Smoking Related Deaths And Middlesbrough

I was just reading an article on the BBC about the perhaps surprising news that 33% of women in Blackpool smoke while pregnant. Then while I was wondering if that meant there were three pregnant women in Blackpool and one was a smoker (as there are no figures given in the piece), I read the following nugget;

Smoking related deaths from lung cancer were highest in Middlesbrough, with the illness claiming 71 victims per 100,000 in 2006-08.

Now how do you define smoking related deaths?

Is it that you were a heavy smoker all your life and then died of lung cancer? Is it you smoked 10 a day from the age of 12 until you were 30, then died of lung cancer? Or maybe you lived with a smoker for your entire adult life, then died of lung cancer?

The reason I suggest the last of those is, well, it's Middlesbrough. You could not smoke a day in your life and get lung cancer in Middlesbrough - as you could, in fact, anywhere in the UK - yet be classed as a "smoking related" death due to you having lived with a smoker (who may not have smoked in your presence at any point).

This isn't to deny the likelihood of smoking being a potential (or probable) cause of lung cancer, but does kinda lump everyone into one group.

In the post, Middlesbrough's ratio of "smoking related" lung cancer deaths is compared negatively to that of Guildford. The main thing that irks me about that is, I don't recall several major chemical plants in Guildford spewing fumes forth into the atmosphere, whereas the football team and supporters of Middlesbrough are known as Smoggies for that exact reason.

I'm not going to call Bad Science, but it does look like sloppy journalism.

Most Important Invention Of The 21st Century?

According to confused.com the most important invention of the 21st Century has been decided already. So suck on that inventors! The next 90 years will have NOTHING that will compare to, wait for it, dah-dah-daaaaaaah, the internet.

Yes, that internet. The internet that I've been using since mid 1994; which has been in existence in one form or another since ARPANET, but for the sake of argument I will say 1989 (when CERN opened its first external TCP/IP connections). 1989 - according to confused.com at least - now part of the 21st Century, rather than the 20th as we'd been previously led to believe.



Anyway, this irritated me - and I know I'm not alone on this - so I mailed them about it, suggesting that by their criteria, I could suggest penicillin was the most important invention of the 21st Century.

Much to my surprise, I got this reply (suspiciously similar to those on the above link)

Thanks for taking the time to email us regarding our new TV Advert.

Cara (the character in our ad) is saying that the internet is the most important invention of the 21st century, in terms of impact and not that it was actually invented in the 21st century.

We do believe this to be correct, but we also value your opinion on this, so I will definitely pass your comments regarding penicillin onto our Advertising Team. It's always good to have customer feedback.

Thank you once again,

So, if you get easily bored, remember there is a "Contact Us" tab on confused.com's website and you can mail them your suggestion for the best invention of the 21st Century. I reckon if enough people do it, we can get them to admit that fire was the most important suggestion of the 21st Century.

Idiots.

The Future Of The UK, Uneducated & Chav Populated

There's a Facebook group of this name, who say;

The key is two government policies which are totally messed up, namely the cut in child benefit and the cut in unviersity places and funding.

That would be "is that there are two government policies"

If you are not familiar with these cuts, they propose that families who earn over £44,000 per year will no longer receive Child Benefit where as lower income families will continue to receive it. University funding will also be cut forcing a reduction in the amount of available places for students wishing to go to university.

I was fairly certain the policy was if there was ONE person earning over £44k there'd be no Child Benefit, rather than families earning over £44k.

It seems that the fact some families can earn nearly £88k and still get Child Benefit when others - where say the mother stays at home and the father earns £45k - won't get Child Benefit is where the actual arguments have started.

So if you put this into reality this will create a society where people who are higher earners will think twice about having a child, as the cost of the upbringing will have to be covered solely be them, where as a lower income family will not think twice about having another child as the cost of its upbringing will be met by the government in the form of child benefit and tax credit payments.

I think that the latter part of your suggested future is already happening.

If a single woman has more than one child, she is moved higher up the Council Housing ladder. You may also be interested in reading about these women who get quite substantial amounts of Child Benefit.

Also, if I were part of a family of higher income tax payers, just how much difference would my £20.30 (for first or only child, £13.40 thereafter) really make in my decision to have a child?

So what does this mean for the future of the UK, simple. The UK will end up being an uneducated, underachieving nation.

As opposed to now?

I ask you has the government never here the term "spend money to make money", if you increase university places, you get more educated people, who in term get better jobs, earn money money and pay more taxes, likewise if higher earners continue to propogate they will, in most cases, produce children who will also go on to be high earners and again pay more taxes.

Hell of a sentence there fella, you might want to start using full stops. Oh and "here the term" should be "heard the term" and then put a question mark after "money", okay?

If you increase University places, you do not necessarily get more educated people. If you apply a reasonable entrance requirement, you could easily end up with less people doing degrees. However, for the sake of argument, let's assume that increasing University places will increase the number of people with degrees.

If you increase the supply of something, without increasing the demand, the price of that object will fall. This is basic economic theory. If you increase the number of University graduates without increasing the number of jobs specifically aimed at University graduates, then the graduates will not get a higher salary than someone without a degree.

What you may do is make a degree a requirement for the most menial of jobs, as employers can pick and choose, meaning that graduates actually get paid less as a result of increasing University places. People without degrees - as people whose skill level is worth less than the minimum wage currently - will not be employed. The higher the entry requirements to work, the more people will be unemployed, the higher the tax burden on those with jobs to pay for them.

But I think the UK will end up being a CHAV populated benefit run society.

Which is, I think, where we were headed under Labour.

And I speak as someone who is unemployed, old enough to remember the horror of living under some of Thatcher's regime, and lived in the North of England when everything was shut down. I'm what was called a traditional Labour voter. Then NuLabour came in and frankly destroyed the country. While I don't agree with some of the Coalition's policies - nor the actual way in which this one is being rolled out - I do not agree with anything you have written. And I'm not going to join your Facebook group either.

