2018 Psychic Predictions Revisited

If you boast a client list which includes Cher, Rod Stewart, Matt Dillon and Tom Cruise then you must be onto something so here are the results of just how close Psychic Nikki 2018 predictions were.

    Fire/explosion at the New York Times Newspaper     x
    Explosion at Penn Station in New York City        x
    Donald Trump Impeachment                x
    America will attack North Korea            x
    A blimp will explode in the U.S.            x   
    Terrorist attack in Oslo, Norway            x
    A space ship lands and take hostages        x
    A member of the royal family will be kidnapped    x
    Island of Malta almost destroyed by an earthquake    x
    A movie star will be killed by a shark        x
    A change in the Monarchy in England            x
    Israel and Iran attack each other            x
    A huge heist at the Louvre in Paris            x
    Elton John and David Furnish will split up        x
    Kim Kardashian and Kayne West will split        x
    David Beckham will split from his wife, Victoria    x
    The Rock has a Motorcycle accident            x
    Category 5 hurricane wipes out Miami        x
    An assassination attempt on the Queen        x

Nikki did say that an earthquake would hit the British Isles and we did have a few small quakes due to fracking so she got that right but the less said about the others the better because Rod Stewart and Cher may want to look elsewhere for their psychic kicks.

2018 Father Time & The Grim Reaper

Old Father Time leant his scythe against the bench and sat down wearily and as he was removing his 2018 sash the Grim Reaper walked up the pathway to join him.
'Hiya Time' he said cheerily as he sat down beside him, 'So how was 2018 for you?' he asked digging into the pocket of his cloak and taking out a cigarette.
'Usual stuff with the sex scandals, wars, murders and stupid World Leaders' sighed Time, 'How was your year? Reap anyone interesting?
Death lit the cigarette and blew out a plume of grey smoke before saying: 'Let's see, there was usual the hundred of thousands of war related deaths but celebrity wise, i got Burt Reynolds, Aretha Franklin, the dad out of Frasier, Stephen Hawking, Dale Winton, Eric Bristow, Leslie Grantham, Peter Stringfellow, Barry Chuckle, Pete Shelly and George Bush'.
'George Bush?'
'Yep, not the retarded cowboy one, his father'
'Oh, that one' 
'They have Donald Trump though so i'm not worried about running out of work anytime soon' chuckled Death 'so what was going on in 2018?'
'You will be glad to hear that after the school shooting in Florida, America decided to bravely do nothing about it'.
'Good old America, if they are not blowing up somewhere else they are shooting each other, would warm my heart if i had one' said Death 'although i did get worried when Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un met up, no WW3 for me now i thought'.
'Indeed' nodded Father Time wistfully. 
'Although Trump and the UK has been a bit of a let down on the war front this year' said the Reaper, 'Saudi Arabia have really stepped up to the plate and are not only carpet bombing Yemen civilians but they killed that journalist in Turkey and i can always rely on a steady stream of dead Palestinians courtesy of Israel'.     
'The UK have been obsessed with Brexit' said Time 'although there was a Royal Baby whose name nobody can remember and the ginger one married an American celebrity/actress/divorcee'
'Nice' nodded Death stubbing out his cigarette on the arm of the bench 'so how's 2019 shaping up? Global Warming still going ahead unheeded i notice, lucky me'
'Usual stuff i expect with even more sex scandals, wars, murders and stupid World Leaders' sighed Time reaching over to pick up the shiny, new 2019 sash and pulling it over his head.
'How's next year looking for you' he asked Death who smiled and opened his notepad and held it up to Time to read.
He glanced down the full list of names of the soon to be reaped and opened his eyes wide when he got to August.
'Really? he asked 'That many in one month?'    
'Yep, busy, busy, busy, oh well, no rest for the wicked, same time next year pal' and picking up his scythe, he walked away whistling the tune of Knocking On Heavens Door.

What To Do With Unwanted Presents

While i am very much on board with the idea that when it comes to Christmas Presents it's the thought that counts, the phrase you really shouldn't have can trip easily off the tongue and thoughts turn to what time does the Charity Shop open.
Sometimes you get the receipt included and it is a short trip to the shop the present came from to exchange it for something that better suits our tastes but if you don't have the receipt, or the desire to trek into town to queue for an exchange, other alternatives are available including donating, recycling, swapping or regifting.
Regifting can be a minefield and everyone has a story of rewrapping a present for someone only to realise too late that it was them who gave it to you in the first place.  
There is also the ethics of what to do with unwanted presents such as looking your sister in the eye when you pretend you love those pink, crushed velvet pyjamas she got you in the knowledge that you took them back and swapped them for a pair of headphones on Boxing Day.
I don't know if there is a respectable length of time is to hang on to a present before passing it on but i will give it at least until February before i take the Alan Carr DVD i received to the charity shop to ruin the life of someone less fortunate.

Science Trying To Save Planet

It seems safe to say that our Politicians are not up to the job of sorting out our warming planet so we are living in hope that Science as usual comes up with a way to get us out of the hole we have got ourselves into before we all fry or float away on flood water and Harvard have come up with a plan, well a sort of plan anyway.
Using the notion that our Star is going to continue beaming down sunshine on us whatever we do, they are preparing to test dimming the sun by sending a balloon into the skies over the southwest United States and releasing a chalky material to bounce the sun’s heat back into space.
Basing their idea on historic massive volcanic eruptions which throw sulphur dioxide gas into the stratosphere which then bounces back so much of the sun’s light that the Earth’s average temperature dips.
Sounds good in theory but other scientists are warning that while the sulphur dioxide does cut the sun rays from hitting the ground, it also boosts levels of harmful ultraviolet light because of its effect on the ozone layer, which normally protects us from this radiation.
The first tests in the new year will release ice into the stratosphere from the balloon and then move onto small amounts of calcium carbonate dust, and possibly other materials to study their ability to bounce back sunlight.
The additional problem is if Science does find a way to stop the Earth warming, politicians will take it as a red light to not do anything to stop Global Warming and reduce the impact of CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
We have got ourselves in a mess and the only solution is to drastically cut the amount of emissions we spew into the atmosphere but at least Science is trying to do something which is more than the politicians who are doing less than butkus.

Another Fine Mess For Bowler Hats

I don't know if it is a Midlands thing only but over the Christmas i saw a few people wearing bowler hats, admittedly they were young hipster types and i imagine they thought they looked cool but my mind went straight to 'he looks like Stan Laurel'.   
Since coming back South i haven't seen any of the bowl shaped fashion items balanced on youngsters heads i'm glad to say because with the exception of the top hat, the Bowler is not a great look.
It's not for nothing that they spent years in the sartorial wilderness and even bankers who find braces and pinstripes appealing have left the Bowler in the 1970's where it belongs but the youth of today probably don't know about Laurel and Hardy.
Or the apple-faced Magritte, or Hercule Poirot or the Tintin books detectives Thomson and Thompson, A Clockwork Orange's Alex DeLarge and Bond villain Oddjob who all favoured the bowl shaped hat.
Admittedly Oddjob did use his to decapitate people but the rest are not people you would go out of your way to want to look like but that said, it is still better than the baseball cap which only American tourists in loud shirts and nobody over 16 anywhere else should be wearing.

Special Guest Blogger: Father Christmas

Hello, boys and girls. As you might imagine, this is a very busy time of year for Santa and the last thing i need to be doing is squeezing in writing a blog post but i have been promising Lucy for the last few years i would do one so here it is before i finish off the shopping and Christmas shopping here in the North Pole area is not exactly easy. We've got a Poundland and a Sports Direct but that's about it.
One of the questions i get asked the most is 'What the worst thing about being Santa?' Well the hours aren't great and the three million mince pies in one evening doesn't do my sugar levels or waistline any favours but getting my hands on coal for the naughty kids is getting tougher, global warming and all that.
Being the North Pole, we see the climate changes here more than most so where we once had snow right up to the window sills, the ice and snow has retreated further than ever but the good news is i found my bike again.
Another new problem is crossing into America to deliver presents, especially with the Orange Grinch in control. Last year three of my elves got put into a metal cage in an immigration camp while crossing at the Mexican border. Took Mrs Claus three days to prove to Immigration Officials that they weren't children and were not trying to claim asylum.
One final thing that grates is that everyone calls me something different. To make it clear, Father Christmas is the office i hold while Santa Claus is my name so i'm not sure why people started calling me St Nicholas, Père Noël, Sinterklaas, Papa Noel, Babbo Natale Christmas Man or Kris Kringle and anyone who calls me Santa Baby is going to find an extra large lump of coal in their stocking.
On the upside, the global recession has meant smaller lists and therefore a lighter sack so Mrs Claus doesn't spend all of January rubbing Deep Heat into my sore back so Ho, Ho, Ho and make sure you are all in bed before i arrive this Christmas Eve and if you could maybe leave a satsuma rather than a mince pie this year it would be much appreciated.

Special Guest Blogger: Melchior Of The Three Wise Men

Anyone who knows their theology will know that three wise men turning up with presents is quite an old tradition, we popped up in earlier religions also at the birth of Buddha, Crishna, Rama and Confucius so when we heard of yet another saviour turning up in Judea, Belthazar, Gaspar and myself, Melchior, began to make arrangements.
First we brainstormed baby gifts but we hadn't been given much notice and it was early closing today so all we could get was some Frankincense (buy one get one free so that's also mums birthday present sorted). Gaspar says he had some Myrrh hanging around that he wouldn't ever use so he will give it that. Gold is always handy so we grabbed some of that as well.
Then we made the travel arrangements, obviously camel, but Gaspar's had been stolen but mine was a two seater so we packed the presents and set off in the general direction of Judea.
When we got there the place was a bit of a pigsty, literally, there were angels being chased by cows and the poor kid was in a food trough and an annoyed looking sheep was nibbling at the baby's blankets.
When you have seen one saviours birth you have seen them all so we left the presents by the door and quickly left them to it leaving the sounds of Mary shouting 'Oi, what am i supposed to do with 2lbs of Myyrh' behind us.
Despite the start, i'm glad things turned out okay for the kid, the Romans nailing him to a cross thing aside, but things have been a bit quiet on the 'birth of saviours' front recently but the three of us are always available for nativities, birthday parties and hen nights.

