Come Clean!

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Thanks to another leaked document, the Sunday Times has revealed that as long ago as December of 2007 Jack Straw was writing to his counterpart in the Scottish Executive, Kenny MacAskill, about the possibility of releasing the convicted Pan Am bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

Ignoring the issue as to whether or not this terrorist’s release might have been linked to some sort of trade deal between Britain (or Scotland) and Libya, the Government needs to come clean on what it knew about the affair before his release.

And so does ‘Bronco’ Brown after the news that he discussed with the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, the conditions under which the terrorist might be released some weeks before the event took place.

Opposition parties are rightly calling for a public inquiry into the affair but, if past calls for other inquiries are anything to go by, they are unlikely to get one.

Meantime, the record of this current government is sullied even more.
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Six Of Them?

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A Mumbhai man has been arrested on charges of polygamy and forging a fake divorce certificate after it was alleged he married at least six women over the last two years. The man kept all his wives in the dark about the others but was arrested after his sixth wife got suspicious.

The gentleman may well have trouble with the Mumbhai police, but the old saw that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned comes to mind.

Good grief, has this man got problems!
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Pull Them Out!

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I don’t know what the answer is to the current problems of Afghanistan, and I seriously doubt that anyone has in reality. If they do, they have signally failed in getting the message across to the average man in a British street.

Because of its location, the area has been the centre of strife of one sort or another for centuries during which hill tribesmen would descend upon invaders and others they took issue with and kick their butts. Even in Victorian times during ‘The Great Game’, British forces were to learn just how warlike and deadly the tribesmen could be.

Since the 1960s the country has been effectively in continuous civil war in addition to being subject to the interventions of the Soviet Union in 1979 and a US invasion in 2001 that did away with the Taliban regime and which was then replaced by NATO troops acting as the so-called International Security Assistance Force of which British troops were a part. We now have around 9,000 British troops in Afghanistan and, since 2001, 207 of them have been killed.

Gordon Brown has just been on his fourth visit to the area in a year and has suggested that yet more British troops will be sent to Afghanistan. He has also promised more unmanned surveillance aircraft, better protected vehicles and 200 trained specialists to deal with roadside bombs. It remains to be seen whether these promises will be fulfilled.

My father was in army bomb disposal in WWII and, like any other serving soldier, accepted the risk that he might be killed at any moment. But he had a very clear idea of what he was fighting for, which was freedom from Nazi oppression. But does any serving soldier unfortunate enough to be sent to Afghanistan have much idea of what that is all about? I very much doubt it.

They probably don’t have a much better idea as to what it’s all about than does the average man in a British street. And it is my view that the average man in a British street wants to see our troops pulled out as soon as possible and regardless of anything Gordon Brown or any of the other politicians might have to say on the subject.

And I agree. Don’t increase troop numbers, just pull them out!
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Turn It Off!

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A community centre in Inverness is so popular that staff have problems persuading youngsters to leave the place at closing time.

So they now play excerpts from ‘The Sound of Music’ to clear them out.

This I understand. It used to work for me as well - and still does!
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Holiday Happiness

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The Department of Health has come up with the not-so startling news that when on holiday English people drink more.

I don’t know why a government department has to fuss about what people do on holiday but, with a little bit of prompting no doubt, most of the 3,500 presumably inebriated people questioned said that they would ease off a little in September. Public Health Minister, Gillian Merron, warbled, ‘We should ... make a pledge to be a little more healthy’.

I’m sure she’s quite right, but the reason the drinkers will drink less next month is because they are all now skint!
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Bring back Sir Humphrey Appleby!

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One of my favourite television series is ‘Yes, Minister’ and ‘Yes, Prime Minister’, starring Paul Eddington as Jim Hacker MP, who eventually becomes Prime Minister, and Nigel Hawthorne as the double-speaking Whitehall mandarin, Sir Humphrey Appleby. The beautifully scripted and hilarious satirical comedy series ran from 1980 to 1988 and repeats are still shown from time to time.

Earlier this week I watched the last episode of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ in which Sir Humphrey Appleby, believing that a radio interview has been terminated, commits a monumental gaff when speaking about unemployment and the cost of social security payments.

‘Cut off all social security to any claimants who refuses two job offers, there’s genuine unemployment in the north but the south of England is awash with layabouts, many of them graduates, living off the dole and housing benefit. Plus quite a lot of cash that they pick up without telling anybody.’ ‘Most employers will tell you they’re short staffed, but offer the unemployed a street sweeping job or a dish washing job they’d be off the register before you could say parasite. Frankly this country can have as much unemployment as it’s prepared to pay for in social security. And no politicians have got the guts to do anything about it.’

