Tuesday 29 January 2019

Happy Birthday Periodic Table

Today is the 150th birthday of the creation of the Periodic Table and the last time i did a pun filled post about chemistry i didn't get a reaction so i have a few scientific type friends who i assumed would be in their Element so i emailed them for some ideas for a blog post to mark the event.
One said that pun filled posts about Chemistry would be Boron because all the best jokes Aregon and the science community has Sulfured enough so i should write about something else instead.
Another said that i should take my jokes and Barium while another said my posts were becoming negative and i should keep an Ion them which annoyed me so next time i saw her i threw some Sodium Chloride at her and now i'm in trouble with the law as apparently that's A Salt.
No sense of humour the Scientific Community.

Sunday 27 January 2019

America's Poor Record Of Regime Change

Article 1, International Covenants: ‘All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. The populations of sovereign and independent states enjoy (as ‘peoples’) the right to determine the system of government and administration, and the substantive nature of their political regime'.

In short, it is against International Law for anyone but the people of a nation to change their own Government so the recent run of Western led Regime Change is not only illegal but has been a complete disaster.
Since 2001 the West has gone to war to remove the Taliban Government from Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gadaffi in Libya resulting in millions of deaths which depressingly continues to grow as the wars and the aftermath continues.
The West has also been either directly involved in conflicts or giving arms and money to rebel forces to try and bring around regime change in Syria to replace Bashar Al Assad, Egypt to unseat Mohamed Morsi and in Ukraine to overthrow Viktor Yanukovych.
The latest target is Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela with America making threats unless he resigns as President but the Americans have a history of an earlier botched regime change in this particular South American nation.
In 2002, the United States gave assistance and intelligence to coup organisers trying to remove the ruling President Hugo Chavez only for it to go wrong and leave a new American enemy in power on their doorstep.
That he went on to do amazing and brilliant things in Venezuela made the attempted regime change even more embarrassing so as America and it's western allies refuse to learn the lesson of a long list of recent regime changes that have gone horrifically wrong, we shouldn't be expecting too much this time around either and the Venezuelans should be petrified.

Sniffling And Sneezing Since Christmas

Some time around Christmas i began sniffing and by New Year it was a full blown cold with all the related bodily fluids leaking, headaches, tiredness, aches and feeling like somebody had swapped my regular shoes for divers boots.  
Then early January, just as I began to feel better, I got sick again and continued my quest to single handedly keep Kleenex in business and now it has happened again with a few days of feeling better, then another dive back into the Lemsip and paracetamol boxes.
The local Chemist, noticing that i was spending the GDP of a small country on cold cures mentioned that they were seeing this returning cold in other people too, that it was a bad year for it.
My mum always said that a cold was five days coming, five days with you and five days going although i would add the rider of a further 5 of a wrecking cough as a legacy of years of puffing on 20 Benson and Hedges a day.
The Chemist did mention that the occasional cold is good for our immune system so after six weeks of spluttering and sneezing i should have the immune system of a rhino.
To those, and there have been plenty, who mention to me that a sniffle, a sneeze or a sore throat isn't really being ill then i look forward to you showing me the right way to handle illness as for the past six weeks i have been kindly leaving an invitation to join me at the Chemist counter on door handles, work surfaces, keyboards and via the air that you have been breathing in since Christmas.
You are very welcome!

Saturday 26 January 2019

Feeling Cheated Yet Leavers?

With less than 65 Days to the March 29th deadline, the Brexit cheerleaders must be beyond excited, people like James Dyson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Redwood, Nigel Farage and Nigel Lawson.
It's probably just a massive coincidence that on the same day that P&O announce that it will be re-registering its entire cross-Channel fleet of ferries under the flag of Cyprus due to Brexit being a 'fundamental risk our chance of becoming profitable', Dyson announces that he is relocating his headquarters from Wiltshire to Singapore who has just agreed a trade agreement with the EU.
Staunch Leaver Jacob Rees-Mogg, co-founder of Somerset Capital Management, has set up not one but two funds in Dublin while fellow arch-Brexiteer John Redwood, part time employee of Charles Stanley investment bank, suggested to their investors that following Brexit, those with money 'pull it out of Britain and look further afield'.
It isn't a great look when the pro-Brexit lot are waving the flag for Britain just when Brexit is going to happen while protecting themselves and their finances so we also see Nigel Farage applying for German passports for his children and Nigel Lawson, who lives in France, applying for French residency.
With every day the mess of Brexit is becoming clearer, and it will take more than a high-priced bagless vacuum cleaner to clear it up but the hypocrites are clearing out of the financial basketcase Britain will become post-Brexit but they will all retain their wealth.
So that's all right for them then and to be fair, themselves were all they were ever worried about.

