Just what the world needs - another ranty blog

A Comment on Brown's "Leadership"

2008-04-16T15:21:26+02:00

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Couldn't resist it

2008-01-28T14:12:40+01:00

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2008 - A New End

2008-01-02T16:26:34+01:00

Well, happy 2008 everyone.

Apologies for the silence, but well . . . I was having too damn nice a holiday to care, really. Tucked away in a cosy lodge, away from the internet, uninspired holiday television programming and hordes of screaming kids, which is usually the Christmas norm even when I’m not pretending to be Santa and telling them all I’m a fictional creation of a cynical drinks company’s marketing department.

Well either that or “See Santa’s magic helper, the Christmas purple worm” . . . one of them usually gets the screams, I can’t remember which . . .

It’s best to get over these things when you’re young, I believe.

Anyway, back to real life and quick to see we’ve got over the doe-eyed “season of goodwill” and “fresh start to the year” claptrap by some good old-fashioned mass slaughter and transport disruption. Despite all the mean-mindedness and petty squabbles, I still feel that given determination, willpower and dedication, this may be the year when the human race surpasses itself, pulls together in a big way and makes a real leap towards exterminating itself completely.

The prospect of MPs giving themselves another pay rise whilst staging everyone else’s retains a flicker of interest, as does my crystal ball prediction of yet another record-busting expenses bill from the useless bunch of selfish bastards in Parliament. For my next trick, I foresee prolonged murder and mayhem in Africa and the Middle East, punctuated by natural disasters for the rest of the world due to increased incidences of severe weather. I tell you, if Ladbrokes were taking odds on this, you wouldn’t win the steam off your piss.

Anyway, on to what I wanted to say: All good things come to an end, and so do several bad ones including, for the time being, this blog.

I’m really busy at the moment which means I only have time to update infrequently, and what’s worse, hardly any time left over to read and comment on other people’s blogs which is just plain rude of me.

I have a number of projects both work and play-related . . . one of which is the upcoming “Can You Survive?” film by Gusano for which I’m co-writing the script. The rest of my time will be spent finding another job before my soul dies.

Oh, I forgot – I sold that already. Oh well – you know how it is, once you spend more than 4 hours a day fantasizing about going postal with automatic weaponry it’s time to move on.

I’d like to thank all my blogfriends here with whom it has been a pleasure to know and chat. Thanks for listening to all the rants.

Man down.

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Reports of My Blog-Death

2007-12-17T14:10:05+01:00

. . . are greatly exaggerated. I've just been horribly, horribly busy.

Have come to the conclusion that Red Bull is about as effective as Mogadon in keeping one bright and alert, and the only noticeable effect is giving one surgary-flavoured burps at periodic intervals.

Perhaps this is what keeps you awake? Enquiring minds wish to know.

Anyhow, the knee is doing very well, and although still very swollen is gradually looking more knee-shaped every day and I can now get about without looking like Hugh Laurie in House. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and wished me well - appreciate it, folks.

Have been keeping an eye on the news, and marvelling at Labour's committment to recycling. In a time where the planet needs to recycle its resources, and facing increasing reticence from the rich nations to do so, Labour have been leading the way:

Every crap minister and civil servant who has made a pig's ear of their post is being recycled back into a job. Some, like Prescott and Hewitt are proving a little more difficult to re-use as, understandably, they were no fucking use in the first place, but if the man at the centre of the . . . third? . . . fourth? . . . data loss at the Home Office can "resign" and still be given a cushy job until his retirement benefits kick in, well who knows. This is the season of the miraculous, after all.

Also,so-appalling-that-you-have-to-laugh-or-you'd-kill-someone was a little statistic I cam across on a TV programme: "Fixing the NHS". A high profile private sector manager had tried to implement changes in a troubled NHS hospital, and was returning some years later to see if there had been an improvement.

Yes there had, but for all the process improvements and skyrocketing morale in the hospital, they were been utterly shafted by clueless government policies and targets which made no sense for the hospital. Increasingly, Mr Manager was getting angrier at every example of governmental waste and inefficiency the hospital were struggling against.

The NHS IT system? Wasted enough money to employ 16,000 nurses. For ten years.

Sadly, like the missing data (should have tried Amazon . . . they seem OK about posting CDs, especially at busy times of the year), this hallmark of incompetence is going to get washed over by the amnesiac short-term memory of the public. The best we can hope for is they vote for the Tories instead next time.

Talk about Hobson's choice.

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An Insult to Intelligence

2007-12-02T20:50:51+01:00

15 Days in a Sudanese jail for letting some schoolkids calling a teddybear "Mohammed" and open demonstrations caling for the British teacher to be put to death.

I don't see anyone lining up to stone the children themselves for taking part in this "blasphemy", but isn't it all rather convenient to blame the West?

The Foreign Office and Government have been singularly crap in doing anyting about this, when they have the perfect negotiating tool for Sudan:

"Let her go or we stop selling you weapons".

What will they do without the means to butcher eachother? Worship of Allah might take a serious nosedive without the requisite level of gun-toting mayhem.

Perhaps if the competition had been "Name the Kalashnikov" people wouldn't have been so disgruntled.

And before we go getting all complacent, we were hanging people for shit like this only four hundred years ago . . . keep voting for people who listen to the Christian Fundmentalists and we'll be back in the Middle Ages before we know it. Science and Medicine . . . those poster boys of what we called "The Enlightenment" are already under attack.

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Some Observations

2007-11-27T14:38:29+01:00

Southern Rail have announced, with much pomp and ceremony, that they will be running two trains per hour from my neck of the woods up to London.

This, as they are keen to tell us, is as a result of a year-long consultation exercise and detailed "surveys" of passenger usage throughout the day.

Wow. Here was me thinking any mug could have told them that their trains were half-empty during the middle of the day, and during the rush hour commute after two stops you are doing some kind of vertical spooning with your fellow passengers. I suspect that the cost of this might not have been quite so spectacular had third party consultants not been involved.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so negative. It's about time the commuters (who comprise the largest captive audience of dependable cash for the railway franchises) got something out of Southern. We've put up with the "new" trains that are riddled with design flaws and break more easily than a politician's promise. We are now used to the flat refusal of compensation for season ticket holders, being presented with the "discount calculation" instead ("Well hey! Look at that. We've worked out our punctuality targets and whaddya know? - we don't have to compensate any of you for delays again this year!").

