VW Technology – so clever it takes your breath away!

    Only two of us driving VW diesels and waiting to hear about the class action that seems inevitable if the technology breaches UK emission targets. Now the fun starts as the company begin an internal ‘hunt the scapegoats’. We can imagine emails and hard discs being deleted and destroyed at every level in the company, in the hope that no trail exists. But it always does. No fraud of this magnitude could have been signed off at middle management level. It must have reached almost to the top, but not right to the top. Someone at the top will have winked and turned a blind eye while ensuring nothing exists to tie them to it. The first book and film about the event should appear in less than a year. Let’s hope VW have a few euros left after US lawyers finish shaking their dollar tree. If BP is any guide, telephone numbers won’t come into the equation. Obama is still seeking a legacy and VW could be the easiest touch down of his presidency. He could be remembered as the green president!

    Another expert has been telling us how to live our lives this week, leaving us wondering how we made it to our advanced ages. Dr Paul Kelley of Oxford University circadian rhythms said our ‘best times’ to take on activities vary with age. No argument so far. Then he presented his timetable. For our group he suggests a 6a.m wake up, 6.30 breakfast, 7.30 exercise. That got blank looks from the entire group - average wake up time 8a.m, cup of tea in bed while reading the paper, rise when finished reading. We skipped the rest of the day until Dr Kelley got to 8pm for our age group – his suggestion, have sex. That caused a bit of consternation. We think we’re pretty free spirits but none of us have ever paused for sex between the main course and sweet while having dinner with friends, even less so in a restaurant.  It could produce some great pictures for Instagram though. Have these academics ever met any real people?   

     We heard another moan from a senior policeman this week.  He suggested that budget cuts were seriously impacting on their ability to keep men on the streets. He made it sound like a new issue. If you live in the country you’re more likely to see a wallaby than a policeman and that isn’t a new event. Perchance, I act as coordinator for Neighbourhood Watch in the area where we live. Interestingly, I can’t remember the last communication of any type that I received from the police. Still, we did get stickers for our members to put in their window! I’m expecting the Chilcot report to come out before we hear anything from the police.  On reflection, it could be a close run thing.     

    Nicola Sturgeon seems to have had a change of mind. After the tragedy of the baby on the beach she joined thousands of others in offering to house an immigrant family. A spokesperson now says there are ‘no plans’ for that to happen. Still, a week is a long time in politics and she’s left the change of heart to a spokesperson. Deniability rules. Always use third parties to deliver bad news so that you remain one step removed.

    Everyone sees what you appear to be. Few experience what you really are.

                                                                                                    Machiavelli

Never mind, I’m sure we can rely on Yvette Cooper to keep her word as the first refugees arrive in the UK. Husband Ed will probably give them piano lessons!

    Great pictures from Brazil of a soccer referee who’d finally got sick of being abused by players. A policeman in his day job, he returned to the dressing room and came back to the pitch with his personal weapon. What a great way to regain control. The English Premier League is generally regarded as the best in the world but we are constantly treated to the spectacle of players diving, referees surrounded by arm waving players, and so called professionals waving imaginary cards to get opponents booked. Following the Brazil example, we could replace the referee’s yellow and red cards with a pepper spray and a taser. A short burst with the pepper would be a yellow card offence, the taser replacing the red cards. The next time we saw a player hit the deck as though there was a sniper in the crowd we would know he’d had a red card!

    Our highlight this week has to be the story of Gayle Newland. She ‘disguised’ herself as a man and tricked another woman into sleeping with her. Her disguise appears to have been a woolly hat, into which she tucked her long hair, and a prosthetic penis. We feel sorry for her victim who will spend the rest of her life seeking a man with a pink and shiny permanent erection. Not even intravenous Viagra would produce the longevity of plastic. With this relationship at an end we assume Gayle is on the pull again. She must be the only woman in the world that has had to work out, as all men do, which side to ‘dress’ when she wears trousers.

    We love surveys. A recent one by Yakult identified – we use the word lightly – the top ways to prove you are sophisticated. We didn’t get a look in until 6 – know how to choose wine. We thought that was for novices and added how to open and drink it at a sitting – none of this nonsense about units or leave a glass for tomorrow. Reading daily newspapers came at 11 and we all scored on that one though our interest in the obituary columns didn’t get a mention. Once you reach a certain age outliving contemporaries becomes competitive! According to the poll, the most sophisticated age is 38. Assuming downhill all the way from there may account for the dress sense of some of our contemporaries. Note the use of ‘our’ though some of the comments from our grandchildren about what we’re wearing might mean ‘we’ rather than ‘our’. Alternatively, 38 may be the age where you believe these polls since being naive didn't appear on the list.

    Jeremy Corbyn promised a new age of politics and last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions certainly proved to be different. Hearing ‘Call Me Dave’ answering questions from Kevin in Wolverhampton and Nigel in Leeds was amusing if less than taxing for the PM. Taking the process forward offers some interesting possibilities. JC selected his questions from the 40,000 emails he told us he’d received. Clearly he selected the half dozen he asked before the Wednesday deadline. If he had emailed his selected questions to Cameron on Tuesday, to be published on Dave’s web site, answers from the public would also have been available. Nigel in Leeds could have received an answer from Felicity in Clapham.  Both leaders would now be sharing the public’s views. That really would be a first for politics. 