I laughed at the time for there is much in what Sir Humphrey said that it is true today.

But it wasn’t so funny later in the week when it was announced that five million Britons have never worked under this present Labour government and that two million of them have never worked in their lives.

Many of us believe that state handouts have contributed to this situation by encouraging some people not to work. Indeed, the TaxPayers Alliance have said, ‘It’s absolutely right that we have a safety net to help people who fall on hard times, but the government have allowed welfare to become a life choice rather than a last resort’.

A comment by Theresa May, the Tory MP, is also telling. She said about the figures, ‘They will include lone parents which the state has told not to bother trying to work until their youngest child was sixteen’.

According to the Office of National Statistics, the cost of jobless benefits alone in this country are now a staggering £193 billion a year and this has increased from £93 billion in 1997. Add on all the other benefits which are paid to people each year and the cost to the taxpayer must be absolutely mind-blowing.

Can this situation be allowed to continue and will any government have the guts to do something about it? Very good questions!

Bring back Sir Humphrey Appleby!
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Big Brother Scratched

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Channel 4s reality show Big Brother is to to end after the current series. Though the producers say that the programme has reached its ‘natural’ end they agree that falling viewing figures was a factor in their decision.

I’m not surprised, for these so-called reality shows have become boring in the extreme and, let’s face it, are just vehicles enabling people to humiliate themselves in front of millions of viewers. Speaking for myself, I want to be entertained not subjected to watching someone come to pieces and descend into a nervous wreck after other competitors have mentally brutalised them.

There was, I thought at one time, a danger that these shows would in their own way take on the mantle of the Roman gladiatorial games. But a new breed of reality shows have sprung up to replace them. Strictly Come Dancing is just one example which readily comes to mind, and there are a number of others in which people are encouraged in positive ways to excel at something they haven’t done before.

With so much unhappiness around, it’s good to see some people getting up and doing something new. Even if some of them are being paid to do so!
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In The ‘Knicker Department’

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Sometimes some stories just hold the mind for no good reason.

So a couple of ‘Knicker Department’ stories give some light relief from the failing economy, rising taxes, ‘Bronco’ Brown, strikes, social security handouts and all the other things calculated to make one’s blood boil.

The first is the ongoing and somewhat boring saga of a South African athlete’s gender. It seems that tests have revealed the lady’s testosterone levels are three times higher than those normally expected in a female. Oh, how boring! Why doesn’t someone just ask permission to take a look for heaven’s sake?

The second concerns the former mayor of a Lancashire town who has been arrested on suspicion of stealing women’s underwear. And you always thought those ‘knicker-nicker’ jokes were fiction!
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Safe Landing

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In September 2006 an EasyJet Airbus A319 lost its electrical system, causing a number of the plane's systems to become ‘degraded or inoperative’.

For around ten minutes, the plane's transponder signal was also lost, rendering the plane invisible to air traffic control radar. The flight, from Alicante to Bristol was carrying 138 passengers and six crew. The crew had to fly the plane manually without flight instruments or radio and was flown closer to another aircraft than is allowed. Having decided not to change his flight plan in case the aircraft was considered hijacked and possibly hostile, the pilot continued on course and landed the plane safely.

This is revealed in the latest report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch who have made a number of safety recommendations as a result of the incident.

The flight crew are to be commended for their professionalism, but one does wonder what might have happened during those ten minutes the plane was invisible to air traffic control and, assuming a fighter plane had been sent up to investigate, how on earth could the pilot have communicated the problem to it.

With 144 people on board, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
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Volunteers - Also Determined & Committed

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Praising what he called their ‘great determination and commitment’, my chum ‘Bronco’ Brown has invited the England cricket team to a reception at 10 Downing Street. I hope they all have a lovely evening, and I’m sure they will.

But aren’t these cricketers paid to do what they do?

So why can’t ‘Bronco’ invite to a reception at Number 10 some of the many unpaid volunteers in our country who also show great determination and commitment?
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Here's To Len!

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Here’s some good news - Len Goodman, the Strictly Come Dancing judge is to appear in a new movie as a dance teacher at a village hall dance club.

The movie stars Virginia McKenna and Keith Michell as childhood sweethearts who meet up again sixty years later and who learn to dance under Len’s tutelage.

Len Goodman is the acceptable face of the sometimes dire Strictly Come Dancing show, and we wish him well in his movie debut!
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Solving A Mystery

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It was the American, Robert Peary who on April 1909 was the first to reach the North Pole, and others then tried to claim the record of having reached it first by air. The great Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, tried it unsuccessfully in 1923 and 1925 and in 1926 two Americans, Byrd and Bennett, claimed to have circled the pole, though their claims quickly became mired in controversy.

