Agreeing With Rishi Over Vaping

Say it quietly but i have found myself agreeing with the Conservatives three times over the last few days, and all around smoking and vaping.
Firstly the plan to make it an offence for anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 to be sold tobacco products which effectively raises the smoking age by a year each year until it applies to the whole population and has the potential to phase out smoking in young people almost completely as early as 2040.
Then the plan to ban disposable vapes and again, i am fully behind it as used one time plastic vapes are dumped everywhere and we really need to cut down on the amount of plastic waste so again, pat on the back for Rishi and then much to my surprise, another one for planning to restrict the flavours of vapes which could appeal to younger vapers which i have posted on before.
The use of e-cigarettes has become more and more popular and there is a valid arguments that i find hard to argue against.
The first is that the e-cigarette companies are aiming their wares at the under 18 market with enticing flavours such as ice cream, bubble gum and candy floss which could attract non-smokers and worryingly youngsters, to try vaping and thereby introducing them to the nicotine addiction.
A YouGov study put the number of e-cigarette users in the UK at 3 million and most, like me, use flavoured nicotine (Juicy Peach, Spearmint, Cola and Coconut are my choice) but we have to find a midway between keeping any of those 3 million returning to cigarettes by removing the flavours that enticed them to vaping while not making it attractive to youngsters, mainly by not selling flavours that sound like they come from a sweet shop.
Obviously, three good decisions doesn't make up for the god-awful mess they have made, and continue to make, regarding everything else but i'm with you on this one Rishi but of course i will just deny it anyone asks me.

Today Is...First VD Clinic Opens

There was once a time when both penicillin and athlete's-foot cream were but a distant gleam in some chemist's father's eye so humans knew that those who have sex will sometimes catch the clap. It's not a new problem, indeed, some of the most famous people to walk the earth have been plagued with odd discharges and strange burning sensations such as Blackbeard, Leo Tolstoy, Al Capone, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles VIII of France, Christopher Columbus, Benito Mussolini and Ivan the Terrible but it wasn't until the First World War that Government decided to do something about it.  
The First clinic specifically for Venereal Diseases opened today in 1747, a time when science had not yet discovered the real causes of disease and Syphilis was unknown in Europe until infected sailors among the crews of Christopher Columbus’s ships returned from their first voyage to the New World, having contracted the disease after having sex with Native Americans. 
The first documented widespread outbreak of syphilis was in Italy around 1495 and was spread to France by soldiers returning from battle in Italy.  The rest, as historians say, is history.
Syphilis became a major health concern in Europe, including Britain, and in the early years, was a much more deadly disease than it is today. Europeans had no immunity built up, and deaths from syphilis were common and horrible, with victims exhibiting sores over their entire body, arthritic-like symptoms and madness before death.
Prior to the development of penicillin in the 1940's there were no real cures and by 1916 the syphilis death rates were as high as 46 per million, 17% of pregnancies in families with syphilis resulted in miscarriages or stillbirths, 30% of children in blind schools were there due to syphilis and 50% of infertility in women was due to gonorrhea while with as many as 5% of Britain's Army suffering from a Sexually Transmitted Disease and over 400,00 troops admitted to hospital so in 1916, the Local Government Board issued the Public Health (Venereal Diseases) Regulations.
Specialist clinics were rapidly established alongside returning military medics and sexual health services flourished as did use of condoms although Worldwide, more than 357 million new cases of curable STIs among adults aged 15–49 years are reported so one slogan i remember from my childhood that still resonates today is: 'Don't be A Fool, Cover Your Tool'.

Today Is...Oliver Cromwell Executed

One things us Brit's can be proud of is that we sure know how to hold a grudge, so much so that even if you have been dead and buried for two years, we will still dig you up to execute you as Oliver Cromwell found out today in 1661.
The story of Jolly Old Ollie is well known and he did give his army one of the coolest names ever and inspire Elvis Costello to sing a cracking song about him as well as banning Christmas as he considered it was more about the eating, drinking, dancing and having fun rather than the birth of Jesus and believed that people needed strict rules to be religious and that any kind of merrymaking was sinful.
The Churchy types can always be relied upon to suck the fun out of everything but even they surpassed themselves by taking their own holiday and have a problem with people celebrating it but after a decade, Cromwell caught malaria and a water infection and spurned treatment as he thought that God would cure him but in short, he never and he died at age 59 in 1658 and was laid to rest in peace.
Charles II took the throne, the ban on the Festive season was lifted and Parliament was reinstated and the first thing they did was decide that being dead was not enough of a punishment for Ollie so dug him up, his body hanged in chains and then his body thrown into a pit and his head displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall which is where it stayed for 24 years and is mentioned by the diarist Samuel Pepys who recorded seeing it.
The pole on the which the head was impaled snapped during a fierce storm and Cromwell’s head rolled into a gutter in Parliament Square and is believed to have been found by a sentry who took it home and stashed it in his chimney.
It got passed around until 1960 where it was buried somewhere in Cambridge with a plaque stating 'Near to this place was buried the head of Oliver Cromwell', they kept the exact site secret just in case any more Royalists decided to use his noggin as a weather vane again.

Today Is...Periodic Table Invented

Today is the 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.

Conservatives Show The Problem With Democracy

My biggest gripe about Democracy is that the voters have no way to force another election if the party who won the last election turn out to be a disaster and it is only four or five years later we get to vote again.
What should be introduced is a way to remove a Government if they turn out to be a shambles or if the manifesto they promised before the election day turns out to be a pack of lies or if they are as corrupt as the last Government.
We are inundated with polls so why not have a poll made up of all polls which if support falls below a certain percentage, an Election is triggered.
The latest YouGov/Times voting intention poll shows the Conservatives on 20% with Labou on 47% so the trajectory is for a huge Labour win but the most alarming statistic is that 66% of the Adult population disapprove of the current Conservative Government and only 14% approve.
The timing of the next election is in the gift of the Prime Minister and due to the fixed term agreement, Rishi Sunak will be forced to hold one this year and November is the month being most mentioned, almost at the very limit of the latest possible date.
I understand that it would be madness for Sunak to hold an election now which is why he is leaving it until the fag end of the year in the forlorn hope that something may happen to turn around his Governments fortunes, hence the tax cuts that are being floated in the belief that voters will change their minds if they pay 18% of their wages in taxes rather than the current 20% and hopefully not notice that they will still be paying the highest rate of tax since the 1940's.
I have always thought that what Democracy needs is a way to remove unpopular Governments rather than allow them to just carry on regardless because sure as hell the ruling Government isn't going to look at the polls, realise how unpopular they are and just go on of their volition.
I don't know what the figure should be set at, most of our Government's seem to hit the 35%-40% number which immediately leaves 60%-65% who didn't vote for them so it would have to be the approval percentage rather than the disapproval rating.
The last election in 2019 saw the Conservatives win 41% of the vote so if we take that figure of 41% approval, the 14% approval now is a huge drop which means 27% who voted for them would not vote for them again so throw that in with the 59% who never voted for them anyway that's a huge 86% of the country who don't want the current Government to carry on doing whatever it is, or isn't, doing.
I don't know if the King has any power to stick his oar in or there is some ancient statute on the books we could use but we need a way to force an Election.
No need for demonstrations or the military airing it's hardware in the streets, just the will of the people who the Government by all accounts is supposed to be representing and if the people think you are lousy, off you go.

