Instead of doing my blogging job properly, pressures of work, family and travels have led me to rant, post, and disappear for days this last week; without taking the time to reply to comments which some of my readers have been interested enough and kind enough to make.
Okay, I'm not asking for help with my moat or my duck house or a mortgage I long since paid off, but still, I'm sorry.
And in similar vein today, I'll just point you where the job is being done and done well: at Old Holborn, The Devil's Kitchen, and Voice of the Resistance: all pointing out that, irony or ironies, the Czech President is the last active and wiling defender of Britain's freedom and independence in his resistance to signing the Lisbon Treaty, and thus sending us all into a much more centrally controlled European Union - a state in all but name.
That Britain threw Czechoslovakia to the Nazi wolves to buy time (in the most charitable interpretation of our then-imperial government's motives) to rearm, and that we now have to rely on Czechoslovakia's smaller successor state to preserve the freedom of a nation that once shaped the world and policed its oceans, is a bitter and shameful irony.
We need this one man in a small country of which we still know nothing much, but to whom we might owe our continued existence as a nation, to hold out against the pressures placed on him to betray his own people.
Here's the link to a petition that can send him our weak voices of support.
In an age when our elected representatives, our supposedly most patriotic press and our national broadcaster stand four-square against our entire history as a county; betraying their duties and any pretence of honesty as the do so, it is pathetic that the voices of a nation that has liberated more peoples than any other, that abolished much of the four thousand year old slave trade and (eventually) brought the idea of representative democracy to continents that had never known anything like the blessed state of liberty, can be heard only so quietly and so sparsely.
Please vote and send President Klaus your support t for his country's continuing freedom and ours.
She is former pupil of Morecambe High School on Dallam Avenue and Lancaster and Morecambe College on Morecambe Road in Lancaster, where she gained a Diploma in Business Studies. Her first campaign was supported by the Communication Workers Union, for whom she was formerly an officer. Prior to becoming an MP she was a Lancaster City Councillor and worked for the Royal Mail from 1980-97. She has been Labour Member of Parliament for Morecambe and Lunesdale since 1997.
For those of you not blessed with detailed ecological knowledge of Northwest England's colourful and Byzantine political life, the phrases Morecambe High School and Lancaster and Morecambe College and Lancaster City Councillor can best be defined by analogy. That analogy is that if Simon Cowell ran a political competition called Britain's Got Morons then Geraldine Smith might - just might - get through to the final as the Scottish virgin with werewolf eyebrows and the voice of an angel. I'm saying, is all.
By coincidence, I was visiting the lovely hypodermic-paved Lancaster and Morecambe's Salt Ayre hinterland Asda superstore on Saturday.
There was La Smith in a cute little sympathy-inducing Labour-red plaster cast loooking very, very browbeaten at her 'Meet your MP' table.
Mrs. Northwester asked me if I felt sorry for her and her kind because every time these poor sods went shopping from now on someone was bound to ask 'Are you paying for that out of expenses?'
Alistair Darling confirmed today the cost of rescuing the high street banks combined with the impact of the recession will almost double the nation's overdraft to £1.2 trillion within three years — that's £1.2 million million....The arithmetic of £1 trillion of debt is eye-watering. It is £16,700 for every man, woman and child in the country and would take 28.5 million years for someone on average London earnings to pay off.
Geraldine Smith spent £235 on picture and £185 on mirror for London flat in August 2005. Bought Bali table lamp, floor lamp and three cushions for total of £620 one month later.
I wondered whether Ms Smith had been thinking of my daughter's future prospects when she voted for all those Labour budgets and spending plans and' initiatives' and 'boosts' and 'helping the most vulnerable in society', and how she squared that with the likely consequences for Tiny Northwester and her generation: the jobs which heavily-taxed 'Big Business' will no longer create for my daughter to apply for, and the more expensive everything she will have to buy with her highly-taxed and lower wages.