Amundsen, along with the American, Lincoln Ellsworth, made another attempt in the dirigible Norge. Piloted by its Italian designer, Umberto Nobile, Norge took off from Spitsbergen in May 1926 and crossed the pole en route to Alaska. This successful flight confirmed Amundsen as the first person to have visited both the North and South Poles. Two Australians, Wilkins and Eilson, unsuccessfully tried to cross the Polar Sea by plane in 1926 and 1927, but succeeded in 1928 by flying from Alaska to Spitsbergen.

Umberto Nobile decided to see if there were any undiscovered islands in the Arctic, and he persuaded the Fascist government of Italy to finance the building of a new airship, the Italia. On 6 May 1928, Italia settled to its mast in Spitsbergen, having flown there from Milan via Germany where storm repairs were carried out.

On 23 May, Italia lifted off for what would be its last flight with a total of 16 men on board. Having reached and circled the North Pole, Nobile turned the airship around and headed back towards Spitsbergen. But on 25 May worsening weather conditions resulted in ice and snow making Italia heavier and difficult to handle and the dirigible eventually crashed. One man was killed in the crash and, though nine men including Nobile, escaped onto the ice, the other six men floated away on the wrecked airship and were never seen again.

The survivors had a tough time waiting for rescue which did not come until a Swedish pilot, Einar Lundborg, reached them on June 20 in a seaplane. Lundborg flew Nobile back to Spitsbergen, a decision Nobile was to regret for the rest of his life, as it led to charges that he abandoned his colleagues. When Lundborg flew back for the other survivors, he also crashed and was marooned on the ice. Finally, a Russian icebreaker rescued the survivors on 12 July after a 49 day ordeal.

Though treated as a hero by the Italian people, Nobile was excoriated by the Fascist government who blamed him for the expedition's failure. Nobile emigrated to Russia and then to America and, after Mussolini’s fall, he returned to Italy where he was rightly honoured and féted as an aviation pioneer until he died in 1978.

However, when Amundsen heard that Nobile’s airship had crashed, he joined a French rescue operation by seaplane. This aircraft left Tromsø in Norway en route for Spitsbergen and was never seen again, though parts of his aircraft are thought to have been washed up from time to time.

Today a Norwegian team is set to embark on an expedition to find the wreck of Amundsen’s plane, a Latham 47 sea plane. Two ships will set sail from Tromsø to begin a two-week expedition making sonar scans to scour around 45 sq miles of the sea bed.

And, perhaps, another mystery will have been solved.

Spitsbergen is a wonderful place to visit. It is surrounded by snow-capped mountains in crystal-clear air and is also a place where the spirit of the early Polar explorers still exists. Amundsen is memorialised there by a large and rather forbidding bust. And, within sight of this, is the poignant and rusting remains of the mast to which Nobile’s airship, Italia, was moored.
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Scary!

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In my daily hunt for the ridiculous, whether it concerns Parliament or not, I couldn’t resist the tale of the scarecrow someone has put up in a village in Flamstead .

Part of a village scarecrow festival, the one of Amy Winehouse is very lifelike and comes complete with beehive hair, make-up and tattoos.

It’d certainly scare hell out of me!
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Makes Sense To Me!

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If you pay a visit to Rochdale, you might be surprised to see council workmen putting up the street lights three months before Christmas.

But the good burghers of Rochdale are not daft but are, in fact, trying to save ten grand of taxpayers’ money. For The Muslim festival of Eid arrives next month and the Hindu Diwali festival is celebrated in October, so the lights can be used over three celebrations.

Makes sense to me!
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No Escape!

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Using similar technology to that used in singing greetings cards, Entertainment Weekly will next month publish the first-ever video advertisement. This will enable readers to watch on a slim-line screen previews for US television programmes along with an advert from a drinks company.

So the day is not far off when our newspapers will, like the Daily Prophet in the Harry Potter stories, carry actual videos of the day’s news.

But the chances are, unfortunately, that the news will be interrupted by the inevitable advertisements and irritating jingles!
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At Least We Have Compassion

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Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber who has terminal prostate cancer, has been returned to Libya after being freed from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds.

Jailed in 2001 for his part in the atrocity which killed 270 lives in 1988, al-Megrahi is said to have only three months to live, and his release has created a storm of protest even though there are many who believe that he was only the scapegoat for the bombing of the Pan-Am jet.

Commonsense prevailed when Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill pointed out that, while no compassion was shown by al-Megrahi to those on board the flight, that alone was not a reason to deny it to him and his family in his final days.

But what a shame that compassion for this man was met with his triumphant return to Libya!
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Irresponsible

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John Yettaw, the Mormon who swan uninvited across a lake to deliver a message from God to the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has returned to the US after being released by the Burmese authorities.

