Peter Alliss is the latest commentator to fall foul of the ‘Sexist Gestapo’. His comment about Open winner Zach Johnson’s wife and her thoughts about a new kitchen caused a storm on social media.  Needless to say, the BBC stepped up to the plate with an instant apology. Wimps. If the complainants spent more time looking around them and less time in the cloud they might notice real causes for concern in the world. Not that they will. They prefer to spend their lives listening for anything that they can claim is sexist, hoping they can be first to hit the button and bask in the shower of plaudits from those with similar, narrow mind sets. Their attitudes will hold back the cause of equality forever.   

    We heard this week that Britain’s national debt has reached £1.6 trillion. Over a pint we tried to sort out how many zeros we needed to write it down.  That simply resulted in a shout for a bigger sheet of paper.  So, how did it get so big? Well that one is easy. The only people who are spending on our behalf are the Government. In fairness, several governments over more than several years have had to overspend to reach a number like £1.6 trillion. It seems a safe bet that none of those politicians feel any sort of responsibility for the debt. It’s an even safer bet that none of them that have moved on are destitute, scraping by on the basic pension. Accountability is a word they only apply to others. Those of us with grandchildren try to put a few pennies aside to leave to them when we pass. All successive governments do is lumber them with a bigger and bigger debt that one-day will come home to roost. When it does, guess which group in the population won’t bear any suffering. For some reason it reminds me of a great comment made by Desmond Tutu.

            ‘When the white missionaries came to Africa they had the bible and we had

            the land. They said “let us pray”. We closed our eyes. When we opened

them, we had the bible and they had the land.’

Our politicians could even teach those missionaries a thing or two!

    Russian tourist, Juris Dzjabovic, has decided to earn a few pounds during his sojourn in England.  Charging £206 to pedal four people (two were children) a one-mile journey along Oxford Street shows the extent to which he has adopted capitalist principles. There will be a lot of empty Pedicabs in Central London for the foreseeable future. Commons Speaker, John Bercow, is fuming about the charge. He believes it disgraceful that a foreign tourist can undercut the car service he uses for one-mile journeys.

    Scottish left wing comedienne, Rhona Cameron, has claimed that poverty stricken families are being forced to eat dog food in some parts of the country. That may be the case in Scotland since some brands of dog food taste significantly better than haggis. We assume the Scots use their traditional deep-frying to optimize the taste of the dog food.   

    President Hollande has made his position clear as David Cameron seeks to negotiate changes in the EU. Hollande has called for a for a Eurozone government. Presumably this government would need a president and it sounds like a perfect opportunity for Tony Blair.  He may be put off by the quality of the armed forces he’d have at his disposal. Having said that, there must still be opportunities around the globe for an illegal war against an opponent that has no chance of winning – AKA Iraq.  RIP Chilcot.

    Lord Sewel has finally fallen on his sword and resigned from the Lords. We can only assume he will have to take up another hobby due to the lost income. He quoted the Lords allowance to the ladies as £200/day rather than the £300 they actually get. We assume he planned to ask for a discount on the basis of hardship. Joking apart, there are so many Lords now in the house that the building can’t seat them. Leaving aside Lord Sewel, isn’t it time for a cull? Does anyone really believe that this group genuinely delivers value to us, their paymasters?  Cameron and Osborne keep mouthing ‘all in it together’ but no one believes it, and how can they when we see this level of spend from the public purse on a bunch of non-producers.

Politicians don’t equate economics with real life

    Saw a bit on the television the other day about grey squirrels being much smarter than our native reds. Exeter University set a series of spatial puzzles with food rewards if the squirrels solved them. The greys solved them very quickly but a comparable group of reds would have been difficult to find since they have been driven so far north by the greys.  Personally, I regard greys as vermin and my research would clash with that of the university. Greys were regular visitors to my bird feeders and were dispatched as quickly as it takes to pull a trigger. Then I question their intelligence, since they seem to send an immediate replacement to seek out their relative.  I don’t see many nowadays!

    Global warming has a lot to answer for.  The latest threat comes from Scotland after studies showed that global warming could give Fife an optimum climate for growing grapes in the next ten or twenty years.  Based on this, grower Christopher Trotter, set up a vineyard in Upper Largo, Fife, and has produced his first vintage. The tastings of Chateau Largo were notable for the difficulties that tasters had describing the wine. “Nutty’ was the one word that most tasters understood, with no-one quite sure if it applied to the wine.  Largo suggests slow, but tastings suggest that tossing back a glass to avoid the taste while appreciating the alcohol might be the best way to drink it. The local Scottish Nationalist Party delegate was very positive. He explained that it showed once again that Scotland could stand proud, compete with any country in Europe, even in their historic specialties.  He said that the wine proved a perfect accompaniment to the pie and beans he was eating. He only switched to lager with his sweet, a deep-fried Mars bar. French wine producers have complained about the use of the word chateau in the wine’s title. They suggested tenement or slum as an alternative.  Sour grapes from both parties perhaps.

