it is impossible to kill oneself by accident with a death machine.

 

Ban the World Cup

This morning the public are being treated to a video made by Staffordshire police regarding the "rise in domestic violence" during the football World Cup.  Someone in the force must have unfulfilled ambitions to be a film director.  Is this really an intelligent use of public money at a time when the coalition government are releasing cryptic messages every day concerning  imminent "austerity measures".  I believe everyone in the country is going to be forced to wear a hessian sack tied round the middle with string and do everything by candlelight as the electricity goes off for the next 5 years to save energy.  Anyway...

According to statistics (and we all know how reliable they are), during the last World Cup, domestic violence incidents rose by 25%, and if  - sorry, when - England were knocked out of the competition, this number rose to 30%.

I have a radical idea to bring these percentages down.  It doesn't involve making videos, or stopping the supermarkets from selling cut-price lager.  If these numbers are directly correlated to the World Cup - and the Home Office says they are - how about this:

Ban the World Cup.

I know it would upset those people who are responsible for selling the  stupid tat that goes along with it (flags for your car, football earrings for the missus, bibs for your baby etc.), pub takings would stay the same, people would carry on going to work as usual instead of creatively skiving off, broadcasters wouldn't go on their usual foreign jolly for four weeks, but hear me out:  wouldn't it be nice to avoid the tornado of madness that this country subjects itself to every four years?  The dizzying highs, the crashing lows.  Thinking about it, being a football fan must be a bit like being bipolar, and you wouldn't wish that condition on your worst enemy.

Let's just do something else for a change.  The World Cup is like anything else: Christmas, the Olympics, it's just there to mark the passing of the seasons in case our lives have got too monotonous and we've forgotten what year it is.

CUMBRIAN PRIVACY

Beware Northerners bearing shotguns.  That would seem to be the moral of the week, as  Britain hears of a killing spree by an armed man.  The usual platitudes are being reeled out: "Were these guns licenced?" - yes, "How can you tell if someone will become a spree killer?" - you can't, "Should the gun laws be tightened?" - any tighter and people will just have to resort to buying them illegally.  24 hours after the Cumbrian massacre (let's just call it what it is) and anyone who wants to add their two penn'orth is adding it by the bucketload.  Including me.

Due to my working hours I caught the fallout of the killings on the  miracle that is the "rolling 24 hour news".  This service is largely redundant 90% of the time, but comes into its' own whenever there is a terrible disaster unfolding somewhere in the world.  You can be safe in the knowledge that your digital provider will pump the information straight into your living room while you remain cosy and detached listening to someone else's horror.

This is fine while it lasts.  Unfortunately for the press, today Cumbria has gone back to it's default setting of "the place where hardly anything ever happens".  The journalists are still there in droves waiting for the latest statement from the police, the local MP, the local hospital (how can updates on patients' conditions be of import to anyone but their families?) and any poor soul who consents to talk to them.  One journalist justified the fact that locals were wandering up to them and giving their side of this multi-faceted tale as "part of the grieving process".  What, having their image flashed across the televisions of Britain as interviewers press them for every single gruesome detail?  The press are hardly impartial observers, however much they protest otherwise.  The events must be reported, but already the bottom of the barrel is being scraped.  Viewers do not need to see the crumpled faces of the broken friends and relatives of the dead as they lay flowers.  The reports being sent are beginning to border on the exploitative.

There will be no firm resolution to this affair as Derrick Bird is dead, and only he can give the definitive account of why he chose to do what he did on June 2nd.  The rest is educated guesswork and speculation.  This can be done without the press on Whitehaven's doorstep coldly filming the aftermath of the unthinkable.

MORE DEMOCRACY THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT

I have just been to exercise my democratic rights for the third time in a month. The excitement is starting to wear off. As a believer in democracy, I had to go and vote.  I also had to fight my way past three large, blonde, ponytailed teenagers who had decided to sit on the step outside the polling station and eat chips inbetween a cackle or two, and make nerds like me feel inadequate for exercising my democratic rights.  However, I had no idea what or who I might be voting for.

"The Parish Council," the woman who sits behind the desk and hands you your ballot paper announced. (As opposed to the other woman who receives your summons to vote and crosses your name off a list with a ruler).  

OK.

"There are twelve candidates, and there are eleven seats.  You can vote for not more than eleven people."

Rrrrright.

I gamely took the ballot paper to the pencil on a string and began to read.  It then dawned on me that I didn't know any of these people.  I didn't know what their politics were, or how petty and childish their personality might be when put under pressure.  Could they work with each other?  Would they be good for the parish? I had no idea.  

