Right On!

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There is something quintessentially English and eccentric about the villagers in Westbury-sub-Mendip in Somerset who have turned a traditional red phone box into the country’s smallest lending library.

The recent closure of the phone box service may not have caused any problems to villagers in these days of mobile phones, but when they lost the services of the mobile library one villager thought of the idea of purchasing the phone box and turning it in into a lending library.

Villagers simply stock it with books they have read and take away another one. A parish councillor said, ‘This facility has turned a piece of street furniture into a community service in constant use.’

In other villages around the country have turned red phone boxes into art installations, a shower and even a public toilet.

Right on Westbury-sub-Mendip!
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Muddled Thinking

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In a referendum forced by Switzerland’s opposition party, and against the advice of the government, 57% of the voters have voted against the construction of any further minarets in the country.

Were it a question that minarets would spoil the characteristic skylines of this pretty country that would be one thing for there are four of them already. But, perhaps, voters were concerned more about rising immigration than the country’s building codes.

Either way, one can’t help but think that this is bad news for a country renowned both for its neutrality and for its freedom of religion.
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Wife Trouble?

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I was sitting in my car outside a supermarket last evening waiting for my wife who was inside doing some shopping.

A car screeched to a halt alongside me and the driver got out shouting loudly to his partner, ‘This is not the moment to discuss this!’ He slammed the door shut and walked away. Then he returned to the car, whereupon the couple began a most furious and violent argument which went on for five or six minutes.

I couldn’t hear what this couple were arguing about but I heard the woman twice shout those words we men sometimes hear from our partners, ‘Will you stop and listen to me for once!’ The argument finished when the man got out of the car, slammed the door and walked way into the distance. As he left, the woman got into the driving seat and shouted after him, ‘I’m going to take your car and smash it!’

As she drove away I never found out whether she did smash the man’s car, but I thought of the incident this morning when the television news reported that Tiger Woods was found semiconscious in his car yesterday after smashing into a fire hydrant and a tree. The police, who are still waiting to interview him, said that his wife smashed the rear window of the car with a golf club to help get him out.

Hmmm.
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Not More Targets?

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Gordon Brown has announced that the Afghan President will be set targets for training Afghanistani military and police forces and for tackling corruption.

Targets? In Afghanistan?

He is surely joking!

Oh Dear!

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Those who have been fortunate to visit Vanuatu will know what a beautiful place this South Pacific archipelago of islands is. Yet, with a population of less than 50,000, they are extraordinarily well organised.

Take, for example, their parliamentary code. Under Vanuatu law members of Parliament who miss three consecutive sittings without submitting written explanations for their absence forfeit their seats.

Prime Minister Edward Natapei forgot all about this rule and found this week while attending the Commonwealth Summit that he had not only been stripped of his parliamentary seat but his position as Prime Minister.

He has gone rushing back to Vanuatu and will now have to face a by-election to be re-elected member of Parliament and be voted back in again as Prime Minister.

What a shame we don’t have the same rule in Britain!
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It’s Your Fault!

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Some daft paper-pusher in Poole Borough Council decided that the erection of a Christmas tree in the town centre would be dangerous to the public if it toppled over in the wind.

So, instead of coming up with ways of making sure it didn’t topple, he or she came up with the idea of commissioning a 33-foot tall, green ‘traffic cone’ weighed down by two tons of ballast. At a cost of £14,000 instead of £500 for a fir tree.

We probably have idiots like this in our own local council. But, remember, it is we who voted them in.

So, for the people of Poole, it’s your fault!

[The fake tree was subsequently vandalised and replaced by a real one!]
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Big - But Is It Safe?

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I’m probably repeating myself somewhere, but I have grave misgivings about the largest cruise ship in the world which will go into service next month.

It can carry over 6,000 passengers and 2,100 crew. That’s an awful lot of people.

I just can’t imagine, despite anything the owners might say, that in an emergency situation any ship’s system can disgorge over 8,000 people ashore or into lifeboats safely and quickly.

I don’t wish to be a doom-sayer, but these huge ships are, in my view at any rate, just accidents waiting to happen. No matter how efficient and safety-conscious the crew of such ships are, there are always idiots around who take risks and in doing so become dangers to others. And when you are talking about ships that can take many miles to come to a stop or may not have much room to manoeuvre in inland waters and harbour entrances, then the dangers in terms of passenger numbers are magnified.

