An early blog this week since two of us are off on a cruise, but there should be plenty of material on our return. Experience tells us we shall meet a lot of pensioners on the ship, and unlike us, they have lots of moans! However, like General Douglas MacArthur, we shall return.

    Statins are in the news again this week.  About 7 million folk in the UK are currently receiving them but the NHS would like to up the numbers.  As normal, the medical experts are at odds about benefits versus side effects, leaving us, the potential recipients, sitting uncomfortably on the fence worrying we'll get piles.  We’re fifty-fifty in our group, with three on, three off, none of the user group feeling any different.  Sam had his first statin changed because of side effects but is OK on the new one.  If offered the statins, the three non-users are 2 to 1 against at present. Rightly or wrongly, we like to feel a benefit from anything we take.  Adrian has just been offered and signed up for an MOT from his GP.  We await the results with interest, free medical advice noisily available from the lads anyway, generally involving another pint.  Paddy had something similar and hasn’t stopped complaining about the size of the tube for the ‘pooh’ test.  The way he talks, he needed a Tupperware container!

    Boris Johnson has bought three second hand water cannons from the German police and we can’t wait to see them in action.  It will be the first time some of the protesters and water have been in contact for many a day.  It might be an idea to add shower gel to the water tanks to improve air quality in the vicinity of the protesters. Boris could use the idea to reinforce his green credentials.

    As Iraq implodes George W and Tony Blair should hang their heads in shame. Instead, Blair has hit any media that will give him air time or space to try to justify his position.  Whatever he achieved as Prime Minister, he’ll only be remembered for one thing, Iraq. Saddam Hussain was a monster, but what eventually replaces him could be infinitely worse.  Trying to introduce our form of democracy to Iraq was always ill thought.  Sunni and Shia mix about as well as oil and water, providing a perfect growth medium for Islamic fundamentalists.  Sadly, both Bush and Blair couldn’t wait to puff out their chests when the shooting war was won; never in doubt with the resources they had available. When Bush said “mission accomplished” he couldn’t have been further from the truth.  There are no short-term solutions in the Middle East but our leaders continue to cheer lead the Arab Spring then wring their hands at the chaos that results. 

    Adrian raised an interesting letter exchange from The Telegraph about speed awareness courses.  One gentleman complained that he’d learned nothing from his course, a respondent disagreeing, saying he’d learned from all three he’d attended.  We weren’t sure what the respondent learned, but attending three times suggests he missed the basic point about speed limits.  Our group have form, four of us having completed the said course.  We all took something from the course but generally agreed it didn’t need a half day to complete; a couple of hours could comfortably cover the material.  Maybe the snail speed instruction is part of the lesson!     

    We’re not sure who advises Ed Miliband but he ought to take a hard look at them.  His stunt with Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper was an accident looking for a home, though none of his advisors seem to forecast the implications. After Hillsborough, Liverpool folk have no time for The Sun, but they do vote Labour; it runs head to toe through them like the word in a stick of rock.  How Miliband and his merry band missed that is astonishing.  And we thought the tits only appeared on Page 3!    

    Star of the week for Jez is Amy Spilsbury-Butler, a social worker who performs burlesque in her personal time.  She has been disciplined by her council employer for performing her ‘lewd’ act dressed as a pensioner called Old Molly; making fun of the vulnerable people she helps in her employer's opinion.  She has had to change her stage name to Alabama Breeze and her new internet video, the one Jez now dribbles about, shows her shaking her breasts and bottom at the audience.  Jez, living in hope, plans to contact social services to arrange for care visits.  He'll go blind if she turns up. 

    Our guru tip for the week:  Don’t just complain about poor service – tell them what you want as a result of their failure, turn the call into a negotiation!  We’re available as soon as we get the call from Oprah.   