ICJ Rules On Israel's Genocide

The definition of 'Genocide' was penned by the Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin after the Second World War and the United Nations adopted the International Convention to refer to the campaign launched by Nazi Germany to wipe out Jews in the Holocaust and was, in his own words: 'essential to prevent the rise of future Hitlers'.
On Friday the highest court in the World, The International Court of Justice (ICJ), agreed with South Africa that Israel does have a case to answer for what they are inflicting on the Palestinians does come under the Genocide banner and felt compelled to order it to do all in its power to avoid doing so.
The 45-minute ruling stated that the Judges are 'gravely concerned about the fate of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza' and demand their immediate and unconditional release but they also catalogued the plight of civilians in Gaza, the 26,000 dead and the two million displaced, and said that 'the humanitarian situation in Gaza is verging on catastrophic and Israel must take 'immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in the Gaza strip'.
Israel, as usual when they face any criticism, reacted with calling the ruling 'anti-semitic' but that barb long lost its sting when it got bandied about like confetti to try and shut down any criticism of the Jewish state but the Judges extensively quoted directly from Israeli officials, referring to Gazans as 'Human animals' abnd there would be 'no electricity, no food, no fuel', that 'All Gazan's were responsible for Hamas's surprise attack on Israel' and how 'Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything', claiming 'No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened, and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home' and when asked by a journalist how the Israeli army will ensure Palestinian civilians aren't harmed, was told: 'Are you seriously keeping on asking me about Palestinian civilians? What's wrong with you?'
It could be as long as three of four years before a judgement is passed but for now the interim ruling is that Israel must take all possible measures to prevent acts outlined in Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention, must ensure that its military does not carry out any measures in Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention, must prevent the destruction of any evidence of war crimes in Gaza and allow fact finding missions, must ensure the delivery of basic services and humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, must punish any incitement of genocidal acts and must submit a report on how it intends to deliver on these judgements within 1 month.
The ICJ has no power to impose their ruling on Israel but if they are not satisfied that Israel are abiding by their ruling, the next step is to refer Israel to the United Nations Security Council who can pass a resolution to take punitive action against Israel including economic or trade sanctions, arms embargoes and travel bans.
The United States has a veto at the Security Council, a veto they have wielded 45 times in defence of Israel, but experts are saying that if Washington veto an ICJ-approved decision, it could not only damage America's image as they are seen to be backing a country being investigated for genocide, but would almost certainly undermine any future calls for others to uphold the international rules-based order.
Neve Gordon, professor of international law at Queen Mary University of London, added that countries, such as the US, would now have to seriously rethink using a veto, saying 'It’s a new ballgame now, where the highest court in the world is saying, on first impression, Israel is committing genocide before adding, 'this is major for the US Government'
Thankfully, after all these years, something is finally being done about the murderous, abominable and murderous actions of Israel.

Special Guest Blogger: Silvio Berlusconi

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Today is...Alan Alda's Birthday

To anyone over 40, M*A*S*H* was one of the most loved television series and almost always makes an appearance in the list of TV critics best ever shows.
The show may be over 40 years old but it still appears regularly on TV stations still today which is testament to the amazing writing and strength of the characters in the series.
My favourite was always Hawkeye Pierce played by the very underrated Alan Alda and Harry Morgans character Colonel Sherman Potter but all the characters, even the minor ones, were great to watch and it always amused me to see some actors cutting their acting teeth in the show who would become big names such as Patrick Swayze, Ron Howard, Leslie Nielsen and Shelley Long.
As the show was around from 1972, most of the shows actors are now sadly no longer with us but Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) is still alive and kicking as is  Max Klinger (Jamie Farr), Radar (Gary Burghoff), BJ Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell) and and Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) who willbe blowing out 88 candles on his Birthday cake today.
He was always one of those  actors that I thought deserved to go on and do more things but sadly faded out of my sight after the end credits of the last show of the DVD box set although his Wikipedia page does show an impressive amount of further TV and movie work although most seems to have bypassed me.
At Christmas the long running television shows usually do a Christmas special or an episode that includes Christmas but there is one that i first saw when i was a child that has always stuck with me, the MASH 'Death Takes A Holiday' episode.
It's Christmas, and there's a truce on and everyone in the camp is preparing for the Christmas party for the orphanage but despite the truce a wounded solider is brought in and Hawkeye, BJ, and Margaret decide to take the case, and keep it secret from everyone else so the Christmas party is not ruined.
The young soldier is mortally wounded and his life rapidly away but the doctors see a picture of the young mans family in his wallet and decides to continue working on him, determined to keep the man alive long enough so that he doesn't die on Christmas Day and his kids 'won't have to remember Christmas as the day their Daddy died'.
BJ keeps the mans alive for a few hours by pumping oxygen into him by hand but he is fighting a losing battle and he finally dies at 11.25pm Christmas Day.
Hawkeye then walks to the clock on the wall, and moves the hands to past midnight, declaring 'Look, he made it. Time of death 12.05 December 26th' and in the silence that follows, Hawkeye opens the door and the the sound of the orphans singing Silent Night in the tent next door enters the room.
Beautiful, emotional and poignant and i watch it every year and every year i end up swallowing a lump in my throat.

Mind Your Language

I was invited to an International get together and met some wonderful people and first up was the Catalan's and they has a lovely dachshund so i greeted them by telling them they had a very cool pet. How was i supposed to know in Catalan 'Cool' means rear end and 'pet' is to fart so i quickly moved onto the Japanese congregation who were discussing the quickest way to get to the Science Museum.
Trying to be helpful i held up and mobile phone and asked if they wanted to check my Siri, imagine my horror when i found out 'Siri' translates to 'butt' in Japanese so i made my excuses and left and headed towards the Europeans who i assumed would be safer and saw Sven who i knew a long time ago.
As he did the three cheek kiss i turned to his wife and said it is fine, every time he sees me he showers me with kisses which went down about as well as you would think as to Swedish ears, kiss means urine so i beat a hasty retreat to the buffet where i met a Dutch woman who asked me how my evening was going.
I sighed that it wasn't going great but there is always a big lull at these events and the way the night was going i was hoping for an especially big one, 'lul' in Dutch means penis so i turned my red face towards the Hungarian candidate beside me and reached out for some comfort food saying i could really do
with a cookie which wasn't the best thing to say as 'cookie' not only means penis in Hungarian, but an especially small one.  
I then told the French guys his wife had a very cute face and obviously the way my night was going 'face' means rear end in French and when i asked the Norwegian to pass me a cake and he asked me which one i innocently said 'You Pick' and he threw his plate down and stormed off because wouldn't you know it, 'pick' means penis again in Norwegian
I asked the South Korean if they were enjoying their Burrito's and they could all have Salsa with it, that would be 'Salsa' meaning diarrhea i found out when they all changed their minds and ate the chocolate cake instead.
I told the Portuguese barman that it had taken a long time but finally it was payday, 'payday' meaning 'i just farted' and i ended the evening with some Trump supporting Americans so i told them exactly what i thought of him and they laughed and said you mean he's an ass, you are saying it in the American way?
'Nope', i said 'i mean it in the British way' and with that i left with my dignity intact.