I also thought eleven crosses might be a bit over the top. My ballot paper would look like a teenager's love letter.   Wouldn't it be easier to put one cross next to the person you definitely didn't want to be on the council? 

In the end, I pencilled in two crosses: one for someone on my street, and one for someone with the only slogan - something about  not being prejudiced and being fair to everyone, which sounded ok to me. 

I have a sneaky feeling that most people knew who to vote for because they knew them as individuals.  Writing in hermitude does mean one can miss a lot of things.  Like the last decade...

1940s WEEKEND

This weekend the village of Haworth hosted its annual 1940s weekend. What can this be? I imagine you are asking yourselves. Just what is says on the tin. For Haworth is not content with giving the world the Bronte sisters (like the Beverley sisters except a bit more introspective and literary) and the novel Wuthering Heights. For two days every a year a barrier is slung across the main street declaring "Unexploded Bomb" and everyone harks back to the 1940s.

Personally, this nostalgia for the war years baffles me. There was rationing, powdered egg, spam, conscription, rickets, the Blitz, George Formby, genocide and death in all its various and surprising forms. But all that is forgotten in Haworth's 1940s weekend as everyone strolls around in this piece of "living history", enjoying the nostalgia for a time that never really existed.

I actually spotted four Nazis in full uniform strolling down the street. (I think they had to go about in a little gang in case people heckled them.) Now, I know the PC brigade must be pandered to, but what are we going to be presented with next year? Himmler? Goebbels? Some Jews writing postcards? Show me one person who sees a Nazi and feels nostalgic (Oswald Moseley's son and Nick Griffin don't count).

I don't understand. Is it just me? Did I miss a meeting?

FLASHING ROAD SIGNS

For the past year or two we have been subject to two new road signs. One is a dull and grey speed camera symbol. However, here's the cheeky twist: there is no speed camera. The council must not be able to afford one... That is because they have spent the traffic budget on another road sign. This one is special - all-singing, all-dancing - it's a veritable work of art. It's like the village's version of the Blackpool illuminations. People will come for miles around just to gasp at the erection (sorry, I watched a Carry On film today) and step back in amazement. Hopefully not too far, or the area will need a third road sign: "Do not step back into the road in amazement..." And drivers will crash trying to reading it.

The village has been blessed with a laser-equipped sign on a stick that can detect how fast a person is driving their car past the local primary school. If you're doing fine, the sign ignores you. If the car is going "too fast" (which is arbitrary, depending on who sets the machine), then the sign flashes a sad face at the driver until the vehicle either slows down or has passed by.

Are these people working on the same philosophy that is applied to babies? "Babies react to smiles and frowns, so adults must too." I would hope not, but here's a true story:

I heard my manager declaring that he zoomed down a long hill and set all the signs flashing, one after another. He is in his forties... Certain adults are obviously gratified by the flashing lights.

What next? Are the police going to attend accident scenes with sad smileys on sticks, holding them up like they do with the points for the ice skating? Nurses in hospital announcing to patients that they are paralysed from the waist down by flashing a sad face on a stick?

Talk about dumbing down. Anyone driving past a school in the morning/afternoon on a weekday who doesn't pay attention is a moron. What a total waste of money. They could at least have programmed the road sign to play a tune. I suggest the following:

"Lay Down Sally"

"Boom Bang-a-Bang"

"I Believe I Can Fly"

THE BNP - GETTING EVEN

Oh dear. I received a missive from the BNP this morning. I think they may have shoved the leaflet through the letterbox and run away. Nice to see they can read and write - unless they hired someone to do it for them. The party's slogan appears to be: "GET EVEN". Bit vengeful, don't you think?

It is the only leaflet I haven't ripped up and put straight in the bin without reading first. Why? Know thine enemy, people of Britain. Although the major parties are money-mad and whore themselves out to big business, this party is far more dangerous because it thrives on a lack of education, bigoted beliefs, bitterness and hatred.

They know their market, they proclaim they will raise the weekly pension to £150. Many old people are inherently racist and they don't even realise it - they hail from a time when signs at boarding houses proclaimed: "No blacks, no Irish, no dogs", and the Black and White Minstrel Show was prime time BBC entertainment - there was seen to be nothing wrong in that whatsoever.

They have a "voluntary resettlement policy" which is not mentioned on the leaflet. Why people who have come to this country to escape oppressive and dangerous regimes, or come to make decent wages and have a better standard of living would wish to be repatriated is frankly beyond me.