When there is the inevitable accident, government agencies and classification societies world-wide will take another look at these behemoths and write a whole new set of regulations for them. As always concerning maritime and similar matters, lessons are always to be learned. One just hopes that the lessons in respect of this size of ship have already been learned.

I wish the new ship well, for one benefit of its introduction will be to add many thousands more berths into the cruise market and help to keep prices competitive.

But for me, the smaller ships are more intimate and, in my opinion, safer.
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Television Advertising

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I wrote yesterday about do-gooders in government and other agencies who tinker with people’s minds and lives.

Perhaps I was too quick to criticise, though possibly not in some cases.

The thought came to me this morning when I realised there has been a tremendous increase in the number of television advertisements publicising online gambling sites and others inviting people to sell their unwanted gold and jewellery.

All these advertisements show smiling, happy people waving their bingo winnings or the wads of cash they have received for their jewellery.

They do not show the misery suffered by some of the poor souls who have logged on to gambling sites and lost their housekeeping money, or the folk who realise to their great regret that they have parted with treasured jewellery in return for a short-term gain at possibly less than the true value of the items sold.

While I am against the sort of ‘nannying’ this government has indulged in since it came into power, perhaps we do need to be protected from ourselves sometimes. And these sort of advertisements are a case in point where, like cigarettes and alcohol, maybe they ought to be accompanied by appropriate warnings.
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Too Much Interference!

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It frightens me sometimes how so many do-gooders in government and other agencies interfere and tinker with people’s minds and lives.

The news today is that children as young as five are to have lessons in ‘gender equality’ as part of a so-called national strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. The poor little mites are also to be taught not to bully transsexuals.

It must be admitted that children see far too much violence on television and that the war games they play on their X-Boxes and other gizmos may encourage violence and incorrect behaviour.

But at the age of five? Can’t they be left to be just children for a few more years?

And can’t teachers be left to do what they have been doing for generations - to teach children right from wrong?
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Has Mikulas Had The Jab?

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Bored with reading and hearing about all the dire things going on in the world this morning, I cast around for something to lift the spirits.

I failed dismally.

The best I could find to raise an eyebrow was the news that in Hungary Santa Claus, known there as Mikulas, is being told to get a flu jab to minimise the risk of spreading infection. He has also been told not to kiss the children he meets or to hold their hands.

If some busybody in our government cottons on to this idea, there won’t be any Santas around this year. Especially if some of them fail their CRB checks!
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‘Who Is To Judge The Judges?’

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I may be wrong but I think it was Juvenal who asked, ‘Who is to judge the judges’, and the question is as relevant now as it was 2,000 years ago.

The question arises in my mind following this morning’s revelation that another member of the Commons Standards Committee is being accused of making the most out of his expenses in recent years by claiming on a second home even though he lives only ten miles from Parliament and then ‘flipping’ this.

Only last week did the Chairman of the committee step down while an inquiry was held into his expenses in recent years.

If we can’t trust the folk on the Commons Standards Committee, who can we trust?

As the man said, ‘Who is to judge the judges?’
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Getting Closer? Doubtful!

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Some Anglicans are getting concerned about the Church’s attitude to gay or women bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions. At the same time the Catholic Church is considering allowing Anglicans to convert, which would allow them to enter full communion with them but preserving some elements of Anglican traditions.

The ‘smells and bells’ section of the Anglican Church are usually drawn to Catholicism while the ‘happy-clappy’ section may look to the Evangelicals. Could a schism be in sight I wonder?

Archbishop Williams has discussed the issue with Pope Benedict. It would have been an interesting discussion but I doubt we will hear much about what was really said.

I’d love to have been a fly on the wall that day!
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How Very Sad!

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For some years as part of fundraising efforts for my local service club, I used to write personalised letters to children who sent their Christmas wishes to Santa Claus. A number of service clubs still do this, and the letters received from innocent children are an absolute delight to read.

But, alas, the dark shadow of paedophilia has fallen across the town of North Pole in Alaska, for the US Postal Service are no longer sending them mail addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole.

Why? Because a registered sex offender was found to have been working on the programme last year. and, as a result, the US Postal Service now prohibits volunteers from having access to children;s names and addresses.

Volunteers in North Pole used to ensure each child got a reply signed by a Santa elf and bearing the crucial North Pole postmark. But no longer.

The town’s Mayor has agreed that caution is necessary, but has compared the action of the US Postal Service as akin to the Grinch trying to steal Christmas.