Today Is...AVN Awards

It's award season and there is only so many times you can see Brad and Angelina posing for photographs on a red carpet or Kate Winslett blubbing in front of a podium before you reach the conclusion that God, these gong giving events are brain numbingly boring.
While the more mainstream actors and actresses are getting their backs slapped, there is a more alternative award ceremony going on today that celebrates the actors and actresses who get slapped onto their backs. Or up against a wall. Or on the bonnet of a car. Actually, almost anywhere because today is the 41st Annual Adult Video Awards at the wholly inappropriately named Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas.
The show promises to bring together thousands of adult stars showcasing the latest innovations and newest developments across the adult entertainment spectrum although what the newest developments could be in movies that are basically people having sex in different places is something we probably shouldn't think about too much.  
Seth Gamble and Maitland Ward will be hoping to repeat last years successes and pick up the best actor and actress gongs again and 'Grinders', a 90s inspired coming-of-age movie filmed in the no-rules skateboard aesthetic of that era by all accounts, was voted the best film last year.
Special mention must go to the best title of the year winner 'Up Uranus' although it might be best not to ponder to long on what the film is about, but i don't think it's regarding Astronomy.
The most expensive Porn film ever made at an expense £8m and which earned an armful of awards to its artificially enhanced bosom was Pirates 2: Stagnettis Revenge, a special effects laden romp which is loosely based on the Pirates of the Caribbean film although i don't remember Johnny Depp doing that with a ho ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Don't Believe The War Talk

A line i seem to have heard recently is how we are changing from a post-war world to a pre-war world and the newly appointed Defence Secretary, Grant Schapps, channeled his inner George W Bush by announcing his own 'axis of evil' speech with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran name checked as 'belligerent autocratic states' threatening Britain.
This followed a NATO official saying the West should prepare for all-out war with Russia within the next 20 years and should begin building capacity to produce weapons to sustain a lengthy conflict and governments should be talking to their citizens about mobilization, more reservists and even conscription.
So far so 1980's when a war with Russia was always seemingly on the verge of breaking out and we HAD to keep our nuclear deterrent otherwise there would be as large smoking crater off the coast of continental Europe where the UK used to be and so it was with Schapps who went on to emphasise just how important the UK's nuclear deterrent is.
As for conscription, there was very little enthusiasm amongst the Millennials and Generation X'ers who would be politely asked to go and get themselves killed wherever the Government sent them and can't say i blame them, George W Bush and Tony Blair sent almost 5,000 young UK and US men and women to their deaths in Iraq based on lies so i wouldn't trust them with my drink while i went to the toilet let alone my life.
The 'importance' of our nuclear warheads is purely down to the Government being conscious that a £150 billion which we will never use (or if do use will be the last thing anyone ever does) is a lot of money when they are supposedly bursting every sinew to drag our economy out of the death spiral they have instigated and that 'only thing keeping us safe' excuse has been wheeled out by every flavour of Government since i was a kid and is a red herring with flashing lights.
Russia has always been a bogeyman, China, North Korea and Iran have been recently added because the West need a bogeyman or two to keep us safe from and Russia invading Ukraine was manna from Heaven for people who have an interest in military spending so i say to the Millennials, don't be duped.
Russia invading Ukraine doesn't lead directly to the Red Army marching through Europe and ending up on our beaches and nor does China whatever action it takes in Taiwan, the danger there is if us (as in the West) stick our oar in and inflame the situation.
North Korea is the global equivalent of that bloke at work who wears Hawaiian shirts so everyone notices him and Iran may be a big player in the Middle East but that's like being in the top three of Footballs Second Division.
If anyone is going to spark a war then it will be the West, either NATO, the USA or the UK, look at who at been the most warmongering since the turn of the Century if you are looking for a precedent so don't worry youngsters, we were told the same thing when we were your age and we are still here.

Today Is...First Demonstration Of Television

In 1926 a Scotsman demonstrated the very first television and 97 years later and they still can't use it properly, have you seen Take The High Road??
John Logie Baird obviously didn't have many friends as a kid as he was fascinated with a German book he found about the photoelectric properties of selenium and began experimenting with television by transmitting outlines of objects and successfully televised human faces that were visible enough to be recognizable although they looked like ghosts, people would think they were looking at spirits and faint during the experiments and those were Scots, for God's sake. They eat Haggis on purpose.
He invited 50 scientists to his attic and gave a speech promising that this invention will revolutionise the world of entertainment but as the world of entertainment up until then had consisted of Charlie Chaplin waving his cane in an amusing manner and walking like he had hemorrhoids, it wasn't much of a boast.
He also tinkered with something called Phonovision which was a way to record the television signal and sound on gramophone records which could be played back from a device, which he called a Phonovisor which would record the signals but obviously nobody would want to record what was on the television so he gave up on that idea and set up the Baird Television Development Company.
This was later bought out by the BBC who began broadcasting television programmes and the rest is history although an apology for giving careers to Jeremy Clarkson, Piers Morgan, William Shatner, Jerry Seinfeld and Simon Cowell wouldn't go amiss.

Only One Smith's Song For Trump

When it comes to musicians demanding Donald Trump stop using their songs it is an impressive list which includes Adele, Aerosmith, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Guns N' Roses, Luciano Pavarotti, Nickelback, Ozzy Osbourne, Prince, Queen, R.E.M., The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty and The White Stripes and even the Village people have told him to keep his chubby little mitts off their songs and now we can add The Smiths who after their song "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" played at one of his rallies, have told him to that they don't want any of their tunes anywhere near him or his basket of deplorable supporters.
Looking through my collection of Smiths songs there was some much better choices from the bands back catalogue that they could have gone for such as 'Bigmouth Strikes Again', Miserable Lie', 'Unloveable' or 'I Know It's Over' which would have been a much better fit.
'Girl Afraid' or 'Let Me Kiss You' would be great as they sum up his sex offenders history or 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' which would sum up his supporters when his extra large carcass is dragged into prison or out of the Presidential race but although there are rich picking if they wanted to use
a Smith's songs, there is only truly one which could have been written for him and is perfect for his supporters to sing along to.  
1..2..3...4...'You're the one for me, Fatty, You're the one I really, really love...'

Today Is...Burns Night

I have a few Scottish friends and they will be celebrating Burns Night tonight as they do every year and it includes a Haggis and a lot, and i mean, a lot of Whisky.
I once told someone that a Haggis is a small mammal, a bit like a pre-midnight Gremlin, that is native to the Highlands of Scotland and he not only believed me but went on to explain to other people exactly what a Haggis was until someone ruined it by telling him it's actually a mix of sheep's heart, liver and lungs minced and stuffed into a sheep's stomach which i am reliably informed is every bit as tasty as it sounds.
I know someone who fed haggis to their dog once and the poor thing spent the next month licking it's bottom trying to get rid of the taste.
Burns Night then is a celebration of Robert 'Robbie' Burns, best known for penning 'Auld Lang Syne' which is drunkenly sung on New Year's Eve to bid farewell to the year just gone although he did also write a poem called 'Cock Up Your Beaver' but for some reason that never became quite so popular.
A typical Burns night celebration is a drop of Whisky followed by a Burns Supper, served with Whisky and once that is finished someone whips out a bagpipe and blows some god-awful tune on it while everyone else drinks Whisky, argues about something and a drunken fist fight ensues.    
I'm sure that Scotland has got some other national hero's and to be fair as they do like their Whisky i guess you could say they probably get very drunk on their birthdays too if that day ends in a Y even if they don't know whose day it is.

