Failure in Copenhagen

So the Copenhagen Climate Conference is at an end. I expected it to achieve very little but the final days have exceeded my expectations. Vast numbers of people have attended a conference that generated tonnes of CO2, cost buckets of money, was attended by the media from every country in the world - all 192 of them - and, finally, the politicians have collectively achieved absolutely nothing. Many of our leaders have feet of clay - that's why we get into so many great difficulties - but this fiasco proves that all of them taken together couldn't run a jumble sale. They were there to save the planet. At the end all they were interested in was producing a document that saved their skins and one that could be passed around to be paraded as a document of substance when in reality it is no more than fish & chip wrapping paper.

The numbers attending from the start guaranteed that next to nothing would be achieved - based on the old adage that the amount achieved at any meeting is inversely proportional to the numbers attending. But we have to ask, what do the idiots think global warming actually means? Do they think that they can make a few extra corrections later on if they get it wrong - and before the next election in any democracy so that they can hoodwink the electorate into voting for them?

This conference has been on the horizon for ages and 2 years have been spent on preparatory work and yet they have achieved so little that many newspapers and the BBC could find nothing to say. It seems that this conference has been a shambles throughout with the UN and the Danes unable even to organise the catering. What happens now?

Environmentalist George Monbiot has been in Copenhagen and his comments on his blog should be read in full at http://www.monbiot.com Under "Scramble for the Atmosphere" read just how appalling this total waste of time has been. As I said, I am not surprised by the outcome but I am still disgusted. I wanted the politicians to prove me wrong but, no, they performed to type demonstrating only their representation of the short term self-interest of the lobbyists. Throughout much of the history of the human race it is commerce and the rich that have controlled everything to the detriment of ordinary people. Now they have gone to the final countdown selling off the human race for their own selfish greed.

I don't know how bad the effects of climate change will be but I am glad that I won't be around to find out. Perhaps this is what motivates the politicians to behave in the way that they do?

/

Photography Is A Criminal Offence

Have you tried taking a photograph recently? It seems that under section 44 of the Terrorism Act the police have powers to willy-nilly search anyone they like without there being any evidence to suppose that an offence is about to be committed. They can only do this in areas that have been designated as ones where such searches should - for reasons of anti-terrorism - take place. An area will be designated only if the person making the designation believes that there are grounds for doing so. In yet another Kafkaesque scenario dreamt up by the useless Blair government, the designated areas are kept secret. So any individual can be stopped and searched without their knowing that they are in a designated area. In the London area these stop and search powers are being used to stop people from taking photographs - presumably on the grounds that such photographers are surveying the area prior to organising a bombing or similar incident. The over-zealous police seem ill-advised on the limitations of the act and are using the powers indiscriminately. A photographer taking a picture of Mikes Plaice - a fish and chip shop in Chatham, Kent - was approached and ordered to delete the said photograph. The situation is quite absurd - yet no-one in government seems to realise this. Presumably, any individual who objected to being questioned and searched in an area that may or may not have been designated could be arrested and imprisoned without charge for 42 days without either him or his lawyers being told why?

How is it decided who should be stopped and searched? It seems that they have stopped and searched Lord West, the Security Minister. Was this a stunt, a piece of lunacy or is the whole thing just crackers? At least Lord West was not carrying a camera or he could have been in real trouble.

What are the qualifications for being a minister these days?

/

Rain in Cumbria

It's a Saturday night and it's pouring down. There is nothing unusual in this. Rain is always the foundation of the British obsession with weather. In truth, the average rainfall is not that great and here in the south-east amounts to no more than 25 inches in a whole year. For the most part, of course, rain falls with such a lack of commitment that the rain often progresses only as far as drizzle and serves merely to make walking the streets uncomfortable. But now it has been pouring down on every day for about the last three weeks. Everywhere is sodden and it is conceivable that we may struggle through next summer without a hose-pipe ban. November has entered the record books as the wettest November since records began. These official records only began in 1917 so this is not quite as spectacular as it sounds. Nevertheless, last month was definitely wet with twice as much rain as normal falling across the land. The forces of the weather were by no means equitable in their distribution of the precipitation since some parts actually had less than the normal rainfall. These dry zones were matched by others where the rain fell with a vengeance. There seems to have been a particular divine animosity directed against Cumbria which saw the low clouds tumbling over the Lake District Peaks depositing water like the torrents over Niagara. Borrowdale, the valley that runs down from Seathwaite to Keswick along the shore of Derwent Water is always wet as more than 100 inches of rain fall there every year. The River Derwent starts as a dozen streams in the foothills of Scafell, then runs through Borrowdale collecting more water streaming down from the mountains to become a raging calamity, a deluge elevated from its normal status as a minor river. Last month Borrowdale received a soaking, the like of which soft Londoners could never have imagined. The River Derwent surged along the valley into Derwent Water like a fury, with a ruthless venom and destructive intent as it swept through the lake and turned west towards Cockermouth. Here on one fateful day 12 inches of rain fell in 24 hours - a statistic unequalled in our weather records - and poured more water into the bloated river. As the Derwent passes through Cockermouth, it joins the River Cocker and together these two Cumbrian flows produced a surge of water that flooded the town and its surroundings and swept away all the bridges down to Workington as it rushed out into the Irish Sea.
There were floods in many parts of the country. Tewkesbury flooded as it always does when the water in the Severn rose by an inch or two and places in the flats of East Anglia and the ill-drained corners of Dorset were inundated. But it was Cockermouth that took the worst of it. Of course, the media rushed up there to provide us with pictures, statistics and evidence of the Dunkirk spirit. The army installed a foot bridge at Workington so that the two halves of the town could at least be joined and Network Rail ran extra trains, opening a new railway station, Workington North. Construction of the station began on the night of 24th/25th November; by 28th November the station with footbridge was completed and it opened on 30th November. If only all other projects could be completed so speedily.
We are suffering more extreme weather than we are used to. We have had gales and on Tuesday the night temperatures fell to -7 deg C and we had frozen roads. Then the temperature rose and more rain fell. These variations may be due to nothing more sinister than climate cycles but these are probably being made more extreme by climate changes instigated by Man.
What will deep mid-winter bring?
/

The Parking Taliban

I have been much diverted during the second half of November so I have not had the chance to comment on current affairs. But there has been much nonsense and insanity that I have observed and in the next few days I will try to catch up.

First a simple story about a doctor and his 125cc "Liberty" scooter. This saga is Kafkaesque in its complexity and irrationality. We are indebted to the Daily Mail for providing the details of this extraordinary story. Look at the picture above of an almost sleepy street in London that appeared in that newspaper on Wednesday 2nd December. Two years ago, Dr Richard Dawood who has an office in Central London, collected a parking ticket on the scooter left in the position shown above. The good doctor travels to and from his appointments and his clinic around the congested streets and the congestion charging zone using that small petrol engined scooter. When he is in his office he parks the scooter as shown on the land owned by him - a strip of concrete in front of the office. It is included on the deeds of his property. As you can see, this land - about 1½m wide - stands alongside the pavement and the parking fascists of Camden Council have decided that as the strip of concrete is attached to the pavement without any dividing fence, it is part of that pavement and is, therefore, a public right of way. In these circumstances Doctor Dawood cannot park there and he has received a whole box full of parking tickets. He has telephoned the council offices, written to them and generally complained without any success and he decided to go to court. Solicitors were advised and barristers were briefed but as they prepared to go into the court, Camden Council cancelled the tickets. This happened repeatedly and so he went with his barrister to a parking tribunal - I didn't even know that such existed. The adjudicator, quite overcome by the principles involved, reserved his judgement. But later he gave his decision based on a previous case and the definition of an "urban road" and decided in the council's favour. It seems that the case of White vs the City of Westminster Council has been dredged up for all cases of this type. Dr Dawood tried to get a judicial review but his request was rejected by the Court of Appeal. This bizarre consideration by Lord Justice Sedley explained that while Dr Dawood undoubtedly owned the land, this referred to the sub-soil. The concrete or tarmac surface above was subject to public access and since there was no physical barrier - a fence - parking restrictions did apply. A key factor seemed to be the definition of a road. The council takes full rights over this area outside the doctor's office but, since it is not their land, quite reasonably, it does not have to maintain it.
The logic - in so far as this piece of nonsense has any logic at all - leads to the conclusion that any vehicle parked on a piece of land attached to the road and that is not separated by a fence can be subject to parking restrictions - and this includes your own driveway outside your house. No doubt, in the fullness of time, we will read of some individual being pursued through the courts for parking illegally on his own drive.
Dr Dawood has realised that of course the local council in the Borough of Camden is not concerned by protecting the public from the tribulations of reckless parking so much as collecting as much money as possible to waste on any politically correct yet madcap scheme that their bureaucratic brains can devise.
In the insane world of New Labour anything can become possible.
/

