Friday, 31 May 2019

Trump Coming To The UK

It's as if we never fought the Americans over 200 years ago to force them to run their own country because while they no longer take in the tired, the poor and the huddled masses, (certainly not the Muslim ones anyway) it doesn't stop them sending us their idiots so roll out the red carpet and make sure that big baby blimp is blown up because Donald Trump is coming to the UK next week.
While most of America rejected our royalty, taxes, tea and spelling the Orange sex pest loves our royals, doesn't pay taxes and has the spelling skills of a particularly dense six year old but he will be sharing a pot of tea and a crumpet with the Queen at Buckingham Palace although rumours have yet to be confirmed that she plans to revoke American Independence because they can't be trusted to vote for a proper person.
This could be a good time for the President to visit the UK because two days after he leaves Theresa May is quitting amidst a political scene that is so messed up even he will be confused although i'm sure his mates Boris and Nigel will explain it to him, them being such good mates and everything.  
At least he is coming this time, the last time they tried to set up a State visit it was dropped to avoid his feelings being hurt by the millions of protesters although he did make it over here for a working visit which worked well because they kept him locked up in Scotland.
He is due to be in my home town of Portsmouth next Wednesday so i am sure that the McDonald's on Southsea Seafront will be doing a roaring trade in milkshakes that day so the people of Portsmouth can give him a decent welcome.

Monday, 27 May 2019

Analysing The EU Vote

On the face of it the Brexit Party wiped the floor with the rest of the field but a bit of analysis is called for because things may not be quite what they seem despite the line they are coming out with today.
In the European Elections anyone who wanted to vote for Brexit only had two parties to vote for, the Brexit Party and UKIP while anyone wanting to vote Remain had 4 options, The Lib Dems, Green, SNP and Change UK.
Heaven knows what Labour want and the Conservatives are all over the place as well and many traditional voters would vote for them anyway so we can ignore their votes.
In total, the two Pro-Brexit parties scored 44.9% of the vote while the four anti-Brexit parties scored 40.2% so despite Nigel Farage's gurning face all over the TV screens today saying it is a loud and clear call from the people to leave the EU, it's actually split along the same sort of lines as the referendum result.
The EU votes was seen as a 'free vote' where you could place your X beside anyone you wanted to without consequence so come the General Election, the electorate will revert to type and it will be the big two of the Conservatives and Labour scrapping it out again and all the parties that did so well last night, the Greens, Lib Dems and Brexit Party, will be way down the list.
What i do expect to happen is the Labour Party will tack to the left to try and sweep up the remainer vote while the Conservatives will veer even further right to try and snatch voters from the Brexit Party which will, give us a good old fashioned left v right fight again although it will leave the centre ground pretty hollow.

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse...Oops

The constellation of Orion is one of the most famous and recognisable sights in the night sky and is used as a pointer to many other stars and constellations but not many people know what is hidden inside of the hunters right shoulder (or left shoulder looking at it).
Despite being approximately 500 light years away (or 500 x 5.88 trillion miles), Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the sky and it will get even brighter because it is near the end of it's lifetime and has already reached the first red supergiant stage where it expands out and now is due to collapse under its own weight after which it will then rebound in a spectacular supernova explosion
10,000 times brighter than the Sun which will be visible from Earth even during the daytime and be as bright as the moon.
Pretty cool but nobody knows when it will happen, or as we wouldn't know for 500 years when it did it could already have happened, but it could be tomorrow or could happen in a million years, but as the star is so far away, us Earthlings are safe as we would have to be within 50 light-years of a supernova for it to harm us and Betelgeuse is nearly 10 times this distance.
As we have no ageing, massive stars collapsing in on itself located within 50 light-years of Earth we can breath easy that we won't all be fried and the nearest supernova candidate we have found is the star IK Pegasi B a safe 150 light-years away.
As for the pronunciation, some people go with Betel-geise but on the whole it's 'Beetle-juice' like the film, just don't say it three times.