Educating Ritas, Bobs & Sues.

According to the Local Government Association Chair, Baroness Eaton, children need schools to be "safe, clean and attractive places in which they can learn."

Why? Okay, so I understand the safe bit as it can be distracting learning your times tables when someone is stabbing you - although there is research suggesting you learn things better when you are under stress - but do children really need clean and attractive places to learn?

We live in clean houses, with double glazing and central heating. Kids are kept inside to avoid them being raped and killed by paedophiles. They don't experience the dirt & germs of a normal childhood. A friend of mine used to lick the gravel in his garden as a kid, he's a healthy adult now. There was one kid with asthma in my entire school, the incidence has gone up a bit since then. Keeping kids in clean environements hasn't really helped them being healthy, I think a bit of dirt in their schools may actually help.

What point is there in making a school attractive? First of all, attractive to whom? The children, their parents or the staff? Because I doubt you're going to make anything attractive to all three of those groups. Something children find attractive - young children particularly - is likely to be life-threateningly gaudy for the teachers. Something parents find attractive is likely to be dull and disappointing to children. And something teachers find attractive is likely to be worrying to parents and scary to children.

If school is part of the way in which children are prepared for work, then schools should be dull. Classrooms lacking in stimulation should allow teachers to provide the only point of interest for children to focus on - education. You want to look at pretty walls? Go to an art gallery.

Perhaps it's my hatred of children leaking out again, but I do feel kids these days are mollycoddled and over stimulated. Part of my childhood was being bored, and I deal with being bored now much better because of it: I can make my own amusement. 13hr car trip? No worries, I can do something to amuse myself on the way. I don't need to watch a DVD or play handheld computer games to deal with the trip.

So Baroness Eaton, while I understand your attempt to grab money for schools, you may want to use a better argument.

Make Sixteen Percent Less Shit Then

According to the BBC Trust, they're going to have to start paying for the over 75s to have a TV licence.

At the moment, the cost of this - £556m - is paid for by the Department of Work & Pensions. I wasn't aware that the Government had to actually pay for the over 75s to have a TV licence, I had (stupidly) assumed that they would just send out a different piece of paper with "FREE TV LICENCE" written on it that pensioners could hang on their wall. Or maybe, put a tick in a box on a spreadsheet so that the TV Licensing people wouldn't go round and bother them. You know, something cost-effective like that.

Now I've just worked out that means there must be at least 3.8m people in the UK who are over 75 and receiving a free TV licence. This seems to be in line with the TV Licensing people who say; "At the end of March 2009 approximately 3.97 million free over 75 TV Licences were in issue at a cost of approximately £518.9 million to the Department for Work and Pensions."

According to this document there were 4.7 million people in the UK aged 75 and over in 2006. The number is projected to increase to 5.5 million by 2016 and to 8.2 million by 2031, a rise of 76 per cent over twenty-five years. So the amount of money the BBC is going to have to "pay" for the free licences is going to increase heartily.

Although I think the number of people over 75 getting a TV licence seems to be somewhat high. Given that a fair amount of over 75s live in sheltered accommodation or in residential care (400,000 according to this report) or are in hospital - and the TV Licence for those places are either at a reduced rate or paid for completely by the care home or hospital - and you'd think a fair number of over 75s live together as part of a couple, where are all these over 75s who are living alone?

It's almost as if there's some sort of scam going on. "Yeah, my mother lives with us, we need to have a free TV licence." Free TV Licence appears, mother gets carted off to a nursing home. The BBC/TV Licensing people check mother isn't dead, free TV licence continues for many more years at a place where she doesn't live.

For some reason, I thought the BBC also got some money from the Government on top of receiving the licence fee. I didn't think it was from the DWP, as previously admitted. No idea what I was thinking, but it seems they get the licence fee only. I say "only", that came to £3.45bn in 2009/10. Yes, £3.45 BILLION. I'm going to guess that that figure includes the contested half a billion from the DWP.

So this is, essentially, the BBC complaining about not getting the full amount of licence fee from the Government because the Government will no longer be paying for the over 75s to have a TV Licence. They'd still be getting £2.9bn from the rest of the licence payers, plus however much money they make from their various commerical arms (sales abroad, DVD sales, tie-in merchandise etc)

A BBC Trust spokeswoman said it would be "unacceptable" for licence fee payers to foot the bill. "Anything at this stage is speculation as we have yet to see the detail of the Spending Review. That said it would be unacceptable for licence fee payers to pick up the bill for what is a Department for Work and Pensions universal benefit," she added. Newsnight's Political Editor Michael Crick added increases in the licence fee were unlikely to cover the cost, which was the equivalent of a 16% cut in the BBC's present budget.

Dear BBC, I have some suggestions. Send 16% less people to Glastonbury/Olympics/"major news event abroad". Stop paying stupidly high salaries to presenters (you might lose more twunts like Adrian Chiles that way). Move out of London (side benefit, London regional news stops being presented as national news). Oh, and finally, make 16% less shit than you currently do.

Renault, Have A Word With Yourselves

The current advert for the Renault Clio - featuring Chesney Hawkes's "The One & Only" - has irritated me for some time now.

In case you are fortunate enough to have been living in a hole for the past year, this is the advert I'm talking about.



Right. Couple of things.

Firstly, why is the main character of the advert - who already owns a Renault, so I'm guessing we're supposed to empathise with in order to want one ourselves - such a complete twunt? He's rude, he's, er, metrosexual, and then there's the hair.

Secondly, how does the person later identified as the father of idiot boy's love get back to his house so quickly? They're at the same traffic lights. Idiot boy is in the SPORT option of the Clio. Idiot boy is still singing the song as he pulls up at the house. Yet the father has beaten him home, had time to put the car away and get into the house before having to go back out to meet him!

I want the car he's driving, not the one idiot boy has. Dad's is obviously much faster.

Oh, and see if you can spot the mother. She's there. She's just very very well hidden.