War Is Not Normal

Yesterday, I was talking to a soldier. He was [and still is] a young marine; courteous, affable, genuine, a man who could only leave behind a good impression of British youth whenever he was abroad. He has just come back from six months in Afghanistan. I asked - as anyone would - what it was really like in that God forsaken country. As I expected, he had little that was positive to say about our involvement and, like many of us over here in Britain, he clearly had no idea why they were there. He came to work-out in our gym on a casual basis and as I watched him resting between sets, I got the impression that he was thinking about things far away from this gym.

Is morale among soldiers high? It was my impression that it probably is. Nothing unifies groups of people more than an impression that no one is on their side, that they must make their own objectives and that if they are to survive, they have to stick together. No soldier can believe that the politicians that have dumped them in Afghanistan are on their side and the expressed objectives of this military intervention change with the weather. I don't think that the PM wants these troops in Afghanistan any more than the rest of us but he has a problem with no solution that has been left him by Tony Blair. It should be clear to all our soldiers that Joe Public in the UK is 100% on their side but we do not want use up any more lives fighting a pointless war.

I think the worst thing for the soldiers in Afghanistan is the injuries. Death is one thing; every soldier knows that is a risk of the job. But seeing on a daily basis, comrades seriously injured, with missing limbs, brain and other organ damage, hit by snipers and improvised explosive devices [IEDs] can only begin to be bearable if the men believe that they are fighting for something important and important specifically to Britain. It must be soul-destroying to witness fit and healthy, very young men suddenly blown off their feet, suffering severe pain and trauma, their bodies crippled, their minds embraced by the real horror of war. These men will need every reserve of mental strength in their bodies to face up to the futures that lie before them. The sights these soldiers have witnessed will haunt them for the rest of their lives. We know that soldiers have difficulty adjusting to civilian life even if they appear to have returned uninjured. The mental scars may be hidden but we owe it to every man and woman leaving military service to ensure that they can return to normal lives. War is not normal. It is an aberration; the resort of megalomaniacs and the deranged. It is not acceptable to ask men and women to suffer the ravages of war and then to carry the burden for the rest of their lives.

Yesterday was also the on hundredth time that the town of Wootton Bassett has stopped work and the population lined the streets as more dead soldiers return from Afghanistan. And still no minister has deigned to attend any repatriation. I suppose that now they can no longer even acknowledge the shame of their absence.

/

The Right Education

What is the value of a university education? In money terms it can be worth a great deal for those in certain professions - medicine, law - but for many the earning potential will only be marginally better than for someone who left school well qualified at 18. Our current government - back in the days of Blair - decided that 50% of the population should be sent to university. Why 50%? Why not 40% or 60% or any other percentage you care to name? Sending kids off to university was a good idea in the short term because it kept unemployment figures down but whether it is the right use of the country's resources is another matter. We rig exam results so that everybody passes - even if they can hardly read or write - and then send them off to do media studies. Universities are under-funded for proper subjects and we demand that students pay for their own education in a way that I never did. I am sure that many an old socialist would be appalled by what this government has done. And, unfortunately, a few years on there is increasing unemployment in the ranks of graduates. There aren't enough media studies jobs to go round.

We have had problems already with this government seeking to select candidates for a university education on the basis of sociology and we have had more mad suggestions from Mr Lord High Everything Else himself - Peter Mandelson. The best universities - Oxford, Cambridge, London - should select students taking into account their backgrounds. No they should not. They should be selected on the basis of academic achievements and qualifications and on their personalities and aptitudes. We have abandoned the 11+ exam which allowed me and many others to go to a grammar school and then to a university. I was the first and still the only individual from our family tree in 300 years to have obtained entry into a university. I achieved it on the basis of academic success; not via any system of social engineering. I came from a working class background and along with many other children, I was encouraged and helped by all the staff of my primary school and only after an interview did I fail to gain entry into one of the best direct grant grammar schools in the area. So I went to a state grammar school. I was a child of the 1944 education act; an act that gave opportunities for so many to go to a grammar school and a university. For many years grammar school boys and girls became prime minister - Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Now it looks like we will revert to Old Etonians - the natural school for those who expect to govern. Perhaps it is right that we select the best people from the right school to run the country when our democracy is under threat through apathy and abuse in a way that has never happened before in modern times.

Remembrance Day

Today has been a quite dreary November day. Over-night, temperatures were low and there was frost in the air. The low temperatures and the very soggy air made mists form in the early hours and, undispersed in the still air, hung clinging to the landscape. In the half- light of morning a lone transport aircraft was seen approaching RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire. Inside were more dead men, the latest victims of a possibly futile war.

Today, the small town of Wootton Bassett stopped again to honour the latest to die in the conflict in Afghanistan. On a dismal, grey day, driving slowly along the main street of this dignified, small town, came seven hearses carrying seven Union flags draped across seven coffins containing the bodies of seven brave young men, the latest to have paid the ultimate price while fighting a war that exacts an increasing toll. Today's repatriation was particularly tragic. This time five of the dead soldiers had been killed by a man described as a "rogue" recruit who was being trained by the British forces to be an effective member of the Afghanistan police force. Afghanistan is now a country where every man can be our enemy.

The cortege had only a narrow passageway available as it made its way slowly along the High Street. Crowds were standing ten deep, drawn from all over England and Wales, military flags held by many an ex-serviceman held low in honour of the dead and the town mourned. Flowers were placed on the hearses as they passed the solemn rows and the rain fell. A wreath of poppies lay on the roof of the leading vehicle.

The Prime Minister has already written his letters of condolence to the families of these dead men. Today, he will have to sit down again and try to find words to write two more letters to the families of those men who have died today and, no matter how he feels about the future prosecution of this war, he will find his task difficult.

/

Arturo Toscanini

Last Friday the BBC put out on BBC3 a programme based on the words of Arturo Toscanini. This great orchestral conductor died more than 50 years ago but he was such a musical giant that his recordings and live performances are still much revered. This TV programme was presented as a theatrical performance set in Toscanini's home surrounded by a very sycophantic family. They praised and questioned the "maestro" to the point of nausea. Allegedly, the production was based on recorded interviews made with the conductor's son towards the end of his life. Many of the things he said were of interest but i would never have presented his words in this bowl of meringue pie. Toscanini was a great conductor with a fabulous memory for music, an incredible eye for detail and an obsession with perfection. He was particularly well-known for his performances of music by Verdi [of course], Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner. The last I still find surprising. Italian volatility and the glorious tunes of Italian opera - which were part of Toscanini's childhood - are not qualities that I associate with Wagner. The first 12in long playing record that I ever bought - or at least, I persuaded my dad to buy for me - was Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra with Beethoven's 6th Symphony. I still have the record, over 50 years later, and it still sounds glorious. Toscanini was born in the middle of the 19th century and he had direct connections with many of the great composers of the second half of the nineteenth century - as well as the early 20th century. Famously, if he had doubts about interpretations of Verdi, he would go and ask the somewhat prickly composer for advice.