Special Guest Blogger: Chief Elf Snowball McTwinkle

If asked, i would say officially that my main role is making sure that all the toys are made, packaged and on the sleigh in time for Santa to do his rounds on Christmas Eve but unofficially i see my main role as Chief Elf is making sure that my fellow Elf's (or Non-Standard Height Workers as we liked to be known) are treated correctly by the big man.
For example, this year i balloted my workers for strike action over Santa's plans to change the break time meals of candy, cakes and cookies to a healthier diet of vegetables and fruit due to the costs of treating our Type 2 Diabetes but Santa soon backed down when Mrs Claus pointed out that he didn't pay us anyway and stepping over Elf's in a diabetic coma was a small price to keep the children of the World happy.
Santa, you see, comes across as a jolly, benevolent fellow but in the workshop, away from the eyes of the World, he is a tyrant but really, it wasn't that hard to work out, he is a big fat guy with a bushy white beard. Remind you of anyone, maybe one of the Marx family?    
Then there was the red suit and the giving stuff away and not selling it for a massive mark-up, it isn't brain brain surgery people, it's all about redistributing the toys.
The less subtle clues were the fact that 'Ho, Ho, Ho' is Latin for 'Workers of the World Unite' and if you play the chorus of 'White Christmas' backwards you can clearly hear the phrase 'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs' repeated over and over.
Then there is the list of all the boys and girls and who are either in the system (nice) in which case there are richly rewarded with presents or outside of it (naughty) and they get nothing.
So yes, for all those who have suspected that we has been brazenly feeding Marxism to the innocent, capitalist offspring, you are right so, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout and i'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town and he is carrying a hammer and sickle comrade.

Special Guest Blogger: Saint Nicholas

The last thing i want is to come across as grumpy, sure i appreciate the whole Christmas thing but in my lifetime i received a visit from the Virgin Mary herself, brought back to life dead children, calmed a storm at sea, saved innocent soldiers from execution and chopped down a demon possessed tree but mention the name Saint Nicholas and all i'm remembered for is throwing some coins into some prostitutes socks.
To make things even worse it led to the story of the jolly fat guy in the red suit who would replace my boss's kid as the face of Christmas and i'm not jolly or fat and wouldn't be seen dead in a red suit, i was always more of a grey smock guy.
At least the Beach Boys remembered me although at 5ft in my stockinged feet the 'Little Saint Nick' was a bit of a dig, you try clambering up on rooftops when your 5ft tall, not easy i tell you.
Anyway, at least i'm remembered all these years later, remember Saint Agathangels? Nope? There you go then, it's George, Valentine and me and i invented Christmas so that beats fighting dragons and zinging arrows into people butts.
As thanks for giving the World Christmas and Santa, they made me the Patron Saint of Portsmouth and Liverpool for crying out loud. I know i'm a Saint with a hotline to the Big Guy but anyone who has been to either of those places know even i couldn't conjure up enough of a miracle for them, if i had known at the time i would have kept off the roofs and kept my coins in my pocket.
Still, enjoy the holidays that i gave you and when you think of Christmas remember me, the man who gave money to sex workers who then morphed into a fat guy with gout and high blood pressure who comes into your bedroom when your asleep and leaves you presents which isn't creepy at all.
Right, where's my axe, that Elm Tree in the back yard has been speaking in tongues again.

LinkedIn

For some reason i am getting emails from people leaving me messages and trying to contact me on LinkedIn.
As far as i am aware i have never joined, signed up or registered with LinkedIn so the LucyP on LinkedIn is not me so don't bother contacting me through it.
Anyone who wants to contact me can email me at the address in the contact page on the profile section of this blog but i certainly won't be able to reply through LinkedIn.

Special Guest Blogger: Joseph

When it comes to the Nativity scene there are several main characters but i don't seem to be amongst them, my only role was to hire a donkey and get Mary to a stable in Bethlehem and then stand at the back and keep quiet while a sheep nibbled on my tunic.
I don't get songs sang about me and the only line said by young children with tea-towels wrapped around their heads in school plays is to ask if there is any room in the inn but i'm not bitter, okay so maybe a little bit.   
Where was the Father when his son was growing up? It was me who wiped his snotty nose when he had a cold and that boy seemed to have a permanent cold and don't get me started on the cost of medicine and no maintenance payments ever came our way although him having the knack of making a loaf of bread feed 5000 people came in handy as did that Gold those nice men in the fancy clothes brought. 
Don't get me wrong, that my wife is exalted to the highest is nice but it was a bit of a shock when she told me nine months earlier that while i was out buying a new hammer, God had came down from heaven and splashed his Holy seed at her and impregnated her with man's Saviour. Oh, and i needed to get her to Bethlehem pronto and anyone who has tried to hire a donkey on Christmas Eve knows that's easier said then done.
So despite being the 'dad', only playing a very minor role in the whole nativity thing and not getting a carol or a hymn, (even the donkey gets its own song), the worst bit was that conversation with the boy about who his real father was. Talk about Awkward!!

Special Guest Blogger: Jesus

Being 2018 years old my Birthday celebrations are toned down to how they used to be. I would make the most of having Christmas and my Birthday on the same day, it was party, party, party but my Father said my behaviour wasn't befitting the son of God so in the name of multi-culturalism, instead of necking anything mildly alcoholic and chasing angels with a sprig of mistletoe, my father opened up the celebrations to the deities and spiritual representatives of other faiths.
On my birthday last year we had Muhammad, Moses, Abraham, Ganesh, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Zeus, Athena, Buddha, Ra, Odin, Venus and Thor and after the discussion over whether The Bible or Harry Potter was better (we all agreed Harry Potter as it had mail delivering owls and quidditch) we had a game of charades.
I will admit that handing Ganesh the Elephant Man film to act out was not a smart move and calling Abraham, the founding father of the Covenant, Father Abraham and asking him to sing the Smurf Song didn't go down well but things really took a downward spiral when Joseph turned up. 
As my dad, i always feel a bit sorry for Joseph, it can't have been easy for him and he was there for me growing up in a way that The Father never was so i sent him an invite to join in on my special day.
You can imagine the chilly atmosphere that flooded the room when he stepped in, The Father stayed in the kitchen until the party broke up about an hour later and then i had to listen to him rant about how Joseph is just a mortal and it was him who created the World in 6 Days while Joseph took a week just to knock up a spice rack, and even that was wonky.
He calmed down after a few beers and finding some old 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em' on the Xmas Gold channel, a bit of Frank Spencer always cheers him up.
We watched 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' until late and just before we turned in to bed i asked him 'Do you think that my birth in Bethlehem all those years ago changed the world for the better?'
He plucked at his beard for a long while, staring into the middle distance and then said, 'Buddha broke the toilet seat, i'll sort it out in the morning' and hastily left the room.
Families huh.

Changing High Street

High Street shops rely on the Christmas to pick up any slack they may have suffered during the year so when the tills are not ringing as they need at Christmas, oh dear.
Online fashion retailers ASOS, Zaslanda and Boohoo have all issued profit warnings highlighting a major downturn in trading sending their shares plummeting but the shops in the High Street have also taken a battering with Marks & Spencer, Next, Debenhams, Sports Direct, Bon Marche, Superdry and Primark all suffering lower than expected sales receipts.
There has been a string of stores go out of business or announce shop closures this year and the shopping centres could be about to  see another massive wave of empty shops.
ASOS Chief put the poor performance down to a mix of Brexit and a weakening in consumer confidence (whatever that means) and payments company Visa said consumer spending fell by the most since July last month, while another survey said British households finances are hit after a decade of austerity and stagnant wages.
My thoughts are with the employees of the stores in financial trouble because they will be the ones who suffer the most if the problems continue, further victims of a decade old financial crash which still hasn't been dealt with.