So perhaps it is encouraging that they seem to have finally shed themselves of the Labour-induced delusion that "less is more efficient". We've had that from the rail companies: running less trains is more efficient. We can see it with the Health Service; running less hospitals is more efficient. There's even been a case in Portsmouth where a fire station is closing, not because of cuts . . . because of efficiency!

I'm not a town planner, but I think that when it was first built in the middle of Portsmouth years ago, the planners probably took a little more care than donning a blindfold and sticking a pin in a map. If the closure goes ahead, and yo uhappen to live in an area not near the two remaining stations at the far North and South of the city . . . then frankly you will probably have to have ago yourself with a hosepipe or soda syphon until a tender arrives.

Same with the hospitals; if once region X was served by 10 hospitals, Labour seem to think that efficiency will positively skyrocket if they close half of them (starting with the ones in Tory councils).

The only efficiency I can see is that you can expect more people to die en route to more distant hospitals, or arrive beyond the point they can be effectively helped. Therefore you can expect the remaining hospitals to run at capacity as it costs money to treat sick people, after all. Especially the old ones who, frankly, have finished being useful tax contributors and are just bein a burden on the system. Better hurry up and die, is the New labour message.

In fact, if they hadn't screwed the economy so badly that the retirement age will probably be 114 by the time they are booted out of government, Smirkin' Gordon's ideal retirement present to all eligible citizens would probably be this:

Forget your pocket watch or carriage clock, here's your quick double-tap from HM Government, stop spongeing off our expenses allowance. How's an MP expected to pay for a second luxury London flat with your money when your Gran is wasting it all on life support, eh?

Anyway . . . as I know you're all morbidly keen - here's what my legs look like:

The redness is actually the sterile stuff they swab on the operation site, but yes, when I woke up I did think for a second I had been in some sort of bizarre tanning bed accident.

Always reassuring to know your surgeon has a permanent black pen so he knows where to cut! As you can see, the knee is a tad swollen compared to the other one.

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Wounded Knee

2007-11-23T23:35:39+01:00

Surgery yesterday.

After getting a look at it with the arthroscopy, the Consultant said the kneecap was "half off".

I've been running and fencing on that.

Movement seemed a lot better after the joint erosion was shaved smooth and the tissues were cut that were holding kneecap in the wrong place. The only drawback was that it made the kind of noise your stomach does when it's empty and hungry every time I flexed it.

And then the anaesthetic wore off at 9 pm.

Man. That was interesting.

All doing well now though - can move around with a stick and some expletives, and H is taking good care of me.

Just have 240 leg raises and 180 knee flexes to do each day now.

Yikes.

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It surely should come as some relief . . .

2007-11-21T10:39:30+01:00

. . . to all you Facebook users out there, who are heartily sick of the technophobic press constantly trying to get another furlong out of the dead horse that is "Facebook will steal your identity", to know that Her Majesty's Government will do a far better job of it.

25 million records lost, and this is the fourth breach by the same department. The same crowd who brought in that wonderful "tax credit" system - remember that? Where they overpaid millions, and ended up having to run adverts asking people to check their sums and return any money they shouldn't have got.

I'll bet that hotline phone was ringing off the wall.

Now, not content with having lost 15 million records on CD plus numerous laptops, HMRC have lost 25 milion records burned - contrary to their own regulations - onto CD, and sent by unregistered post.

(And TNT?!? Oh, please. One attempted delivery of some computer components and nearly a week of hassle with this bunch of pricks told me they couldn't be trusted with a postcard, let alone anything of value).

In parliament yesterday, Alastair Darling told everyone that he didn't think the records were in the hands of any criminals and that the CDs were passworded, and didn't contain vital information. Wags at The Register were quick to point out that Mr Darling wasn't so quick to publish his NI number and bank account details if he was so sure of their safety . . . and that the security on the CDs was probably something like "pa55w0rd"

True or not, despite Darling's desperate attempts to salvage his job, they simply don't know where these records are. Saying criminals haven't got them is, at this point, wishful thinking.

What utter hypocrisy from a government that is constantly bleating on about terror, paranoia and identity theft. I personally think there are many good reasons not to have a National Identity database, but if you need a clear one, here it is: the last place your personal details will be safe and secure is a database handled by imbecilic clowns in government.

Run a national database? They couldn't run a bath.

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Can You Survive?

2007-11-19T10:38:05+01:00

Apologies for lack of posting, work is trying to kill me. Ha ha! No . . . I think they are.

Anyway, Gusano has now "put a wiggle on" as they say and is making progress on the new film: Can You Survive? I've seen the initial plot synopsis and well . . . oh my. This is going to be something quite strange and special.

However, as this will be his first feature-length production, he is going to need some help with cast and crew. So: -

"I need actors and actresses for a very demanding and crazy performance for this arty horror flick. Please contact me if you are interested, aged between 21 and 35, live in Sussex, Kent or East Surrey and have an open mind. Filming will be during June 2008!"

You can offer your services at Gusano's blog, or do the Facebook thingy if you prefer.

If you'd like to see what you migh be letting yourself in for, his previous digital obsessions are:

The Id Girl

Never Saw Wall of Voodoo

Stroke I Am

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Model Behaviour

2007-11-09T17:02:03+01:00

I'm less-than-amused to see the latest estimation for ID cards ramp up another 71 million. Anyone might think that the Government had absolutely no clue how much this was finally going to cost, and be a rampant opportunity for contractors to fill their boots at public expense?

I remember when an independent think-tank predicted the cost would be about 6 billion, and Labour were unanimous in their scorn and ridicule of the figure. Their own accounted costs now run at 5.1 billion. So far.