I remember the day Toscanini died; in 1957, when he was 89 years old. On Wednesday 16th January, I went to the Victoria Hall in Bolton to listen to the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - I think it was my first symphony concert - I was 16 years old. The conductor wasto be Efrem Kurtz. Here was another very distinguished conductor - perhaps not quite in the Toscanini class but a very experienced performer. He had been born in St Petersburg in 1900 and learned his trade in Leipzig, Berlin and Stuttgart. He first conducted the Liverpool Phil in 1954 and then in 1957, the orchestra lost its full-time conductor at short notice. Efrem Kurtz agreed to take over with the young John Pritchard as joint musical directors for two seasons. Thus he came to be in Bolton on the day that Toscanini died. This very tall gangling man stepped onto the rostrum at the start of the concert and told us that the great conductor had died that day and that he proposed to conduct Wagner's Siegried Idyll in memory of the conductor. It was a moving moment and the orchestra gave a heart felt rendering of this wonderful music.

All of this came back to me on Friday when the BBC reminded us of a rather tetchy man but a very great musician.

[the drawing of Toscanini is by Enrico Caruso]

/

Halloween Madness

Autumn is now well upon us. Tomorrow, we are forecast to have wind and rain as well as the annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.

Today is Halloween. For many years, in fact for most of my life, this has had no significance whatsoever. The idea of Halloween had its origins in Celtic traditions and as such, it is not surprising that there was little interest - at least in England. There have been attempts to attach it to religious traditions but there is little to support this. It seems that Halloween has been taken on-board mainly in the USA where the tradition was started by the Irish in the 19th century. But, of course, if there is a marketing opportunity to make some money it should be promoted as much as possible. Now there are whole towns in America that are decorated with ghosts and devils and dark lights and stuff picked up from a defunct ghost train. Halloween parties and events proliferate and everyone spends more money on decorations and costumes. The Americans are entitled to do what they like, of course, but now all the spin and sell of the whole Halloween things has hit us here. The shops are filled with tacky Halloween costumes and TV promotes the thing with Halloween programmes and - worst of all - we are subjected to kids knocking on the door to demand "Trick or Treat". Apparently, I am now required to give them money or chocolate or other goods. And if I do not? There are many instances of people being attacked, having their cars vandalised or having bricks thrown through their windows. This, truly, is an American import we can do without.

For the last few days I have gone into Tesco's supermarket to be greeted by staff wearing plastic devil horns and today, I was served by a grown man wearing a pig's head. We could not communicate. He could not hear me and his words were lost somewhere inside the mask. What is the point of this nonsense. Is the world gone mad? Jack Straw said that he objected to Muslim women wearing a Burka when he met them because he could not see their faces. I feel the same about Tesco staff serving me while disguised as pigs.

\

Advisors Must Tell The Government The Truth

As a non-user of recreational drugs I look on the drugs world as a fairly independent observer. Internationally, government policy on recreational drug use is as mess. It is a mess because the policies of almost all governments are based on a head-in-the-sand attitude and a fundamental belief that the further application of a policy of prohibition, a policy that has had an undiluted, unmitigated, robust, well-documented record of complete failure, will ultimately be successful. In some ways it is touching that so many politicians are ready to plough on with a policy in spite of the continuing record of abject failure. Of course, it can be argued that such a track record has seldom been sufficient to deflect most politicians from any policy. It didn't during WWI in spite of slaughter on the Western Front. Fundamentally, the majority of politicians are gutless and will not take on the international establishment to fight for the application of a policy on recreational drugs that may in some way be connected to reality. Another problem is that politicians are not prepared to admit to Joe Public that an objective of totally eliminating recreational drugs is for ever doomed to failure.

The failures of international drugs policies is becoming demonstrated ever more forcefully all around the world. The slaughter of drug gang members in many countries - particularly in Latin America - the devastating effects on the lives of ordinary people in these countries and the sometimes almost total collapse of law and order, are now becoming matters so serious that new policies will have to be introduced. To a great extent the international policy on drugs has been dictated by the USA and Europe - the leading consumers of the drugs - but now it is the presidents and prime ministers of these Latin American countries who are coming together to formulate new policies for regulation of drugs, which will finally be close to legalisation. In the last 50 years the international spending on the war on drugs has been collosal yet the achievements have been so little. Of course they tell us about every massive drugs haul yet the street price of drugs does not increase. Consumption goes up but price does not, so we have to conclude that an ever decreasing percentage is being intercepted. It has been estimated by some that the international market for drugs amounts to $300 billion at street prices.

The UK has, of course, a confused policy that has its origins in the Labour and Tory governments of the 1960s and 1970s signing up to Richard Nixon's war on drugs. Nowhere has this been more ridiculous than in the matter of cannabis. First they downgraded it from Class B to Class C and then a couple of years later re-classified it back up to Class B. This was done during the watch of Home Secretary, Jacquii Smith - she of the box room in Bermondsey and the five bedroom second home - when she completely rejected the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Quite what is the purpose of an advisory council of experts paid for out of the public purse if the advice is going to be rejected, is well beyond my comprehension. The world of Whitehall is cluttered with civil servants who, apparently, need lots of advisory quangos to allow them to function; one wonders how many others provide advice that is routinely ignored?

The head of the Advisory Council was Professor David Nutt who has said publicly that the government was wrong to re-classify cannabis as a Class B substance. He accused ministers of devaluing and distorting evidence and that drugs policy was now becoming a matter of politics I say that Professor Nutt was head of the Council because today he has been sacked by the present Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, who said that he had lost confidence in David Nutt's advice. Of course, it has been a common failing of this dead-leg government that the only information and advice they want is that which fully supports the preconceived ideas of the government. Professor Nutt said that his sacking was a serious challenge to the value of science in relation to the government. He said also that he was not prepared to distort evidence in order to provide the government with a moral message. I can see that. Governments are for ever intent on "sending the right message". Usually, this cop-out is used when they have no proper concrete evidence to support their case and finally fall back on moral exhortations.

Drugs policy needs a fundamental overhaul but I see precious evidence that it will happen.

\

Voting BNP?

After my enthusing over a dark autumn day we have moved on to an Indian Summer. The weather has been beautiful these last few days with temperatures not far from 70F and some bright sun shine. It is all caused the met office tells us, by warm air coming up from the Mediterranean. But it's good and we should enjoy it while it lasts.

The big political talking point in the last week has been the appearance of Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party on BBC Question Time. Much has been said about this programme and the fact that a representative of an extreme racist party was allowed to appear. The programme did not followed a normal format with questions about many items in the news. This programme was a set up to attack Nick Griffin and the BNP. The audience was quite extraordinary and certainly not representative of ordinary society in this country. I did not think that either of the other politicians, Jack Straw and Chris Huhne, performed all that well. Jack Straw particularly was very shifty, refusing to answer several questions that attacked this governments record on immigration control. It now seems - we hear via a leak - that Tony Blair and Jack Straw deliberately engineered massive immigration in order to manufacture a "multi-cultural society" and to brand the Tories racist. If this is true, it is yet another sad indictment of the worst government in my lifetime. It may be that Nick Griffin did not perform all that well on Question Time but the publicity for his party has been extraordinary. The fact is that the three main parties have consistently refused to discuss the matter of immigration and population control. This in a week when it has been revealed that population is set to rise to 71.6 m by 2033 and that 66% of this increase will be as a direct result of immigration. With statistics like these the BNP will continue to get support and if the only way we can get the problem of immigration to be addressed is by voting BNP, I for one, will be voting BNP - even if they are racist and nazi.