Renault, please sort out the narrative of this advert. It offends me.

Did I Miss Anything?

*blinks twice*

Wow. It's been about 18 months since I last blogged. That is quite incredible. There are many reasons why I've not blogged - some of which I may go into at a later date - although I think it can be summed up with "Meh".

I've spent most of my life wondering what the hell is going on with everybody and why no-one else is doing anything about the sheer stupidity of Government/business/cyclists and I'm sure you're delighted to learn I've spent the past 18 months doing pretty much the same thing with Government/business/NHS/cyclists/taxis etc.

Here's something. If you live in London and have the misfortune to be a car driver you will already be aware of the utter idiocy that is Cycle Superhighways. There's one on a road I travel down twice a day. Since its introduction, the lane width for cars, buses and trucks has gone down. Doesn't stop cyclists from still being in the middle of the road, you understand, but does increase the chance of people in vehicles having to swerve to avoid crashing into other vehicles. So I am now MORE likely to drive into a cyclist. Yay!

I say more likely, given the number of them who seem to think red lights don't apply to them, go straight through the junction then look daggers at me when they nearly drive into me (and I'm the one going through on green rememeber), then my chances of killing them hasn't gone up too much.

And they don't like it when you open your door when they're going past, do they? Some of them have even stopped talking on their phones or changing their iPod track to gesticulate at me. Probably. Not that I've even bothered looking.

So yeah, cyclists. Bastards. Taxi drivers however, utter utter bastards. My contempt for them has gone up now I see so many of them driving round with sat navs. What's the point of doing the knowledge if you're just going to use a fucking sat nav? Grr. Bus drivers, I will kill one of you very very soon. And you know the reason why.

But my main gripe is the complete morons who ring me up at all hours of the day and night to tell me there is now legislation in place that means I can get money back on all my debts. Or that my PC is apparently sending them messages telling them how slowly it's running. Or that they're not based in India (despite the accent and dialling code). I will definitely be killing each and every single one of those motherfuckers.

Still angry, still Silas. And now blogging again.

Peace, I'm out.

Please Try To Do This To Me

Via The Englishman, a tale from the Telegraph which warms the cockles of my heart.

Basically, the Government (remember them? They're the ones "in charge" who keep making you deeper in debt while piss-arsing around attempting to make every single thing you do illegal) have decided that as well as being drunk smokers, we're also too fat & stupid to do anything about it.

(Now in some cases, I do appreciate that this may well be true. But think of it as natural selection and view each fat drunk smoker as being a slightly increased chance of you receiving a pension at some point in the future and you'll cheer right up.)

But I digress. The Government (remember them? They're the ones who pretend to make laws that are actually forced upon us by our membership of the EU) have decided that we proles are completely ignoring their best efforts at changing our eating/drinking/smoking habits so are planning on using volunteers to nag their colleagues, family and neighbours into living healthier lives.

Oh yes.

People you know (look around at them, those people there) will be trained in ways of "persuading" you to not have that alcohol you've been looking forward to, that cigarette you've been waiting patiently three hours to partake in, or that fried breakfast you treat yourself to a couple of times a week.

And I'm sure you can imagine exactly which one of your friends it will be: the pious, self-righteous, Labour supporting, mung bean knitting twat who cycles to work (to save the planet) - but who still flies to Mauritius twice a year with the three kids (out of term time, natch) to see how "poor people really live", while simultaneously complaining about how crap the locals are at customer service.

How long can it be before these smug bastards decide to wander up to people they don't know? They're righteous bastards, they won't be able to help themselves. They'll start off by coughing at people who smoke outdoors. They'll tut at strangers who are going into McDonald's or Gregg's. Then they'll actually start haranguing people properly.

I look forward to it, I really do. As there's nothing I enjoy more than a good argument followed by a bit of physical violence. I do hope the training these "mentors" receive includes first-aid and self defence, because I have a fear this may well get ugly.

Anti-Drinking Campaigns


The above image comes courtesy of the Drink Aware Trust and is on display across London (and probably the rest of the UK) at the moment.

It suggests that just by looking at your recycling bin your friends & neighbours can condemn you for being drinking too much alcohol. Given the amount of interest the Council also have in your recycling and trash habits, you can also infer that the Council will be coming to the same conclusion: you drink too much.

The text accompanying the advert on the website says:

Recycling. You feel good when you do it, don't you? You're doing your bit to save the planet after all. But do you ever look at the wine and beer bottles you're putting out and wonder 'just how did we manage to get through all that since last week...?'.

But hang on just a tick, shall we?

First up, we only have recycling collections every fortnight. Over the course of two weeks there's a very good chance that even following the Government's own recommended alcohol intake (which they made up, by the way) a family of four (as children are allowed to drink alcohol from the age of 5) could get easily get through the amount of bottles shown in the advert.

Secondly, what the fuck has my alcohol consumption got to do with the Government? I pay tax on what I buy, the manufacturers pay tax on what they produce, and the Council Tax gets paid towards the cost of collecting the empties. So what's the problem?

If I cause myself or anyone else an injury or become a nuisance, then I should expect to be punished accordingly. There's no "second hand drinking" argument like there was with smoking (even though that has yet to be proved to exist either) so I fail to see why the Government or the Council should be interested in the slightest.

More to the point, it would be beneficial for young children to see alcohol being consumed (in moderation, naturally, and at appropriate times) around the house as they are growing up. They're then less likely to drink to extremes once they are legally allowed to go into pubs and clubs (assuming there are any pubs still open once they get to 18).

This Nanny Government has decided that alcohol consumption is bad for the general public, so they're on their way to making it socially unacceptable. So children won't be exposed to it, won't know how to deal with it, and will, in all probability, get fucked off their face as soon as they possibly can. Which will let the Government go to the next level and introduce prohibition. And that was a raging success in the States, wasn't it?

Is It Possible?

I'm not a one for physics, but could someone please tell me if it's possible to use someone - say Hazel Blears - as a weapon to attack someone else - say Jacqui Smith - and that they would both end up dead?

