I note that a former Health Trust head is now facing jail after being forced to resign his position consequent to it being discovered that he lacked the formal educational qualifications necessary to get the job in the first place. It appears that he just pretended that he did, and he seems to have been discovered, not, as one might assume, by suspicions aroused through his lack-lustre performance, but through a surprise check on qualifications department-wide. He was, by all accounts, actually doing an excellent job, all the more remarkable as by the criterion of the day he would not even have been considered for doing it in the first place.
I note also that 97% is these days a typical pass mark for A level examinations, which some say renders them so easy as to be meaningless.
I agree that potential employers need some yardstick by which to assess potential employees; exams, though, indeed, academic qualification itself, wouldn't seem to be it.
One awkward consequence of the untimely passing of Robin Cook - untimely in that it occurred when Tony Blair was away on holiday - was that the world was treated to the spectacle of John Prescott confidently assuring the world how great a parliamentarian the late former foreign secretary had been.
I mean, who explained this to Prescott?
It's like bringing on one of the Teletubbies to comment on the latest pictures from the Hubble - how would it have an opinion?
One might imagine the scene in Downing Street as New Labour apparatchiks patiently hold up pictures to John Prescott; "This one John?"
"Gurgle"
"No, John - slug. Try another"
"Spewl..."
"Closer, John, closer, it's a tree. Now try this one....""
"Great parliamentarian"
"Better, John, better".....
Meanwhile, back at television central, producers fret;
"You say the Teletubbies are all unavailable? ...We'll have no option but to go with Prescott then..." and all eyes reluctantly turn towards the screen on which The Prescott may be seen gimpily advancing, snurgling as it comes...
I'm reading that one of the so-called (no proof yet) suicide bombers, despite being an immigrant with a conviction for violence, was still granted a passport.
Further, a jumbo jet, earmarked for the deportation of failed asylum seekers, took off, with all attendant costs to the taxpayer, with just 15 passengers aboard.
And on, and on.
It seems that those coming to Britain seeking asylum will find one.
It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim.
I remember when actor James Doohan, who died this week aged 85, became a father, again, this time at the advanced age of 80 years.
It's worse than that, he's DAD, Jim.
Here's to you, James, wherever you are.
The imbecile Hoon today is reported as lamenting the fact that so few voters actually bother to vote these days.
It seems to have escaped him that it is precisely because we have only idiots like him in politics that many feel there's just no point in voting.
"Blah-blah.....Gordon Brown...yada-yada....Tony Blair...great men....world leaders....so, then, no more open-source for UK Councils...hey, yeah,... right....now sing after me
It seems that the Irish will be able to wander freely around Britain without carrying one of the proposed ID cards.
If they haven't got ID cards, though, how can they prove they're Irish?
Tens of thousands of people will be heading to Portsmouth today to witness the once-in-a-lifetime parade of ships celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar.
Sadly, hardly any of these people will be BBC cameramen, as they'll mostly be filming foreigners at Wimbledon.
Memo to the BBC DG;
Bad Call!
Downing Street today reveals that a new search engine is available for finding information on the government web site.
Perhaps I can use it to find the missing box on all the voting slips, the one you mark to indicate "no suitable candidate".
Pubs and off-licenses in areas deemed rowdy due to drunks are to be fined £100 a week.
There's only one way for the boozers and offies to handle that.
They'll have to sell more drink!
We have not one but two big Tesco stores local to us.
We're so lucky, we can get so much food and at such cheap prices!
It's like we're living off the hydrogenated fat of the land!
In the news today; Tesco are to offer cut-price funerals for loyal shoppers.
This seems only fair. people who eat Tesco food on a regular basis won't have so long to save up...
Cherie proudly boasts that Tony's a "five times a night" man!
Well, there you go, eh?
I mean, if I had Cherie Blair for my partner, I don't suppose I could manage more than five times a night myself....
Questions are already being asked about the likely time in residence of the soon-to-be new Time Lord, already inevitably dubbed the Time Laird, when he takes over from Chris Ecclestone.
It won't be for long, I fancy.
After all, he's only a Tennant...
Much fuss from the USA's Southern backwoods where, filming scenes for "Southern Comfort Two: The Sequel", bird-watchers discovered an ivory-billed woodpecker, assumed extinct since its last sighting in 1944.
"It's kind of like finding Elvis", exclaimed noted twitcher Frank Gill.
The bird, finally released from its coating of eleven secret herbs and spices, allegedly replied
"Thangyou".
"Thangyou very murch".