\

Autumn in Suburbia

This morning began beautifully. Many would not have thought it beautiful. It was dark still, even at 8.30 am; a breeze was blowing and rain was falling leaving distinct puddles on the ground. The garden was a picture of autumn. The rain was refreshing all the plants after several weeks of limited rain. The weather has been mild so far in September and October and autumn has been dragged out. Today was a landscape of glorious colour. The grass and evergreens were proudly showing off their rich green colours - no submission to a winter of barren branches for them. The dogwood and the Virginia creeper were rich copper brown, the leaves starting to fall; within a few days they will be bare, shut down until the spring brings out new shoots. The silver birch had been the first to shed its leaves - as it always is — and the small yellow brown leaves were scattered around like confetti over the whole garden. Some flowers were still hanging on providing flashes of red and yellow and white in the steamy dampness. For a short time the sun would break through and the colours glowed and shimmered in the breeze, drops of water glistening on leaves and branches.

Up the back of the house climbs the ivy inter-mingled with wisteria growing higher and higher, now reaching into the cladding to more firmly keep its hold on the structure. But soon it will be cut back its progress slowed until the spring. The wisteria holds onto its leaves still but soon it will give up the fight and the wiry leaves will fall.

A robin and a sparrow poked about among miniature leaf piles, rattling around for some rich morsels of food. As they poked and prodded, they flicked dead foliage into the air, scratching the ground intent on their tasks.

Clouds scudded across the sky sometimes grey and very threatening but only a steady light rain fell, trickling across leaves and stems, over rocks and bundles of stones, through cracks and crevices, rustling as it went. The birds flew away and the scene settled again as the quiet autumn slumbered on. Devoid of grandeur but poetic nevertheless. Yes, it really was beautiful.

\

Being Able To Read

It is a long time since I learned to read. In fact, I can hardly remember not being able to read. I do remember my time at St George's School and that classroom with the roaring open fire in winter and the old blackboard in the corner with an alphabet and little drawings on it that helped us to learn. A is for Apple. B is for Ball. C is for Cat. D is for Dog. And so on. Beyond picturing that, I have always been able to read. From my youngest days my parents bought books for me and I read them avidly, lost in worlds of engineering and history. In September 1949, my father took me to the Isle of Man for the Manx GP motorcycle racing when I was only 8 years old. Apart from watching the races, we travelled around the island on the quaint IoM railways, going to Ramsey, Port Erin and Laxey. On the Friday, the weather was typical IoM and mist and drizzle came in off the Irish Sea gripping the island in a chilly dampness. Dad bought a book for me to read as we visited various tea and coffee shops and ate our fish and chips at lunch time. Some of the time we just sat under the covered walkway along the promenade. I still have that hard-backed book, "The Emperor's Bracelet" written by Manning Coles - an author, who was, apparently, two people. It was a full length novel about Romans and I got through all of it before I went to bed.

Being able to read and write is so absolutely fundamental to learning that to have to say so seems unbelievable. But this appalling mish-mash that passes for education in this country achieves so little that many children leave school at 18 almost functionally illiterate - in spite of their having impressive lists of GCSE passes. Sir Terry Leahy, the boss of Tesco, has complained about the quality of people applying for jobs in his company. He tells us that he is having to set up teaching systems to lay the very foundations of literacy that should have been learned at or before age seven. Also, it is my own experience that many young people have poor reading skills. One London recruitment agency has confessed that it has been seeking graduates from Hungary to fill vacancies in the UK because they have a better understanding of English and English grammar. Too many British young people, unable to rise above the standards of text messaging, were unable to express their thoughts clearly, concisely and without ambiguity. Some weeks ago, we learned that 25% of students entering a university had never read a book. Is this credible? How can anyone arrive at the doors of a university and not have read many, many books? Surely, there can be no greater indictment of the failings of teaching in English schools than a suggestion that Hungarians can read and write our language better than we can.

Without a literate population, we, as a nation, will just sink ever lower in the international pecking order. If we are to have any real economic recovery - and it is a big if - we must make things again and that will require a technically competent workforce, with good quality engineers and scientists. That can only be done if all of our children are literate from an early age.

Oh, how badly we have been governed over so many years. Is there a will to make Britain Great again? Will our citizens once again be able to travel around the world and see structures and buildings and railways and cars and so on and be able to say "We built that!"

\

MPs Remain Out Of Touch

This week our wonderful MPs have returned after their 82 day break for rest and recuperation. I think they may have hoped that during their absence the expenses scandal would have gone away, but it has not. The expenses investigator, the grand inquisitor, Sir Thomas Legg, has made up his mind what is reasonable for MPs to have claimed for cleaning and gardening and anything beyond that he has told them they have to pay back. His investigations have revealed more horrors and yet more MPs will be standing down. So far he has not tackled the matter of mortgage fraud - claiming from the tax-payers for houses that they do not live in; flip-flopping between first and second homes to get maximum benefit and then selling at a profit without paying capital gains tax. This is an area where money numbers are large. Apologizing - as Jacquii Smith did - is not enough.

Another matter from the first week back in Westminster that I must comment on is Afghanistan. While MPs were sunning themselves on the beaches for those 82 days, another 37 soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, fighting an un-winnable war with inadequate numbers and inadequate equipment. It is worth remembering that the Russians with 250,000 troops could not control Afghanistan. Yesterday, Gordon Brown had to stand up in the House of Commons and read out the longest list of military deaths in many years and to express his regret at those deaths. And as he did so, the Commons emptied. Have they no shame? Can they not understand some things are unarguable. These men died fighting for their country in a war that has been supported by both Tories and Labour and yet our representatives did not have the decency to sit and listen to the roll call of death and at least give an impression of regret.

They don't get it even now. After the constant reminders that they are out of touch; that they have fiddled their expenses [not all of them]; that none of them has gone to Wootton Bassett to show some concern about the constant parade of coffins holding dead soldiers repatriated via RAF Lyneham, almost every other day of the week; that now they do not even have the decency to listen to the Prime Minister out of courtesy - at least - and out of respect.

On Wednesday, MPs of all parties got together in a meeting to discuss a matter of concern to all. What you may ask? The economy? The recession? The Postal strikes? Afghanistan? None of these. They got together to unite in an attack on Sir Thomas Legg, his review of their expenses and his demands that they do the decent thing and pay up.

/

Operating A Cutting Board

The other day I bought a cutting board from Ikea. Basically, it is a piece of wood. It came complete with an instruction manual spreading over four pages and in eighteen languages. It cost £5. Compare this with a computer system, which normally comes with no instructions at all. Sure they include literature supplied by various component suppliers and a CD of any software installed [if you are lucky]. But instructions about the computer, the sockets on the back, etc - nothing. The computer would be £500+.
It's a funny old world.
/

No More X Types

It's a funny old world. Those of you interested in Jaguar cars will have noticed that the X Type will discontinue manufacture at the end of December. It is effectively there already, since Jaguar now just make them to order. Now that Jaguar have broken their links with Ford it seems that they want to expunge any remaining traces of their involvement with a mass car manufacturer - although it is a job to square this with the tie-up with Tata. The X Type has been badly handled by the marketing department right from the start. It did not sell as many as Jaguar said that it would; not because there was much wrong with the car, rather it was slagged off by all and sundry because it used Ford bits. Lots of manufacturers use parts from big companies like Ford because it makes sense. In spite of everything the X Type has consistently been Jaguar's best selling car. Now - lo and behold - What Car's JD Power owner satisfaction survey reveals that the now 9 year old X Type placed second behind the Lexus IS but ahead of the much promoted BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes C Class. The Jaguar was liked for being solid, reliable and economical and with good service from Jaguar dealers. In the overall satisfaction table it placed 17th out of 101 cars. The BMW had air conditioning problems and the Mercedes owes its high place only to the service provided by dealers. This car suffered problems with the engine, transmission, sat nav system, the stereo and the seats. Both of these cars have received much praise from the motoring press at the same time that they have been attacking the X Type for containing Ford bits. I have found that everyone who actually has owned an X Type likes it. I certainly do. But from December, it will be no more.