    We got the predictable result in Newark, even though the Tory majority halved.  Unless Farage takes the next step, namely to produce a series of policies that ring bells with the electorate, UKIP will remain a protest party.  The danger UKIP face is trying to map out a manifesto that challenges the main parties in every aspect of their programmes.  If they try, they’ll lose.  Focus is the key, and not just on the seats they fight. Immigration and the European Union will remain issues but Farage needs another 3 or 4 key areas to fight on.  Pareto is the clue; 80% effort on the 20% of issues that the electorate see as important. We shall watch with interest since it might make a good case study.  The Lib Dems also got a predictable result in Newark, finishing sixth, just ahead of Nick The Flying Brick in seventh.  With a better turn out, Nick the Brick fancies he’ll beat Clegg’s lot in the general election!   Clegg and Cable tried to show togetherness during their pub announcement.  Words like ‘piss up’ and ‘brewery’ spring to mind.  They should fire their PR team before they come up with something really ludicrous.  On reflection, how can they top that?      

    We generally have a laugh when we meet but today produced hysterics.  Jez has bought a new Apple iPhone.  We’d have paid good money to hear the salesperson explaining the features to him.  Adrian said the Samsung Galaxy would have been better for Jez; not buying one at all would have been best in the majority view.  Jez bought the phone after seeing all the pictures that keep appearing in the papers of celebrities doing ‘selfies’.  Unfortunately the title hasn’t quite registered on him.  The pictures he showed us were reflections of himself in a mirror but he capped that by getting Pam to take a group photograph of the lads and called that a ‘selfie’.  Adrian thought Jez had rationalised ‘selfie’ to mean any photo that included him.  That soon got disproved.  Jez told us he was going home to take a ‘selfie’ of his Labrador, Zak.  Maybe the dog will explain it to him.

    Obama’s speech at the D Day celebrations was brilliant.  He may not have written it, but the delivery made the hairs stand up; a fitting tribute to the young Americans and Brits who stood to be counted at a moment in history that we hope will never be repeated.  On his feet in this media age, Obama stands out as a world figure.  Hopefully there will be no downside to the negotiations with The Taliban to get Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl released.  Two of our group spent their business lives doing commercial deals and know the implications of precedent.   Once in place, precedent can’t be discounted as a one off.  Putin struck a lonely figure in Normandy, isolated by other world leaders as a result of what is happening in Ukraine. It seemed unfortunate when we think of all the Russian soldiers who died to defeat Hitler.  They played a major part in the final victory and shouldn’t be forgotten.

    The row rumbles on about the television programme undertaken by Kent Police and Crime Commissioner, Ann Barnes.  The highlight for us was her use of an onion in her attempt to explain the setting of police priorities.  Sam said all he kept seeing was a turnip.  He didn’t need to explain. This lady is paid £85,000/annum plus expenses and appears to have no job description.  We would happily write one for her but she might need to buy some new Marigolds to fulfil it.  Cameron and Osborne had most people onside when they came to office; we needed to cut public spending.  If the need still exists, they should take action when an expensive role such as this is exposed to ridicule.

    The church and charities are up in arms about the block of flats in London that has introduced one inch studs to discourage rough sleepers from using the covered alcove near the main entrance.  As a dog walker, who carries a plastic bag to remove anything my Labrador leaves behind her, my sympathies are with the residents of the flats.  Instead of voicing anger, the church might consider opening their doors to rough sleepers.  Their shelters have limited space, but a warm dry church could sleeps hundreds. 

    The Mail On Sunday you magazine had a guide to lifestyle gurus on Sunday.  Ben raised it because all the gurus were women.  Apart from Oprah, who apparently gets about 71 million views a month, we didn’t recognise the names, but it raised a question.  Why are there no blokes?   We had to give it a go.  Jez suggested that stick on soles give years of extra life to shoes.  I could just imagine the celebrities following that advice; stick-ons for your Jimmy Choo’s madam?  As connoisseurs of curries we settled on our recommended actions after a Vindaloo.  Just before bed, drink a large glass of water and put a toilet roll in the fridge.  Follow that Oprah!       