Special Guest Blogger: Jerry Springer

My story starts in Highgate Subway Station which was being used as a makeshift bomb shelter in London during World War Two.
As i used to be the political campaign adviser to Robert F. Kennedy and then the mayor of Cincinnati you could consider me vastly overqualified for my more famous career as the host of a televised show but politicians are known for being slimy and exploiting the underprivileged so i had all the attributes for The Jerry Springer Show.
When fate intervened in my first position in the form of a crazy guy with a gun in a Los Angeles Hotel, i moved back to Ohio and ran for Congress and soon after i got elected to the Cincinnati city council at only 27 years old.
A few years later, i was forced to resign after the Cincinnati vice squad raided a local massage parlor and because the law frowns on massaging one particular part of a man's body and they found a check from one Mr Jerry Springer, i gave a press conference where i admitting my error and my honesty must have struck a chord because i got re-elected in a landslide the next year, and was eventually propelled to the office of mayor.
So you may wonder how i end up manipulating red necks into fighting on national TV?
Well, after i ran for governor of Ohio and lost, i decided to take my talents to TV, where i immediately became famous for my editorials on the evening news. While other news anchors just read the teleprompter, i became the most popular anchor in Cincinnati by making witty speeches that represented an actual opinion. And so i was offered my nationally syndicated TV show where real people talked about real problems.
The problem was that nobody gave much of a shit about it so with my show facing cancellation, so i decided to take the show in another wilder direction and hosted 4,969 episodes and the rest is history and a very happy ending which funny enough was what started it all off in that massage parlour all those years earlier.

Today Is...International Day of Education

Adults have often said that some of the things they were taught at school turned out to have no bearing on their life once they left education including things such as Pi and Shakespeare but on the flip side, if we were to scrap things such as Calculus, the Periodic Table and learning how to play the playing the recorder we would have a large gap in the school day to fill so what should they teach instead?
The jump from sitting behind a school to adulthood in the real world is a big transition and there are some key life skills which you just have to bumble through somehow so a recent poll found that the practical skills which have a tangible use in the adult world they wished they knew about on leaving school are buying a house, setting up a pension, banking and direct debits for bills, starting a business, paying taxes and how to change a tyre.
The argument is that the national curriculum is provided to give students a level of education so they can deal with the adult world but clearly there is a lot of things being spent time and effort teaching which is irrelevant once you’ve left the education setting so there is a gap there for when you have to brush up against things like the Banks, insurance companies and HM Revenue and Customs which can be quite daunting.

Money, Money, Money

 Economics isn't hard, if you pay out more than you bring in then you are in a deficit and that is as true for a household budget as it is for a countries but that message is too simple for economists so they try and make it sound more complicated so people like me just say 'yeah, whatever' and leave them to it
which is why we all get screwed so badly by the succession of Chancellors and the current one has found what he is calling 'Fiscal Headroom' to give us all a tax cut just before the election.
'So' i said to my economist pal, 'Fiscal headroom, without boring me to tears, what is it, how much headroom and how come we got money to spend now and not previously?
The answer to What is it's the amount of money the Chancellor has to spend, the How Much is £13bn and How Come Now is because the Tories are sinking without a trace in an election year.            
It turns out that last year the Fiscal Headroom was £6 billion but each Chancellor has there own way of working out just how much headroom they have by looking at the debt today and forecasting how much the debt will be in the future and Mr Hunt can see that todays debt to GDP is 90.2% but in 2027/28 the Office for Budget Responsibility say it will be 94.9% but in 2028/29 it is forecast to fall to 94.4% which in monetary terms is approximately £13 billion.
We seem to be glossing over the hang on, the debts going up from 90.2% to 94.4% in 2028/29 so how is there any fiscal headroom whatsoever but that is drowned out by the Chancellor whoo-hooing that he has somehow ended up with £13 billion from somewhere in the future and now has to decide what he is going to spend it on.
After 14 years of chronic underfunding he could hand it to the NHS, he could splash out on flood defences, he could give it to Civil and Public Servants after a decade of wages freezes, he could use it to recruit the 20,000 police which the Government have cut in the last decade or he could even hand it over to the Education Secretary to fix schools which are literally collapsing around pupils ears but instead, he has decided to cut 1-2p off Income Tax.
Obviously that would be gratefully received considering that through a sleight of hand where the Personal Allowances have not been increased so as our wages go up so does the amount of tax we pay, cutting a penny or two would just return us to the tax we paid before he froze the allowances so in effect the net wages that we were on 2 years ago.
He could just not spend it and save it but the cynic in me thinks that by spending the whole lot, he will leave an incoming Labour Government nothing in the national piggy bank for their plans which include spending tens of billions on increasing the Green Energy Sector, improving the NHS and reversing the austerity cuts if the funds are available, which they wont be because Jeremy Hunt is going to make damn sure there won't be.

Today Is...Salvador Dalí Dies

He was best known mostly for the moustache, the painting with the melting clocks, the chuppa chups logo he designed and being as mad as a box of frogs but there was only one Salvador Dali, well two if you count his dead elder brother, the original Salvador Dali who died before his second birthday, nine months before the artist was born. His grief-stricken parents then went ahead and gave him his dead brother's name, because why let it go to waste?
His work was known for exploring fantasy and the subconscious and being thought-provoking and iconic but mostly for being very, very weird.
Yoko Ono asked him for a strand of hair from his moustache and he picked a blade of grass and put that into a fancy gift box and presented it to her though it wasn't really a gift and charged her $10,000 for it but she didn't complain, or if she did he never heard her because he was too busy chuckling on his way to the bank with her 10 grand.
He was very tight with my money, to get out of paying for things he would pay by cheque and draw a doodle on the back and as nobody wanted to cash in a cheque with an original Dali on it so they never, and aloha, another free meal.  
Much has been made of his most famous painting, The Persistence of Memory, when he was asked by one art critic if it was an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time or maybe a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order he replied that actually, it was inspired by a lump of cheese on his table that had melted in the Sun.
When he showed up to deliver a lecture wearing an old-timey deep-sea diving suit, it was just him wearing a diving suit and the time he drove around with his car full of cauliflowers, it was just him in a car full of cauliflowers.
Something he never looked into was ladies reproductive bits, they scared him so for most of his marriage, the clocks were not the only droopy thing but while most artists find fame and fortune by dedicating themselves to their art with a singular mind and purpose, tirelessly exhausting themselves, he found just being weird and wearing a diving suit also got you the rewards his magnificent moustache deserved.

Today Is...Queen Victoria Dies

Like many organisations, the British Royal Family has it's flaws. It's bloated, unwanted and largely clueless but that's enough about Prince Andrew, it's his great, great, great nan that this post is concerned with and how her reign of 63 years came to an end.
Being the Queen of Great Britain she had access to all the very best of British things, the finest tea from India sweetened by sugar imported from the Caribbean and the best clothing made from American slave picked cotton and despite eight assassination attempts on her life, she is regarded as her nations most well loved Royal, so well loved that rather than put her on the money or knock her head into the side of a mountain, they named a train station after her.
She came to the throne early at 18 years old after her father and all of her three elder brothers died but nobody questioned it because in the 19th Century there were lots of diseases, plagues and rat poison slipped in cups of tea of relatives back then although her relatives did prove to be a bit of a sore point.
Prince Albert, who was her cousin, and the Queen had nine children, five girls and four boys, with 17 years between the oldest and the youngest but it was some other members of her family that sparked off World War One, a tiff between her grandchildren George of Britain, Wilhelm of Germany and Nicholas of Russia so apart from the 17 million dead and the 70 million in the resulting 2nd World War, it must have made Christmas family gatherings very awkward.
Her legacy then is the very best of British which is not bad for a girl with Saxon parents given a Latin name and who married a German.