I asked myself whether Ms Smith had been concerned about how much Labour's building boom bubble might hurt the economy for evermore as she voted for all those 'generous' tax credits and health service funding and all the spiffy new ministries and departmental reorganisations and community initiatives when she was browsing for mirrors and lamps and cushions.
Had selling my daughter into a life of debt slavery been worth it to keep vulnerablemeat-people-carrier mums in plasma TVs and Benson and Hedges?
Amid continuing revelations of cheating and corruption at the highest levels of British soccer, the chairmen of the Premier League, the Football League, and the Football Association are facing mounting pressure from fans and financial backers alike to stop the plummeting of esteem in which the national game and its administrators are held.
As ever more top players and mangers are exposed at having been involved in match-rigging, embezzlement and breaking the transfer rules, the game’s authority has never been lower
.
Each day more players, coaches and chief executives are forced to resign by supporters’ clubs and boards for bribe-taking and the battle lines are being drawn between those who propose radical reform, those who want more subtle change…and those who just want there to be football on Saturdays.
The chairman of the Premiership in whose term of office these startling and depressing events have taken place over the past 2 years seems immune to any criticism of his stance and record, and has bluntly refused to resign. He explained on Sunday that he’s the best man for the job of cleaning up football (despite any concerns of the game’s parlous finances over which he has presided for the past 12 years: firstly as Treasurer and later as Chairman), and has suggested that the Premiership itself, along with other selected top echelon football officials from amongst his colleagues who haven’t so far resigned to spend more time with their golf courses, should make a new rule-book to govern players’ remuneration and enforcing of the rules of the game and the business which funds it. All this despite there being already a large body of perfectly good rules which have been broken or stretched far beyond their original and innocent intention.
The Football League - which represents the smaller and more obscure teams -has come up with the most radical plans.
It has suggested that matches no longer be won purely on the numbers of goals scored in each individual game.
Dick Clogg explained: ‘This outdated system doesn’t reflect the number of shots on target, passing opportunities, corner kicks and successful tackles. We propose that victories should henceforth be awarded on a more proportional system which weighs in favour of smaller, less powerful teams: involving a sophisticated formula of shots-on-target divided by fouls or penalties ruled against a particular side, multiplied by the number of goals scored by the ‘winners’ compared with similar goals scored by numerically-higher goal-scorers in all the other games on that particular match day.
We also want to introduce style points, a handicap system, an oche for free kicks, tickets to be paid for only with Luncheon Vouchers, and maybe shuttlecocks.
Simple, really.’
On the other hand The Football Association is emerging as the most popular alternative to the Premiership - but not overwhelmingly so.
It chief executive is proposing to devolve powers and of enforcement and rule-making down from the top to the national and local leagues, and even in some cases to the clubs themselves. This has met with some criticism even from the FA’s supporters as players and fans alike point out the often autocratic and dubious practices of local managers and their boards, and believe this won’t even being to address the underlying day-to-day problems of football: that its high income from national and even international corporate sponsorship means that its professional class of players and management are remote from the everyday game and those who support it by buying tickets and merchandise.
As one fan said recently:‘If you shell out £40 to take the kids to the match every Saturday plus another twenty for food and programmes, you’d like to see a bit more of a game than a bunch of over-paid Nancy-boys rolling on the turf or hugging one another each time the average game’s one or two measly goals is scored. We’re not asking for bloody miracles here; we don’t want to be world leaders any more, but just to have a good home game every now and then for our money.
Not that it makes much difference,’ he went on glumly ‘since all the important decisions are taken in Zurich by FIFA anyway.
Fork.
I meant to say ' if you fork out £40. ‘
Agreeing though they would with that last comment, the British Olympic Association wasn’t available for interview – busy as it was signing up numerous disillusioned footie supporters on the promise of taking them out of FIFA-dominated international soccer altogether and to restore traditional two-authority control in Britain as it had always been in previous, pre-FIFA decades.