Blair is busy hoovering up the jollies by trotting out his boring speeches in China. Mr After-Dinner is telling the Chinese how we should all co-operate and be nice to eachother, like some demented puppet from Sesame Street. Unlike the puppet show, Cookie Monster probably never got 200 grand for lecturing kids on basic elements of morality, and at least there was the comfort that despite the drugs, at least the team behind Seasame Street actually had a grasp of morality in the first place.

Same not entirely true of Blair and Chinese business, I fear . . . yet another product recall recently of kid's toys filled with industrial toxins from our new trading partners . . . who are still busy imprisoning people and stealing their land to build the Olympic stadium.

Blair himself must be revelling in all this wondeful democracy a genocidal war has created - just look at Pakistan, for example. Arrest the protestors, arrest the opposition, and claim it's all for the war on terror! Why didn't he think of that?

Laura Moffat (MP for Crawley) has admitted requesting £20,000 for London accomodation, despite being only 40 minutes away by train. She claims that having been flashed at numerous tiomes, she "doesn't feel safe" using public transport.

A shame then that other women, who may share her misgivings about travelling on the network at night, can't help themselves to 20K out of the public purse. I recall another MP - Geraint Davies, formerly of Croydon, who also claimed a similar amount of cash despite living virtually next to London.

Turns out he was using London hotels as he was banging one of his staff, whom he duly left his wife for. Anything we should know, Laura?

I notice too that Lord Drayson has been given a pat on the back and allowed to go racing, seeing as he's done such an inept job of supplying troops with proper kit. "I have a passion for motor racing" he claims, with parents of dead troops lamenting that it was a shame he didn't share that passion for doing his job properly.

Still, when you've bought yourself a peerage and a lucractive comapny contract with party donations, why let a few squaddies spoil your lunch schedule? Here's hoping for a really nasty racing accident.

Still, could be worse. Could be a sparrow hawk. Despite Harry and some chinless wonder taking a time-out from chain-wanking to blast the crap out of defenceless wildlife,it appears it wasn't them who shot two endangered birds.

Just someone else wandering around the Royal grounds with loaded shotguns, apparently. no cause for alarm or further investigation.

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Remember, Remember

2007-11-06T10:33:37+01:00

Everyone enjoy Guy Fawke's Night?

Here's what should have happened:

And just for those who want to imagine this happening to the current bunch of inept parasites, here's that wonderful moment from V for Vendetta . . .

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Tech News

2007-11-01T10:28:16+01:00

You may have seen the article where MOD researchers are getting the press hyped up about an invisible tank. It seems a bit late in the day to try lending some degree of credibility to James Bond's Die Another Day, especially as Daniel Craig has so successfully brought it all back to espionage, chases and cold brutal death in grimy stairwells (like all good Cold War stuff should be).

You may be interested to know that the British Army experimented with this back in WW2 - by placing a bank of lightbulbs on the side of a tank and varying the brightness, a tank could match the light intensity of background sky. So instead of being sillhouettted on the top of a hill (making an excellent target), it did a good job of blending in if you were a distance away and squinted a bit.

This new development seems like a bit of an extreme measure to try and stop trigger-happy Americans bombing our vehicles, but perhaps they've run out of other ideas.

Incidentally, having thought my job has not been so great recently, I've come across an advert for this book. Now that's on my reading list (especially as I finished the biography of Aleister Crowley just in time for Halloween. How apt).

Maestro! Time for some Music Not to Relax To, I think. Depeche Mode and Clean.

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More Pomp and Ceremony

2007-10-31T10:28:35+01:00

. . . for the head of a country where there is endemic corruption amongst politicians, the staggering wealth of the Royal Family places a massive reality disconnect between them and the conditions faced by the people, where democracy barely deserves the name, where women are still struggling to achieve equal rights and the whole murky "lineage" of Royals is derived from centuries of murder, intrigue and ugly ambition.

You'd think the Saudis would steer well clear of the House of Windsor, wouldn't you?

Incidentally, King Abdullah's Groucho Marx impersonation is rubbish.

In other news, postman have solved the "mystery" of delivering a letter vaguely addressed to "a briliant violinist". Now this conundrum is solved, perhaps they will make the Holmesian leap of delivering post with full address and postcode to my house, and manage to get the letters through the door before 4 pm?

I'm also amused to see the latest adverts for the Post Office on telly. I notice that they chose not to film in the Camden branch and used a set instead. A missed opportunity, I'm sure.

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House move is off

2007-10-30T12:08:36+01:00

No-one was interested and now it looks like the market is going to do a neat little implosion, so H and I have decided not to take the opportunity to double our mortgage, thankyousomuch, and carry on paying off what we've borrowed already!

Being involved in marketing myself, I'm always rather amused at the expectations of viewers who have been assured by the estate agents that the house is exactly what they are after . . . and the subsequent attempts to be polite when they take one look and hate everything they see.

"Well it hasn't got a fourth bedroom" . . . well hold on just a second while I pull an additional double bedroom out of my arse. You read the feckin' details sheet, didn't you?

Oh well. Back to the commute until my project is done and I can look for something else. Very little sleep at the moment. The Madness cannot be far away, now.

Anyone see the programme on hospital closures last night? I swear they do these deliberately to wind me up. In the vein of the train companies, who think services run "more effeciently" if there's less of them (not quite true, there's just more profit in it for the train companies which isn't exactly the same thing), hospital A&E wards are closing to ensure "a better service" to the public. In weasel-speak, this is called "reconfiguring" health trusts.

Bit like old old unused factories, you don't knock them down and start over, they are "reconfigured" into over-priced luxury studio flats. You get the picture.

This means that acute conditions may have to be bussed by ambulance to hospitals further away, meaning more delay until a patient receives specialist treatment, and assuming the ambulance trust (which is as cash-strapped as anyone else) has an ambulance to spare and isn't busy getting called to comatose drunks.

The Director interviewed admitted it: people will die.

Many of the A&E professionals interviewed claimed this "reconfiguration" wasn't good sense, as people will die.

The public in whose areas the hospitals are reconfig . . . sorry, closing . . . are convinced that longer transit times to hospital means people will die.

