The next folk hero will be....

Well what a couple of days it's been for international and national protest.

That 'threat to democracy and national security' (according to various governments)Julian Assange has been arrested and put into segregation,for a alleged sexual offences with consenting partners.This man hasn't even had a trial but he is already incarcerated and being treated as being guilty without trial.

Surely I can't be the only one that finds it just a little bit suspicious that after publishing various articles via Wikileaks about Iraq,Afghanistan,collateral murder,worldwide government corruption and general nastiness by those that consider themselves our masters,these charges have been brought?

If truth,honesty and justice is what drives our nation,then surely he should be charged with the heinous crime of telling us the public,the truth? Which is what we should be rightly entitled to hear (but the powers that be don't want us to).


The whole waving of hands and mass chorus of "it's a threat to national security" by messrs Cameron & Obama surely masks one true fact:

The powers that be have been exposed for what they are.

The real reason the people at the top are angry has nothing to do with security,but more to do with the fact that they have been exposed for what they really are.People who don't really give a stuff about anyone apart from themselves and the sheer embarrassment about being caught out lying and bad mouthing those people and countries that were meant to be economic and military partners.

Here’s some examples.

The Obama administration has been denying that it has expanded the current “war” to yet another country, Yemen. Now we know that is a lie. Ali Abdulah Saleh, the Yemeni dictator, brags in these cables to a US diplomat: “We’ll continue to say the bombs are ours, not yours.” The counter-insurgency expert David Kilcullen, who until recently was a senior advisor to General Petreaus in Iraq, estimates that for every one jihadi killed in these bombings, they kill fifty innocent people. How would we react if this was happening in Britain? How many of us would become deranged by grief and resolve to fight back, even against the other side’s women and children? Bombing to end jihadism is like smoking to end lung cancer – a cure that worsens the disease.

The US and British governments told us they invaded Iraq, in part, because they were appalled that the Iraqi government tortured its own citizens. Tony Blair often mentioned “Saddam’s torture chambers” in making his case for the war. Yet these leaked documents show that as soon as our governments were in charge, the policy of burning, electrocuting and raping people started again – and they consciously chose a policy of not objecting and not investigating.

Or how about this: US troops blew up an Afghan village called Azizabad, and killed 95 people, 50 of them children. None were al Qaeda, or even Taliban. They knew what they’d done – yet in public they kept insisting they’d killed “militants”, and even accused the local Afghan villagers of “fabricat[ing] such evidence as grave sites.”

For Britain’s politicians, the documents offer a long-needed slap in the face. Successive governments, of all parties, support these destructive US policies because they believe we have influence with the Americans. But these cables show the Americans literally laugh at them and their sycophancy, describing their servility in mocking tones in cables back home, saying “it would be humorous if it were not so corrosive.”


I remember when Dr David Kelly spoke out against the British Government in the Iraq conflict,only to be found dead (a victim of his own suicide apparently) days later.I wonder how long it will be until Julian Assange 'cannot take it ' anymore and decides to 'take his own' life?

Panen et Circenses

So Prince William and Kate Middleton have seen finally informed those who care that they are getting married.Good on them I say.Two people who are in love and are willing to make the commitment should always be applauded.

My problem isn't with William & Kate (Gawd Bless em)but more with how the government will no no doubt pull out the stops to take our minds off what is going on in the country and how much they will spend of our money doing it.A specialist commitee has already been formed by the coalition.

When I first heard the announcement of the impending wedding ,my first thought was what on earth will the Daily Mail have left to speculate upon now?,but this was soon replaced by the theory that the Roman poet Juvenal was not really that far wrong when he mentioned the phrase "Bread and Circuses" way back in 100 AD.

It's a phrase now used to deplore a population so distracted with entertainment and personal pleasures (sometimes by design of those in power) that they no longer value the civic virtues and bow to civil authority with unquestioned obedience.

Never mind the fact the country is rapidly going down the 'latrina' ,tax and debt is rapidly approaching near epidemic levels and the gap between the plebs and the patricians is getting chasm like.Lets have a jolly old public event to take peoples mind of it.

Back then The Roman public flocked in their thousands to the stadia to pour praise and scorn on the popular gladiators that were in fashion.No doubt every attendee of the arena saw fit to voice their opinion of the fight and say how much better they would have done things.We have football.

While the Romans enjoy the spectacle of throwing Christians to the lions, we watch aghast as minor celebs devour such appetizing concoctions as Pureed Centipede a la Mode or Black Pepper Grilled Scorpion with Grubs and Live Ants on the side.

Excess,greed,gluttony and indulgence in all things was celebrated and desired by those that had money,whilst those that have nothing were then , and are now , seen as a commodity to be exploited and used as the elite see fit.

I'm a celebrity (or not)

As there was nothing else on the tv and all my household chores had been completed,I decided to finally take a look at the global phenomenon that is twitter. I signed up and waited for my world to be fulfilled by the learned notes of the technorati and the observations of folks that provide the media with their countless tabloid filler.

What a surprise and letdown I was in for.

Within minutes of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here starting,the many vacuous celebs crowded onto the bandwagon slagging off a certain Gillian McKeith.

Whilst reading their twitterings,I definitely got more than a whiff of sour grapes.
Carol Vordermann, for example, expressing her distaste on the programme.This is the woman who you would have thought by her out pourings of grief was actually married to Richard Whitely,and who's whole career is based on the fact that she can do sums whilst looking like a glamorous supply teacher. Don't even get me started on her supposed internet safety campaign..

Richard Littlejohn speaking of Stacey having to eat a p@nis in the bush tucker trial..Is this the first time that a cock has spoken about a cock eating a cock....

Ryanair UK PLC

Eventually this useless Coalition that we have now will sell itself off and the country will be run by Ryanair. You'll will probably think I'm off my head until you listen to one of their favourite thinkers, Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, which describes itself as a "free-market think-tank."

Yesterday he suggested stopping libraries from receiving public funding, because he doesn't use them, so "why should I pay?" And that is a legitimate economic argument which raises valid social as well as monetary concerns for anyone who's a miserable, wretched, anti-social, smug, selfish bastard.

Because it's a sign of an advanced society that we can stroll into a public library, see pensioners enthusing about books they couldn't afford to buy, and schoolchildren using computers beyond their families' private means, and think: "How much is this costing ME? It's NOT FAIR. I can't afford my own safari park, I don't go borrowing a free one off the council."

The libraries should be allowed to stay open, their spokesman said yesterday, as long as they're prepared to charge a rate for borrowing each book, so they could be run for a profit. But then it wouldn't be a library, just like Blockbuster Videos isn't a library. He might as well have said: "I have no objection to libraries remaining open, if they clear out all the books and replace them with a waitress service bar, and instead of a reference section and librarians they install some poles and employ young women to swivel round them and wriggle on men'slaps. That's the sort of modernisation that can make the library service fresh and relevant for the 21st century."

The cuts are sold as essential to reduce the deficit, but when you hear these people they appear as part of an ideology that understands almost all public funding as morally wrong. They almost dribble with pleasure as they tell us their recommendation that the onus will be on kidney patients to get sponsorship for their dialysis machine, which will free them from reliance on the local health trust. Or they ask: "Why should the taxpayer provide funding for guide dogs for the blind? After all, I can't climb trees, yet nobody provides me with a gibbon."

It's the philosophy of Ryanair, to pay for exactly what you use and nothing, not even the toilet, is communal. So as they've got the experience, we should let them run our services. They can put toll gates in every park, and charge for each conker a child picks up, with a "performance fee" added on if it does well, like the clause attached to footballers. At night there can be a lamp-post toll on every street so those who use the light pay for the lighting, but so as not to hurt the least well-off, anyone without sufficient funds will be entitled to drive with a bin liner over their head. The fire brigade will become Pay-per-Gasp because why should I pay for someone else to be carried down the stairs when I'm not alight?

Ryanair can adapt its current machines so that each week we'll check in our rubbish, paying for exactly what we've got, and we can do the same for human waste. Instead of the unfair system where we all pay the same towards sewage regardless of how much we use, we'll take our own down, weigh it and if it's above the standard rate, the clerk will say: "I'm afraid there's a bit of excess to pay on that." And this way the resident who keeps his urine in bottles and stacks them in the attic is rewarded for being frugal.

The Coalition's pet think tank was formed in 1955 and has been coming out with stuff like this ever since, so the size of the public debt is just an excuse for insisting it all has to be done now. It's as if the Pope said on his visit: "Given the unprecedented level of debt we must all throw away our condoms, as they're all borrowing a thousand pounds every second."

But if they get their way, soon we'll have a society we can be proud of, where neighbours will once again gladly let you pop in for a friendly chat, so they can charge you four quid for a cup of rancid tea and a pound to use their toilet.

I'm saving for a nervous breakdown..but I can't afford it...