Friday 25 January 2019

Bad Moon Rising (In The 12th House)

As an Aries my characteristics include being arrogant and stubborn which is probably why i refuse to believe that astrology is anything other than weird nonsense although the pseudo-science of being able to tell how a particular day will go for 1/12th of the entire population seems to have gained a new audience in millennials.  
Princess Diana was a star sign convert and Ronald Reagan was famously a fan of consulting astrologers regarding key White House decisions but once where it was hidden away in the back pages of newspapers and women’s magazines, picking lucky numbers and promising the intervention of tall, dark, handsome strangers, now it seems to be undergoing a more serious revival.
The President of the Astrological Association of Great Britain, Roy Gillett, says there has been a stark uptake in millennials seeking out a deeper understanding of Astrology as younger people are feeling a sense of betrayal by conventional knowledge and a lack of values everywhere they look.
I guess if you are a reserved Taurus rising with your moon in the 12th house then that makes sense on some level but i always say that if you happen to read your horoscope and it seems to only sort of fit then read another sign and you'll find one that fits better.
Gillett says that he is not very good at arguing the benefits of astrology to those already set against it but i guess there is a good reason for that....him being a Sagittarius with Mercury ruling his ascendant Virgo and therefore not very persuasive.
Either that or it's all rot but the i'm an Aries after all and we are disbelieving goats.

Wednesday 23 January 2019

Move Over World Leaders, Lucy's Taking Over

In my naive way i assumed that a democratically elected leader was left to do their business for better or worse until the people of that nation decided to remove them, after all, we go around the World trumpeting Democracy but seems i have been wrong.
In Venezuela, Juan Guaido has declared himself President and won the support of several nations who like him better than the current President Nicolas Maduro so if it is as easy as that then i am going to declare myself leader of several dodgy nations with leaders i don't like.
I hereby declare myself the Prime Minister of Israel so move over Benjamin Netanyahu and my first pledge is to stop stealing land off the Palestinians and generally being the murderous dicks of the Middle East.
Then it's off to Saudi Arabia where i am now Queen and it's leave Yemen, give women the vote and stop chopping bits off people.
I'm also the new Supreme Leader of North Korea where i declare the abandonment of the nuclear program and will use the money to feed my people and make nice with Japan and South Korea.
I declare myself Prime Minister of Cambodia for no other reason than i can make the Dead Kennedy's 'Holiday In Cambodia' the National Anthem and of course it goes without saying that i am also the Prime Minster of the United Kingdom and Brexit and the Royal family have been binned.
Finally, Donald Trump and his ridiculous wife are out and i'm the new President of the United States and i'm reopening the Government and making your gun laws less bat shit crazy.
Being the leader of six countries will make things easier at the UN meetings so i'm off to fill out the form at the Post Office to get the post for these countries redirected to my place.

Sunday 20 January 2019

Abbott Doing Herself And Labour No Favours

As a Labour supporter i'm worried that Jeremy Corbyn, as much as i agree with his policies, hasn't got the support in the country to win any upcoming General Election and we will be lumbered with a Conservative Government for another five years and as the previous eight years haven't been a success, another half decade of the Blue side in power and even more ideologically driven austerity cuts should scare us all.
What doesn't help Labour is people like the Shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbot, who has come out and blamed the BBC for making her look bad on Question Time on Thursday and: 'legitimising mistreatment, bias and abuse against Ms Abbott as a black woman in public life'.
It's absolutely ridiculous that Fiona Bruce made Diane Abbot look bad because Diane Abbot did a good job of that herself.
As any half decent journalist would do, the host kept interrupting Abbot and tried to get her to answer the question the studio audience had asked.
If Abbot had set out Labours plan for Brexit rather than trying to answer the uncomfortable question by avoiding answering it at all then she would have not been interrupted for an answer at all.
That Labour and the Conservatives are equal in the polls despite the absolute debacle of the Conservatives Government reflects badly on Labour but whining and moaning that you are given a rough time because you are a black woman rather than because you were caught out being ill-prepared and unable to steam-roller the new host in front of the Television camera's does nothing to help.

Saturday 19 January 2019

Super Blood Wolf Moon And Perigee Syzyg

You don’t have to do much to prepare for the Lunar Eclipse just before dawn on Jan 21, just be awake at 5.15 am and look up at the full, red Moon although if you sleep through it bear in mind that the next one is not until January 2037.
This is not just a Super Blood Wolf Moon but also a Perigee Syzygy if you please but just what is all that?
The Super bit is because it's a Supermoon which is when the full moon coincides with a perigee which is the point at which the moon comes closet to the Earth during its orbit which makes it look 14% bigger.
The blood part is the reddish tint of the moon during a total lunar eclipse and a Wolf Moon is a full moon which occurs in the dead of winter when it’s coldest so when they all occur together we get a Super Blood Wolf Moon
A Syzygy refers to an alignment in a straight line, of three celestial bodies and on January 21 we have the Sun, Moon and Earth all in line (which is why we have a lunar eclipse) and as the moon is at it's Perigee (closest point to earth), it’s called a Perigee Syzygy.
Just set the alarm for 5am, make a coffee and stick your head out the door and gaze in wonder at a spectacular astronomical event, then go back to bed because 5.15am is ridiculously early.