Now, we learn that Jaguar is going to bring out another small car but, it seems, it will be a small sports coupe that will cost an arm and several legs. There is a big demand for one of these, is there? I still feel that they should have produced a new X Type small saloon and estate car using parts from the latest designs. However, current thinking is that they could never compete with BMW, so they will give up and go for the niche market. I am always dubious about niche markets. If there is a niche market with a serious demand for a product, you can bet your last dollar that someone else will start to make a competitor.

We will have to see. The XF sells well and the new XJ may sell well. It is a limited market for cars that cost over £50,000 and the XJ will face some stiff competition.

/

Being A Student Is Expensive

A couple of days ago I was given cause to ponder my days in university, nearly 50 years ago, when I read a report by Professor Kelvin Sharpe of Queen Mary, University of London, who, writing in The Times Educational Supplement, thought that it was hardly surprising that today's students were moaning about massive debts when they were living such luxurious lifestyles. Professor Sharpe is nearly ten years younger than I and he has been touring round university campuses to check on just how students live. It is apparent that Professor Sharpe, in his university student days lived a life similar to mine - one of frugal squalor. I did better than many students in Leeds, in that I always lived in approved lodgings but that was never a guarantee of unalloyed luxury. Many others squatted in buildings that were quite Dickensian and would have been demolished once the authorities had cleared out all the students. I had an annual grant of about £230 to £250 per year and with a bit of help from dad and a summer job, I got by OK; as did almost all the other students I knew. My money paid for my lodgings - about £4.00 per week - my books, my clothes, my non-digs food and the beer and fags. Clearly, the success of various governments over the last 50 years in combating inflation makes these numbers sound almost medieval but Professor Sharpe noted that today's student seems to need a laptop computer, a mobile phone, a plasma TV - with Sky box, - two bathrooms [two bathrooms?], a fancy iPod and any other new-fangled unnecessary gadget you care to name. In many university towns taxi drivers lament the student holidays which knock great holes in their takings. As a student, I never, ever, rode in a taxi. The professor found bars and restaurants were filled with students drinking cappuccinos at £2.00 a time and keeping body and soul together with smoked salmon sandwiches.

All of this paints an incredible picture of modern student life. It is an absurd situation. Too many students are sent to useless universities in order to study useless subjects, run up a massive debts while they are doing it and then struggle to find a real job. The Labour government's crackpot education schemes have created the situation. It is made worse, surely, by the obsession with celebrity. In this scenario, everyone is entitled to a Posh and Becks lifestyle without having the abilities of David Beckham to go with it. It is the same with buying houses. First-time buyers set out to buy houses they can't afford, with money they haven't got, supported by banks and building societies that fail to check how they will get their money back. So students want the fruits of success before they even see success on the horizon and wonder why the money supply is inadequate. It's a funny old world.

/

Get Rid Of Useless Bureaucracy

Today has been a warm autumn day - in fact almost an Indian summer of a day here in the north of England. While rain pours on the south the sun has been shining on Manchester and the Tory Party in their conference. During this week they have been spelling out some details of their policies in government without being too specific in order to give credibility to their claims that they are the right people to form the next government.

It seems that every political party now assumes that they will have to tackle the problem of the ever increasing government deficit in the short term rather than the long. This may or may not be entirely true but it is important that all parties give an indication, at least, of how they will eventually get the deficit down. Most of what they all propose encompasses cuts in services and increases in taxation by one means or another. The problem I have with all this is that it ignores the growth in useless bureaucracy caused by more and more regulations that serve no purpose other than to increase regulation, supervision and documentation. We have vast armies of bureaucrats and quangos passing around juggernaut loads of paperwork in order to allow ordinary people, other bureaucrats and service providers to tick boxes and answer unnecessary questions. We are told that more than 3,500 new criminal offences have been added to the statute book during the life of this useless Labour government. Police spend 50% of their time filling in forms; surely it was never intended to be like this? All the new legislation involves tons of paper and regulations and information documents and copies of dozens of forms and data bases and buckets of money. Whichever party is in office after next year's election should commit to getting rid of all this rubbish and concentrate of providing services, not on Westminster surveillance of the populace. Without such a commitment we will face a situation in which we get rid of the actual services and keep the bureaucrats. Like Jim Hacker's new hospital which had 500 administrators who were over-worked running a hospital that had no medical staff and no patients, we can run the machinery of government to provide no services whatsoever.

The problem is that armies of people work for the government shifting all this paper around and collecting all the data and if we get rid of all this, another million people will be thrown out of work. But we have to do it. We cannot carry on with a situation where the tax burden goes up and up in order to pay for all this stuff. Further the problem is exacerbated by the fact that various governments over the last fifty years have presided over the steady destruction of British industry such that now we make almost nothing for ourselves. In so many ways government - not just this Labour government - have missed one technical opportunity after another to build new industries. We live on wind-swept isles but yet we have only 2% of our electrical energy generated with wind power; the Germans have 20%. Throughout our industries there is example after example of boats being missed so that now our pathetic isle has to rely on assembling other countries cars; buying railway systems from Italians and Japanese; buying telephones from Finland; buying gas from Norway and Russia; buying computer systems from anywhere; buying ships from Europe or SE Asia - now we cannot even overhaul a big ship. The Labour government would rather employ thousands of people to administer a system of supplementary benefits that ensures that 50% of the population gets less pension rather than get rid of the paper shifting and pay everybody the same pension. The daft system used gives nobody any advantage while penalising those who have saved for their retirements.

The Tories may not do everything that I would like but they are at least facing up to the reality of government waste - I hope. After all, it was Michael Heseltine who said - when he was a government minister - that the problem in trying to cut the bureaucracy was that it was the bureaucrats who would be the ones who would have to organise it. And like turkeys voting for Christmas it was not a project that could be guaranteed to succeed.

/

Can I Have A Job?

So, as expected, the Irish voted "Yes" for the Lisbon Treaty. They voted 2:1 in favour, which reflects the economic situation of Ireland more than it really represents the wishes of the Irish people. Interestingly, it was Sinn Fein that, of all political organisations, came out most strongly against. Perhaps they thought that having fought to break from the bonds of Britain they did not want to be tied by new bonds from the EU. The Irish vote is bad for all of us. This much is made clear by the manoeuvring that has started already for various dead or dying politicians to set themselves up for lucrative new positions in this growing monstrosity. Every new post will require yet more armies of paper shifters in Brussels and the people of Europe will forfeit yet more authority and powers to the EU. It is rumoured already that Cheri Blair is house hunting in Brussels. If her self-righteous husband becomes the new EU president, she will carry on her legal activities commuting regularly to/from London. It should be noted that not one of us will be consulted about these new appointments. The EU Old Boys Club will pass the Jobs around giving every useless politician a turn at the top job so that they can each walk away with a good pension and the golden goodbyes to feather-bed their declining years.

The EU will, inevitably, be dominated by Germany and German tax-payers will want their representatives to get them value for the vast sums they pour into the EU coffers. David "call me Dave" Cameron has promised a UK referendum if the Lisbon Treaty has not been ratified by they time they form a government - June 2010 if they win the election. The dead politicians already aboard the EU gravy train will do everything possible to bamboozle the Czechs into ratifying the treaty before the British get the chance to wreck it. The opposition to the EU in Britain is still considerable and no pro-EU group would want to risk a referendum. The EU only accepts referendums when they give the right answers. No member country has ever had a referendum, said "no" and had their way. The French and Dutch rejections of the new constitution resulted in the Lisbon Treaty - that neither country's leaders needed to submit to a new referendum. It was a con trick and everyone knows it was a con trick. But that is the EU. This foul conglomerate; this Tower of Babel; this insult to democracy; this bureaucratic muck heap; this politicians gravy train; this money wasting talking shop. Politicians love it and that alone must be reason to oppose it

/

Is It All Go For Lisbon Constitution?

