SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution is the part The United States Bill of Rights  and protects the right of  US citizens to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791. This means that the USA not only has murderous nutters, but has state-sponsored armed murderous nutters.  God bless America.  

ANIMAL LOVERS

Germany is to ban zoophilia (bestiality) which was made legal in 1969. So that we have a true understanding of German priorities, sodomy was legalised only in 2003.  Bestiality is to be outlawed under animal welfare legislation legislation although I assume that no one asked the animals. “Pass me another Hamster, Heinrich, zis one is split!”

WHAT A MISTAKE-A TO MAKE-A

Joey Barton appears to have been struck down with a bad attack of ‘Franglais’ of which René of ‘Allo, Allo’ would have been proud.  In an interview he responded in English but with a strong French accent.  Joey, I will say this only once.  Non!

CHILDREN IN NEED (OF COMPENSATION)

Congratulations to the BBC for the splendid effort of raising over £26 million pounds for ‘Children in Need’ with the possibility of the total growing to over £45 million. This should just about pay off the compensation for child abuse claims being leveled at the corporation.

BACKBONE OF THE NATION

Where will it all end?  The police are to be called in every time someone is called a nasty name and resignations are demanded, and obtained, for using such heinous utterances as ‘pleb’, while the banks dream up new whizzo schemes to part the citizen from his hard earned cash and the utility companies allegedly fiddle commodity prices to boost their profits at our expense.Thank heavens there are things that we can still rely on such as the Royal family, the Pound Sterling and the dear old BBC.

THE TWITS IN TWITTER

So Philip Schofield has outed suspected paedophiles by presenting the Prime Minister with a list of paedos following minutes of extensive research on the internet.  The matter was made worse when the cameras ‘accidently’ caught sight of the list.  I think that you should leave the intellectual stuff to ‘Gordon the Gopher’ in future, Philip.   One of the names on the Pervertfinder General’s list was that of Lord Alistair McAlpine, who has been able to effectively refute the accusations and has already briefed his lawyers.  The brown smelly stuff as definitely hit the round whirly thing and irresponsible tweeters and malicious accusers are about to get covered

OWN GOAL

A Commons Committee of MPs grilled Lin Homer, chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs, to determine why multi-national companies were able to have large sales in the UK and yet pay little or no Corporation Tax.  Homer was subjected to aggressive questioning and had a fairly uncomfortable time. The reason why these companies are able to organise their tax in this way is that this tax avoidance is allowed by our laws.  Who makes the laws, the MPs.   Physicians heal thyselves!

AND THIS YEARS WINNER IS.........

Barclays have threatened to withdraw their support for Stonewall’s annual awards unless they get rid of the category of “bigot of the year”.  It is surprising that  Barclays are able to occupy this high moral ground in the light of their history of PPI mis-selling, and the alleged Libor-rigging and interest rate swaps debacle.  Thank heavens there is not a category for "brass neck of the year"

NOT IN OUR BACK YARD

Hitachi has signed a £700m deal to build the UK's new generation of nuclear power plants.  David Cameron said that this is a major step for the UK.  It is also a major opportunity for Hitachi who are not allowed to build such plants in Japan........for safety reasons.

ALLO, ALLO, ALLO.

The Metropolitan Police are considering selling off the New Scotland Yard building, famous for  its revolving sign.  This is so that they can meet the governments cost cutting targets. They are also to cut the number of police station front counters in the London area. These are the locations where the ordinary citizen contacts the police to inform them of criminal wrongdoings and this will have the additional benefit of reducing the number of reported crimes.

  Amid all of this cost-cutting furore, the Met. is to investigate Mark Clattenburg, the FA referee, for the unspeakable crime of calling Chelsea players nasty names. I may be wrong, but I can see opportunities for further cost savings.