Where do they get these idiots who come on the radio and television to tell us how to prepare for our pensions? Every day one of them pops up to say we should change our culture to save more for old age rather than spending now, as if most people have a choice, and have fifteen hundred quid spare every month they can't think what to do with. But we're so used to state pensions that instead of using this to provide for later life, we get to 65 and think: "I wish I'd put that two hundred thousand pounds away for an adequate pension, instead of spending it on hiring Beyoncé to clean my kitchen."
They might as well come on daytime TV and say: "To ensure we're comfortable in old age, once we get to around 35 we should give up cocaine for a few years and invest the money we save in an ISA. Or if that doesn't provide a sufficient return, why not play up front for Manchester United for a couple of seasons to top up your funds, or sell off one of your less profitable chains of high-street stores. Maybe you've got a stately home you could open to the public. Or some viewers may be pirates, in which case you could put every fifth chest of treasure into government bonds that offer generous rates of tax relief, cut down on the rum for now but feel the benefit once you hang up the sword for a well-earned retirement."
None of them grasps that the main reason people don't put money aside for a pension is they don't have any spare. Even then the advice in these money columns would be: "If your outgoings seem to revolve around food and housing, you could remove this expenditure from your budget by spending a few years living naked in the forest while your children are raised by wolves.
As long as you continue working through this period your contributions will tot up nicely, though some schemes do require special life insurance in case the pack becomes jealous and mauls you when you try to retrieve your offspring, so it does pay to shop around."
The trouble is, they all tell us, we're living so much longer, so a think-tank will suggest we set up a scheme to pool pensions, where you join together with three people the same age, then at 65 you all draw lots and the loser is sent to Dignitas. Then their pension is shared amongst the survivors, minus the train fare to Switzerland.
The issue on which these experts seem to agree is that we can no longer organise the bulk of pensions collectively, so we must provide for ourselves instead. And this is part of a general message, that if you can't manage it's your own fault.
For example, Iain Duncan Smith's advice to the unemployed of Merthyr Tydfil was that they should "get on a bus to Cardiff". So, that's what makes unemployment go up and down is it? If he was asked an exam question on the subject he'd say: "In the 1920s buses were new and shiny, so lazy people got on them. But by 1931 they seemed boring so no one got on them any more and that's what caused the Great Depression. Luckily, in 1939 comfy new seats were put in the 68b to Cardiff and that sorted it out."
There are more people unemployed in Merthyr than in the rest of Wales so even if they all packed every single bus all day it wouldn't make any difference. But he'd say: "Then they should do what the Vikings did. Instead of complaining, they got on longboats, found some land and raped and pillaged the local population, leading to long-term sustainable growth across northern Europe in the 10th century."
But thankfully a few people manage to make the system work. So Fred Goodwin, the lovable old former head of Royal Bank of Scotland, managed to get a pension worth £345,000 a year, with a £2.8m lump sum on top.
And he deserves it, because he listened to the advice of the money experts, that if you haven't got enough money to put by for a decent pension, swipe everyone else's and put that by instead.

I'm glad I'm too thick to go to Uni

How are they allowed to suggest this mad scheme where they charge £36,000 for student fees? If you've got three kids heading towards university age it's like hearing on the news there's a report recommending that for the good of the nation your family is bankrupted for three generations. Or that the government is considering easing the pressure on higher-education spending, by forcing all parents of students to spend a year on the game.
And then the pundits and politicians sit around discussing it, saying, "For a place at an average university, such as Leicester or Bristol, if a parent turns two tricks a night with maybe some extra on a weekend, the revenue raised could cover 80 per cent of the costs so some ministers are very keen on this approach. However some backbenchers have pointed out that for more prestigious places such as Edinburgh or Oxford the amount of action required could result in a good deal of physical pain, with high rates of infection, and that may lose support with some middle-income voters."
From now on parents will check whether their kids are revising, and if they are they'll scream, "Stop that for Christ's sake! If you get any better than an F and you're offered a place somewhere I'm stuffed!"
And yet the justification for these cuts, we're told again and again, is that we can't leave the next generation "saddled with debt". So the only way to ensure that doesn't happen is to saddle them with debt.
This will be fair, apparently, because getting a degree makes it likely you'll earn more afterwards. But that assumes that the only point of education is to increase your earnings, and not that someone might learn a language, or learn about art or history or philosophy because these are brilliant things to learn about, and society will benefit from that.
Instead, learning equals money. If these ministers have toddlers, they must ask if they'd like a bedtime story, then say, "No darling, we're not reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Instead we're going to do today's Hang Seng Index. Now repeat after me cherub, Balfour Beatty up three at closing."
One advantage of the increased fees, said Lord Browne when he made these recommendations, is this will allow for "new providers". He probably means the universities will be free to seek funding by getting lectures sponsored, so philosophy students will be told: "Plato argued that no earthly body could be more than an imperfect copy of a perfect heavenly model. But that's because he'd never had a new orange-flavoured Crunchie. It's as crisp and fizzy as ever on the inside, but with a new orange meltiness on the outside. Hmm, it's not just confection, it's metaphysical perfection."
And astro-physics classes will be asked: "Do you know of a star that's suffered a catastrophic collapse in the past 12 months? Then call 0800 632 8989 NOW to see if your star is entitled to compensation."
Supporters of these fees try to find all sorts of ways to suggest they won't make much difference to those who pay them, because the payments won't start until the graduate is working and the interest rates will be low and so on. But however you calculate it, the family will have to find tens of thousands of pounds extra. It's like a protection racket saying they're willing to talk things over and when times are hard, they'll let you wait until next week and pay double, and they'll only burn your house down if you don't cough up for a whole month, so you'll hardly notice them really.
And this has all been recommended by Lord Browne, who's in an ideal place to understand the financial pressures on a typical family as he was the chief executive of BP. As he was making his report it was also announced that this years' bankers' bonuses are likely to exceed £7.3bn which, even at the highest rates suggested, would pay for a three-year-course for 200,000 students.
He also may have spotted that the Liberal Democrats now poised to pass this into law all signed a pledge to oppose any such rise in university fees. So the answer to this problem is to copy them. Every student should take out the loan, sign an agreement to pay it off, then never give them a bloody penny.

The recent discovery of a terroist bomb hidden in a printer sent from The Yemen has made me think of a few things.
Among the many complex questions involving the minds of terrorists is why they would rely on a mobile phone to work properly as the detonator. All that effort, ending with a furious Jihadist snarling, "Bollocks, I can't get a signal."
Or maybe the terrorists have modernised their facilities, so instead of an instant explosion he heard a voice saying, "Welcome to the Al Qa'ida automated answering service. If you'd like to hear about our special summer range of fertiliser, nails, 3-for-the-price-of-2 gas cylinders and an exciting variety of combustible materials, press one..." So by the time it said, "Or if you'd like to detonate a Silver Mercedes press seven," he'd lost interest and hung up.
You'd think there must have been a question mark within Al Qa'ida over the standard of their operatives ever since it was revealed a few months ago they were plotting to bomb the Ministry of Sound. Keep up, boys, the dance scene is SO 1990s. Imagine the embarrassment if they'd blown the place to bits, then discovered it was empty while 3,000 people were up the road watching Arcade Fire.
It might go against their instincts, but they'd probably be better off employing a cultural officer. He could report every month on who's likely to be hot, and plan the explosions accordingly. Then the minutes of their Jihad Council would read: "Meanwhile, one unlikely tip for the top is the hi-energy folk-rock combination the Gogol-Bordellos, whose blend of infidel strings-based melodies and catchy rhythms that spew forth from the heathen cries of Satan look set to storm the UK charts, attracting crowds well worth immolating with holy vengeance."
So nothing went off, and ever since, the politicians and newsreaders have congratulated us on our British resolve. We've shown the terrorists they can't win, by displaying our heroic determination to carry on as normal, and bravely continued weeding the garden or going up the shop for biscuits, even though only 30 miles away a car was towed away. And they're all keen to point out this is British resolve, not the spineless European resolve, where people hear a bang and then all kill themselves.
Over here people say things like "I'm SO determined to carry on as normal, since the weekend I've not only kept on having a full English breakfast every morning, I've had TWO. So tell Bin Laden to stick that up his hand-held rocket launcher."
And we can be grateful that, at least in Glasgow, this time it's fairly certain the police have captured the right person - although even there you half expected them to miss him, and then make an appeal at a press conference, saying "We are looking for a man who is around 5ft 11in, whose distinguishing features include flames shooting out from the top of his head."
With all the excitement, though, everyone appears to have missed yet another explosion. It took place at the end of last week, when the Washington Post reported a "NATO and US-led assault" on the Afghan village of Hyderabad. Wali Khan, the member of the US-backed parliament for the area, was quoted as saying, "More than 100 people have been killed. But they weren't Taliban. The Taliban were far away from here. The people are already unhappy with the government. But these kinds of killings of civilians will cause people to revolt against the government."
Out there, if they had a day like our weekend, the news reporter would say, "What a day - only two unexploded bombs and a nutcase setting himself alight at an airport - so let's go straight to sport."
Instead, everyone in the area must scream "It's no use trying to understand them, they're just crazy," and "Who let these savages into the country?"
A US army spokesman said the civilian deaths proved "insurgents are continuing their tactic of using women and children as human shields." So there's another lesson for Al Qa'ida. They could claim the Tiger Tiger nightclub was actually a military airfield, with a runway in the cloakroom, and civilian deaths would only have shown the British were using people who dance as human shields.
The reasons why someone erratically drives a car bomb to a nightclub or into an airport must be complex, but there's no doubt it's far more likely if you come from a region that's been mercilessly bombed by the government of the country you decide to bomb in return. That was certainly the view of the intelligence report seen by Blair before the occupation of Iraq. Maybe a combination of rage and helplessness leads some people to feel that at least blowing something up is acting rather than doing nothing, and they then seek justification for their decision by appealing to the far reaches of their religion.
Because there are obsessive people in all religions, but without an earthly motive, they don't usually resort to blowing up civilians to please their God. Most Druids are crazy, but they don't normally bother anyone. However, if Stonehenge was bombed on the Summer Solstice, and teepees set ablaze with an excuse that they were threatening us with fertility symbols of mass destruction, you'd soon see the odd one behaving strangely outside a nightclub or airport.
Luckily with this last effort, the terrorists' level of incompetence was too great. If it turns out that there was a cell of medical professionals behind it all, maybe that's what saved us. Junior doctors are so knackered after a 22-hour shift that they are almost bound to make a hash of anything.

