I'm off with the family to France to spend the festive season there with other members of our family. 2012 is likely to be a roller-coaster year. I am hopeful yet not so. But I do feel that a positive outlook will defeat any dispair. So I trust I'm going to put hope at the forefront of each day.
Happy Christmas and let's hope for prosperous New Year.
Downton Abbey is a huge hit for ITV. And well deserved it is too. They need hits to keep the coffers full. With upstart competition all around them, the licence to print money now in antique condition, they need to keep sales up. Even the BBC flag it up and promote the series. But there are some niggling little points about it. Julian Fellowes says he knows a thing or two about grand houses but why are there mistakes when apparently painstaking research is done? My biggest gripe is the way the Earl is referred to as "Lord Grand Thumb". Nobody would ever call him such. It would be pronounced Grant-um. My hunch is that the production company have allowed themselves to be smothered by modern vernacular. Also maybe the American audience may be something to do with it?
I know such trifles pale by comparison with other far more pressing matters of today. But niggles are niggles, aren't they?
Yesterday Piers Morgan gave a bravuro performance at the Leveson Inquiry about his knowledge of phone hacking. He made Humpty Dumpty look like an amateur. His memory was varied and definitely lacking in detail, but he managed to make his evidence sound convincing to himself. Today up pops another ex-Daily Mirror hack who says phone hacking appeared to be a "bog-standard journalistic tool" for gathering information. If it was that standard one would have thought Piers would have been aware of it. I would.
I like watching Piers Morgan on TV. He's re-invented himself as a word waffler supreme with a fine line in interviewing technique. But he also comes across as a slippery weasel, the sort that would know all too well how to operate a bog-standard tool for journalistic purposes.
It's a pity Lord Leveson is only heading an inquiry. Sometimes I wish he had recourse to summary justice, but I know that goes against my grain and almost everyone else's. But it did cross my mind!
The Crown Prosecution Service is in the lip reading business. That's the only way they are going to prove their point that John Terry, footballing vulgarian, racially abused another footballer. The other ball kicker was Anton Ferdinand, who is of mixed race. He's had some threatening letters and has himself been in trouble with the police over a fracas outside an Ilford nightclub. He was acquitted as the jury believed he was acting in self-defence.
The CPS and footballers don't go together very well. The modern prosecution service is all politically correct and self-important. Modern footballers on the other hand tend to be rude, crude and bad to know. Gary Lineker played in a different universe!
Now we only have Ferdinand's word for it that Terry slagged him off with a racial epithet. The CPS have heard Terry's denials, yet wish to proceed. John Terry says he will fight the case "tooth and nail". If that is so, then this will be a fine courtroom drama. Lipreaders and soothsayers to the witness stand.
Racial abuse is one thing, very distasteful. But the legal profession with cretins at the helm is also very unappetising. I hope the CPS know what they are doing. Playing a straight bat, I trust.
The Financial Services Authority is a joke. They've spent months doing a report into the shinanigans at RBS and now conclude that the collapse was all due to poor decisions. Not poor enough for heads to roll. Adair Turner, the chief at the FSA has been on TV spinning a line. But this collapse was not about poor decisions, it was ALL ABOUT Fred Goodwin and other directors becoming too big for their boots. In the BBC2 programme on this collapse and public bailout, we see Sir Fred happily saying that he never bothered much with due diligence when taking over NatWest. It was "due diligence light" rather like some heady cocktail with Diet Coke in it. He then boasted that the same happened at ABN Amro, the Dutch bank that was a can of worms. Due diligence light and toxic loan heavy. Adair Turner just waffles on about the FSA being "flawed" in its own supervision and that it "provided insufficient challenge" to RBS. We knew that before he put pen to paper!
None of this will ever get better until the whole financial services industry is giving a good cleaning from top to toe. After all, as a complete shower they need a complete shower!
Football managers have big egos - Chris Foy gets verbal abuse
I see that fans of Tottenham Hotspur football club, or more correctly Tottenham Hotspur football company, have been bombarding Sir Chris Hoy, the cyclist, with rude and abusive tweets. They don't know the difference between him and Chris Foy, the referee. It was Mr.Foy's refereeing skills that they are most peeved about. They feel he made a string of incorrect decisions, including the sending off of defender Younes Kaboul in the London club's 2-1 defeat to Stoke City on Sunday.
Now I realise not all fans of Spurs are dim, but these ones are. Not only have they made themselves look foolish but they take it all too seriously. As the Premiership is now exclusively big business the scoring of goals is only to help boost profits. The fans are customers, not members and they are treated like a commodity. No amount of huffing and puffing will blow the house down. These fans should understand that this is an entertainment industry with a sporting element. If they want to sound off, it's those who run the show, not the referee who tries to see the game is played.
Here are two videos on the Ron Paul Presidency 2012 Republican contest. The first is a campaign one, the second is Ron Paul explaining why he sanctioned the first. Seems to me that if Newt was taking advantage of Congressional information that would help him personally, whether financial or not, then the American people should know. They should not be treated like mushrooms in this contest. Transparency and above board politics is on the menu.
This is the campaign video -
and this one is showing Ron Paul explaining why "serial hypocrisy" is not good in politics!