RED CARD

The latest person to be accused of the heinous, wicked and abominable crime of “calling someone a nasty name” appears to be FA referee Mark Clattenburg.  Clattenburg , it is claimed,  made an inappropriate remark to midfielder John Obi Mikel and accused Juan Mata of being Spanish.  We must be grateful that he didn’t call them "plebs" otherwise there would have been real trouble

ITS ALL BLACK AND WHITE

Peter Herbert, who chairs the Society of Black Lawyers, revealed yesterday that talks about the formation of the association for black football players (to be known as the Black Players' Association) are at a preliminary stage.  Presumably, there won’t be objections to a similar proposal to form a White Players Association.

JIMMY SA-VILE

The inquiry into alleged child abuse by Jimmy Saville has now become a formal criminal investigation, according to Scotland Yard, and the NSPCC said it is possible that Saville was "one of the most prolific sex offenders" the charity has ever come across. 

                                                       “How’s about that, then”

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

Home Secretary Theresa May has stepped in to halt the extradition procedure and save Aspergers sufferer Gary McKinnon from the malevolent and vindictive clutches of the USA. McKinnon has already admitted hacking into American military files looking for evidence of UFOs.  Perhaps, rather than persecuting the unfortunate McKinnon, the Americans should be employing him to show them how he managed to penetrate their supposedly top security military files. And as for Mrs. May, did she not use the Human Rights Act to justify stopping the procedure and is this not the same act from which we are proposing to withdraw ?

BITTER COFFEE

It was revealed today that Starbucks have paid no corporation tax on their UK earnings over the past three years and only a little over £8m since 1998. This has been achieved by loading costs on the UK company and declaring large profits in low-tax territories, putting local rivals in the UK at a competitive disadvantage.  This practice, whilst legal, is thoroughly reprehensible, and like the coffee leaves a bad taste in the mouth. 

JUST A POINT OF VIEW

Five British Royal Marines have been charged with the murder of an insurgent in Afghanistan. This was described, by a military spokesman, as the sort of action that gives the Taliban the moral high ground. Any high ground is important to the Taliban because it gives an improved line of sight when they shoot 14 year-old schoolgirls in the head.

HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN.

It appears to be the open season for debunking heroes, mostly through the medium of the national press.  A thousand page dossier from the US Anti-doping agency claims to show that Lance Armstrong, the multi-Tour de France winner and cancer survivor, was a sophisticated drug treat and that Sir Jimmy Saville, the lovable TV personality and charity worker, a predatory paedophile. In both cases the legal process has yet to be conducted and there are still unanswered questions to be addressed, such as why Armstrong passed a hundred percent of his drug tests and why there were no complaints against Saville during his lifetime.  It would appear that Jim managed to fix that.

A MAN OF HIS WORD

As we have already remarked, Ashley Cole has committed the grievous crime of “Tweeting” that the “FA are a bunch of twats” or to be more exact, in it’s actual grammatical context, “Hahahahaa, well done #fa I lied did I, #BUNCHOFTWATS. 

Let us now consider the wisdom of giving footballers, not usually  amongst the world’s greatest intellectuals, access to a system that allows them to put their immediate thoughts in writing and transmit them to thousands of people simultaneously.  It is equivalent to giving a baby a hand grenade to play with and telling him not to pull the pin.  No wonder explosions follow.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE...... T* * * S

Ashley Cole has committed the grievous crime of “Tweeting” that the “FA are a bunch of twats” or to be more exact, in it’s actual grammatical context, “Hahahahaa, well done #fa I lied did I, #BUNCHOFTWATS.”  

Let us start by considering Mr. Cole’s hypothesis.  The FA appear to be obsessed with minor misdemeanors such as in the Terry incident, expensively pursuing a case that had already been rejected in a court of law and instead retrying it kangaroo style.  Meanwhile what of the real issues: unsuitable, ultra-rich foreign owners taking over our clubs, the ridiculous wages being paid to the bladder kickers whilst the cost of tickets rocket, excluding the ordinary citizen from games, and the excess of oversees players in our leagues And what is the Association doing about these.  FA.  One to Mr Cole I think!