Where has the time gone?

You've probably (I hope) been wondering where I've been and what has happened to the blog....
Well if you have two young children in the house,one who is only 6 months old,hopefully you will guess why the blog has been non existant these last few months.

I now intend to be a lot more regular in my postings/rants.


Nice to have you as a reader.

Why Does England think it's the best?

The recent humiliation of the cream of English football players has made me think.As I'm not a football fan,I've never understood the sheer idol worship of someone who plays football,and more to the point the sheer belief that it's our god given right to win against any team the rest of the world chooses to oppose us.

A tv diet of Jeremy Kyle and ads for Lawyers Direct has turned the nation of Agincourt and giving Adolf a bloody nose into trembling-lipped whingers with no perspective. For too long, we've deluded ourselves that we're the bees knees at everything.Before you all start listing everything that we were famous for,yes, we did give the world penicillin and passenger railways and the world wide web and the iPod. But within ten minutes, every country had a better railway system. And if we'd had to market, distribute and promote the iPod it would be the size of a wardrobe and only play Oasis.

It started with the upper classes obviously. Being sent out from Eton,Westminster or Harrow to farflung places to give them the benefits we enjoyed here; dull sex, over-boiled vegetables and leg-spin (20 minutes in the nets with a coconut and they were better than us at that too). When the Empire fell, we believed we'd been cheated out of it and secretly the colonials all pined for PG Tips and the Queen on stamps.
And it's an attitude that's trickled down to us commoners, sometimes disguised with a false modesty that hides rampaging blustering egos. That's why in England it is always the fattest football blokes who get their shirts off first on the terraces. They genuinely believe that after one glimpse of their pimply shaven heads and lobster-red lard bodies, those lissom signorinas from Milan are going to stop ogling Beckham and fancy a wobbling waist, a kebab and a Kestrel Super supper.
We still think we're the aristocrats of the world when really we are its hoodies. We believe at some level that simply being English gives us a place at the world's top table, when really maybe we should be out in the car having a bag of crisps and a bottle of Lemonade with Turkmenistan and Iceland.

We're at our best when we being are gifted amateurs. Take Dunkirk. Our finest hour is blokes in cockle boats from Margate bringing back our Army left high and dry as target practice for, erm, the Germans. Thank God, they weren't as good with their shooting back then.
Yes, we are the nation of Shakespeare, Bobby Moore, The Beatles, Monty Python. But we are also the nation of Jeffrey Archer, Glen Johnson, The Dave Clark Five and Terry And June. That's sort of loveable too. But calm down, eh, there's a good lad. And put your shirt on.

And the award for the worst host goes to...

Something very unusual happened at an awards ceremony this week. There was a moment of genuine drama. At the Glamour Women of the Year evening, Sir Patrick Stewart turned on the host James Corden accusing him of discourtesy, and the two actors then verbally slugged it out.

Sir Patrick, who was presenting an award, told the Gavin and Stacey star not to stand at the back with his hands in his pocket looking as if he would rather be somewhere else when recipients got up to collect their gongs. He added: "From where I was sitting, I could see your belly."

While that may indeed not be a pretty sight, the joke, if it was one, failed to get a laugh from 31-year-old Corden, who told 69-year-old Sir Patrick to get on with presenting the award, and started to look at his watch. He then sniped at Sir Patrick: "You could see my belly. I can see you dying right now."

With the women of the year, and women generally, now completely forgotten, the two men went on. Sir Patrick retaliated: "Do you want one more? If you fancy one of the Jonas Brothers, cover your belly." Corden had earlier joked about fancying the singer and actor Nick Jonas, who had presented an award. Corden then said: "OK, can we get a taxi really quickly please. There's an old man going home."

Well, if there were more awards ceremonies like that one, I would go more often. Banished for once was the often faux bonhomie between actors. Out of the window went the carefully cultivated impression that actors old and young respect each other, are one company of players, and mix socially with age no barrier. Instead, it was evident that the generation gap exists just as much between stars of stage and screen as it does in every other walk of life.

"Get your hands out of your pockets" was the instruction barked at many of us in our schooldays by teachers who despaired of the younger generation. Who'd have thought to hear the veteran of Star Trek, the Royal Shakespeare Company and scores of great performances say as much to one of today's cult heroes of television?

Unfortunately for Sir Patrick, most of those in the hall were much nearer to Corden's age than to his, and from singer Duffy to actress Zoe Saldana they publicly lent their support to Corden.

But I think Corden slightly blew it. Sir Patrick had shown himself a fish out of water with his hands in the pockets remark, a man who had failed to realise that a studied cavalier casualness is a part of Corden's appeal. But Corden's request to summon a taxi as "there's an old man going home" was just plain rude. If he had said that he couldn't help showing his belly as there was so much of it, that might have been funnier. He simply insulted a fellow professional with a brusqueness that his alter ego Smithy on Gavin and Stacey would have rejected for being devoid of wit.

Nevertheless, I'm grateful to Corden and Sir Patrick for showing some genuine ill feeling. At least no one can call all actors "luvvies" any more.

It's that time again......

One of the joys of a World Cup, is watching every single business on the planet trying to get in on it, no matter how distant they are from football. So ex-England striker John Barnes is promoting adverts for Mars Bars, the "official sponsor of snacks" to the tournament. Because no team can hope to win a World Cup unless it regularly stuffs its face with full-of-goodness vitamin-packed Mars bars.

Maybe Fabio Capello will inform us soon that "this is reason why I no select Theo Walcott, for he not eat enough Mars. In training he eat Twix and Rolos but to be fully fitness he must eat solid nugget of caramel sugar."

You might as well have an advert with a lad in a bandana saying: "Hey, if yer want three lions on yer gear come to me, Little Dave from Moss Side, official sponsor of World Cup crack."

He might be more appropriate than the "official sponsor of fuel to the World Cup", which happens to be BP. Because when you think about the demands of international football – meticulous preparation, instant decisive action, somewhere to train that isn't clogged up with oil-saturated herons – then BP pops instantly to mind.

Almost every item you can imagine has a brand that's the "official sponsor". There will probably be an advert that goes: "If you're disabled, you'll still want to jump up and down for England, so why not invest in a Stannah stairlift, official stairlifts to the World Cup, then you can celebrate England's goals by whirring slowly up and down the side of your banisters."

McDonalds are official sponsors, as are Coke, and if you're official, then no other brand of that product is allowed in the ground. The police have probably been instructed that when they're clearing away unsightly vagabonds outside the stadium they're only to use "Buzz'n'drop", the official World Cup taser.

One consequence of the rule is that the hawkers who scratch a living across South Africa by selling bits of old tat have been told they can't come near the grounds. The local beer, Castle, won't be sold because Budweiser is the official beer. All this zealous insistence on there being only one product might make the North Korean team think their leader has taken over the world as promised. Because it's a peculiar condition of the free market that the last thing it can tolerate is a free market. Maybe Fifa's argument would be: "The hawkers are perfectly entitled to offer £5m so they could sell the official World Cup pile of beads off a fold-up table, but they didn't submit their application."

There was a similar lack of choice for the 20,000 people moved from their settlement to make way for the new stadium in Cape Town, on whose behalf the United Nations have issued a complaint. Maybe the decision was made on a special edition of Location, Location, Location, with Fifa president Sepp Blatter cooing: "Oooh, it's got so much potential, we can clear out all these unnecessary peasants and it will be ideal for a match in Group F."

But in a way sport offers a unique challenge to big business, as by its nature it's not completely predictable. It must be frustrating for those who are used to fixing competitions, that they can't guarantee the results they demand. Some of the sponsors must bang their fist on the table during negotiations, yelling: "We're offering a £3m deal and all we want in return is a 2-2 draw with Italy going through on penalties. Now stop stalling and sign the deal." It's also why the World Cup seems more engaging than the Premier League or Champions League, as it can't be bought in the same way, though I'm sure it's been tried, and the Glazers have asked Fifa if they can buy Uruguay or Cameroon, and then pack their team with players no one else can afford.

