Boulton Paul Defiant

Alex Salmond, Tom Harris and Downfall

2012-01-16T11:51:00.000-08:00

I have to confess I feel ever so slightly sorry for Tom Harris, the Labour MP, who has resigned from his post as the Labour Party’s new media adviser.

Harris posted a Downfall-spoof on YouTube, depicting the Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond as Hitler.

It appears to have caused a bit of a stir, and not only among the legendarily humorless Scots. Media outlets everywhere are currently wheeling out the big guns (or not) to tell us all why this is so inappropriate.

Well, yes and no. I personally thought Harris’ video was quite amusing and probably made a fair point about Salmond. Though it wasn't as funny as the one with Gordon Brown as Hitler...

TV's experts seem keen to go further than just slapping Harris for Salmond baiting, suggesting that making jokes about Hitler is in some way mocking the Holocaust.

I wonder what they make of The Great Dictator, then?

Charlie Chaplin's film mocked Hitler and dictators generally, to an extent in the same way that the Downfall clips do.

Chaplin made the Nazis look ridiculous, as far as he could defusing the aggression of all the goostepping, saluting and bullying and making it appear deranged.

Those getting irate about those Downfall clips should bear that in mind.

Iranian scientist killed in Tehran 'by Mossad'

2012-01-11T14:38:00.000-08:00

Dangerous job being an Iranian nuclear scientist these days.

Israel and the US appear to have decided that Iran having nuclear weapons would be really bad news (and they've probably got a point).

Mossad has allegedly recruited Iranian dissidents to help carry out sabotage and assassination activities and it may have been one of them who clamped the magnetic bomb to Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s car.

The bomb duly exploded killing Mostafa and his driver, Mustafa.

The car, the BBC reports, was barely damaged, suffering just slight scratches to the paintwork, a dented door and broken glass.

The Iranians are blaming Mossad and the CIA for the attack (and they've probably got a point).

Little Chef to close 70 restaurants

2012-01-11T02:00:00.000-08:00

Could this be the end of the road for Little Chef?

Today I discover, from The Sun, as it happens, that the iconic restaurant chain is to close 70 of its restaurants and cut around 600 staff.

If that happens it will leave 91 restaurants and counting (down, for sure).

So much for Heston Blumenthal and the Blue Sky Thinking. Though I remember Heston looking pretty horror-struck about various aspects of the business then.

And farewell to those 1970s/80s ads where a rather sinister Little Chef would loom out at passers by offering them an Early Starter or Steak Platter.

In the end Little Chef is one of those brands, in my humble opinion, that feels as though its time has passed. There’s a certain whiff of doom about it. Over-priced, a bit tawdry, stuck in a rut, unsure of who its market is... a bit (with the exception of the price bit) like Woolworths used to be before its demise.

Is Diane Abbott racist?

2012-01-06T15:46:00.000-08:00

Is Diane Abbott racist? Is the whole business of her twittering a storm in a teacup? Should we be bothered anyway?

One thing is for sure. Had a politician tweeted about the supposed failings of 'black people' they wouldn't half be in hot water.

More than that, though, Abbott's tweet shows, in my humble opinion, how small minded and foolish she is. To be banging on about, as she says she was, the failings of colonialism and how the colonial powers divided and ruled... How relevant is that to the situation we face in the UK today? Not very, I suggest.

Sure, colonialism wasn't a good thing. Then again, what has followed it in countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, DRC, Central African Republic, Angola, etc, etc hasn't been exactly brilliant.

It probably doesn't matter too much if it's the colonial askaris who come looking for you with their shiny bayonets or your erstwhile neighbours hunting you down with their machetes.

And as for the slave trade, anyone who thinks that was purely a white on black crime should read a history book or two. Or just google the words 'Ashanti Empire' and see what they find.

At a time when it would be helpful if we were all in something together - ie rescuing the UK from its plight – it is unhelpful for Ms Abbott to be blathering on with the language of black and white.

To see her backed by the increasingly odd Darcus Howe on Newsnight was just plain depressing. His language seemed to be of a different era - trying to convince an ever-more colour-blind country that we should really be at each others' throats.

It seemed to me to be bizarre and regressive. Like Ms Abbott in a way.

UK report says looters should be shot

2011-12-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

A report into this summer's UK riots suggests police should be able to use live ammunition to stop unrest.

Police Unions are believed also to be asking for clarification of what to do about people they find looting the public purse and robbing the public to finance their own grotesque bonuses.

'Our members are waiting for the go-ahead to shoot bankers on sight,' said a spokesperson.

'The police aren't that popular at the moment, but if we can persuade the government to let us gun down some of those greedy, corrupt, self-serving parasites it should make a huge difference.

'Just imagine if there was open season on Goldman Sachs... The punters would love it.'

He added that citizens across the UK thought that pocketing a huge bonus for wrecking the economy was more serious than stealing a pair of trainers.

Wanting to lighten the mood, the spokesmen continued: 'Have you heard this one? A young banker decided to get his first tailor-made suit. As he tried it on, he reached down to put his hands in the pockets and to his surprise he found none. He mentioned this to the tailor who asked him, "You're a banker, right?" The young man answered, "Yes, I am." "Well, whoever heard of a banker with his hands in his own pockets?"

'Basically, bankers need shooting,' he added. 'Everyone knows that. In what other industry could you cause a complete disaster and end up getting paid shed loads of taxpayers' money?

'Time to polish up the Bren gun, I think.'

Saudi Arabia executes woman for sorcery offences

2011-12-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

The Saudi authorities have executed a woman accused of sorcery.

The London-based al-Hayat newspaper quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 (£500) per session.

The alleged witch was tried according to Saudi law, he added.

Initially she was forced into single combat with a specially trained satan-seeking goat in a public square in Jeddah.

Armed with a broom (symbolic of her supposed crime brushing money out of people's pockets) she attempted to hold off the demon-sniffing beast.

This she managed to do.

However, the authorities believed the goat may itself have been influenced by Beelzebub and it was later questioned and, when its answers were deemed inadequate, was stoned to death.

The accused sorceress, meanwhile, was re-arrested and the charge of bribing a religious police goat was added to her list of supposed offences.

She was then placed in the official ducking stool and plunged headfirst into a river. She was unable to free herself and was therefore deemed guilty as charged.

The execution brings the total to 76 this year in Saudi Arabia.

In September, a Sudanese man, Abdul Hamid bin Hussain bin Moustafa al-Fakki, was also put to death in Saudi Arabia for sorcery.

MP Andrew Robathan rejects Arctic Convoy medal

2011-12-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

Tory defence minister Andrew Robathan has outraged Arctic Convoy veterans by suggesting that to award them a medal for their efforts would be akin to some Ruritarian regime handing out gongs for cookery.

The MP suggested that Britain only awarded medals for 'risk and rigour'.

So nothing doing if all you did was sail across freezing seas dodging dive-bombers and U-boats to keep the Red Army supplied in its fight against the Nazis.

Mr Robathan, tucked up in cosy Whitehall with the heating turned up and a nice cup of steaming cocoa, should perhaps bear in mind that more than 3,000 UK sailors died on the Artic convoys.

Of 1,400 ships on the 78 convoys that passed through seas where temperatures were as low as -60*C, 85 merchant and 16 Royal Navy were sunk between 1941 and 1945.

Despite the Tories promising in opposition to strike an Arctic Star when they won power, ministers have so far chosen not to do so; probably too busy working out how much their pensions will be.

Russia, meanwhile, has awarded commemorative medals to the veterans – only around 200 of whom are still alive.

Mr Robathan added: 'The intention post-war was not to cover everybody in medals. Medals in the UK mean something.

'Authoritarian regimes and dictators often throw around a lot of medals. One can look, for instance, at North Korean generals who are covered in medal ribbon, or Gaddafi, or Saddam Hussein.

'Generals in the Soviet Army were covered in medals.

'We have taken the view in this country, traditionally, that medals will only awarded for campaigns that show risk and rigour. Some regimes give out very large numbers of medals wheras we traditionally do not.'

Leading Seaman Stanley Ballard, 89, from South Croydon, who served on the Royal Navy frigate HMS Cotton on Artic Convoys, said: 'To compare us to Gaddafi was as good as slapping us in the face.'

Contortionist Zlata and her splendid 2012 calendar

2011-12-02T05:17:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness for Zlata. The Russian contortionist has recently released her 2012 calendar and it is a suitably wondrous thing.

This talented young lady has got herself into 12 intriguing poses for each month of the year, ranging from performing eye-watering splits in the garden to cooking in the kitchen with her leg over her head.

For March, Zlata dons a Marie-Antoinette-style wig, folds her legs over her shoulders and toys with a bunch of grapes (above). September sees her checking her high-heels in a novel mannner on a railway platform (below) while in December you will find her doubled over in bed in a slinky black number.

The former gymnast, whose real name is Julia Gunthel, now lives in Germany and last month won a Guinness World record for the fastest time to burst three balloons with her back, which she did in 12 seconds.

One of her favourite tricks is bending herself backwards at a perfect 90 degree angle, so the back half of her hands touch her feet.

Zlata said: ‘Doing these poses just feels natural to me. Sometimes it can get a bit uncomfortable if I have to hold a pose for a long time in photoshoots.

‘But I think that’s like anyone who sits down for a long time – their muscles get stiff.

‘I don’t really diet but I have to train very hard to keep my muscles in shape and to be as flexible as possible.’

Zlata's 2012 calendar is entitled 'Never Has Flexibility Been So Fascinating'.

Jeremy Clarkson says strikers should be shot

2011-11-30T15:08:00.000-08:00

Clarkson, Clarkson, Clarkson... You may think that shooting public sector strikers is a good idea, but you can't go and say it on the BBC.

What the Top Gear presenter said was this: 'I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.

'I mean how dare they go on strike when they have these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed, while the rest of us have to work for a living.'

Across the land, civil servants are sticking pins in effigies. At least that'll give them something to do, I suppose.

I guess Clarkson may think public sector workers are damn lucky anyway, given the situation of most private sector unfortunates.

However, I expect he's got more than enough salted away to keep him in Jags and Porsches when he finally hangs up his mike.

Monkey denies Charmian Chen photo set-up

2011-11-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

The Balinese monkey who was filmed tugging down the dress of 22-year-old model Charmian Chen has denied that the photos were set up to further Ms Chen’s career.

'Where's your proof, then?' said the irate primate when confronted by reporters in Indonesia.

'Charmian dropped a piece of corn down her top and I couldn't help myself,' he added, attempting to explain why he had torn off the model's dress.

Pictures of the incident have made headline news in Ms Chen's native Taiwan, with TV stations asking her to appear and talk about it.

The images have also spread around the globe, appearing on blog sites and forums in the US and Britain.

Ms Chen said: 'I was on holiday and at first the pictures were just funny, but when I got back to Taiwan I had all these people trying to add me as friends on Facebook.'

She added that the monkeys were attracted to bikinis worn by many visitors.

'I think it's the bright colours which they think might be fruit, well I don't know about that but it was very strange at the time.'

The monkey confessed this was the case. ‘S'right. I've always loved bright colours. Now clear off and let me eat this massive pile of bananas I just happen to have acquired.'

'Dress like Prince William', army officers told

2011-11-28T13:49:00.000-08:00

A memo from the Colonel of the Royal Artillery, in which he advises young officers to dress like Princes William and Harry, has come to light.

The colonel’s advice works well for those of a less martial calling as well.

In particular he suggests: ‘Only the middle button of a three button (M) suit should be fastened. It is a coat not a tunic. If your suit has a belt, so be it, but a slim elegant leather suit belt and not a Harley Davidson buckle belt is to accompany it.’