Brits Freeze As Aussies Bake

Winter has well and truly arrived in Britain as blizzards blow in and temperatures plunge below -9°C in parts of the UK.
The MET Office has said that the current cold spell will continue into February with most places seeing sleet and snow and the reliable weather singularity has February 8 through to February 16 as the coldest period in the UK so it looks like scarfs and bobble hats will be the fashion item for a few weeks yet.
Somewhere that doesn't need gloves or thermal underwear is Australia which has just started a forecasted 10 days of above 40°C temperatures and already a daytime 48.9°C has been recorded in South Australia with night-time high of 35.9°C.
As someone who swoons like a Victorian lady when the mercury nudges the mid twenties, i can't imagine what 48.9°C feels like but i know i wouldn't like it much.
One Aussie said: 'You’d be crazy to sit outside on a day like today' although she was being interviewed while sat on the beach which undermined her statement slightly .
New heat records are being broken almost daily and the Australian MET Office recently had to add an additional colour to their heat index for temperatures above 50°C which they expect to hit in the coming days.
Seems strange that as the Australians bake we are shivering in -9°C and buying snow shovels but i know what i prefer and it doesn't include the lingering smell of sun screen.

Friday 18 January 2019

Trump Literally Has A Lot On His Plate

Donald Trump has tweeted that he is the most unfairly and worst treated President since Abraham Lincoln which is a bit of a stretch as three other Presidents were killed in Office since Abe which is slightly worse then being mocked for being a racist idiot but there is so much to mock about him it would be criminal to not make fun of him.
Something which doesn't seem to get as much mockery as his hair, temper tantrums and small penis hands is his weight, especially as he is the third fattest President ever to sit his wide load behind the oval Office desk. 
The fattest President was 340 pounds or 24 stones of William Taft followed by Grover Cleveland who broke the scales at 280 pounds or 20 stones and then comes Trump at 239 pounds which is 17 stone although looking at his pictures i think that may be fake news right there.
Although he has a long way to go to catch up with the Tubby Taft, if we suspend sense and take the 17 stone figure as true, Cleveland is an achievable 3 stone away and if he keeps tucking into the burgers and cola's like he does, then he may be able to add second fattest President to his already impressive CV of seconds including second dumbest after George W Bush, second most perverted after John F Kennedy and very soon if the rumours are true, he will be the second President to resign in disgrace after Richard Nixon.

Wednesday 16 January 2019

Second Referendum

Looking into my crystal ball i see a second referendum and Brexit being overturned and the whole sorry mess being forgotten and we live long and happy lives staying in the EU but that is an affront to Democracy i hear time after time.
Democracy, the act of placing a cross on a ballot paper every five years in order to hand over political control to a party is as much say as we have. Yes we can remove a Government but once in they are there for a long time and can cause untold lasting damage to every corner of our lives.
So 52% voted to leave against 48% wanting to stay but that was in 2016, we are now in 2019 and opinions have changed and moods have swung especially now we know the consequences of Brexit.
We held an election in May 2015 and had another one in June 2017 after 26 months to elect a Government which is less time than between June 2016 and today, 43 months.
Short of a revolution as in Ukraine, we are stuck with them and 5 years until Democracy wheels its way back again.
Democracy is 1 day every 1826 days and no way to remove the party if its breaks its promises or make u-turns on the manifesto it was elected upon.   
It seems that the thing the Brexiteers are praising the highest is really not that praiseworthy and is completely movable depending on whether your side won or not.
A second referendum is the way to go, mostly as we now know the far reaching consequences of what will happen if we go ahead with it, but also because so much has changed in the 43 months since we made the fateful decision so let's give the Leavers a chance to reflect on their previous decision.

Tuesday 15 January 2019

The Brexit Vote Today

After Theresa May delayed the original Brexit vote date in the face of a significant defeat, they will get the chance to either accept or reject her agreement today.
As usual, it's not straight forward so here is a breakdown of how things could pan out.

Looking at the numbers, the way things are almost certain to go are:

1 - House of Commons debate Theresa May's current Brexit plan and once finished the House of Commons Speaker will ask those in favour of the amendment to shout 'aye' and those against the amendment to shout 'no'. Plenty of MPs will shout 'no' so there will be a vote and MPs will then go off and register their vote.

2 - MP's then all file back into the Chamber and the results are read out.

