Of Goblins and Ghoulies

Today is Halloween, or more precisely All Hallows Eve(n). A hallow is another name for a saint, as November 1st is All Saints Day. Amazingly Halloween is now the second most popular event for merchandising gifts and party items after Christmas. Even in Britain, the day has taken off in the last 10 years with a massive momentum! All the paraphernalia surrounding Halloween has probably been given a boost by the remarkable success of the Harry Potter stories.It is odd, I think, that the USA, a country that prides itself on religious observance, should take such a festival to its heart. The day was something that came out of Celtic mythology and...

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Time Gentlemen Please!!

It used to ever so civilised in Britain with drinking! Pubs closed on time and the landlord, or in a lot of cases the landlady!, knew how to keep order. It might have been a bit of a bore going home at 10.30 but at least it was reasonably safe and sound. Not anymore in quite a few places. Binge drinking has seen to that!Instead of sensibly addressing the problem, by giving flexibility on late opening extensions and by curtailing the yobs by locking them up, this government comes up with the idea of 24-hour opening, on the spot fines at ATMs, and banning drinking on trains!! They must have had two disparate focus groups overdoing it on the practical...

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Scooter Careers out of White House!

This may be the beginning of the end for George Bush's fabled fancies about why he went to war in Iraq! Lewis 'Scooter' Libby is now well and truly caught by the relentless work of the Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. One thing Libby should know about the Irish, they don't give up! All these present shenanigans are because the former American Ambassador to Iraq felt that Bush and his buddies overegged the pudding with regard to Saddam Hussein and his nuclear threat. Joseph Wilson, a career diplomat, travelled to the west African state of Niger in 2002 to investigate whether it was true that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium...

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Rudeness or Rage?

At the moment I seem to be having an interesting, almost bazarre, encounter with some pedant on a forum, who not only trashes any comment I may say (I've lost his plot apparently!) but he has done the same with others who had the temerity to stray from his narrow path of righteousness!This has me thinking of Victor Meldrew, the rather curmudgeonly husband and neighbour, of the sitcom series. However, Meldrew had a streak of humour in his cursing and cussing. It would be a sad day indeed if the cause of English democracy were hijacked by po-faced pedants all peering out of petite white laced windows, hoping that their world of correct Englishness was being strictly adhered to. Is this manifestation caused by natural rudeness or is it the release of pent up rage, held previously in check by...

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English democracy attracts the fringe!

I am a keen supporter of the establishment of an English Parliament for the English. I think that a lot of the links on this blog would attest to that! England is full of many diverse types but mostly we rub along OK. The current political situation is that there is no separate parliament for England. There are so-called regions, with unelected persons such as business people and trade unionists sitting on the quango-style bodies. Scotland has its own parliament now, but Blair sees no reason to give England any redress for this democratic deficit. I don't suppose he would, really, seeing that his government is there on a minority of the people's...

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Who's Lying Now?

Having tuned into the new version Sky News on Monday night I noticed that James Rubin (formerly of the Clinton camp) now has a nice turn interviewing the great and the good! Tony Blair was on and he again came up with the old porky that al Queda was in Iraq so that was cause to attack in the first place. Totally wrong, but what does he care? Now there are all kinds of insurgents moving around including al Queda misfits and ba'athist rejects!And George Galloway is accused by the Senate of telling lies! Whatever one thinks of George, and I tend to think of him as a shameless opportunist but probably no perjurer, it's a bit rich of Republican Senator Norm Coleman, the chairman of the committee in question, to say documents it had uncovered were "the smoking gun". He said that Mr Galloway had...

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Welcome to Widescreen!

Part of the use of this blog is for me to keep an eye on cheapskate broadcasters! Yesterday, I was watching Sky News and noticed that the images were showing people as if they had some kind of dire disease. A very mishapening one at that! Then I realised Sky News had changed. It had gone widescreen and had given itself a really good overhaul. However, nobody had told Telewest apparently who were blithely broadcasting these widescreen pictures in 4:3 format! Later in the day the penny dropped and all was fixed.So, Sky News has joined the world of widescreen. An interesting thing is, though, that the commercials seem to revert back to 4:3 so if...

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Birmingham Riots!

By listening to the press it would appear that Birmingham has a terrible problem with race relations. This is not so, but it looks good to say so for certain journalists. The main problem is that a few, and only a few, Afro-Caribbean youths are in gangs and the same few, only a few, Asian youths have their gangs. The police know about these gangs but seem powerless to break them up. Consequently, 99% of peaceful Brum get a rude awakeing from "riots" from time to time.This latest riot all started because a black youth alleged that a black girl was raped by an asian lad! And this comment was an allegation in its own right! By which I mean, it could...

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Wonko's New World!

Wonko's got a new site! Or revamped I should say. He says "I've redesigned Wonko's World. Hopefully you'll like it. If you don't, tell me why via the contact page."Well, I do like it, so I'm saying so here!http://www.wonkosworld.co....