‘Long socks that do not show your flaky, spindly hairy twiglet like shin and absolutely not a selection of ghastly cartoon characters. There is nothing evenly remotely funny about having Poundland crackers fight for your custom as your tailor.’

‘Black (after 7 pm) brogue/Oxford type shoes, polished and in good repair or a good quality slip on loafer are fine, but anything resembling 4WD with a heavy tread and a big fat square toe won’t do justice to your well cut suit. You wouldn’t put ketchup on a Dover sole. As a rough rule of thumb, if your footwear is in any way similar to that seen on a Balkans’ coffee shop waiter then this applies.’

‘The shirt must be pressed and if wearing a suit (or blazer) then it shouldn’t have a pocket and MUST fit correctly at the neck. Pockets carry Cross pens as used by NASA scientists and while we are a technical/combat arm we aren’t there yet. Black, red or other dark ‘Emo’ colours are to be swiftly and safely consigned to the Camp Esperanca deep hole recycling facility.’

‘Double cuff shirts are not mandatory; however, the quality of the shirt is the main factor. If you must wear a silvery/grey Gary Lineker [former England football captain turned TV pundit] number then make sure it is a really good one and wear it with confidence.

‘The tie should be correctly tied, close to the collar and checked regularly. The knot must not be big fat Grange Hill special or be seen adorning the neck of a semi finalist on the Apprentice (M&F). The tie should just reach over the waist belt, not six inches above or below.

‘You are to be freshly shaved when attending any evening function and enough has been said about sideburns.

‘Diving watches/laptop/GPS type watches furiously scrunched up against your shirt cuff look awful. Try and use a thin elegant dress watch – even Sekonda has some relatively pleasant ones.

These are elements of dress guidance and they are not hard and fast, Edwardian or even particularly contemporary but they just set a rough line on where our young officers should be heading.

We are a broad church and we should not exclusively ape the armed wing of Boden, Primark, Fat Face or New and Lingwood, but I am constantly amazed by what some think is acceptable dress.

‘I would rather discover a Gunner officer through his witty, polite and engaging conversation than clocking his cloning through his dress, but please disseminate this lick of polish onto our fantastic, brave and impressive cohort of young officers.

‘While light hearted, please pass on these tips. If in doubt follow TRHs Princes William and Harry for civilian clothing direction.’

British man fathers 16 children with 14 women

2011-11-28T06:28:00.000-08:00

Good to see the Press is up in arms about the behaviour of the Dundee man who has fathered 16 children by 14 women.

Unemployed Jamie Cumming, now there's an interesting name in the circumstances, is expecting a further child with another woman in January.

His current squeeze is 19-year-old Chelsea, while another 19-year-old gave birth to Cumming’s 15th baby two weeks ago and yet another will be popping out the January bairn.

Not sure these girls will be winning any Mensa prizes any time soon.

Cumming, funnily enough, is unable to financially support his many children and most of the mothers are also on benefits.

Cumming’s mother, Lorraine, said she was ashamed of him: ‘He’s been unemployed for years and shows no sign of wanting to work.

‘We don’t speak to each other, and, even though I love him as my child, I am bitterly disappointed with how he lives his life.

‘It’s difficult to keep up with it all, but I do my best to see all the kids. He just doesn’t seem bothered.’

Difficult to keep up with? You could say that.

In 2004, the aptly named lothario sired two girls and a boy who were all born within months of each other, and between December 2007 and August 2008 he fathered three more.

Mr Jamie ‘Unprotected’ Cumming. You are a thoroughly bad egg.

Sardinian brothers admit goat sex

2011-11-26T09:16:00.000-08:00

Two Sardinian men have admitted having sex with a goat.

Farm workers Benito and Guiseppe d'Angelo (22 and 25) confessed to the crime at a court in Cagliari last week.

The pair, who worked on a farm near Castelsardo, in the north of the island, pleaded guilty to a range of bestiality-related crimes involving a female goat called Isabella.

They were caught when their employer, farmer Martin Duchesni, returned unexpectedly from a trip to the local market - where he has a stall selling cheese and other dairy products.

'I entered the farmhouse and was making myself a cup of coffee when I heard strange noises and creaks coming from upstairs,' Duchesni told the stunned courtroom.

'I thought it could be thieves, so I quickly picked up a threshing flail and crept quietly up the stairs.'

In the farmhouse main bedroom, the shocked farmer discovered the brothers in the act of doing unmentionable acts to the goat.

'I didn't know what to say,' he added. 'I just couldn't believe it. There was Benito with his trousers round his ankles. The goat was on the bed and Guiseppe was sort of underneath her.

'In a way, I wanted to just pretend I hadn't seen anything, but then I saw the pleading look in Isabella's eyes and I knew I had to do something.'

'Goat sodomy is a very serious crime,' added county prosecutor Carlo Sansimi. 'The fact that it was, in this case, a female goat provides no defence.'

Sentencing will be carried out next week.

D-Day veteran falls victim to Nazi bullet

2011-11-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

D-Day veteran Percival (Dai) Tilley died in an accident partly caused by a leg injury he sustained on the Normandy beaches 65 years ago.

Welsh Guardsman Mr Tilley, 91, was hit in the leg by a German bullet on 6 June 1944 and suffered weakness in that leg all his life.

He was on his way to a reunion with his old army comrades, wearing his Welsh Guards blazer and tie, when the leg gave way at the top of a staircase. He fell 20ft to the bottom and suffered from fatal head injuries.

Mr Tilley's leg wound from 1944 was cited as a 'contributory factor' in the accident by the inquest in Cardiff.

Coroner Mary Hassell said: 'He had a compromise to one of his legs and this gave him a problem going down the stairs.

'He was clearly enjoying himself and looking forward to seeing his friends when he just fell down the stairs and hit his head.

'His injuries were absolutely unsurvivable but fortunately this all happened very quickly. I very much doubt Mr Tilley knew any of what was going on.'

Gina Robins: a kitten in the microwave

2011-11-23T13:54:00.000-08:00

Very poor show indeed from Gina Robbins, the Torquay woman who put a friend's kitten in the microwave because she had reported her (Robbins') boyfried to the police.

On the pretext of heating up some baby food, she instead popped the 10-week-old kitten in the device.

Its owner, Sarah Knutton, heard a dreadful wailing shriek and then a popping noise as the kitten 'exploded'.

Upon investigating she discovered it splattered around the inside of the microwave. Her first action, she told the court, was to throw up. Understandable, that bit.

Top marks to the Daily Mail website for running a picture with the caption: 'The kitten, similar to the one pictured...'

Robbins may be facing a jail sentence.

Duke of Edinburgh trashes wind turbines

2011-11-19T15:38:00.000-08:00

The Duke of Edinburgh has decided wind farms are 'absolutely useless' and a 'bad idea'.

He, like Prince Charles, has no intention of having them on his land.

The comments were made at a reception to Esbjorn Wilmar, of Infinergy, a company that makes and markets wind turbines.

The Duke is happy enough, though, that the Crown Estate pockets large amounts of cash from offshore windfarms; it owns most of the seabed around Britain.

Clearly the Duke hasn't noticed that November currently looks like September and doesn't worry overmuch about finding alternatives to fossil fuels.

But OK to add to Crown's bulging coffers as long as he can't see the offending turbines. Nice one, your Royal Highness.

Cameron, Merkel and the bazooka

2011-11-18T15:35:00.000-08:00

Wonder if David Cameron is regretting suggesting to Angela Merkel that they take a bazooka to the problems of the EU.

He's clearly sailed very close to breaching the old adage of 'don't mention the war'.

Not only that, his language skills leave something to be desired.

Bazooka isn't a German word. It was a name given to a home-made musical instrument played by comedian and performer Bob Burns, who was in World War 2 the leader of the US Marines' jazz band.

The German word Dave was after was 'Panzerschrek' (literally, tank terror) or perhaps 'Panzerfaust' (tank, er, fist).

Heinrich Himmler sent postcards home to mum

2011-11-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

Wonder what a handwriting expert would make of Heinrich Himmler's postcards?

Adolf Hitler's henchman had a very spiky script, as the postcards he sent to his mum reveal.

The content is typically banal. 'Dear Mum, Here in Warsaw having a lovely time. Right mess outside the hotel, though. Looks like a bombsite. Some interesting churches and castles. Saw some great runes. Locals aren't very friendly.'

The postcards were from a cache of documents taken from Himmler's holiday home in southern Germany by a US serviceman after the war ended. Not sure, though, why he had the postcards at his home when he'd sent them to his mother. Maybe forgot to post them.

The collection of postcards is expected to sell for around £40,000 at auction.

England rugby coach Martin Johnson quits

2011-11-16T03:36:00.000-08:00

So farewell, then, Johnno.

You were an outstanding on-pitch leader and an awesome opponent, but it hasn't really happened for you as a manager.

What might have been if your players hadn't been such numb-skulls, though? Never mind all the off-the-pitch stuff at the World Cup, I'd be more frustrated by their inability to run straight and the fact that prop forwards kept appearing at fly-half at crucial moments.

And don't get me started on Chris Ashton and his swallow-dives. They should be banned. Otherwise the day will come when he drops the ball at the key moment and Celts worldwide will wet themselves laughing.

No news yet on what next for Johnson, but I'm sure Leicester Tigers could find a role for him fairly sharpish.

Rupert Murdoch attacked at Parliamentary Committee

2011-07-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

Quite extraordinary, before my very eyes a chap just tried to attack Rupert Murdoch in a Parliamentary Committee.

Don’t think he got within 10 yards, to be fair, but all the same.

James Murdoch stammering somewhat as he gives evidence. ‘We have to have journalists who operate to the highest possible standards...’

Well, up to a point Lord Copper.

Inquisitor in chief Ms Mensch, who is pretty flinty eyed at the best of times, is doing rather well at grilling the Murdochs. James looks a bit like a kid who’s been called before the headmistress because a stash of donkey porn has been discovered in his tuck box.

La Mensch to Rupert: ‘You are in charge of the ship... This terrible thing happened on your watch. Have you considered resigning?’

Rupert’s having none of that. ‘I’m the best person to sort this out,’ quoth he.

Meanwhile his gorgeous, pouting Thai bride looks on - having intercepted the assailant.

And a little extract from Murdoch’s closing address: ‘I would like all the victims of phone hacking to know how deeply sorry I am... I fully understand their ire... We now know that things went badly wrong at the NOTW. Paying police officers is wrong. Saying sorry is not enough. Things must be put right. No excuses.’

Big words, but how far has the rot spread? Can’t be just NOTW.

NOTW Sean Hoare found dead - was he murdered?

2011-07-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

That is the question that lots of people will be asking.

After the past few days you start to wonder whether you’re suddenly watching one of the Godfather movies.

Hoare, a former NOTW showbiz reporter who was the first to suggest phone hacking was endemic at the News of the World, had issues with drink and drugs, it has been reported. This was partly a result of the fact that his job demanded he spent his nights carousing with rock stars in order to get stories.

Also today the rather weird story of Rebekah Brooks’ bag (or her husband’s bag, or someone’s bag) being found in a bin in a luxury condo in Chelsea.

It was then handed to police, allegedly much to Charlie Brooks’ chagrin. Not sure whether Charlie should worry too much, even if there is donkey porn on there. The way things are going it will be a police superintendent and a leading Tory politician spit-roasting the forlornly braying beast and it will be quietly hushed up.

The donkey, meanwhile, will be found face down in the Manchester ship canal.

And on the subject of leading Tories... ’tis very quiet out there. Not much from Gideon or Billy the Haig at the minute. Heads being kept below the parapet until barrage blows over.