It is past mid-day Saturday, 3rd October, and all the signs are that the Irish will have been successfully bullied into voting in favour of the EU Lisbon Treaty. This would make it certain that the politicians of the EU would be given the extra powers they need to run our lives and to appoint an un-elected president. This is typical of the democratic aberration that is the EU. It is corrupt, incompetent, wasteful, interfering and unnecessary. It is the quango to end all quangoes. The expenses scandals of our MPs are small beer when compared to the vast excesses of Europe. Now this Lisbon Treaty - the rejected constitution by another name - will be passed into law without any country, other than Ireland being allowed to vote on it. Too many votes on anything in the EU can lead to too many wrong answers.

Ireland has been overwhelmed by pressure applied by the EU and its officials and buckets of advertising in favour of this nasty document. But also, Ireland has severe financial problems resulting from over-extended banks and the credit crunch and now needs EU money to help with the recovery. In these circumstances, it was always likely that they would vote "yes" second time around - and they have squeezed some concessions out of Brussels.

How can anyone take seriously this corrupt monstrosity that is the EU? It creates jobs for Belgians but for years and years it has been unable to get any accountants to sign off its annual accounts because they are mired in corrupt payments and practices. And they get away with it - year after year. No company operating anywhere in the EU would be allowed to carry on trading year after year without submitting properly audited accounts - but the EU does. And no-one bothers.

Another aspect of the Lisbon treaty, which is at best is merely distasteful, is the suggest going the rounds that Tony Blair is likely to be appointed to be the first president. Apart from the fact that I do not believe that this slimy politician should be allowed ever again to impose his self-righteous hypocrisy on us, he will be appointed without a single person outside the Brussels cabal being allowed to offer an opinion or a vote. The new president will have a comfortable lifestyle - very important to Blair - with a salary of £270,000 per year and an expenses allowance of nearly £60,000 per year. When he leaves the job, he will get a golden good-bye of £500,000 and a pension of £57,000 per year - which added to his ex-PM's pension of £70,000 per year [inflation proof] - plus financing of his private office as an ex-PM. These and his other incomes should allow him and dear wife Cheri to continue to live in the luxury to which they have become accustomed. The only potential spanner in the works is that the EU may insist that he gives up his other money-making activities and that may be too much for this now exceedingly rich man.

Makes you think what a useful beast the European Union has become and why so many politicians think it is a wonderful thing. Peter Mandelson as an ex-EU commissioner was entitled to substantial pay-offs when he became Gordon Brown's Lord High Everything Else, - including a transitional allowance of £78,000 per year for 3 years and a pension of £31,000 per year. Without the EU how else could we guarantee the financial comfort of sacked, retired and temporarily unemployed MPs?

Why does no-one protest?

/

Our Bonuses Are Constrained

Well, it's good to know that Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has persuaded the big banks to sign up to a voluntary code of conduct on the matter of bonuses for bankers - in line with agreements reached at last week-end's G20 meeting. Will it make much difference to the obscene amounts of money paid to executives and investment bank traders? Of course not. Already, the signs are that investment banks are going to make huge profits this year - just 12 months after they were bailed out by the tax-payers of the western world - and these huge profits will translate into huge payments to staff. Politicians of all governments and all persuasions have promised to take action against the banks but it seems that they lack either the will or the ability to actually do it. In the general public, many people complain about excessive bonus payments but, unlike me, few seem to be absolutely livid. Is it just that people do not understand how monstrously OTT payments to staff are? As I have said many times, it is not just a handful of workers in investment banks being over-paid, it is the whole damned lot of them. Lord Turner of the FSA has said that most of what they do is socially useless and yet they take home sums of money way beyond the wildest dreams of avarice of any ordinary person.

I will repeat the facts about Lehman Bros. At the time of their demise in September of 2008, they had 24,000 employees world-wide and in 2007 - their last full year of trading - they were paid, ON AVERAGE, $320,000 per annum - not including bonuses. These bonuses added, ON AVERAGE, another $200,000 to their annual incomes. These figures are typical of investment banking and it is totally and utterly wrong that they be paid so much. It is claimed that the have special expertise that justifies such payments - yet, these were the very people who brought the whole international financial systems crashing down. It may be that they were just totally incompetent. But, more likely, it may be that they lost the plot completely because all that they were concerned with was their own enrichment. I think that this is the case and unless they are totally constrained from doing the same thing again, they will do it again. What they have been doing over many years, is robbing ordinary people of their money and their jobs in order to maximize their own remuneration. It is wrong and it has to be stopped. One fundamental action that could be taken would be to split high street clearing banks from investment banks. Then if the investment banks fail, let them go to the wall; do not use state funds to bail them out. This will be resisted by the banks but the two activities must be separated. We cannot have investment banks operating on the basis of heads, they win; tails, we lose.

Mr Darling's agreement will make no difference to pay rates as all forms of remuneration are redefined to avoid the constraints of the government, the FSA and the Bank of England.

For many years now the City [London] has been allowed to do what it likes while various governments have presided over the steady destruction of our wealth creating industries to the point that we are now a third world state - a contracting economy. Let the hedge funds go to Switzerland or the Cayman Isles; let the investment bankers go to New York. Let us rebuild our country to make things that the world needs rather than have an economy that relies on massive debt and the crumbs that fall from the tables of the super-rich bankers and their impenetrable speculations.

/

Doug Kelly for the LHWs

I have not said anything much about bodybuilding for some time. Although we, in The Forest Gym, have had a reduction in members willing to compete - credit crunch and all that - we have had an increase in actual members. At the same time, our manager has been getting many visitors asking for his help in contest preparation and we have seen some impressive physiques visiting us throughout the year. None has impressed me more than Doug Kelly and I predict a definite top three finish in the Light Heavyweight Class at the British Finals next month.

I remember Doug Kelly from the first time I saw him at the Leamington Qualifier in 2004. This was the first time that I had seen Troy Brown as well. Both were entered in the U80 kg Class. Only a few weeks before, Troy had signed up with Big H to get help in his contest preparations. At that stage, there was not much that could be done other than to get into best condition for the show. Troy hardened up and came in 3rd. The winner was Michell Gosling and 2nd spot went to Doug Kelly. I said then that Troy should build some more mass and go into the U90 kg Class. In fact, he built a lot more mass - no longer inhibited by his attempts to stay below 80Kg. He became a HW and at 103 Kgs became overall British Champion in 2006.

Now Doug Kelly is going down the same road. At the moment he is a superb looking U90 Kg competitor and we will have to watch how he develops. I would not be surprised if he won his class in Nottigham and challenged for the overall spot. I hope to post a picture or two of him in his present condition - spot on - but we will wait until he has done the job at the finals.

/

How Many Cubits In A Metre?

The answer to the above question is 2.187226597 and not a lot of people know that!

I don't know if I have mentioned it before but I am becoming increasingly annoyed by the slow, back-door metrication of Britain. The BBC and the politically correct newspapers are the chief culprits. Is it it a bit of under-hand government policy to soften us up for our accepting the Lisbon Treaty that we will not be allowed to vote on? They talk of km/h, not mph - which everyone uses. Fuel consumptions are given in km/litre - normal people use mpg - roughly speaking you can divide mpg by 3 and get km/litre with only a small error - again, not a lot of people know that.

Last night Charlie Boorman started another of his odd journeys, leaving Sidney to go to Tokyo - by any means. Again we were given distances in km as he travelled up the east coast of Australia. I know Australia has gone metric years ago - I think they did this just to spite Britain and get rid of the Imperial system - but, again, I found myself doing the mental conversion to miles.

On Time Team - not the BBC, I know - they also give us sizes and distances using metric units. Why? No one used metres on a single one of the sites they investigate. One loony on one TV channel doing a cricket commentary told us that a cricket pitch was 20 metres long. Of course it has always been 20 metres - or 22 yards - to be exact. We all know that 22 yards = 1 chain and 10 chains = 1 furlong and 8 furlongs = 1 mile. What can be simpler than that?