And it's why, beyond the obsessive fascination all right-thinking citizens have for a World Cup, there's something else reassuring about the tournament this time. It can only take place in South Africa at all because in one of the biggest shock results of all time, the people with no resources of the world took on a seemingly impregnable opponent, and won.

Apple? Not one of my 5 a day...

So the new iPad is now on sale in the UK.This of course means that the many members of the cult of Apple will abandon whatever plans they had for the day to queue up lemminglike,to part with more than £300 to become early adopters of the latest over-hyped product.

Even though I have an ipod,what really hacks me off about Apple is the cult like way that they market and advertise their products.

PC's of course are for the minions,the poor and unimaginative lower social strata who really just don't have the clever,free thinking creative ways that the Apple types who wear cargo trousers to work do.

At the launch of iPad,Apple's leader and no doubt visionary,Steve Jobs,told the audience that the iPad would provide them with a good email experience and a nice keyboard experience."holding it in your hand is an incredible experience" he added."How directly you engage with it..The only word is magical"

I'm sorry but am I missing something here? What the hell is a good email experience?How can sending paragraphs of text or the tapping of fingers on buttons really be described in such elevated terms?

Seeing the birth of your child or falling in love are magical experiences.Pressing send on your latest overpriced,over hyped piece of I.T equipment that was hand made for you by some child in a sweatshop somewhere in the Philippines certainly is not.

I heard a snippet of a Radio 5 live show the other day to hear an iPad owner say that his purchase had changed his life.All I can say is that it couldn't have been much of one in the first place...

But the saddest case so far must be that of Stephen Fry.He's already posted several blogs regarding his love for all things Apple like and the iPad is no different.He actually said (and I'm not making this up):
When I switch it on a little sigh escapes me.Ten minutes later I'm rolling on the floor,snarling and biting,trying to wrestle it from the hands of an Apple press representative.
"I had been prepared for a smooth feel,for a bright screen and the immersive experience everyone had promised.I was not prepared however,for how instant the relationship I formed with the device would be.The only way you will take it from me is to prise it from my cold dead fingers."

But to make things worse,there is even a video on YouTube of him unwrapping his own iPad.The luvvie like way he sees the packaging for the first time and the way his quivering hands open the the boxes to reveal the individual components really is quite sick.

But that's the thing with Apple.It turns adults into children,turning normally intelligent people into the most boring geeks of all time.

If you don't believe me,go into an Apple store.Line of cultish followers with more money than sense,standing in front of screens with faces full of worry that because they don't possess the latest gizmo,they are living in the technological Dark Ages.

The iPad isn't the only product out there but it certainly feels like it......

A Matter of Class?

Now that the Election campaigning is in full swing,all manner of subjects have been brought to our attention by the media.Sure,we know the standings of the various candidates,but one thing really stands out by it's very absence.

The matter is class.

Oh,I know that to all accounts Britain is now a classless society,but did you know that two-thirds of land in Britain is owned by 189,000 families? How about the fact that half our company directors went to public school? In 2007 15 members of the shadow Cabinet had been to Eton.Maybe I'm being cynical,but perhaps it was coincidence.They must have sat around the table on the first day that the shadow cabinet was formed saying " Oh my god,and YOU went to Eton as well? How extraordinary"

But it doesn't end there.77% of high court judges went to Oxbridge,as did 81% of permanent secretaries and 83% of senior ambassadors.People say that the background of Oxbridge students has changed over the last 40 years.It has indeed.In 1969 38% of them came from public schools-now it's 45%...

If you really think that class has vanished ,take a look through a London A-Z.There are loads of roads in Mayfair with Grosvenor in the title.Do you know why? Because they are part of the 100 acre Grosvenor estate that is worth £10 billion (give or take a quid or so).The current Duke of Grosvenor aquired this by being born into the family that has owned the estate since 1622.Or take Portman square which is owned by the Portman Estate since the times of Henry VII,but they must be on hard times as it's only worth £1 billion.

All of this doesn't really mean much,because if like me and the vast majority that doesn't come from this background you KNOW breeding still carries huge privilege.Take the Army for example.How likely is it,that when there's an interview on the news with a soldier in Afghanistan,they'll speak in an Etonian accent? Or when they interview the Chief of Staff in the studio,they'll answer in Glaswegian,Scouse or Geordie?

There is a layer society that is brought up to beleive that it will rule.At their schools when asked to do subjects like WW1,instead of writing about what it must have been like to be in a trench,they're asked to construct a battle plan for capturing Verdun.Instead of being brought up to respect authority,they're taught to be authority.If these people found a tramp on the streets at Christmas,maybe they would welcome them in and ask what he wanted to drink saying "I'm afraid we don't have any Kestrel super strength-will Remy Martin 5 star be ok?" Their points of reference,their outlook and their standpoint on how they see society is shaped by the fact that they are from a different class.They know businessmen and people who have had inquiries named oafter them,people who if they were walking down the street and saw Bill Cinton,wouldn't think " Bugger me that's Bill Clinton!!"These are the people who ask if you've seen the latest production of La Boheme and really,seriously think there is a chance that you have.

I'd like to hope that the victors of the forthcoming election would not choose a person to be a member of the cabinet on the basis of what school they went to,but i'll not be surprised if they do.

Money,Money Money (or the lack of it)

Like most working people in the UK at present,I've recently been told that the pot is empty and as such there will be no salary increase for me this year.Yet again.

But I wonder if the many directors of the multitude of companies received the same news?
Did you know that in 2005,the average pay for directors of companies in the Financial Times index was £2.5 million? The average pay for company executives actually doubled between 2000 and 2004...This is 113 times the average wage...

Have you heard of a company called GlaxoSmithKline? Well their chief executive was hired for a salary of £3.6 million a year which in anyones standards is pretty good,but to really make your own salary seem worthless,he also insisted on a clause that meant if he was sacked he would receive £22 million.

Have you picked yourself up from the floor yet? Yep,I did write £22 MILLION.
imagine yourself as a fly on the wall at his interview when they only offered £18 million for dismissal:
"£18 million? is that all? You can't possibly expect me to take the job on those conditions?"

I bet that since he took the job,he's been turning up drunk,looking at porn on the internet at work in the hope that he'll get the boot,while the board say to themselves "we didn't really think this out did we?"

Sometimes people claim that they're worth the amount they are paid due to their ability to make companies succeed.Maybe this is why that in 2005 £807,000 worth of bonuses were paid to Jarvis execs for causing the share price to plummet from 566 pence to 9.5 pence.They also managed to being the ones to blame for the Hatfield fatal train crash...

Phillip Green,whose group owns Top Shop,Burtons and Dorothy Perkins, pays himself £3 million a day..He spent £4 million on his sons bar mitzvah,but hey we all like to spoil our children don't we? The only difference is that when I spoil my son,it's generally a trip to McDonalds.Phillip Green hires Beyonce.It would serve him right if.just before she was about to start,the boy said, "I've changed my mind,I want Britney Spears"

You're probably thinking tht I'm bitter and jealous.Nothing could be further from the truth.What really bothers me is that these super rich don't pay their way as you and I do.For example,Phillip Green's group declared a dividend of £1.299 billion.But £1.2 billion of this he gave to his wife.Who was a resident of Monaco and didn't have to pay UK tax.Maybe I'm being cynical,but maybe she was living there anyway and it's handy for the shops.This move saves the Greens £300 million,but that would still leave £1 billion.Surely they can get by on that? Or would Mrs Green scream "What am I supposed to tell the kids now? I won't be able to buy them an island this week-they'll have to make do with a lake!"

The UK government has said that tax avoidance is between £97 billion and £150 billion,whereas benefit fraud was less than £1 billion,so their obession with benfit fraud makes as much sense as if,after the great train robbery,the police had said "We have excellent news.The robbers have got away and are a vital part of the economy.But we did catch 3 passengers who didn't have a valid ticket"

Why is it that the more you earn,the more you can get away with?

I'll leave that with you.

That time of year or just my age?

I don't know if it's just that time of year when everything just seems to annoy me,or whether I'm just getting to,well,you know,'that' stage in my life.

The recent death of Malcolm Mclaren has brought back to me how I (and a lot of my friends) were in our younger years.The things that we were going to do were only limited by older people trying to stop us having fun. Personally I wanted to travel around and see what was around the corner,but somehow I ended up living in normality.

What about you?
Age is one of those things that just kind of creeps up on you.One minute your only real ambition is to get a new pair of Adidas Kick trainers instead of the second hand ones and everything is valued on how many leather footballs things cost.
The next thing you know you've become an well versed on government policy and an investment plan maturing is a REALLY exciting prospect.