On his arrival in Chicago he announced that he had no regrets about what he had done and that, ‘If I had to do it again, I would do it a hundred times.’

An odd thing to say considering that his strange behaviour led to Aung San Suu Kyi being placed under a further 18 months house arrest!
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The Case Of The Arctic Sea

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Don’t you find the case of the Arctic Sea, the 4,000-ton cargo ship that was hijacked as it rounded the north-west coast of France, curious?

We have a Maltese registered ship, crewed by 15 Russians that sailed from Finland with a cargo of timber worth £1.1 million bound for the Algerian port of Bejaia. It seems to have been hijacked on 24 July by a small group of armed Estonians, Latvians and Russians who, according to the police in Finland, threatened to blow the ship up unless a ransom was paid.

Although the ship was tracked continuously by maritime officials in Malta, Finland, Sweden, Russia and possibly other countries, the ship was allowed to continue its voyage to an unknown destination until, after part of a Russian naval fleet was sent to intercept it, the hijackers gave themselves up on 17 August and are now in Russian custody.

So we have a Maltese ship, crewed by Russians, hijacked by Estonians, Latvians and Russians monitored by at least Malta, Finland, Sweden and Russia and intercepted by the Russian Navy nearly four weeks after being reported as missing. The hijackers are now in Russian navy custody after being arrested while Arctic Sea was in international waters.

There are many questions:

Doubtless the Russians would have wanted to protect their own citizens ... but I do wonder why they have paid so much attention to this small ship when the navies of other countries might have been able to intercept the ship sooner.

What was on board Arctic Sea that was so valuable or dangerous that prompted a group of men from three different countries to hijack a small ship that was seemingly only carrying timber and which prompted so much attention?

And, assuming the hijackers are bought to court, where will this be and what legal jurisdiction will apply? Doesn’t Finland and Malta have an interest in a prosecution?

All very curious!
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Planet Zog!

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Sir Patrick Cormack, Tory MP for South Staffordshire, has suggested to the Committee on Standards in Public Life that MPs pay be doubled to more than £130,000 in return for scrapping their second home allowance.

Labour have condemned the MP as being ‘out of touch’, while the Lib Dem spokesman correctly observed that he ‘must be living on planet Zog’.

He got that right!
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Strewth!

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The Communication Workers Union is in dispute with Royal Mail over plans to modernise the service and have been staging a series of 24-hour walkouts around the country.

Though the strikes seem to be having little effect according to Royal Mail, the union are now planning to ballot its members on holding a national strike and have called on the government to intervene.

Lord Mandelson, the unelected Business Secretary, has rejected these calls and has told the union to ‘wake up’ so as to avoid Royal Mail's further decline.

Strewth! This is a Labour minister telling a union to wake up!

Whatever next?
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Zombies Beware!

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Some of the good folk at Ottawa and Carleton University have taken the time at the taxpayers’ expense to research whether an attack by zombies on human beings would lead to the collapse of civilisation, though it seems that it would not providing humans act quickly and aggressively

The results of their work are published in a snappily titled book, ‘Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress’.

In this, Professor Robert Smith reports, ‘We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. ... We introduce a basic model for zombie infection and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions.’

I have no idea what practical use this work has, though I am sure there is one, but there is one bit of good news. Professor Neil Ferguson reports that, ‘...if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever’.

That’s good to know!
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'Winnable'?

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Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has said that be believes the ‘mission’ in Afghanistan is winnable. Tell that to the relatives and friends of the 204 soldiers who have now been killed in this war.

Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox has called on Mr Ainsworth for clarification of the UKs mission in Afghanistan. We’d all like to hear that!
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Can You Pass A Drugs Test?

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Fifteen years ago when I was working in California, it was found that the majority of used bank notes in circulation at the time were contaminated with cocaine. The contamination was caused by people rolling them up to snort the powder, which then contaminated other bank notes they came in contact with.

I thought then that it would be difficult if, during a random drug search, money in my wallet were to suggest that I was a drug addict. Fortunately, this didn’t happen.

This came to mind this morning when it was announced that 95% of dollar bills in circulation in Washington DC bear traces of cocaine.

The researchers, from the University of Massachusetts, tested dollar notes from more than 30 cities world-wide. They found that the problem is not only confined to the US. They discovered that Canada, Brazil, China and Japan all suffer from the same problem.

What I wonder is the situation with our own paper money, and are we at risk during random drug searches?
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Let Him Dig!