    The flood of ‘refugees’ – the word is questionable based on the multitude of countries from which they come – has put the European Union under the spotlight. In most respects it has challenged the word Union to a degree never before faced. Apart from the committed federalists like Jean-Claude Juncker, most leaders are showing their real colours. The EU is a disparate group of European countries that see membership of a large club as having benefits for their own people. Faced by a serious challenge the club implodes, borders suddenly becoming borders again, Schengen just an inconvenient word. Maybe the immigration crisis will cause leaders to take another look at what the EU has become, rather than using weasel words and majority votes to try to paper over cracks. And what about the refugees reaction to being offered homes in countries they don't wish to settle in? Will they accept the will of the EU? What do you think?

    Linkedin is a site I generally have a look at when a so-called executive puts both feet in mouth. Kate Davies, Chief Executive of Notting Hill Housing is a recent example. Her recent comment about ‘a dead baby on the beach in Turkey and the immediate change in attitude to refugees’ was a cracker. She was suggesting that it would take something similar to change Nimbyism and prejudice against state subsidised tenants. Linkedin shows an interesting skill set for Miss Davies, including, interested in people, community development and stakeholder engagement. It should add motherhood and childcare to complete the picture. It can't be long before she becomes a government spokesperson on children care.

    We used to think locking up your daughters was the only requirement when Silvio Berlusconi came to town. Now it seems you need to lock the wine cellar as well, particularly if his mate Vladimir Putin is with him. The pair uncorked and tasted a £60,000 bottle of 1775 Jeres de la Frontera on a visit to annexed Crimea. If they didn’t finish the bottle, we wouldn’t mind a taste.

   

    We’ve got a bit out of touch with the media for two weeks but it’s good to see nothing much changes.

    The first picture to catch our attention when we got a newspaper was José Mourinho at an awards ceremony. It’s nice that his daughter likes to ‘hang out’ with him, but both at once seems to be pushing it. He clearly has more control over Chelsea footballers than over his family. José gained two benefits though. His daughter will never be able to criticize his dancing at parties and John Terry was at another gig.

    The response to the refugee crisis was predictable as always when emotion replaces common sense. The rush of people offering homes, Nicola Sturgeon and Yvette Cooper to name just two, should ease the problem for local authorities. We hope a list of all those who offered was recorded and will be used for the first arrivals. We’ll look forward to the first reality TV series ‘Living With Refugees’. The programme should be repeated every six months for the first two years to show how easily the families have integrated. It will be a crying shame if those who offered don’t get the opportunity to put their money where their mouth has been.

    Then reality bit and Mama Merkel found she’d bitten off more than she can chew. It can be no surprise that her ‘all welcome’ speech would be taken literally, all routes leading to Germany. Now she has been forced to close her borders as the implications of her welcome have come to pass. As a major supporter of the Schengen agreement, she has become the first to set it aside, others quickly following. She will shortly be reiterating that Schengen is one of the key building blocks of the EU. Still, she’s a politician, so needs must and weasel words suffice after the event. As she introduces controls to monitor passports to check refugee versus economic immigrant status we wonder what might happen if she refuses entry to some of those massing at her border. Will Austria accept them? And as borders close, what happens to those in transit? It’s impossible not to feel for those who are attempting to escape war and/or poverty but the solution cannot be open access. Safe havens are required in the refugee’s home country or close by so the displaced can return home at some stage. Cameron seems to have it right this time. 

    Is it any wonder that the average person has little respect for council planners. Oldham council has just refused planning permission for a Wendy House in the front garden of a small house with no rear garden. A nice safe place for two small children to play clearly doesn’t enter their consideration. They simply state that the Wendy House breaks the rules. We can’t help comparing it to a water meadow near where we live. Water meadow may give a hint as to the purpose of the meadow. Still, what’s a bit of flooding between friends? A 'traveller' set up a mobile home there a couple of years ago and posted his planning application on a Friday night – thoughtful timing. Both the application and appeal have been turned down but surprise, surprise, a mobile home is still in place, used intermittently by two men who work for the traveller.  Regular calls to the planning department receive the same response. We have to follow the rules and it takes time.  What they really mean is that a law-abiding member of the public is an easy target on which they can flex their muscle. Regular culprits who play the rules get placed in the ‘too hard’ box while officials tip toe around the situation.  

     So the bookmakers were right. Some even paid out before the result was announced and JC swept to power as the Labour leader. To listen to his acolytes it already sounds like the second coming. Jeremy Clarkson is in a poor third place now. Corbyn tells us that his shadow cabinet is ‘a group of all the talents’ and we can’t dispute the comment having never heard of a large portion of them. We now wait with bated breath for his policy statements, already uncertain as his shadow team take to the airwaves. And Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday is sure to have its biggest audience ever as JC promises to pose questions received from £3 members. Who says politics is boring? It could easily gain a bigger audience than the rugby world cup.