    Two young women (by our standards) have had some flack for trying to organize a charity bash to raise money to send their mother to Dignitas in Switzerland. Mum has MND and her request to die a dignified death is easy to understand, as is her daughters attempt to raise the money.  Hopefully, the publicity the case generated will result in sufficient donations to meet mum’s wishes.  At some stage our politicians will have to face this thorny issue. 

    Special forces were used to free staff being held hostage at Primark in Paris.  No shots were fired as the gunmen holding the hostages had already taken their leave. The gunmen are being hunted by the RAID anti-terrorist unit and should easily be recognized in chic Paris by the clothes they are now wearing.

    Professor Marvin Berkowitz is an expert in character education at the university of Missouri-St Louis. He recently said that star pupils should not be awarded prizes in front of pupils in assembly. His view is that reward and recognition should be replaced by individual affirmation. To paraphrase the professor, ‘all I have to do is go up to my pupil, place a hand on her shoulder and tell her how well she performed in particular situation.’ He wouldn’t do well in the UK.  Placing a hand on a pupil only guarantees one thing, a discussion with the police in an interview room! We can almost hear the conversation at the station.

    “I was only giving individual affirmation, officer.”

    “I hear what you say sir.  We’ll continue the discussion when the Director of Public Prosecutions decides if you committed assault or abuse.”

    The Church of England has decided that fighting climate change is a holy duty. The General Synod voted en masse for a wholesale green agenda.  The Archbishop of Canterbury suggested the Synod use less paper and cut back on travel. We await the bonfire of the hymnbooks. They drew back from instructing churchgoers to skip a sandwich on the first of every month to save the planet. We were pleased about that. It’s tough enough already to find pub restaurants that open on Mondays. There will be no wafer during communion on Sunday’s the first, we assume! “Empty pews? What empty pews,” chorused the Synod?

       

    Poor old Greece. They just found out what membership of the Euro really means. As predicted, a deal has been cobbled together, even though Greece will never be able to make it work. Most other members of the Euro believe the deal unworkable if they’re honest, but political necessity has replaced pragmatism. And the cost to the Greeks is fundamental, nothing less than a loss of sovereignty.  From here on in they lose fiscal control.  How can that be acceptable to any independent nation? We see a lovely country, lovely people, shafted in the first instance by their own ruling politicians, and now by nineteen leaders of the Eurozone group, all to save face as they strive for a federal Europe.

    We all like a bit of culture and Florence is a beautiful city in which to soak it up. The city is noted for its culture, renaissance art, architecture and monuments.  An Australian couple decided to introduce 21^st Century culture by having sex in Lungarno Torrigiani gardens, a stone throw from the famous Ponte Vecchio.  Less offence would have been caused if they had performed in the Piazza della Signoria, close to the statue of David.  If the Aussie bloke had found spectators comparing his working parts to those of David, we can’t help thinking his ardour would have cooled very quickly. He’d have had an even worse dent to his ego if his girlfriend had spotted the statue and started laughing. Time and place springs to mind. The couple wouldn’t even have been noticed if they’d performed during the women’s semi-final at Wimbledon. Their screams of ecstasy would have been accepted as another passing shot! (Sorry)

    The ‘Running of the Bulls’ festival is taking place in Pamplona, Spain and to date the bulls are winning comfortably.  After the first run the bulls were in front 11-0 based on hospital referrals. Five Americans, Five Spaniards and one Brit required treatment.  To date we’ve been unable to ascertain if the treatment was in Accident & Emergency or the Psychiatric Department.  The good news came from the television company making a film of the runs.  A spokesman stated, “no animal was injured during the making of this film.” Puts the human nutcases in perspective.

    Retail analysts Mintel have completed a survey that suggests 67% of people rely on smell, taste and sight to judge whether a product is safe to eat.  This in spite of dates on packaged food.  This came as a shock to our crowd since we thought only pensioners ignored sell and use by dates.  Most of us didn’t have a fridge until we reached our twenties and rationing meant we thought long and hard about throwing away any sort of food. For most of us, that habit dies hard. We understand the element of risk but wastage is a major problem for the planet. Try it before you chuck it might not be a bad idea.