3 - Mrs May loses and then has three days to come up with some next steps and present them to MPs.

The option for Theresa May are then:

4a - After three sittings she can just put the same deal to the House of Commons all over again.
4b - She can go back to Brussels for more negotiations and present an amended deal.
4c - The Opposition can table a no-confidence vote and trigger a general election.
4d - Mrs May calls another referendum with the options of her deal, no deal or remain in the EU.
4e - She could follow the David Cameron route and just resign

The first three are almost guaranteed, it is almost impossible for her to get the number of votes for her deal as it stands to go through so it's looking at the 5 options with 4b the most likely and it's back to the House of Commons on Friday 18 January but 4c and another Election a strong contender and 4d the most likely if she gets turned down again on Friday.
Hold onto your hats because this week could be very exciting times as Mrs May has ran out of long grass to kick Brexit into.

Sunday 13 January 2019

Don't Get Well Too Soon Piers

Good Morning Britain presenter and all round irritant Piers Morgan has issued pictures of himself in hospital with tubes in his nose.
Immediate thoughts were to wonder how the operation to get his head surgically removed from Donald Trump's backside went but it turned out he was suffering from stomach gastritis and inflammation of the small intestines. 
The good news is that it means he will be off our screens for a few weeks as he is too ill to go back to interrupting Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain but the bad news is that he will only be off our screens for a few weeks unless the doctors can find another reason to keep him in.
Maybe the medics can find something else, nothing bad obviously, but something that requires 12 months recuperation and definitely no appearing on TV until at least January 2020 if not for him, think of our mental health at having to wake up to his inane chuntering every morning!
As for Good Morning Britain, give Richard Madley a call and try and get him back while Piers is having an NHS bathwash, he at least didn't make me want to throw my bowl of Cornflakes at the TV screen at 6am.

China Banning Religion

My usual reaction to anyone who tells me that they are religious is to smile politely, pat them on the head and then completely ignore them but they are going a bit further than that in China and are actively trying to banish the practice. 
Considering the bloodshed and persecution the Church performed thrusting their beliefs on other nations for centuries i should not care and in all honestly, i don't particularly but as my beef with the Church is the way they force their beliefs on people i guess the way the Chinese Atheist Government are going about it doesn't feel particularly right.
Forcibly closing Churches, jailing religious leaders and intimidating churchgoers is not the way President Xi Jinping should be going about things because that stinks of the intolerance of others beliefs that is usually preserved for the religious and atheists are better than that. 
Far better to leave them to their own beliefs and try to educate them that their beliefs are as misguided as belief in the Tooth Fairy or Father Christmas but if they haven't got the braincells to work that out then they aren't that much of a threat anyway.  
The Communist Party plan is to retranslate the Bible to 'establish a correct understanding of the text' although in all probability the reason behind it all is that Christianity is on the rise in China and Christianity is seen as a Western ideal.
I am all for removing religion but i would rather people thought about it long and hard and rejected it themselves then have it imposed on them because that's what the Church does and that is just as wrong.

Friday 11 January 2019

Brexit About To Get More Fun

More and more i hear people moaning about Brexit and how they are bored with hearing about the whole damned thing but now that we are getting to the sharp end of things, its anything but boring and becoming more fun the closer we get to the March deadline.
Just when we all thought that there wasn't any the advantages of Brexit, we are now finding out that actually the main advantage is that we can climb out of bed with the EU and get into the one where Donald Trump is ready to flood our Supermarkets with poisonous chicken from the USA. Yummy.
Theresa May has done the impossible and come up with a deal that nobody on either side of the argument likes, the remainers don't like it because they want another referendum which will reverse Brexit and end all the silliness while the Quitters on the other side read the line 'Leave the EU' as 'tick here to kick all the bloody foreigners out' but May's deal leaves them here still doing the important jobs like nursing.  
As the end crawls closer and the Government face more and more losses in the House of Commons, if you are not enjoying watching the Conservatives tear themselves apart over a mess entirely of there own making then you must be either dead inside or Theresa May.
Even Trump called it political turmoil and that's Trump speaking, a man who you wouldn't trust to face the right way on the toilet so enjoy it because the Conservatives are falling apart in some cosmic karma for being so awful and it's going to get worse before, as we all know deep down in our hearts, Brexit gets pulled and we all carry on as before and it would all have been for nothing.