Allegedly.
This blog would like to make an apology.
Ongoing election proceedings have made this blog, normally quick to puncture pomposity or illustrate incompetence, struck dumb in shame.
There's just nothing I can say that's worse than our politicians are already saying.
About each other.
I'm embarrassed.
Meanwhile, here is some soothing music.
It's that easy-listening favourite originally recorded by Billy J Kramer, "Little Children".
This is the remake by Michael Jackson, on the Jonathan King label.
Take it away, Michael....oh yeah....right on...where does this man get his licks?
Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) was successfully prosecuted for drink-driving in the week.
He might have got away with it but for one thing; he hit a neighbour's car...and They Wouldn't Let It Lie!!!
Mick Hucknall is shopping in his local Waitrose when he sees a kid with what looks like a gun. Presumably concerned for the health of his meat and two veg in the presence of a genuine weapon, Mick alerts the staff who call the authorities. The police duly arrive, an event of note in itself, and arrest a 14-year-old allegedly in possession of a replica firearm, who is promptly released pending his voluntary return for psychiatric assessment.
Say wha?
He is let go on the premise that he'll meekly return and submit to testing to establish that, er, he isn't barking bloody mad.
What if he is though? How likely is a mad person to return for psychiatric assessment?
It makes one yearn for the good old days when they had traditional, reliable methods of determining responsibility.
Like the ducking stool, for example.
Tesco (again with the Tesco!) are praised for their ability to get prepared food on the shelves at such low prices, particularly in their Metro or convenience stores.
However, there seems to be considerable evidence that the shoppers clogging their arteries today with Tesco's hydrogenated fats and unhealthy additives will consequentially be clogging doctor's surgeries tomorrow.
I don't call that cheap or convenient.
Much made lately of Tesco profits. "People shop at Tesco because they want to," and " we don't force them" says a proud spokesman.
No, they don't force us. We could easily shop at the alternatives, which more and more constitute only the other large supermarkets. The small shop-keeper, of which, as Napoleon once observed, we are a nation, is almost extinct. As, indeed, are we as a nation.
Much of this comes about as the EU imposes more and more wholly unnecessary conditions upon all traders which only the largest, with the deepest pockets, can afford to comply with. These rules are instigated in Brussels, by the vested interests Tesco et al have there - remember, these are unelected representatives so we ourselves have none of any kind - and are enforced by our own legal system, in which business favouritism has largely replaced any semblance of justice.
So no, Tesco don't directly force us. They simply, observing the need to feed, ensure through their agents that they or their soon to be absorbed kin are the only available vendors of food.
They are, in fact, the only game in town.
Congratulations to Charles and Sarah Kennedy of the Lib Dems on the birth of their son, reported this morning.
Let's hope some future Tony Blair, in a bid to increase his own worth as an after-dinner speaker and orator, doesn't invent reasons to send Kennedy Junior off to war to be blown to pieces.
Like he did to so many of this country's sons in Iraq.
I see that C&C have delayed their forthcoming nuptials for a day out of deference to the death of the Pope.
I don't suppose there's anybody we could actually kill, is there, whose demise would maybe scotch the idea of this unholy union entirely?
Labour's election coordinator Alan Milburn says of recently removed from office Tory MP Howard Flight "He was sacked for telling the truth".
Some might unkindly suggest this seems unlikely ever to happen to a Labour MP...
All the old Dr. Who's shared one thing in common; from crusty academic William Hartnell to cricket-playing Peter Davidson; they were toffs.
Their companions were strictly from the ranks of the middle-classes - Leila excepted - other than those who were also Time Lords themselves.
But in this latest incarnation, what have the BBC seen fit to foist upon us?
A Dr. Who apparently from Salford, and his companion, a shop-girl from Sarf London.
What next - Mockney Daleks?
How will they cope with the "apples and pears", Guv?
Good job they stopped dumbing-down the Beeb, eh!
Watching Michael Howard building on his original 'Vote for me because I'm not Tony Blair' stance and finding more reasons he wants to run the country as the election date approaches reminds me irresistibly of the classic scene in "The Wild Ones" where leather-clad biker leader Brando swaggers with his gang into the cafe - "So what is you kids are rebelling against, anyway?" asks the bemused proprietor.
Marlon spreads his hands wide.
"Whaddaya got?" he sneers in response.
Easy to envisage the suited and gap-toothed Michael Howard, with his family, hopefully sauntering in to the local tea rooms. "So, what is it your party is campaigning against anyway?" asks the tea lady.