We could note also that 2 spans = 1 cubit and 2 cubits = 1 yard. There is no end of practical units that have stood the test of time. The cubit had its origins in Egypt 4500 years ago.

Newspapers like The Guardian and The Observer go metric - also to demonstrate their political correctness, to spite Britain and show their support for every nation on earth - except Britain. In my days working for a well-known international company in Crawley, we - the engineers and scientists employed in Crawley - noted how hard it was to get the senior management to take on any of our ideas but, "Come through the front door with a few sketches on the back of a fag packet and a foreign accent and we would buy it at once." It's the same with measurement. The old Imperial system was developed out of common sense measuring. The metric system was developed out of French bureaucratic thinking - and we all know where that can lead.

Which brings us back to the Lisbon Treaty.

/

Question Time

Yesterday Question Time returned to BBC One TV after its summer rest. This autumn this programme is celebrating 30 years continuous broadcasting [excluding the annual holidays, etc]. It still has a long way to go before it approaches Any Questions, the similar programme on radio hosted by another of the Dimblebies [or is it Dimblebys] and which started in 1947 with Freddie Grisewood as the chairman. I used to enjoy watching Question Time but in recent years the programme has often been a bore because of the declining quality of the participants. It is not that high level politicians are missing; it is that too many of them are not much good. Last night was dragged to the lowest levels by the presence of Harriet Harman who is, I believe, deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Moulded by Blair, she sounds like the sort of person from whom you would not buy a second-hand car. She oozes insincerity, self-righteous arrogance, hypocrisy and vacuous party-political waffle - all at the same time. After 5 minutes listening to her I have to give up. Digby Jones was on the panel as well as Frazer Nelson [Ed of Spectator], David Laws [Lib-Dem MP] and Michael Heseltine. Michael Heseltine, at 76 much the oldest panel member was much the most impressive, since he could make valid points that rose above a lot of political point scoring - in his day, he was an excellent speaker. Indeed, it was easy to score political points here because that was all that the discussion amounted to. And this is what is wrong so much of the time. Harriet Harman was committed to defending the indefensible [her government] but Michael Heseltine was the only other participant with serious ministerial experience. I will discount the short period when Digby Jones was a trade minister.

All too often in recent years, the only time there is decent discussion on this programme is when the panel includes a number old stagers - like Tony Benn, David Steel, Chris Patten, Kenneth Clark, Michael Howard and a few others. They can speak clearly and with some authority. Another good performer has been Nicholas Soames. He rarely tries to make cheap political points and has been willing to accept the merits of an idea even when it was put forward by an opposition party. I feel that, to some extent, he can adopt such a free approach because he has a pretty rock solid political pedigree. He is the grand-son of Winston Churchill and the son of Christopher Soames who was a very creditable minister during the 1960s.

There was much discussion yesterday about Gordon Brown being snubbed by President Obama because they did not have a specific one-to-one meeting. So what? The Americans want to show their fundamental objection to the ridiculous release of the Lockerbie bomber. It may be that he was not guilty of the terrorist offence but, if so, this should have been proved in an open court - or was it not "convenient" to hear the evidence in open court? In any case, surely, Gordon Brown has a relationship with President Obama that allows them to talk on the phone whenever they want to and they meet whenever they need to. He has had several short chats with Obama in new York and they even managed, bizarrely, to slide off for a quick chat in the UN kitchens. That sounds more like a "special relationship" - if such exists - than any formal meeting would ever suggest. There is a very considerable advantage in having a common language.

Watching Brown on TV at these major international get-togethers he seems much more the professional statesman than he ever does at home. He is not a bad speaker and he does create an impression of consummate professionalism. So what goes wrong at home? I don't know. This government is awful but how much is Brown's fault and how much is the dead wood in the parliamentary party plus the debris of New Labour left by the sickly and ultimately demented Blair?

Footnotes and Parenthesis

As many of you will know, I have been working for some time on the history of my family. It is my hope, eventually, to glue everything together into a book. During my research I have read many books on English and Irish social history and in doing so I have developed a particular aversion to footnotes* and brackets [of all kinds].

Footnotes* are particularly annoying. I don't mind paragraphs being marked with a superscript number which refers to a list of references at the back of the book which serve to confirm the sources of the information. I do not like long rambling footnotes on each page. If something needs to be said in a rambling footnote, it should be written into the main text. If it can be omitted, then omit it.

I have just been reading a book on mid-Victorian Britain that was rendered unintelligible by strings of brackets - or parenthesis to be accurate. The book explained about many social costs for Britain [including Ireland] and parts of Europe [at least those bits that could directly affect Britain] for a period from 1851 to 1875 [although with some references to earlier and later periods] and the changing attitudes of society [mainly the upper and middle classes] to the working classes [and those parts of other classes that sometimes over-reached into the working classes]. As you can see [at least most of you can see] the net result [in most circumstances] is gibberish, although I rather get the impression [and it is no more than that] that the writer is incapable of sorting out his thoughts [except on the matter of the over use of brackets] and he gives little consideration to the poor reader [or the rich reader for that matter] who [when he may well be over-tired] has to make sense of the stuff. There is many a writer who could gain from reading Fowler's "Modern English Usage" and Sir Ernest Gowers more entertaining "The Complete Plain Words". Sir Ernest is quite clear with his advice. Parenthesis should be used sparingly. He is quite scathing in his criticism. "They enable the writer to dodge the trouble of arranging his thoughts properly." Sometimes the phrases can become so convoluted that all meaning is lost

There is much to be said for short sentences with clear meanings. And I will try to keep this principle permanently in my mind.

* Do not ignore this footnote.

/

The Problems of Maradona

I have been a bit under the weather this week so I have not been keeping up-to-date with what's going on. I almost missed out on reports of the difficulties being faced by Diego Maradona who still has problems with the tax authorities in Italy. Perhaps Mr. Berlusconi could help him out? Maradona's problems relate to his time playing for Napoli between 1984 and 1991 and it is alleged that he still owes €37m of tax. In order to help him pay this small bill, the police have confiscated a pair of his ear-rings - valued at a about €4,000. On my reckoning, he needs to find another 9,250 pairs of ear-rings to be able to pay off the bill. Has he got so many? Who knows? Footballers do some odd things and I suppose that buying 9,000 or 10,000 pairs of ear-rings is not impossible.

But why does Maradona keep going to Italy. A few years ago, on a visit to the country, police took two Rolex watches - each worth €12,000. Common sense would suggest that it's a good idea to leave the jewellery at home whenever he visits. Apparently, he goes to Italy for treatment for his weight problems, drug use and stress. As coach of the Argentinian national team he is suffering a great deal of stress after a few less than brilliant results.

Can't he get treatment in some other country?

/

What Is a Pension Worth?