    Tony Blair lifted his head above the parapet as the Chilcot Enquiry into the Iraq war hit the news again, “not down to me guv,” his position on the delay.  There’s a surprise.  After much argument, Adrian held sway, and we agreed we could understand the block on complete publication of the communications between George W and Blair.  The Americans are our allies, have been since 1944, and that’s sufficient reason.  But Chilcot et al have seen and heard every word.  A journalist said this puts the onus on them to ‘man up’, a modern term we don’t understand.  If their analysis of the communications tells them that Blair had already made the decision to go to war before the nonsense about WMD’s, they need to make that unequivocal. It’s time to go balls out, a term we do understand.  Failure to do so will result in Sir John being held in similar contempt to many of our politicians.  If the words ‘we need to learn lessons’, public sector code for I must protect my pension, appear anywhere in the report it will be time to abandon hope.  Get the truth published, we’ve waited long enough.

    On a more serious note, Charles Saatchi has decided to sell Tracey Emin’s iconic bed.  The sale will make it second hand, a brilliant irony.  Even when new it looked as though it had been through more hands, knees and bumps a daisy than most of us experience in a lifetime.  It could easily be sold abroad, which provides an opening for a contemporary new sculpture.  Numerous suggestions later we settled on a washing basket with several pairs of Jez’s used underpants as our sculpture.  The title took seconds to resolve – Skid Marks, unchallenged once voiced.  We’ll be disappointed if we don’t get shortlisted for The Turner Prize.  Full marks to Emin though; she pictured something when tumbling out of a slutty bed and made her name and hopefully, fortune. Not many would have seen the opportunity; our sort of girl.  In recent years, she’s been quoted as saying that she’s now regarded as an outsider in the arty world for voting Tory.  We had a look at a couple of her drawings on the web to gain a perspective.  We have no artistic credentials between us but none of us could answer Ben’s query of “what’s that supposed to be?”  A switch to UKIP might restore Tracey’s credibility.  She could design their literature and Nigel Farage seems like a bloke who pays his corner in the pub.

    Four of us, ex-regulars, have given up on BBC Question Time on television.  Adrian and Sam still watch, Adrian in hope, Sam to keep up his exercise regime which involves jumping off his chair to shout abuse.  Last week seems to have plumbed the depths according to their comments about two of the panellists; Joey Barton and Piers Morgan no less.  Maybe they should change the programme title to The Egos Have Landed, with apologies to Jack Higgins.  Adrian didn’t bother to check the Question Time viewing figures but we’d bet they’re going south.  Maybe it’s coincidence, but didn’t that happen with CNN?

    We’re old enough to think we’ve heard most things before but fraudster Juliette D’Souza takes the biscuit. She posed as a faith healer who could relieve life threatening illnesses, even help women to conceive.   She convinced victims that their money should be sacrificed by hanging it on a magical tree in the rainforest in South America.  Shamans would perform rituals around the money before it was sent back to the owner.  It came as no surprise that as the money took its extended journey, it got lost in transit.  Juliette missed her calling. She could have made a fortune in commission, working on the knocker to convince people she could save them money on their gas and electricity.  You don’t even get your collar felt for that scam.  Paddy thought we might be missing a trick.  He knows of a tree in a wood close to the pub where a girl lay down in the shade of its branches and became pregnant!   We decided we would have to seek younger help to make that business opportunity viable!

    Andrew Neil scored a bull’s eye on the Sunday Politics Show.  He was discussing the Newark by-election with Diane Abbott, the Labour politician.  Whatever points she tried to make were quickly put into perspective by her answer to Neil’s simple question “where is Newark?”  After an “um” plus an “er”, the show stopping “I know it’s outside the M25,” came as her considered answer.  Mind you, for £66,396 a year plus expenses it was no more than I expected of a politician. And they say us pensioners drain the public purse.  Out of touch metropolitan elite springs to mind but locals of Newark would simply refer her to the anagram of their fair town.