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There’s the silly story of the old man who was aggressive to everyone throughout his life and who threatened to dig his way out of his grave and return as an angry ghost after his death. Years later, after his funeral, the widow was celebrating at the pub and was asked if she was frightened that he would dig his way out and return as a ghost. The wife said she was not and when asked why this was said, ‘No! Let him dig! I had him buried face down!’

This old tale was bought to mind when I read that a Mr Poncher, a successful businessman who died 23 years ago at the ripe old age of 81, was indeed buried face down in Westwood Village Cemetery in Los Angeles in keeping with his dying wish. Now why is that you may well ask.

The reason is that Mr Poncher was buried immediately above Marilyn Monroe!

The story comes to light because Mrs Poncher is moving her husband’s remains into the adjacent crypt and now aims to sell the one previously occupied by him. She is auctioning off the vacated plot and hopes to raise enough money to pay off the $1.6m mortgage on her Beverly Hills mansion.

As the bids had reached $700,000 by last night, she may well achieve her target (it actually sold on 24 August for $4.6 million!). And some lucky person will also have the chance of being buried face down above Marilyn Monroe!
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Aaaah!

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I’m a sucker for animal stories and was pleased that the weekend papers carried a few heart-warming tales (or should it be tails?).

The Thai Navy have nurtured thousands of baby sea turtles over the years to prevent them becoming extinct and, in honour of their Queen’s birthday recently, successfully released some of the little fellows into the sea. Also in Thailand, Motola the elephant, who lost a leg ten years ago when she stepped on a land mine on the Burma/Thai border, has been fitted successfully with a prosthetic leg and is learning to walk on four legs again. Another Thai elephant, a baby, fell into a land-drain and was rescued successfully from it after workmen cut away the surrounding land.

Nearer to home, Kenny, a cross bichon frise, has been reunited with his owners nine years after going missing from his Essex home. The animal was recently found wandering in Epping Forest and his microchip ensured he was returned to his original home. Then Bess, the lucky Labrador, who was caught in a fox-trap, managed to survive for three weeks by licking rainwater off her paws during showers. Though these traps are supposed to be checked every 24 hours, it seems that the owner of this one did not, and so Bess is a very lucky dog indeed.

Finally, the aptly-named duck, Lucky, has been fitted with a special leather sandal after she broke her leg and faced being put down. The sandal enables Lucky to walk and swim while she waits for an operation which will fix her leg.

Aaaah!
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Wow!

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The power of the internet - and the grapevine - was demonstrated in the last few days when the chap responsible for a hotel chain’s website mistakenly advertised rooms in the Crowne Plaza in Venice at just €1 a night per person. instead of around €150 a night

Unbelievably, nearly 230 people cottoned on to the error and made bookings for an average of six nights per person at the hotel before the mistake was corrected.

The hotel, part of the Intercontinental Hotels Group, is honouring the bookings and will bear a loss of around €90,000. Wow!

On the other hand, what marvellous, if expensive, publicity!
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Toughening Up

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The Shadow Chancellor has announced that a Conservative government would want to introduce a tougher regulatory system and stop the payment of large bonuses across the banking system.

Has he thought about introducing similar curbs on MPs first?
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Where Would We Be Without It?

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Americans are currently debating President Obama’s plans for the future of their public health system.

I lived in the States for a while, and my limited understanding was that folk who could afford to pay for private insurance got a full range of medical treatment in contrast to the poor who did not. So, perhaps, anything which improves the US health service for those with no money is a good thing.

Critics of the President’s plans hold up our own NHS as an example of a system which is overly bureaucratic, rations care and denies some treatments to the elderly.

I am no fan of Gordon Brown but I have to agree wholeheartedly with him in his defence of the NHS, when he said on Twitter, ‘The NHS often makes the difference between pain and comfort, despair and hope, life and death. Thanks for always being there.’

I cannot agree more, and have nothing but praise for the NHS who have looked after me very well with a problem I have. The NHS undoubtedly has failings but for matters of life and death, it is there for everyone.

Look at it a different way. Where would we be without the NHS?
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What A Nuisance!

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The Foreign & Commonwealth Office report that embassies and consulates around the world are getting fed-up with some of the nuisance calls they get from Brits seeking help on trivial things.

Calls about the weather, how to deal with unruly children, queries about exchange rates and complaints about breast enhancements appear to have irritated our representatives abroad.

One has much sympathy for them though, on the other hand, you’d have thought they’d appreciate a change from the daily humdrum routine of privileged living, cocktail parties, tennis matches and the like!
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Help Please

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Around fifty rabbis and Jewish mystics took to the sky above Israel earlier this week, praying and blowing ceremonial horns so as to ward off the swine flu pandemic from affecting their country.

Quoted in an Israeli newspaper, Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri said, ‘We are certain that, thanks to the prayer, the danger is already behind us’.