Michael effusively spreads his hands...
It seems that our esteemed military have spent around £25,000,000 developing an attack helicopter that can't fly in cloudy weather.
Hollywood are already planning the movie, working title; "Black Hawk - oh no! It's beginning to spit! We can't go! Who's got the cards?"
Doesn't have that ring, does it? Maybe the next few million could be spent developing a giant brolly...a giant special attack brolly..y,know, with guns...sigh....
This from VG;
"We are not mere gatekeepers and doorkeepers of humanity's heritage. We also must protect its dissemination. We must beware of all censorship in whatever form it comes, because to censor, to tamper with truth, to tamper with our memory, is to commit a historical sin. We, as librarians, have a major duty that we must all share all over the world, in order not to allow anybody to control, to twist, and most important of all, to manipulate our human will and through it our free institutions".
Actually, I think that should be "an historical sin" . I need a show of hands here, kids, - should we change it?
Naked roads are becoming the fashion because, surprisingly enough, they are safer than their regulated predecessors.
A "naked road" is a road that's had all the road markings and direction indications stripped from it, leaving it naked as the day it was, er, laid. Drivers have to decide for themselves who should have priority.
First conceived in Holland by a group of Dutch stoners, sorry, really serious traffic controllers, the naked road concept is cautiously being adopted elsewhere in Europe as it becomes apparent they're a great deal safer than their regulated counterparts.
Naked Government, anyone?
Furore over Government plans to withdraw free memory-boosting pills for Altzheimers patients. Described by many as "life-savers", the pills have been hitherto freely dispensed by GPs but, it's suggested, at £2.50 per patient per day are now too expensive for the NHS to donate and must be paid for by sufferers.
How ridiculous!
How can Altzheimers patients be expected to pay for their own medication?
They'd forget.
Supporters of Health Secretary Dr. John (The Night Tripper) Reid yesterday branded interviewer Jeremy Paxman as a "West London wanker".
I never knew he was from West London...
A Nigerian woman was detained at Heathrow Airport yesterday after being found to be smuggling in some 224lbs of edible snails.
All on their way to a slow cooker, no doubt.
Earlier I found myself watching one of those science-fictioney shows where the head baddie was a guy in a suit wearing what looked like an extremely ill-fitting wig of snow-white horse-hair. His companion was weird too, with skin to match the other guy's hair and a face that looked like someone had started on it, then broken off for lunch and never come back to finish.
It all got too scary for me. I stopped watching Mutant X and turned over to the comforting reality of the Michael Jackson trial. I don't know where these writers get their ideas from!
Support for the anti-terrorist home-arrest laws comes from former Police Chief, Sir John Stevens. Bang 'em up before they blow us up, seems to be the nub of his views.
Who is to decide who "they" are, though?
Politicians?
Who would even dare to suggest a scenario so manifestly absurd?
Except politicians?
The idea that anyone with a political motive should be given this kind of authority represents a far greater assault on our society than any amount of bombing train stations hotels or flying aeroplanes into skyscrapers ever did or ever can.
There is and there never can be any comparison between the two. Let's not allow the self-seeking power-addicts in Government to pretend even for a moment that the one might be considered justification for the other.
First the Blair boys talk us into a war against Iraq so we can make Iraq more of a democracy, like us.
Then they instigate laws here to make us more resemble a dictatorship, like, say, Iraq.
I really cannot understand these people.
If they hate Britain so much, why don't they just move?
Temporary Home Secretary Charles Clarke is having a hard time ramming his new Home Arrest just on his say-so laws through the remains of Parliament. Won't be a problem when they're actually through, of course - anyone opposes anything, he'll just bang 'em up!
I'm reminded, as I am by so much, of yet another episode of the Simpsons, this time the one where Homer got made coach of Bart's football team. One of his first changes was to drop Nelson Muntz from the team, ostensibly for other reasons but in reality because he showed up Bart's indaquacy, making him look bad and, by association, Homer too.
Over the credits, as the names rolled down the screen, Homer's voice could be heard naming each (most) of the writers, producers etc (Groening - he's gone!") as being among those dropped from the team.
Perhaps we can look forward to something similar from future Home Secretaries.
"Howard - he's gone. Kennedy - hit the showers. Socrates - to do is to be? You're benched. Plato - to be is to do? You're outta here. Sinatra - do-be-do-be-do? House Arrest. Hey...it sounded terrorist to me..."
200 years ago, a ship in trouble took refuge in the tiny port of Padstow in Cornwall, Southern England.