I've finally realised that it's utterly futile trying to escape being forty.Why? Because no matter how you act,you'll still have friends that try to drag you into the world of forty-ness.I've stared in catatonic bemusement as someone explained "me and the missus had a row for ages about what bathroom suite to get" and all I can think about is how when they were younger they got drunk on cheap cider and decided to graffiti a bus shelter poster.I have a fear that one day I'll meet someone I once broke into an abandoned old building with and he'll say something like "If my isa performs,I'm hoping to take the family to the Lake District in the summer."

Probably the most depressing phrase from 40 year olds who've became to comfortable is "We've had the builders in doing an extension/loft conversion and it's been hell."

Righty ho then,so the medieval painters and poets that depicted several layers of hell with the bottom one portraying eternally tormented souls writhing about in perpetual agony as they boiled in molten lead knew about YOUR plight,they would have added an even more horrible layer,in which people had to walk round some bags of plaster and cement to get to the kitchen would they?

One of the shocking aspects about becoming forty is that once you get to that age it doesn't stop.You carry on getting even older than that..There follows another age,called forty one,then forty two and then each one comes round quicker than the last.You talk to a friend about the day you went to a party and ended up sleeping in the bath,saying,"that must have been 10 years ago" then you realise it was 1989.
There are endless shocks in store,such as the bloke who presents the news is younger than you are.Which can't be true.He's middle aged and grown up and says things grown up things like "That's all from us but there's more on our evening bulletin at ten o'clock."

I can't be older than him! But I am.The same thing goes for politicians and secretary of the FA.

As Malcolm Mclaren once said
To be bad is good ... to be good is simply boring."

Have fun people,I'll catch you next time.

I'm not one for forecasting the future,but here's one prediction I think will come true:

Ian Huntley will be found dead in his cell, killed by his own hand, probably by hanging.

It is after all,the way infamous killers seem to end up.

Fred West hung himself in his cell in 1995. Harold “Dr Death” Shipman hung himself in his cell in 2004.

Ian Brady, Moors Murderer, has been attempting to starve himself to death for years and unfortunately lost a legal battle to stop doctors force-feeding him. One day Brady will work up the courage to hang himself.

Huntley himself has already attempted suicide three times since being locked up for the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Long before Huntley completes his 40-year sentence in 2042, he will finally succeed.

And many people will say – justice at last.

Just as they said justice at last when Soham killer Huntley had his throat slashed by a fellow inmate at Frankland Prison in County Durham.

And they will be dead wrong. It is not justice – or anything remotely resembling justice – if you have to rely on a violent crack addict to do it for you. And it is not justice if you have to rely on a murderer to take his own life.

Huntley’s attacker, Damien Fowkes, is no shining bastion of goodness, or righteous vigilante.

Fowkes robbed a family at knifepoint to feed his drug addiction. His crimes may pall next to Huntley’s double murder but he is still a card-carrying scumbag.

We are in desperate straits if we are relying on the likes of Fowkes to balance the scales of justice.

According to his stepson:“Most people will think Damien is a hero,”. “I think he should be given a medal.” Fowkes is no hero to me. Anyone who can rob a family at knifepoint to feed their appetite for crack is just a different breed of pond life.

Fowkes claims he slashed Huntley’s throat with a razor blade “for Holly and Jessica”.

That was decent of him...but I reckon that he really did it to gain notoriety as the big man who slashed the throat of the Soham murderer.

As Fowkes’ career as a violent crack addict had previously revealed little compassion for innocent members of the public, I would guess that could possibly have even been his main motivation.

Do one of these front-page murderers – before they have the chance to do themselves – and you make a name for yourself inside.

Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, has been attacked with a broken coffee jar, half-strangled with a pair of headphones and had an eye gouged with a pen.

The Ripper has discovered what Brady has known for half a century and what Huntley is learning. If your murders make it to the front pages, then you will for ever be a marked man in prison.

And your life will be hell. As Shipman, West and Brady demonstrate, your life will eventually become unendurable.

Death will seem like the easy way out.

I look at that famous photo of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman smiling in their Manchester United shirts and I feel no compassion for Huntley.

I look at the faces of those two beautiful children, robbed of their lives, and Huntley just seems like a boil on the face of humanity.

But I can’t join in the general rejoicing that he had his throat slashed by some crackhead. And I will not join in the general rejoicing when Huntley is found – as he will be – dead in his cell.

Justice at last? No.

It will only ever be justice when we have the moral courage to administer it ourselves.

An honest days work?

THE nation loathes Ashley Cole so much I’m amazed Peter Mandelson hasn’t announced a Rat Scrappage Scheme for women who want to trade in old rodents.

But some of the stuff coming out of his wife’s “camp” is quite nauseating. Take an insider’s tribute to her “brave” return to work: “Ever the professional she just knuckled down.”

So what was her mentally draining job? Scraping a corpse off the M6? Tending to ­incontinent Alzheimer’s patients in a minimum-wage care home? No.


Getting her hair photographed.

For £500,000.

I rest my case......

Freedom Fighter or Terrorist? Depends on which side...

It's not often that I feel sorry for a celeb,especially one that rants nearly as much as I do,but today I feel sorry for Jeremy Clarkson.

He's being hauled over the coals for being open about the fact that on a recent meeting with Nelson Mandela,Saint Nelson thought Jezza was in fact an Astronaut.
When asked what the moon was like,Clarkson replied "It's rocky and dusty and there's not much gravity"

Ok,Clarkson could have pointed out that he is in fact a motoring journalist,but wasn't he just stating a fact?

Well, Saint Nelsons people most definitely do not see the funny side of things.So much so in fact that there was talk of the Nelson Mandela foundation refusing to accept the substantial amount of money that Clarkson had raised.

Now hang on a minute.This smacks just a little bit of someone getting sniffy and cutting their nose of to spite their face.Why should people go without help just because the powers that be have fallen out with a benefactor?Thankfully they have now seen sense and are willing to accept the donation

I've always missed the whole thing about Nelson Mandela.After all,the man isn't quite the saint that his people (and many left wing supporters) make him out to be.Sure the man served a long while in prison but for what?

Well,in 1961, Mandela became leader of the ANC's armed wing,which he co-founded. He coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets, making plans for a possible guerrilla war if the sabotage failed to end apartheid. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad and arranged for paramilitary training of the group.He was known as the Black Pimpernel.Not exactly the name for a peace loving person is it?

He's even expressed support for a few unsavoury people such as Gadaffi,Fidel Castro and the Lockerbie bomber.

Fidel Castro and Cuba.Now there's a thing. Praising it for its human rights and liberty.What human rights, what liberty? Perhaps he should go to the various nightclubs and ask one of the 12-year-old prostitutes which way her parents voted.

Mandela has also said in the past that he supports anyone who was fighting for self- determination. The IRA, the Chechens, Shining Path? What if I started a movement to bring about independence for Inverness; what if I blew up council offices there and shot a few policemen,would Saint Nelson be phoning me to support me?

For someone who has spent most of their life incarcarated in the penal system of South Africa,he's not really done badly has he? Does he live in the style of the people he tried to save from apartheid? No. Does he live in a tin shack in a Soweto ghetto? No.

What of other people who fought for the overturning of such an unjust system that exsisted in South Africa? What of Steve Biko? They've been overlooked by the powers that be in promoting Nelson Mandela as the saviour of black South Africa.

Have you heard of someone called Ismail Ayob? No,I didn't think so.Ismail Ayob was a trusted friend and personal attorney of Mandela for over 30 years. In May 2005, Ayob was asked by Mandela to stop selling prints signed by Mandela and to account for the proceeds of their sale. This bitter dispute led to an extensive application to the High Court of South Africa by Mandela that year.

In 2005, and 2006 Ayob, his wife, and son were subject to an attack by Mandela's advisors. The dispute was widely reported in the media, with Ayob being portrayed in a negative light, culminating in the action by Mandela to the High Court. There were public meetings at which Mandela associates attacked Ayob and there were calls for Ayob and his family to be ostracised by society.The defence of Ismail and Zamila Ayob (his wife, and a fellow respondent)included documents signed by Mandela and witnessed by his secretaries, that, they claimed, refuted many of the allegations made by Nelson Mandela and his advisors.

The dispute again made headlines in February 2007 when, during a hearing in the Johannesburg High Court, Ayob promised to pay R700 000 to Mandela, which Ayob had transferred into trusts for Mandela's children, and apologised,although he later claimed that he was the victim of a "vendetta", by Mandela.

That's nearly £63000! I'd be interested to know where that money went to.........

On grief and vengence....

The UK in the last few days has been awash with stories of what Jon Venables new identity is.For those of you who don't live in the UK or have been living on the dark side of the moon for the last 10 years,Jon Venables is one of the 2 boys that horrifically murdered a 2 year old.I wont go into details as even now,I find myself reduced to streams of tears if I have to re read or describe what happened to the poor lad.

There seems to be a culture of instant vengeance and ill mannered community action that sees armies of people that consider themselves judge,jury and executioner for any case that they see fit.Don't get me wrong,the 2 people that were convicted of the crime deserved their punishment and a whole lot more,but the verdict of a court does not mean that it's open season on anyone who may vaguely resemble an accused person.