Has Trump Got Syphilis?

On 17 January, while leaving Trump Tower to attend court in New York for one of his many lawsuits, Trump waved his dinky little hands to reporters and photographers who captured some strange red marks on his right hand.
In the images, red marks could be seen on Trump’s thumb, palm and index finger and it could be red ink, the remains of a nose bleed or even strawberry juice but many people have jumped to the conclusion that it's syphilis.
Not being a trained medical person i asked someone who has asked more men to lower their underwear and cough then i have had hot dinners and he said syphilis is an infection that is spreads through sexual contact and starts as a sore on the genitals, rectum or mouth but during secondary syphilis it is common for a rash to appear on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet'.
On pushing him on whether that looks like red ink, the remains of a nose bleed or has the fat orange racist gone and got himself syphilis, he was not willing to commit himself aware that it could spark TRUMP HAS SYPHILIS headlines but he did say that they DO look like sores but it is inconclusive.
Now there is no evidence to suggest Trump has syphilis, but considering that he is a self confessed and legally defined sex offender and boasts that he grabs women where he shouldn't be grabbing them, i think there's a good chance that he has syphilis which would also explain why Melania has not been seen for months and was missing from the family Christmas photo, it must be bad enough to be married to the porn star screwing moron but a syphilitic porn star screwing moron is even too much for her very low bar.

Are UFO's Actually Angels?

American Congressman Eric Burlison been pondering UFO's and his ponderings have led him to conclude that unidentified objects in the sky could actually be  'angels' sent by God himself.
Hang on there before we reach for the Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, is this really the state of American politics and dismiss him as a complete fruitcake let's see how the Missouri Congressman reached that conclusion.
'I think it's more likely that it would be something extradimensional than it would be within this dimension' Burlison said, 'And then, so what I'll say is that when you start talking about things in that nature, that they're extradimensional, well, in a lot of different scriptures, including the Bible, and others, that's really the way that you describe messengers of God or, you know, angels'.
U.S. representative for Tennessee, Tim Burchett, agrees and said that: 'UFOs were in the Bible. Read Ezekiel, it talks about the wheel flying around. So I mean, they’ve been around since we’ve been around and somebody needs to come up with some answers'.
Possibly realising that the sound of laughter from everywhere outside of the rosary clutching population of Missouri would deafen him, Burlison clarified his remarks by adding: 'In my opinion I think it’s either angels or it’s manmade' but it didn't stop one scientist using very unscientific language by saying: 'Fucking dark ages medieval shit unbelievable'.
OK, so looking at the evidence and hearing what he had to say, my pondering's have led me to thinking Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, is this really the state of American politics, what a complete fruitcake.

Japan Joins Exculsive Moon Club

It is being reported that Japan have joined an exclusive club and become the fifth country in history to reach the moon when one of its spacecrafts successfully made a soft landing on the lunar surface early Saturday after the USSR, USA, China and India.
The key word is 'successful' landings because in the list of nations who have reached the surface of the moon it is 3rd after its Hagoromo craft crash landed on the lunar surface in 1990 although that was only because it went haywire during a flyby and they decided to dump it onto the moon instead and claim the bronze medal.
That only 10 nations have managed to land on our nearest celestial neighbour, and only 5 successfully not ending in a cloud of moon dust and a new crater, shows just how difficult it is although this weekends Japanese effort may just turn out to be another bit of Earth litter cluttering up the lunar surface as the craft’s solar panel has failed to work so will only last as long as its battery hold out, measured in hours.
If nothing else the Japanese are calling it a success as it not only landed successfully but exactly where they aimed it rather than within the six mile target area usually used by space probes and would result in a long walk for any Astro, Cosmo, Taiko, Spatio or Vyomanauts to any future lunar base.
The project was the fruit of two decades of work on precision technology by the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, at cost of 18 billion yen (£94 million) but the NASA Artemis project has two exciting missions penciled in for September 2025 to send a crewed mission to flyby the moon and September 2026 to actually land humans on the moon so things are going to get exciting and we are taking a long, overdue step to the much discussed lunar base.

Disapointing But Not Surprising

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said that it is 'disappointing' that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the prospect of a two-state solution but he can hardly be surprised because Netanyahu has scuppered every chance of peace with his neighbour and it is even part of his parties manifesto that: 'The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river'.
Until now the land grab was building settlements on Palestinian land and despite multiple UN resolutions, Israel has continued to appropriate Palestinian land and now more than 700,000 settlers, 10% of Israel's nearly 7 million population, now live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts dotting the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Since October 7th, any premise that Israel had regarding a Palestinian state has been dropped and Gaza has been razed to make it inhabitable and the West Bank has seen daily Israeli raids into it's villages and cities destroying houses and allowing violent settlers to move into the now empty land.
America, under the ineffectual Joe Biden, has made noises about the settlers but shamefully continue to bankroll Israel in it's genocide with the commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, even reporting that Israel appears to be trying to clear Gaza of its Palestinian population through its military offensive, evacuation orders and attempts to push Palestinians into Egypt.
Israel is rightly facing growing international outrage as the death toll in Gaza tops 26,000, around two-thirds of them women and children, and 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced with the UN saying there is no safe place to flee but even the Americans, who have done so much to allow Israel to continue its atrocious, murderous behaviour towards Palestine for the past 75 years, seems to be coming to the conclusion that the departure from office of the current Israeli leader is essential to their own plans for Gaza and the region.
Biden has said that he is committed to work toward helping the Palestinians move toward statehood but until he stops America being Israel's bitch, and halts the ongoing genocide by withdrawing his financial and military support, his words are ringing very hollow and the immoral and foul deeds of the last 75 years will continue until they achieve the 'land without a people for a people without a land' which was used in the the movement to establish a Jewish homeland in a land that had people, the Palestinians. 

Today Is...World Snow Day

Usually, an icy blast direct from the Arctic sends temperatures in the UK plunging with them barely dragging themselves above zero during the day and -11at night even as far as south as the coast where i am sat today wearing the thickest jumper in my wardrobe.
Snow on the Southern Coast of the UK is usually as likely as finding a bacon sandwich in a synagogue but as last year i spent 4 weeks up to my knees in it, i can offer a few words of advice when it comes to the White Stuff. 
Firstly, snow is very cold. Duh, obviously Lucy you may think but it is easy to forget when you are outside and you pick up a snowball to lob at an unsuspected spouse or brother/sister and before you know it you have rolled up a dozen and your hands are numb and going a funny blue colour.
Most important is to remember that snow is pretty heavy so aim that snowball a bit higher for a good head shot.
Secondly, making a snowman is not as easy as it looks on the TV, you have to start small and roll it around but as it grows it gets heavy and hard to push around and as Snowmen insist on having a head as well as a body, that's two big balls of snow so don't be too ambitious, i left plenty of decapitated snowmen in my wake because hubby had naffed off back inside to warm up and i wasn't strong enough to lift the head up onto the body.
Snow is just frozen water and when it reverts back to it's liquid form, you will get wet so waterproofs are a good idea as are sunglasses and sunblock as snowburn is an actual thing, who'd have thought? Not me obviously.
The best thing for icy pathways is salt or even cat litter but if you see an icy patch and are unable to avoid it, slide your feet slowly rather than step as normal as nothing is as ungracious or as embarrassing as seeing your legs zipping above your head in a busy street. Probably sensible shoes also help, something with a bit of grip anyway.
Sledding and snowboarding is great fun right up until a tree stubbornly refuses to shift out of the way so make sure that you have a clear run and not too steep because you know, gravity, which is also a problem on frozen lakes, rivers and ponds which may look thicker than they actually are and splashing around in freezing cold water in minus temperatures isn't particularly good for your health.
Finally, if you are not used to snow then whatever you do, don't look out the window and thing Brr, too cold to go outside, grab a coat, your gloves and a bobble hat and go outside and be a kid again because like a truth from a politician, it don't happen very often so make the most of it.