Thursday 10 January 2019

How America Has Not Been A Force For Good In Middle East

Much of what comes out of the current American Government is laughable but i had to get some extra strong stitches put into my splitting sides after US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, called the US 'a force for good in the Middle East'.
'The United States under President Trump has reasserted its traditional role as a force for good in this region' he said before referring to the US as 'having always been a liberating force, not an occupying power' Pompeo quipped while keeping a commendable straight face.
Such a shame that something like evidence and facts gets in the way of Pompeo's huge whopper, like backing the known Al-Queada operatives who had fought against the USA in Iraq to topple the Libyan government, essentially providing air cover for these jihadist to run rampant across the country, that wasn't particularly a good thing.
Before the Libyan horror show there was the highly misguided and mistaken Iraq war which filled the country with terrorists who made the short trip into Syria and were the grateful recipients of American weapons and financial backing until they crossed back into Iraq when they became the bad guys again, only bad guys now armed with American weapons.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the first American invasion is still ongoing and Yemen is being razed to the ground by Saudi Arabia with American backing and Israel continues to poison the whole region while it goes about its deadly business of killing Palestinians who object to their land being stolen and the population held under military occupation.
Then there is the Iran deal which they have pulled out from which was stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons so how we are supposed to believe that the words 'force for good' could ever be attributed to a nation responsible for the suffering of tens of millions of civilians?
A force for death and bloodshed in the Middle East certainly, but a force for good is a stretch to far for even this appallingly awful American Government.

Wednesday 9 January 2019

Loving Winter

If you write 'I love Summer' into Google you get 3,690,000,000 results but if you write 'I love Winter', you get 3,410,000,000 results which is a result i use to bash all those moaners who whittle on about the cold and dark evenings at this time of year.
In the Northern Hemisphere we are mid-Winter so just about to enter the coldest part of the year in February which will bring the best thing about Winter, snowfall.
Britain inevitably falls apart at the first sight of snow with roads closing, flights and trains cancelled, grit shortages and reports of drivers stuck in snowdrifts for days which just makes the moaners even more louder.
Granted it's not much fun being stuck on the M25 for three days trying to eek out a packets of Cheesy Wotsits until you are rescued but otherwise Winter is a magnificent time of the year.
Waking up in the morning after a heavy fall of snow, everything blanketed in white. The bright moon and stars, the smell from fireplaces, hot chocolate, mulled wine, catching your other half a good one in the back of the head with a well aimed snowball, snowmen and snow angels, warm clothes, long coats and even longer woolen scarfs, coming inside from the cold, the eerily deserted beach, cosying
up to a warm body and putting your cold feet all over them, frosty mornings when you can see your own breath, cold sunny days, Ugg boots, frozen ponds, curling up on the sofa with the latest Stephen King novel and being the first footprints in virgin snow.
The showy brightness of Summer can't match the beauty and romance of Winter so if your feeling cold put on a bloody jumper and stop your whinging and enjoy it because soon it will be June and when you are sitting in your own sweat, swatting away wasps and hurting from sunburn you will wish it was Winter again.

Giving Thanks To Satan

In the Bible texts, the evil Satan is acknowledged to have killed 10 people while the loving God killed a total of 10 million including 7.5 million men, women and children in a great flood.
So if God was the one with the larger taste for blood, why is it that Satan is the bad guy but then Satan always has had a bit of a bad reputation so it is nice to see that he is getting some recognition finally at the Golden Globes Awards.
The appropriately named Christian Bale thanked Satan for giving him the inspiration on how to play the role of Dick Cheney which i hope includes the bit where he shot his friend whilst on a quail hunting trip otherwise it sounds a film i would gladly miss.
Satanism is undergoing a bit of a revival lately but not many people know that where God botherers have their 10 Commandments including not being allowed to cover their neighbours ass, the Church of Satan have 11 of their own called The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth.
These include not give opinions unless asked, show respect to others, do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal, do not steal or complain, don't harm children and don't kill animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
All very respectable and strangely not a single mention of pitchforks up the backside so i say not only leave the devil worshippers to do their own thing but let them run a few radio stations as well because God knows Satanic Heavy Metal music is far better than that religious happy clappy crap.

Sunday 6 January 2019

Don't Fill Up Canada Fleeing Americans

Donald Trump is busy ranting on Twitter about trying to keep people out of the United States but maybe he should be more concerned about keeping people in his country as according to a Gallup poll, 16% of Americans in 2018 said that they would want to permanently leave the United States and never return.
The destination for those who are feeling discontent under the Trump administration is Canada with more than one in four hoping to move north of the border.
During the Obama years, 10% said they’d like to leave the U.S. for good and 11% of Americans said they preferred to live in another country when Bush was president.
My calculator shows that with a population of 325 million, that's 52 million Americans who could be making a caravan and heading for Canada for a better life so maybe Justin Trudeau should be trying to raise the funds at the Canadian Parliament to build a wall (or fence) and deploy the military to the USA border because America won't be sending their best.
Maybe us Europeans should also be sending out warships out into the Atlantic to intercept any packed fishing boats full of Americans in loud Hawaiian shirts trying to come and claim asylum here to escape the laughably awful Trump regime and what's left of his Government that is still working and not been shut down.
Of course Britain is not a good destination anyway, we have Brexit coming in March and we will all be looking to run off elsewhere ourselves when we run out of food and medicine so please don't clog up Canada for us American refugees, we may well need it ourselves.