People power stirs to stump Rupert Murdoch

2011-07-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

Who would have believed a couple of weeks ago that politicians would be distancing themselves from Rupert Murdoch as fast as they could?

Many ordinary citizens will be delighted that Rupert Murdoch’s grip on the UK media has been slightly loosened.

What has also been made clear from the whole business, however, is just how hand-in-glove the UK’s top politicians are with the media execs – and it has not proved a very enlightening sight.

Indeed, David Cameron’s attempts to tar the entire media with the News of the World brush was pretty poor.

Gordon Brown’s righteous indignation is also pretty hard to swallow, given how he and Tony Blair got so cozy with Murdoch when they were in charge.

Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron: a bad business

2011-07-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

David Cameron has confidence born of never having had to deal with failure, I feel.

Even when he’s getting dragged into the News of the World scandal he’s got something about him which suggests he knows that he’s getting away scot-free from all this.

Is he, though? He is obviously exceeding close to Rebekah Brooks, and that can’t be good. His call that she resign looks like a man struggling to get rid of an albatross.

The longer she stays in her job, the worse she looks (not to mention Cameron) and the more the public starts to question the links between the government (past and present) and News International.

If the government presses on with allowing NewsCorp to take over BSkyB outright it will confirm that there is something deeply unpleasant afoot.

BP boss Tony Hayward returns with Vallares

2011-07-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

I notice the former BP chief Tony Hayward has overcome any issues with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and is set to be back in the money.

Specifically, he hopes to raise £1bn from the London listing of Vallares, his new oil and gas joint venture

The Guardian reports that Hayward has received early financial backing from institutional investors, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds; some of whose owners may be his old pals from school or business school, perhaps.

The paper adds that this new venture plans to use the money raised on the London market to buy into an oil and gas company in need of capital, with a value of up to £8bn. But instead of buying the company, Vallares will offer shares in itself and therefore give the company access to the global financial markets.

‘We will be offering a short-cut to an IPO [initial public offering],’ said Hayward, ‘for maybe a family-owned business, which has access to good resources but not capital. Merging with us would offer access to capability, capital and credibility.’

Not entirely sure about the last word there, but let’s not quibble.

Key to proceedings is hedge fund manager Nat Rothschild, part of the long-standing banking dynasty.

He said: ‘I am delighted to be partnering with Tony Hayward, whom I have known for many years, on this exciting new venture. Together, we believe the company is well positioned to capture value in a sector with attractive fundamental supply-demand dynamics.’

Expect the cash to say in the same few hands, then.

News of the World allegedly ‘hacks Dowler phone’

2011-07-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

Even cynical media folks have taken a sharp intake of breath at the latest allegations concerning the News of the World hacking Milly Dowler’s phone.

This is a genuinely shocking story and it cannot be the activity just of a rogue reporter and/or a private detective.

There has to be a very strong suspicion that the order has come down from on high for the phone to be hacked. Who exactly ‘on high’ is remains to be seen, indeed we may never know. However, there has to be at least a possibility that it was the then-editor, Rebekah Brooks.

Brooks would not have won many popularity contests anyway, but she is certainly well connected and now very senior in News International.

Does that make her untouchable? Maybe. There is no doubt England’s politicians are scared to death of Rupert Murdoch’s organisation so a senior figure carrying this particular can still seems less than likely.

There has to be a suspicion, though, that the News of the World was using phone hacking as a tool in many circumstances.

Should be an interesting few days.

Burkhas and beard cricket

2011-07-04T04:16:00.000-07:00

I’m reliably informed that a new and peculiar pastime is sweeping across the UK.

It is based on the popular game of beard cricket, which has devotees across the country and which involves scoring runs (as in cricket) when you see a beard.

Generally beard cricket’s rules are something like this:

Heavy stubble: 1 run
Sideburns: 1-3 runs, depending on their expanse
Goatee: 1-3 runs (as above)
Full beard: 4 runs
Massive, santa beard: 6 runs

Moustache: a wicket falls.

The player continues their innings, amassing runs, until 10 wickets have fallen.

Burkha cricket operates under the same general principles.

Woman wearing a headscarf as fashion accessory: 1 run
Child wearing headscarf for religious purposes: 2 runs
Woman wearing headscarf for religious purposes: 4 runs
Woman wearing full, burkha-style, dress with just eyes showing: 6 runs

Wickets fall whenever the player sees a really short skirt of pair of short shorts being worn by a woman. There is an element of umpire judgement to this, but a shortish skirt isn’t good enough. A wicket requires the sort of thing that would send the Taliban into furious rage, not just leave them mildly annoyed.

The game is clearly very much dependent on the pitch conditions.

Driving through Whitechapel at the weekend I amassed a total of 535-5 declared.

Jack Wilshire ‘yellow-bellied, white feather wearer’

2011-07-04T03:22:00.000-07:00

Arsenal footballer Jack Wilshere has been branded a ‘back-sliding, champagne quaffing, surrender monkey’ by a hard-core element of Gunners’ fans.

The allegations have surfaced following the midfielder’s involvement in a nightclub fracas.

He is alleged to have suggested to a woman that she should come with him and a group of his friends because they had lots of money and could promise her ‘a good, hard roasting’.

Slightly rashly, he did this in front of her boyfriend and several of his associates.

Some argy-bargy ensued, with Wilshere allegedly grabbing hold of one of the opposing faction before beating a hasty retreat as it ‘all kicked off’.

George de Vere, of ultra Arsenal supporters group the Heavy Artillery, said: ‘That Willshere is a disgrace. What’s wrong with him? Is he French?’

Polar bear shot in Iceland

2011-07-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

One has to feel some sympathy for the polar bear that was recently shot in Iceland.

After a 200-mile swim in near-freezing waters, the bear had just made it ashore, at Skagafjordur, and was no doubt dreaming of feasting on disgraced bankers, puffins and rancid shark, when it was terminated with extreme prejudice.

Icelandic police spokesman Petur Bjornsson said: ‘There was fog up in the hills and we took the decision to kill the bear before it could disappear into the fog.’

Apparently the animal could not be tranquilised because it would have taken 24 hours for the tranquiliser to arrive.

However, a vet in the town of Blönduó, Egill Steingrímsson, said he had drugs capable of immobilising the bear in the boot of his car. 'If the narcotics gun would have been sent by plane, it would have arrived within an hour. They could keep tabs on the bear for that long,’ he said.

One problem the police had was that around 60 people had gathered on a mountain road to watch the bear land. When the animal started heading towards these adrenaline-loving citizens the police had to act or let the bear eat its fill of tasty Icelanders.

The first record of a polar bear arriving in Iceland dates to 890, 16 years after the first settlers arrived.

That animal was killed by arrows fired by two Vikings, Ragnar the Swift and Olaf the Jumpy, who later used its fur to make linings for helmets.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn released but sex pest tag lingers

2011-07-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

It isn’t a surprise to see Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been released without bail following revelations about the maid whom is alleged to have sexually assaulted.

That does not seem like the end of the story, however. Various rumours circulating, both about the maid’s background and associates, that have damaged the case for the prosecution. Also more than a hint that her family has been coerced in a bid to get the charges dropped.

The maid’s lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, has hit back saying that Strauss-Kahn’s defence is that sex was consenual - which he says is a lie.

Judging by what else has come out about Strauss-Kahn’s idea of what constitutes any sort of encounter with the opposite sex that seems very plausible.

Here is a wealthy banker who thinks that because he is rich and powerful he is above both conventional morality and the law. He is not alone in that.

Strauss-Kahn appears to be merely a purveyor of droit de seigneur (when a medieval lord could demand sex with the wives of his serfs, among other things) in modern dress.

The case is also an example of how certain wealthy people like Strauss-Kahn view the likes of chamber maids and many others - as serfs, only worth bothering with to provide an outlet for their overcharged sex drive.

Regardless of today’s developments, Strauss-Kahn is not vindicated.

Migrants take jobs from Britons

2011-06-30T23:27:00.000-07:00

Today’s the day the Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith calls for tighter controls on immigration and for British employers to favour British workers.

It is going to strike a chord with a fair slice of the electorate, I'll warrant.

Less sure if some employers will be so keen.

My old pal the Earl of Thetford was saying just the other day about how he would love to employ more British workers on his East Anglian farm but found it very difficult.

The reasons for this were varied, but in a nutshell his point was that (with some notable exceptions) the British have gone soft.

In between a couple of glasses of claret, the Earl noted that British workers he’d tried out were unable to turn up on time, moaned a lot, bunked off for breaks as soon as possible, were fat and unfit and didn’t return on day two.

The Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and whatnot worked like horses and wanted to be part of the operation.

Of course IDS will know this already.

Christopher Shale ‘murdered at Glastonbury by secret police’

2011-06-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

I see it hasn’t taken long for conspiracy theories to start circulating about the death of David Cameron’s aide Christopher Shale.

Mr Shale (56) was found dead in a toilet at the Glastonbury Festival.

However, the theories suggest, he had not only penned a damning report about the Conservative Party, he also had ‘secret information’ about Mr Cameron that he was about to make public.

That’s it. Some information that was so ‘secret’ that it could have brought down the government: possibly involving the Prime Minister and a goat in suspenders or similar.

So a special MI5 hit squad was charged with bumping him off in a Glastonbury toilet.

Which they duly did.

What Wen Jiabao said to David Cameron

2011-06-27T15:43:00.000-07:00

Of course I wasn’t there, but I have a feeling it went something like this.

‘Quit moaning about the dissidents or no business from us, you spent old hasbeen of a nation.

‘And we haven’t forgotten the opium wars, either.’

Recommendation for DSO for Adam Boulton of Sky News who asked when the Chinese might be improving their human rights record.

By all accounts Cameron looked deeply uncomfortable and Jiabao looked decidly displeased.

Reminded me of the moment in Catch 22 when General Dreedle demands that Major Danby is taken out and shot for moaning.

Image of Cameron-Cathcart spluttering: ‘I’m afraid we don’t do that here, sir.’

And Jiabao muttering: ‘Not now, you don’t.’

The working class is in decline

2011-06-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

Interesting to see the independent mulling over the old ‘the working class feels bitter and isolated’ routine.

It’s not just a rehash of predictable old quotes, though. The story does hit one or two topics on the chin.

In particular it highlights what a shocking job the last Labour government did and how they were fixated on forcibly changing the demographic of the country. As long as they, personally, could escape the ramifications; such as schools of children who couldn’t speak English.

It also shows what happens when you expand the middle class. Almost by definition, the working class shrinks. But is that necessarily a bad thing? In theory, no, but if instead you create a benefit-dependent underclass then clearly the answer is yes.

Then again, I do wonder who hasn’t been milking the system; especially when I see the salaries still being paid to senior figures in local government. At least four members of Ealing Council getting more than a cabinet minister, I notice.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/threatened-isolated-under-siege-the-uks-working-class-today-2302850.html#disqus_thread

John Galliano 'loves Hitler', apparently

2011-06-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

John Galliano - now there’s a man in a spot of bother.

Poor chap. A few glasses of champagne into his evening and he gets into an argument with someone with a 'dirty Jewish face' and someone else who he believes to be a ‘dirty Asian’.

Not only that, the dirty faced one had ‘revolting eyebrows and low-end thighs’.

Low-end thighs - like something you'd get at the Morrison’s chicken counter.

Oh dear, oh dear. Then saying ‘I love Hitler’ may have been a mistake as well.

Although allegedly adding: ‘The Luftwaffe always had the best-cut uniforms’ seems like fair comment.

Not to mention those SS caps, luvvie; so chic, so debonair, so step on your face with a jackboot and grind it into the mud until you’re very uncomfortable.