And although he was being very tactful in saying it, the Trust Director implied he had no choice because there was "no money available to give people the choice of services they wanted at all hospitals". In other words, they had no choice but to close off services becuase they couldn't afford it.

Where have those revenue targets come from? The Department of Health, of course. The former minister Patricia Hewitt made a great fuss about Trusts balancing the books, even though the House had the odds stacked against them with the way they calculated debt and profit.

Quite apart from the fact that the man in charge of closures had no idea how many trained paramedics he had available to off-set the projected affect on patients with extended journey times, the crowning turd was the official reponse from the DoH:

"Closures are a matter for local authorities", they said.

Typical Labour: gutless, spineless, blame-shifting LIARS. The local authorities are implementing Government guidelines, but no-one in Downing Street is prepared to take any shit that's thrown at them and are blaming the local Trusts for meeting their targets.

Likewise, after the news that their immigration figures were off by about 300K, some fresh-faced minister tried to damage control the crowing Tories by announcing that strict new vetting policies wouljd be in place sometime err, soon? Next year? Who knows.

How long have they been in power? I know I like to put jobs off that I don't relish, but even I've never managed to studiously ignore something for ten years. It will no doubt turn into yet another mismanaged, hastily rolled out and badly-consulted affair (if indeed, it ever surfaces and isn't another Labour "Vapourware" promise) that makes the situation ten times worse.

Just like the Health Service. And Education. And the Home Office. And the military. And their IT projects. And . . .

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Faceless Enemies

2007-10-26T09:59:35+02:00

I've restrained from commenting (much) on the McCann case, because whatever the truth of the matter, every possible outcome runs the spectrum from awful to tragic.

I blame the Press and by extension the public for this egregious celebrity that surrounds the case. Awareness is one thing, but endless pages of pundit speculation, rumour and innuendo is hardly going to help the girl, and if the sheeple weren't buying copies to tune in on latest developments like a deranged soap opera, then the papers would stop running the articles.

But today, a new barrel-bottom has been scraped as the McCanns release an "artist's impression" of the suspected abductor. Based on the eyewitness testimony of someone who was at dinner with the McCanns and so therefore, by default, nowhere near the scene of the alleged crime when Maddie was abducted, the sketch nevertheless shows the perpetrator carrying off the girl, still in her pyjamas.

A shame that this "significant development" has waited this long before being released, no? I'd have thought that is a friend of mine's girl had been abducted, I'd have thought to mention the fact I saw someone carrying off a small girl from the vicinity of the house a little sooner than 5 months after the event.

What with her mother stating that Maddie "is alive and being held in a house" (yes, we'd love that to be true also, but there's nothing other than wishful thinking to evidentially support it), it reeks less of a genuine clue and more of media press management to try and salvage their reputation from the growing mire of suspicion.

The conveniently anonymous portrait has had several features (including the face) left blank "to ensure accuracy". I'm certain that some will think the sketch devatstatingly accurate, as the suspect in question isn't there.

Speaking of barrels being scraped, oil barrels have come in for a bit of a pounding as BP are fined over £185 million for a multitude of sins. Tellingly, they were fined less for blowing people up in a Texas refinery and polluting Alaska, as they were for fraudulently fixign the price of propane.

And yet, despite so many human climat-change deniers receiving direct funding from oil companies who are endemically corrupt, there's still scepticism over climate change and the resounding lack of will to do anything about it.

Well I guess in the long run it doesn't make any difference anyway. In a few thousand years or so, the only ones arguing about what actually finished off Homo sapiens will be the cockroaches. The Meek will have to share with the more functionally-adapted arthropods in what they inherit.

And speaking of cockroaches, I notice that the final tally for last year's MP's expenses are in. A new record! What a surprise. Up 5% from the previous year to £87.6 million. (if you happen to be in one of the Government's many military engagements worldwide, that is roughly equivalent to 200,458 sets of body armour you won't have been supplied with).

If you think I'm cynical, this pales in comparison to the MP spokesgroup whose job it is to break the news of MP's profligacy with taxpayers' dosh: we're getting "excellent value for money" says LibDem Nick Harvey.

Which is exactly the same trite phrase they have trotted out three years running. Those rat-bastard fucks don't even think we care anymore.

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Anyone know

2007-10-25T13:52:44+02:00

why Thursdays seems to be the day I'm targeted for public abuse?

Some old harpy lambasted me with a stream of invective this morning for the cardinal sin of letting some poor fucker off a train before we all piled on board, thus impeding her several vital seconds in her single-minded quest to get to her favourite seat.

Apparently, my bright pink-purple fencing bag exhibited its esoteric stealth camouflage properties once more and both it and the vile harrdidan came into brief-yet-none-too-jarring contact as I reversed direction so the man had a space to get out at his stop. I wasn't even aware I'd made contact with anything until she started complaining.

Had perhaps she been a little further than two inches off my heels, straining to get past me (even though I was at the door before she was), or actually looking where she was going - instead of me looking backwards - this might not have happened.

Didn't appreciate me telling her that, though. I'm rude, uncultured, and a shame to my mother apparently.

And still I'll outlive you, you poisonous bitch. How about I take an epee out of the bag and show you the importance of maintaining reaction distance? Pick which eye you'd like me to have as a souvenir . . .

It came as no surprise that a fight nearly broke out on the tube later - although in close proximity, it didn't have anything to do with me this time. Still have the journey home though, so the night is young.

Another day listening to the same song on repeat . . . I'm sure this isn't healthy.

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Blogging break

2007-10-25T09:48:32+02:00

I'm back. Actually I was back a fortnight ago but have been too ill or busy to write anything. To be honest, it's looking a bit crammed until the end of the year, and then 2008? I'm not sure I have the willpower any more.

Got back from Frankfurt to find a curious situation: a serial killer is running loose in the UK. You'd be forgiven for thinking that a killer with more confirmed kill to their credit than Fred & Rose West, Dennis Nilsen and Peter Sutcliffe combined might be subject to a bit of priority from the government. The final death toll in fact, although by no means confirmed yet, is second only to the suspected number of deaths from Harold Shipman.