Special Guest Blogger: Sinéad O’Connor

During my career i released 10 albums but what i am most known for is the song 'Nothing Compares 2 U' and getting right up the nose of an impressive amount of people.
I feuded with Frank Sinatra after i refused the playing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at my shows and Miley Cyrus who i said behaved like a prostitute and called it feminism.
My most bizarre quarrel was with the man who wrote the song which made me famous, Prince. The Purple One wasn't best pleased that my version knocked his own version into a cocked hat and that i wasn't appropriately fawning enough in my admiration of him so he called me to his home and gave me a furious dressing down, even challenging me to a pillow fight and when i tried to leave, he physically blocked me and dragged me toward his car, prompting me to flee on foot to a neighboring home.
My most infamous moment came when at the height of my fame i ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live TV to protest the widespread child sex abuse being quietly brushed under the carpet by the Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church and plenty sided with the Church and publicly trashed me including Madonna and Joe Pesci who said if he had been there at the time he would have given me a slap.
The media and music industry rallied against me in the wake of the incident and blackballed me although strangely, they have been very quiet since history vindicated me when revelations of systemic abuse and cover-ups were discovered in 2002 and it was discovered John Paul II had helped at least three pedophile priests escape consequences for their sex crimes and relocated them to different parishes.
I retired and un-retired a few times but wasn't able to regain the momentum i had in the 90's and the question i was asked the most was why did i always keep my head shaved? Simply it was to part fashion but mostly to protect myself from frisky record executives with wandering hands by making myself as unattractive as possible.
My last arguement was with Piers Morgan who, following the death of my son Shane, practically begged me to appear on his talk show Piers Morgan Uncensored. Not only did i reject the invitation, but publicly shared the email reply which i kindly pointed out that it was probably better i didn't appear as i wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to point out that his dislike of Prince Harry was because he gets to be balls deep in Meghan Markle who he has always fantasised about ten times a day and it drives him crazy.
At only 56, i went far too early but wherever i am now, Pope John Paul II is staying out of my way.

Today Is...World Religion Day

'But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me' - Luke 19:27

I gave up debating religion a long time ago as no matter how much evidence and proof you offer, the religious folk are to blinkered to see it so save your breath as there is no point, no minds will be changed by logic.   
Religion has always been a movable feast with one which was absolutely the truth being replaced by another which is the new absolute truth and that in turn replaced proving that religions are born, grow and die before turning into myth such as happened to the Roman, Greek and Norse Gods of old.
When Marx famously said that 'religion is the opium of the masses' he meant it was something that kept them docile and controllable and the German couldn't have been more correct as it is exactly what religion is, the most powerful comfort blanket possible.  
Religious groups believe in their own views and damn all others or worse, as the Jesus quote above shows, kill all others, so quite how religion can considered a force for good is beyond me.
Five minutes of the News will reveal one group killing or oppressing another group because they believe in something different to them so believers fight to their death, or in most cases to the death of others, to hold on to their religion against other religions.
Religion should be an insult to our intelligence but they cherry-pick the bits they like to suit their own beliefs, the full line regarding homosexuals is to consider it wrong and to put them all to death but while almost all religions cling to the first bit, you won't get many advocating the second part especially in the Christian World because they find that part repugnant despite it being their God's will and in the same paragraph in the Bible as the first.
Not that religion is entirely to blame for human blood lust, we would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things even if religion didn't exist but religion makes it easier to hate people who don't believe in your flavour of God.
Even worse, by forcing it on a child before they are old enough to go to school just indoctrinates them more fully and perpetuates the myth that some people are 'better' than others.
Atheism and agnosticism is on the rise, especially with the upcoming generations, with science providing the answers where Religion once provided them and the moral convictions at odds with their own beliefs so the future of religion could be that religion has no future at all although i don't think religion will ever die out entirely.
There will always be people looking for easy answers, but i can see how Voltaire's line that man will invent the God they need being at the forefront and the next religion to gain superiority will follow the lines of previous religions and take the bits they want from all the others although less restrictive, less controlling and certainly more inclusive and that will become the absolute truth and Jesus, Muhammad and all the rest of today's deities will end up with the likes of Jupiter, Odin and Zeus in mythology.

Today Is...National Popcorn Day

The people of Peru have been eating Popcorn since 4700bc but it wasn't until the 1930's that Cinema owners realised that film goers wanted something bland and unhealthy to eat as they watched the likes of Carey Grant and Humphrey Bogart on the silver screen and as Popcorn was cheap to make and they could sell it for an obscene mark-up, kerching!!
Luckily i am not much of a fan of popcorn, lucky because all that saturated fat, salt and sodium means it is great if you are actively looking to clog your arteries or your blood pressure is way too normal, not so great otherwise as one guy found out when his bank balance suddenly improved by $7 million when he sued a popcorn maker in 2012 for his health problems from eating two bags a day for a decade.
Far more serious Health issues arose for 74 people at an Indiana Fair in 1963 when a popcorn machine wiped out 74 people in one night when thousands of people showed up to the state fairgrounds unbeknown that a killer popcorn machine was plotting against them in the concession area.
A faulty propane connector and the machines heating element led to a massive fireball and the resulting explosion killed 74 people but we shouldn't take away from this that all machines are out to harm us, the popcorn is certainly, but we shouldn't completely mistrust machines but that said, keeping the cricket bat
handy when you turn on the toaster may be a wise move.

Today Is...First Convicts Arrive In Australia From England

I do love the way us Brits can have a bit of laugh with our former colonies. Probably the former colony we laugh at, sorry with, the most is the Australians. The didgeridoo playing antipodeans seem to have this image of us Brits being a bit whiny. Not sure where this comes from and i'm also not sure why it is us who are the Poms. The first British settlers in Australia were convicts sentenced to transportation to the other side of the World wearing uniforms with 'POHM' which stood for 'Prisoner of His Majesty' on the back.
If anything we are law abiding non-Poms and they are the ones with the criminal element in their family.
Now the boomerang throwers have ignited a controversy with an Australian egg company launching the Whingeing Pom Egg, complete with a frowny face.
The carton says the eggs: 'Help you to wake up cranky and keep on whingeing all day long'.
In a press release, the company claims it studied 'behavioural traits of the Poms in their natural habitat' and quotes a Professor who states that: 'Our research found that the English preferred to wake up in a less optimistic, less good-humoured mood. Further still, we found that the gene responsible for whingeing is larger in Poms than any other race, particularly Aussies, confirming that whingeing is actually part of the Brits' generic make-up.'
Fair dinkum mates, those eggs will go perfectly with those chips on the Aussie's shoulders.
Now a nation that couldn't take a joke would comeback with Aussie eggs with little arrows on them all chained together or something but us Brits are above all that.
Got to give the Aussie credit though, they seem to have the courage of their convictions. Ahem.