What's new in the world?

2011-06-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

Long time, no chunterings.

I've been away. No, not like that, though it's not such a bad idea.

What's changed? Well, not that much. New government, of course. Arab Spring has sprung. Greece is slipping down the khazi. Bankers getting richer while everyone else sees their standard of living gradually sliding away.

But all is not lost. Pleased to see Princess Beatrice has gone from being a fat, toothy, inbred troll to just a toothy inbred troll.

Well done, Ma'am.

Jacqui Smith - she’s a goner

2009-04-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

Surely, surely this woman isn’t getting re-elected...

80p claimed on expenses for a bath plug - good work.

At least Dave Cameron had the balls to put mortgage interest on his.

The Home Secretary might want to look into the police account of Ian Tomlinson’s death during the G20 protest.

So, instead of not touching him at all... the police flattened him. Fancy that.

MPs up to their snouts in swill, shock

2009-04-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

MPs are really getting their snouts well and truly stuck into the trough.

This from the Telegraph.

The maximum rise in the price of any item sold in the Parliamentary catering establishments will be capped at five per cent this year - despite food and drink prices rising by more than 18 per cent in supermarkets.

The deal, agreed by senior MPs at a meeting last month, means the taxpayer will have to provide a £5 million subsidy for food and drink sold within the Palace of Westminster.

The controversial price-capping scheme has been introduced despite growing public anger over the generosity of MPs expenses. The Parliamentary Committee which agreed the scheme is headed by Sir Stuart Bell, a backbench MP who has led the protests against the leaking of information about MPs' expense claims.

Susie Squire of the Taxpayers' Alliance condemned the decision. ‘It's unbelievable that after the handsome salary and perks MPs receive that they are trying to squeeze even more money out of taxpayers,’ she said.

‘The rest of the country is having to pay more to put their own food on the table. Yet again, this shows that too many MPs are out of touch and unconcerned as to the realities facing their constituents. This is damaging both the democratic process and the British public's faith in Parliament.’

MPs already benefit from heavily-subsidised food and drink prices. For example, a cup of tea costs 30p, a breakfast about £2.10 and a pint of lager is about £1 cheaper than in nearby pubs. They are also able to claim for groceries bought when they leave the Commons.

Statue of the week award

2009-03-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

One of London’s finer statues - Merchant Navy chap at Tower Hill looks out towards distant convoys and dreams of hot cocoa.

Back to the early 80s...

2009-03-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

Holy crap.

Here we are, 25 years later and things look strangely familiar.

Talk of 3m unemployed within the year.

IRA murderers gunning people down for the sake of it.

Russia and China grumbling about the West and rattling their sabres.

England about to lose a Test series in the West Indies (and to follow it - probably - with Ashes defeat).

Taxpayers starve as Goodwin eats caviar

2009-02-26T10:30:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s not that far off the truth.

So let me just get this straight.

After tax, Greed is Goodwin will take home about £33,000 every month.

However, if RBS had been allowed to collapse he would receive just (I say ‘just’ though it’s a lot more than I and most others will ever get) £20,000 per year from his pension.

So... RBS has so far received more than £45 billion in public funds, which means the bank is 70-per cent owned by the taxpayer. Without such a bail-out, the bank would have collapsed, and all pensions would have been transferred to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

The PPF guarantees 100 per cent of final-salary pensions in payment, and 90 per cent of those yet to be paid, up to a maximum of £28,000 per year. As this amount gets lower if a member retires before 65, a member retiring at 50 would be able to receive a maximum of £21,952 per year.

Dr Ros Altmann, an independent policy adviser, told The Times: ‘Sir Fred Goodwin should be treated like any other member of a pension scheme whose company has gone bust – he should be transferred to the PPF. There is absolutely no social justice or rationale behind taxpayers propping up banks to ensure that chief execs get paid such obscene pensions.’

Greed is Goodwin

2009-02-26T01:17:00.000-08:00

There was a time when a chap knew what to do in the event of a catastrophic failure on his watch.

It involved the whisky bottle and the service revolver.

Today we have the largest corporate loss in history from RBS - a mind-numbing £40 billion - and the man in charge is not only not blowing his brains out he’s trousering £650,000 a year, for life.

This is after he has not only brought down his own company, but wrecked the prospects and savings of countless others.

And it has all been done with the collusion of the government.

Shocking, shocking stuff. There seems to be no bottom to what the banking industry is capable of.

Boy marries dog

2009-02-23T07:28:00.000-08:00

A toddler has reportedly been married off to a dog in eastern India in a bid to prevent his predicted death by a tiger.

The ceremony, at a Hindu temple in Orissa state’s Jajpur district, was conducted with all the rituals observed at traditional weddings.

It included a dowry for the bride - the village bitch.

The dog sported two silver rings and a silver chain, the UNI news agency reported.

Parents of the groom, 18-month-old Sangula, were advised to arrange the marriage when they noticed a tooth growing from their infant son's upper gum.

The growth was considered to be a bad omen in the boy’s tribal community.

Village elders believed it would lead to him being killed in a tiger attack - a fate preventable, according to tribal tradition, by marrying a dog.

Ancient terror brings horror to Borneo, shock

2009-02-20T08:14:00.000-08:00

Looks like there could be a humungous monster out there in the forests of Borneo, gobbling up pigs, goats, people - you name it.

(Though maybe not as scary as the giant rat of Sumatra - and less likely to fit in you rubbish bin).

Locals reckon it’s an incarnation of the Nabau, a legendary snake more than 100ft in length and with a dragon's head and seven nostrils.

Villagers living along the Baleh river in Borneo believe the mythical creature has returned after a photo of a gigantic snake swimming along the remote waterways has emerged.

The picture, taken by a member of a disaster team monitoring flood regions by helicopter, has sparked a huge debate about whether the photos are genuine or merely the work of photo-editing software.

Even the respected New Straits Times newspaper in Kuala Lumpur has asked readers to make up their own minds about the photos.

People who have studied the photograph of the shape taken from the air have dismissed suggestions that it's a log.

As one writer asked: 'A log can't be that winding, can it?' Others have suggested it's a speedboat, but this has been dismissed because of the twisting wake.

The most common accusation is that the photo has simply been manipulated on a computer, while others complain that the river is a different colour to the real Baleh river which is a murky brown.

But villagers who insist the snake exists say that photos of the creature being taken in different parts of the river prove it is swimming about.

Earlier this month scientists unearthed the fossil of a killer snake that was longer than a bus, as heavy as a small car and which could swallow an animal the size of a cow.

The 45ft long monster - named Titanoboa - was so big that it lived on a diet of crocodiles and giant turtles, squeezing them to death and devouring them whole.

Weighing an impressive 1.25 tons, it slithered around the tropical forests of South America 60million years ago, just five million years after the last dinosaurs were wiped out.

Partial skeletons of the boa constrictor-like prehistoric killer were found in a Colombian coal mine by an international team of fossil hunters.

Giant rat of sumatra caught and eaten (maybe)

2009-02-19T04:49:00.000-08:00

A chinese ratcatcher has caught a giant rodent – weighing six pounds and with an impressive 12-inch tail – in a residential area of Fuzhou, a city of six million people on China's south coast.

Says the Daily Telegraph (and you have to love the DT for reports such as this in the troubled times).

‘The ratcatcher, who was only named as Mr Xian, said he swooped for the rodent after seeing a big crowd of people surrounding it on the street.

He told local Chinese newspapers that he thought the rat might be a valuable specimen, or a rare species, and had to muster up his courage [I should jolly well think so] before grabbing its tail and picking it up by the scruff of its neck.

"I did it, I caught a rat the size of a cat!" he shouted out afterwards, according to the reports. Mr Xian is believed to still be in possession of the animal, after stuffing into a bag and departing the scene [maybe, but having read the last paragraph I wouldn't be certain Mr Rat hadn't been served up in black bean sauce by now].

The local forestry unit in the city identified the nightmarish creature [hang on, what about journalistic impartiality] as a bamboo rat from initial photographs, but said that it would need to examine the rat more closely before making a final identification.

Chinese bamboo rats rarely grow beyond ten inches and are found throughout southern China, northern Burma and Vietnam.
However, the Sumatra bamboo rat, usually found in the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan and in the Malay Peninsula can grow up to 30 inches long, including tail, and can weigh up to eight pounds.

A "Giant Rat of Sumatra" is mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes tale: The Adventure of a Sussex Vampire.

All bamboo rats are slow-moving and usually spend their time in underground burrows, feeding on bamboo. Chinese bamboo rats are often sold for meat in Chinese markets. The largest rats in the world are thought to be African giant pouched rats, which can grow up to 36 inches in length.’

More on why bankers deserve shooting

2009-02-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

This from Simon Carr in the Indie on the subject of greedy bankers. Good stuff.

Latterly, the top performers were getting Renaissance fortunes, the second level got second homes and the failures got Porsches. How did bankers pull that off? They are just very, very good at getting their manicured hands on other people's money. Even now, in their chastened state, they offer to take their bonus in shares rather than cash. But the shares are 15 per cent of what they were at the height. When the value doubles and trebles over the next five years the directors will be vastly richer than if they'd been paid in money.

Yet there is something our leaders might say to these insulate beneficiaries. "We'll save your firms from bankruptcy but as your new owners we've got new rules. Existing bonus contracts are void. You'll get a utility salary with nothing on top. You won't leave for jobs elsewhere because there aren't jobs elsewhere. And if there are, you won't get them because you'll have a court case pursuing you. Yes, chum, if you bale out we will prosecute you for a) trading while insolvent, b) fraud and/or theft, or c) misfeance. Now unravel these securities and derivatives and get this bank back on its feet."

Many think regulation is the answer. No, revenge is the answer. You can't specify what people should do in every situation. It is incentives that guide employees. The risk of catastrophic personal loss in the event of losing the money they were entrusted with – only that will produce the culture of responsibility politicians are after.

Darling, poor fellow, is out of his depth in all this. He assures us he will squeeze out "excessive risk-taking" from the banks. He has no idea what that means. I speak as one who sold his house to buy talking clocks. Was that an excessive risk? I don't know yet, so how would he know? The difference is – the money at risk was mine.

Hedge funds, operating with their own money, behave very differently from banks playing with other people's. The funds were leveraged just 1.7 times (now fallen to 1.4 times). Banks were leveraged up to 50 times. The wildest hedge fund ever to go broke – Long Term Capital Management – was only leveraged 33 times. Banks went to play out on the margins of finance with our money and they took home billions.

Fair play suggests they should pay for their current failure with their houses, their Bentleys and their children's school places. They want to participate in success – well and good. The principle, as the PM used to say, is symmetrical. The Chancellor has feebly agreed that "contractual bonuses" are sacrosanct. But surely insolvent companies don't have the right to enforce such contracts.

And where has the idea of a guaranteed bonus come from anyway? What is this modern contradiction in terms we are locked into? The "bonus culture" has been smuggled into the public sector – quangos, councils, ordinary administrators, they're all at it. The philosophy is: "Thanks for the job offer. We'll do it on a work to rule basis. We can do it properly if you want – but it's extra."

The fact is, the "extra" that bankers got depended on how much they behaved like Nick Leeson. Leeson ruined Barings, these fellows ruined their banks. The difference is that Leeson went to jail.

Quote of the week

2009-02-06T07:17:00.001-08:00

‘Liberty’s postbag suggests that the House of Lords is more in touch with public concerns that our elected government. Over the past seven years we’ve been told “nothing to hide, nothing to fear”, but a stream of data bungles and abuses of power suggest that even the innocent have a lot to fear.’