I received a text message on my mobile phone today informing me of what Jon Venables new identity is and where he lives.The only problem is that it is totally incorrect.The power of the internet and mass mailing via text is now for sure a double edged sword.

Take the case of a Paediatrician that was hounded out of her house by a braying mob,thinking that she was a pedophile.A little education may be a dangerous thing,but an atrocious knowledge of spelling and job titles is a hell of a lot worse.

I often wonder where the very public out pouring of grief and emotion comes from.Why do people feel the need to place wreaths and soft toys at the place where a child has died when they have no connection with the deceased? Is it that we are showing what we think should be expected of us? Is it the case that if we don't display grief we don't understand and are considered unfeeling?


In the UK we used to be known for our our strength of keeping it all together and reserving emotion for family members.You only have to look at the very public displays of mass mourning on the occasion of the death of a celeb to see how much this has changed.

When Diana,AKA The Queen Of Hearts (TM) (gawd bless her) died from not wearing her seatbelt,the country was awash with other celebs singing songs in her memory,and the general public mourning the passing of someone who for all intense purposes was a demigod and not just a woman who looked good in the latest designer rags.
Within hours of her death,she was being thrust into martyrdom that previously was reserved for those who had actually made a contribution to the world that doesn't include being a clothes horse for Versace....

Maybe the time has come for us all to reevaluate what really matters and how we react to those many bits of rumour that we all receive throughout the day.

Stay safe.........

Blind to the facts or just greedy?

Sting, self-proclaimed “world citizen”, human-rights activist and eco warrior has, it transpires, received £2million to perform at a concert organised by the daughter of Uzbekistan leader Islam Karimov.

This is a man who supposedly kills his enemies in boiling water and slaughters anyone daring to protest against poverty and corruption under his regime.

The singer says he’s aware of the dictator’s “appalling record’’ but claims he went to Uzbekistan because “cultural boycotts” are pointless.

Really? I seem to remember them working in apartheid South Africa.

Sting’s response seems less of a conviction than a convenient excuse to pocket a ludicrous amount of money.I never really liked the sanctimonious singer and this just gives me even more reason not to.

Don't forget, this is the highly-principled musician who proudly tells anyone prepared to listen how his children have a “serious sense of the geopolitics of the globe’’.Perhaps they could give their dad a lesson sometime?

Who on earth really describes their kids like that?

Although never short of a few words of wisdom for the rest of us on carbon footprints, saving the rainforests or Third World debt, he could be described as an adherent of the old adage: "Do as I say - not as I do."

In a 30-year career, which has earned him a personal fortune of more than £100 million, Sting has established himself as not just a pioneering rock singer with his original band the Police - now on a worldwide reunion tour - but as one of the first stars to parade a social conscience.

As early as 1985, he took the seemingly rash decision to step aside from the Police, then at the height of their commercial success, and release what was called by one reviewer a "jazz-inflected personal manifesto" entitled The Dream Of The Blue Turtles.

The first single from the album, which was to launch him on his highly lucrative solo career, was called If You Love Somebody Set Them Free.

At least some of the song's lyrics seemed to touch on Sting's much-vaunted support of recycling and conservation, at a time when many considered these to be fringe issues rather than the global preoccupations they are today.

"We can't live here and be happy with less/With so many riches, so many souls/Everything we see that we want to possess", Sting sang, in one emotive passage.

It was a theme to which he returned at this summer's Live Earth climate change concert, where the reunited Police were among the leading attractions on the bill at Giants Stadium outside New York.

At one point in the performance, Sting pledged to the audience that he would "work to reduce" his carbon footprint in the future.

A commendable objective - but what Sting didn't mention was how much larger his carbon footprint is than just about anyone else's.

He maintains no fewer than four properties in the UK with his 'core' home the 800-acre Lake House estate in Wiltshire, which boasts 14 bedrooms and eight baths.

Earlier this year, a glimpse into Sting's daily routine at the mansion was provided by Jane Martin, 42, a cook who took the rock star and his wife Trudie Styler to an employment tribunal which awarded her £24,944 following her "shameful" dismissal from her job.

According to Ms Martin, Styler in particular had a "grandiose ego" and wanted to be treated "in a royal manner beyond her station as an actress".

Revealing some of the "fabulous" lifestyle of her former employers, Ms Martin said that "opulent extravagance reigned" at Lake House, and that there was "no regard to expense, cost or wastage" where food and drink were concerned.

The cook added that she had often been required to make an expensive rail and taxi journey between London and Salisbury just to prepare a soup and salad meal for the family, even though they also kept two housekeepers, two nannies and a butler on the premises.

But Sting's well-heeled lifestyle in the Wiltshire countryside is only one part of his worldwide empire.

This same paragon of self-denying minimalism who reminds us all not to squander our resources also owns a three-storey mansion in Highgate, North London, a townhouse in Westminster and what's described as a workman's cottage in the Lake District.

He also maintains a beach house in Malibu, California, and a 600-acre estate in Tuscany.

And when Sting performs in New York he goes home at night to a £1 million duplex on Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side.

His immediate neighbours in Manhattan included his friend and sometime collaborator the late Luciano Pavarotti.

Other rock stars live just as lavishly as Sting does - the difference is that relatively few of them have proved as willing as him to back up their words with generous, and often anonymous, donations to causes around the world.

But he hasn't always been enthused.

Sting was introduced to the Brazilian rainforests by a Belgian author and adventurer named Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, who had made an Oscar-nominated film about the plight of the local Xingu Indians. Sting's initial reaction to Dutilleux's pitch was blunt: "Dolphins, penguins, who gives a ****, JP?" he asked on their first visit to the area.

Despite this unpromising start, Sting and the Rainforest Foundation were eventually able to set up a 12,000 square-mile national park dedicated for the use of the Xingu and other indigenous tribes.

Given the generally lukewarm support of the Brazilian government, this was an impressive achievement.

Sting's involvement included not just giving away money but also a more personal gesture.

While lobbying political leaders around the world, the singer was to play host at his elegant Highgate home to two Brazilian Indian chiefs named Raoni and Red Crow, the former of whom sported a CD-sized wooden plate stitched into his lower lip but little in the way of clothes.

Early in his career, he expressed the opinion that "I just don't agree with (procreation) any more.

"I think it's bull****, and I think if we carry on thinking like that, we're doomed.

"We have too many people - we're not the most important thing on the planet, and until we realise that, we're in deep s***."

How ironic then that Sting has six children, from two wives, ranging in age from 30 to 11.

There's nothing wrong with that - he's long since earned the right to live just as he likes - but, taken as a whole, it would seem to suggest that Sting's campaign against Western excess might not always be a priority in his own day-to-day life.

In 1981, he declared: "I don't want to end up as the guy in Vegas with the balding head and the tux singing Roxanne."

Some 15 years after making this announcement, he walked out on stage at the city's MGM Grand Garden casino, and, sporting a radically cropped haircut, performed his first hit. (To his credit, he avoided the tuxedo.)

In 1995, he was happy to accept a reported £500,000 to advertise the Seagaia golf complex in Japan, where developers had flattened miles of historic pine forests to build a luxury leisure resort.

The contradiction of a man known for his environmental campaigning helping to promote a project that locals complained harmed the local ecology wasn't lost on his critics.

More recently, the singer gave his blessing to an advertisement for a gas-guzzling Jaguar that used his hit Desert Rose as its backing track. Sting was reportedly paid a six-figure licensing fee.

Some may see this as not entirely in tune with his well-known views on energy conservation.

Even his attitude to his band the Police is marked by inconsistency.

Despite the regular recycling of the group's records since their last new release in 1983, until recently the prospect of a full-scale reunion has seemed remote at best.

Asked about the rumours of a tour in 1997, the 20th anniversary of the band's formation, Sting said: "Bull****. I'd rather die."

It may be purely coincidental that his radical change of heart on the subject follows the relative failure of his last album Songs From The Labyrinth, whose accompanying DVD features an extended sequence showing Sting, dutifully followed by his musicians, padding around the well-manicured maze at Lake House.

Whatever, in 2006 Sting decided that reforming the Police was not such a bad idea after all.

The tour, which has played to packed houses in North America this summer, is said to have guaranteed the three musicians an initial payday of £4 million apiece.

One cynic has described it as "the unedifying sight of a pension plan being topped up", although that's unlikely to concern crowds who waited nearly 25 years to see their heroes on an extended European tour.

And although Sting's wife Trudie seems remarkably unconcerned that the singer may see the tour as an opportunity to visit other venues such as the Relax club in Hamburg, it is hardly the behaviour of a man whose social conscience is his calling card.

The tour itself - with its fleet of accompanying trucks, dazzling lighting systems, jet travel and so on - shows no signs of restraint.

It all adds up to a personal carbon output for Sting that has been estimated at up to 30 times that of the average Briton.

Expats? No thanks!

Now that the snow has reappear with a vengeance,I've started to think about how good it would be to emigrate to a country where the only thing to worry about is what shorts and sunglasses to wear.Only one thing stops me and that is the dreaded Expat.