Yet faced with 90-odd deaths from hospital-acquired Clostridium difficile at the Maidstine and Tunbridge Wells trust, the government sat on the report for three months. Hospital infections from C. diff. outbreaks had been charted since May.

Clostridium difficile is not a "superbug". It's easily treated, and can be kept under control with antiseptic. It's been allowed to butcher patients because hospital cleaning has been outsourced to save money and to drive the fallacy of the private market for the NHS.

This has resulted in barely-literate staff being employed who use rags on both toilets and sinks, don't clean things that "don't look dirty" and whose supervisers do not understand what "infection control" means. Well, they're cheap I guess. The only downside to scraping a few pounds off the budget is that people die - if they're old, like H's grandmother, I don't suppose it matters in the government scheme of things (it stops them claiming benefits, after all).

Modern nursing is starting to focus less on basic care of a patient, and more into guideline-led areas of medicine that used to be done by doctors . . . who are by and large fucking off abroad with the rest of the qualified nursing staff to get better wages and working conditions, and less interference in their job from witless, incompetent ministers.

And hospitals (no longer with that awful smell of bleach which at least betrayed the fact they had been cleaned recently) can't afford enough good staff on a permanent basis. They are stillpaying over the odds for agency nurses, some 15 years after this was highlighted as a problem.

My father-in-law had a hernia operation recently. No keyhole op, they opened him up from sternum to waist - yet despite major abdominal surgery he wasn't followed up by the surgeon, and ward rounds were non-existent. No-one helped him to get up to the toilet, he was even discharged without given a wheelchair, so was left to hobble his way in agony out of the hospital.

This is in one of the hospitals facing closure under the Labour health reforms. God knows, no-one likes to lose a hospital, especuially one with an emergency depatment . . . But I wouldn't want to have an operation there.

So . . . wouljd we have quite the short-term memory about this scandal if say, Myra Hindley had been given a golden handshake instead of a prison sentence? It may be a bit much to expect hospital chiefs to face time for avoidable patient deaths, but surely something a bit sterner is required than leting them quietly shuffle off into another directorship after an unapologetic resignation?

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A Sporty Weekend

2007-10-08T10:43:26+02:00

I'm off on my travels again next week

(Deafening chorus of "We don't care, Vort")

But just pausing to note the fine games of rugby at the weekend, fine efforts from England an France who I would have placed money on being steamrollered before the match. Sadly a friend of mine was in a pub where the Kimi supporters, drinking since the Aussie match earlier that day, started trashing the place after losing.

So much then, for the "sport of gentlemen" moniker . . . back to the "instant arsehole - just add alcohol" label so beloved of football the world over.

Sorry to see Hamilton lose his chance to sew up the Formula 1 championship . . . McLaren so busy snooping around Ferarri that they forgot to pay attention to the tires. Still, did he blame the pit crew? No. Did he start whining about Alonso? No. I think his next race will be his finest moment.

Personally, I got to try out my new epee blade. I think it's love. It's fast, light, accurate and strong . . . plus my usual in-fighting tactic of froissement and angulation resulted in the blade (which usually either misses or slaps flat with my other epees) embedding itself point-first in my opponent's throat.

Touche!

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School Dinners

2007-10-03T13:44:06+02:00

I notice from the Guardian that "Jamie's School Dinners" are failing to win acceptance.

Interesting use of language. Perhaps they're just using that specifically because we're all familiar with the crusade he's been on. Perhaps not, as I've seen other disparagements in other papers too.

Now I've had my problems with Oliver in the past. Those bloody Sainsbury ads. Toploader being ejected from their well-deserved obscurity to the point that inane tune was playing every five fucking minutes . . .

However, I agree with him about the schools dinner issues. I also admire the way he paraded the utter uselessness of Labour MPs in front of the camera and forced the Prime Minister himself to actually stump up some cash instead of endlessly waffling for press soundbites.

I also don't recall the likes of the other sleb-whore chefs putting their house on the line to help underprivileged kids, or any other charity (other than their bank account) not by donating piles of cash into the dependency roundabout, but by teaching them a skill.

So, let's fiddle with the wording on this headline a little.

"Schoolkids Would Rather Shovel Mechanically-recovered Crap Into Their Gullets"

"Cheapest Bidder and Zero Nutritional Value Wins the Day"

"Mums Happy to See Their Obese Kids Turn Their Livers to Puree in Front of Playstations"

I think it was Irish who pointed out that people were moaning about the problems with Northern Rock as they were being loaned greater sums than they could afford to pay, then complaining again when banks tightened policies and they couldn't get their extravagantly large mortgages anymore.

Can't have it both ways.

So those complaining about the "Nanny State" and control over their kid's diets had better step up to the plate and provide a better alternative . . . instead they're letting "Darling Dudley" cram yet more refined sugar, lard and additives into his piehole as it's less bother than making him eat some chlorophyll.

I know it can be hard. I was a fussy eater too at that age. But back then I wasn't prey to mass advertising being insidiously squirted into schools by junk-food companies who want to ease the burden of meal costs in return for say, a small vendning machine. Perhaps a dedicated counter? Would it be too much bother to re-write a few lines of a science book to down-play the effects of cholesterol and excess fat on the human body?

It's happened in the US already, don't think our MPs are so incorruptible they can't be bought on this too. Even in a Secondary here in the UK (whose hall a fencing club were using), advert banners for soft drinks and that plasticised cheese were dangling in the canteen. Fast Food has big bucks they want to wave in front of government, all they have to do is wait until the noise dies down and they're in.

But it's so much easier to blame Jamie Oliver, isn't it? His outlandish position that, as we eat every day, we should perhaps choose something a little better than a meal prepared from flavoured sludge at 15p per person. Doesn't it just chime with common sense that the little darlings will thrive on crisps, chocolate and deep-fried snacks?

I can't forget those two overweight, zit-freckled mothers peddling snack foods to the kids through the bars of the school gate in "protest". They knew best, apparently. I see the same from Mothers pushing prams (smokers, please turn away now), puffing away on their ciggies, blithely unaware that their precious little darling will likely develop asthma on their secondary thirty-a-week-habit, and at the very least go to school each day completely unaware everything he/she wears smells like a stale ashtray.

