Bonkers!

.
A demonstration of how how hidebound with regulations Britain has become, along with a fear of breaking them, can be found with the redundancy notice sent to a 13-year old paperboy in Bedfordshire.

The lad was sent a redundancy notice along with a cheque for ‘one week's pay in lieu of notice, which equates to £6.53 (subject to tax and NI)’. The boy said when asked by reporters, ‘I felt annoyed and upset.’ I can understand his feelings.

What surprises me is, not the redundancy notice or the apparant lack of prior consultatation, but the absence of confirmation that the lad had a Criminal Records Check before he was allowed to put newspapers into people’s letterboxes, or that he wore the correct headgear when riding his cycle which had also been checked over for Health & Safety breaches and that he only went out with a dozen newspapers at a time to prevent him from getting a hernia lifting them or ...

See what I mean? I’m at it now!
.

Groan!

.
Oh dear just when we thought we had got rid of him, ‘Bronco’ Brown announces that 'Teflon Tone’ Blair would be an ‘excellent candidate’ for the first President of the European Council.

The Lisbon Treaty has yet to be ratified, of course, and it ought not to be forgotten that the British people have so far not been able to express their opinion in the referendum that Blair promised us but has so far been withheld. In this respect, William Hague is spot on when he says, ‘It leaves people feeling they have not been dealt with honestly and plainly.’

I’m no pollster, but I doubt the majority of the British people would now vote for the Lisbon Treaty given the opportunity.

And I’d bet that even fewer of us would want to see ‘Teflon Tone’ as President!
.

They Just Haven’t Got It!

.
The saga of MPs expenses rumbles on with one former minister being made to apologise to Parliament about his expense account and another being told to repay over £63,000. Wow!

In a sense, these instances are just a diversion from the main message which seems to be coming out of Parliament. This is that MPs are said to be objecting to new expense rules being imposed on them without their being able to vote on them.

Ignoring the fact that no employee in the normal world gets the opportunity to ‘vote’ on what their pay and expenses should be, it seems to me that MPs just haven’t got the message that we in the real world think that too many of them have had their snouts in the trough and, in any event, have access to far too many expenses.

MPs should get real and join the real world that the rest of us live in!
.

Peace & Quiet

.
We've been away for a few days in northern France and away from 'Bronco' Brown and his crew, government plans that suggest every one of us should have a criminal records check, the dire financial situation, the possibility that the EU may introduce a European income tax and all the other nonsenses going on at the moment.

We've been staying in a gîte in the little village of Beussent, around thirty miles south of Calais and tucked away in a lovely tree-lined valley not far from the walled town of Montreuil, and so situated that you might think you were a world away from the hustle and bustle of our usual lives. Which is how it should be when one is on holiday.

One of the things that I enjoy most of all is peace and quiet, and that is exactly what we can expect from our favourite gîte (see www.clubhousegites.com) which is tucked away in a lane just around the corner from the old mill through which races the local river in which can occasionally be seen cranes and herons. A short distance away is the village church and the bar with its most excellent gourmet restaurant, ‘Restaurant Lignier’.

So why am I telling you this and making what seems to be a blatant advertisement? It is because of what happened this morning.

What happened this morning? The answer is absolutely nothing.

Therein lies the beauty of life in Beussent and, as the Americans are fond of saying, I'd like to share it with you.

The gîtes have a no-smoking policy (which is fair enough) and, because I like my reviving cup of coffee and a cigarette first thing in the morning, I take them outside the apartment and settle for a while in total tranquillity and away from the light and noise pollution of where we live.

Until the street lights flicker into life at six-thirty, the outside world is completely dark and the only light is that of a light dimly shining a quarter of a mile away by the village church. Above, the stars shine brightly in a cloudless sky, and a satellite and the strobe lights of a passing, soundless plane can be seen among them.

Over the way, up and behind the church, in a forest ablaze with its russet fall colours where boar are said to roam among the fallen chestnuts and walnuts can be heard the owls gently hooting to each other. Except for the owls the world at that time is completely soundless, unlike where we live in Essex where the background noise is most often the wailing of emergency vehicles tearing along the nearby main road.

But, here in Beussent in the early morning, all is deafeningly quiet until a manic cockerel begins to proclaim the pending dawn and is joined by its competitors nearby. Not for a while yet do the other birds start chattering and the crows arguing, to be joined by the quacking of the ducks on the river. As dawn breaks I can see the cows in the field opposite the gîte busily and miraculously turning water and lush, green grass into milk.