Liars, Cheaters, Thugs, Perverts, Frauds, Crooks, Freaks And Creeps

Donald Trump has been hitting the campaign trail in his 'become President and avoid prison' run for President and he has told voters in Iowa that a win for him would be a victory over liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks and the creeps which is i assume the rest of the Republican and Democrat politicians so you would assume that Trump is whiter than white. You reckon?

Liars: The Washington Post counted that by the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency, averaging 21 a day.
Cheaters: Trump cheated on first and second wives and famously had affair with a porn star during his current marriage to Melania.
Thugs: A nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in violent acts, threats of violence or assault.
Perverts: At least 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct and he has recently been found guilty of sexual assault.
Frauds: Trump is currently on trial for conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records.
Crooks: Trump has swindled tens of millions out of creditors, contractors, charitable givers, Trump University students, regulators and campaign donors.
Freaks: The bird nest hair, the humorously orange hue or dinky little hands, take your pick.
Creeps: 'I'm automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing them. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.

Republican voters, why would you go to several different politicians to get your quota of freaky looking, lying cheating perverts when you can get them all rolled into one? Vote Trump!!  

Special Guest Blogger: Paul Reubens

There was a time when people took drugs to make the world weird but now they take drugs to make the world seem normal and my kids show and a number of other things with the words 'Pee-wee' on them in the '80s was as far from normal as it could possibly be.
People would often ask me where i got my ideas from and the truth was i created it out of spite after being turned down at an audition for Saturday Night Live in favour of someone who was friends with the producer so i spent the whole plane ride back from New York thinking about what i was going to do to make them sorry so i decided to borrow $5,000 from my parents to become a Pee Wee (named after my harmonica of all things) and start my own damn show.
A few of my improv pals put together The Pee-wee Herman Show with madcap adventures featuring genies, puppets and talking furniture as a stage attraction, which led to an HBO special, which led to a hit TV show and a couple of movies.
We asked 1980's pop music icon Cyndi Lauper to sing the Theme Song which she did as long as it wasn't credited to her in case it harmed her career and the production assistant was Rob Zombie who went on to form the rock band White Zombie.
I was solely in charge of the show including the finances and being that weird is kind of expensive so we would go over budget every show and i would make up the difference out of my own pocket.
As the TV show was such a hit we had the idea of a full length movie and asked a new Director, Tim Burton, to make Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Danny Elfman about scoring the movie.
We made another movie in 2016, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, but by then i was 64 and had to use a lot of CGI to make me look as youthful as ever but as young as i looked on the outside, my insides were aging and the lung cancer and leukemia i was battling finally won. 

Today Is...Sex Pistols Break Up

Hard to think of a band who achieved so much in such a short time but within the year that they were around, the Sex Pistols changed everything and influenced so many others.
Cramming a whole career into 12 short months the Sex Pistols influence is still reverberating today and 'Anarchy in the UK' sums up the whole Punk thing sweetly, a pounding three and half minutes of amazingly angry noise and snarling lyrics from the first snarl of Johnny's 'right now' through to his
growling 'Destroy' three and a half minutes later, the song just hits every button as the ultimate punk song.
I was 9 when the Sex Pistols exploded onto the scene with their God Save The Queen and Anarchy in the UK anthems and as a purple mohican and flobbing at the teacher were frowned upon in Bramble Road First School, it mostly passed me by so when the chance came to see them live in the 90s, i went pogoing down to the ticket office, flobbed over the seller and came away with a ticket to their Finsbury Park 'Filthy Lucre' Tour.
The euphoria of seeing a band that were of such historical importance lasted as long as it took for me to clap eyes on guitarist Steve Jones carrying a pot belly crammed into tight, tiger-striped trousers.
Musically, the Pistols were as expected but i was forever left with an ugly aftertaste and the vision of the angry young men of the 70's singing politically charged songs and spearheading probably the greatest genre music has ever known, replaced by middle aged men going through the motions and looking every inch a band out of their allotted slot in history.
The songs were very much of their time and compared to some songs today, seem pretty mild except Bodies which apparently is based on a true story of what happened after a Sex Pistols gig one night when a female fan turned up with a present in a plastic bag for Johnny, the song makes it pretty clear exactly what she handed him.
Although they admit it now, Pretty Vacant never fooled me, the emphasis Johnny put on the second syllable of Va-CANT with a u in the place of that final was obvious and although fans of the New York Dolls and The Damned like to argue that the Sex Pistols were not the first punk band actually, to me they were the grand-pappy of all the bands who's type of music that i like which followed, all kickstarted by one album and the handful of singles from it so to quote Mr Rotten, 'Ah but now, And we don't care...va-CANT'.  

Today Is...Great Britain Created

Today in 1707, the Scottish Parliament ratified the Act of Union, creating 'One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain' which has confused everybody ever since including Donald Trump who's grasp of most things is, to be polite, limited but geography is especially lacking in the orange one, possibly due to his little fingers not being able to turn the page on the atlas or something but he said that he had: 'great respect for the UK, United Kingdom. Great People call it Britain, they call it Great Britain, they used to call it England'.
Hmmm...That would be England the country being confused with Great Britain which includes Scotland and Wales and then he threw in the UK which includes all the above along with Northern Ireland.
England and Scotland had never had a steady relationship, if one wasn't actively invading the other than they were preparing to invade each other and it was pretty much going England's way until King Edward II decided he would keep with tradition and smack around our Northern neighbours so turned up at Bannockburn with 20,000 men ready to hack and stab at the 6,000 Scots army, he ended up being held captive and murdered by having a red-hot poker thrust up somewhere no red hot poker should ever be thrusted.
There is a often a resurgence of Scotland wanting to go it alone again but a vote in 2015 ended with the blue triangles still in the Union Flag mainly once the economic situation was spelt out to the famously tight fisted Scots that as they get out of the UK Treasury more than they put in, the thought of a huge rise in tax and a sharp cut in public services was be a strong incentive to the Scottish population to stay with the UK for the foreseeable future.

Idea's From The Keyboard Of Lucy: Stop Flooding By Making Rivers Longer

In winter rivers flood and with climate change bringing even more of a deluge down onto us, rivers fill up and break their banks and the Environment Agency says around 5.7 million homes and businesses in England are at risk of flooding so the usual solution is to either dredge the rivers to make them deeper or build up the river banks to make them higher but i have always thought there is another way and it all goes back to my school geography lessons and Oxbow lakes which means i did unbelievably take something in all those years ago.
An oxbow lake is a U-shaped river that forms when a wide meander of a river is cut off so if the bow is 20m and then through erosion the sides meet and the meander is taken away, the water flows directly straight through rather than having to travel the additional 20m round the bend first. If you have a 80 mile river and put a 20m loop in it every mile, the river would then be 81 miles long and the water would have further to travel so would take more time to get to wherever water ends up and not spill out over the sides of the banks.
The most famous UK river, The Thames, is 215 miles long and flows on average at 10 mph so it takes approximately 22 hours for water to flow from the start to the end but pop in the 80 20m loops along its course and the water will take 23 hours to flow the now 216 miles length and if you throw in a few kinks and bends that will slow it down even more.
The UK River which floods the most is the 73 mile long River Swale and that runs through the Yorkshire Dales so it would be easy to dig some loops, curves and swirls to increase the length and slow the water down but the key word there is 'easy' because obviously there must be some reason why nobody has done it yet, they just continue to go with constructing flood defences so maybe there is something i am missing.
My old geography teacher should be proud that something she said sunk into my teenage head all those years ago and i was listening to her whilst i sat at the back passing notes to my friends.