BACC TO THE FUTURE

Following the announcement by the omnipresent Michael Gove that the GCSE examination will be replaced by the English Baccalaureate or Eng Bacc, Ed Miliband,not to be outdone, has announced that Labour will introduce the Technical Baccalaureate or Tech Bacc if they win the next General Election. 

 These could be the first of several new qualifications such as those developed for the Retail Sector (The Money Bacc.), the Theatre (the Play Bacc.), Australian Studies ( the Out Bacc.), Classical Music (the J.S.Bacc) and Politics (Watch yer Bacc.)

THE WRONG TROUSERS

With the policies of Labour and The Conservatives so similar that it is impossible to distinguish between them, commentators have turned instead to characterising the party leaders and comparing them to well-known cartoon characters, old-Etonian, David Cameron to Lord Snooty,with his upper-class pals, and Ed Miliband to Aardman’s Wallace.  When asked what he thought of this portrayal Milliband replied “ It's just a bit of fun, lad. Now, fancy a nice piece of Wensleydale?”

HERE'S ONE I DREW EARLIER

Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN that time was running out  to stop  the Iranian uranium enrichment programme, demonstrating the point with an illustration of a bomb.  He said the Iranians  would have a nuclear bomb within a year.  Undoubtedly true, but it is likely to be the Israeli airforce  that drops it on them.

FOUR LETTER WORD

The police log of the Andrew Mitchell “pleb” incident has been published in full in The Daily Telegraph.  The question is not whether Mr Mitchell swore at the officer or used the word “pleb” but far more important is how the confidential police records came into the hands of the press.

DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

If you abuse a policemen by allegedly calling him a “pleb” your resignation is demanded, if you make a racial slur against an opponent on the football field you are suspended for several matches and if you participate in homophobic chanting as part of a crowd your club receives a heavy fine.  However, if you deliberately produce a tacky film that insults millions of members of one of the world’s major religions, leading to mayhem and death, you get nothing.  Obviously only some speech is free.

MY GOVE, I THINK HE'S GOT IT ....

It is part of the human condition that we can only see the problems with a current system and the advantages of a proposed new system.  Enter Michael Gove with his English Baccalaureate Certificate or “Gove levels” with a single end of course exam and no course work and retakes.  Just like the old “O levels” they penalise those who do badly in the highly artificial final exam situation, are dependent on how the student feels on a particular day and offer nothing to the less academic.  What is not generally realised is that they also have a hidden form of selection in that only students who can spell “English Baccalaureate Certificate” will be allowed to participate.

RIGHTEOUS ANGER

Violent protests have swept the Muslim world amid widespread anger over a film produced in the USA.  The film, a cheap, poorly acted, inflammatory, offensive piece of tat was released on YouTube, where it would have wallowed in obscurity, had attention not been drawn to it by the Islamic response.  Angry Muslim extremists complain that the film dishonours the prophet and shows his followers as bloodthirsty and murderous. The uprisings mounted against this wicked slander have resulted in the deaths of over a dozen people, including US ambassador in Benghazi, Chris Stevens.  QED.

THE TRUTH

The Hillsborough disaster report has been published today and it is not happy reading for the authorities. Like many others, I have criticised the representatives of the victims for their 23 years of non-acceptance of the official version of events.  They were right and I was wrong!  I am truly sorry. Not that that is of any importance to those involved..

Although the report is one and a half inches thick, within minutes of publication, analysts were able to comment on its content.

However, it would appear that the following information is correct:

·               The Hillsborough ground was unsafe and did not have a safety certificate.

·               The cause of the problem was not drunkenness, or fans without tickets, as alleged by the police, but failure of policing. People are human, even policemen, and mistakes can occur….that is not the crime.

·              Police and Ambulance service records were altered to support this claim 

       ( that is a crime!)