Special Guest Blogger: King Herod

While i am always portrayed as the big bad in the Nativity Story, it's about time i put my side of events across.
I would like to start with the story most associated with me, the story of the birth of Baby Jesus which begins with Joseph and Mary travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem and being turned away by a succession of inn keepers.
Of course if the Senate had taken me up on my offer for a total shutdown of foreigners entering Bethlehem or the idea to build a Border Wall around Bethlehem and make Nazareth pay for it as i suggested,  then we wouldn't have had the problem to start with so, as illegal immigrants, the inn keepers were perfectly right to turn the couple away.
When Nazareth sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people.
As usual, one do-gooder lefty bleeding heart proprietor, instead of telling them to stop taking beds which properly belong to the Bethlehem people, allowed them to stay in their stable condemning his customers to the inconvenience of the faint sounds of the foreigner howling in pain as she gave birth, annoying even if she was a young and beautiful piece of ass. 
Taking advantage, they not only emptied out the manger to make a makeshift bed for their child born out of wedlock, but they disrupted the animals and made a right mess of the hay, hay which had been paid for by hard working tax payers.
As usually happens if you let the foreigners flood in, chaos follows with a massive, bright star lighting up the stable further disrupting the inns paying customers sleep and the stable quickly filling with uninvited foreign men illegally bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh which they had smuggled through customs and would reduce the value of the commodities, further hitting the wages of Bethlehem's hard working shepherds.
The story does have a happy ending though as i upheld right wing values by first ordering all foreign children be snatched away from their parents at the border and held in cages but then upgraded it to  slaughtering the first-born of all moany, whinging, liberal traitors and although many said it was harsh, well, let's say that if they hadn't been there then they would have been safe.
So everyone loved me and we all had a very Merry Christmas that year, the biggest and best Christmas i tell you, and if you hear any different about me then it's all fake news

December 16th: Happy Birthday

I always thought that December 26th or January 1st are the worst possible days to have a Birthday on, just after everyone has just finished exchanging presents and eating and drinking themselves silly but apparently there is a worst day, December 16.
Being born nine days before Christmas you share a birthday with Jane Austen, Noël Coward, Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick, Quentin Blake and Christopher Biggins but a survey by Interflora say it is basically a write-off.
What makes it especially worse according to the flower delivery service is that the days are dark and cold but it is very close to Christmas, which means people are busy with pre-Christmas parties and you get combined presents usually wrapped in Christmas paper.
Although i agree that it’s bad to have a birthday that close to Christmas, they don't expand on why 16 December is worse than the 8 days this side of December 25th which are even closer i'm going to stick with my original dates as being worse and be thankful that my birthday usually coincides with Easter and i get double the amount of Chocolate Eggs in that period.
So if it is your birthday today then Happy birthday and if you are really, really careful, you can use the Christmas wrapping paper that your Birthday present came in to send back to the person who couldn't be arsed to find proper Birthday paper for you.

Twas The Night Before Christmas In The White House

Twas the night before Christmas, in the Presidents House,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The nation was trying to keep warm but in vain,
'Cause global warming had bought in the snow once again,
Melania in her ‘kerchief, and Don in his cap,
They settled their brains for a long winter’s nap.

When on the White House lawn there arose such a clatter,
Donald sprang from the bed to see what was the matter,
Away to the window he flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

When, what to his wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
He looked more closer and said 'That's not St Nick'.

Hello Mr President, my names Abraham Lincoln,
And i've come to complain about what you've been thinkin',
The trickle down system you persist with is screwed,
American's can't warm up their houses or pay for their food.

You lie and disgraced these once wonderful lands,
You have sex with porn stars and have wandering hands,
Treaty withdrawals and sanctions announced,
All round the World you are being denounced.

You screwed up my country he said shaking his fist,
And leant through the window and gave Don's nipples a twist,
Then he drew back his fist and punched him hard in the belly,
That shook when he walked, like a bowlful of jelly!

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
Took all of Trump's presents and called him a jerk,
Pausing to stick a finger up the Presidents nose,
He gave a brief nod and up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
Your record is wiped Trump, your numbers not listed
A present to the World, it's as if you never existed

As the World all cheered as he drove out of sight,
He said now it's Happy Christmas for all, this has been a good night!"

Quality Street: A Christmas Tradition

There may be 10 days to go but already the majority of the Cadbury’s tree decorations have been eaten and as the kids have developed a sneaky ploy of eating the chocolates off the tree but somehow leaving the wrapping on as if they hadn't been touched, i guess there are even less than i expect but at least the Quality Street tin remains unopened.
When i was a child the Quality Street tin would sit beneath the tree from early December but we were not allowed to touch or rattle it and certainly couldn't prise open the lid of the metal tin and make off with a Strawberry Delight or a Hazelnut Caramel but apart from bringing down our mother's wrath upon mine and my brothers heads, it was sealed with sticky tape.
The tin was religiously opened on Christmas Eve, usually when us kids were not around so when we finally got to the tin, all the purple and soft centred ones had been snaffled by my father to leave us wading through the Toffee Fingers and Toffee Pennies to find what decent ones were left for us.
As i'm now a grown up and Tesco sell 3 tins for £10, i don't inflict this pain on my own children, i throw open a tin and invite everyone to dip in although i have no answer to why almost every tin we have very few of the Strawberry and Purple sweets.
I just shrug at the mystery and make sure i don't leave the empty wrappers hanging around where they can see them.

Careful What You Wish For In Removing May

The Conservative Party's Christmas booze up in the brewery has been cancelled this year as Theresa May was unable to organise it and if things play out the right way we could be seeing her repeating the last female Prime Minister who was also removed by her own Party members.
After the 1922 Committee announced that they had received the requisite 48 letters from Conservative Members this morning, the prime minister iss now facing a vote of confidence and Theresa May's must convince 158 of her own MPs to stick with her at the vote this evening if she intends on clinging to power.
She had tried to avoid the showdown by pulling the Meaningful Vote on her Brexit deal yesterday but that just seems to have angered the few remaining letter holding MPs and her Wednesday evening has now taken on a very different angle.
If she wins then MPs cannot call another vote for 12 months and she will claim victory, demand the party fall in behind her and try to press on with her Brexit plan, emboldened but if she loses, May is handed her P45 and Britain will have a new prime minister in the new year, likely a Brexiteer like Dominic Raab or scarily Boris Johnson.
The other option is Mrs May wins, but only by a few votes which might persuade her to think twice about whether she has enough backing in Parliament, and lead her to resigning resulting in a leadership contest.
The frightening part is if May is toppled, whoever replaced her, and in all probability it would be a Brexiteer, they would go for a harder Brexit so even if we think Theresa May is incompetent, we should be hoping Tory MPs decisively reject this vote of no confidence because looking at who could replace her things could get very much worse for all of us, Theresa May is the best of a really terrible lot.

Sorry Northerners But I Want A White Christmas

Living on the UK's South Coast we don't really get much snow down here but that doesn't stop us from watching the weather forecasts with fruitless anticipation that we may finally get a White Christmas. 
Of course we won't, i have never seen one, but my more northern relatives have and they don't like it because while i see a winter wonderland, with the snow turning everything at once innocent yet mysterious, rendering even the mundane magical, they see two hours to make the 15-minute journey into work, schools closing and having to channel the spirit of Sherpa Tenzing to get to the shops and then when you get back your water pipes have frozen.
They have a point because the worst i have to put up with is the chuntering of morons about how the snow means global warming must all be a myth.
It's the flip side of summer when the northerners are moaning about the lack of summer while us southerners are setting up a chair in front of the freezer and slapping on the factor 30 so our sunburn doesn't get even more redder.
I say to my fellow countrymen further up the country lag your water pipes and stock up the freezer because us down here are fully on board with let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Missing The Original Emoticons

Strangely i never got involved in the original emoticon thing but now that we have proper smileys instead on our text and email messages, i kind of miss them. :-(
I never appreciated just how clever making faces out of the punctuation keys on the keyboard was to show how cheerful :-) or sad :-( or surprised :-0 or angry >:( or confused :-/ or cheeky ;-) the sender was.
My phone automatically changes any emoticon to a proper smiley face when i try it now but that's our changing times and i could weep for kids that never knew what once passed for text based fun. That's :'-(
As the younger generation doesn't seem to know how to punctuate anything, they at least have something to do with all those redundant buttons on the keyboard so as the original text based emoticon is now dead, i'd better send some flowers, or  @-->-->- @-->-->-

It's The Most Wonderful Time For An Affair

Work Christmas parties aren’t just great for office gossip and actually speaking to the people you work with but they are also ripe breeding grounds for all kinds of naughtiness.
Christmas parties are very often where people embark on affairs or have one-off smooches with people who aren’t their partners according to Marriage Guidance Counsellors who report an increase in affairs over the Christmas party period between  3 December and New Years Eve.
A reported 68% of affairs are with a work colleague which started at the office party after they had got drunk and things had gone too far but while 22% are one off flings, 46% continued seeing their colleague romantically after Christmas.
A Marriage Guidance Counsellor advised that sexual tensions which may have been bubbling up over the course of the working year finally explode due to drink and because it’s a rare occasion that their partner isn’t there to see them behaving badly.
In a time when almost everybody has a phone with a camera i wouldn't bet on partners not seeing them behaving badly and an office affairs can be more than just a bad relationship move but can be a catastrophic career move also and in the worst case scenario, both with some legal issues thrown in so i say if you are in a relationship but find yourself looking amorously at spotty Tim from IT at the Xmas Party, put down the eggnog and call a cab.

The Squiffy Farting Wiener

Psychology tells us that the way to make people like us is to make them laugh as laughter releases endorphins, which make them feel good about ourselves and if you make people feel good about themselves, they will like the person who triggered their laughter.
The problem is how to make people laugh but Psychology also tells us that so by the end of this post you will be armed with a ready made way to be the most liked person ever.
The Journal of Experimental Psychology says that all you have to do is use words that are universally funny so if you can sprinkle around fart, booty, tinkle, bunghole and wiener then you got it made and make more space on your wall for Christmas Cards from all your new friends.
The University of Alberta have published a paper analysing an existing list of 4997 funny words and whittling down the collection to the words people found funniest which included upchuck, bubby, boff, puking, fuzz, squiffy, pubes, nude and boobs.
If you can make up a story about the time you were so squiffy that you went for a tinkle but ended up puking on your friends boobs which made her laugh so much she did a massive fart and then upchucked herself, can't see where you can go wrong.