Wayne Rooney At It Again

When Wayne Rooney was still a Premier League player he was subjected to chants of 'fat granny shagger, he's just a fat granny shagger' due to the revelations that regularly frequented whore houses and had a penchant for the elderly, oh and that he was fat.
Then it was later reported that Rooney was paying £2,000 for sex with prostitutes while his wife Coleen was pregnant with their first child so he is not by any means a moral guardian or role model for anyone except possible Donald Trump or Charlie Sheen so it is no surprise that he is in trouble again in America for drink driving.
He was caught drink driving before here in the UK, arrested while driving a prostitute home, and now has seen the inside of a Washington Police cell due to being arrested on 'public intoxication and swearing charges'. 
That his wife, Coleen, stood by him while he continually played 'away fixtures' with women who were not her, i can't see this causing problems in their marriage, or least not while he is still earning millions anyway.

Halal Meat Not Popular

I don't like to see any business go bust but i have given two little cheers recently when a cafe and then a burger place around the corner from me put up the 'closing down' signs.   
It was about a year ago when the cafe opened, run by a Muslim family, and in the window was a large, neon 'HALAL MEAT' sign and although i was happy to see the place almost empty every time i walked past it, within three months it closed and stood empty for a short time before the builders moved in and at the end of summer converted it to a fast food burger joint, run by the same Muslim family. 
Another bright flashing sign went up, again advertising that the burgers were 'Halal' and just before Christmas another sign went up saying it was closing down, i would like to think that any potential customers were educated enough on what 'Halal Meat' entails and gave it a wide berth.
Now it seems that it's not just the people in my neighbourhood who are against Halal meat as Belgium has joined Sweden, Denmark and Slovenia in banning the Muslim and Jewish methods of ritually slaughtering animals.
Although the standard way of slaughtering animals is little better, Halal means the animals is not stunned before slaughter so they can’t feel pain while the Jewish and Muslim religious laws require that animals are conscious and suffer a single cut to the neck and the animal left to bleed to death in horrendous pain.
As expected the Jewish and Muslim community are calling it 'an attack on the freedom of religion' but i say it is more to do with stopping the barbaric and appallingly awful practise of inflicting pain on animals when you kill them for food and nothing to do with your religion.
If you don't like it stick to carrot sticks and lettuce, i'm sure your Gods are fine with them.

Friday 4 January 2019

How To Tell The Weather For Year Ahead

My grandad had an Almanac and it would tell you the weather for the coming year which i thought was pretty cool although it never occurred to me until years later that the Almanac could give a years weather but the weather forecaster on the TV was very hit and miss about tomorrow.
After discussing this with a Meteorologist, she explained that the weather isn't 'random and the Almanacs use something called Weather Singularities which are high probabilities of certain weather types happening at the same dates based on geography, atmospheric conditions, the earths rotation, sea conditions and other sciency stuff which happens at the same time each year.
Noting only the periods with the highest probabilities, the year ahead for the UK looks like this.

5-17 Jan    Wet and windy period as the Atlantic becomes more active 87%     
18-24 Jan  Frosty as high pressure begins to affect the UK. 87%    

24 Feb -3 Mar 
High winds with snowfall a high risk to many areas 85%   
8-16 Feb           Coldest period of the year 56%   
26 Feb -9 Mar  Stormy and wet and windy weather as storms move in from the Atlantic 88%   

23-31 Mar  Stormy with showers 67%   

10-19 Apr  
The famous April Showers 71%   

17- 31 May  Dry and warm with high pressure over the UK and continent. 88%   

1-4 Jun       
Low pressure brings cooler weather and heavy, slow moving showers 77%   
10 - 14 Jun  Wet and windy weather 77%   
18 - 27 Jun  Wet and windy weather with heavy showers 77%   

10 -22 Jul       
Warm period for the UK as the Azores high extends over the UK 50%   
23 - 27 Jul       Heavy thunderstorms 77%   
31 Jul - 8 Aug  Period where the hottest day of the year is likely to occur 50%   

16 - 30 Aug  
The first of the Autumn storms arrive bringing cooler, unsettled weather 67%   

1 - 17 Sep  
  High pressure crosses the UK bringing fine days followed by showers 87%   
18 - 24 Sep  Autumn storms during this period 60%   

5 - 12 Oct           Wet and windy period bringing gales to the UK 67%   
24 Oct - 13 Nov  Wet and windy 100%   

14 - 24 Nov    Foggy weather  65%   
25 - 29 Nov   Wet and Windy 98%   

6 - 12 Dec     Wet and windy 98%   
25 - 31 Dec   The Atlantic brings gales and heavy rain/sleet to the UK 83%

So wrap up warm between 8th and 16th February when it's coldest, get out the sledge for the snow between 24 February and 3 March, buy a new umbrella at the start of wet and windy June, don't hang around under trees during thunderstorms between 23rd and 27th July, slap on the Factor 40 sunscreen between 31 July and 8 August and spend the time between Christmas and New Years Eve inside out of the wind and rain.