    A randy police couple in Manchester found a novel use for the disabled toilets while on duty and got away with a warning rather than the order of the boot.  Neither had a disability, but normal toilets are so space constricted that they cramp your style. (so we’ve been told)  Maybe they can get a transfer to the Essex force.  They’d be very popular for ‘selfies’.  

    The Afghan government recently held their first talks with the Taliban.  Historical precedent suggests it to be the way of the world; bombing your way to the peace table.  Today’s terrorist generally becomes a future member of the administration that they have spent years attempting to murder.  It raises the spectre of black clad IS representatives across a table from negotiators from the Western world. Crazy? Do the names Menachem Begin, Nelson Mandela, Gerry Adams, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Archbishop Makarios ring any bells? Maybe not so crazy!

    After attending a recent funeral we were talking about some of the amusing epitaphs that appear on headstones. The winner, hands down, came from the States.

            In joyous memory of George Jones who was president of Newport

            Rifle Club for twenty years. Always missed.

    We hope George had a great sense of humour.

    The BBC is in the news again on two fronts. Wimbledon 2day fronted by Clare Balding has received an absolute panning from tennis fans and have begun showing some tennis replays again. What a great idea! We assume the new format came from one (probably a group) of the overpaid, over titled managers that are shortly to be axed.  The cull has resulted from a budget cut but should have happened much earlier if the organization had any genuine management.  Lord Hall admits that there are some areas of the organization that have TEN (not a mistake) layers of management from top to bottom.  It’s almost unimaginable and the bureaucracy must be mind blowing. J.K.Galbraith had a view.

Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.

We can’t help thinking his comment sums up the BBC. The lack of budget is the reason for the cull when any manager worth his or her salt would have identified the need beforehand.  As is so often the case in public bodies that receive their income as of right, the management structure expands to ensure the budget is spent, nebulous titles and management roles an excuse for inflating salaries.  It seems like a good time to take a serious external look at the organization.  There must be more savings just waiting to be made.   

    Essex police are the winners of our LOL spot this week.  When they found the body of well-known gangster John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer at his Essex home they initially said his death was non-suspicious.  They needed more than the fact that he’d been shot in the chest to raise their suspicions. Presumably they have a new series of politically correct definitions for crimes.  Perhaps murder now fits under the heading, ‘clearly recognizable injuries that could not be self inflicted’. We’re waiting for a senior officer to raise his head above the parapet with the comment “lessons will be learned.”  In the meantime, beat officers on night duty are busy offering themselves for ‘selfies’ with partying youngsters.  Their Chief Constable says it helps to break down barriers with the public. Please use 111 rather than 999 if you’re calling about a ‘selfie’.  

    Everybody is voting ‘NO’.  The Greeks were partying in Syntagma Square after the resounding vote (60%) against austerity.  But the German’s topped it.  Top selling German tabloid, Bild, organized a poll of readers, the question whether or not Germany should continue to send billions in aid to the Greeks.  88% said no.  We’d call that deuce if they were at Wimbledon and the next couple of points will be interesting.  Tsipras to serve is the call with the Euro leaders to act as line judges. But there is only one Cyclops and she’s called Merkel!  New balls please.

    The repeat of Top Gear on Sunday night showed the lads in their pomp, great viewing even when you’ve seen it before, unlike the miserable attempt at a finale last week.  Without the audience and Clarkson, it isn’t the same.  Hammond and May are perfect foils but there’s only one JC.  Even the church will agree with that in principle. Chris Evans must be having a sleepless night or two knowing they will return. 

    The shock horror reaction from major charities at the actions of a call centre that seeks donations on their behalf is laughable.  GoGen is a business and raising cash for charity is how they make their money.  Can it be any surprise that management insist that their front line troops push for results.  The charity supplies the script from which the callers work, their way of saying all is above board.  What nonsense.  To find out how the call centres work, they need staff on site.  The only downside being that they would see the reality.  Charity is big business.  Just check the salaries of senior management in any of the majors if you have any doubt.    

    HSBC can’t seem to avoid controversy.  Six of their staff (ex-staff now) plumbed the depths by filming a mock beheading during a teambuilding exercise no less!  We wouldn’t have sacked them.  Their behavior would have been taken as the interview process for the new branch to be opened in Syria. 

    The women’s tennis sounds more than ever like ‘coitus continuous’ from a large animal reserve.  The ladies male partners must wear ear plugs in bed!