Kudos To Parent Of Bully

Bullying is a real problem amongst schoolchildren so credit to the man in Ohio who made his daughter walk five miles to school to punish her for bullying, the second time that she had been suspended from school for it.
'Bullying is unacceptable. This is my small way of trying to stop it in my household. I am doing what I feel is right to teach my daughter a lesson and to stop her from bullying' the father is heard to say in the video where he drove behind her as she trudged along the road.
If only more parents would hold their children responsible for their actions but sadly many don't and anyone who has had to deal with consequences of bullying will know how devastating it can be to a young mind.
I say well done to the parent for taking action and i expect the parents of the children that were bullied by his daughter thank him also but you can only hope that the girl has learnt a very important early life lesson that her actions have consequences.

Eating Yourself Drunk On Christmas Food

I never write drunk as my typing goes out the window so i always wait until i type that final full stop before i start necking the Sloe Gin but there is a piece of kitchen folklore that you could eat yourself drunk especially at Christmas as so much of the festive food is soaked in alcohol.
There are stories of people failing breathalyser tests whilst driving due to the food they have eaten but there are no guidelines to just how many mince pies or servings of Christmas pudding we can have and still drive safely.
The average mince pie apparently contains 0.14 units of alcohol, meaning it would take 29 of them to reach the 80mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood and fail the drunk test.
Christmas cake is laced with brandy and three slices is enough to get a nice buzz going so after cake we have Christmas pudding which is traditionally also full of brandy so two of them and if you are stopped by a policeman you had better be good at touching your nose and walking in a straight line while over the limit.  
Three portions of Tiramisu contain enough alcohol to get you seeing the inside of a Police cell if you try to drive as will one family sized sherry trifle or five Marks & Spencer individual luxury sherry trifles.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Sloe Gin is calling my name.

Pete Shelley

Sad news that Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks has died at the age of 63 from a heart attack.
Buzzcocks were one of the more tuneful bands of the punk era and trod that well worn path of if it ain't broke don't fix it and although they never got a song in the UK Top 10, they are part of punk royalty.
Like a lot of bands, they hit upon a style and sound early on and kept with it on a succession of the rapid-fire punk songs that would become classics even if they were not quite so appreciated at the time with Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) probably their best known song.  
The only consolation when a musical giant dies is that their songs will be all over the TV and radio for the next few weeks but The Buzzcocks will be written into musical history from the punk era along with The Sex Pistols and The Damned which is a tribute as when Shelley founded the Buzzcocks, they were the bands he wanted to emulate

Bush Trolling Trump At His Own Funeral

Elsa would have been proud at the frosty reception the Trumps and the Clintons gave each other at the funeral of George Bush Senior who was a well known critic of the current President and listening to the service, Trump must have wondered if the elder Bush was getting the last laugh on him.
One speech referred to that during Bush's time in office a wall fell in Berlin and doors across America opened to those with disabilities which could be taken as a stand against Trumps Mexican wall and his cruel mocking of the disabled.
Another referred to Bush's code being to always tell the truth while another praised his strong environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act and that when George Bush was President every single head of government in the world knew that they were dealing with a gentleman. Ouch said the current President who is a climate change denier and removed the US from the Paris agreement.
Then there was a line about those who travel the high road are not bothered by heavy traffic which had to be a dig at Trump missing a WW1 service in Paris due to rain and traffic congestion but the clincher for me that the whole service was one long laugh at the current man in the White House was the line that President Bush had big strong hands, which had to be aimed at the famously small handed Trump.
However, not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, they probably all went over Trump's orange head.

Facepalm For PETA

PETA does some great work but wow can they make themselves look like idiots as well. 
The latest campaign is to remove 'speciesism from the conversations in order to promote social justice' and give examples of this language including to replace 'kill two birds with one stone' with 'Feed two birds with one scone' and 'Beat a dead horse' with 'Feed a fed horse'.
If that isn't silly enough, they then compared 'speciesism' to racist or homophobic language saying: 'Just as it became unacceptable to use racist, homophobic, or ableist language, phrases that trivialise cruelty to animals will vanish as more people begin to appreciate animals for who they are'.
No facepalm would be hard enough but people won't start saying 'Bringing home the bagels' instead of bacon and 'take a flower by the thorns' instead of a bull by the horns but i guess people are talking about it so maybe whatever genius at PETA who came up with it has done their job. 
I support PETA in most things but campaigns like this just make them a laughing stock, far better they stick to throwing flour over fur wearers and sabotaging hunts which is their forte.

Brexit No Longer Meaning Brexit

Two days after the BBC dropped plans to have a Brexit debate between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, ITV have now said they don't want to hold it either but it was an awful idea anyway.
May and Corbyn both campaigned for Remain in the Brexit debate so it would have been two people who didn't want Brexit in the first place debating to a public audience who can't vote on it anyway so all seemed rather pointless.
The whole 'leaving the EU' has got even more messier than it already was if that is possible with Theresa May plowing towards inevitable defeat next Tuesday and if the defeat is heavy enough, her removal from office but then maybe that is her plan.
When, not if, she is defeated their will be a vote of no confidence and depending if it comes from the her own Party or Labour, she will face a leadership contest or a general election and either of which will mean the March 29 deadline will slip and Brexit will be postponed.
I have always thought it wouldn't happen due to the economic suicide they would be leading us to and nothing has happened to change my mind that Brexit is not only a terrible idea but all our politico's know it and will do the best they can to not go ahead with it while saying the exact opposite and pinning their hopes on a second referendum which will stop the madness.

Towel Head

I always had to be even more careful than usual not to make any spills in December because there would be a distinct lack of tea towels in our home due to Christmas.
More than once when my children were younger i had gone on a pointless search for a tea-towel to clean up a knocked over bottle of Fanta only to find they have once again  been spirited away onto the heads of wise men and shepherds at my sons schoool nativity play.
Sainsbury's say they generally sell 4,000 tea towels a week during the year but in December, sales go up to 12,000 a week and the additional 8,000 are not drying the plates of last nights dinner but being used as suitable headdress for those who wash their socks by night all seated on the ground.
Some parents though are not prepared to throw a Sainsbury's tea towel over their child's head as they sit on those too small plastic chair waiting to see if their offspring is going to be the one who forgets their line, and spend money on making sure that their kid is the best dressed one when he stands up and mumbles something about a star before sitting down again beside the kid dressed as a sheep.
It's about the only time in your life that wearing a tea-towel on your head to represent someone from the Middle East is acceptable because some colleagues of Middle Eastern descent may find it disrespectful if you turned up to work wearing it.

Deep Breath And Calming Thoughts

Us Brits are a cool, calm and composed race or at least for the first 8 minutes and 22 seconds we are anyway because that is the amount of time we wait in line before we lose our temper.
A Talk Talk survey found that the 'point of impatience' for a website to load is 3 minutes and 38 seconds before we give up while we will hang up on a phone call if we are waiting longer than 5 minutes and 4 seconds.
It's 8 minutes 38 seconds if you're waiting to be served in a restaurant, 10 minutes 1 second if you're waiting for friends to show up, 10 minutes 43 seconds if you're staying in for a tradesman, and 13 minutes 16 seconds if you're waiting for a reply to a text.
The survey also found that while the over-45s will cancel a service, put down the phone or walk out, the under the under-45's are five times more likely to do something physical such as start shouting, abuse an employee or throw something across the room.
A Talk Talk spokesman concluded that: 'The speed of the online world is making us less prepared to wait for things to happen in the offline world' which may be true but i always found my point of temper came within 10 seconds of seeing Piers Morgan on the TV when i will generally throw whatever comes to hand at the TV and shout abuse at the annoying gimboid.

The Demise Of Mistletoe

The first of December is traditionally putting up the decorations day so yesterday was spent untangling fairy lights, looking for the blutac and generally swapping the normal ornaments for Christmassy ones. 
It was while drinking hot chocolate from my Frosty the Snowman mug and wondering just how heat resistant the temporary Santa lampshade was that my husband suggested we were missing mistletoe.
Making a mental note not to get any mistletoe, i forgot about the potentially flammable lampshade and instead wondered if anybody has mistletoe anymore these days.
The tradition says that any woman standing under mistletoe can be kissed and will be dogged by bad luck if she refuses which sort of answers my own question of why mistletoe has fallen out of fashion, that's a court case just waiting to happen, but i can't remember the last time i saw it in anybodies house.
A quick Google brings up a report from Morrisons which shows that while 62% of over-55s have been kissed under the mistletoe at Christmas, 75% of people under 35 have not.
Some people may see it as a sad decline of another tradition due to the current climate of pervy old men preying on younger ladies but it's probably right that it should die out altogether and be consigned to history along with wassailing whatever that is but nobody seems to do it anymore.

Nativity Scene: Aussie Style

I have never read the Bible, it does go on a bit apparently, so the Australians have come up with their own version which cuts out the boring parts and concentrates on the important stuff.
Probably the most important bit, especially at this time of year, is the Nativity though the idea that taking the book and throwing bits of it down the dunny hasn't gone down well with the Churchy type drongo's who like the boring bits.  
So written in 'Strine, the Nativity in the Australian Bible is as follows:

'So Joe hiked up from Nazareth to Bethlehem because this spot in the mulga was where King David came from, and Joe's family tree had King David up in the top branches.
He went there to fill in the forms and sign the register with his fiance, Mary, who was a special sheila and pretty near nine months by this time.
While they were there, she gave birth to a baby boy. She wrapped him in a bunny rug, and tucked him up in a feed trough in a back shed, because the pub was full to bursting.
Three eggheads from out east followed a star to find the baby Jesus and announce their arrival with: 'G’day, Your Majesty!'

Almost brilliant enough to forgive them for Prisoner Cell Block H and Rolf Harris, almost.

