Not So Quick Please

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At a time when officers from the UK Border Agency found cocaine worth £1.7 million inside an HGV trailer coming into Harwich from Holland, I’m not sure I’d be too quick to criticise those members of the UKBAs staff who received bonuses totalling £295,000 last year.

As well as finding illegal immigrants stowed away in lorries and trucks, the UKBA people that work our ports and airports do sterling work and we often hear of the huge drugs and other illegal hauls they detect.

Sure, the immigration side of the UKBA is in disarray but, as I understand it, their staff can be posted to ports and airports to detect illegal hauls as well as to desks to sort through immigration issues or check passports, etc.

I, for one, wouldn’t want to work for the UKBA. Not unless a bonus was guaranteed!
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Turner Versus Turnip

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For me, art is like poetry. I like to understand it.

So this year’s Turner Prize for art, worth £25,000, goes to a young man who, with four assistants, has made a huge mural covered in gold leaf. Unusually, it will be destroyed after the current exhibition ends.

Explaining this, the artist said, ‘I am interested in placing painting in the situation where it collides with the world; the fragility of that existence. Being here for a short period of time, I feel, heightens the experience of it being here.’

Yeah, right.

Others will disagree with me, but my view of the Turner Prize is that it encourages tosh done up in the name of art. Other works submitted included a melted passenger jet engine, an untitled steel frame filled with cows' brains and pictures of unclothed dolls.

I think on balance, I prefer the unpretentious Turnip Prize, organised by the villagers of Wedmore in Somerset where they compete for the prize of ... a turnip.

This year’s prize went to a lady who pinned a pair of old underpants to a bar room door and titled it ‘Manhole Cover’. Clearly it was a winner!

Other entries included a fence panel entitled ‘Don't Take A Fence’ and a bunch of naked Barbie dolls in an old birdcage entitled ‘Knickerless Cage’.

Ah, yes. The Turnip Prize is by far the better competition!
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Less Than Helpful?

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Despite what I say from time to time about the behaviour of some of our MPs, I am a firm supporter of Parliament and some of its privileges.

I believe that the Houses of Parliament are set aside in various ways from normal life. I’m not bothered about MPs cheap meals and some of their other perks of office, but I would exclude policemen from clod-hopping all over the place without a warrant or special approval.

In the case of their utterly fruitless and pointless search of the office of MP Damien Green in November of last year, they didn’t have a warrant but were given permission to search by the Serjeant At Arms, Jill Pay, who had not been long in her job.

Miss Pay has now apologised for giving permission for the MP’s office to be searched by police without first asking if they had a warrant. In her defence she said that she was put under considerable pressure by the police and was given to understand that she could not refuse their request.

Nonetheless, one cannot help thinking that some of Miss Pay’s seniors were less than helpful to her at the time!
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A Long Slog

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It seems that the Labour Party, by which I mean the government, has withdrawn its pops against Tory MPs who were privately educated since it was disclosed that many of their own MPs were so privileged.

Among the leading Labourites who were privately educated are: Ed Balls, Hilary Benn, Stephen Byers, Alistair Darling, Quentin Davies, Peter Hain, Harriet Harman, Geoff Hoon, Tessa Jowell, Bob Marshall-Andrews, Michael Meacher, Nick Raynsford, Geoffrey Robinson, Keith Vaz and a whole bunch of others.

It’s going to be a long slog to the General Election but, thankfully, at least one subject has been ruled out of further discussion.
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Why Bother?

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This morning’s papers carry stories as to how ‘Bronco’ Brown proposes to save £12 billion over the next four years. The plans include ‘streamlining central government’ (whatever that means), cutting the civil service, getting rid of some quangos, etc., etc.

Having had these cuts announced in the papers, Brown then ‘announces’ them to at audience at the Royal Society.

Three questions arise in my mind.

Firstly, why has he bothered to make announcements to the good folk of the Royal Society? After all, we had only to look at our morning papers for this news.

Secondly, why doesn’t he tell Parliament what he proposes first rather than let his press department hand it out in advance?

Thirdly, and more important, why hasn’t he implemented these proposals years ago?
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Good On Yer!

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I have to support the New South Wales Police who have summoned the winner of ‘I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here’ after they killed and ate a rat.

An Australian RSPCA official said, ‘The killing of a rat for a performance is not acceptable. The concern is this was done purely for the cameras.’ I would agree with him. Though this is not a programme I watch, there are also far too many advertisements for programmes in which animals kill other animals.

OK. Maybe Nature is cruel. But we don’t have to see it. And, certainly, we don’t need to see people killing animals, however loathsome they may be to some propole.

Good on yer, Ossies!
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What Is The Point?

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Apart from being sentenced by an Italian court to 26 years in jail for her part in the murder of Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox has to pay damages of one million euros to Miss Kercher's mother and the same amount to her father.

In addition, her siblings will each receive 800,000 euros. If that wasn’t enough, she must also pay 40,000 euros compensation to local barman Patrick Lumumba, for falsely accusing him of the murder.

Where does the court expect this young women to get this money?
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