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Cart Before The PC Horse?

The Birmingham Post has reported that there is a new charity set up in Brum to try to combat race and hate crime. All well and good, I'd say. Having a cohesive society without hate in it is to be welcomed and supported. However, this charity, Solutions, seems to be putting the cart before the horse.Speaking at Solutions' launch Unison's political services manager for the West Midlands (whatever that may be!?!), Tony Rabaiotti, said the British National Party had become more dangerous since activists changed the way they dress.He said: "It's my view that the BNP is the most serious threat to democracy and racial harmony that this country has ever known. That is because they have thrown away their boots and braces and put on their suits under their current leader, Nick Griffin. It has led to...

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Then There Were Two!

Well, I wasn't totally wrong or totally right. Cameron came in tops and Davis slid some. But not enough to save Fox. My prediction was - Cameron 96, Fox 55 and Davis 47. The actual result was Cameron 90, Davis 57 and Fox 51. So Cameron not so many and Davis 10 more than I thought!This all means that there will be a fight to the finish, allowing the members to settle the final score. My hunch is that Cameron will win because he has electrified the party membership and they are just hungry now for a saving figure to get them out of the mire. So there will be no coronation tomorrow as some pundits predicted and some Tory bigwigs hoped for ( save...

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The House Doctor Cometh!

The Deputy Prime Minister, in the name of John Prescott, is busily reorganising not just the furniture but whole streets in Liverpool. A street of three-storey Victorian terrace homes has become the latest battleground in his controversial Pathfinder scheme after it was identified as the most expensive street earmarked for redevelopment. The Deputy Prime Minister's project aims to replace redundant housing with new accommodation. Homes valued at £145,000 are being bought for demolition. Is he mad? or a philistine? or just plain daft? Has he ever heard of renovating a house?Jane Kennedy, the Labour MP for Wavertree and Minister of State for Health,...

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Then There Were Three!

The Tory Big Brother House votes out Ken Clarke. Not really surprising, but he didn't do that badly seeing as some pundits put his vote in the 20's. My guess is that the front-runner David Davis, having stumbled a bit, will be seen by his supporters as being not quite up to the mark. They will peel off and he will end up in third place. My prediction for Thursday is - Cameron 96, Fox 55 and Davis 47. Meaning, of course, Davis out of the race. In the end, Cameron will win and everybody will circle the wagons and the campfire will burn into the night and the Tories will wake up in the new dawn of youth and mission. Could just work for th...

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Campaign for an English Parliament - Shropshire Branch Blog

Wonkotsane has published a new blog for the Shropshire Branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament. A lot of good information here about the imbalance now prevailing in the UK due to Blair's cockeyed ideas about constitutional reform.What other democratic country in the world would accept such politically motivated tinkering with the institutions and the fabric of law making? The more we expose Blair's opportunism and knee-jerk policy formation, the better!http://cepshropshire.blogspot.c...

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I'm a little bit weird apparently!

These web polls. They're good fun, I suppose. This one says I'm 70% weird. Oh, dear!You Are 70% WeirdYou're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right?But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!How Weird Are You?http://www.blogthings.com/howweirdareyouquiz/outcome.phpI stumbled onto it by looking at Blush Reality. Blush certainly has a turn of phrase. However, her blog makes for interesting reading. No wonder George Bush wanted to live in Texas! Kennebunkport was never that thrilling, I suppose!http://blushreality.blogspot....

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Then there were four!

The Tory leadership contest is now down to four. It's a bit like 10 Green Bottles except that about four bottles got knocked off the shelf at once. Then Michael Ancram said he was not entering, and Malcolm Rifkind withrew. So now there are four remaining. I had thought that the true-blue party might be playing 10 Blue Bottles but that seemed a bit unfair. Come to think of it, though, there are a few gadflies in the par...

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Second tornado strikes Birmingham!

We were just trying to get over the first one, and many houses in Sparkbrook still have much work to be done. Hurricanes with greater force, earthquakes, tsunamis, all seem to be more frequent and more terrifying.Whatever the reason, the climate is definitely changing. I think George Bush must be in denial. The ice caps are melting, the seas are getting warmer, and he says he is not convinced. Jeremy Paxman, of BBC Newsnight fame, thinks we are all going to be roasted in about 20 years time. I have this vision of being caught on some remote island with George Bush begging those of us left to believe he was given the wrong information. A kind of Gilligan's Island with no real reason to leave. Oh boy!http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4336208....

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Protest over religious hate Bill

The more this authoritarian government tries to ban something or somebody, the more they appear to have little grasp on reality. Tony Blair was trying to say he was not authoritarian yesterday but it sounded rather weak in its sincerity. People are right to be concerned about the new "religious hate" laws that he and his sidekick Charles Clarke are cooking up. Whatever they say it is the fact that, if enacted, these laws would give license for any aggrieved person to complain about someone else's views. A nightmare scenario for the police and CPS.There was a protest of various groups outside Parliament yesterday. The Reverend Katei Kirby, African...