Want to know the best way to stop exercising? Asphyxia. Plus every cold turning into a full-on lung-clogging chest infection and a quick trip to casualty for a ride on the nebuliser. Nothing says "I love you" more than a fingerclip to measure blood oxygen and social ostracism from your peers for being fat and smelly.

Been there.

Aforementioned Mum (or Dad too, let's not be sexist) will then drop their fag end on the ground, possibly in the mound of other fag-ends left by countless other smokers who enjoy special immunity laws from littering than the rest of us.

Ooh, no, don't tell us what to do. We know best.

So. If 'Jamie's' School Dinners fail, it will be because schools don't have enough money; the government would rather waste millions on botching healthcare than preventing a potential health risk amongst kids; they'd rather suck a big, fat, lard-dripping company kick-back cock in return for a private sector contract; parents lack the will or motivation to educate their children and - guess what - the kids themselves aren't always the best judge of what's good for them.

Yet the papers will take delicious glee in pointing out this failure and laying it on Oliver's doorstep. To which he would be fully justified in foisting another crap band into the public media.

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Mail Order Satisfaction

2007-10-01T15:29:12+02:00

It's always kind of a hit 'n miss thing. You log on, you take a look through the photos and you wonder if they have just been run through photoshop, or have been grabbed from somewhere else just to get you looking, and no reflection of what's actually on offer.

I've been disappointed in the past too. Had two recently from one place, I couldn't turn either of them on, they completely failed to light up and I just couldn't score. They had to go: I felt crushed. Yes, they booth looked lovely, and after eighteen years at playing this sort of game I thought I was a dab hand at it, but their lack of reaction to anything I tried was a severe blow to my confidence.

So I was understandably nervous trying somewhere I'd never been before. Were the photographs the "real deal", or just some fancy little marketing to snare the unwary? What about payment? Would I get burned there too? What could I do if, instead of that elegaic beauty, something hideous turned up on my doorstep expecting to take up house room?

But she has arrived, and she's gorgeous. Say what you like about mail-order outfits, about having to take the time to get to know before commitment . . . she's absolutely wonderful. Slim, sleek, a hint of French about her parentage, and some delicious curves at the bottom that just scream to have your hand nestled up behind it.

I say "she", but you know how it is with these places . . . could be a "he" in clever disguise. I expect over the next few days I'll get to find out if the outward appeal is matched by the inner workings or not . . .

Hmm? What did you think I meant?

Filthy bunch.

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. . . and Justice for All

2007-09-28T13:41:23+02:00

A nod to Metallica there, but without a 76-piece orchestra to fully capture the existentialist angst of all those riffs that go chugga chugga chugga as Metallica (and quite a few other Metal bands) seems to feel is a requirement these days.

Things well and truly kicking off in Burma, and although the army are still well behind their 1988 high-score of 3,000-or-so dead, it seems they are making a solid start by firing indiscriminately into bystanders. See the blog the Myanmar government tried to stop (with thanks to Subville). Meanwhile in response, the United Nations have unanimously decided to . . . make a statement.

That'll show them. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for nearly 12 fucking years and it takes the prospect of massacre to get a "statement". No wonder the US thinks the UN is a big fucking joke. Not that America looks set to launch the freedom wagon just yet (after all, there's that little complication with China to think of) but at least they are being a little more foreceful in their wording.

Presumably it would be "BURR - MARR" on George's phonetic Idiot-Cards.

Just as I'm reeling from the ridiculousness of Shilpa Shetty being "arrested" for a clumsy stage grope with Richard Gere (typical patriarchal religious-based nonsense . . . we have rampant sectarian killing, widespread corruption and a burgeoning AIDS epidemic fuelled by [primarily] men and systemic child prostitution, but let's address the priorities and stamp on this moral outrage of kissing), I'm hit by an equally bizarre UK legal item:

Rapist of 91 year-old to be freed.

Eamon Foley is set to be freed "in weeks" after serving half of a 16-year sentence folllowing the rape of a frail pensioner, who died four months after the attack.

Foley has denied all responsibility, claimed a "conspiracy" convicted him, refused any counselling or treatment at sex offender's classes and is considered a 'high risk offender' by the assessment panel.

Apparently he's only supposed to use public transport and stay at one address when he gets out. Given that the symptoms above are classic diagnostic markers for a sexual psychopath (denial of responsibility, lack of compassion, shift of blame onto others), and that traditionally, behaviour of this sort is not moderated through punishment - indeed, it usually just serves to make the individual more manipulative and crafty in hiding their behaviour - can anyone guess the likely outcome of this?

I'm actually hoping that the victim's family get his location leaked to them and castrate him . . . but fate is not that kind. He'll vanish off the radar and re-offend, as it's unlikley the police have the time or money to mount 24-hour surveillance.

However, just when you think Western problems are secular, I happened across a creationist website. I won't link to it, as I refuse on principle to direct traffic to a site that presents "argument" in such a bastardised form.

It rubbishes the validity of the fossil record, then goes on to use the fossil record (which it has just "disproved") to argue that God created dinosaurs as they are, and there were no transitional forms.

It later goes on to state the dinosaurs are actually dragons, becuase there is early literature that mentions them! Granted the sole justification behind everything on the site is that the Bible (written a while ago) must be true, it now seems this extends to Old English poetry too. Does Walt Disney's Pete's Dragon now qualify as a historical document?

I used to know a former US Marine pilot on Occult Forums who believed in dragons and said they were real - I'd be more inclined to believe him than this creationist tosh, at least he was open-minded.

5 year-olds argue in a similar logical way to this website. So from now on, I'm going to use the Book of Vorty to determine the validity of Creationists. The Book of Vorty was divinely inspired by Hate. I'm sure we can all agree from a quick reading of the Old Testament that from all the floods, smitings, pillar-of-saltings and persecution of people called Job, that this is pretty close to the essence of God, who seems to be a mean old fucker.