Director of pressure group Liberty Shami Chakrabarti

Clarkson labels Brown idiot cyclops

2009-02-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Clarkson. I find myself warming to him. He’s doing very well to be so un-PC and yet to have escaped major disciplining by the BBC.

Now he has called Gordon Brown a ‘one-eyed idiot’. Terribly offensive, but very ‘on’ the Clarkson brand.

Speaking at a press conference in Sydney, he compared Mr Brown to Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, after Mr Rudd had just addressed the country on the global financial crisis.

According to The Australian newspaper, he said: ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a world leader admit we really are in deep s***. He genuinely looked terrified. The poor man, he’s actually seen the books.

‘[In the UK] we’ve got this one-eyed Scottish idiot, he keeps telling us everything’s fine and he’s saved the world and we know he’s lying, but he’s smooth at telling us.’

Carol Thatcher in the doghouse

2009-02-03T07:58:00.000-08:00

From the Guardian... (and everything else)...

Carol Thatcher faces being banned from the BBC after she referred to a tennis player as a ‘golliwog’.

Thatcher, the daughter of former prime minister Lady Thatcher, made the remark in a private conversation in the green room of The One Show after the broadcast of the BBC1 programme on Thursday night.

Sources have said that Thatcher will not be used again on the show, where she is a roving reporter, until she formally apologises to those who were offended by the remark.

According to insiders, Thatcher – who won ITV1 reality series I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! in 2005 – was chatting with The One Show host Adrian Chiles and guest Jo Brand about the Australian Open when she described an unnamed player as a ‘golliwog’.

Camo cow blasts bunnies

2009-02-02T04:06:00.000-08:00

Ah, a mad cow story of a different kind. This from the Press Association...

Paul Coppen, 69, who supplies London's oldest restaurant with pedigree beef, was struggling to keep an army of rabbits from stripping his pastures bare.

So in an attempt to gain the upper hand, he camouflaged his vintage Massy Ferguson tractor as a cow - complete with a firing platform and a gunslit from which to blast the unwary bunnies.

He admitted the disguise - a black and white heifer painted on a wooden board fixed to the side of the vehicle - was not entirely foolproof.

He said: 'One of my neighbours, Stan Mitchell, came up with the idea and helped me out, and I just went with it. I hoped the rabbits would ignore the fake cow, thinking it was just another member of the herd, thereby presenting a stationary target for the rifleman as I drive about the farm.

'A driver-cum-rifleman was cunningly camouflaged behind a picture of a tree above the cow. Maximum angle of fire was achieved by pointing the air-rifle through a horizontal slit above the cow, not unlike the firing positions in Second World War pillboxes.

'It has to be said that not all rabbits are entirely fooled. Whereas cattle obviously do move around, trees usually don't and that may be a problem.'

Mr Coppen has farmed at White Close Hill, near Bowes in County Durham, since 1975. Beef from his herd of pedigree Belted Galloways - an ancient breed probably derived from Celtic stock - is supplied to Rules, of Covent Garden, London's oldest restaurant.

'I won't pretend this device is going to be the be all and end all of rabbit control - but it does seem to startle them somewhat and stops them from scampering away too quickly, which give us a chance to have a shot at them.

'Luckily, no cows have been accidentally shot so far and Granite Brain, the stock bull, has not displayed any amorous or belligerent intentions towards the glamorous heifer depicted on the side of the tractor.'

Quote of the week

2009-01-30T08:34:00.000-08:00

‘I'd like to throw these guys in the brig. They're thinking the same old thing that got us here, greed. They're thinking, “Take care of me.”’

US Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr on taxpayer-bailed-out Wall Street bankers intent on giving themselves fat bonuses.

Time to start executing some people

2009-01-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Truly ghastly and proof of how bloody dangerous our cities can be.

I’m not a death penalty fan, but the perpetrator of this needs a bit of Iraqi justice - ie, bullet in head.

A man who was fatally stabbed at a London bus stop last night was taking his three-year-old daughter to hospital to meet her newborn brother, it emerged today.

The 26-year-old victim, who has not been named, is thought to have been attacked after becoming involved in an argument with another man in London Road, west Croydon, shortly after 6.15pm.

He was taken by ambulance to Mayday Hospital, in Croydon, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

A 22-year-old man arrested on suspicion of murder remains in custody at a south London police station.

The detective leading the investigation described the circumstances of the murder as "particularly tragic".

Detective Chief Inspector Cliff Lyons said: "This was a shocking attack in a public place in the early evening.

"The victim's three year-old daughter was with him when he was attacked, though fortunately she wasn't physically injured.

"Even more tragically, his partner had given birth to a son just that morning."

More con than Conway, pt2

2009-01-29T05:06:00.000-08:00

In a further fit of pique I just googled Henry Conway and found this rather excellent piece by Monique Webber, written in the Times.

It’s on the subject of Choffs - Chavs who think they’re toffs.

‘Nothing, however, quite compares to the deluded decadence of Henry Conway, son of the disgraced Tory MP Derek Conway, who once threw a F*** Off I’m Rich party in a Chelsea nightclub and describes himself as “blond, bouncy and one for the boys”.

HOW TO SPOT A CHOFF [according to Monique]

Wears a signet ring slightly too shiny to have been inherited. Actually, wears any kind of signet ring at all. Has acquired an accent that sounds entirely different to the rest of the family, who all live up north. Obsessed with Brideshead Revisited and Anthony Trollope. Is described by friends as being OANAL (Oxbridge Attitude, No A-levels). Asks what you’re doing “this season”. Looks for new Facebook friends in Tatler.

Attends Chinawhite’s Rock the Polo event religiously, but fails to get into the Cartier tent for tea. Used marriage as an excuse to adopt a double-barrelled surname. Bristles when confronted with someone who went to a public school of higher status. Shops at Smythson, has applied for planning permission for a roof wind turbine and hangs out in Notting Hill in the hope of bumping into Dave’n’Sam.‘

Disgraced Derek Conway given gentle ticking off over thieving taxpayer cash

2009-01-29T04:47:00.001-08:00

Good head in the trough action from disgraced MP Derek Conway who is being asked to pay back a piffling £3,757 of the £82,000 of taxpayers' cash that he paid to his sons Henry and Frederick for little or no work.

A year ago, the Committee on Standards and Privileges hammered Conway by suspending him from the Commons for a whole ten days for his indiscretions (the brutes).

The Standards and Privileges Committee has now concluded that Henry's starting salary was not ‘unreasonably high’ - despite being £800 above the recommended level - and despite the fact he wasn’t actually doing any work.

The Parliamentary watchdog said: ‘We expect him to apologise to the House for his breach of the rules by writing to our chairman.’

OK - so this gent trousers £82,000 of the taxpayer’s hard-earned and he has to write a letter of apology. If, on the other hand, a regular citizen fails to pay a parking fine within 10 seconds flat, they end up being hauled off to the debtors’ prison in double quick time.

Any wonder that MPs are so keen on the Freedom of Information Act applying to everyone but them? And her Majesty, of course.

The incredible greed of Lloyds bankers

2009-01-28T08:33:00.000-08:00

Good effort by the bloated fatcats of Lloyds Banking Group, who have sounded out their non-government shareholders about a salary increase for directors.

The City institutions they approached don’t appear to have been that keen on the idea. Which is probably nothing to what the taxpayer thinks about the proposal.

You greedy, useless, arrogant bankers. Having played a key role in wrecking the economy while getting paid millions, you now want more. Your highnesses have surely lost the plot, no?

Lloyds will soon be dealing with its HBOS acquisition and laying off 20,000 staff or thereabouts. Accepting a salary increase (let alone a big incentive package) against a backdrop of redundancies and branch closures would be the act of a true Lloyds banker – to coin some rhyming slang.

Masturbation is good for you…

2009-01-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

Well, it might be if you’re a man over 50... according to a University of Nottingham survey extrapolated in the Independent.

That’s because it may protect against prostate cancer ‘because it helps remove toxins that have built up over a lifetime’.

The bad news, sorry, the ‘other’ news is that too much masturbation in your teens, 20s and 30s can increase the risk of prostate cancer. Lots of people out there are no doubt thinking: ‘Sod it. Bit late to find that out.’

Says the Indy: ‘The findings showed that those who had been most sexually active in their twenties – having sexual intercourse or masturbating more than 20 times a month – were more likely to have the cancer. Frequent masturbation, but not sexual intercourse, in the twenties and thirties was significantly linked with the later development of prostate cancer.’

(20 times a month...)

Polyxeni Dimitripolou, who led the study published in the British Journal of Urology International, said: ‘One theory is that during the early years the prostate gland is more susceptible to hormonal changes and is still developing. As men age and accumulate toxins from the diet or through their lungs , sexual activity may help release them. Studies have found toxins in the semen and the fluid produced in the prostate. As you age it is more important to flush them out.’

There’s a raccoon up my tree

2009-01-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

Imagine the surprise of Ena Webber from Christchurch, Dorset.

She thought she saw a cat in a tree in her back garden so, being a keen bird watcher, she crept up on the beastie intending to give it both barrels from her water pistol.

Imagine her surprise, then, when she realised it was a... raccoon.

She said: ‘At first I thought it was a cat; then I realised it was a raccoon. It was about 10 feet up the tree. The only time I'd ever seen raccoons before was in a zoo but I knew exactly what it was.

‘He didn't seem a bit bothered by my presence and looked as if he just wanted to go back to sleep.’

The RSPCA were called and put the animal in a cat box. He or she is now apparently being cared for by said organisation.

Mother trains three-year-old to smoke

2009-01-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

No, it’s not April 1st.

Here we have another account of a half-wit moron who is being kept in generous fashion by the taxes of the workers - well, is being kept in cigarettes, anyway.

A single mother who allowed her three-year-old son to smoke cigarettes at home was freed by a judge today - for her children's sake.

Mother-of-three Kelly Marie Pocock, 24, was accused of letting the little boy smoke in his bedroom and around the house.

A court heard family friend was so concerned she used her mobile phone to film the youngster puffing away.

She handed the evidence to social services who alerted police. Pocock was arrested for child cruelty.

The single mother was yesterday given a 40-week jail sentence - but it was suspended for two years after a judge said her children had suffered enough.

Judge John Curron said of the case: 'This is one of the most extraordinary I have ever come across.'

(Really? Fancy that...)

Prosecutor Jonathan Rees said: 'The video demonstrates the boy placing a cigarette into his mouth, lighting it with a lighter and sucking.

'He was drawing smoke clearly into the lungs and seems to do it with some accomplishment.

'It doesn't cause him any discomfort. He is sat on a chair close to the mother, who is talking on the phone.

'It's clear that the boy, at the age of three, knows what to do with a lighter and cigarette.'

The judge told Pocock: 'This is an appalling situation and I don't see how you could have been unaware of the fact.

When sentences and crimes don’t add up

2009-01-20T04:25:00.000-08:00

Three men who filmed themselves gang-raping a 16-year-old girl before dousing her in caustic soda were today sentenced to between six and nine years in jail, reports The Guardian today.

Not very tough sentences, given that this gang has left her with scarring to 50 per cent of her body and unlikely ever to lead a normal life.

One of the accused, however, was not sentenced. That is because he, Stephen Bigby, was stabbed to death in a gang fight in Oxford Street before he could face trial.

Not much sympathy for him, given that: 'The men had used their mobile phones to record the suffering of their victim... They could be heard laughing during the attack. Her attackers – possibly as many as 10 of them – had hoped the powerful corrosive would destroy forensic evidence.'