·            Victims were written off and allowed to die, when clinical information showed they could have survived. ( that would appear to be clinical negligence).

·            Attempts were made to vilify the supporters.  Blood samples were taken from the dead for alcohol analysis, including from a ten year old boy. (that is sick)         

       The Sun, an alleged newspaper, issued a condemnation of the Liverpool fans the following day, based on unsupported evidence, under the heading “The Truth”. ( that is “The Sun”)

 The old Soviet Union would have approved of the cover-up and the rewriting of history, and as for the Sun, Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist party, noted for its manipulation of the facts, would have been proud of you.  By the way, “Pravda” in Russian means “The Truth”.

I thought that we lived in a democracy, with a free, elected and open government.   Another vodka, Demetre?

A HORSE, A HORSE ...

1. Archaeologists, digging in a car park in Leicester, have unearthed human remains, possibly those of Richard IIIrd.  The investigators said that they were following a hunch, but should the DNA analysis prove negative, it will lead to discontent this winter.

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

Glenys Stacey, the head of Ofqual, has admitted that she applied pressure to to one of England's biggest exam boards Edexcel  to alter its GCSE English boundaries to avoid grade inflation.  This was done in order to maintain standards in English examinations. A spokesperson for Ofqual  reportedly stated “We gotta keep up gud standards, evry year,innit!”  

LORD ABOVE!

Now that the Olympic and Paralympic Games are over and have been an outstanding success, the talk is of honours for the athletes involved.  But what of the organisers and in particular Lord Coe, who has headed up the whole enterprise, and where do you go if you already are a Lord?  I can now exclusively reveal that Lord Coe is  to be promoted to "God".  This honour will convey upon him the powers of omnipotence and omnipresence but will mean that he has to avoid Richard Dawkins, who will be determined to prove that he doesn’t exist.

ALL CHANGE

Shortly after returning from the Summer hols, David Cameron has undertaken a reshuffle of his cabinet.  Why a reshuffle I hear you cry, why not just a shuffle? One shuffle is not enough, it has to be an iterative process, as more and more potential candidates turn down job offers. To give but a few examples, indicating the quality of this whole exercise, Jeremy Hunt has taken over the Health portfolio following his previous success of hanging on to his job by the skin of his teeth, Grant Shapps, whoever he is, becomes co-chairman of the Tory Party and Ken Clarke, one of the few Tories with real experience and gravitas, is put in charge of nothing in particular.  Goves keeps Education which should portend the end of civilisation as we know it.  The whole sad enterprise has been likened to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.  Wrong!  Deckchairs do have a use.

YOUR STARTER FOR TEN

The Paralympics are upon us, where the lame, deformed, damaged and mentally challenged perform heroic sporting feats …… but why restrict this concept to sporting events?  Why not have Para quiz shows?  Several leap to  mind. ‘Just a Minute’ for stammerers, ‘Countdown’ for sufferers of dyslexia or dyscalculia and ‘Ready, Steady Cook’ for ageusia sufferers ….. although on second thoughts in the case of ‘Ready, Steady,Cook’ ageusia may be regarded as an advantage. 

ARE YOU NOW, OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ....

A weary Lance Armstrong has given up the fight to prove that he did not use performance enhancing drugs in his cycling career, by deciding not to participate in an arbitration process. The cyclist has suffered years of persecution from the U.S. anti-doping agency, lead by Travis Tygart.  Arnstrong was subjected to hundreds of drugs tests during  his career, all negative, so the only evidence available to the US agency must be hearsay.  It is good to know that the spirit of McCarthy lives on. After all we don’t want to confuse the verdict with evidence, do we.  Tygart intents to erase all Armstrong’s wins including all his Tour de France victories. You may think that the USA rules the world, Mr Tygart, but the victories are not yours to take way. I think that you’ll find the clue is in the title “Tour de FRANCE”.