I suspect that if I was to pick Blears (also known as "Bleats", and, my personal favourite, "Ginger Haze") up by her legs and swing her around my head (as one would in the Olympic Hammer event) and walk towards Smith to get their heads to connect at great speed, then I should achieve my aim. If anyone has any improvements to this plan that don't involve conventional weaponry or piano wire, use the comments section below. If anyone has any objections, please address them to \dev\null\ or just fuck off.

My ire, you see, has been raised by both these demented women in the space of just 24 hours. Smith for the reasons outlined in the post below (oh, and then claiming that people come up to her "all the time" asking her why they can't have an ID Card now - you want to watch out for those people Jacqui, they're obviously mental). Blears for the comments I read regarding bloggers that I shall outline here.

In a closed meeting, Blears gave a speech - ironically in a meeting about political disengagement - which said that corrosive cynicism, fueled by politically nihilistic blogs and a retreat from dispassionate reporting, is endangering British political discourse and fueling growing political disengagement in Britain.

And that "in recent years commentary has taken over from investigation or news reporting, to the point where commentators are viewed by some as every bit as important as elected politicians, with views as valid as cabinet ministers."

Yes, you did read that correctly. Blears is suggesting that the comments of the general populace of this country shouldn't be viewed as being as important as the delusional wittering of a cabinet minister. That would be the population who votes for the politicians who then go on to become said cabinet ministers, by the way, in case you had forgotten. Said by a woman who has never had a proper job her entire life.

It gets better. Or worse, depending on your cynicism levels.

"Unless and until political blogging adds value to our political culture, by allowing new and disparate voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair."

So it's the fault of bloggers that a large percentage of people in this country think politicians are greedy, lying, grasping cunts with no idea - or concern - how their decisions affect real people?

Oh really? I was under the impression that politicians being paid a fucking fortune to do fuck all besides rubber stamp "initiatives" from the EU while simultaneously stuffing their own pockets with "expenses" (despite working in a building with a subsidised bar - where you can still smoke - and restaurant) and looking forward to the best pension scheme in the fucking country, might have caused some of the cynicism love, but that's just me, I guess.

And just how, exactly, do you propose getting "more disparate voices" involved in political blogging, you short chipmunk-faced bint? Political bloggers aren't elected, the popular ones are popular because they report stuff people are interested in. They aren't necessarily sponsored or rich, they're just people who want to complain or praise politicians. The fact more people complain - and more people are interested in the ones who complain - surely suggests there's something going wrong at your end, rather than at ours.

It's not as if there's any way of stopping people setting up a blog and ranting. Oh wait, that's your fucking proposal, isn't it? Funnily enough, something the EU proposed earlier this year, a licence for bloggers.

So to get more "people" (and by that I'm taking that you mean "more people who agree with you") involved in political blogging, you're proposing to introduce lengthy bureaucratic paperwork requiring full disclosure of personal details, and then a fee. A fee which would therefore reduce the number of people blogging? Or a fee you would waive if the person applying agreed with your policies?

But how would you stop people from just blogging anyway? Oh, I see you're proposing to take control of Nominet. So anyone with a .uk domain name could be instantly taken offline (and presumably shot) by the government? Sounds remarkably like state censorship, that, or something North Korea would do.

You are a cunt, Blears, a cunt of the highest proportion. I shall batter Smith to death using you as a mace and I shall be happy, covered in the blood and bone of the pair of you, grinning like a fucking loon. Then I will go after the one eyed son of a manse, and force him to eat the shit that comes out of the corpses of both Smith and Blears. When he is sated - or I've decided he is - I'll cleave his fucking head with a hatchet.

I am the Revolution, keep the fucking country, I'm leaving.

ID Cards, Every Little Helps

Rather interesting - if you happen to be a geek, like wot I am - news today on the introduction of ID Cards.

First up, the Government seem to have backed down a bit from their initial proposal to force all airside workers to have ID Cards. Well, Government issued ID Cards that is; they currently all do have ID Cards - issued to them by the airport after they've undergone a far stricter vetting process than the one the Government is proposing for the new shiny Government issued ID Cards. But I digress.

The Register is saying that the plans for ID cards for airport workers are in deep trouble, with the news that next year's rollout has been downscaled to an 18 month trial at only two airports, Manchester and City of London. According to a report in the Financial Times, the Home Secretary is due to announce the trial on Thursday but that no agreement has yet been reached on whether or not the trial would cover existing workers, or only new employees.

According to the FT, Manchester and London City only signed up to the scheme "in principle" after the government agreed to provide a further £500,000 for pre-employment checks for airport staff. Nor, says the paper, is there any guarantee that the scheme will be extended to the rest of the airline industry after the trial concludes. Opposition within the airline industry has been virtually unanimous, however, and the sudden appearance of a lengthy trial at two smaller airports - as opposed to a general rollout across the industry - suggests strongly that the Home Office is losing this fight.

The Home Office, however, denied the 18-month trial was a retreat on plans to issue all 200,000 airside workers with cards: "We made it clear when we published the Delivery Plan in March 2008 that ID cards for critical workers would be 'starting in the second half of 2009' and we are on track to meet this commitment," a Home Office spokesman said. No2ID have said it was a "transparent attempt to save ministerial face" after anger from airport unions and airline bosses.

The Unite union, which represents airport workers, has said staff are already extensively vetted before being given airside passes. Airport unions have been resisting the scheme, saying workers would have to pay £30 for a card to do their jobs. Airlines including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet, also spoke out against the plan, saying it was "unjustified" and would not improve security.

So the Government think it's a good idea, and everybody in the affected industry says it's a stupid and unnecessary idea which will do nothing to improve security.

You can see how this is going to end, can't you?

The Government will claim (but without giving any information as it would "undermine efforts by the security services") that a plot to smuggle a bomb/suicide bomber aboard a plane has been stopped and that they simply MUST improve security by introducing these passes. The airlines, unions and airports won't be able to complain - as there's no actual evidence - and the plans will be forced through.