It was a slave trader bound for Bristol, and the manacled slaves, to the merriment and admiration of the locals, kept their spirits up by singing plantation songs.
So impressed were the Corwallians that to this day they celebrate the anniversary by dressing in tatty clothes, blacking up (!) and singing plantation songs.
And guess how they refer to this annual event?
Darkie Day.
That's right. The rest of the western world might be observing rigid political correctness, but down in deepest Cornwall they still have Darkie Day.
Just think about that.
Darkie Day.
I mean, whatever next?
How 'bout Wog Week?
Home Secretary Charles Clarke is rushing through legislation which will allow anyone, anybody at all, to be banged up merely on his say-so.
This action will be taken, we are assured, on the basis of "intelligence reports."
These would be of the same calibre as those wholly unfounded reports on the basis of which we went to war with Iraq, would they?
Much ado about the varieties of education proposed. Just for the younger readers, a quick run-down of how things used to be.
You had a choice of two; if you were clever, you went to Grammar School, if (if!) you were thick, you went to Secondary-Modern
A Secondary-Modern was where you went to learn practical, day-to-day skills, it having been determined that you had no academic ability and so were worthless to an employer.
Grammar School was where you went to earn enough academic qualifications to one day be employed by someone who'd been to Secondary-Modern.
It seems that Charles and Camilla are going to have to let a number of total strangers attend their wedding, an "open-door" policy being the norm at civil occasions.
How about they fill the place with, say, people who know what their job is and can actually do it?
Doesn't sound like C & C ever met too many of them.
Good news from Thailand, where they're busy developing a cure for the bid flu. Initial reports suggest their latest attempt works well on mice and poultry.
Good to know that when we humans are all dead and gone, there'll be mice and poultry to survive us...
Joy at the newly re-opened Tesco Metro near me the other morning. I was among the first customers in. Minutes after my arrival the tannoy asked for all staff to report to the entrance for the opening ceremony. A few seconds later, a faint cheer reached me from the direction of the doors.
Maybe they'd all just been told they were re-employed on contracts...hurrah!
Today the Kyoto Treaty comes into force limiting the emission of greenhouse gases. 140-odd countries have signed up to this; the biggest polluter in the world, America, hasn't. Bush says he doesn't want to put Americans out of work.
This despite that in the biggest gas production areas in the States, and yes, I am including Congress, there's been a clear rise in cases of asthma and related deaths.
Put'em out of work?
Hell no - Bush'd rather kill'em!
"Doing humanity a service by marrying a woman no man would want" is one unkind journo's opinion on the forthcoming nuptials.
I don't suppose many would put it quite so unkindly, but, (ahem), Hey guys, this bloke's royal connections could get him something better than that - so why *is* he marrying a woman who is, perhaps, not the greatest of beauties?
Could it be because she's a frump - just like dear old Mum?
Is it legal or proper or, indeed, right for Prince Charles to marry Camilla?
Who cares? This is the man who will be King, God willing; let him do as he wants! Do we want to be ruled by a king, assured of himself and his majesty, or a bean-counter?
It is for a king to create precedent, not to follow it.
Let him advise his critics accordingly.
Much in the papers about the Major years. I'm reminded of when we actually went into the ERM. For a few days, in my naive way, I was quite pleased. At last we're in it, I thought, blissfully unaware of what this thing itself actually was. Then the timing of the announcement occurred to me. Bang on the first day of the Labour party conference, when normally the papers would be full of pictures of Labour MPs, suddenly somehow the time was (by sheer coincidence of course) exactly right for the UK to join the ERM which meant that, instead of the aforementioned Labour MPs, the papers were full of pictures of a grinning John Major.
This was a decision based upon politics, not economics.
Have you ever seen the film, Billion Dollar Brain? At the end of it our hero, the eponymous spy, is standing on one side of a frozen lake. A cheap and minor villain is confessing that he's just done the deal that will set him up for life. Only problem is, the import of which is entirely lost on the cheap villain, is that he's set in motion events which will destroy the world .
"But you've started World War Three" points out our hero, his frozen breath clouding the air. Tanks start appearing from the snow-covered forest on the far side of the lake.
"But look at all the money I've made" protests the petty crook, wholly incapable of grasping that there'll be no world left for him to spend it in.
Reading about the Major administration, I'm taken back to when I felt like I myself was standing out on the ice with John Major.
"You've joined the ERM at an unsustainable rate which will lead to the collapse of the British economy and a recession unparalleled within living memory" I tell him.