Just A Red Moon And Not A Biblical Warning

Because religious folk are at the more gullible end of the spectrum, when a religious leader makes an announcement they all start rattling their rosary beads in fright and this time it's over the Blood Moon on January 21st which is being used as a Biblical sign of the approaching end times.
The Blood Moon prophecy is said to forewarn humanity of the end of the world by painting the Moon a blood-red colour as explained several times in the Bible Pastor as explained by Evangelical preacher Paul Begley who also ties it in Donald Trump being born on a Blood Moon, on June 14, 1946 and January 20th is the second anniversary of Trump being sworn in as President.
'The Super Blood Moon on January 20 and will go past the midnight hour on January 21' he explains before stating that it’s a warning for all of us to give our lives to Jesus Christ.
'Christians, you do not need to fear this Blood Moon. If you’re saved folks – anybody out there who is saved – you have nothing to fear' but i'm going to stick my neck out and say we will all be okay and Pastor Begly has been sneaking far too many sips of the Communion wine again.

No Panic Just Yet

I don't know what i will be doing in 2.5 billion years time but whatever it is i had better be sitting down because our Solar System is about to be sent spinning out into space courtesy of a Galaxy colliding with our own Milky Way.
Astrophysicists at Durham University conducted a computer simulation to find out more about the movement of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy that orbits the Milky Way and found that it is set to smack straight into our Galaxy.
The galaxy is 63,000 light years from the Milky Way and currently heading away from us at a rate of 250 miles per second but the physicists believe that it is set to slow down and head back towards us.
The resulting collision will shake the whole Milky Way and lead researcher Dr Marius Cautun warns the collision could 'knock us out of the Milky Way and into space' due to the stars being shifted into new gravitational pulls which could change the orbit of planets which in turn could move us from the 'Goldilocks zone' and make the planet too hot or too cold for life to survive on.
I wouldn't panic just yet though, the collision isn’t set to take place for another 2.5 billion years so you are safe to start watching that box set you got for Christmas.

Thursday 3 January 2019

Stay Safe Kids And Avoid The Military

If anybody asked me for my opinion for joining the military i would question their sanity and explain that absolutely anything would be a better career move so i would be no help to the British Army who have launched a recruitment drive as they seem to have problems getting youngsters to sign up.
Because the words 'cannon fodder' is frowned upon when trying to get young men and women to join up they have hit upon the idea of targeting young people with posters calling on 'snowflakes, selfie addicts, class clowns, phone zombies, and me, me, millennials' to join the military.
The idea is to attract young people to join the UK forces by claiming the army is looking for special skills in order to convince young people that their snowflake attitudes, obsession with their phones and passion for video games make them right for a career in combat.
The TV advert shows exciting scenes of soldiers delivering humanitarian aid but they seem to have left out the main part which includes shooting at people and getting shot at in war zones which seems a bit of an oversight.
The British army’s Major General Paul Nanson said that the advertisement campaign is designed to show that the army looks beyond stereotypes and 'sees people differently' which to be fair they do, they see them as idiots they can send to war to die and be maimed while he and his buddies sit in the safe seats and come up with daft ideas to replace the ones no longer able to do the job.
My career advice would be stay at home in safety with your video games and mobile phones kids and ignore anybody who pushes the lies that the military is anything other than the most disastrous career move you could ever make.

Rotting Apple

I don't know who is the brains behind Apple's business strategy but they must be a bit nervous as the iphone developer announces a revenue of approximately $84 billion in the first quarter of 2019, down from its previous estimate of $93bn and resulting in a share drop of 7.5%.
Apple are blaming the ongoing trade war with China which means the Chinese Market for the iphone has taken a hit but nobody seems to be taken in by it and point to a host of problems with Apple, all of their own making.
There was the iPhone battery controversy where they were deliberately damaging the performance and battery life of older models, forcing users to upgrade to new phones.
Another issue is the price with the latest top of the range iPhone XS costing £1,500 but with very little improvements so massively overpriced while hardly being technological breakthroughs on previous their phones.
Also Apple is faced competition from a multitude of rivals from around the globe, all vying for a slice of the lucrative smartphone market and matching or exceeding Apple’s iPhone on hardware quality but costing much less.
The reason is that Apple got greedy and took it's users for mugs who would pay anything to get their hands on the Apple phones but they are now finding out that maybe they were not as big a mugs as they thought and i'm glad about that.