I'm sure that you've all met one.

There you are,standing at the bar minding your own business,when suddenly you feel a presence next to you and the waffle starts something like this:
" I'm so glad we moved away from the UK.It's gone down the toilet back there you know"

The next thing you know,you have been subjected to a rant about how much better it is in ..... (insert the country of your choice).They then normally ask to borrow your newspaper,just to catch up on how things are going.

This is going to sound harsh,but if I was offered the choice of being castrated with a broken cider bottle or spending a night with an expat there is only one request I’d make.

Can you make it a bottle of Magners and give me a slug before you smash it?

Obviously there are some decent types who left Blighty for a bit of sun, but judging by the vast majority I’ve met, retired expats are disloyal, deluded, perma-tanned, bigoted, Considerably-Richer-Than-You bores, who whine constantly about a Britain that’s “gone to the dogs” when they mean “gone to the foreigners”. I’ve never understood why those who are keenest to leave Britain shout loudest about the need to stop people emigrating here.

Especially when most foreigners arrive with optimism and a desire to integrate, work and build a life for their family.

Most go to the Mediterranean filled with bitterness, and a desire to moan, sunbathe and build a wall around their Sky dish (so they don’t miss a minute of Britain going to the dogs).

Still, good luck to them. So long as I don’t have to sit next to them in a depressing Benidorm bar watching an EastEnders omnibus, I’m happy for them to spend their lives loathing the old country while fearing retrospective planning applications from embittered Spaniards. But I’d prefer it if they did so without sponging off British taxpayers, by claiming their new home isn’t hot enough. I assume that’s why 63,740 expat OAPs claimed £14million fuel allowances last winter.

While our poorest pensioners go without food so they can afford an extra bar on their electric fires, we’ve been handing over up to £400 payments to nearly 64,000 expat OAPs currently warming themselves in balmier European climates.

There are 5.1m Britons living in fuel poverty (defined as spending more than 10% of income on heating) and cancer patients under 60 have been refused this allowance during the harshest winter for 30 years.

Yet we freely subsidise expats lounging in the sun. It is, as the Taxpayers’ Alliance points out, economic madness to pay this with savage spending cuts round the corner. Worse than that, it’s immoral. The spongers will defend their greed by saying they’re legally entitled to the cash because they paid into the system while working.

But by their own, self-anointed standards of behaviour, they’re wrong, and they know it. This allowance was introduced to shield pensioners from cold British winters, not to allow people who are already warm to buy new sunbeds for their patio.

How can you claim from a system you turned your back on when you emigrated and took away the very spending power that keeps the system going.

How can you desert a country because you believe the benefits culture has spiralled out of control, then thrust out a grasping hand in these desperately stretched times when you’re snug as a bug in a Mediterranean rug?

No wonder this country’s gone to the dogs.

Free Speech (but only if it suits me)

So common sense has been used at last.I'm talking about the verdict of the Press Complaints Commission on the article that Jan Moir published in The Daily Mail last year.
She decided to comment of the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately,who died whilst on in his holiday home in Majorca with his male partner.Mr Gately died alone whilst his partner (who he had married in a civil partnership) was in another room with a guy they had picked up in a nightclub.But I digress.If you want to read the extra details of the article,I'm sure it's out there on the web..

I didn't have a problem with what she wrote.I do have a slightly uncomfortable feeling about when she wrote it,but hey she is there to sell more newspapers after all.The problem that I do have however is the wave of protest that washed tsunami like over the media after the article was published.

Comments of homophobia undertones were bandied about by gay rights group Stonewall.And there lies the problem.

It's now got to the point that any person or group that criticizes another is instantly shouted down as being Homophobic,Racist,Anti Islamic,Anti Semitic,sexist etc.I'm sure that you can think of more labels.Disagreeing with someone is completely different to being hateful or disrespectful to them.

I was under the impression that free speech was a quality that we were all entitled to.Not just minorities.

Just take a look at TV programmes.There is a comedy here in the UK called The Vicar of Dibley.It's a gentle poke at the whole concept of a sleepy middle England village that suddenly acquires a female Christian Vicar.In the village are several types of people that some would call stereotyped,but nothing was said.People just laughed at it and enjoyed it for what it was.I didn't hear of any female members of the cloth saying "Denounce this anti Christian blasphemy".

How different things would have been if instead it was called ""The Rabbi of Ramsgate? Or shock horror "The Imam of Birmingham"? The BBC would be forced to issue statements of apology and the streets would be full of followers waving placards saying "death to Infidels".

To Quote Voltaire:I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Look after yourselves......

Food Wintery Food

Bacon sandwiches. Cheese on toast. Shepherd's pie (complete with a nice, golden crust of mashed potato). Macaroni cheese. A great, steaming Desperate Dan-style pyramid of bangers and mash, with a puddle of yellow mustard on the side. Steak and kidney in a gravy-drenched embrace, under a billowing cap of puff pastry.
Mince and tatties.

A big, beefy stew, complete with bombs of suety dumplings. Steamed fruit puddings shivering with cinnamon and sugar. Bread and butter pud. And last - but by no means least - a bowl of piping hot custard speared with slices of banana. Yum yum.
But that's enough about my dinner last night.I've always wondered about what happens to my (and other peoples)appetites as soon as cold weather whips Britain into a frenzy of food lust.

Bubble and squeak with a fried egg? Lancashire hotpot? Jam rolypoly? A hot cuppa and a dunked biscuit or five? Bring it on, and don't stint with the seconds.
According to scientists at the UK's Deep Fried Institute of Cold Weather Greed, the snow has kept snowing this week in direct proportion to our rising desire for old-fashioned comfort food.
As the temperature dips, we want the kind of stuff that will keep out the cold and put hairs on the hairs on our chests.
Which means double helpings of all the above, and keep it coming until February or after the thaw, whichever arrives first.

What do we want? Stodge. When do we want it? Now. With custard on top.

Whenever the country enters a cold spell,an unstoppable primordial instinct herds us mercilessly towards comfort and carbohydrates - and to hell with the inevitable physical consequences.

So far,Asda has sold 50 per cent more porridge than it did this time last year, while bread in its Brighton stores ran out completely. What? Nothing to make boiled egg soldiers with? It's a miracle the townsfolk weren't rioting on the seafront. The store giant also reports that stodgy puddings are on the rise.
Tesco reported that soup sales were up 80 per cent over the past two weeks - that's a lot of leek and potato - while Sainsbury's said its shoppers are stocking up on tried and tested winter essentials, such as hotpots and casseroles.

We shouldn't be shocked. After all, no one needs reminding that it is winter. Yet as parts of the country lays under snow yet again, our thoughts turn to the one question that really matters. No, not the one about how long until the grit and salt stocks run out. The one that goes something like this: what's for dinner tonight - and is there mashed potato with it?

For increasingly, what is on the snow menu is the kind of traditional, rib-sticking comfort food that plugs a gap in our national psyche, not to mention our arteries.
Of course, it's natural that we turn to the kind of heart and body warming foods that give a sense of emotional well-being in a time of crisis. Name the man or woman who, after surviving 12 hours inside a snow-struck car on the A9, would return home, rub their chapped hands together and say: " Do you know I really fancy some sushi....."

Let a buttered scone be your shield in a storm.After all,there is an entire generation out there who cannot get through any emotional or physical trauma without recourse to a bowl of Heinz tomato soup, followed by a thick slice of Swiss roll drizzled with Carnation milk.Not to mention a cup of tea.

However, come on. It's not as if we are all shivering under a yurt on the Russian steppes. In fact, far more of the population are quietly dehydrating like raisins in their opulently centrally heated homes. Their only meaningful expeditions outdoors are quick, cashmere-clad sprints to the 4x4, then to the local shops to stock up on whisky, lemon and a trolley full of baked goods and potatoes, just in case.

I reckon our increased appetite for all things comfort-food as the temperature plummets may be more emotional than strictly physical.

We're a nation with custard running through our veins. We are the creme de la creme Anglaise. In our darkest hour, from Agincourt to food court, our dairy needs have always been legendary.

When the going gets tough, we get going on a Victoria sponge or some creamed vegetables. And surely there is something particularly delicious about serving up an eightdecker lasagne to all and sundry in an abstemious month that is usually dominated by diets and detox?

January is always a bleak, midwinter time devoted to post-Christmas remorse foods such as plain yogurt and no-dressing salads. Or egg-white omelettes and no-fun fruits. Now, for once in our miserable lives, there is a proper excuse for sticky toffee pudding, so let us make the cream-sodden most of it.

Let a bowl of thick custard be your umbrella and a toasted, buttered scone your shield as you head off into the blizzard, pausing only to note that one man's comfort food is somebody else's heart attack.

But don't go mad.Just remember that Elvis Presley's favourite peanut butter and banana sandwiches fried in butter, eaten 12 at a time, are - no matter what the temperature - no good to man nor beast.

Not everyone will have the stomach for Clarissa Dickson Wright's preferred comfort breakfast of cold curry and devilled pheasant legs or the Hairy Bikers' entire deep-fried oeuvre.