The BNP have put a lot of time and effort into their spin doctoring to make sure they are not associated in people's minds with the thugs of the 1970s and 80s, and the Nazi bigots of the 1990s. However, as you and I know, dear reader: "A turd by any other name..."

The leaflet's piece de resistance is a photo of their glorious leader, Nick Griffin (and his wandering eye) right next to Winston Churchill, as if their beliefs were somehow the same. Nazi sympathiser right next to someone who did their utmost to make sure Nazis didn't penetrate these shores.

I'm surprised the leaflet didn't spontaneously combust as soon as it was printed.

THE LEADERS' DEBATE

Ah, our glorious leaders...

It is very hard for me to hear the words "Leaders' debate" because my brain is hard-wired to immediately flash up an image of Mrs.Merton announcing loudly: "Let's have a mass debate!" And then I snigger to myself.

I can proudly say that I have not heard one word of "The Leaders' Debate". Nor do I intend to. This pantomime is not for the likes of me, it is for people who decide how to vote depending on which way the wind is blowing. It is for the floating voters. I never liked that phrase myself, to me it sounds like slang for "those turds who can't make their minds up".

I have, however, seen clips of said debates with the sound removed (the best way to watch it, if you ask me). I can tell you now, it is written on Cameron and Brown's faces that if they have to join forces to oust that upstart Clegg from people's minds then they will make that Satanic pact. Both parties have worked too hard to please all of the people all of the time to be relegated to third-place status at this late stage. God forbid the Tories or the Labour party end up in the political wilderness as the Lib Dems have this past few years.

In some parts of the country the viable alternative to the Labour and Conservative parties is the BNP. Yes, folks, you heard correctly: THE BNP, with their racist policies - and, no debate about this, people, yes, they are RACIST, you only have to scratch at the surface to find out that they are Nazi sympathisers by any other name. Their spin is the worst spin of all and anyone who falls for it is a MORON.

Brown and Cameron can think themselves lucky that they are actually having a civilised debate at all. If the only viable alternative was The Monster Raving Loony Party, Brown and Cameron would have to debate with them. Or Mr.Blobby. Or a paper bag. Or a hedgehog names Maurice. People obviously want an alternative to the Tory/Labour nonsense, let's just hope they hold their nerve in the election box and teach these pompous politicians a lesson.

My alternative theory for Nick Clegg's rise in the polls is that rather a lot of Tory/Labour voters were trapped abroad by an ash cloud, leaving a disproportionate amount of Liberal Democrats in Britain.

I hope not.

A SATIRICAL POEM. BY ME.

"Volanic ash,

Volcanic ash,

Is it true you

Cause all planes to crash?

Volcanic ash,

Volcanic ash,

All flights are grounded

In a flash.

Volcanic ash,

Volcanic ash,

Makes more cloud

Than a stash of hash.

Volcanic ash,

Volcanic ash,

Thicker than

A Victorian's moustache.

Volcanic ash

All over the place

People in Europe

Hoping it will dissipate.

Volcanic ash

From the Eyjafjallaokul ridge.

At least it beats

The election coverage."

The. End.

PAEDO BIKINI!

The Sun newspaper has done it again. In a bid to sell more copies, it led with the headline: "PAEDO BIKINI"!!!!!!

You may be forgiven for thinking that perhaps this was a bikini with hidden cameras in the bust that had been manufactured for the paedophile that is out and about on the beach this summer. Maybe combined with some sort of crotchless pants or subtle cock attachment. But no.

This was in fact a storm in a teacup over a padded bikini being sold in Primark "for girls as young as 7". Chav mothers immediately complained to The Sun newspaper and made loud noises about how it sexualised little girls. Call me old-fashioned, but here's a thought: if you don't like it, don't buy it. Simple as. I'm all for letting children stay kids for as long as possible, but paedophiles think all children are sexy little minxes who are asking for it anyway, clothes or no clothes.

Primark have now withdrawn the product, The Sun is smugly pleased with itself and even David Cameron has jumped on the bandwagon: "I'm delighted they've taken the decision to withdraw this product," he gushed inbetween kissing babies and promising everlasting life for all.

THE MAN WHO INJECTS SNAKE VENOM

"How can I make myself feel special and justify my existence? I know, I can spend 20 years injecting myself with snake poison in a "quest" to make myself immune and become a superman." Oh, and it might help some doctors in their research.