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Grow your own limbs healing hope

Tony Hancock, that great English comedian, said in the classic Blood Donor episode "you know, they're people walking around today with hardly anything they started out with". At the time it was a funny line bordering on the absurd, being that it was 40 years ago. For our today it is patently true. A team at Manchester University, with funding from The Healing Foundation charity, are looking to animals for clues to how the body can regenerate. They have got some ideas from looking at frogs and salamanders. Odd nobody thought of it before, or maybe they did, and got rubbished as did Edward Jenner, who's memory should not be forgotten.It was Edward Jenner who, whilst observing cowgirls milking their herds, wondered why they never contracted smallpox. The reason was they were inured to cowpox,...

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Exit stage...into the pits!

It seems that this disastrous theatrical group known as New Labour is going to be upstaged by a real actress. Glenda Jackson says she is prepared in principle to act as a "stalking horse" to trigger a leadership contest against Tony Blair. What kept her waiting so long is what I say. Surely she knew the script backwards, she had a producer, director, and stage manager. In fact several as I understand.The ham actor has strutted the stage for too long. The play what Tony wrote is no longer playing to rave revues. In fact, the audience figures were never properly tallied anyway!Ms Jackson, a former transport minister, opposed the war in Iraq. She...

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Cameron Midlander!

David Cameron rejects 'Tory Blair' tag so we are told. I'd say so! The only thing that links the two is some vague thing about age. Cameron told BBC One's Sunday AM programme his aim was to "set people free", while Prime Minister Tony Blair was in politics "to tell people what to do". How true! New Labour has given us more off-the-cuff nonsense in law-drafting and regulations. All spin and no spine, that's the stuff of Blair's big tent. A tent that has virtually no support - I'm thinking of the Dome, oh dear!Even if he won the contest, there was no "magic wand" or "one single thing" to get the party back into power. He added "People don't want...

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The Slick Man of Europe!

Talking about pictures, here's one of our esteemed Prime Minister with the French President. Chirac beware!It gives me the impression of a schoolboy getting the better of his teacher. Now where have we heard that befo...

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The Sick Man of Europe!

It's always funny when smaller parties get the better of the bigger ones. UKIP (the United Kingdom Independence Party) in the person of Nigel Farage, UKIP MEP, caused a certain John Prescott, aka the Deputy Prime Minister, to have a troubling time concerning European matters.This picture shows Prescott looking like his last lunch was not up to scratch and Farage looking like the cat that got the cream! What a treat!!http://www.ukip.org/abc_news/gen12.php?t=1&id=1...

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God speaks to the Burning Bush!

George Bush does have something about him, but has he been singled out by God for special missions? According to Palestinian peace negotiator Nabil Shaath, Bush said something along these lines."I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I'm gonna do it."All this would sound good to an Arab! My hunch is that Bush burbled about...

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Tory Leadership Battle

Five candidates battle it out for the ultimate prize of leading the Conservative Party. David Davis had the dubious title of "front runner" but that was trashed today by the press which seemed to think his speech a tad on the pedestrian side! The trouble here is that the party has had a real trouncing over the last 15 years. Leaders have tried but the membership dwindles and the public views the Tories as not going anywhere, at least for them.What I detect is that the membership is looking out for a charismatic leader that will take them to the promised land. Davis is not in that league, however competent, good and caring he may be. It's a tough...

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Overheard! Yes, too much!

These days it is not unusual to be minding your own business in a supermarket, or walking down the street, when your brain is suddenly jarred by voices off! People talking either into mobile phones or loudly about a minor problem that is, to them, momentarily very important.Just recently I overheard this - "and then he rang and said he wanted one so I said, oh alright, yes, and then Helen got whiffed of it and called for one and then I......." and, of course she was gone! What this did to me was get me thinking as to what the "one" was. This is the trouble with having to listen in a mandatory way to other people's soundbites!Some time ago I heard two young women talking loudly. As they approached, I heard "ooh, no, I wouldn't do that, not on a first date!". What wouldn't she do? It may not...

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Iraq chaos threatens ancient faith!

When George Bush thought it a good thing to invade Iraq in order to rid the world of the troublesome Saddam Hussein, it is known that not a lot was done to prepare a plan for the future. In fact, the plan seemed to rest on the fact that all Iraqis, barring Saddam's cronies and henchmen, would be so overwhelmingly pleased that an effective transfer of power to the patsies would happen very quickly.We now know how terribly wrong the lack of planning or understanding of Iraq has been. Did George Bush or Tony Blair even know there was a Christian community of long standing in Iraq? Had they ever heard of, or inquired about, minorities? What about...

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