Thinking about it, doesn't the timing of this story seem just a little suspicious? An MP walks through security at an airport carrying a large knife in her bag and no-one notices. So she reports it to the papers. Yet she's not arrested for carrying a knife? Or attempting to carry a knife onto a plane? Wouldn't things have been oh so different if a Muslim teenager had done exactly the same thing? I digress again, but my point is, that it seems kinda odd to me that this story comes out THE DAY BEFORE this announcement by Smith.

Smith has been busy though, sadly, as her stupid mind has also let her think that we would be far happier giving all our fingerprint details for ID Cards (the ones EVERYBODY will have to carry, not the Airside ones) to the supermarkets, rather than have to go to a special Government unit.

On plans to involve retailers and the Post Office in the ID cards scheme, a spokesman said it would be "more convenient" for people than the government's original plan to set up enrolment centres in large population centres.

The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) would continue to carry out enrolment at its offices but a spokesman said it also wanted to

"drive down costs using market forces and competition" and was talking to a "range of high street retailers and other organisations". He stressed that security of data would remain the "utmost priority". "Any third party involved in enrolment would be accredited and audited to ensure they meet and continue to meet robust and strictly administered security standards.

"System design standards will ensure that no data is stored locally and that all data is transmitted directly to IPS using a secure communications link. In addition all locations and personnel will be subject to strict security standards set by IPS."

Let's hope that their standards are a bit higher than everyone else in Government, and all the details won't be left on a USB key in a pub car park or on a train.

I - along with a few others - are wondering just which retailers would sign up to this scheme. There doesn't seem to be much incentive for doing so. Both the Tories and the LibDems have said that they would scrap the ID Card scheme, so any company making the necessary investment in the equipment are likely to discover it redundant after an election. Similarly, any retailer involved would surely be the subject of a campaign to stop people shopping there. In the current financial climate, that would surely put a damper on even the most enthusiastic company chairman (no doubt eyeing themselves a peerage).

Unless. Unless there's a HUGE incentive for a retailer to take part in this scheme. Like being the only official supplier of alcohol in the UK? Like being the only supermarket allowed to open 24 hours a day all week? Surely the lure of a peerage can't be enough to entice a major retailer into the moneypit with the Government.

UPDATE:

Just seen this on Guido and it made me howl. While giving a speech elsewhere today (hasn't she been busy, eh?) a No2ID sympathiser nicked the glass she'd been drinking from. Her fingerprints will be copied from it, and if there's any DNA on it, that too will be taken.

Not too secure with your data, are you love?

(deep breath)

A-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

The New Puritanism

Obviously keen to follow up their campaign to make smokers into a demonised section of society - latest plans show that smokers won't be allowed to adopt or foster children - the Government are now going after the other big revenue generators: drinkers.

In the past month I've seen proposals to increase the minimum age for purchasing alcohol to 21 (and hasn't that worked out brilliantly in the US?), for there to be a separate area in shops for alcohol so that customers have to queue twice (so that their "alcohol purchases can be scrutinised by other shoppers") and in Scotland, a proposal that while you can buy alcohol in pubs at 18, you can't buy it in a shop until you're 21 (which won't cause any confusion at all, will it?)

This is on top of the on-going campaigns the Government have to get fat people to eat less, and everyone else to eat what the Government decides is healthy and good for them. Combined with the recent call, by Ed Balls, to ban the opening of fast food outlets within a certain radius of schools, and you would suspect the Government are actively going after the Nanny State title.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are both still legal, yes? Burger King, McDonald's and the like aren't force-feeding anyone, are they? We're not in some weird Arab state run by keep-fit non-smokers, are we? At least not yet, at any rate.

So why the hell are the Government insistent on interfering in people's lives to this extent?

You'd think that with the current financial crisis - nothing to do with Gordon Brown's management of the economy over the previous decade, oh dearie me, no - the Government would have less time to fuck about in the petty areas they seem to love. But no. You'd be quite wrong. Because the Prime Mentalist himself waded into the "scandal" of Jonathan Ross & Russell Brand's radio show to give his two pence worth.

Despite it being FUCK ALL to do with him - although handily deflecting public glaze from his general cockpuppetry - Brown demanded action be taken.

Why, you incompetent fucksock, are you getting involved? Oh wait, I know. It's because he's a fucking Puritan dictator.

He's the one who will decide what is good for us and what isn't. Anything that is bad will be banned, and the only things that are available will be those that are personally allowed by the Prime Minister. We people, you see, aren't pure enough of mind or deed to be allowed to make these choices for ourselves. We're too stupid to see the benefits or failings ourselves, so we *need* someone to tell us what to eat, what to drink, not to smoke, to do more exercise, to believe in a vengeful God who will punish us for not looking after the planet properly, to understand that the Prime Minister is doing a good job and not destroying the economy single-handed.

He is, in short, a cunt. A righteous cunt. A complete and utter righteous cunt.

Well here's something from me to you, Gordon. I will drink & smoke as I please and I will die when I'm supposed to. There's nothing you can do to stop me, because I am the revolution, and I want my fucking liberties back.

Contemptible Bastards

I see that prospective MPs may no longer be required to give their home address when they apply for election.

Harriet Harperson said: "Obviously, it is in the public interest for the public to know when they come to be voting in an election whether or not the candidate lives in that area or whether they live somewhere miles away... But whether or not there has to be the precise address of the flat number of the block in the particular street is questionable."

I'm guessing, call me cynical if you wish, that this is in direct response to The High Court ordering addresses be published as part of a wider Freedom of Information battle over expenses claims, to allow people to check MPs were living in properties they claimed for. In May the High Court ordered addresses to be published with expenses claims, but MPs voted to keep them private.

