Some Mother do ‘ave ’em

As I was leaving work and locking up our gates a mother of a young child, about 4 or 5 approached me and said “Did you know that there is some sort of awful black stuff all along the top of your gate?” the gate in question is nearly 7 foot high.
“Yes” I replied “It is anti vandal paint to stop people climbing up it”
“Well my son just climbed up and got covered in it” she remonstrated
“Well it is there for a reason, we have been broken into a number of times and we need to stop people getting in” I answered.
She then just stood there looking and waiting. I think she expected an apology or an offer to replace her snotty little off springs ruined clothes. Tough shit madam, if he climbed my gate, he entered my property.

Still in 8 years time we shall see this lovely little child running amok and smashing up cars and shop windows.

The Banks Should Pay Back Their Bailouts

Why have the banks not been forced to pay bay back their bail-outs before paying themselves bonuses, as if the financial crisis had never happened?

In December 2009 the official cost of the bank bailout was declared to be £850 billion.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/163850bn-official-cost-of-the-bank-bailout-1833830.html

Meanwhile bankers’ bonuses have been predicted to run to billions in 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12131092

Royal Bank of Scotland predict £1bn in bonuses this year, and they paid out £1.3bn in bonuses last year, while Barclays paid £5bn-£6bn in total remuneration.
Even where bonuses have been cut, financial sector salaries have risen by up to 40%.

Why are we letting them get away with this? Why isn’t there a public outcry?

Oh, what a surprise – NOT (2)

Sorry to plagiarise Red Julie’s byline, but this one probably will not surprise most sensible bloggers around these here parts!

It turns out that Wavy Davy might have been spouting empty rhetoric yesterday when he said that all looters and rioters will be severely punished. It appears many of them are being let off to roam the streets and to cause more mayhem. Quelle surprise!

I suspect that if they make any more trouble, a good few of them might get (accidentally) battered, as the police and public will know they will NOT be severely punished, by the courts.

The Great Experiment

As some of you may remember, I agonised before my Antipodean trip as to whether or not I should conduct certain scientific experimentations whilst almost upside down. In brief, should we risk importing Brit Mars Bars and Marmite to check them against their Aussie counterparts?

As it turned out, we went with the Mars Bars but chickened (beefed, vegetarianed, whatevered) out of the Marmite v Vegemite debate. To be blunt, I did not personally feel that Vegemite was worth the necessary intellectual rigour.
Continue reading “The Great Experiment”

The Riots and what to do about them.

I started writng this in response to Ana’s post but then felt it warranted a separate entry.

Ana has written an interesting post.  However, I can’t help feeling that she has gone against her own advice and that rather than “stand back from such events before forming a definite judgement, simply to allow the facts to settle”, she has reached a conclusion. “It’s no more than hooliganism, based on forms of avarice that would shame even the greediest banker.”

It is of course easy to say that and is probably true. But what it does not reveal is that given the right environment, avarice and hooliganism are present in most human beings. You do not have to be hard up to be greedy. The various financial bubbles, Tulips, Louisiana, South Sea, Dot-Com, Credit etc. have all proved that greed is present even in the most ‘civilized’, affluent and well educated individuals. Just consider some of the high profile divorce cases to see how wives such as Heather Mills or Linda Evangelista try and screw every undeserved penny out of their ‘errant’ husbands. Or those who have sued their employers for sexual harassment stemming from a pat on the bum. Or look at those people from companies such as Enron, WorldCom, Tyco etc to see how with little regard for others, they plundered their companies’ resources and ruined the lives of tens of thousands of employees and shareholders. As for the Credit Bubble, everybody from the unemployedAtlantasingle mother on benefits who took a mortgage she could not begin to afford right up to the likes Fred Goodwin and Alan Greenspan, was guilty of greed and hubris. Continue reading “The Riots and what to do about them.”

Shopping with Violence

Hi, everybody.  Sorry that I’ve not been here for a bit but I’ve been rather preoccupied with other things recently.  Anyway, I’m sure that those of you who do not live in England will have seen the scenes from

Under attack

London, broadcast across the world.  I wrote the following piece yesterday afternoon in something of a rush, and in a mood, angered by some ignorant and ill-informed comment on an American-based online newspaper.  I’m posting it here by request.  🙂

I want to say a word or two about the riots in London, my city, my home. My view is that – as with the Norwegian massacre – it is best to stand back from such events before forming a definite judgement, simply to allow the facts to settle. But judgements are already being formed which have nothing whatsoever to do with facts and everything to do with politics. The suggestion is that these events, which have disgraced my country and its capital in the eyes of the world, are somehow to do with cutbacks. This is no more than a supposition, based not on evidence but wishful thinking.

The opportunity has also been taken to attack the police, that somehow they do not respect the ‘right to peaceful protest,’ an assertion that again is utterly at variance with the facts. No it’s more; it’s an outright lie, one that is clearly intended to give a completely wrong impression to people who know little of the Metropolitan Police, who know little of London and little of this country. If anything the police have gone too far in the opposite direction, a softly softly approach that sometimes makes the force look fumbling and weak, an approach that saw them lose control at the weekend Continue reading “Shopping with Violence”

Strike one

For those of you that saw my blog last week about the scum in Orpington nicking the lead from roof.

After the event I coated everything in anti vandal paint, a black slimy greasy stuff that ruins your clothes and is a sod to get off.

Got to work this morning and the lamp posts outside our entrance are covered in the anti vandal paint where someone has tried to wipe their hands somewhere to clean them off.

Strike one for me and the paint. Pity I can’t add phosphorous to it so when they try to wash it off it bursts into flames, but I am told it is against their “ooman rites” Pity.