The Book of Vorty is therefore the living spirit of the Mean, Hating God and must therefore be True. The Book of Vorty says that Creationists are dicks. As the Book is true, it must follow then that Creationists are dicks. End of argument.

This apparently, is how a large proportion of the world's biggest military power actually reasons.

Terrifying.

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Music Not to Relax to

2007-09-27T17:40:16+02:00

I am in the position of potentially having done a lot of work for no reason . . . it depends if the swing-o-meter that is management decides to make another U-turn (in corp-speak "We are advancing on all fronts . . .")

So, just to relax with, here's a bit of Mr Bungle.

"Goodbye Sober Day" . . . sums it up nicely, methinks.

Right, off to stab people (fencing night).

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Red Light District

2007-09-26T09:21:49+02:00

The Labour Party Conference . . . ugghh. We know how desperate Brown is to distance himself from former-comrade-turned-psychotic-war-criminal, but were we really prepared to see him prostitute the party in such a shameless fashion?

Gordon, to use his regional vernacular, has become a hooer.

Hardly a speech goes by without some vaguely-reassuring promise to do something about an issue Labour have spectacularly fucked up over the past decade. There's barely a demographic group left in the country that hasn't had a warm word and conspiratorial nod from their new "homie", Mr Brown.

Yesterday saw a new strata of barrel-scraping. I've no doubt that John Smeaton, (baggage handler and anti-terrorist 2nd row at Glasgow Airport) deserves proper recognition and acclaim for his actions. But Poster Boy for Labour? For fuck's sake.

I have it on good authority (from someone at the same Polytechnic at the time) that a current Tory MP once got down on his knees and begged for votes at a student debate whilst at college. Disgusting though that sounds, it at least has a degree of honesty, albeit of a slimy and toadying sort.

Sadly, the Zen emptiness of Brown's latest promises seemingly go unadulterated . . . DeCaemonium's at least, are starting to be punctuated by the sound of sharpening knives the further he trails in the polls. Time again, it seems, for the favourite bloodsport of the Tory Party: the annual fratricidal leadership challenge!

The Libdems continue putting policy out in the open, but without popular support all that will happen is the juggling of a few seats here and there, and anything with substance gets recycled & spun-dried into the manifestos of the parties that originally condemned it.

As for the electorate. they will line up once more after ten years of systematic abuse and, like a beaten spouse, be prepared to forgive, start again and incidentally subscribe to another few years of being clubbed senseless.

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Lessons from America pt 2

2007-09-25T13:10:55+02:00

I notice from Greg Palast's newsletter that Dan Rather, former CBS news anchor, is crying foul over President Bush's draft-dodging.

In case you weren't aware of the scandal which got swept firmly under the carpet during election time in favour of smearing John Kerry's anti-war comments, Bush Snr pulled some strings to get Georgie Jnr the all-important task of defending Texas from VietCong air attack . . . except George was ruled unfit to fly and went AWOL to help on Daddy's political campaigning.

Rather, who once said "You can't be a good reporter and not regularly be involved in some kind of controversy", was told to sit on the story by his CBS paymasters.

Years later, CBS reneged on their promises and fired him, after he'd been relegated from various high-profile broadcast slots. Rather took out a lawsuit, and the details of his journalistic double-standards have now spilled out.

Perhaps it's fitting given the hypocrisy of a draft-dodger launching a smear-campaign against a Veteran's war record and comments that Rather should have sucked the big dick of bribery . . . but then Kerry himself was altogether rather quick in conceding the election despite widespread reports of voter disenfranchisement. Perhaps there's more than one deal that went down?

So . . . now it's getting past the point that the truth makes any difference to Bush's Presidential career, we start to see more and more of it . . . or, more accurately, the stories that were broken by investigative reporters and booted firmly into touch by the government-owned mainstream media are now being picked up again, years too late . . . when are we going to get the confirmation of what we always suspected about Blair?

***

Never mind Holocaust denial, I've just heard President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a hostile debate at Columbia University, has denied that homosexuals exist in Iran!

Ho ho ho. Granted that if you are facing the death penalty, there's not likely to be that many admitting it, but none whatsoever? I understand the whole thing about nukes . . . how else are you going to stop the Western World marching for your oil wells when you are on their "Axis of Evil" list? Even the witty wink-wink-nudge comments about arming proxy fighters in Iraq I can admire . . . but no gays in Iran?

Yeah, right. Earth to Ahmadinejad: human behaviour is pretty well documented on this throughout history and cultures, your religious prejudices notwithstanding.

I guess he wants to be original, and not copy the Western Christian book-of-fairy-tales approach by equating homosexuality with satanism.

Reminds me of the Soviet Union's assertion that serial killers were a "decadent Western phenomenon", which made Victor Burakov's Herculean attempts to catch the man responsible for 50-odd murders in the Rostov area much harder than it might have been. How telling, incidentally, that profiles of Chikatilo abound on the web, but of the interview I saw with Burakov (the man the FBI specialist on serial murder said would be " . . . the person I would least like tracking me down if I were a serial killer"), there is not the slightest trace.

Still, there is hope for humanity yet. The closest Tony Blair got to doing anything feisty about Burma was to label the military junta a "disgrace" in the UN. To see the toothless threat made with such a nod to a favourable soundbite, as opposed to any real action (arms sales ahoy!) quite brought a chunk to my throat.

So all hail the Buddhist monks who despite repeated threats have started peaceful marches, and have now got 10,000 people demonstrating at the last count.

It remains to be seen if Burma's closest ally, our soon-to-be warm 'n' friendly Olympic Hosts China, can prevail upon the government to not turn the streets of unarmed peaceful protestors into an abbatoir of shark-bait.

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Blog Alert! Woop! Woop!

2007-09-24T13:41:10+02:00

So . . . shortly after G and Helly's departure, Abilene's blog goes base-over-apex and from what I can gather from the cryptic comments moblogged on the current homepage . . . doesn't look as if it's coming back.