No Santa At Scottsdale Gun Club

I have to admit to being a little bit let down by the Scottsdale Gun Club because they seemed to have stopped holding their annual Christmas photo shoot of Santa and high powered guns.
Disappointingly, it seems the gun shop have decided that peace and goodwill to all men means not selling photo's of members and their families holding powerful weaponry while Santa looks on.
Santa didn't put in an appearance last year either but it shouldn't stop Americans from showing someone how much they love them by buying them a high-powered weapon of death that can blow a big hole in another person or themselves if they not careful.
Maybe in light of all the regular mass shootings in America, the Scottsdale Gun Club have decided it may not be in the best of taste to have jolly old Santa holding onto weapons which was used to murder tens of thousands of Americans this year so this Christmas how about instead of a semi-automatic weapon, as used by Americas most devastating mass killers, buy your relatives a pair of slippers or a pair of pyjamas.
This Christmas the Gun Club is holding a free 'Family Firearms Safety Course' which is designed for the family with children that are thinking about introducing firearms in the home.
It is a very quick course and consists of you being handed a slip of paper with the words 'INTRODUCING FIREARMS INTO YOUR HOME!!! ARE YOU FECKING MAD!!!'

This post is sponsored by the Loopy Gun Nuts of America Association - We put the fun into fundamentalist

Born Again Virginity For Sexual Sinners

Considering that he got the 14 year old girlfriend of another man pregnant, God is very much a do as i say and not as i do type of Deity when it comes to sexual relations which is why he, or rather his representatives, are lending a helping hand to reclaim Purity even if the virgin boat sailed long ago.
The people at Lifeway have a project called True Love Waits which is aimed at anyone whose cherry hasn't remained unpopped and feel a bit sinful about it but born again virginity awaits them through a ceremony whereby repentant sinners can reclaim their purity simply through declaring their love for God...and paying $169.89 for a book.
The Lifeway website states that over the years they have helped hundreds of thousands of people commit their sexual purity to God, while at the same time offering the promise of hope and restoration in Christ for all who have sinned sexually.
Apparently the movement is orchestrated by God to further spread the biblical message of sex and purity but the $169.89 is orchestrated by the owners of the Lifeway website to further spread the money of the chumps and gullible to their own bank accounts.

No Returnsies

At some time around the mid 19th Century, British explorers discovered the Easter Islands and being mightily impressed by the big headed statues standing on the Island, decided to load a few of them onto their ship and bring them back to Blightly hoping nobody would see the massive head shaped holes on the Island.
Seems the Governor there has now noticed and is asking for them back but the British Museum has said they can 'loan' them but we want them back again because the people who stole them gave them to Queen Victoria so they are actually hers now but us British are not very good at giving back things which we have taken without the owners permission.
In recent years we have received requests to return the Rosetta Stone to Egypt, the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, Benin bronze sculptures to Nigeria and the Koh-i-noor diamond to India and told them all to go do one, no returnsies.
The argument is that if we start returning artifacts looted during the colonial era, we will open the door for all sorts of claim making and that could prove very uncomfortable as us Brits do hang on to a lot of things we forcibly removed from other lands and cultures and in some cases we left it there and just took the land.
Another argument those against repatriation frequently use is that indigenous people offered the cultural objects to the invading Brits although the fact that it was probably in exchange for not having a bayonet rammed through their skulls seems to be overlooked.
After 200 years of massacring, pillaging and plundering the World, handing back the things we 'acquired' should be the very least we can do to say sorry.

A Socialist Government For Christmas

My ultra-Left Wing friend has a sticker in the window of his van that reads 'If you are not a Socialist by the time you are 25 you have no brain, if you are not a Socialist by the time you are 40 you have no heart' and if things go to plan we may all be Socialists by Christmas because Comrade Corbyn is riding to the rescue and he is carrying a copy of Das Kapital.
In a country of huge inequality with haves and have nots, a massive dollop of Socialism should rebalance things to haves and haves as Jeremy Corbyn redresses the awful policies of the Conservatives but first he has to get his hands to Number 10 and that could be before Santa drops down his chimney.
The Conservatives EU war has broken it and if the cards fall right, we could be singing the Red Flag and clinking our Che Guevara mugs together with glee due to the Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2011 which the Conservatives introduced.
Thanks to the act, if a government loses a vote of confidence, that administration does indeed fall but then there is a two week grace period where another government can be formed before there's an early election.
So if as expected Theresa May loses her Brexit vote on the 11th December and as also expected, Labour then table a motion of no confidence, the Conservatives have first crack at trying to form a new government with a new leader but they have to be sharp about it as Jeremy Corbyn will have a strong claim to be summoned by the Queen to try and form an administration until the next election.
Won't happen you say? Already did in 1974 when the Queen had to call for Labour's Harold Wilson after the Conservative's Ted Heath failed to form a government after a no confidence vote.
Socialism could be back and very, very soon so as the song goes 'The people's flag is deepest red, It shrouded oft our martyred dead' and as it is sung to the tune of O' Christmas Tree, very timely indeed.

Traditonal Christmas Dinner Changing

The good old Christmas Dinner traditionally includes Turkey with all the trimmings, Christmas Pudding, Mince Pies and enough alcohol to float a small ship but things are changing because the traditional Christmas meal is going out of fashion according to Tesco in their Christmas report.
The report says 5% of 18 to 34-year-old's will go vegan this Christmas and there will be fewer birds on the plate this Christmas with sales of large birds falling by 7%.
The one time must have on the Christmas plate was Pigs in Blankets but now the Sausages wrapped in Bacon are third (64%) behind carrots (71%) and the much maligned Brussels Sprout (66%).
One in five of Brits will choose 'no and low alcohol drinks' on Christmas Day and one in six (14%) drinking no alcohol at all rising to 18% among 18 to 34-year-old's, and falling to 11% amongst people aged over 55.
Finally, beside the plate will be the traditional cracker or rather 60% of plates because 40% don't bother with them anymore.

Donald Trump And High Intelligence

The golden rule is if someone has to keep telling you how intelligent they are, then the odds are very good that they are not that intelligent at all so despite all the evidence showing he is as smart as a house brick, Donald Trump once again reminded us that he is 'highly intelligent'. Stop laughing at the back.
To be fair to the man with the birds nest hair, he has never taken an IQ test which is the standard way to estimate the level of someone's intelligence but the test is just one method for measuring intelligence, the standard and most widely accepted method is by looking at various types of abilities such as mathematical, verbal, logic and memory.

Maths: Radio host Howard Stern gave Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka and his son Donald Jr. a little on-the-air math test, asking: 'What's 17 times 6? Trump's son struggled for an answer, as did Ivanka before Donald had a pop at 1,112, missing the correct answer, 102, by 1,010 so fair to say in maths, he isn't a genius .

Verbal: An analysis of the President's words uttered during interviews, speeches and press conferences found Mr Trump has the vocabulary of an eight to twelve year old and often repeats himself showing a particularly poor command of his first language.

Logic: A common fallacy from Trump is over-simplification: proposing overly simplistic solutions to wickedly complex problems, examples being how Mexico will pay for his wall and arguing that cold weather disproves global warming. He is also big on conspiracy theories using this logic to justify why the media speaks poorly about him (fake news) and the Obama Birther movement.

Memory: Whether it is remembering talking to other leaders about subjects which the other leaders say were not talked about or getting the name of towns wrong, Trump's memory is probably not 'One of the great memories of all-time' as he once boasted before forgetting he said it at all.

The final say on just how intelligent the President is should be left to the people who know him best and have to work alongside him, people like National security adviser H.R. McMaster who called Trump an 'idiot with the intelligence of a kindergartener' and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who said he was 'a fucking moron'.

As he also claims he is a great and successful businessman despite the five bankruptcies against him, maybe we should take whatever he says in that eight year olds vocabulary with a barrel of salt.

UN Name The Climate Change Bad Boys

The UN Climate Conference starts in Poland 2 December and the IPCC have put out a report advising that efforts to tackle climate change are off track and we have seen the first rise in CO2 emissions in four years.
Rather than keeping global temperatures below 1.5C as agreed in Paris, we are heading towards a temperature rise of 3.2C which isn't good unless you plan to live in the sea. 
'There is still a tremendous gap between words and deeds, between the targets agreed by governments worldwide to stabilise our climate and the measures to achieve these goals' said Dr Gunnar Luderer, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the authors of the study and in a unexpected move, the UN named the nations who are not not pulling their weight.
The study says that countries including Argentina, Australia, Canada, the EU (including the UK), South Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the US are all falling short of achieving their nationally determined contributions for 2030.
In a equal world those named nations would be hammered by the warming environment even more than they already are but Mother Nature  is anything but fair and she shares out her floods, storms and droughts to whoever is in the way regardless of how environmentally friendly they are.

My Anti-Ageing Cream Smells Funny

Move over Estee Lauders Revitalising Cream because there is a new anti-ageing cream in town and this one leaves your face as smooth as a baby's, well, foreskin because the next big thing is a serum derived from South Korean babies’ circumcised penises.
Nothing weird with that at all, it's perfectly normal to want to have the liquidised foreskins of multiple babies rubbed all over your face and if it's good enough for the shiny faced Kate Beckinsale and Sandra Bullock, then it's good enough for the rest of us.
Apparently it helps to generate collagen and elastin, which can help to boost the radiance of your face but before you go knocking on the door of the nice South Korean couple up the road with the young son, the treatment involves microneedling which is a beautician repeatedly stabbing you in the face thousands of times to help the baby foreskins sink into your skin in return for £500.
Short of grabbing a handful needles and harvesting baby foreskins from the South Korean Community to wipe across you face in an attempt to look younger, we will just have to wait until Boots make a knock off version or if you really can't wait, dig out the liquidiser and have a word with the local Rabbi at the Synagogue, they should have some laying around, oy vey.