"But I got my picture in the papers a not inconsiderable number of times", squawks the PM, triumphantly.
On the far side of the the snow-covered lake, the tanks begin to roll.
I'm out on the ice with John Major.
More depressing news about Europe today and our politicos' relentless compliance with any and all edicts from their masters in Brussels, no matter how damaging to the national interests they may be .
I can only conclude that Hitler was stupid starting a war; if he wanted to take over Britain all he needed to have done was start a Common Agricultural Policy. Then he'd have had every politician and pettifogging little town hall official in the country leaning over backwards to help him.
I've just finished "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", the celebrated tome on the merits of accurate punctuation by Lynne Truss.
Lynne quotes from various puncs across the centuries, and confesses that she so admires his works that were he alive today she'd want to have the babies of one Aldus Manutius (1449-1515).
In making her own work, of course, she's similarly elevated herself to that lofty pantheon and, were the good Aldus himself alive today, he may well wish to reciprocate. Given that he's been dead for centuries, though, he'll have to content himself with looking down from above and saying to the assembly,"She's a good girl, that Lynne.
One of the great's(!)
Any day now 24-Hour drinking will be unleashed upon a trembling Britain. Doom-sayers are forecasting the end of the world, closely followed by the apocalypse, topped off with a visit by the four pale riders.
Much as they did, in fact, when all-day opening for pubs was introduced.
Cynics may note that the world still turns....
Tarquin:"So what we do is, we go into Iraq, we blow this guy Saddam away, yeah,-"
Jocasta:"and in a week they'll all be drinking latte and shopping at Prada".
It's one of the conceits of the chattering classes that everybody really wants to be just like them and that once liberated from the oppressor's yoke, they will.
The reality would seem to be, with regard to Iraq, that the warring nature of the disparate tribes was only held in check by their obeisance to a necessarily dictatorial individual.
Take him away and the existing order falls apart.
As it has.
Employers are lately accused of prejudice against women on the grounds that they may become pregnant.
Is this any surprise? Hiring a Saturday girl who then twenty minutes later gets herself pregnant means an employer will be paying the kid's school fees till it's thirty.
So why would anyone with an eye to business advantage hire women still of child-bearing age? I mean, who'd want to? Why are governments still able to get themselves elected on the premise that they'll solve everyone's problems and then foist those same problems off on sectors of the public they hope will be unpopular with the majority of voters?
I suspect that a very great number of the people rushing to denigrate Harry for thoughtlessly wearing a Nazi shirt are actually puffing up their own importance rather than being genuinely critical. "Minimise the suffering of the Jews and you reduce our own personal status in the world", is what they're really saying.
Did they not fight a war so that in time, young children should again play happily in all innocence of the horrors of the war?
They seem to have that in Harry....
More in the papers about the boy Blunkett. All this talk of a musical reminds me of when Kimberly was commenting to Blunkett at Petsy Wyatt's dinner that she'd always wondered what it would be like to have sex with a blind man - one hopes she wasn't talking with her mouth full - although since the fool Blunkett is blind I suppose he has to be led around by something...
Rocker Ozzy Osbourne, confronted by an intruder in his multi-million pound home, managed to pin his assailant's head under his arm.
Couldn't quite get it in his mouth, though!
Prince Harry, known for wanting a career in the military, is criticised for wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party.
It's obvious he still wants to be in the military, I'm just not sure which side he wants to be on!
Must be all those German relatives, eh?
Star Trek TOS was the Outer Space series that was really about Inner Space.
Star Trek TNG was Corporate America in space.
Star Trek DS9 was Casablanca in space.
Star Trek Voyager was about how Corporate American values are the best. Ever. Anywhere.
Star Trek Enterprise is the Berman/Braga pension fund.
Tone makes his big disaster statement the same time Gordon makes his big disaster statement. Either this is intentional, which illustrates how inappropriate either individual is for high office, or else it's unintentional and infers that, far from being able to run an entire country, neither of these two can organise anything even with their next door neighbour.
One of the Two Fat Ladies (I'm guessing the surviving one) was lately having a go at TV chef Jamie Oliver calling him a whore for taking money to recommend Sainburys product.
Does this mean we have to take everything a TV chef says with a pinch of salt?
tough on the cause of tsunamis
T Blair recently spoke of how we all had to help out in the event of natural disasters.
It occurs to me that the people affected by the tsunami don't need any help from politicians.
They've already *had* the natural disaster.
Voter apathy had reached an all-time high in the Animal Kingdom.
here shown in training, did little to dispel rumours of steroid abuse.