Nobody could pluck up the courage to ask the pigeon-fanciers what they thought, and the yoga people tried to take the ball off our correspondent and exchange it for a wilted daisy.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday suspended junior justice minister Shahid Malik while his claims for tens of thousands of pounds are investigated, as the embarrassing row escalated.
The Telegraph said Malik had claimed nearly 67,000 pounds on his London home over three years, while paying less than 100 pounds a week on a house in his constituency he designated his main residence.
The claims on the London flat included 2,600 pounds for a home cinema system, although parliamentary authorities only agreed to pay half, and 730 pounds for a "massage chair".
Malik told the Telegraph he spent most of his time at his constituency home and it was right that it be registered as his main property, allowing him to claim expenses on his more expensive house in the capital.
He protested his innocence in a series of media interviews hours before it was revealed he was stepping down.
"I have absolutely nothing to apologise for," he said in his constituency of Dewsbury in Yorkshire, northern England, which has a large Asian community.
"I'm not in it for the money. I'm here to make a difference. I love this country. I love this constituency. I want to make a difference and that's the only reason I'm in politics."
Makes you humble: his contrition, doesn’t it? I’m choked here; all welling up.
Funnily enough, there are mixed feelings in his constituency which is not a million miles from NorthwesterTowers: my palatial two-up-two-down mansion set amongst rolling Northern hills like a jewel between the highest-elevation council estate in CastleCity and the topmost Housing Association.
He won his local party's backing late Friday, but voters were divided over his suspension.
Diane Hughes, 52, shopping in the town centre, said: "It's the best news I've had all year and it's only May. It really didn't surprise me to tell the truth. Most of my friends just don't like him at all."
Outside a mosque, one young man said: "I think he's a good MP and he's done a good job. I will vote for him in the national elections."
I can thoroughly recommend the FAQ page, which is a comedy classic.
Do you actually live in Dewsbury?Of course. Even before I was elected as an MP I had already moved into a house in the town and very quickly felt very much at home. I'm aware that some MP's don't live in their own constituencies, at the end of the day that's their decision, but I'd find it very difficult living anywhere else.
Woody Allen, eat your heart out.
Okay, so he’s not spectacularly sorry, but can I spot a little glimmer of guilt there, or is it the back-pain for which he claimed the cost of a massage chair?
So let’s try someone else.
Ah, how about a peer of the realm?
A Labour peer jailed for dangerous driving has warned of the perils of using a hand-held mobile phone while at the wheel. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham was jailed for 12 weeks after sending and receiving text messages minutes before he was involved in a fatal motorway crash.
I do rather like that impersonal ‘… he was involved in a fatal motorway crash.’ You’ve got to feel sorry for the poor chap. There he was pootling along at 100 miles per hour and suddenly a fatal motorway crash manifested itself unto him, like a message from God.
Supporting an AA/Populus poll into mobile phone use among motorists, Lord Ahmed said he had "learnt the hard way" about the problem.
Lord Ahmed, who was freed by the Court of Appeal after serving only 16 days of his prison sentence, said: "More and more people are using their mobile phones throughout their daily activities.
"But, when you're driving it's time to switch off. I learnt this the hard way. Please do it now before it is too late."
‘I learnt this the hard way.’ Ye-es, my lord. I’m sorry for his loss and his grief. Martin Gombar, however, didn’t learn anything as he was killed instantly when he - how to phrase it? - ‘Was hit’by a car which was driven by a member of our legislature doing a mere 30 miles per hour over the legal maximum speed. And he was probably drunk, according to the Guardian, and a foreigner, so, hmph.
Still, sorrow is sorrow, and it’s an apology of sorts and we’re a forgiving lot in this country (look how many times we’ve re-elected the Labour Party).
They’re all at it. Worldwide.
Mel Gibson was put on three years' probation and ordered to attend 12 months of AA meetings after he pleaded no contest yesterday to a drink-driving charge.