In its ruling, the High Court pointed out that "the addresses of well-known MPs like [Tony] Blair and [Margaret] Beckett were available in any event, and that every prospective MP would be registered as candidates and as electors, with names and addresses in the public electoral register." MPs now seem set on removing this information from all public record.

You'd think that if they had nothing to hide, then they would have nothing to fear.

Fucktard

Phil Woolas has just followed up his previous assertion that "the population of the UK will not be allowed to top 70 million".

Which, in itself, is quite some statement.

Seeing as I'm fairly certain there's not a single fucking thing the Government could do if the entire population of the EU decided to come and live in, say, Nottinghamshire. One of the main points of the EU is that it allows freedom of movement between member states. It's also one of the main drawbacks, as it means none of the member countries has the ability to deny access to a fellow member's populace.

How does Phil think he'll be able to stem the tide of Johnny Foreigners arriving from within the EU? Well, let's just say he's a bit vague on that. Asked whether he had made an eye-catching pledge that the government could not keep - because it cannot restrict immigration from within the EU - Mr Woolas told Today: "No, I don't accept that at all."

He said: "What you cannot factor in is how many people leave the country. You cannot factor in, as you rightly say, movement from EU and that is why you can't put a precise figure - but what you can reassure the public over is that the general trend will be controlled."

How?!? You fucktard, the UK has NO control over immigration if the people coming in are from the EU. If, as is accepted, the population in the UK is currently 62 million, 10 million people come in from the EU in the next five year and no-one leaves, we'll already be over your 70 million figure and there'll be fuck all you can do to change it.

Are you planning on offering people incentives to leave? Because if you are, can I be first in the fucking queue?

I am the Revolution and to be honest, keep the fucking country, I'm leaving.

Avoiding The Elephant

You may be surprised to see that I've not mentioned the Government and the current banking fiasco/crisis. I've tried to avoid it as I think I would find it difficult to stop once I've begun*.

I've been following it, obviously - both on the BBC and in the Metro (the only newspaper I actually read now I'm a commuter) - but I've been in an unusual position for me. I just don't know what to say about it. I've read an analysis from an economist's point of view (Timmy), a stockbroker's point of view (British Dude), a Libertarian's point of view (LPUK) and from the ex-trader's more political point of view (Guido). And I'm still not entirely sure I understand what's gone on.

As far as I can tell - and anyone can point out where I've gone wrong here - the American banks were told by their Government that they had to lend money to people who they would not normally lend to (the so-called NINJA loans - No Income, No Job) in order to allow said people to buy houses. I'm guessing that the American economy isn't quite as built on house prices as the UK economy, but that by having a credit history, these people could be proper consumers.

So the banks lent the money, knowing that it was more likely these NINJAs would default. In order to avoid having the debt firmly sat on their books, the banks wrapped it up in smaller packages and sold it on. To other banks. But with a AAA rating so that it wouldn't look as toxic as it would turn out to be. Hence the amount of banks that started to get into trouble when the NINJAs started defaulting to such a major extent that the house prices in America started to fall dramatically.

As the banks couldn't trust each other (as the amount of trouble they were in was hidden or just plain unknown) they then wouldn't lend to each other. As they wouldn't lend to each other, the banks were less able to pay off any short term debts they had in trading balances. And they couldn't get any money in from anywhere apart from the Bank Of England, and going to them cap in hand made the banks look desperate & likely to collapse. Thus confidence in them eroded further.

The Government claim that they tried to save the banks, but after Robert Peston informed everyone that the Government had had a meeting with all the big four banks who were looking for cash, bank shares fell even further. Whether this was incompetence of the highest order, or a deliberate attempt by the Government to get the banks nationalised on the cheap, time will only tell. But when both the Prime Minister and the Governor of the Bank Of England come out within a day of each other saying the UK economy is going into recession (thus sparking a sell off of Sterling by any sensible trader around the world) the impression I get is that it's incompetence.

At the same time, Iceland's banking fell over quite spectacularly. UK public bodies had somewhere in the region of £1bn invested - hardly a surprise as the interest rate was unbelievably (for good reason) generous - and despite warnings being issued some months earlier. I've even seen reports here that there were warnings in July 2007 about the fragility of the Icelandic scheme. Entertainingly, the Audit Office (whose job is to ensure that £180bn of public sector spending provides "value for taxpayers" and should oversee any investment advice) had £10m tied up in the Icelandic banks, and the Audit Commission are now being investigated by the National Audit Office.

In order to "protect UK savers" the Prime Minister then used anti-terror legislation to freeze the accounts held in the Icelandic banks. Interesting that this legislation was used against a NATO ally, but such is the joy of function creep and badly worded (or not, depending if you're a conspiracy freak) legislation. More interestingly, the legislation only freezes the funds for 30 days, so in a couple of weeks we should have another announcement about Iceland.

The strange thing is, I've been through two recessions before, some bad financial times and three stock market crashes (yes, I am old). This latest one didn't wipe as much off the share prices as the last one (when the dotcom boom suddenly went bust in 2001 - mainly after everyone suddenly realised that none of the internet companies had a business model that actually made, you know, cash). This one hasn't seen interest rates go up to 15%, indeed they've just come down again. There hasn't even been a single power cut yet, let alone dead people not being buried.

I'm not saying that this isn't a financial crisis, but it seems to be based more in the financial markets than in real life. How many people (outside of bank staff) have been directly affected by this in the UK? 10,000? 50,000? 100,000? Out of a population of 62,000,000 that's not a huge amount.

Okay, so if you need to get a mortgage then it is now more difficult, but that's not necessarily a bad idea. The UK housing market was (and still is) over priced. If it falls, then more new buyers will be able to afford to get on the property ladder (having got deposits for more expensive properties). If you already have a mortgage that you can afford to repay, keep doing that and enjoy the fall in interest rates. Your house is worth less than you paid for it, probably, but you still have a roof over your head and you aren't starving to death. Chances are, if you don't move in the next 10 years it may eventually be worth more than it is now.