FOWL PLAY

The island paradise of Bermuda is suffering an unusual affliction ……. over 30,000 feral chickens.  The birds, originally derived from domestic stock, were released to the wild either by irresponsible owners or during Hurricane Emily.  A pair of wild fowl can produce up to 15 chicks in 20 weeks, and the chicks reach breeding age after five weeks. Several methods have been tried to suppress this avian tide but the ultimate solution has now been implemented …… they have called in Colonel Sanders.

IT'S LIFE JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

The latest Mars mission confirmed the presence of primitive life on the red planet when  “Curiosity” the Mars rover, was loaded onto an unmarked, rusting vehicle, carted away and sold for scrap. 

.....AND FRIGHTENED MISS MOFFAT AWAY

A new family of spiders has been discovered in the USA, in caves in Oregon and California.  The arachnid, which has been named Trogloraptor (cave robber),is 4cm long when extended and has vicious and impressive claws.  Experts say it is “ a fierce and specialised predator” although they are, as yet, unable to determine exactly what it eats.  However, it has been noted that one of the scientists investigating the caves has not been seen for several days.

BUT IT'S CHEAP

They’re at it again.  The Government has handed the franchise for the running of the West Coast Mainline to the UK's largest rail operator, FirstGroup, who made what industry insiders have described as a "suicide" offer of £6.5bn to £7bn to run the line.  The unions say that this will lead to a reduced service and job losses, and there is a fear that it may result in the new operator going bust.  Once again the Government may have failed to recognise the difference between “value” and “cheapness” and have illustrated its lack of skill contracting out business, only time will tell.  It is possible that Virgin, the current franchisees may pull out of rail transport completely, so what price competition then.

COMIC IN PERIL

Following reports of declining sales, the comic, "The Dandy" may be facing closure.  A spokesman for D.C. Thompson, named as Dan, said the situation was desperate.

YOU'LL GO QUICKER BY RAIL

From January, there will be an average increase of regulated rail fairs, mostly season tickets, of 6.2%.  To add insult to injury this does not even guarantee a seat. Although Health and Safety has a bad name these days, consider this.  There are moves to make cycling helmets compulsory, the typical speed of a cycle is 10mph, people travelling by car are compelled to be seated and wear a seat belts, maximum legal speed 70 mph, and yet we allow people to stand up, totally unprotected, in trains travelling at up to 140 mph. Presumably, the thinking is, that, following the relentless assault from increased ticket prices, passengers have already lost the will to live.

ALL THAT GLISTERS .......

The wonderful 2012 London Olympics have drawn to a close, a triumph of organisation, dedication and creativity.  Congratulations to all involved in the organisation.

The performance of our athletes has also been remarkable, obtaining a brilliant third in the medals table.Now, far be it from me to inject a sour note into the euphoria, nor yet cast a curmudgeonly veil over this achievement, but I would humbly suggest this is not the case.  True, we received more gold medals than Russia, who were officially placed forth, but this ignores all the silver and bronze medals.  If we consider total medals, Russia had 82 and GB 65; third place Russia.  But, I hear you cry, that values a bronze medal as equivalent to a gold.  So let us weight the value of the medals  gold 3, silver 2,  and bronze 1.  Total scores Russia 156, GB 140. Well, perhaps the differential of the weighting should be increased, say,  gold 5, silver 3 and bonze 1.  Total scores Russia 230 GB 215.  Russia still beat us.

Congratulations therefore, to the GB team for their brilliant performance in obtaining a superb and creditable fourth place in the overall medals table and a little less mathematical spin please .

REVERTING TO TYPE

So, as the London Olympics come to an end, I assume that it will be business as usual in the rest of the world; war, killing, mayhem, fraud, cheating and lying, banker's bonuses and other criminality.  I do however think that it shows great deference to GB that the rest of so-called humanity was willing to postpone its murderous ways for a couple of weeks to allow us to fill our papers, cover to cover, with sport                                                           

BORIS FLIES IN

     Perhaps in an attempt to investigate a new transport opportunity for the capital, Boris Johnson, the tousled-haired Mayor of London, attempted  to travel on a zipwire in Victoria park. The trip, as you might expect, went hopelessly wrong leaving Boris dangling in the air calling for a rope.  Be careful what you ask for Boris.  If everyone who wished to see you on the end of a rope was allowed in the park, extensive crowd control would be needed.

