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.