Politicians are fond of saying that society isn't working, but this really seems to prove that. Just what sort of upbringing have this men had to behave in this way? It is so far short of civilised behaviour it defies belief and the sentences meted out do not seem to mirror the crime committed.

Spinster slain by slipping suitcases, shock

2009-01-09T05:10:00.000-08:00

The Daily Mail today reports the case of Joan Cunnane, whose demise reads like some ghastly kind of Biblical retribution for an addiction to shopping. Perhaps Gordon Brown should take note.

Joan was a spinster who, says The Mail, ‘obsessively hoarded clothes’.

She died after a mountain of suitcases fell on her, burying her alive.

She had so much stuff she was left with only a 2ft-wide path to get around them, and her car and garage were packed with other goods.

The Mail adds: ‘After she was reported missing earlier this week, it took police searching her home two days to sift through her possessions.

Miss Cunnane was eventually found buried under a 3ft pile of cases in a back bedroom where she had apparently gone in search of a favourite item.

Yesterday, neighbours spoke of their shock at the macabre death of Miss Cunnane, a retired BT operator and devout Roman Catholic who attended church services every weekend.

Her closest friend, Roy Moran, 77, said: 'I think it just gave her pleasure to buy things - none of it was really essential. I once asked her how many scarves she had.

She said she thought about 300. I asked her why she needed that many. She said they were all different colours.

'She bought everything. It had been going on over 16 years from when she bought the property.'

Miss Cunnane had enjoyed Christmas dinner with Mr Moran, a retired hospital supplies worker, before returning to her £170,000 bungalow in Heaton Mersey, near Stockport.’

Why on earth do we need to know the value of her property, I wonder?

Killer Iraqis face the drop

2008-12-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

The BBC and others report that two Iraqis accused of killing two British soldiers (in cold blood) can be tried by Iraqi authorities despite a ‘real risk’ they could face the death penalty.

Am I missing something?

You murder someone in cold blood, while filming it, in a country with the death penalty... It’s not impossible you might end up at the wrong end of a rope.

The BBC relates that Faisal Al-Saadoon and Khalaf Mufdhi are accused of murdering Staff Sgt Simon Cullingworth and Sapper Luke Allsopp and that the High Court has ruled it is lawful for them to be transferred from British custody and tried by an Iraqi court.

Lord Justice Richards said: ‘In our view they could face the real risk of the death sentence if convicted. We are seriously troubled by that conclusion. We regard the issues in the case as difficult and important.’

Phil Shiner, the solicitor representing Al-Saadoon and Mufdhi, says allowing them to stand trial in Iraq would violate both the European Convention on Human Rights and the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Good effort, Phil - these two are obviously great respecters of human rights themselves. It is like suggesting that the war criminals tried at Nuremburg had their human rights violated. In fact, maybe they did. But did anyone care? No.

Cigarette chewing dog bites the dust

2008-12-18T05:22:00.000-08:00

So farewell, then, General Edi.

The cigarette chewing dachsund, who munched his way through half a packet of cigarettes every day since he was a puppy, is no more.

The General was killed after he was hit by a car during a walk to his favourite cigarette shop.

‘Poor Edi dashed out in the road in excitement right in front of a car. There was nothing anyone could do,’ said one neighbour in Graz, central Austria.

The dog’s owner, Wolfgang Treirler, added: ‘His old owner abandoned him and so we took him in 17 years ago, and noticed straight away that he was in the habit of eating cigarettes. He eats the tobacco and the paper, and then chews a while on the filter before spitting it out.

‘On average he eats about 10 cigarettes a day, but all of his teeth are fine.’

A local vet, Harald Mayr, said: ‘Nicotine normally leads to poisoning in dogs, but in this case the animal has obviously become addicted to it which has increased its level of tolerance.’

Dem Africans gonna get you, muddaf***er

2008-12-12T07:26:00.000-08:00

Holy crap, I was watching Newsnight yesterday and saw the report on gang violence in Edmonton.

Edmonton, adjoining Tottenham, Walthamstow and the North Circular is a grisly place at the best of the times, but it's been made even more grim by the addition of armed gangs knifing each other left, right and centre.

Anyway, the BBC report focused on a gang called ‘Dem Africans’ - largely young chaps with origins in Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone and other places where life is a bit cheaper than it might be.

Three of their number have been killed this year - in a conflict with rival gangs.

Incredibly depressing stuff. What’s the sense in escaping a bloody awful warzone of a country to end up getting knifed in a khazi like Edmonton?

Particularly enjoyed the police chief facing the question about whether his offices worked all that hard in investigating gang deaths. He didn’t seem all that convincing in his answer ('yes we do').

Anjem Choudary’s message of goodwill to all

2008-12-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

Anjem Choudary seems like a fun kind of guy.
Here's an upstanding lawyer kind of bloke who’s getting £25,000 worth of benefits from the UK state while he's preaching religious and racial hatred and (now this really is going too far) slagging off Christmas festivities.

Fair enough, you may think. He’s right. Christmas is a commercialised load of garbage anyway. And it was all nicked from the pagans in the first place.

Except, of course, that Choudary isn’t having a go at that aspect of it all. It’s the religious side that really gets his (halal) goat.

‘In the world today many Muslims, especially those residing in Western countries, are exposed to the evil celebration Christmas,' he yabbered on his website.

‘Many take part in the festival celebrations by having Christmas turkey dinners.

‘Decorating the house, purchasing Christmas trees or having Christmas turkey meals are completely prohibited by Allah.

‘Many still practise this corrupt celebration as a remembrance of the birth of Jesus.

‘How can a Muslim possibly approve or participate in such a practice that bases itself on the notion Allah has an offspring?

‘The very concept of Christmas contradicts and conflicts with the foundation of Islam.

‘Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of Christmas, because its observance will lead to hellfire.

'Protect your Paradise from being taken away - protect yourself and your family from Christmas.'

This is the bloke who has demanded the execution of the Pope and urged Muslims to have more babies to take over the UK. Perhaps he would be best protected from the evil that is Christmas by moving to Helmand or Baghdad.

Except I doubt he’ll get 25k a year in benefits over there.

Hitler not Schalke fan. Nein, nein, nein.

2008-12-05T07:59:00.000-08:00

The Times recently ran a list of most embarrassing football fans.

On the list was Adolf Hitler - mentioned as a Schalke 04 fan.

Quite a sensitive suggestion, one presumes - so the club duly responded... And with rather a lot of humour. Fair point, I can't imagine Gelsenkirchen being top of the Fuhrer's list of favourite places. Bayern Munich would be more his bag.

That letter in full...

Dear Editor,

Your article on 'The 50 worst famous football fans' on November 26 made interesting reading. Until then we didn’t know Adolf Hitler had a soft spot for Schalke 04 let alone was a fan of our club.

We were very curious to find out what made the well respected Times claim this as a fact. So we checked and double-checked whether the club board between 1933 and 1945 had named a stand the “Führer Stand”, for example, and we watched every episode of 'Allo 'Allo in a bid to find a clue. Nothing.

In fact, it turned out he must have been an armchair supporter because he never bothered to turn up at any of our games, even if it was a championship final right on his door step at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. Perhaps he was too occupied with his genocidal policies, or… maybe he wasn't a football fan after all.

This is at least what a scientific study commissioned by the club revealed in 2004. The authors analysed the theory that the fact that Schalke won six national championships during the Third Reich was down to the special support of the Nazis. The result was quite clear: the theory is total rubbish. At best, the Nazis tried to bask in the sun of the great popularity of a team that had ranked among the best in the land since 1927.

Hitler himself never did so for two reasons. First, the physiognomy of footballers with their bow legs and knock-knees wasn’t exactly his idea of a superior German race. Second, he did go to a football match once during the Olympic Games in 1936, but Germany lost 2-0 to Norway. Bugger!

To conclude Hitler was a fan of Schalke 04 because they won most of the titles during his regime must make Margaret Thatcher a Liverpool fan. Funnily enough she didn’t make the list.

Best regards
Gerd Voss
Head of Media & PR
Schalke 04

Cheryl Cole made Angel of the North

2008-12-05T06:59:00.000-08:00

An artist has created an image of what Antony Gormley's Angel of the North would have looked like had it been based on Cheryl Cole.

Lee Jones says he created the image after seeing the X Factor judge and her emotional reaction to performers “realizing” she is the living embodiment of the Angel of the North.

His version has Cheryl's Angel wiping away a tear with a tissue. It also features the curve of the singer’s ample breasts - guaranteed to make motorists miss their turning - at least.

‘As an artist I feel the overwhelming warmth of the Northern people towards Cheryl Cole, and I wanted to portray this by depicting her as our very own Angel of the North,’ said Jones. ‘I see her as a new Icon of popular culture for the 21st Century, a beacon of light in these bleak times… a fine example of a Northern lass making good.’

‘Angel’ will be exhibited at The Arts Club in London’s Mayfair in February 2009, and limited edition prints will be available at 2050Sports.com

Horse sex man jailed, shock

2008-12-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

A man has been jailed for having sex with a horse, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Leeroy Le Gallais, 46, initially used a bucket to stand behind the horse, called Calico, but made the schoolboy error of leaving his pants at the scene of the crime.

He was given a three-year probation order, but a few months later returned to have sex with the same horse at the Castel Stable in Guernsey.

Le Gallais told the court: ‘I had a few beers, I went to the stable and interfered with the horse. Maybe I had a little bit of an urge or something. I mean, like a sexual, a sexual thing, I suppose you could call it that.’

Defending, advocate Sara Mallett said her client had learning difficulties and his IQ was ‘very low’.

Mark Abell - a true Brit

2008-12-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

British businessman Mark Abell demonstrated some of the most stoically stiff upper lipped behaviour I’ve ever heard when he was caught in the terrorist attack on Mumbai’s Oberoi hotel last week.

Having had to barricade himself in his room, with gunmen roaming the corridors looking for Westerners to kill and with hardly any food and water he spoke to BBC radio’s Today programme.

As he talked he displayed incredible calm under fire. It was as if he had come out of a different epoch - the Indian Mutiny, for example. He must have been terrified, but sounded less nervous than a Labour minister discussing the economy.

‘We were too close for comfort’ and ‘it was very grim’ were two classics of understatement. It was an exceptional display of sang froid and great news that he got out of the Oberoi in one piece.

BBC survivors - who’s gone missing?

2008-11-26T01:45:00.000-08:00

I’ve watched the first two episodes of the BBC’s Survivors series and what a revelation it’s been.

I’m not talking about the strange continuity episodes - cars abandoned all over towns and cities but not a single one abandoned on the motorways... where you might find yourself if trying to escape something.

No - it’s the composition of the survivors. It’s all very politically correct; a mosque-going muslim, a black, female health minister, a lapsed muslim, a strong, mysterious black bloke, a female doctor with (I think) an eastern European name, the working class scouser with a dodgy past who will probably come good in the end (but maybe not)...

But no berths for the white middle class blokes (WMCB), it seems.

Not strictly true, actually - they do make an appearance, as the shotgun-wielding Dexter (strange name) - a Daily Mail reader if ever there was one; as the Claret-buried supermarket manager; as the government press officers telling huge porkies to the public; and, of course, as the sinister bloke who’s obviously up to something nasty in the lab.

The only vaguely positive WMCB is an outdoor activities centre manager who (briefly) makes the grade because he’s got good green credentials. And he, like John Prescott, is probably working class in origin...

The great pension scandal

2008-11-25T14:04:00.000-08:00

Great to see Channel 4 news getting the bit between its teeth about one of the biggest scandals in Britain today.

I'm (and they’re) talking public sector pensions – especially at a time when many workers are looking at cutting any pension contributions they may have to make ends meet.