The Oscar-winning star was forced to issue a grovelling apology for screaming anti-Semitic abuse at police after he was arrested doing 87mph in a 45mph zone in Malibu, California, last month.
He blamed the outburst on his long-running battle with alcoholism. The devout Roman Catholic allegedly yelled at the sheriff's deputy who stopped him: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." He is then said to have challenged officer James Mee, saying: "Are you a Jew?"
Gary Dourdan, star of the mega-hit CBS show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has lost his job on the show due to an ongoing battle with drug addiction. Producers of the show cut the actor loose after his April arrest for felony possession of heroin, ecstasy and cocaine.
The arrest marked the bottoming-out point of a great actor who has struggled with drug addiction for years.
Amy Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil is seeking a divorce on the grounds of her adultery, according to his solicitor.
Henri Brandman, who is representing Mr Fielder-Civil, released a brief statement saying: "I can confirm that I have been instructed to commence divorce proceedings on the grounds of Amy's adultery."
The couple, who married in Miami in May 2007, have faced difficulties over Winehouse's alleged battle with drug addiction and Fielder-Civil's jail sentence for assault and perverting the course of justice.
They’re all in the wars, aren’t they; the victims of circumstances beyond their control. One battle against alcoholism and two against drugs.
And from their tones we may also infer that Shahid Malik might suffer the permanent loss of ministerial office due to his continuing battle against deliberately claiming massive amounts of public money that should have come out of his own pocket. We might also be forgiven for thinking that Lord Ahmed regrets recent road traffic accident casualties which occurred during his lifelong battle against believing that membership of the House of Lords alchemically adds 42% onto the national speed limit and also absolves a Noble Lord from paying excessive attention to the view through the windscreen of his car.
It’s official and it goes right to the top.
We have no free will. Our actions are not the deliberately-followed purposes of sentient and self-controlled beings, but rather the random and blameless movement of leaves in the wind.
It’s official and it goes right to the bottom.
The underclass can ‘fall pregnant ’ againandagain atour cost and at the cost of the Queen’s peace and the near-destruction of what the progressives have left of our education system, as if they, like their social workers, seem still to believe in the stork or the gooseberry bush.
Which is why we need big, powerful, intimately-interfering government ; to wipe our backsides, and wash and dress and feed us and tell us what to do and to tax us to the eyebrows to finance it when circumstances impersonally oblige us to be greedy, speedy, needy, needly, and breedy, and…Titch, maybe?
Call me old-fashioned, but it’s all down to the Left, in all its manifestations, that have taken it upon themselves to absolve us all from personal shame, guilt and responsibility for our lives and with it they have acquired the power of life and death.
Which they use ruthlessly from just before the cradle to just before the grave.
On a happier note it seems that the past month’s careless relaxation of my exercise routine and my abandonment of the calorie-controlled diet and consequent weight-gain turn out not to be due to my sloppiness and laxity at all.
No. Not titch.
‘In an official statement today, North Northwester’s lard spokesman explained that the addition of an extra stone to the waist and buttocks of the revered national treasure and paranoid Right-winger, McCarthyite nostalgic, Grassy Knoll Veteran’s Association member and race-hate blogger was due to him suffering the effects of a lifelong battle against deliberately reaching into the freezer and putting an extra pizza into the oven.
The spokesman thanked the public for their sympathy for him during this difficult time regarding the spontaneous growth of enough love-handles for a coxless pair (which is better than the opposite by far) and asked them to further respect his pain as he goes into rehabilitation to overcome the frightening effects of his 48-year battle against sandwiches with mayonnaise.
This was the cheapest thing I found at a glance yesterday that any MP had claimed as an expense.
If it doesn't relate to alien infiltration of the Earth disguised of lemons then there ought to be a different kind of accounting.
As the ever-wise Mrs. Northwester asks, is there anything they won't claim for? Should we be looking at alternative therapies, reiki, and anything that might in some way be related to 'massage?...'