POTS AND KETTLES

American coach John Leonard has described the gold medal winning performance of Ye Shiwen, the 16 year old Chinese swimmer as "disturbing" and "unbelievable" after she took five seconds off her personal best and more than a second off the world record in the 400m individual medley.  Ye denies implied claims of doping.      
 As a representative of the USA, we really ought to take notice of Leonard. After all it was the USA who gave us such exemplary sports stars as Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, although proof before accusation might have been a good idea.. 

OPENING SALVO

NBC saw fit to censor the Olympic opening ceremony by substituting the singing of “Abide with me” and its accompanying dance tribute to the UK victims of the 7/7 attacks in London with a lengthy, pointless and inane interview with Michael Phelps.  Why did they do this?  “Our program is tailored for the US television audience” said a NBC Sports spokesman. If  it really was tailored for the US audience, it should have been in cartoon form and split up into 5 minute chunks to make it understandable to someone with the attention span of a goldfish.

        Meanwhile, back in Blighty, Aiden Burley, the latest man to put the twit into Twitter, referred to the ceremony as “leftie multicultural crap” “ The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen - more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state.”  Quite right Mr Burley! We don’t want to see those nasty commie Health Service workers or the victims of terrorism, but the real world of silver spoons, Oxford colleges, Management Consultants, Senior Bankers oh, and, not forgetting, Nazi stag parties.

THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG!

Two of Team GB ladies’ football team, Kim Little and Ifeoma Dieke, both Scottish, did not join in the singing of the National Anthem, “God save the Queen”  because it is the 'English' National Anthem.  Wrong! The whole problem is that England do not have a National Anthem and the aforementioned "God save the Queen" is the anthem of the United Kingdom.  Since Scotland has ‘Flower of Scotland’, Wales ‘Land of my Fathers’ and Northern Ireland ‘A Londonderry Air’, why not give England ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ as its national song.

As for Kim and Ifeoma, a better reason for not joining in the singing would have been the words of verse 6 (which for some reason are now rarely used).

May he sedition hush
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush
God save the King

Why do we call it the United Kingdom?

FLAGGING UP A PROBLEM

Whilst I am sure that we all agree that, to date, the Olympics appear to have been a triumph of organisation, we are still suffering from minor hiccups.  After the G4S debacle, regarding security, we now have the North Korean upset, where the flag of their deadly enemy South Korea was displayed instead of their own.  This was the work of the Caledonian wing of LOCOG based at Hampden Park.   They stated  “We will apologise to the team and the National Olympic Committee and steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again."  

However, my sources tell me that further trouble may be afoot when the Australians find out that their Olympic suits have arrows on them, and the German National Anthem, to be used for all the ceremonies, will be “If I ruled the world”.

THE CHANGE WILL DO ME GOOD!

David Gauke, a Treasury Minister, has criticized the practice of householders paying tradesmen in cash, saying it “is morally wrong”.  It appears that the recipients don’t pay VAT or income tax on their takings and this costs the Treasury about £2bn each year.  You really haven’t thought this through Mr Gauke!  When MPs are bribed, what on Earth do you think the brown envelopes are stuffed with!

ITS A RIOT!

Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of police have been drafted to security duties for the Olympics following the failure of private enterprise to fulfil its commitments, but has anyone thought about the gaps that this is leaving behind? As the weather starts to warm up and as August, the traditional season for chaos and insurrection on our streets approaches, potential rioters must be licking their lips and dusting off their swag sacks.  How on Earth is the poor citizen to be protected?   Time to call in G4S.