A whopping 90 per cent of state employees will enjoy a final salary pension. If you’re in the private sector, then that figure is just 15 per cent (and falling).

It used to be that a generous pension was seen as recompense for years of average salaries. That’s not true now, though, with many public sector workers doing very well thank you very much - and probably not for working all that hard, either.

Bigger public sector wages equal a bigger bill for public sector pensions. Who’s paying for that? The good old taxpayer - who cannot afford to put money into their own pensions because they are paying so much tax to finance the pen pushers of the town hall.

And... while the rest of us are being encouraged to work to 65 and beyond, the public sector brigade all get to call it a day at 60.

Betting on airlines

2008-11-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

With the doom and gloom still as thick as a 1950s London smog, it is at least one thing that no more airlines have gone bust in recent weeks.

Paddy Power ran a book on which one would be next (now closed).

Sky Europe topped the at risk list at 5-2 with Alitalia in contention at 4-1. Both Spanair and Click looked worthy of a fiver at 10-1 the pair.

Pigeons in the guano

2008-10-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

The Telegraph reports that a number of pigeons have been arrested for spying on Iran’s nuclear sites... (and quite right too, the filthy infidel flying rats).

One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the Etemad Melli newspaper reported. It said that some metal rings and "invisible" strings were attached to the bird, suggesting that it might have been somehow communicating what it had seen with the equipment it was carrying.

"Early this month, a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring, with invisible strings," a source told the newspaper.

The source gave no further description of the pigeons, nor what their fate might be.

Natanz is home to Iran's heavily-bunkered underground uranium enrichment plant, which is also not far from Kashan.
The activity at Iran's controversial uranium enrichment facility is the focus of Iran's five-year standoff with the West, which fears it aims to develop nuclear weapons. The Tehran government insists its programme is intended to generate power for civilian use only.

Last year, Iran issued a formal protest over the use of espionage by the United States to produce a key intelligence report on the country's controversial nuclear programme.

It is also highly suspicious of Israel, whose extensive intelligence activities are not known to include the use of pigeons.

Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down...

2008-10-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

This site is genius...

www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com

Fantastic biscuit reviews. Might I recommend the analysis of how the Club biscuit has changed (and not for the better) and how the Lincoln is now only available in Ireland.

Ah, the Lincoln. That green packet, as I recall – Lincoln green, perhaps? A reference to Robin Hood and his Merry Men? Robbing the rich to give to the poor?

Doesn't seem more than a few months since I saw a packet of Lincoln, but I gather they went West some time ago.

Rickshaw bombers peddle death

2008-10-10T06:57:00.000-07:00

What a charming eastern touch to the whole thing. Had the bombs gone off, they'd have been stuck in traffic about 20 metres away.

Two terrorists caught rickshaws to escape the scene after leaving car bombs parked in London's busy West End, a court heard.

Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Kafeel Ahmed, 28, stationed one of the vehicles outside a packed nightclub and the other in front of a bustling bus stop, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

The cars, packed with gas canisters, petrol and nails, were left in the capital on June 29 last year but failed to explode because the initiation devices did not work properly, the jury heard.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC said the two men were captured on CCTV leaving the area in the early hours of that morning.

Ahmed was seen dumping into a bin an umbrella he had apparently been carrying to shield his face from cameras.

At 1.39am he boarded a rickshaw in Piccadilly Circus and Abdulla also adopted the same mode of transport to get away from the area.

The two men met up in Edgware Road at 2.05am, just 30 minutes after they had left the bomb-rigged cars, the court heard.

Ahmed died in hospital after a second attempted terrorist attack, on Glasgow Airport, the following day.

Abdulla is standing trial with Mohammed Asha, 28, accused of conspiring to murder and to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

Abdulla, of Houston, Glasgow, and Asha, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, are both doctors who have worked in NHS hospitals around the country. They both deny the charges.

Story of the day

2008-10-08T07:18:00.000-07:00

(Thanks to ITV news)

Police are investigating after a cook was found dead in a freezer at the primary school where she worked.

Officers said the body of Linda Gent, 53, was discovered at South Benfleet Primary School in Benfleet, Essex, late on a Saturday.

She had been reported missing 15 hours earlier.

Sources said detectives are not treating the incident as murder, but a report was being prepared for a coroner.

Police said a post-mortem examination had failed to reveal a cause of death and further tests were being carried out.

A source close to the inquiry added: "Her body was found in a freezer at the school."

Sources said one possibility being considered was that Mrs Gent, who lived in Benfleet, had killed herself.

Mrs Gent had worked at the school since the late 1980s and staff and children were said to be "devastated".

"Everyone connected with South Benfleet Primary School has been devastated by the sudden death of Linda Gent, our school cook," said head Dominic Carver.

"Mrs Gent was a hugely popular and highly-valued member of our catering team. Her positive contribution of about 20 years at the school has been magnificent."

Tumbril for Mr Fuld

2008-10-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

If anyone deserves to be chopped up and fed to rabid alligators it is Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld.

In March, this money-grabbing vermin was awarded a $22 million bonus for 2007. His bank duly went under and marked the beginning of the world's current financial woes.

That amount of money is staggering. Whatever happens in the world economy Mr Fuld is going to be fine - as are all those other financial wizards who are responsible for the world economy going into a tailspin.

Set up a guillotine in Canary Wharf and dispatch the lot of them. Mr Fuld could be first.

Great Irishman crops up at Compton Verney

2008-10-06T05:27:00.000-07:00

Jack Yeats, brother of the poet William Butler Yeats, was arguably the best-known Irish painter of the 20th century, but exhibitions of his work are rare outside his homeland.

That makes English gallery Compton Verney’s new show, Masquerade and Spectacle: The Circus and the Travelling Fair, all the more welcome – especially as it is paired with a selection of works on a broadly similar theme by Yeats’ friend, the Austrian expressionist Oskar Kokoschka.

Yeats, born in 1871, was fascinated by circuses from an early age, when he would visit them when they came to his hometown of Sligo. Later, his family moved to London’s Earls Court, close to where Buffalo’s Bill Great Realistic Exhibition of Western Novelties was on show.

Yeats’ paintings capture an element of Irish society that was both pivotal but also on the wane – as cinema began to gain sway as a form of entertainment. His paintings show fairground characters such as the Barrel Man – half-in, half-out of a barrel, dodging out of the way of the sticks that are being hurled at him – and the Two Jockeys, hurtling around the ring balanced on a horse’s rump a white-faced clown at their side.

Yeats was also aware of the politics of the time. His 1910 picture An Occupation features a green-clad man carrying a heavy bucket of meat towards a bear’s cage while the animal pokes its nose through the bars in anticipation. The title refers to the man’s unglamorous, backstage job, but is thought also to tip its hat to the fact that Ireland was at the time ‘occupied’ by the British.

Compton Verney is unique among leading English galleries in that it is housed in an imposing stately home that was designed by Robert Adam in the 1760s. In 1993, in an advanced state of decay, it was bought by the Peter Moores Foundation, which spent the next 11 years (and an estimated £64m) transforming the property into a world-class art gallery, finally opening it to the public in 2004.

Compton Verney is seven miles east of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, UK.
Jack B Yeats: Masquerade & Spectacle: The Circus and the Travelling Fair is on show in conjunction with Oskar Kokoschka: Exile and New Home 1938-1980 until 14 December.

Well fancy that...

2008-10-06T04:47:00.000-07:00

Harry Enfield has had to axe a Muslim hoodie from his new show. Incredible he ever thought that it would be a good idea for a character, really, funny as it would undoubtedly be. It would probably have ended with Enfield being fatwa’d and his effigy being burnt from Kabul to Kidderminster.

This from The Daily Telegraph.

The 47-year-old sketch show comedian was ordered by executives at production company Tiger Aspect to scrap plans to play the unnamed Muslim because it might “cause trouble”. [No, do you really think so?]

Enfield, who was recently named Loaded Legend at Loaded magazine's annual Lafta comedy awards, said that he was also warned not to play paedophile Catholic priest Father Paddy, another new character, for the same reason.
Enfield said: “I was told, ‘Don't even go there’.”

Tiger Aspect Productions said that the decision not to include the unnamed Muslim Hoodie and Father Paddy had been taken a long time before the series aired and so the ban on the characters had not affected the show's production or launch.

A spokesman said: ‘The characters never made it further than the page. This was a decision taken collectively by key members of the production team at the time of making the series almost two years ago.’

Feed the croc

2008-10-03T04:01:00.000-07:00

Good effort by the youngster – breaks into both a zoo and the croc’s enclosure... And manages not to be gobbled up himself.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The parents of a 7-year-old boy who broke into an Australian outback zoo and fed a string of small animals to its resident crocodile are likely to be sued after police said the boy was too young to be held responsible.

A turtle, four western blue tongue lizards, two bearded dragons, two thorny devil lizards and a 1.8 metre (5.9ft) adult female Spencer's goanna were fed or led into the jaws of a 3 metre, 200kg (440lb) saltwater crocodile named "Terry."

Security camera footage at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre showed the smiling youngster also bludgeoning to death a small blue tongue lizard and two more thorny devils during a half-hour of breakfast-time havoc last Wednesday.

"The fact a 7-year-old can wreak so much havoc in such a short time, it's unbelievable. In my day he'd get a big boot up the backside," centre director Rex Neindorf told Reuters by phone.

"Police found him, but in the Northern Territory here he can't be accountable if he's under 10 years of age."

Neindorf said many of the animals fed to the croc were rare or mature and would be difficult to replace.

The boy was unknown at the centre and had "clammed up" when questioned by police on what sparked the rampage, he said.

Neindorf said he was now looking at suing the parents of the pint-sized terror, who could easily have been taken by Terry himself as he fed the croc from a small landing at his enclosure.

"We'll be looking at suing the parents, who were supposedly in control of him at the time," he said.

Headline of the day

2008-10-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

Goes to the Daily Telegraph for the following:

Archbishop Peter Akinola cites sheep sex arrest as proof of Britain’s moral decline

Archbishop Peter Akinola may have a point.

Two wheels good

2008-07-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

Heard the Tories and Labour debating who has the biggest claim to cycling on the Today programme this morning.

It was all a bit bizarre, really. David Cameron and all pedaling away like fury. Labour saying it was a working class sport. Less working class when you’re flitting about on three grand’s worth of Canondale, perhaps.

But... there are now speed gate things on the Regent’s Canal (very Labour) – presumably to make sure no cyclists mow down one of the fearsome looking dogs that stalk the banks, or the drunken and hostile anglers, or the drug dealers.

Chavs batter cops

2008-07-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

Holy crap.

Teenage girl drops litter. Policemen tell her to pick it up. She does, but then drops it. Police not happy. Mob attempts to lynch police. Police rescued by truckloads more police.

This is absolutely bonkers. At what stage is it OK to batter the police over a bit of litter. Come to think of it, at what stage is it OK to drop litter.

Put with the crazed fashion for stabbings, this shows just how insanely out of control is chav culture.

All that surveillance. All that bleating about ID cards. All that hammering of folk over parking fines and whatnot... And the real deal is that a good chunk of the population is feral.

What we need to solve it are some committees and targets, I reckon. That’ll take care of it. And some more citizenship lessons.

Sweater girl research

2008-07-10T14:40:00.001-07:00

On reflection, I think the chap mentioned in my last post was confusing Lana Turner with Betty Grable.

Easy mistake to make.

The picture clearly shows a sweater and dates to 1939, apparently.

Uxbridge earwig

2008-07-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

Was up at Uxbridge this afternoon to see Middlesex v the touring South Africans. Not a particularly interesting day’s cricket as the visitors plundered a weak Middlesex attack.