How right he is. And how very sad!
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Care For The Elderly

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I’m not sure what to make of Gordon Brown’s promise outlined in the Queen’s Speech to end means testing for care at home for the most vulnerable. On the face of it, the scheme is long overdue and, certainly, Brown calls it a ‘breakthrough’.

On the other hand, Labour peer Lord Lipsey says that the announcement was a gimmick which has bypassed proposals set out in a Green paper earlier this year.

The Tories say that the government will have to cut some disability benefits to fund the proposals and the government have yet to confirm or deny this.

As always with government, this one or another, the waters are muddied and only time will tell.
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The EU President

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So ‘Teflon’ Blair is not to be President of the European Council.

That’s a relief!
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More Stupidity!

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A Smethic lady was feeding the ducks in a park last week when she was approached by a warden and given a £75 on-the-spot littering fine. This jobsmith then told the lady that her young son could carry on feeding the ducks as he was too young to be fined!

Here again we have a council that first backed stupidity and, bowing to pressure, changed their minds on the basis that it was now taking a ‘commonsense’ approach.

The Deputy Leader of Sandwell Council grandly announced, ‘New signs will make it abundantly clear that feeding of waterfowl is not allowed at all in this park and that anyone observed feeding the geese and any other birds will receive a fixed penalty notice’.

Whoever heard of a park with a pond, geese and ducks where you couldn’t take your children and let them throw the birds a bit of stale bread?

But, if you are looking for one, head straight for Smethwick Hall Park, in Smethwick, West Midlands!
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Hooray For The Territorials!

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On Sunday, Rifleman Andrew Fentiman was shot dead in Helmand Province just two weeks after arriving in Afghanistan.

One’s heart goes out to the family of Rifleman Fentiman and also to the families of the other soldiers killed or maimed in recent conflicts.

Mr Fentiman’s death carries a special significance. For he was in the Territorial Army whose members agree to serve their country by committing at least 27 training days a year, including a fortnight of continuous training or attachment to a regular serving unit.

The Territorial Army, it must be borne in mind, is the same band of young men whose funding Gordon Brown announced last month would be cut by £20 millions with all future training suspended. Until, of course, another of his spectacular U-turns!

While politicians play politics and tinker with budgets, men are being killed. Including men of the Territorial Army whose worth to this country should not be undervalued.
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Shluurp!

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The New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust plans to unearth and examine two crates of Scotch whisky buried under a hut built by the Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton during his unsuccessful South Pole expedition between 1907 and 1909.

The ice-encased crates of McKinlay and Co whisky was discovered three years ago, and the Trust plans to use special cutting tools to remove the crates from the ice so that conservation work can be carried out before the hut is restored to its original condition.

I have no idea how you can ‘conserve’ bottles of whisky which have lain in ice for a century and cannot imagine how anyone can expect people to bury them in the ice again without first having an almighty great slurp of what must by now be a very fine whisky indeed!
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Give Her The Day Off!

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Until it was pointed out by Nick Clegg, I hadn’t realised that there was a State Opening of Parliament occurring on Wednesday when her Majesty will have to read out the Government’s latest plans for the forthcoming year.

Only, as Mr Clegg rightly points out, there won’t be a forthcoming year for this government as there will have to be a General Election within that period. He suggests that the Queen’s Speech should be cancelled and replaced with a statement about the reforms about to be implemented to ‘clean up politics’.

I think they should give the Queen the day off. And we would be saved what will essentially be a party political broadcast.
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Where Else?

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The newly-repaired clock above the Nat West bank in Manningtree, Essex, has caused a stir because the repairer mixed up the 7 and the 8 during renovations paid for by the local Rotary Club.

The club reckons that the mix-up will be fixed in the spring. However, I wouldn’t bother for the odd-looking clock may attract some visitors to the town.

Just as the clock above the church bell tower in Whitgift in Yorkshire attracts visitors. Here, the signwriter long ago had his brain in neutral and, after writing XI, wrote XIII, and the church elders wisely left well alone

Where else can you see 8pm before 7pm except in Manningtree, and 13 o’clock after 11 o’clock except in Whitgift?

Answers on a postcard to ...
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Cissbury Ring

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Faced with strong opposition from various local groups, Worthing Council has decided not to go ahead with the sale of land containing an Iron Age hill fort.

In a nice piece of bureaucratic-speak, a Council spokesman said, ‘Because the decision was made a year ago and because of public concern, we feel it right to review the decision made over a year ago in order to make sure we take everything into account before a final decision is made.’

In other words, they made the wrong decision, were found out and changed their minds!
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Clever Lady!

