Category: General

You may recall hearing of Cait Reilly, an unemployed recent graduate who worked stacking shelves in Poundland, and subsequently is challenging the policy of Mandatory Work  Activity in the High Court. This predictably caused a furore of scorn in the popular press, the Daily Mail version is here.

The original concept of MWA seemed to be quite sound, in exchanged for Jobseeker’s Allowance which seems to be the PC term for unemployment benefit, the young jobless would toddle off to work for a short period to gain “fundamental work disciplines, as well as being of benefit to local communities”.

Continue reading “Slave Labour”

I do try to remember people’s birthdays – it helps when they remind me!

Northland College (NZ) principal John Tapene has offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth.

“Always we hear the cry from teenagers ‘What can we do, where can we go?’
… My answer is, “Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons and, after you’ve finished, read a book.”

“Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your parents do not owe you fun. The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe it your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at war, in poverty or sick and lonely again.”

“In other words, grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you…”

Oh what a breath of fresh air!

Well played!

I hate flying and suffer hideously from jetlag for days.

I just made it out of Heathrow ahead of the snow but was still pretty groggy on Monday morning to face three and a half hours on the witness stand at this chancery trial.

God alone knows what the son of a bitch barrister was throwing at me for that length of time, but the whole thing appeared in slow motion with me suffering from aspergeres syndrome!! Or maybe it was more like asparagus syndrome sticking it up’em!  Anyway it was all worth it in the end run and my girlfriend ended up with a 7 figure settlement, so I reckon I must have said something right whatever it was!

Needless to say it has taken me three days monging to even rejoin the human race and now I have to go down toPembroke and sort the bloody damp in the house and retain some builders.  At least it hasn’t snowed down here but seriously cold for the area.  Spousal unit is guarding my leeks that have germinated so that’s bound to be a death knell for them.

This place is disgusting, the whole M4 is a litter ridden wasteland, why they don’t get the bloody parasites out collecting it I don’t know.  Nice to see friends but for the rest, forget it!

Gets worse every time I come here, at least Carmarthenshire is still white but the rest of the place might as well be downtown Bhopal!  Even the air is disgusting up in England.

Roll on the 29th when I can escape.

I shall issue invitations to all to visit me as I don’t think I can stomach coming back here again.

One ray of sunshine, I have some travelling to do and my girlfriend insists I take BMW 1200 of hers, I think it is a 1200 sporty soft top style of vehicle, would of been quite happy with the old jeep,but she absolutely insists. I shall be a major embarrsment pootling about at 55mph in that thing. Oh well, good for a laugh I suppose.

Just to let you know I was alive, if barely.

I don’t like to hog the front page, but this says it all for me! 🙂