The country might be in an austerity programme with all of us being asked to draw in our horns, but the debt pedlars are not playing ball. We have been bombarded with easy credit and to be honest most of us took advantage. Now the reckoning is upon us. Those of us with loans need to pay them back, that's only right. But in a civilised and honest way. Too many in the money-go-round industry are guilty of fogging the facts and telling downright porkies. Their paperwork may be barely legal, but some of the sales patter is still aimed and the gullible and susceptible.
It cannot be right for those in debt to be sold more debt. That is what the payday loan arrangers are doing. Thankfully their schemes have been put up to the light showing horrible images of high interest rates and punitive repayments. And no doubt if their clients fail to pay they will "sell the debt" to another business, operating as a debt collector. These debt collectors buy on the cheap (about 10% of the face value) and try to get the maximum possible back. The original lender may have cashed in on a policy for bad claims. Debt is big business so long as there's a merry-go-round for those involved to be on.
Those collecting debts have scant regard for contract law or agreements. Hassle and harass comes before detail and fact. One of the biggest scams was payment protection insurance, still a factor in the finance business. Most were not worth the paper they were not written on. The computer saw to that. Yet most thought they were prudently buying a policy that would safeguard them. Or sold a policy they did not need or suit them. The industry buys and sells debt to make a profit. The higher the interest rate, the better the expected return.
People should keep well away from payday loan sharks. And whilst a lot may be thinking so what, this affects us all. In the end it is the taxpayer that pays. Not the loan arrangers or debt purchasers who cream off their bit. They will be around well after the mess is being cleared up.
So the trade unions got all upset with the insult about them. Jeremy Clarkson has done what he does best. Promote himself and get his bete noirs all charging around in a rage. He's also helped the BBC's web ratings. If that site was commercial he'd be flavour of the month or year. 21,000 people have complained to the BBC about his remarks. No doubt urged on by the likes of Karen Jennings. No standup comedienne she.
However, she appears to have backed down from her excited desire to see Clarkson arrested and interrogated by the Metropolitan Police. "What was it you exactly said?". Now Ms Jennings has woken up today in much meeker mood. "We've accepted the apology. He's recognised that he went too far in saying what he said and what we're doing now is extending our hand to him to come and work with a healthcare assistant to see just how they work and the healthcare they deliver. I think he would enjoy that." He might Karen, but are you up for it?
What I would like to see is a special Top Gear show featuring trade union bosses. I wonder what lap times they might do on the circuit.
Every time Jeremy Clarkson comes on live TV and is asked for his opinion on topical subjects he says something outrageous. It seems very odd that the BBC would expect otherwise. I don't hold too much with Clarkson's boys' talk and humour. He's a bit old for being Jack the lad and all that. But loads find him interesting, fun and a bit dangerous. He makes the BBC quite popular and a bit of money through their commercial arm. So I'm not bothered by his utterances. It's harmless, really.
Unless of course one is a humourless trade union leader. In the vinegary mould comes Karen Jennings, Unison assistant general secretary, who's been popping up on news channels. Sourpuss Karen told Sky News that Clarkson's comments were "almost inciting anger and hate towards public sector workers" and called for David Cameron to go further in his condemnation. Dave Prentis, mastermind behind the disruption, wants Clarkson strung up for severe political incorrectness. Dave's version, of course.
Leading the chorus is the pompous prig Ed Miliband, who says it is all "disgusting and appalling". A bit like New Labour and their handling of the economy. That was very disgusting and exceedingly appalling.
But free speech is a wonderful thing. I'm quite happy to hear from the Rail Maritime and Transport union. A spokesperson has popped up to say, of Clarkson's apology, "This is the half-hearted apology of a scumbag trying to save his job and the fat salary we all cop for as BBC licence payers. Clarkson is a repeat offender when it comes to spouting offensive right-wing garbage and is little better than the English Defence League with a dodgy perm." Nice turn of phrase, especially when it includes innuendo and downright insult. You know these union leaders. All fast cars and fast tongues. I used to be a trade unionist, but as a conservative knew all too well what slimeballs the leftwingers can be. And hypocrites of the first order.
It's all a storm in a tea cup. Now if you want a hurricane in a kettle you only have to look at Rumpuy Pumpuy and his EU conspirators. They are far more dangerous and far more sinister. But that's another matter.
Nominations closed today for candidates in the forthcoming by-election in Feltham and Heston constituency. Seems rather unseemly the speed of the by-election. Alan Keen has only just died. Labour might have waited a bit longer, but that's modern politics for you.
There are nine candidates standing. No loonies as such but some odd ones none the less!
The election will be held on Thursday, 15th December between the hours of 07:00 and 22:00.
I see that the English Democrats and Liberal Democrats are next to each other on the ballot paper with both candidates called Roger. May be confusing, but with logos now on it may not be so.
Seema Malhotra is favourite to win I suppose, but who knows. Smaller parties offer a good place to place a protest vote.
Here is a 60 year-old looking at the world and its daily happenings. Expressing a view on interesting, topical, and controversial things and hoping my posts and opinions find favour with a wider audience. Having some experience of life - travelled here, been there! Looking forward to learning a lot more!
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