Sunday, 26 May 2019

Another Problem With Democracy

My main problem with Democracy has always been that once the person is voted in, they can be as awful as they like for the next four or five years and do untold damage until the election cycle comes around again before we can turf them out.
Placing a cross on a ballot paper every five years is as much say as we have and then we are stuck with them with no way to remove the party if its breaks its promises or u-turns on it's manifesto so i have often wondered if we could have a mechanism to call a General Election if countrywide support dips below a certain percentage but as i watched Theresa May quit, i pondered maybe there is another way, no elections at all.    
A leader is elected and as we have seen with Donald Trump in America, he set about dismantling all of which his predecessor had achieved and once Trump is removed, the next person will probably roll back on all his work and that goes on in every country as i expect the Labour Party will dismantle much of what the Conservatives have done over the last decade. 
With a four or five year cycle, the party in power only have eyes on the next election which leads to quick fixes and knee jerk reactions to get the public on side, such as Savid Javid's decision to remove Shamima Begum passport after an outcry, rather than dealing with the deeper issues.
If Governments are only looking and planning for the short term then long-term issues which they will make little political capital out of are forgotten, such as Climate Change, risky Ai or the pension timebomb which will effect the citizens of tomorrow.
The only way that i can see to stop this short term thinking is to have someone in post for a long time who will take a long term view, China being the obvious example with Xi Jinping being the latest who offers a long term plan for China and with the second largest economy and tipped to soon become first, they are a success story of sorts.  
Uncomfortably though, this does lead us into authoritarian dictatorship territory and the idea of a 'benign dictator', who can take the long view on multiple issues for future generations without having one eye on whether his or her decisions will prove unpopular and see them removed by the public and their plans scrapped by their predecessor at the next election. 
History has very few, if any, dictators who remain benign and enlightened for very long after gaining power so it probably isn't the answer to the problem of short-term planning and politicians only obsessed with the next election.

Saturday, 25 May 2019

Call Out To Ken Clarke

By default, the leader of the Conservative Party will also become our Prime Minister so we all have a vested interest in who the Conservatives choose and looking at the motley bunch throwing their hats into the ring, it's not looking good.
The only Conservative i would be happy to see standing outside Number 10 is Ken Clarke as he is the only one on the blue benches who seems to have an ounce of common decency in him so it isn't even worth him running, which he isn't so we have a choice from Matt Hancock, Jeremy Hunt, Boris Johnson, Esther McVey and Rory Stewart with Graham Brady, Michael Gove, Sajid Javid, Andrea Leadsom, Penny Mordaunt, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Liz Truss waiting to join the frey.
Almost half of them have either been sacked from Government (Pritti Patel, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson) or resigned from it (Dominic Raab, Andrea Leadsom, Ester Mcvey) so it isn't a very high quality pool of suitors that the Tories are picking from but you would struggle to find many decent options from the 313 Conservative Members of Parliament available.
Jeremy Corbyn is calling for a General Election but i'm not convinced that Labour would win it with him in charge as he is currently neck and neck in the polls with the worst Prime Minister in living memory with a Government that has heaped austerity and cuts on us with glee for the past decade.
The least worse option would seem to be Rory Stewart but he was a remainer and it seems they are going to look at a Brexiteer to push through their disastrous Brexit plan but the field will be whittled down as deals are done amongst themselves until the final two remain and if Rory Stewart is not there and those left are either Boris Johnson, Ester McVey, Michael Gove or Pritti Patel then
heaven help us all.
I have emailed Ken Clarke imploring him to run but i haven't got my hopes set too high, the nasty party are looking for someone who will continue the self-destructive trajectory they have the nation on and Ken was always too decent to be the type of right winger who rises to the top of the Tories.

Preparing Youngsters For Office Life

My job is to take young adults and give them the training and the tools to become successful employee's but something that we don't teach them is how to behave in an office environment once they gain that priceless employment.
It is something that we probably should because some of the tales i hear about how some graduates with little or no work experience conduct themselves in the office is quite eye opening.
These range from listening to music on headphones, turning up inappropriately dressed (low cut tops and mini skirts for girls, ripped jeans and sweary t-shirts for boys) to constantly being on their mobile phones or turning up late and going home early. 
Of course we never had formal training in how to behave in the office, we just picked it up as we went along, but while teaching students how to write a paper or the correct way to conduct a scientific experiment, we should throw in training in how to navigate office life rather than just hand them their certificates and then push them out into the World of work and expect them to figure it out.
It can only be helpful if we, teachers and employers, can give them some pointers on the workplace norms even if on the first day, during the induction process, it is spelt out to the newcomers what is expected of them to co-exist with managers and colleagues in the shared space where they will be spending at least 8 hours a day in.

Friday, 24 May 2019

Going After The Prime Ministers Job

Finally Theresa May has taken a hint and has decide that June 7th is her last day and then she is off to do whatever it is old Prime Ministers do once they retire.
The good news is that the job of Prime Minister will be up for grabs and as i'm considering a career change, i plan to throw my hat into the ring but the problem is i'm a left winger and the Conservative Party is right wing so i will need to somehow develop some right wing attributes.
There are many scientific reports that show that right wingers are not as bright as left wingers but i'm sure a subscription to Fox News and turning to the Daily Mail while continually banging my head against the fridge will shave enough points off my IQ to satisfy that criteria.
I like to read books while right wingers struggle to read even the most basic literature so out go the classics from my bookcase and it's only books with lots of pictures from now on and i'm sure that having no concern for my fellow man will be achievable once in situ.
Right wingers don't like to share so from now on my mantra is don't ask because being told to feck off may offend and i will have to stop recycling and as Downing Street is far enough away from the River Thames for me to worry about climate change, that's just for the plebs who were stupid enough to buy a house with a river view.
My doubts in the fairness of our Capitalist system should be easy to overcome on the Prime Minister salary of £150,402 per annum and as long as i say 'Not being racist but...' before saying anything racist i can hate on Muslims and foreigners like the best Conservative. 
Keeping the status quo by explaining that we have achieved equality while making things even more unequal and explaining that just because i am cutting welfare for the poorest while giving the richest tax cuts doesn't mean that i am not passionate about closing the gap between the rich and poor.
I think after a while in the right's company i can rid myself of any human decency to become a proper right winger who wouldn't let something like rising crime, a Health Service on it's knees or my voters forced to food banks to eat throw me off my right-wing agenda.
I think i could pull it off and just to make sure i will start wearing nylon shirts, patent leather shoes and start a campaign to bomb Asians who don't sell us their oil.
See you for the celebrations on June 8th.