God bless Channel 5. This documentary is being broadcast under the banner of science, but, frankly it's just another version of The Boy With an Arse For a Face (copyright: That Mitchell and Webb Look).

This man (I'm sorry, I haven't paid attention to his name) develops serious allergic reactions to some of his injections, and didn't understand until he met with a doctor for a chat that this hobby could be in some way bad for him. 18 months ago he was hospitalised when he over-injected himself. The documentary makers referred to this as "the accident". I would call it a "deliberate act". It is impossible to "accidentally" inject oneself with snake venom. It is very easy to "accidentally" trip over a rug.

The point is laboured throughout that this guy could be doing something selfless and heroic here, since research into this area is very thin on the ground. There could be potential cures for cancer, Alzheimers' disease and all manner of other terrible afflictions out there if only more people would inject themselves with snake venom to see what it could do. Selfish bastards.

Snake venom is a cure, but a hell of a drastic one. It will cure you of life itself so that you don't live long enough to have to suffer any serious diseases.

I was waiting for a sombre voice to announce over the credits that "Since the filming of this documentary, Steve has died", but it didn't happen.

This programme should really have been called "The Man With a Pea For a Brain".

AFTERSHOCK. DOES EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE BOTTLE...

I had a teenage moment. To prove I've still got it, that I'm still "down with the kids" I walked into a Bargain Booze and walked out with a bottle of Aftershock. I paid real money for it, I didn't steal it - although that would probably have been cooler and more urban.

To the uninitiated, if there are any of you still left out there, this is a drink best served chilled, in a glass the size of a thimble. It looks like medicine. It smells of medicine. It tastes like sh*t - for two seconds, and then the inside of your mouth is so numb you can't taste or speak. You can probably cleanse wounds with it, to be perfectly honest. It should be banned by the EU.

After a couple of these shots, my evening carried on pretty much as normal. There I was, waiting for it to kick in in my brain so that I would start doing wild things which would go down in legend as "The Night We Drank Aftershock and Had the BEST PARTY EVER, Man, it was Hysterical, There'll Never Be Another Night Like the Aftershock Night, if You Weren't There, You Were Square..." And so on, and so on.

An hour later I got raging, burning indigestion. And then I was sick. There weren't mounds of sick everywhere, there was hardly any sick. But it shot out of my body at 200 miles an hour, bounced off the porcelain I was aiming into and splattered onto my new, cool jeans.

And that was it. I felt normal. But now I stank of sick. Not ordinary sick. That special acidic reeking sick that your body comes out with when you're very ill.

Aftershock: "I'll Never Forget The Night I Had to Wash My Jeans and Then Go to Bed". Party on, dude!

MY DAILY MAIL MOMENT

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

THE DOOR

I see they've revamped The Adventure Game. And crossed it with The Crystal Maze, Fort Boyard and the Saw franchise. Vile and scary. Nothing like a bucket of blood substitute for getting the viewers hooked. Ideal Friday night viewing, especially since the edge is taken off by Chris Tarrant - ex-children's tv presenter - and his wry, friendly voice over.

And the great thing is that the "celebrity" contestants are doing it for charity. (And I use the word "celebrity" wrongly in this context. It should be pronounced "desperate morons"). Whoever wins can write this off as a tax dodge.

That makes it all right, then.

The Doors of perception remain firmly closed this time. Honestly, expecting actors to be able to think laterally. (My money's on Keet Duffy, since the Irish are hard-wired to think like that. Unless Jenny Macalpine rips his arms off first). It's all as contrived as Michael Winner's Tv Dinners, if not worse.

God, how I wish Chris Tarrant had cycled up to the camera on a tricycle, wearing a Saw mask. Now that would have made the entire budget worthwhile.

LATE NEWS IN YORKSHIRE...

"AND TONIGHT ON THE LATE YORKSHIRE NEWS:

A woman from Barnsley is gutted that she has been turned down to be a foster parent because she is a member of the BNP".

Er, yeah...and I should damn well think so too.

Maybe they should give her a little black/asian/european child to look after...

GRIM REAPER'S BLACK SENSE OF HUMOUR

How ironic. A jogger on a California beach, keeping fit and chasing that dream of everlasting life that all health nuts subscribe to, ran into the path of a plane making an emergency landing and was killed.

Bet he'd never in his wildest dreams imagined that scenario when he was weighing out his lima beans and dust to make his health-giving nutritional shake of a morning.

Ironically, if he'd been a couch potato, he'd probably still be alive...