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One of my favourite television programmes in the late 60s was the adaptation of A. P. Herbert’s ‘Misleading Cases in Common Law’ where the arch-litigant Albert Haddock frequently appeared in court to defend some improbable cause and won because he was usually in the right.

Herbert’s satirical and entertaining stories were all loosely based on legal fact so, in one example, Haddock wrote out a ‘cheque’ to the Inland Revenue for £57.10s on the back of a cow which he took to the bank. The Revenue declined to take the ‘payment’ and took Haddock to court which found that he had in fact attempted to make payment and that there was no case to answer.

The basic point behind the stories and the later television adaptation was not only the occasional absurdities in English law but that the common man, in the person of Albert Haddock, could represent himself in court, defend himself against the assembled lawyers and barristers and win his case.

This was bought to mind yesterday when a young Essex woman, Georgina Blackwell, faced up in the High Court against a team of lawyers paid by a house building firm and not only won her case but was awarded £75,000 in damages.

Miss Blackwell clashed with the building firm over access to her land in Essex next to which the firm wanted to build. At an earlier court hearing, she had lost her case and she subsequently met to agree a compromise solution to the problem which she thought had been reached. However, the building firm withdrew their offer and claimed that no binding agreement had been made. The case went to the High Court which found in Miss Blackwell’s favour.

One can well understand that, as she later said, the experience was a terrifying one. However, Miss Blackwell carefully researched the law and stood up against highly paid counsel in court and made her arguments so well that she was complemented by the judge for her handling of the case.

Good for her, especially as she is now considering a law career. And one up for the common man, or in this case an uncommon woman!
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It’s A Start

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We have complained for years that the Blair and Brown governments have not been paying attention to public views. That was certainly the case with a referendum over the EU Treaty.

But there are signs that, doubtless due to a pending General Election, the government, or at least Gordon Brown, is paying attention.

Take immigration, for instance. Brown has announced that he is ‘tightening’ immigration rules by reducing the number of professions which can recruit from outside Europe. OK, that’s a start.

He has also announced that he will ‘examine’ the bonuses paid to civil servants in the Ministry of Defence after it was revealed that these amounted to £47 millions so far this year.

One can’t say that Brown has reacted much to public and press opinion so far, but it’s a start.
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More Tosh!

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Many years ago, more than I care to think about, the company I was working for decided to produce a manual on how to answer the telephone. I remember well that it started out with the priceless words, ‘First pick up the handset’.

Of course the manual was treated with widespread derision and was quickly trashed, much to the surprise of the ‘expert’ who had somehow or other persuaded senior management that the staff were mostly idiots that needed basic education in communication skills and that such a manual was just the thing they needed.

Over the years I have seen many such manuals and it seemed to me that their wordy and largely useless contents were mainly designed to show off how good the experts were in compiling them. The vast majority of them ended up either in wastebaskets or on shelves gathering dust and never to be seen again.

So I read with some amusement in this morning’s newspaper that the Association of Chief Police Officers had produced a draft of a 93-page, two-volume booklet giving guidance to police officers on how to balance, brake and avoid obstacles in the road when riding their cycles.

Once the news of this tosh was released to the public, ACPO announced sniffily that the work was neither requested nor drawn up by them and that they were not proceeding with it.

What a surprise!
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Is It Something In The Water?

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A Wearside woman has lost her appeal against her conviction for breaching a noise abatement notice and faces three more counts of breaching an ASBO for the same offence.

The Newcastle Crown Court heard that the level of noise emitting from the woman’s house could be heard not only in adjacent properties but in the streets in front and back of her house. Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise and the result was the woman’s conviction in November 2007.

And what was this noise? Merely the sounds of the 48-year old woman screaming in ecstasy when making love with her husband!

To prove the point, a ten-minute recording of the couple having sex was played in court which heard that Sunderland City Council had recorded sound levels of up 47 decibels.

In rejecting the woman’s appeal against conviction, the Recorder said, ‘It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration - this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.’ ‘It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.’

Blimey!

What surprises me is not necessarily the noise that the woman made when making love, but the stamina the husband appears to have. Maybe, it has something to do with the water up there in Wearside.

One thing is for certain. A television career can’t be far off!
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In Defence Of Gordon Brown

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I am not a fan of Gordon Brown but I have some sympathy for him following an outburst of bad press concerning the letter of condolence he sent to the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan in which he spelled his surname incorrectly.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the war in Afghanistan, it seems to me that the mistake was unfortunate but hardly ‘disrespectful’ or an ‘insult’ as described by his grieving mother. It was a mistake for heavens sake.