Numbers Against Theresa May

With the House of Commons Brexit vote on December 11th, by the 12th we will have either a deal, no-deal, general election, second referendum or a new Prime Minister but for the next two weeks Theresa May is going to have to do some heavy lifting to get her way with her Brexit deal because very few people seem to like it.   
With an already wafer thin majority and Arlene Foster's Northern Irish DUP already saying it won't be supporting the deal, she gazing around forlornly for the 318 votes she needs to get her deal through. 
Of her 317 Conservatives Members of Parliament, 57 have already said they will not support the current deal and a further eight have backed the People's Vote campaign calling for a second referendum so with the 10 DUP members she is 75 down straight away.
She could gaze lovingly at the Labour Party in her hunt for votes but they are hoping she fails so they can force a General Election so she may pick up some from Labour Hard Line Brexiters otherwise there isn't much point looking there.
The SNP and the Liberal Democrats are very pro-EU so she probably won't be picking up much support there nor will there be a helping hand from the six MPs from Plaid Cymru and the Greens, who will not support the deal.
If my maths is anywhere close (probably not but let's go with it anyway), the Prime Minister can depend on approximately 250-ish Yes's so she will have to persuade around 70-ish MP's to back her which is unlikely so things could get very interesting especially for the removal men who should keep 12th December free.

Let's Call The US UK Trade Deal Off

The last time someone came back from a meeting in Europe and announced a great deal we were at war with them within a year but Theresa May may not have been waving a bit of paper but she did say she had got us a great deal although on the other side of the Atlantic President Trump put down his cheeseburger long enough to say that the as it stands, the deal means the UK wouldn't be able to trade with the USA. 
Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, described Mr Trump's remarks as a "major blow" for the prime minister, saying '"Even Donald Trump, not the sharpest tool in the box, knows this deal is a bad deal' but i wouldn't be so quick Tulip as no deal with the USA means we won't have to take their dodgy food.
What has been a long standing disagreement, the standards of food in the USA is lower than in Europe which is why the majority of their meat has been banned in the EU since 1996 but any agreement would mean the UK accepting the imports of products such as hormone-treated US beef, chlorine-washed chickens and genetically modified cereals.
Last year, Wilbur Ross, the US commerce secretary, insisted the UK would have to accept American food standards if it was to secure a trade deal but a poll by the consumer association Which, three quarters of the British population is opposed to it.
Recently published analysis by the British food and farming pressure group Sustain, found that the incidence of food poisoning in the US could be 10 times higher than in the UK. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 15% of the US population suffers from a foodborne illness every year with 3,000 deaths, compared to 1.5% in the UK and 500 deaths.
Of the annual average 3,000 American deaths, 380 are attributed to salmonella poisoning, but in England and Wales, no deaths were recorded from salmonella between 2005 and 2015.
Campylobacter, a pathogen found mainly in chicken, has an infection rate of 6,289 per 100k of population in the US, with the frequency while in England and Wales, the rate was 96.22 per 100k population.
An average of 1,591 cases of listeriosis, caught from eating soft cheeses, unpasteurised milk and chilled ready-to-eat foods are reported in the US every year. In England and Wales, the average is just 177.
So as things stand we won't have a deal which has us accepting American food products but if this changes it sounds like the NHS will need every penny of the tens of millions promised by Boris' Bus to cope with the increased incidence of food poisoning which clearly isn't finger lickin' good.

Earth Calling Mars

I can't even begin to think just what sort of maths was involved in steering a space probe 300 million miles at 13,000 mph before dropping it through an atmosphere a fraction of the Earths and then bring it to a soft landing on the ground but i guess my GCSE 4 in Maths wouldn't cut it.
Whoever worked it all out deserves a pat on the back because Mars now has an extra lump of metal on it courtesy of us Earthlings as the latest Nasa robot survived the seven-minute plunge to the surface of the Red Planet as is now sniffing around and measuring Marsquakes.
Using a combination of parachutes and reverse rockets, the probe put down on a vast plain called Elysium Planitia, close to the Red Planet's equator and officially, it is going to be drilling deep into the Martian crust to provide us with important scientific data but it will also be nosing around what is claimed by conspiracy theorists to be a walled city well as what they claim is a crashed UFO.
Exciting stuff, especially as the last few attempts ended with our probes smashing into the Martian ground at high speed as things failed to fire properly but as we are excited about not making a new crater with our space hardware, landing a human safely on the planet may be a bit further away then the Elon Musk's of the world have us think.

The Hypocrisy Of Hillary Clinton

Politics can be very messy but lucky for us we have Hillary Clinton over here telling us how things should be run which has been received as you would expect by someone who failed to beat a self confessed sex offending racist but as us Europeans are polite, we can pretend to listen to what she has to say before we roll our eyes, sigh and leave the room.
Speaking to the Guardian about the rise of right-wing populism, Clinton mused that 'Europe needs to get a handle on migration because the influx of refugees from the Middle East and Africa in recent years is what lit the flame of support for anti-immigration political figures'.
That would be Hillary Clinton telling Europeans to curb immigration from North Africa and Middle East.
North African immigrants primarily being Libya and Middle Eastern immigrants being from Iraq and Syria which by a magnificent coincidence just happens to be the countries which the United States has relentless bombed and destabilised with failed military interventions which Clinton herself was instrumental in.
Clinton even exclaimed cheerfully upon hearing the news of Colonel Gaddafi’s brutal death 'We came, we saw, he died!' but that was before the country turned into a hotbed of terrorism, slavery and despotism for which millions of Libyans are risking their own lives to escape.
I say thank you Mrs Clinton but as your views proved to be more unpopular than the xenophobic, orange blob who has the IQ of a house brick i think we will just nod politely and usher you away from the microphone and back onto your America bound plane where you can't see the continents eyes rolling.

Celebrating Men On International Men's Day

Today is International Men's Day, a time to stop, pause and reflect on just what the men contribute to the lives of us women.
First up is that oh so cute way they ignore manufacturers instructions and just soldier on swearing, hitting things with a hammer and blaming the packers for giving them the wrong bits. So what if there are bits left over, who doesn't like a lopsided bookcase that looks as though it will collapse if a book got anywhere near it. 
Then there is the frustrating habit women have of slowly flicking through the television to see if there is anything worth watching so thank the lord we have men to dive-bomb through all 150 channels in two minutes and settling for golf or snooker and then falling asleep within ten minutes leaving us women to plod through the channels ourselves yet again.
While ancient men went hunting sabre tooth tigers and other dangerous animals to impress their women, modern man's version is  throwing things in the air and catching them in their mouths. Doesn't matter if it's sweets, nuts, cigarettes, grapes, it can't go the short distance between hand and mouth without first being launched up to the ceiling and caught in their mouth in a impressive display
sure to make us women go weak at the knees, risking eyes and teeth if our hero's coordination goes awry with that last walnut.
Not being blessed with a penis i can only guess at just how difficult it is to aim the short distance between your midriff and a toilet bowl with a drop distance of less than 2ft. As all men seem to have problems with it i can only assume it is very difficult indeed so don't worry you poor darlings, Bathrooms have lino flooring for a reason. 
Finally men's bodies are very different to women's bodies which is why when we get a cold we can carry on shopping, doing housework and doing the cooking but when a man gets a cold his only option is to lay on the sofa moaning and writing his last will and testament, the precious lambs.
So let's celebrate men and thank our lucky stars that if we want a bottle opened or to park the car that we have left in the road because the parking space was too small, they are always there for us, God bless 'em.

Letter In The Post To Obama

The rule was that Burma was the name of Burma and not Myanmar as this was the name the military junta changed the name to so as not to appear to support them and their violent uprising, we would continue to refer to it under the original name of Burma.
Somewhere along the line the memo got lost and it seems to be referred to as Myanmar by everyone now including Amnesty International who have announced that due to her being as awful as the regime she replaced, Aung San Suu Kyi will no longer have a peace prize on her mantelpiece as they are snatching it back saying that it was 'profoundly dismayed' with her.
Fair enough you may say but if Amnesty are going through their record to see who they can scratch out of their list of award recipients then they should now being sending a letter to the Nobel Award Office to advise of another recipient who should be sent a big box with a return address on it, Mr Barack Obama.
The former US President Barack Obama, was presented with his Nobel Peace Prize a mere nine months into his first term as President on the basis that his predecessor, George W Bush, was a warmongering whore and Mr Obama would not be as evil as him although as it turned out Obama went on to bomb seven different countries over the course of his two terms and extend the wars of the nutcase that was Bush.
Even further back, in 1973, Henry Kissinger managed to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to negotiate a ceasefire during the Vietnam War, while at the same time he was orchestrating the carpet-bombing of Cambodia.
So if Aung San Suu Kyi has to quite rightly return her award then Obama should get some bubble wrap ready because he must surely also be getting a letter which will result in a Nobel Prize Award shaped hole on his own mantelpiece soon.