If you have a mortgage and can't afford to repay it, then (unless you've been made recently unemployed or had a change of circumstances) how were you planning on keeping the house anyway? Getting yourself in HUGE debt by hoping to sell your house for more money than you paid for it (so you eventually had no mortgage and a free house) is pretty much the same as the South Sea Bubble in 1720 - eventually, it will fail.

Why the Government were so insistent about nationalising the banks, rather than just letting them fail and guaranteeing savers their money back, I have no idea. Surely by propping the banks up, they're being told that no matter what stupid thing they do, the Government will always bail them out. Not going to make them take better decisions, is it?

Why the Tories didn't complain about the Government's plan and ask if there was a 'Plan B', I have no idea on that either. There was no mention in Labour's pledges to bail out banks. There was no discussion in Parliament about whether it was the right thing to do. Nothing. The Government just wade in with half a trillion pounds of taxpayer's money and do what, exactly? The FTSE is still hovering about 4000, the pound is still falling against a raft of currencies and the entire country is out of pocket.

How Gordon Brown has managed to come out of this looking like the saviour, when he was the Chancellor in charge of the country's finances for ten years prior, I similarly have no single clue. I'm still slightly surprised he hasn't called a state of emergency yet, and become a proper dictator.

Perhaps it's just a matter of time.

* - And having read the post, I think I was right. Apologies for the rather long rambling explanation of how I see the financial crisis.

And So It Ends

As probably expected after three days of wrangling, Kevin Keegan has resigned his position of manager of Newcastle United. He claims that he could no longer continue in the post as he felt the position of manager should allow him to buy the players he wanted, rather than have players bought buy those higher up the management chain and then have him try to fit them in.

The Board of NUFC claims that if Keegan wasn't happy, he should have raised his concerns to the club rather than just resigning. What he was doing for three days before finally resigning then, I don't know. And let's face it, Keegan has prior form on walking away from a job that wasn't going his way - NUFC in the 90s, England and then Manchester City.

So what next? Well apart from the utter delight no doubt emanating from the unwashed sector of the North East, and the anger of the rent-a-dick mob (and I'm including former players in that group, not just the nylon covered unemployed outside St James's Park) normally on Sky Sports News when any announcement like this regarding NUFC is made, there's not a great deal that can be done, is there?

Supporters stop going to matches

Well, the terraces would be empty and any new manager (potentially even the hated Wise, seemingly the person responsible for Keegan's resignation) would have a ready made excuse for dismal performances. Also, as the majority of people who actually attend games are season ticket holders, the club has already had the money, so not turning up to watch is actually just annoying yourself at your own expense.

Stop buying merchandise

Bit late in the season for that as I'm sure the majority of people who were likely to buy a Toon shirt etc will have already snapped up the slightly redesigned shirts as soon as they came out. Okay, so the combination of not going to the matches and not buying merchandise like programs and 'refreshments' inside the ground might have some financial effect, the majority of NUFC income doesn't come from these sources.

Go to games and protest

Again, this gives any new manager a ready made excuse for poor results - "the players were distracted" - and does more harm than good. Similarly the option of turning up to the game and watching in utter silence makes very little difference (remember how successful Arsenal were despite playing in the Highbury Library) and could also be used as an excuse by whichever puppet is installed in the manager's job.

Boycott of Sports Direct

While this would be more targetted on Mike Ashley than on NUFC as a whole, I'm not sure the potential purchasing power of NUFC's fan base would actually make much difference to Sports Direct's sales. Ashley is - aside from his purchase of NUFC without knowing the full extent of the debts - a fairly shrewd businessman, so any boycott of one of his businesses would no doubt profit another one somewhere down the line.

Petition the LMA to advise no-one takes the job

Quite an entertaining suggestion this, working on the slightly old-fashioned ideas that a petition actually does anything, and that the League Manager's Association have any power whatsoever. Richard Bevan, chief executive of the League Managers' Association, has already told BBC Radio 4 the Magpies had to resolve this issue.

"You can't have an orchestra with three conductors. You won't be very successful and people will leave," he said.

While it would actually be good if the LMA said, as many people already believe, that NUFC is essentially unmanageable with the current 'structure' in place, many other clubs with far richer owners (Chelsea, Man City) are likely to be more successful with people other than the manager buying the players.

So will I be doing? I'm going to do what I honestly can recommend everyone else does: Shut up about NUFC, not talk about them or offer my opinions any further. There's been too much written about the machinations of the NUFC board and management over the past decade, and precious little good to come out of it on the field of play. When it comes down to it, NUFC are now beyond comment except perhaps as a warning to others.

I shall leave you with a quote from the independent fans website NUFC.com from Tuesday:

"SkySports played their joker on Tuesday afternoon by interviewing Freddy Shepherd live on the phone - a timely reminder that we've been through this pantomime before. The faces (and accents) of the cast may change, but the script remains farcical, scarcely believable and unique to this particular theatre of nightmares."

And those will be my last words on NUFC. Ever.

Thanks BBC!

The post I made earlier this morning (about Jacqui Smith's proposal to send knife attackers to see victims in hospital) has become slightly weird if you happen to click the link. Instead of where it went this morning, the BBC are now using that page to showcase Gordon Brown's opinions instead.

Never mind though, because the one-eyed son of a manse can always give comedy quotes.

From where the link goes now we have this wonderful piece of Orwellian prose (my emphasis):

He said stop and search powers would be increased, with more visible policing and 110,000 "problem" families with "disruptive young people" would be dealt with.

These are children who have either been excluded from school, been in trouble with the law or identified as likely to be in trouble later on, Mr Brown said.

So the Government are now going after people who are LIKELY to be in trouble at some unidentified point. Or 'Future Crime' as I think it was called in many a science fiction plot that served to show up the authoritarian nature of the world that lay ahead of us.

Oh dear God, we really are all fucked, aren't we?

Bob Spink You Are A Cunt

Yes I'm fucked off with the DUP, but they were bought. They will learn their fates from Paisley, I am sure of that.