Last week I also saw one blog favourite of mine on the telly - PC Dave Copperfield (of A Copper's Blog) explaining how he was terrified of being sacked for revealing that most of his time was taken up with paperwork. A fact strenuously denied by police (see the Panorama transcript and decide for yourself), but I was always tickeld by the link under "Police Equipment: 'World of Pens'".

Our own "Law is a Donkey" PoliticalUniform has been forced to call it a day, and the roll call of "new bloggers" seems to throw up an ever-increasing amount of flogs for business products and scam sites.

Or maybe I'm just jealous because in three fucking years I've never been on the fron page . . .

Hmmm.

Anyway, what with Gordon Blue calling a snap election sometime soon, close enough on the backs of all the "Labour will do this!" soundbites about popular issues (and yes, the fucking sheeple will all fall for it again, wont they?) I wonder what the future holds for rights and free speeches.

We've already seen a pensioner bundled out and almost charged as a terrorist for heckling at a Labour Conference. Here's where it's at in the US, when someone (brandishing a copy of "Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast) asked Sen. John Kerry a couple of questions that he didn't want to answer.

It seems that democracy only goes so far . . . yet, in the US again, if you happen to suggest that talking snakes should not be taken literally, you can lose your job.

Questioning a fairy story - grounds for dismissal. Questioning the non-action of mass disenfranchisement of black voters - tasered and charged with "inciting a riot".

This is the world we live in now. I'll bet Moron Gordon's rubbing his hands in glee at what he thinks he can do with us.

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Moving House

2007-09-24T09:43:46+02:00

Anyone want a 3 bed semi in Worthing?

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Music Not to Relax To

2007-09-21T09:20:40+02:00

So we've all finally given the working week a good clubbing with the spiked baseball bat, Friday's now the time to lift its head of the floor and say gently, "You really have no idea who you're dealing with, do you?" and then start working the spine over.

Ahem.

Before PJ Harvey takes it away with This Wicked Tongue (and a "less is more" attitude to stage outfits), I note a couple of science items from Metro this morning.

Firstly, that someone claims to have made salt water combustible by bombarding it with radio waves. Already Metro is hooting about perpetual motion machines and "green fuel", just admitting that it takes more energy to do this than is liberated by the reaction itself in a small little throwaway comment. The picture of the test tube of salt water burning has a bright orange flame . . . which could either suggest there's a fair bit of sodium igniting, or Metro is expecting us to power our cars on the equivalent of a bunsen burner on its lowest setting.

Secondly, there's a winner for the "Visions of Science & Technology Photographic Award":

It's a British Bat seen in micrscopic close-up. I just want to call it "Jethro" . . . I swear I've seen this person drinking in a New Forest pub, too.

Take it away, Polly Jean . . .

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Cthulhu News!

2007-09-20T17:33:24+02:00

Yes, it's time for reality to take a sidestep from the meaningless, nihilistic horror of existence and mirror the Lovecraftian world of the Cthulhu Mythos again . . . with more meaningless, nihilistic horror of existence.

Peru, this time, has seen people apparently getting sick after an 'object from space' crashed into the ground. "Scores ill in Peru Meteor Crash"

This, as any reader of ol' HP will tell you, is The Colour Out of Space, which you can read here if you like.

So soon after the "Chilean Blob" washed up on its neighbour's shore too! Looks like the Star-Spawn are touching down from Xoth. Time to start drawing your elder signs, South America!

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The price of free comment

2007-09-19T11:02:15+02:00

Normally I blog too infrequently to be au fait with the little spats that occur here from time to time.

However after one comment on a blog, I see Grays and Helly have gone, and now there is "anonymous" posting on another blog . . . (I have to confess that the style is rather indicatively distinctive, but there's no way to prove anything so that's all I'll say).

Over what? Someone expressing their opinion, about an expressed opinion.

I won't preach because I too have got the hump a couple of times when a commenter has disagreed with my little corner of cyberspace. It's cathartic being able to rant, and it's part of the whole point of blogs that we can comment, agree, disagree, debate, etc.

Except that no-one (often including me) seems to want to. We like to vent our opinions, we like supportive comments from our cadre of friends and visitors (branded "sycophants" by one blogger) and we don't like anyone taking up a contrary position.

From time to time, I'll yield to some inner demon of debate and see a post on another blog that I disagree with and comment on . . . but every time the result is the same - a right proper flaming. These days I just try and resist typing anything, or delete what I've started putting.

This, surely, is undermining the whole purpose of blogging. We're not journalists, we don't have to screen our comments through legal departments, libel-catchers, press complaints or whatever (although some papers play a little free and easy with this too) . . . but the payoff to being able to express your opinion no matter what, is that it carries no more weight than anyone elses' and others are free to do likewise.

If it were pure subjectivism, it would be philosophically impossible to have any kind of argument, despite appearances to the contrary. But there seems to be more going on. We do not wish to be wrong in our corner of cyberspace, even when we tread on issues that may shock or offend.

Perhaps blogging is changing. Maybe it's just a 21st extension of what happens in contentious arguments anyway. Perhaps we should all just disable comments and rant off on our isloationist agendas, wondering if there's an audience who cares?

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What goes up . . .

2007-09-17T09:33:06+02:00

Not a good weekend for flying things. On Saturday, a hurricane crashes nearby at the Shoreham Air Show during their Battle of Britain flight.

The formation, consisting of two German and three Allied vintage aircraft were performing a mock battle for the crowds when the hurricane's engine appeared to go silent and it failed to pull out of a dive. A rising smoke cloud from a field near the airport gave a stark reminder of what happened to all too many pilots during that period.

With a sad but determined attitude however, they carried on flying the next day, and I was out doing the gardening accompanied by the drone of twin-egined bombers as they circled.

Elsewhere, as you all probably know, there were crashes in Thailand and a helicopter crash that killed Colin McCrae and his son.

I have checked that a friend of mine in Thailand is OK, but I'm somewaht concerned about Juzzzy as he hasn't posted since the crash.

Srange that despite the newsline-grabbing nature of air crashes, it still remains safer than road travel. You wonder how much of the news would be taken up with reporting if we had equal coverage or road deaths. These days they seem only newsworthy if a celebrity of multiple casualties are involved.

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