I wonder if we could get them to repeat the exercise over the UK?
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Unfathomable & Inconsistent

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The mind of the UK Border Agency is unfathomable and inconsistent.

They have just refused visas to the Lahore Pipe Band who were going to compete in the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow. It didn’t seem to matter that this pipe band has competed in the same competition for the last four years!

They also knocked back most of a trade delegation from Lahore even though the British High Commissioner in Islamabad gave them his recommendation. Perversely, they agreed the Mayor of Lahore could visit, but not his wife!

Glasgow MSP Anne McLaughlin said members of Lahore Pipe Band faced problems in securing visas to visit Scotland last year before they were eventually granted and added, ‘For this to happen once was bad enough, to repeat it this year is a disgrace’.

I have every sympathy for the Scottish Culture Minister, Mike Russell, who said:, ‘The Scottish Government is in touch with the UK Border Agency to discover the details of the case and we will do everything we can to help.’

I wish him well for, if he can improve the workings of this arcane government agency, he will be doing all of us a favour!
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I Can’t Resist It!

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It is reported that some of the animals escaped from Marwell Zoo last month. A bit like Parliament really!

Sorry - I couldn’t resist it!
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Jobs For The Boys

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So ‘Mandy’ Mandelson has returned from his holidays and will take over the government as Acting Deputy Prime Minister for a while.

Not bad for a chap that has been fired from government a couple of times and isn’t even an elected MP!
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I Had The Wrong Job!

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I sometimes wonder if I had the wrong job.

After all the fuss about MPs expenses, there is now one brewing about the 1,183 Metropolitan police officers who misused their corporate credit cards and who have now been given amnesty. It seems that they will not be punished but will be given ‘training and guidance’.

‘Training and guidance’? In what one might ask.

Ignoring the basic question as to why
police officer would need a corporate credit card in the first place, one has also to ask why anyone who commits a fraud should get away with it. This is especially the case with police officers who are the very ones supposed to prosecute fraud.

Jenny Jones, who is a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, has said that she finds it, ‘unacceptable that the police have just let these officers go with guidance’. She is absolutely right and it is a scandal that both the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Independent Police Complaints Commission have agreed to such a situation.

In my past lives, the accountants responsible for checking staff expenses have done so with a strict and tiresome attention to detail. This is as it should be. But it is odd that it didn’t seem to be the case with MPs and now 1,183 police officers.
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Much To Be Thankful For

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Despite my occasional grumbles, we have much to be thankful for living in Britain.

For a start, we don’t suffer from the sort of typhoons that cause so much devastation in the world as witness the latest one, Morakot, which has struck Asia causing much death and destruction. In China, almost one million people were evacuated from their homes in advance of the typhoon’s landfall and we still wait on details of damage to property and life.

Consider how this country comes to a standstill at the slightest fall of snow, and compare that with what has achieved in China. They evacuated nearly a million people! Just think how much organisation that needed and the amount of transport, accommodation and feeding it required.

Yes, we have much to be thankful for.
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Happy Christmas?

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Rail and postal strikes, economic downturns, typhoons in Taiwan and China, war in Afghanistan, and 'Mandy’ Mandelson in charge of the government for a few days (has anything changed there?), etc., etc.

In the midst of all this bad news, Selfridges have already opened their Christmas shop. And good for them as Christmas is the one time of the year when we can forget all the bad news for a few days!

Happy Christmas!
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Why Are We There?

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The incoming head of the British army says that the UKs commitment in Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years and that ‘nation-building’ would last decades. Good grief!

The British army death toll in Afghanistan has now reached 195 and one has to ask whether anyone in government has any clear idea as to why, despite more than a century of unwinnable wars in the region, we and NATO are still there and what is trying to be achieved.

While the politicians may theorise and discuss the pros and cons of numbers, tactics, equipment and why some members of NATO provide less support than others, British men are being killed.

Enough already!
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Next Time It Could Be A Child!

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Burmese pythons, once kept as pets and released into the wild when they get too big for their owners to manage are now a major problem in Florida’s Everglades. Some experts are now licensed to hunt and kill the creatures, native to Asia, which have flourished in Florida’s warm, moist climate and which are now threatening some of the area’s own endangered species by eating them.

Not interested in this? Too far away? Not a bit of it, for stories about these dangerous creatures keep popping up in our own country almost every year.

In 2003, a Sheffield family were said to be ‘overjoyed’ when their 11 ft Burmese python was found safe and well after it was found in nearby allotments after having been missing for two weeks. The following year a Burmese python attacked a collie in a sports field in Kent; fortunately, the dog escaped with just the loss of one eye, but the snake was never found. The next year a 12 ft Burmese python was found dumped in a Lancashire wood, and in 2007 a 9 ft Burmese python was found abandoned by the roadside.