Bob Spink however can fucking die.

From UKIP's own policy document

7.9 UKIP would abolish Control Orders, as we regard detention without trial as an improper state of affairs. UKIP would also allow the use of phone tap evidence in terrorist cases unless the security forces or police have overriding objections.

Yes, that's right, UKIP are against detention without trial. So much so that Bob fucking Spink - their only bastard MP! - voted WITH the Government, giving his own backing to the extension of detention without trial from an already extreme 28 days to the spectacularly extreme 90 days.

Ann Widdecombe I kinda expected to vote with the Government, she's mental and believes an invisible man in the sky talks to her. Going along with Brown must be a bit easier to swallow if you're already that mad. The DUP were bought. Some put the value of £200million and a concession on how the Embryology Bill will be implemented in Northern Ireland.

But Bob Spink? What the fuck were you thinking, you retard? You are a contemptible cunt and I hope you die in a suitably humorous way.

Drinkers, You're Next!

As I mentioned many moons ago (before the smoking ban came into effect) the next target on the Government hit list would be drinkers.

Like smokers, drinkers are an easy target. They pay a huge amount in taxes and duty, and because of their habits, generally enjoy a shorter life thus relieving their burden on the state in retirement (pensions, nursing homes, long term care etc). Drinkers, like smokers, are also doing something which is perfectly legal - but seen by the Nanny State as a "bad thing".

Health Secretary Alan Johnson has proposed an "alcohol squad" to help towns with the most drink-related hospital admissions fight their alcohol problems. The aim, like everything else, is to improve the nation's health and was announced at the same time as an initiative to cut obesity in the youth of the country.

I can see this back firing in the long term, but hey, who thinks about the long term? Apparently, the Department of Health highlighted evidence to show that for every eight people who received brief advice, one cut down on the amount of alcohol they drank. So that's up to 12.5% less alcohol being sold. Which would mean less tax and revenue from Duty. Pubs will require less staff, meaning less Income Tax and National Insurance, plus a possible increase in Income Support.

Obviously, there would be a way of recovering the Duty and VAT lost, simply by putting the levels up, but this wouldn't be politically very sensible as most people seem to think the Government already over tax them as it is. They'd be right too. But the other method of recovering the lost Duty and VAT is even more dubious - forcing retailers to put the price up.

Funnily enough that's exactly what's been suggested. The Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire has said over the weekend that supermarkets are "making as much money out of people's miseries as they can" and that prices need to be raised. He goes further, though:

"I think there needs to be some control on prices and I wouldn't have it as self-service. I would have it sold under the counter like cigarettes because alcohol is just as dangerous as tobacco."

Yes, that's right, *under* the counter. Good work there Chief! I can imagine it's been quite some time since you've been in a shop, but at the minute, cigarettes are available OVER the counter. Although not for the want of trying.

Also, not sure if you're aware of this - being a copper and all - but it's actually illegal for prices to be fixed. See this handy Government document, specifically the third item down which says

Competition law prohibits almost any attempt to fix prices - for example, you cannot impose minimum prices on different distributors such as shops.

Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Tesco's executive director for corporate and legal affairs, said action would have to come from the government, but it was willing to enter into discussions. She said:

"We can't put up our prices because people will simply shop elsewhere - it could be commercial suicide - and we can't act together to put up prices because that would be against competition law."

That was on the back of the British Medical Association (who represent Doctors, well known for their love of a good old drink up) demanding in February that prices should be increased to discourage drinkers.

The British Medical Association report said pricing and promotion of drinks was fuelling an "alcohol epidemic". It called for an end to happy hours in pubs and cut-price supermarket deals as well as improved access to treatment. The BMA report is based on placing greater restrictions on the availability and access to alcohol. It did not recommend how large the tax hike should be, but pointed out a 10% rise could reduce alcohol-related deaths by nearly 30%. Alternatively, it could do fuck all apart from increase shoplifting and people poisoned by drinking meths, but the BMA aren't going to mention that, are they?

Obviously, the alcohol industry are up in arms about this. Michael Thompson, head of communications at the Portman Group, which is supported by the UK's leading drinks producers, said:

"We need to change the drinking culture by making drunkenness socially unacceptable, proper enforcement of alcohol laws by police, better education and a crackdown on the minority of rogue traders who serve alcohol to children should be our priorities,"

All of which are true. More to the point, if I drink to excess, but don't harm anyone, that's my decision to take. Not the Government's. I can get pissed and know I'm doing my bit for the country. If I die early, good, I've saved the Government a whole heap of money down the line while contributing tons now. Stop deciding what is and what isn't good for me - I will make my own choices, thank you very much.

But I'm sure Middle Class England will be backing the Chief Constable, the Health Secretary and the BMA, because they think that alcohol related problems are down to the poor, the stupid and the North.

Sadly, they'd be wrong.

Heathrow Ban Man For T-Shirt

Okay, in a 'crimes against fashion' type moment, Heathrow Airport made a man change his t-shirt before he was allowed to board a flight. The man had been wearing a Transformers t-shirt (and yes, he does work in IT) with a picture of Optimus Prime holding a gun on it.


IT consultant Brad Jayakody, 30, was shocked when he was told to change his top if he wanted to catch his flight from Heathrow’s Terminal 5. He asked to see the security chief, thinking the boss would "see sense" — but he backed up the decision and threatened him with ARREST. For wearing a t-shirt. For fuck's sake.

Perhaps I missed the memo about it now being illegal to travel if you happen to be dressed a bit funny. I mean if they'd said he couldn't travel because he was Australian, then I could understand it, but for a fucking t-shirt? Are you insane? As he himself said "What was I going to do, use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?"

You let people travel in tracksuits or dressed as a Moomin, but a t-shirt with a PICTURE of a PRETEND GUN on it is now a no-go?

What the fuck is going on in this fucking country?

I am the Revolution, I'm keeping this t-shirt on, and I'd like my bastard country back you fucking cunts.