One fat lady’s meals

I used to enjoy the two fat ladies’ cookery programmes – mostly for their clipped vowels and social comments which had their roots in feudal practices long forgotten by normal folk. Unfortunately one behemoth flew too close to the flames and passed on to that Aga-equipped kitchen in the sky, leaving Clarissa bereft of her long-time playmate.

Continue reading “One fat lady’s meals”

Spot the common denominator.

A small group of incompetent civil servants totally screw up the west coast mainline bidding process. Cost of compensating the bidding firms estimated at £40M. Do those responsible pay or does the tax payer.

A few editors and newshounds, ultimately traceable, air a program outing an old man as a rampant kiddy fiddler without actually checking any of the facts. The Beeb is to be taken to court. Do those responsible pay or the licence fee payer.

A greedy shameless so called peer of the realm runs up extravagant official credit card bills of £286,000. Is he being taken to task or are they dropping the investigation and writing the debt off at the expense of the tax payer?

An MP decides she can better serve her constituents by getting her ugly mug on a jungle reality game show. She is going to pocket the ITV payment (minimum £10,000) but has pledged to give her MP wages for the 3 weeks to charity. Does the arrogant witch get to choose what to do with the public money or should payment be witheld and used by the penniless public purse?

A self absorbed MP discovers that by lying about which of her 3 properties is her second home, she can get 10s of 1000s of our cash to do up her beachhouse. When taken to task she claims to be mentally ill and unable to face trial. Will the tax payer ever see that money again?

I could go on but I think there is enough to establish a thread. Grrrrrr

Don’t they watch the movies?

A Prescott win would be all the more ironic, since he and the Labour Party, led by Tony Blair opposed the idea of Police Commissioners in the first place

I was amazed when England and Wales plc decided to elect Police Commissioners, politicising the management of local forces. Shades of obese, cigar-smoking, red-neck businessmen manipulating the evidence in Hollywood crime stories. Then, sure enough, enter England’s own obese moron himself, John Prescott, 74, touting for the office in ‘Umberside, Yarkshire! Two Jags, two shags, two-faced Prezza himself! Famous for illiteracy, incomprehensible declarations of principle, violent attention to opponents, no-flunkery (just before he became Lord John, ‘to please his wife’) and £500 million down the tubes when he failed to reorganise the Fire Service. The perfect candidate to oversee law and order, dontchya think? We’ll know tomorrow if he makes it. Unbelievable.

And yes, his side-kick, appropriately, is the execrable Bliar.

India v Eng – Ahmedabad

Wanna watch? Click the picture.

Lunch day 5

Perhaps you don’t have access to which ever satellite provider has the rights in your area, my commentary seems to be alternating between Sky (Botham, Hussain) and the local Indian broadcaster, both more than adequate.

Anderson doesn’t look too happy, the wicket looks flatter than Brisbane, it’s going to be hard work for the bowlers!

Or HERE

“It’s my niceness” sang Dame Edna

I’ve just discovered that yesterday was supposed to be Niceness Day – la Journée de la Gentillesse.  On Monday evening the French president, François Hollande, was awarded the Niceness Prize by political journalists.  Well, he’s never going to get a prize for competence, so let him have something.  I suppose he’s making a nice mess of things, but that doesn’t translate into French to give the correct idea.

http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2012/11/12/peut-on-etre-gentil-et-francais_n_2117930.html

This idea of a world-wide Niceness Day was thought up by a Japanese medic, for reasons best known to himself.  The question asked by the Huffington Post is whether one can be French and nice.  Apparently lots of French people admit to not being gentil behind the wheel of a car, but blame this on the lack of “niceness” of all the other road users.

This is the first I’ve heard of this, but even without that I drove into town yesterday without knocking anyone down, didn’t kick any dogs (though it was a close call when the physiotherapist put her unerring thumb on the painful bit) and generally behaved in a civilised manner.  So do we really need a particular day to emulate Dame Edna?

Husband asks if Nice is the capital of “nice”.  It’s never struck me as such, but I may have another look when we get to France next week.

This year’s word

I’m not hogging the home page deliberately. It’s the absence of other porcine posters that causes my glut, but I have to mention that the Oxford American Dictionary has plumped for ‘gif’ as the word of the year. Which only goes to prove that I no longer live in the real world. ‘Gif’, my Backside! Something to do with techie life, I hear. I can relate to one of the runners-up, ‘Eurogeddon’ though, that end-of-the-world state caused by eurocratic megalomania.

Another invention from the Great American Election debates – ‘Romnesia’ – struck me as deserving of a place in posterity, to denote that endearing quality displayed by all successful politicians.

Do you have any contenders?