Brown has to be given credit for taking the time out of what must be an horrifically busy schedule to sit and write by hand such letters as this.

So, maybe, he could be forgiven for making a mistake now and again.
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Every Day Something New

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You learn something every day. Like, for instance, that there is an Act of Parliament called the Outer Space Act 1986. Wow!

The Act’s preamble explains its purpose: ‘An Act to confer licensing and other powers ... to ensure compliance with the international obligations of the United Kingdom with respect to the launching and operation of space objects and the carrying out of other activities in outer space by persons connected with this country.’ Wow again!

I had no idea that there was such an Act or that it would be so all-encompassing. Thinking of launching your own spacecraft from the wilds of the Yorkshire Moors? Think again - you need permission! Or maybe you’re thinking of accepting an invitation from that friendly Martian that walked through your wall on Saturday night and asked if you’d like to go for a ride on Tuesday? Forget it - you need permission!

Why am I burbling on about outer space?

It’s because the head of Virgin Galactic is thinking about launching his commercial space flights out of a spaceport based in Scotland’s Lossiemouth. But a change in the law - in the Outer Space Act 1986 - is needed to allow him to do it.

Groan! Is there no aspect of modern life that the government hasn’t got its bureaucratic fingers on?
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The High Cost Of Living

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It’s not only this side of the pond that some old folk are unable to manage on their pensions in these troubled economic times.

Take Michael Jackson’s father, for instance.

It has been disclosed that he is unable to manage on his State social security payments of $1,700 a month. This is a tad over £1,000 a month. What would our pensioners give to receive that?

But this is not enough to keep Mr Jackson going, for in documents submitted to the Los Angeles Superior Court, he says he needs an additional £20,000 a month to live on. Yes folks, that’s another £12,000 a month! Which is more than most of our pensioners get in a year.

It is said that Michael Jackson used to make payments to his father via his mother but, despite this, Mr Jackson senior was not mentioned in Michael’s will and Mr Jackson senior now seeks an income from Michael’s estate.

A lawyer for the administrators of the pop star's estate, said it was, ‘quite surprising to learn of the request’.

You can understand why!
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And Now For Some Light Relief

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Among the items on sale at the ‘Exceptional Auction of China Sport Collection’ on 29 November in Beijing are 5,000 condoms left over from the 100,000 distributed free to competitors of the Olympic Games there.

The stock of condoms, bearing the motto of the Beijing Games - 'Faster, Higher, Stronger' - in English and Chinese, has a starting price of the equivalent of eight pence each.

I was tempted to ask how much of the motto was seen by the average chap - but, in the interests of good taste, thought better of it!
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Earthquakes And Aftershocks

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Scientists at Northwestern University in Illinois and the University of Missouri believe that recent earthquakes may have been the aftershocks of earthquakes that occurred hundreds of years ago.

In the journal, Nature, they explain that a new pattern in the frequency of aftershocks could explain some major quakes after finding that echoes of past earthquakes can continue for several hundred years. They hope that further study will help them and other scientists to look for places where the earth is ‘storing up energy for a large future earthquake’.

Californians will be hoping that this is so for they anxiously await the arrival of ‘the big one’ which, despite recent major quakes in that State, has yet to materialise. I do hope so, for I was involved in the January 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles and it was a very unpleasant experience indeed, especially as for weeks afterwards one was waiting for the next aftershock in case it was a fresh earthquake.

Some time afterwards, I lived in the San Gabriel Mountains away from the rush, noise and pollution of LA. Just a couple of miles away from my house was the San Andreas Fault, a great gash in the ground, and I used to take visitors down there to see it.

Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. But looking more closely at the frequency of quakes might be.
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‘Lest We Forget’

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I had to go up to London yesterday and was saddened to see how few people were wearing poppies.

Maybe some people feel that the poppies represent just another charity and, to some extent, that is true for every week someone seems to be clanking a collecting tin as we emerge from a station or a supermarket. Every so often we also get personally-addressed appeals in the mail from charities reminding us of the need to support various folk or animals around the world. So I have some understanding of what is now called ‘charity fatigue’.

On the other hand, the annual display of poppies in the run-up to Remembrance Day has become a national symbol as well as a memorial and tribute to all those who have fallen in conflict and who may have been injured in or affected by them.

It’s not only the last two World Wars that we need to remember, but all the various conflicts since then. And, of course, the conflicts that exist right now, and Lord knows there are plenty of them.