Just last month, a cat named Wilbur was crushed and eaten by a 13 ft Burmese python kept as a pet by a Bristol man in his garden. While the cat’s screams were heard but the deed not actually witnessed, it seems that the moggie's microchip was scanned inside the python.

While the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 has many restrictions, it doesn’t include constrictor snakes. It should do, for next time it could be a child.
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I Hate Driving In London!

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I hate driving up to London and cannot think of a more intimidating and stressful experience for a driver. I was up there this morning and am glad I don’t have to drive there again for a while.

There are bus lanes that sometimes operate five days a week and others that work for six. There are changing speed limits, often for no apparent reason especially when you are on a three-lane road that stretches miles ahead. There are thousands of signs, many of them quite unnecessary or irrelevant, all of which have to be taken notice of while you drive along. And there are pinch-points and two- or three-lane roads that squeeze you into one lane.

There are pedestrians with suicidal tendencies who wander straight into your path and glare at you as if you are in the wrong. There are cyclists who believe that the normal rules for traffic are meant for other people and who ignore traffic signals and weave about without warning. And there are plenty of just bad drivers who are a menace to everyone on the road and who seem to get away with their bad driving without being caught.

There are closed circuit television cameras, bus lane cameras, speed cameras, crossing cameras and average speed cameras. Maybe there are more. Who sits watching all the stuff that goes on for heaven’s sake?

This was a Saturday morning. Lord knows what it must be like during the week! I’ve changed my mind. Bus and taxi drivers are worth all they get.

Next time I’m going up by train!
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A Sort of Justice

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The Justice Secretary has agreed that bank robber Ronnie Biggs can be released from detention just a month after refusing it on the grounds that he was ‘wholly unrepentant’ about his involvement in the 1963 robbery of a mail train. Biggs, who cannot eat, drink, read, write or talk, will spend the rest of his days in a nursing home having already spent many months in prison hospitals.

Contrast this with the case of the loan shark who lent one family £500 and who over the next seven years bullied them into repaying a staggering £88,000. This man, who the judge described as ‘beneath contempt’, was merely given a 51-week prison sentence, suspended for two years.

On the one hand, we have a man who escaped from Wandsworth prison and spent the next thirty years so cocking a snook at the British legal system that he became a sort of Robin Hood figure, albeit a rather sad one since he returned to the UK in 2000.

On the other, a man whose violent extortion racket caused a woman to have two strokes and a brain haemorrhage along with untold misery walks free from court.

Justice?
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No Shrinking Violet?

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Harriet Harman is the Leader of the House of Commons and seems to be doing her bit for the country while my friend ‘Bronco’ Brown is on his holidays.

Among other things she feels that men ‘cannot be left to run things on their own’. Even the former Deputy Prime Minister, ‘Jumbo’ Prescott, reacted to this and said she should ‘stop complaining and get campaigning’ after she suggested Labour should never again have a men-only leadership team.

Ms Harman has now announced that she is no ‘shrinking violet’. Yeah, right!
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A Bargain!

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A hoo-ha has developed over Speaker Bercow ordering up a £20,000 refurbishment of the Speaker’s flat in the Palace of Westminster.

Some of the changes are to make the flat more child-friendly, though it seems he has also treated himself to a new sofa suite costing nearly £7,000. I might be wrong, but I don’t think £20k is much for the new Speaker to spend on his flat. After all, Speaker Martin spent £725,000 of our money when he moved into the grace and favour flat in 2000.

Speaker Bercow is a bargain by comparison!
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A Breakthrough?

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In a postal ballot sent to 69,000 registered voters in Totnes in Devon, the 16.500 people who returned their forms have elected a GP, Dr Sarah Wollaston, to represent the party at the next general election.

Though the Tories have held open primary contests before, this is the first time they have polled all registered voters which William Hague said was, ‘... a way of opening up politics in a world where people want to be able to influence the decisions made on their behalf.’ Even the Labour MP, Frank Field, thought it was a ‘hugely important breakthrough’ though quite where it would lead he wasn’t sure.

Where it might lead ultimately is to a voting system that starts to reflect the declared wishes of local people, and it will be interesting to see if Dr Wollaston is elected next year in a seat where the Tories had a majority of less than 3,000 votes at the last election.

Judging from the performance of the present lot, the result is probably a foregone conclusion. One does hope so!
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No Surprise Here!

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Insight China magazine asked 3,376 Chinese people who they trusted most.

Is it any surprise that more people thought that prostitutes were more trustworthy than politicians?
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Mickey Is Descended From Grey Wolves?