The church bell tolling at six o'clock for morning mass seems to announce the start of the working day though, except for a passing car or the occasional tractor and trailer loaded with sugar beet, the world of Beussent remains a quiet and tranquil one. And, as I said before, that is just how I like it.

So I thought, as the Americans are fond of saying, I'd like to share this with you. If you want some peace and quiet in a place not too far removed from the various sights and sites of northern France, head for Beussent!

What a shame that just a few hours later I find myself back in noisy civilisation!
.

Animal Cruelty

.
One of the joys in walking our two dogs twice a day is meeting up with other dog-walkers and saying ‘hello’ to their dogs. Most often we meet the same people and the same dogs, many of which will run towards us with their tails wagging in expectation of a bit of fussing. And why not? There is always time to pet a dog!

Not everyone likes dogs and one has to respect that, but I have nothing but utter contempt for those who abuse dogs or other animals.

Three cases were highlighted just yesterday.

The first was a Northants breeder of St. Bernard’s who took herself on holiday and abandoned 99 - yes, 99! - puppies to their fate. No less than sixteen of these beautiful animals died or had to be put to sleep when their suffering was discovered. For causing this suffering to so many dogs the woman was rightly sent to prison, but for just eighteen weeks. Not enough in my book.

The second case concerned a woman from Fletching, near Uckfield, who stuffed four puppies into two suitcases which were found locked in a cupboard in the house. Though she failed to appear at Lewes Magistrates' Court, she was convicted of causing unnecessary suffering and neglect and an arrest warrant without bail has been issued with a warning that she also faces jail. In this case, it appears that last year RSPCA inspectors found sixteen adult dogs and ten puppies in a double garage with limited natural light and ventilation and hazardous conditions. At that time the woman gave up ownership of ten puppies and six dogs, leaving her with ten collie dogs, which were taken away at a later visit. So much suffering to defenceless animals!

And then, finally, a pit bull-type dog off its lead attacked a four-year old boy in a Birmingham park, causing minor head injuries to the lad. In this case, the male owner of the dog appeared to strangle it in front of the child and others, and was then seen on CCTV leaving the park dragging the apparently dead dog behind him. Such an act is hard to imagine even though the dog had injured a child.

There is no excuse of any sort for cruelty to animals and I have absolutely no sympathy for those who do so and who deserve the punishment the Courts hand down to them.
.

Bigotry & Racism

.
Among the pages of this morning’s newspapers this morning are stories of murders, child abuse, a child who died of Swineflu, strikes both actual and threatened, severe food shortages in north Korea, yet more suicide bombers killing people in Pakistan, soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, damage to Samoa caused by the recent tsunami, forest fires in Australia and many others involving death and destruction around the world.

Yet all these stories have been pushed to the back pages as this morning’s front pages virtually all feature Nick Griffin, the Leader of the odious British National Party, who was invited by the BBC to appear in last night’s ‘Question Time’ and despite the hundreds of protesters outside the studio.

Facing jeers and boos from the audience, Griffin made a poor showing and never really answered any of the questions put to him. He refused to confirm that he had denied the Holocaust, defended the Ku Klux Klan and attacked homosexuals and Muslims. Referring to the ‘indigenous people’ who he said felt shut out in their own country, he went on to say, ‘We are the aborigines here.’

Though pushed mainly on the extremist views of his party, Griffin had little time to develop what, if any, other policies the BNP had. Indeed, if they had any on the present economic condition, the health service, postal strikes, etc., etc., we didn’t hear them.

All in all, it was a sad showing and, despite the criticism of the BBC for allowing this man to take part in the programme, it did have one benefit.

The majority of viewers would most probably have been switched off by this smug person representing an odious party with no real answers or policies except that of bigotry and racism..

Wind Farms

.
It’s not often that I agree with the things that former Deputy Prime Minister John ‘Two Jags’ Prescott has to say, but his comments at the annual conference of the British Wind Energy Association is spot on in my view.

He said, ‘It is absolutely scandalous that three-quarters of planning applications for onshore wind turbines are turned down. We cannot let the vocal minority stop our move to a low-carbon economy.’ He went on to call for local authorities to be required to assign suitable sites in their areas for wind farms.

The problem, as he rightly pointed out, is that there are too many ‘not in my back yard’ folk, that block planning applications for wind farms.

Wind farms can be seen all over Europe and have become part of the scenery in many places around the world. Certainly, one has to agree that their appearance can alter the appearance of a particular scene but then so did houses and other buildings over the centuries.

If we are to do something about reducing our carbon emissions then wind farms would seem to be at least one way forward and, instead of bitching about them, they ought to be encouraged.
.