Today Is...Blue Monday

Blue Monday usually falls on the third Monday of every New Year, and is considered the most depressing day on the calendar due to temperature, days since the last pay day, days until the next bank holiday and the average hours of daylight and today is the third Monday so grab a glass of something bland and let's celebrate the most depressing day of the year.
Despite all that's going on, everything is going to be OK. I promise. Don't worry, i wouldn't lie to you, trust me, everything is going to be OK, even though it's not.
Things are scary, but they could be worse. Actually, they're going to get worse but i did say i wouldn't lie to you. Nope, i won't do that. Glass half full and all that but then it doesn't matter if the glass is a glass of cold sick.
Everything is going to be OK. There will be these moments when everything works out brilliantly and the secret is to not over analyse everything that happens in your day, imagine the events in your day like a cheese and pickle sandwich, taken altogether you have a huge plate full of cheese and pickle sandwiches and they are all yours! Savour them and eat them all up. Yummy.
Now consider that when you're out of sandwiches, you will cease to exist. Gone in a poof of smoke so slow down eating those sandwiches, chum!
Take tiny bites. Enjoy but eat your cheese and pickle sandwiches wisely. Live each day as if it could be your last, screaming and crying and begging because holy Christ on a pogo-stick it's your last day so on second thought, live each day as if it was your second to last. Yes, that's much better.
Hug your loved ones, tell your friends how much you appreciate them, make love or paint a picture, watch the sunrise and leave the screaming and crying and begging until the following day.
Everything is going to be OK. Never lose hope, there's always hope although hope doesn't mean things will actually turn out for the best but remember that despite everything, someone, somewhere, is having the best day of their life, not you obviously but you can still embrace the day, enjoy the cheese and pickle sandwich and defiantly knock back that glass of cold sick and say i am here World whatever you throw at me, even if we really have jiggered the entire effing lot, well done us, i will carry on because life seems pretty good from here.
Ok sometimes it's like an orgy with virgins, i mean it sounds like a good idea, then you get in there and you're kind like, no, don't put that there..., anyway, you get my point, i'm chalking today up as a win or a score draw or even a respectable loss but whatever, Blue Monday can sod off, everything will turn out well because despite everything, i have a glass half full of cold sick and just like every other day, i will wing it in the desperate hope that something better will come along, right? Right...?

2024 Election Year For 49% Of Globe

2024 is not just an election year in the UK but in a strange quirk, 64 countries representing 49% of the people in the World will be heading to the polls and some will have consequences for years to come.
Here in the UK the ruling Conservative Party are lagging 22 points behind Keir Starmer's Labour Party and they are openly talking of a wipe-out with that translating into 420 Labour seats equating to a landslide 190-seat majority which would keep the Tories locked out and virtually ineffectual in any Commons vote.
In the last few days Taiwan has voted Lai Ching-te and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into power, further inflaming tensions with China who have expressed the desire to re-unify it, using force if necessary.
Vladimir Putin is once again standing for office and nobody is doubting he will win comfortably and increase his 23 year tenure which brings little hope for an end to the war in Ukraine and in Pakistan and India with Human Right Commissioners stating they don't expect either to be free and fair with pre-poll rigging already exposed in Islamabad and Narenda Modi's party in New Delhi have been shown to be clamping down on political opponents, interfering in the judiciary and muzzling any idea of a free press.
South Africa's election in March is set to be highly contested with the ruling ANC party in turmoil after
allegations of corruption in government and state-owned companies and in Tunisia, which has been in a state of emergency since 2015, voters will be acting under a controversial new constitution which is set to be boycotted by many Tunisians and election monitors are expected to be banned.
Argentina voted Javier Milei into power who calls himself an ultra-conservative and a South American Donald Trump who is promising to introduce sweeping changes to his country while Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela is facing the electorate which has become easier once his biggest rival was disqualified from holding public office for 15 years for alleged corruption.
Mexico is also in an election year but it is across the border in the United States where most eyes will be turning in November to see if Trump v Biden II leads to a different outcome this time and the chaos and incompetence of the previous Trump Presidency is due for a re-run.

Literally Working Until We Drop

After a lifetime of work, rather than be slipping into a pair of comfy slippers, opening a packet of Rich Teas and settling down in front of This Morning, more people than ever are being employed beyond their retirement age and it’s probably not because they all love their jobs.
The Government are continually nudging up the retirement age but i have never been able to work out whether the retirement age should go down as this frees up jobs for the upcoming generation but it seems that the choice is being taken away as the nations finances suffer and people are unable to afford to live on a state pension which is just above the average monthly living costs.
An analysis of the labour market by The Office of National Statistics found that there are now 1.43 million workers aged 65 and over in the UK, up from 457,000 at the beginning of the century and more than one in nine workers in the UK (11.5%) are now working past their 65th birthday, compared with just 5.2% in 2000.
The argument is that workers with many years of workplace experience have an incredible wealth of knowledge to share and i know some over 65's who have said that they will stop when they bloody well ready to but i also know many who carry on working out of financial necessity.
I guess it depends what type of job you are doing, my father was a bricklayer and by the time he retired at 65 his knees were shot and years of being outside in the cold, rain and snow did his body no favours so i expect someone in a nice office job will find it much easier to keep going but for many that choice has been taken away which may be worth remembering when you are in the polling booth later this year.

Today Is...Feast of the Ass

It probably won't come as a surprise that the early Christians tagged their guy into most Roman Festivals such as Christmas and Easter and today is another where they saw the Pagan celebration of Cervulus where they would dress up as animals and dance through the streets and thought, we should have some of that so created the Feast of the Ass to celebrate all the donkey-related stories in the Bible.
Now you probably think there can't be that many donkey stories in the Book but there are 72 including the story in Genesis where Abraham asks two young men to keep an eye on his ass while he goes for a bit of a pray. Later they 'laded every man's ass' and then there is the story of Issachar who is a strong ass and Moses was no weakling in the ass department because he put his wife and his sons upon his ass and took them to Egypt.
There is the famous bit in Exodus about not coveting other people asses and how anyone trespassing for ass 'shall come before the judges' so they were pretty strict on ass trespassing in those days although it does say later that you can rest you ass on the seventh day.
In Numbers, Moses tells God that he has not taken, nor hurt, any ass although Balaam did, he smote it a few times with a firm stick but God wasn't so happy about that, Numbers 22:28 shows he sent an Angel to 'open the mouth of the ass'.
Deuteronomy asks that 'What shalt thou do with asses?' and then answers its own question by saying thou should 'lift them up again' but no plowing else the ass shall be: 'violently taken away' so leave the ass plowing to another day Christians.
The book of Joshua 6:21 is not so kind and tells of when all asses in the city were utterly destroyed but they get their own back in Judges when Samson and his ass slay a thousand men.
In Samuel, someone called Jesse took an ass laden with bread to Saul and one person in the book took his ass to the King for his lame servant although in Kings-1 13:13, a King told his sons to saddle his ass to ride and whilst out riding came across a lion who respectfully left his ass untouched.
Job shows that all the wild ass was let loose and in Hosea, Ephraim only has a wild ass for company but they had no problem in Zecharia, they had a plague of ass and in John, Jesus finds a young ass so there you have it, the Bible is full of asses so celebrate the Feast of the Ass, i am reliably informed that Sticky Buns are in order.