Good Few Days For Space Fans

I do love a good space story and over that last few days we have NASA's New Horizons sending back pictures from the Kuiper Belt 4 billion miles away and China landing a lunar explorer on the dark side of the moon. 
The exciting thing about China's Chang'e 4 mission is the experiment to plant potatoes and other vegetable seeds to see if they grow in the lunar soil which could have massive implications if successful and we can grow food up there.
The pictures of the 21 mile high Ultima Thule makes it look like a giant snowman but it is the furthest out object ever visited by an Earth spacecraft.
The thing with Space exploration is that it is really, really expensive which gives the moaners something to whinge about, i hear almost every time how the money would have been better spent here on Earth which is very shortsighted, especially when you consider the overpopulation on our planet and the way we are stinking it up with our pollution so we may need a bolthole very soon anyway.
The New Horizons explorer cost approximately £600 million, the cost of our last round of Trident Nuclear Missiles was £40 billion and i know where i would prefer the money be spent.
The other problem is because of the immense distances involved, New Horizons has taken 14 years to reach the Kuiper Belt so it can be a long time between events and interest wanes between launch and arrival.
What we need are some 'sexy' missions such a men on the Moon or Mars to keep the interest levels up and i don't care if it's NASA, China, ESA or the Russians who do it but we just need to keep doing it.

Tuesday 1 January 2019

Life Hacks For The Year Ahead

When it comes to life events like applying for a job, buying a car or getting married, certain months are more advantageous than others. Want to ‘hack your year’? Here’s how to organise your calendar in a smarter, better way.

January is the best month to apply for a job as Google searches for 'jobs' peak in January but few of these Google-searchers actually to apply for jobs compared to other months. Also companies usually get their new hiring budgets for the year in January.

February is the best month to buy car insurance as CompareTheMarket advise that we are coming out of wintery conditions which decreases the chance of accidents which means cheaper premiums.

March is the best month to get married as you’re likely to reduce your expenses by getting married in an off-season month like March and late March weather is usually quite nice.

April is the best month try for a baby as both sperm health and quantity peak in spring with research shows the highest numbers of moving sperm in springtime and the lowest in the summer, while a Swiss study found that sperm concentration was also highest in the spring and lowest in summer.

May is the best month to make a life decision as we are out of the winter months which
can make many of us feel a bit lower, indecisive and more risk-averse. That means it is better to consider doing things with potentially serious consequences in late spring.

June is the best month to go to hospital as July onwards brings an influx of new medical graduates and the combination of newbie inexperience with fewer doctors familiar with their role leading to an increase in medical errors. Hospital admissions for many diseases peak in winter meaning hospitals are typically at very high occupancy levels throughout the winter and fewer beds available.

July is the best month to sit an exam as studies suggests that our ability to pay attention peaks in mid-summer due to the brain region that responds to changing day length, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, is the same one that controls the master circadian clock that regulates daily cycles in hormones, appetite, attention and mood.

August is the best month to buy a house as this is the month that most people decide to sell their house which offers the largest number of options to the buyer.

September is the best month to be born as researchers have found that September babies achieve better exam results, have better cognitive skills, are less likely to be bullied and more likely to attend university than even children born just slightly earlier in August.

October is the best month to buy stocks as stocks show weaker performance from May to October meaning they are cheaper to buy in October just before they perform stronger in the winter, from November to April, when their value increases again.

November is the best month to apply for a passport as passport applications are at a low in November, making it the best time to apply before applications jump in January, building to a summer rush as people scramble to get their passports renewed in time for their holidays abroad.

December is the best month to buy a car as car dealers typically have annual sales targets and are more motivated to offer good reductions to shift stock as the year end approaches.

2019 Psychic Predictions

One of the most thankless tasks is that of the Psychic and especially at this time of year as they are asked to make predictions for the coming year and then smart-arse bloggers write them down and go back and to check them 12 months later.
Therefore credit to Aussie Psychic, Medium, Writer & Spiritual Life Styler Julie McKenzie for saying to hell with you irritating and smug British bloggers, here are my predictions for 2019.

- Huge earthquake Los Angeles
- Papua New Guinea or Japan hit by magnitude 9 Earthquake
- Russia will invade, seize and absorb into Russia further parts of Ukraine
- Assassination attempt on Putin
- Russia will put a nuclear weapon into space
- USA admits to using Extra Terrestrial technology they got from Roswell in 1947
- Mark Zuckerberg will go to jail
- Queen Elizabeth dies and Charles becomes King briefly and then William takes over
- It will be revealed Meghan Merkel was pregnant when her and Harry got married
- Stevie Wonder will fall ill and die
- A World famous boxer will die after a fight

As usual we will come back at the end of the year and see what Julie got right.