Overheard three older chaps talking. I couldn’t help but listen after I heard this…

‘Of course, Bridgitte Bardot was a sex kitten... And just look at her now.’

[general agreement]

‘And Dorris Day…’

[more assent]

At this point the second chap chimed in...

‘Of course, you’re a little bit older than us. Do you remember Betty Grable?’

‘Oh yes. The girl in the sweater?’

‘No. The legs, the legs.’

The conversation progressed to tales of National Service days. The Betty Grable questioner was recounting an episode that had brought him into contact with a colonel in the Home Guard, whose brown boots he remembered vividly.

‘He hadn’t served in the Second World War. He hadn’t served in the First World War. He’d served in the Boer War…’

You wan’ skunk?

2008-07-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

On my way home I tend to pass through Camden on the Regent’s Canal. On the towpath of the Regent’s Canal, to be exact.

For years, this has been a place that is positively heaving with drug dealers and it has been rare to see a police officer in the vicinity.

In recent weeks, I think this has changed. Not sure if that is to do with the new Mayor of London or not. Tonight there were four PCOs and four fully fledge Met officers down there. Admittedly, they were grilling a pair of hagard-looking, ageing Camden druggies and there wasn’t a dealer in sight, but it seem as if at least a point was being made.

Won’t be so good, of course, when the dealers decamp to outside Defiant Towers.

Sir’s shirt, sir

2008-07-02T15:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve been more busy than a busy thing and I’ve rather let the Defiant slip. Nobody likes a slipped Defiant.

Still, I did buy a couple of shirts from TM Lewin today. I noticed recently that they didn’t have a sale on. That came as a surprise, because I thought they always had a sale on. Suffice to say, the sale is now back on so it’s £25 for what seems to me a perfectly decent, smartish shirt that can be worn in the orifice.

Noticed that the folks working there put on airs and graces à la Jeeves or Bunter. I always find that quite endearing in a cut-price shirt emporium where there are a plate of boiled sweets amid the silken knots and other bits ’n’ bobs.

Helped myself to a Murray Mint – seemed only appropriate given our boy was about to go into battle against the unfeasibly muscular Nadal. It was rather good (the mint, not the tennis). Don’t think I’ve had one since 1984.

BOA constrictors

2008-04-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve noticed a plague of acronyms on work-based emails. LOL, OMG and the rest.

Well, I’ve got one of my own.

BOA - short for Bunch of Arse.

Incidentally, that is how I would describe MEPs decision to mask their dodgy expenses by keeping an auditors’ report secret.

By God, they frighten me

2008-04-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

AP reports that the US Army and Marines is recruiting more people with felony convictions than last year.

The number of soldiers admitted with convictions was 511 in 2007 compared to 249 in 2006. The number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350. Included in the list are some with sex crime convictions and others with manslaughter and gun offences.

They all sound perfect.

Believe the Duke of Wellington said something about his troops being ‘the scum of the earth’ during the Napoleonic Wars. Not suggesting that’s true of the US military’s new recruits, of course, but it shows how difficult it is proving to get significant numbers of volunteers to fight a war on several fronts.

The USAF did not admit anyone with any felonies, but then they’re generally not getting shot at in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or less dramatically, anyway.

Gordon Brown - an apology

2008-04-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

I may not normally be a fan of Gordon Brown and I haven’t forgotten how smug he looked when reviewing all those Red Guards in China.

But he has shown some guts and decency in providing some condemnation of Mugabe and his merry men. Now, that may be because he wants to make some sort of historical contribution before being kicked out of power, but that’s not really the point if it does something in improving life in Zimbabwe.

On the subject of Chairman Broon... what about his teeth? They look really weird all of a sudden, as if someone has been painting them white. It must be all part of his new, smily image... but it just doesn’t look right. It doesn’t go with his grumpy, dour Scottish mug.

Well done on Zimbabwe, though.

Send in the (very) Old Guard

2008-04-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

Following on from yesterday’s post... BBC reports that two RAF personnel have been killed in Afghanistan.

One of them was a 51-year-old reservist, SAC Gary Thompson. 51 years old... People of that age weren’t even at the sharp end at the end of World War I, when millions had already been killed.

How bad can it be that blokes of 51 (an age when any civil servant worth his final salary pension scheme has probably already got his feet up) are on the front-ish line against the Taliban?

The BBC account is enough to make you weep... Johnson had five daughters, who he said inspired him to re-join the RAF to serve against the likes of the Taliban – whose attitude to women has always been atrocious.

Pay thine enemy

2008-04-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

This is genius.

An Iraqi is accidently shot by a British soldier and he is awarded £2m compensation. British soldiers are immolated, paralyzed and mentally ruined in Iraq and Afghanistan and they’re lucky to get £100,000.

And they’re surprised there is a lack of volunteers for the army.

Rumour is several elderly German blokes are getting their claims for compensation ready.

Jamie and the magic flan

2008-04-10T15:00:00.001-07:00

So free range chicken hero Jamie Oliver is soon to be teaching us how to live in tune with wartime austerity (as recession looms, food crisis hits, fuel bills rocket, home-grown Al Qaeda terrorists blow us to kingdom come and Four Horsemen of Apocalypse gallop over Hampstead Heath).

Can’t wait. Oh for the joys of dried egg, coffee from acorns (or was that only in Germany) and cabbage on cardboard.

Then we can all nip down the Anderson Shelter for a good sing-song. I’d have recommended the Tube station for this latter purpose, but that might not be such a good idea knowing our fundamentalist pals’ propensity for blowing themselves up in such places.

Dewsbury’s necktie party

2008-04-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I may have made some comments about Karen Matthews, who I may have suggested was a lying, cheating cretin.

I’m not necessarily going back on that opinion, but I have started - in spite of everything - feeling ever so slightly sorry for her.

Why? Because her charming neighbours want to lynch her. And probably would if it wasn't for about two dozen police being between her and them at all times.

The scenes outside the courtroom today were, to use an over-used tabloid word, chilling. The thuggish, tracksuited, portly citizens of Dewsbury were a sight to behold.

Funny that so many were there are on a work day, come to think of it. Must have understanding bosses.

And how come they're all so fat if they're so poor? Must be the fat gene. Funny how no-one with the fat gene was ever in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

House price shock, shock

2008-04-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

Noticed the Evening Standard's billboard today said 'House price collapse shock' or words to that effect.

Shock? Who's shocked? The media seems so keen to talk us into a recession and/or house price slump that it isn't shocking at all.

Guess you have to sell newspapers somehow. Especially when you're losing readers to freesheets which, while drivel, seem to be what people are grabbing on their way home.

On that subject - why on earth do people insist on leaving copies of Metro and whatnot all over tube stations. At Old Street, commuters constantly dump them at the bottom of the escalator - despite announcements asking them not to. What on earth is wrong with them? Why do they think that's a reasonable place to leave a discarded newspaper?

Cretins, I'm afraid.

Shameless insight into underclass

2008-04-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

Shannon Matthews. Could it really be that her family copied a script from Shameless to fake her abduction?

Sounds too much of a tabloid dream, but this is some unbelievable family who provide a grim insight into Britain's underclass.

There's Shannon's mum, popping out seven kids with five different men in about 12 years. The 22-year-old child porn dabbling fishmonger. The weird uncle slicing himself up in prison. You couldn't make it up.

Good to know where our taxes are going - giving endless cash to this kind of scrounging, amoral, ignorant cretin. And good to know that Gudrun Broon knows how to spend our money so much better than we do.

Ken needs the posh vote

2008-04-05T03:51:00.000-07:00

Interested analysis on politicalbetting.com about the London mayoral election.

In particular, how well Ken Livingstone did in wealthier areas of London last time out. Question is, whether he will manage to do the same this time. My feeling is that the Lee Jasper scandal plus Ken’s general attitude of behaving a bit above the law may come back to haunt.

Boris Johnson may well have more an appeal to the folks in Winchmore Hill and Hampstead than did Steve Norris. More old Etonian charm and less used car dealer blag.

Daily Mail bemoans spelling test

2008-04-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

Interesting to see the Daily Mail blaming Britons’ inability to spell on text messaging.

Says the paper: ‘Of 2,500 surveyed, 40 per cent could not spell "questionnaire", 38 per cent were stumped by "accommodate" and 37 per cent were defeated by "definitely".

Around a third of those questioned were unable to spell "liaison", "existence" or "occurrence".

Other simple words which caused problems were "calendar", "embarrass", "library" and "receipt".

Two-thirds blamed their inability to get words right on the predictive text function on their mobile phones.’

Fair enough - but that rate of mis-spelling seems comparatively good. Only a third can’t spell liaison? In my experience it’s more than that - and among people for whom words are allegedly their living. Bit harsh to lay this all at the door of predictive text, as well. Maybe more to do with handing out ‘A’ grades in exams to all and sundry... without checking if anyone can spell.

The Mail’s list of supposedly simple words was:

1. Questionnaire 2. Accommodate 3. Definitely 4. Liaison 5. Existence 6. Occurrence 7. Referring 8. Occurred 9. Millennium 10. Embarrass 11. Calendar 12. Receive 13. Necessary 14. Separate 15. Cemetery 16. Library 17. Accidentally 18. Independent 19. Occasionally 20. Receipt

Uncontrolled immigration bad thing, shock

2008-04-01T14:59:00.001-07:00

Well, how long before Gordon Brown has another pop at the House of Lords, then? He can’t be pleased by the Lords’ committee suggesting today that maybe unfettered immigration hasn’t been a great idea.

No kidding? Brown and his increasingly remote cohorts should come and try out the real world with the rest of us. Schools where the majority of kids don’t speak English, pressure on health service resources, shortage of housing supply. I suggest he takes a walk around Bethnal Green, or takes a bus from Victoria Coach Station, or tries to get treated in A&E in central London. He might realise that perhaps his policy of letting in all and sundry might not be such a good thing for the majority of us.

And could Broon have less charisma? His comments today on Harriet Harperson’s Peckham flak jacket had to be heard to be believed. Wooden to the point of being a table.

Al Fayed on the Duke of Edinburgh

2008-03-31T15:15:00.000-07:00

Shades of Henry II and Thomas Beckett about Mohammed Al Fayed’s latest offering at the Diana inquest. In particular, his suggestion that the Duke of Edinburgh’s grumblings about the Princess and Dodi may have led some establishment insider or insiders to take matters into their own hands.

‘Who will rid me of this turbulent blonde…’

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1311227,00.html

The Defiant - much promise... bit of a flop

2008-03-31T14:59:00.000-07:00

I grew up next to a farm in Leicestershire. Our garden was overlooked by a barn which had its manufacturer’s nameplate at the top. It was Boulton Paul (or Boulton & Paul) – I can't quite be sure.

But I soon discovered that Boulton Paul was famous for more than just ageing barns in Midlands farmyards. A casual reading of the Airfix catalogue, probably in about 1975, revealed that Boulton Paul had produced an aircraft that had served (albeit unspectacularly) in the Battle of Britain. That kind of link between past and present was gripping to an eight-year-old.

The Defiant, as a matter of fact, had a rather glorious start to its career. It looked like a conventional fighter plane of the day, but actually had a rear gun turret. So, if you were a Luftwaffe pilot and didn't know that you would come sneaking up behind and get a blast of lead up your nose courtesy of the rear gunner.

But then, in the words of www.battleofbritain.net, ‘the Luftwaffe pilots got their measure and the glory days of the Defiant were over... They were to become death traps for their crews, incapable of dog fighting, and they became far too slow in getting away from the incoming enemy.’

Worse still, the Defiant was hard to get out of once it was shot up. Generally all a bit of a bad show.