Not Learning From Right Wing History

If history has taught us anything it is that as Winston Churchill said in a rare moment of sobriety that 'Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it'.
This quote is particularly true as we remember just why the Conservative Party are called the Nasty Party, because it appears that we are only now just saying, 'oh yeah, i forgot about that bit'.  
Rather than looking back at the Right wing political parties of history and keeping them far away from power, we voted them in and now watch horrified as they dismantle everything with ideological zeal as the UN’s rapporteur said that the Conservatives have inflicted 'great misery on its people with punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous austerity policies driven by a political desire to undertake social re-engineering rather than economic necessity'.
Philip Alston, the UN’s rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, ended a two-week fact-finding mission to the UK with a stinging declaration that levels of child poverty were 'a disgrace' and 'a social calamity and an economic disaster', with approximately 14 million people living in poverty and 1.5 million unable to afford basic essentials which he described as 'patently unjust' adding that compassion had been abandoned during almost a decade of austerity which was a 'political choice'.
His report pointed at the decade of austerity cuts to state benefits and public services which have had a disproportionate effect on the poor, the disabled and women as well as the soaring use of food banks, increasingly homelessness and cuts to school budgets and the dismissive attitude of the Conservative Party.
While it should shame May's heartless government that the UN sent Mr Alston here to investigate them at all but after a decade of callous cuts and economic idealistic right wing vandalism where the government refuses to even question why food banks have become a feature across most of the country and more and more are being pushed into poverty and homelessness thanks to their political decisions, this will be shrugged off and things will continue on until they get removed from power.
The right wing should be kept out of power, nothing good ever comes from right wing policies but it seems we are very good at failing to learn this lesson.

More Earth Junk Landing On Mars

While man will not be going to live on Planet Mars anytime soon, it won't stop us cluttering up the planet with our space junk and NASA is preparing to land another hunk of Earth metal on the Red Planet soon but this one is a little different as it is plonking itself down tomorrow on a plain of Mars where extraterrestrial hunters claim to have seen an alien city and a crashed UFO.
Officially, it is going to be drilling deep into the Martian crust to measure 'Mars-quakes' which will provide us with important scientific data but more interestingly it will be nosing around what is claimed to be a walled city on the Elysium Planitia Plain as well as what's left of a crashed UFO.
The spoilsport European Space Agency has said that the 'walls' are merely ash covered blocks of ice and the crashed UFO is a meteor impact site but we will soon find out especially if it is met by little green men with signs telling us to stop polluting their planet.

Stronger Storms Coming Soon

What climate change deniers don't seem to be able to grasp is that a warming atmosphere doesn't make weather events, it just takes what is already there and ramps it up so rainfall is heavier, winds are stronger and heatwaves are hotter.
Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have studied climate models over the past 15 years and found found that warming in the ocean and atmosphere increased rainfall by as much as 10% and using future anticipated warming found that rainfall could increase by a third, while wind speeds would be boosted by as much as 25 knots.
The findings suggest that enormously destructive storms have already been boosted by climate change and similar events in the future are on course to be cataclysmic.
Jennifer Francis, a hurricane expert at Rutgers University, said: 'This study adds exclamation points to the already clear message that we must slow global warming while preparing for more extreme weather to come'.
It really shouldn't be that hard to understand but even the sight of floods, forest fires, devastating droughts and cities flattened by hurricanes isn't making it sink into the most densest of heads just yet.

This Deal, No Deal, No Brexit At All

Having only seen the abridged version of the Brexit deal the Prime Minister has signed us up to, seems the past two years negotiations have ended us up exactly where we were previously, only we have now removed ourselves from the decision making process, making us even more 'ruled over by Europe'.
With 11 of the 29 cabinet members speaking out against Theresa May's deal, the resignations may still be coming especially as the Prime Minister didn’t allow a vote within Cabinet so essentially she spent five hours hearing objections to her deal around the table but then summed it up to the waiting media as the Cabinet all agreeing with her. 
With many Conservative Brexiteers, Labour Party, SNP and DUP lining up against her it is seemingly impossible to get her deal through the House of Commons but maybe that has been her plan all along because those of us who listened carefully heard her say that there are three options: 'this deal, no deal, or no Brexit at all'.
As the best deal possible is what we already have, no Brexit at all is far and away the best outcome and so a chink of light appears in an otherwise black Brexit cloud.
The options are therefore take this deal which is a poorer version of what we have, opt for no deal and all the dire financial implications that will bring down onto our heads or just call the whole thing off and stay with what we have.
Possibly Theresa May has played a stunner and outwitted and outfoxed the Boris Johnson's and Jacob Rees-Mogg's of this whole stinking charade and come March 29 we won't be leaving anything after all.

Brexit Agreed

The BBC are reporting that Theresa May and the EU have reached an agreement on the UK Exit from the EU and the Prime Minister has summoned her Cabinet members into Number 10 one by one where they will be presented with the text and asked to sign off the deal with Brussels.
Agreeing on the 400 page document is only the first step in the long process of ratifying the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and now the fun begins.
The reason why the Cabinet is being shown the document one by one is to gauge reaction to exactly what Theresa May has agreed to and especially the Northern Irish question.
The current Cabinet will be given three choices, agree, resign, or be fired so tonight and tomorrow morning many well be the British version of the Night of the Long Knives.
It is almost guaranteed that the Cabinet as it currently stands tonight won't be the same Cabinet that turns up for work tomorrow so grab some popcorn and turn to the BBC News channel because tonight is going to be bumpy for Theresa May and that's even before she puts it to the House to vote on which is almost certainly going to be far from smooth with the DUP and Arlene Foster going to be especially keen to see what the Prime Minister has come up with.

Remembering Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig

Today is Remembrance Sunday when reflect upon the madness and futility of war and remember the dead but there is one man inparticular who should never be forgotten, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig who did so much to provide us with the dead for us to remember.
Haig was the man who from the comfort of his London Office, came up with the idea of sending 100,000 British soldiers 'over the top' to attack well-fortified German trenches, manned by soldiers, armed with a large number of machine guns. 
As the British soldiers advanced, told to walk the distance between their own trenches and the Germans 'better to maintain control', they were mown down by machine gun and rifle fire, 20,000 were killed and 40,000 were injured in the first charge alone.
In a stunning bit of insensitive and cruel disregard for his own men and despite his staff imploring him to change his tactics, Haig stated that 'the enemy has undoubtedly been shaken' and decided to continue with his plan of sending his men walking towards certain death for another four months, until winter weather forced an end to his plan which by then, the British military had suffered more
than 420,000 casualties and advanced just 3 miles.
Haig’s chief of staff was driven to the front and, as he viewed scene, broke down in tears and said, 'Good God, did we really send our men into that?'
The image of young men going over the top to walk towards the German machine guns is probably the strongest when we bow our heads at 11am today but Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig should also be remembered as the man who so callously and knowingly threw away so many of those young lives we remember this morning.

Shoebox Fillers Beware

I'm all for keeping religion out of Christmas, much better to make it about Santa and snowmen then the nativity story stolen from older religions around at the time but not everyone feels the same way including the people running Operation Christmas Child who ask you to pack a shoebox with gifts for children in Africa.
What a nice idea, and as the website says, 'A small shoebox can have a big impact. What goes into the box is fun, but what comes out of it is eternal' but then hang on, what's that next bit 'Be a part of changing children’s lives all over the world in Jesus’ name through the power of a simple gift with Operation Christmas Child'.
Jesus...at Christmas of all times...sneaky buggers because while you think you are sending gifts and toys the Operation Christmas Child owners, Samaritan's Purse International, stick a Bible in there and post it off to African children or to be more precise African Muslim Children.
They even have a story about how Angella in Malawi received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox filled with presents last year and has since led her Muslim family to Christ.
Humanists UK are urging potential shoebox-fillers to consider other options such as Hope or Aquabox who won’t place any religious literature in the boxes.
Richy Thompson, Humanists UK’s director of public affairs and policy, says: 'Those who donate to the scheme are well-intentioned and want to make an altruistic contribution, but donors in the UK should be aware of the nature of Operation Christmas Child’s activities and instead find a reputable and inclusive charity that has no ulterior motives and only has children’s best interests at heart'.
As religion is the cause of far too many wars and conflicts around the World, the Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child shoebox appeal is far from a benign initiative to give gifts to needy children at Christmas time which is all we want to do, not force religion down their throats in exchange for a few toys.

More Thoughts And Prayers

After each mass killing in America there must be a conversation in the Government that goes something along the lines of: 'What can we do to stop our citizens getting big holes blown in them by maniac gun owners?

Amend our crazy gun laws? Nah
Gun control? Nah
Make guns harder to buy? Nah
Stop selling guns in supermarkets? Nah
Have a discussion about the amount of guns in the country? Nah
Not allow people with mental problems to own a gun? Nah
Ban high power weapons? Nah

Well i'm all out then so shall we just do nothing and offer our prayers and thoughts? Yeah, that should be okay.

No Aliens, Just A Comet

Oumuamua, the 400m cigar-shaped object that flew past the sun recently at 59,030 mph probably isn't an alien spacecraft as the Harvard researchers alluded to but it is only a matter of time before an interstellar relation turns up to say hello.
The object's unusual trajectory and high speed sets it aside from other space objects such as asteroids and comets and researchers from Harvard suggested 'it may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilisation' which is true, it could be, but the more boring answer is it is probably just a comet.
'It has already been shown that its observed characteristics are consistent with a comet-like body ejected from another star system' explained someone from the ESA poo-pooing the alien theory.
Such is the immense size of the Universe and the billions of billions of star systems in it that to think that there isn't life somewhere out there is incomprehensible but we may have to wait a while yet until we meet them.

American Midterms

As expected, Donald Trump has been a car crash of a President but as it isn't my country he is dragging into the sewer, i can afford to be a bit more relaxed about what happens in the midterms tomorrow. 
On the one hand his awfulness is terrible for many but on the other hand his awfulness is brilliant so the best solution would be for the Democrats to win enough seats that he can't actually do anything which leaves him in power, suitably impotent, but still able to make his ridiculous, toe curlingly appalling statements.
This will have the effect of further dragging an isolated America down into a farce while the rest of the World gets on without it or until a grown up is voted into Office in a few years time.
As he was voted into Office as a known vile racist, lying, low IQ, sex offending misogynist he hasn't disappointed on any of those fronts and even being literally laughed at by the rest of the World at the United Nations hasn't slowed him down so i say keep him there because the man is a journalists and comedians dream but remove any power from him so he can't do anymore harm outside of his own borders and we will see what is left of America and it's International reputation in 2020.