More importantly, Poppy Day is a reminder - one sadly forgotten or ignored by many young people these days - that those who have fallen in conflict have done so to protect the freedom that we enjoy now. And that is definitely something that should not be forgotten.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
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Sold Out!

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The oldest parliamentary system in the world will have been sold out to the European Union when the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect later this year. And this despite the checks and balances we believed we had in this country on Parliament and the promise by ‘Teflon’ Blair of a referendum on the EU.

David Cameron, who I assume will be our next Prime Minister - Oh, Lord, let there please be a new Prime Minister! - finds himself betwixt the devil and the deep-blue sea. But the damage is done and there is nothing that can undo what has happened.

Cameron has promised a referendum on certain aspects of EU law and it remains to be seen whether his promise, like that of his predecessors in power, have any real meaning or whether it is as meaningful as a cupful of cold water in a storm. Only time will tell.

The tragedy is that the consequences of what has happened will fall on the Tories rather than on the people in power at this moment.

The wrangling and the arguments will probably go on for a lot longer than we can possibly tell.
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I Can Do Thursday If You Can Do Friday ...

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You’d imagine that an airline pilot would be pretty busy during a flight, checking his or her instruments, ensuring that the automatic pilot is working properly and doing all the other things a pilot should do and about which I know nothing.

One imagines that in those times when the automatic pilot has taken over, that pilots would be drinking their coffee, eating their meals, picking their noses and otherwise generally taking it easy while keeping an eye on things.

However, it has now emerged that the reason why a Northwest Airlines plane which overshot its destination by 150 miles was because the pilots were tinkering with their working schedules on their laptops! Good grief!

Now a US Senator is planning to introduce an Aviation Bill banning pilots from using laptops (except for those containing navigational tools), DVD or MP3 players and other personal electronic devices in flight. Like him, I am surprised that the regulations do not already prohibit this sort of thing.

For passengers in cattle class, flying is stressful in itself. But I’d rather be on a plane knowing that the pilot was fully concentrating on flying the wretched thing and not playing with his X-Box!
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He’s Referring It

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Yesterday the Deputy Speaker interrupted a Conservative MP in the middle of a speech when he spotted the MP looking at a Blackberry-type device when reading out the text of a letter he was referring to.

MPs are allowed to check and send emails from electronic devices in the Commons chamber, and are allowed to give speeches from written notes. But it seems that the Deputy Speaker felt that reading from an electronic device during a speech was to be ‘discouraged’. He allowed the MP to continue but said he would refer to it, another way of saying he would think about it afterwards.

In one respect, I have sympathy with the Deputy Speaker for the proliferation of Blackberries and those mobile phones which are also mini computers are a nuisance and a distraction.

On the other hand, reading a letter from a Blackberry doesn’t seem any different from reading from the letter itself.
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How Many?

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I don’t have a vintage car but I’d love to join the annual London to Brighton Rally which is held on the first Sunday of each November.

First held in 1896 to celebrate the Locomotives on the Highway Act, which raised the national speed limit from four miles per hour to fourteen miles an hour (Wow!), the rally attracts entries from all over Europe.

Over 400 cars were entered in yesterday’s rally, which is not strictly a race but more an endurance test to see if cars built before January 1905 can go the distance. If they do, they get a bronze medal.

I wonder how many of today’s cars, many of which require a computer programmer to repair, will be in the race in a hundred years time?
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Sales Time Is Every Time!

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I’ve said for some time that the many furniture sales advertised on television are often just a scam.

Ignoring the fact that I wouldn’t give house room to much of the bulky furniture being sold at so-called ‘Sale’ prices, the frequency of the television adverts suggests that the sale price is the ‘real’ price.

Labour MP David Taylor has now told that Commons that it is virtually impossible to find sofas and armchairs at the full selling price and that shoppers are being misled by the television and newspaper advertisements. I’m not sure I agree entirely on this last point, but I agree that something needs to be done.

The Advertising Standards Authority have twice upheld complaints in the last year against DFS’s half-price claims in TV adverts, ruling that they were misleading, and Mr Taylor comments that, ‘there is no way of knowing whether the discounted price represents a real saving for the potential consumer or just whether it is a cynical, deceitful come-on’.

New pricing practices guidelines are set out in the Consumer White Paper and are supposed to tighten things up. This remains to be seen.

In the meantime, it would be good to see fewer of these wretched furniture sales advertisements on television.
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