Thursday, 23 May 2019

More Celebrity Conspiracies

Elvis is alive, Stevie Wonder is faking his blindness and the real Avril Lavinge died in 2003 are all celebrity conspiracy theories and who doesn't love a good celebrity story even if it is a likey as a Donald Trump diet video. 
In the shadowy world of Conspiracy, The Illuminati make a regular appearance and the people responsible for assassinating Presidents, starting wars or sparking revolutions include Nicki Minaj, Billy Joel, Justin Bieber, Madonna, Katy Perry, Paul McCartney, Beyonce, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z and Angelina Jolie and Madonna claimed that she’s not in the Illuminati,
although she would say that if she actually was, which means she is then.
As well as Avril Lavinge being replaced by a lookalike after she committed suicide in 2003, the same fate befell Slim Shady, Eminem, after he upset the Illuminati and the Beyonce we see is version 2 after she was replaced after dying while while Britney Spears was in the pay of the George W Bush administration who bankrolled her to have a meltdown whenever the President came under fire and her breakdown, 55-hour Vegas marriage, the birth of her son, and the Madonna kiss do happen to align neatly with some of George W. Bush’s more negative presidential moments.
Other notable theories include Lady Gaga killing a former up-and-coming pop star named Lina Morgana in order to steal her style while Katy Perry is actually a child beauty queen, JonBenet Ramsey, who was murdered aged six while Rod Stewart had to have his stomach pumped due to semen ingestion, 3.8 liters (1 gal) of it after spending a night with some sailors in a bar in San Diego.
All wondrously nutty but there is one conspiracy theory that is all too believeable, that Melania Trump is being held hostage while her husband continues his presidency and when she does make  a rare appearance, it’s not her but rather a body double in the Trump administration’s employ.
Now that is one conspiracy theory that we can buy.

Wednesday, 22 May 2019

Why You Shouldn't Feel Sorry For Theresa May

It would be quite easy to feel sorry for Theresa May as she is battered from pillar to post and being openly described as the worst Prime Minister in living memory but before you have too much sympathy, lets take a peek at the latest UN report and see just how things have been under the leadership of her and her right wing Conservative Government.
It starts by comparing their welfare policies to the creation of Victorian workhouses and
warned that the awful austerity policies have left millions of Britons facing lives that would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short and 'in clear violation of the country’s human rights obligations'.
Not a great start but maybe it gets better.
'Child poverty in Britain is not just a disgrace but a social calamity and an economic disaster' the report states and about the government’s decade long austerity programme he says led directly to a shocking rise in the use of food banks and rough sleeping, falling life expectancy for some, the decimation of legal aid, the denial of benefits to the severely disabled, falling salaries and the impoverishment of single mothers and people with mental illness.
The report ends with the UK government inflicting 'great misery on its people with punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous austerity policies driven by a political desire to undertake social re-engineering rather than economic necessity.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, i give you Government under the Conservative Party and the leadership of Theresa May, a disgraceful calamity and economic disaster.

Tuesday, 21 May 2019

Milkshaking

There seems to be a new craze in town, throwing Milkshakes over right wing politicians as Nigel Farage found out as he slimed away to get his suit dry cleaned after he became the latest victim.
Not the most obvious weapon of resistance, the milkshake shower has recently seen far-right dingbat Tommy Robinson (twice), the Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin (four times) as well as Farage have their picture in the papers looking less than pleased that their clothing now smells of banana and strawberry.
While it may be true, as some of the victims have pointed out, that attacking people you disagree with in the name of tolerance is a bit off, who couldn't fail to have their heart lifted by the sight of extreme right wingers being doused in milkshake. 
It has go to such extremes that a branch of McDonald’s in Edinburgh was asked by the police not to sell milkshakes on Friday, when Farage was in town although the offending salted Caramel and banana shake was from Burger King so that wasn't very successful.
A very mild and tasty form of violence against the country’s most divisive politicians is afoot but a quick look at the ingredients and the 430 calories in a milkshake, they are lucky it is only being poured over them and they are not being made to drink it which would be much more harmful.