Afghan War Ending In Same Position That It Started

October 2001 and the Bush and Blair Governments give the Taliban an ultimatum, 'Surrender the terrorists or surrender power. That is your choice' meaning either they handed over Bin Laden who they were sheltering, or they would be removed from power.
Also means if they did hand him over, the Taliban would be left alone to remain in power and although they refused to hand him to America, they did make an offer to 'hand him over to a third country' but the Blair/Bush Governments rejected it and the bombs started falling.
Fast forward 17 years and hundreds of thousands of deaths, the newly appointed American General in charge of US operations, Gen. Austin Scott Miller, has conceded that the Taliban cannot be beaten militarily and a political resolution is needed.
The US State Department said in August that the US was doing everything it could to facilitate peace talks with the Taliban so finally it has sunk in that a military solution is not viable and never was.
So now how to explain that to the families of the dead Afghans and the families of the dead British and American soldiers sent to fight in an unwinnable war which will end in exactly the same position that it started and could have been avoided if the rush to have a war with someone in revenge for 9/11 hadn't been quite so keen.

Forget Education, Look At The Pothole Free Roads

Budgets always take a few days for the boffins to work out exactly what the Chancellor has done but it didn't go unnoticed that he handed out £450 million for fixing potholes but only £400 million for schools to buy 'little extras such as a whiteboard or a couple of computers'.
As important as fixing potholes is, there is not much gratitude from the education sector which has been cut by £2bn a year under this Government and seen teachers pay frozen, class sizes grow and schools unable to meet the requirements of young peoples special educational needs.
'This does not even scratch the surface to meet the current funding pressures that schools are experiencing' said one headteacher in the Chancellors own constituency, 'We need to close the funding gap left by the 8% real-terms cuts over the last five years that schools around the country are unable to meet'.
Secondary schools in England have lost 15,000 teachers and teaching assistants in the last two years, schools are having to reduce the number of subjects they offer and their extracurricular activities and in many schools, parents are being asked to make regular voluntary contributions.
Sixth richest country in the world, ladies and gentlemen, our kids may not be able to read or write thanks to Theresa May and her Conservative Party but look at our lovely smooth roads.

Science McScienceface

After the Boaty McBoatface thing it is very brave of the Bank of England to ask the British public to choose the new face of their updated banknote but as it's a £50 note and Brexit is about to happen, i guess they are thinking not many people will get to see one anyway.
The Bank have put a few conditions who can be picked though after the initial process resulted in England football defender Harry Maguire riding an inflatable unicorn winning the vote (bloody British sense of humour), stipulating that it must be a British scientist and they must be dead and the early front runners are computer programmer Ada Lovelace, code cracking Alan Turing, cosmologist Stephen Hawking and Chemist Dorothy Hodgkin.
My vote would be for Alan Turing who basically did so much to win WW2 for the allies and then was treated outrageously by the establishment because he was gay so if nothing else a long overdue recognition and apology.
Failing that i'm backing Professor Yaffle from Bagpuss.

Heart Failure Days And Heart Attack Nights

All but the most gullible realise that the planet is warming which isn't beneficial to the seven billion of us on sharing this ball of rock so the MET Office putting out the results of a study stating the same is nothing we don't already know but by declaring we are set for 'hot days and tropical nights' does make it sound like the sort of thing the ignorant will say 'wahey, bring it on' to.
Comparing UK weather data from the period 1961-1990 with the 10 years between 2008 and 2017, the hottest days have become 1C hotter, warm spells have increased, while the coldest days are not as cold and the number of nights when temperatures stay above 20C is increasing.
Rather than make it sound like a romantic holiday in the Mediterranean, the MET should be highlighting that in the past, hot summer the increased temperature claimed almost 1,000 lives due to the heatwaves increasing the risk of heart failure, heart attacks and stroke.
As the temperature is only going to increase due to the amount of CO2 we are carelessly pumping into the atmosphere, a season of heart attacks in the day and strokes at night doesn't sound quite so appealing, even to those hard of thinking types who consider a warming climate to be a good thing.

There Should Be More White Poppies

Poppy Day shouldn't be controversial but it seems every year now there is always someone trying to make an argument out of it, usually it's poppy fascists who demand you wear one but this year it's also the White Poppy that is being politicised.  
The white poppy is a symbol of pacifism, worn as an alternative to the red remembrance poppy and remembers all victims of war, not just those on our own side.
It is claimed that the white poppy is disrespectful to those who served and died for their country but a survey by researchers Consumer Intelligence, the top reasons given by the 20% who refuse to wear a Poppy at all is because they felt bullied into supporting the Poppy Appeal, it glorifies war and seems to show unconditional support for the military.
I can relate to that and refuse to wear one myself, mainly because i believe that rather than send young men and women off to fight wars and then stand around looking solemn wearing a red flower once a year, just don't send them to fight wars in the first place and it is impossible for anyone to justify any war the British have been involved in since 1945.
I often hear the argument that people gave their lives for our freedom and it is obscene that some of us refuse to honour that debt by not wearing a poppy but i say that the freedoms they fought for includes being free to not be ordered on how to honour the war dead by a poppy fundamentalists and if more people thought like me and the 20% who flatly refuse to approve of what our military does, then there wouldn't be the widespread death and destruction that is currently going on around the World.
Remembrance Day should be for the victims of war, all victims, including the all the ones killed by 'our side' and not hijacked by vocal people insisting that it is a patriotic display of support for 'our heroes' so maybe there should be more white poppies being worn as a reminder that it doesn't make a bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.

Fun On Halloween Night

Although those in power won't admit it, invoking demons is a relatively simple exercise and although virgins blood and pentagons makes for good stories, all you actually need is a mirror, an incantation and a couple of hand gestures.
Halloween night, when the veil is thinnest, is perfect so this year rather than go for one of the big names why not try for one of the lesser known demons, Forneus for example. 
The Dictionnaire Infernal written in 1818 by French demonologist Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy describes Forneus as a Great Marquis of Hell with twenty-nine legions of demons under his rule who will grant great friendship, loved by friends and foes alike as well as reveal all things, past, present and future and will be free to walk amongst men on the Earth once he has reaped
100,000 souls.
To summon a demon you just need to look into a mirror once it is dark but before midnight and say 'I invoke you, ye glorious regal and majestic holy one in mighty splendour!' followed by the name of the demon you wish to summon so for Forneus, you say 'I invoke you, ye glorious regal and majestic holy one in mighty splendour! Forneus!' and then hold up left your hand to face the mirror and clench it three times.
Forneus, who whoever you summon, will appear before you in the mirror and ask you what you desire.
While some demons are evil, others are kind and benevolent such as Forneus, so feel free to look away or even leave the room for a while, he won't seize upon your absence with malicious glee, clawing his way out of the mirror, tasting sweet release from the confines of the mirror, hungering for your terror and suffering and stealing away your soul and dragging it back with him into Hell or anything like that.
In this age of waning superstition, not enough people are getting interested summoning demons, and the knowledge of them is in danger of being lost and people like Forneus need your help to reach their goal of 100,000 'helped' souls.
Maybe people like Forneus have decided they need to get the word out a bit more, do a bit of networking, attract some new people, handsomely pay a blogger to post a quick dictated tutorial and post it on the Internet and see how many bites he gets.
If you are reading this and have got down this far then your interest has been obviously piqued and i'm sure there are plenty of intrepid adventurers among you with burning questions about the present or future you'd like answered.
Internet users are a smart bunch, you know the pitfalls and wouldn't fall into any of the obvious traps, right? You'd know if an evil being was pretending to be helpful and benevolent in order to steal your soul.
You're not just any old person, you got smarts and remember you need no protection whatsoever, certainly no candles or salt circles or bibles, just you and... Oh, excuse me just a moment Lucy, I think I hear someone calling me...soul 998,812 'helped' coming up.

Sweet Child O Mine - Guns N Roses

Of the millions of songs which have been recorded, only 30 songs can make it into The Lucy Museum of Musicians who deserve entry to Lucy's Museum of Musicians and at number 1 and therefore the best song ever recorded, we have Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N Roses (1988).

The outstanding Sweet Child O'Mine' ticks every box and is the perfect song, beginning with Slash, has a magnificent Slash solo in the middle and ends with the maestro with Axl Rose going on about his baby's blue eyes and pretty smile and throwing in a few 'woah oh, oh, oh's' before ending with even more Slash which goes to show that great love songs do not have to be mushy ballads and can contain arse kicking guitar solos. By Slash preferably.
The song ends as a different one to which it started although the rumour is that they didn't know how to end the song so they just chanted 'where do we go now' over and over again.
That the debut Guns N Roses album it came from, 'Appetite for Destruction' also contained 'Welcome to the Jungle' and 'Paradise City' and they left off for future albums 'November Rain" and 'Don't Cry' because they had already agreed to put "Sweet Child 'O Mine" on it as the ballad on the album meant that they were always going to be massive as long as they didn't implode in a drugs and drink frenzy first.
Something which did go bang was bass player Duff McKagan's pancreas which exploded due to too much alcohol and and it doesn't get much more rock and roll than your bodies internal organs rebelling and trying to blow themselves up but that was Guns N Roses, they were always drunk, mostly high but always brilliant and if nothing else they left us with the best song ever made since that first person pulled a vine tightly across a plank of wood and plucked it.