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I wrote earlier this morning about Mickey, our little Yorkshire terrier who is usually a quiet little soul except when it comes to taking a walk when he turns into a yapping, dancing, twisting, impatient little menace that has to be seen and heard to be believed.

My wife often reminds people startled by Mickey’s impatience when it comes to ‘walkies’ time that it has to be remembered that he is descended from the grey wolf, and a recent study by an international group of researchers has confirmed that it is so.

To challenge the theory that the domestic dog originated in East Asia, researchers analysed blood samples from 318 dogs in Egypt, Uganda and Namibia and found that the genetic diversity among African village dogs is just as diverse as that of East Asian dogs. It seems that all the dogs sampled in the study had grey wolf DNA so the theory that all dogs are ultimately descended from Eurasian wolves may still be valid.

We must bear that in mind when we are about to take Mickey for a walk. He may have fewer choppers than before but, believe me, he still has enough left in his little mouth to make an impact on your hands when he is getting impatient to be taken out for a walk!
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Mickey Don’t Stink Any More!

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Our little Yorkie, Mickey, has just had three teeth out and the rest of them cleaned and scaled. Why? Because his breath smelt like a farmyard in high summer!

We were congratulating ourselves on the absence of stink in the house when my attention was drawn to the latest news about would-be astronauts competing for next year’s space launch by China. What has the one got to do with the other, you might ask.

It’s simply because the Chinese space authority has, among other things, decided to ban anyone from the programme with body odours, dental caries, ringworm (ringworm?) or bad breath.

Very sensible people the Chinese!
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Hands Off The Haggis, Sassenachs!

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A historian has claimed that haggis, the national dish of Scotland, is an English invention. What tosh!

Catherine Brown bases her findings on a reference to haggis in an English cookery book published in 1615, whereas the first written reference to it in Scotland was by Robert Burns in 1747.

So what? Who is to say that the Sassenach author didn’t just take the recipe from a Scottish book that no longer survives or that it was a recipe handed down from his Scottish forebears? You may as well say that the Isle of Skye was English because Johnson and Boswell published details of their visit there in 1773!

James McSween, the premier haggis maker in Edinburgh has got it right when he says, ‘I didn't hear of Shakespeare writing a poem about it!
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How Sad!

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Among all the stories of death and disaster in the Sunday papers was a reference to a Marchwood man who slaughtered his cockerel following complaints by neighbours to the New Forest Council who issued him with a Noise Abatement Order with a possible £5,000 fine if he ignored it.

The story struck me for two reasons. Firstly, because I lived in Marchwood for a time and much enjoyed the peace and quiet of the village and its proximity to the New Forest which I used to explore early in the mornings. And secondly because it was a reminder that, in reality, it is us that encroach upon the animal world; it is they who were here first.

You read these stories regularly in the papers and they usually involve the impact that rural things have on the ever-encroaching affairs of people. Church bells, rung for centuries for example, have to be silenced because they disturb the sleep of folk who have built houses close to them. Boarding kennels that were once isolated and are now a noise nuisance to the estates that have been built on top of them. Killer roads which are driven across the age-old invisible paths of badgers and deer. There are many such stories.

And roosters doing their natural thing and, sadly, destined to have their necks wrung because of it.
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Hacked Off

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Suppose an American hacked into the computer system of the MoD or MI5 and caused half a million pound’s worth of damage. Would the British public support the government if it sought the extradition and trial of the young man concerned.? Very probably.

Why then is there so much fuss over the American government’s bid to extradite Gary McKinnon who is said to have hacked into 97 US computer systems, including those of the US Navy and NASA, causing $800,000 worth of damage? Is it because he is said to have Asperger's syndrome and/or because he faces up to 70 years in jail if convicted?

As it happens, though the High Court has rejected an appeal against the decision of the Home Secretary to allow Mr McKinnon’s deportation, the appeal process will doubtless keep the man safe for some time to come.

The case brings to mind the 1983 movie ‘War Games’, starring Matthew Broderick, whose character hacked into the US military’s central computer system and so started off a war game which threatened to initiate a real thermonuclear war. In the end, of course, he managed to stop the game and so avert disaster.

Perhaps the Americans should pay Mr McKinnon to show them exactly how he managed to hack into their computers and so make them a little safer from such attacks?
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Let’s Have A Scandal!

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The woman at the heart of the sex scandal surrounding the Italian prime minister alleges that she was offered a seat in the European Parliament, though the plan was dropped after the PMs wife complained.

Perhaps she might have a better chance in this country. Such a controversy would make a change from endless arguments about the economy, MPs expenses and heaven knows what else besides!
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