Personally I reckon that most celebrity chefs are secretly on permanent paprika water diets in preparation for their next series or scandal, but for the record they do not stint when it comes to naming their own cold weather comforts.

Gordon Ramsay swears by cottage pie made with a bottle of Guinness, Jamie Oliver opts for spicy parsnip soup and a vegetable jalfrezi while darling Nigella Lawson likes her own chicken pot pies followed by a chocolate pear pudding cake. Of course she does!

At trendy celeb haunted restaurants such as The Wolseley and The Ivy, comfort foods such as fishcakes and egg bubble and squeak have never been more popular. At Le Cafe Anglais, chef Rowley Leigh can't get through a cold snap without a big game pudding or fish soup seasoned with a generous slug of Pernod.

Other favourites include the venison cottage pie at the Star Inn at Harome, North Yorks, baked beans on toast topped with cheese and HP Sauce, or big bowls all round of that eternal boys' favourite, chilli con carne, with nose-bleeding emphasis on the chilli.
Remember that any cold snap doesn't last for ever and that you've got the rest of the year to diet.

Remember, to make the most of comfort food, you need to know your onions. Then fry them up with a nice bit of liver or steak and make the most of every extreme weather warning that comes your way. You know it can't last.

Whatever you choose to eat,enjoy it!!

Where did it go?

What a weekend that was.

Friday saw me getting the early Easyjet flight from Inverness to Luton to meet up with my family and best mate for a day and a half of drinking and general partyness.

The occasion? My Nephew's 18Th Birthday.Meeting up with family really brings home to you about how time seems to speed up as you get older. Life is like a roll of toilet paper-the closer you get to the end,the faster it goes........

I was met at the airport by my best mate (who shall remain nameless) and we started the drive to Ipswich.It's always surprised me about just how bad the roads are in east Anglia.I used to think that the roads here in Speyside were bad,but at least a reasonable speed can be maintained.Even if there were no signs telling you that you were in the county of Suffolk,you could tell by the instant drop in speed as you cross the border.Tectonic plates move faster.

Maybe the vast amount of excellent traditional country pubs is the reason for the slow speeds. I reckon that if I lived there again,I wouldn't be in any hurry to leave them behind either.By the time we reached Ipswich,we had stopped twice already.

As we were a bit early for the party and had a bit of time to kill,where could we go but another pub.This time it was The Fat Cat,not far from the Woodbridge Road.It's been a while since I've been in a pub that had quite so many real ales available at very reasonable prices.Normally I'd expect to pay over £3 a pint,but this place was charging between £2.30-£2.90.

You would have been proud of me as I managed to sample 4 in the short time that we had before the main event.Some many beers but so little time.The rest of the evening passed in a blur,but I remember Karaoke and beer races with some of my nephews friends.You'll no doubt be reassured to know that yes,I did win....

The next day arrived far too quickly and with a slightly thick head I decided not to attempt going for a run on the streets of Ipswich.The best thing was coffee and lots of it.Coffee seems to be a great drink to reminisce over,especially when everyone else is slightly hung over too.

The weekend was never going to be the sort where you can sit and take your time over things,and before I knew it,it was time to travel the 40 miles on the road to hell,otherwise known as the A12 to Lowestoft.Arrangements had been made to visit various folk and appointments had to be kept.

Why is it that people seem to think that IT folks are always wanting to fix computers? Where ever we seemed to go,there was always a virus riddled laptop awaiting for us with the words "would you mind just taking a look at this?" It's quite a skill that some people have to be able to drop a support request into an otherwise innocent conversation.....

Saturday night was spent just relaxing with and having the sort of conversations that only best friends can have,with yet more wine and beer and some insane wasabi crisps! A strange mixture,but let me assure you that it was a great combination.

The next day was a bit of rush back down to Luton Airport and I only just managed to catch the flight back to Inverness.Journeys to airports are always pretty quiet affairs as in one way I didn't want to leave,but I really needed to see Sara and Callum again.I was really looking forward to the peace that being away from them for the weekend would bring,but I spent most of the time wondering what they were doing.

I guess that everyone in a while we should all make that kind of trip.
It's good to remind ourselves what we really want and need....


Look after yourselves

A True Celeb Speaks Out

At last! A person in the limelight has come out and said what I (and I suspect many) have been thinking for years.

Brian Johnson,the excellent frontman for ACDC has had a right go at the famous dogooders that seem to thrive on publicising charitable causes. He said:

“I don’t tell everybody they should give money – they can’t afford it. When I was a working man I didn’t want to go to a concert for some bastard to talk down to me that I should be thinking of some kid in Africa.

“I’m sorry mate, do it yourself, spend some of your own money and get it done. It just makes me angry. I become all tyrannical.”

I just hope that Saint Bono takes notice.



I've tried to find any evidence that Bono gives large amounts to charity. And I have not found it.

Bono only pays 2.5% taxes on his income, because U2 has a special tax dodge arrangement, in which it is chartered not in Ireland or the UK, but in the Netherlands.
Even though U2 pays less tax than you or I or their vast wealth they want Britain and America to give billions more each year to Africa, yet they seem reluctant to do as they preach.

If anyone can find any news article that shows that Bono has given any actual money to charity, please post it as a comment to this blog.

I'm not talking about benefit concerts that he's organised.I'm not talking about donating a guitar scrawled with marker pen to be auctioned off for charity. I'm talking about any actual sacrifice Bono has made that would partially offset him cheating his government out of millions in Taxes.

Double Standards? You bet!!

Sorry to hark back to a certain footballer,but it was only a matter of time before the so called leaders of our country started to pass judgement.

Let's start with Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe who said: "To be the captain of England you have got to have wider responsibilities for the country and if these allegations are proven it calls into question John Terry's role as England captain."

Sutcliffe is a Westminster MP. Which means he belongs to a group charged with upholding the highest of standards, whose dishonesty over expenses (300 of them have been ordered to pay us back our cash) has left a stench of repulsion hovering over the land.
Sutcliffe may not have broken the rather lax rules but any MP calling on a footballer who cheated on his wife to resign his public office is a bit like Bernie Madoff demanding a shoplifter be given the death penalty.

And not only is there a list, as long as John Prescott's trouser snake, of married politicians caught having affairs, but so many of them, like Prezza, held on to high office.

Humping his secretary for five months didn't stop Paddy Ashdown remaining Lib Dem leader or being offered a seat in a Labour Cabinet.

Robin Cook was told if he wanted to remain Foreign Secretary he'd have to ditch his wife or his mistress. The wife was history and so was his cheating.
Ah, but Terry was doing over one of his team-mates which crosses the collegiate line. So what about John Major who was knocking off Edwina Currie for two years while smiling at Tory functions with his wife en route to being crowned their leader?

I've no time, or sympathy for John Terry, although if Jade Goody and Kerry Katona can be absolved of sins due to their dysfunctional family you should check out his.

But I'm finding the fiction churned out about the moral chasm between Terry and former England captains comical. Tony Adams was jailed for drink-driving. Goldenballs David Beckham was more than once accused of infidelity.
And when Golden Boy Bobby Moore went on a tour of South Africa he met a 29-year-old air hostess for whom he left his wife.

I'm not a football fan so I didn't feel personally let down by any of them. It's the same with John Terry. Unlike MPs, he was invited to lead the England team after his character had been assessed by his manager. He didn't seek approval by begging strangers for their votes.
Remember the last time a senior Labour politician called for a head to roll in a row over the leadership of England's football team? Think Tony Blair telling Richard and Judy that Glenn Hoddle's comments about re-incarnation meant it was "very difficult for him to stay in his job."

Hoddle had spoken about what he believed happened to disabled people after death,
and Blair tapped into popular opinion, by hinting he should be sacked. Which he was.
Blair, meanwhile, won another term in office in which he ensured thousands found out what happened to them after they were left dead or disabled.
Glass houses. Shouldn't they be things MPs claim for, rather than throw stones from?

The Best Gameshow on Earth

I don't know if you've been following the inquiry into the Iraq situation,but I really was surprised by the performance of a certain ex Prime Minister.I knew he was going to be an interesting performer but not this good....

He was good though wasn’t he? As slick as we all thought he’d be.
Looking tanned and suited and every inch the professional public speaker, it’s a wonder Tony Blair didn’t charge the Chilcot Inquiry for his time. I mean he charges everyone else – regardless of their background or ethics.

Take his latest gig. You’d think as a former Labour PM you’d be a little careful about who you worked for, but no, turns out he’s being paid £400,000 for just four lectures to staff of big City hedge fund Lansdowne Partners.

This is the firm that made £100million from betting on the collapse of Northern Rock which consequently helped drag the country into financial dire straits, causing job losses and misery for millions.

The fact Lansdowne Partners also backs the Tory Party means Blair has about as much integrity as David Cameron.

It staggers me how Blair has continued to feather his nest while the country he led into war suffers in silence. But as we saw at the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday, Blair has turned Teflon into a new art form.

He really has no shame.....