There are signs that the government is coming round to acknowledging that after the next election [certainly not before] they will have to cut spending in order to try to balance the books. The Observer told us yesterday that one of the areas that will be looked at will be the cutting of handouts to rich pensioners. I am sure that I will be defined as a rich pensioner and, therefor, I will be able to look forward to a drastic cut in my very generous winter fuel allowance of £250 per year. Never mind, I will still have my even more generous state pension entitlement of £95.00 per week to help me get by. I am glad in a way that we have a state pension that is practically the worst in Europe because, if I had a decent pension, I would only waste the extra money on little luxuries. I say "practically the worst in Europe" because although Latvia [or is it Lithuania] and Malta provide lower pensions, the lower costs of living in those countries will get you more for your money.
As I was typing this, I have just realised that a banker who earns £1m per year and works 60 hours per week will "earn" £95.00 in 17 minutes; Frank Lampard at Chelsea F.C. will "earn" the same amount in less than 2½ minutes - assuming that he also slaves away for 60 hours per week. The picture above shows Frank celebrating the latest £95 contribution to his living wage.
If the government wants to cut spending they need a list of priorities and top of the list is the need to stop pointless legislation. This New Labour government has been suffering legislative diarrhoea for most of the last 12 years and many of the new regulations and laws are totally pointless. Socially and economically useless, they do nothing but funnel cash - our cash - down into the drains.
The next step will be to get rid of armies of advisers and quangos. We have in excess of 500,000 civil servants; why do we need to have quangos and consultants to advise them on everything from education to defence to law and order and etc, etc. There are even quangos that advise each other in self-perpetuating circles of paper pushing that require minimal input from anybody. One reason, of course, for all these quangos and consultants is to get rid of responsibility. Governments take credit for good weather but blame someone else for typhoons and hurricanes.
David "Call me Dave" Cameron has his own ideas, as well, starting with cutting the pay of ministers and MPs. Well, it's a gesture. Probably pointless and counter-productive but it will give him good headlines for a day or two.
Alex Salmond wants independence for Scotland. Who can blame him?
/

Vetting

How many times can I say that the government of this country is absolutely useless and that the Blair/Brown incarnation is the worst in my lifetime? It is not just that they have been useless and incompetent but that they have been [and still are] expensively useless and incompetent. Not satisfied with the 3,500 new laws [it may have increased by now - that figure is a few months old] that they have introduced, they press on undeterred with yet more legislative rubbish. Now they want every adult, who gives the neighbour's kids a lift to a Saturday morning football game or daily to their school, to be vetted to confirm that they are not potential child abusers. Fail to register and transgressors could be subjected to a fine of £5,000. Presumably this fine will only be possible if we have government spies checking up on vetting evaders. This ludicrous idea will already have cost money via meetings in Whitehall, minutes of meetings, memos and draft documents and, if it goes ahead, it will cost millions to administer. The majority who are faced with this rubbish will just say "No" and many activities will disappear. Who will want to work with children in any capacity if we start from the assumption that we are a nation of child abusers. Already, I keep well away from children. I am a single man approaching 70 who in the minds of the idiots responsible for this current initiative will believe that I am but a dirty mac away from child abuse. So if anyone's child falls over in the street he or she will stay there untouched by my helping hand. Yesterday, we had an Open Day in our recreation centre in Tilgate Forest - on the south side of Crawley. Many organisations in the centre encourage young children to take part in martial arts, dancing, theatre etc. The picture above shows one group photographed with Crawley's Deputy Mayor last year. With the new proposals the numbers of people that will have to be registered and vetted to get children to and from these clubs and then to supervise and train them while they are there is quite incredible and many will just politely decline; much to the detriment of our society. Unlike overpaid bankers these people are all doing something socially very useful indeed.
Why does the government embark on these projects? They have enough really serious matters to exercise the mind without divesions of this kind
/

Big Legs Are Good For You

There is more to say on the subject of legs. A Professor Berit Heitmann of Copenhagen University has uncovered the information that men with big legs have less heart disease than men with thin legs. What made him embark on this particular bizarre piece of research I have no idea. Who were the men whose legs were measured? Were they all hospital patients or where they all athletes or ... what were they? He does not seem to differentiate between men with fat legs against men with muscular legs. Is he saying that muscular legs are no better than fat legs in warding off heart disease? I think we should be told.
This research should show that Bodybuilders have negligible chance of suffering heart disease because they have very big legs and mostly made up of muscle. I have no evidence that Bodybuilders suffer heart disease any more or any less than other people. It may be that other factors become important but as long as Bodybuilders are going to the gym and keeping fit they will be OK. Eric's mum thinks big muscular legs look good and if, at the same time, the owners are less likely to be sick, it must be a good thing.

Now, is there anything else that we need to know?
/

Lycra Over Your Sloggis

Our England Football Team seems, at last, to be discovering how to play football. Yesterday, they defeated Croatia 5 - 1, giving them a 100% track record in all their 8 qualifiers so fare for the World Cup. They can lose their last two matches and still end up at the top of the table. This is an extraordinary achievement; all too often we are struggling at the end.
It may be that their improved performance is down to keeping warm. More and more of our footballers are wearing Lycra bike shorts under their home and away football shorts and I assume that under these they will be wearing their Sloggi pants as well. The style of these pants is quite comprehensive - there is not much risk of anything slipping out - so what is it about all these layers of pants? Are they afraid of being interfered with? Or are they just, as I thought, feeling the cold. Perhaps they spend too much time standing about. It often seem like that when they are playing the more excitable teams from South America.
Football shorts have, for starters, gone back to the all enclosing Sanders of the River designs of the 1950s and yet they need all this stuff underneath. Back in the eighties, players wore much briefer stuff - see Gary Lineker [above] - and I don't remember them wearing double underpants. Of course there was no Lycra then. In these days when footballers have such glamorous images I would have expected them to have wanted to show off their legs. Or perhaps it is the higher profile now given to rugby, where the players have rather better legs to show off and the footballers may be feeling the pressure.
/

Fishing For A Living

Last night I watched on TV the first edition of a new series about the trawlermen fishing around the seas off the northern coasts of Scotland. It was very clear just how hard life is aboard these trawlers; and a dangerous one. The Health & Safety Executive does not go out to seas with these men; they will only be involved after the event. I think that I was surprised at how small the trawlers actually are. I suppose if someone had asked me I would have said that a trawler was about 1,000 tons. It is much less. These boats were more like 250 tons and they took a battering from the seas. Weather forecasts could give an idea of what to expect from day to day but they would not tell the trawlermen the whole stories. Huge waves, 30 or 40 feet high could come from nowhere adding to a heavy swell and could swamp a boat in seconds. Men and machinery took a heavy pounding day after day and getting a satisfactory catch was a perpetual struggle. A good catch of the right fish and the men were well paid. A poor catch and they struggled at subsistence levels. Our seas have been over-fished and prices are squeezed but these men carry on doing their jobs and passing on their commitments from father to son over many generations.

Also, yesterday, we heard that some bankers in the city of London were about to go to court to sue Deutsche Bank for unpaid guaranteed bonuses. These hard done by men were demanding payments of the order of £1m for their efforts last year, a year when their company lost several billions of pounds - as a result of the expertise of their management and staff. I wonder how many, sitting down in some over-priced restaurant owned by an over-paid TV chef , will wonder how much was earned by the trawlermen who supplied them with the raw materials for their luxury lunch? And would they be prepared to consider that in comparison, perhaps investment bankers are rather ludicrously over-paid?

It's a funny old world.

/

War With Germany

In recent days there has been an orgy of remembering WWII. I know that it is 70 years since Neville Chamberlain, at 11.15am on 3rd September 1939, made what must be the most famous broadcast ever made by any politician in the UK - and I include Winston Churchill. Of course, in those pictures from Downing Street Chamberlain suddenly looked a very old man - even though he was only 5 years older than Churchill - as he was forced to announce to the nation that all that he had striven for as Prime Minister was in ruins and that England was now at war with Germany. Perhaps so much fuss has been generated this year because there are still many people alive who were deeply involved in the war. This will not be the case in ten years time on the 80th anniversary.

I think, also, that we want to celebrate the war because we believe that we did something worthwhile that affected the whole of mankind. We fought on, even though the struggle seemed hopeless, because we thought that resisting tyranny mattered. It is probably true that we would never have won the war without the massive contributions of Russia and the USA, but, nevertheless, at that time we had a unity of purpose that brought together everyone in the land with few exceptions. All our efforts were directed towards the obvious objectives: first, survival: then second, defeat of the enemy. Winston Churchill may have made many mistakes but he inspired the nation even when things were going badly. He had commitment and fundamental objectives which never varied until the war was won. And he believed in democracy and the primacy of the House of Commons in a way that few have since. Compare him with the little men who demand to lead our country today. They have the leadership qualities of a suet pudding - leaden, full of saturated fats and bad for our health.

/