A quick chuckle

Had to take a second look at this piece from auntie. And a screen pic - just in case they change it.

"Five arrested in joint operation

Five people have been arrested and drugs with a street value of £1m seized in an operation by Thames Valley Police and the Prison Service.

Search warrants were executed at houses in Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Coventry, London and Southampton.

About £100,000 of cash was also recovered in the raids on Wednesday..."

So how big was the joint, this particular operation managed to handle?

Bad brown

There is a great trend for those who are already highly skilled to be working with employers - who so value their skills and experience - that they will go out of their way to ensure those are kept up to date and relevant.

But work your way further down the greasy ladder of employment, until you reach the heady world of the temp, agency workers and employment agencies; where your current skill-set, reasonable ability to work (or at least shuffle papers around and click the mouse button a couple of times per hour) is all that matters.

It is is up to you, to ensure your skills are better than just up-to-date.  To, as week follows week, keep abreast of developments, new legislation, protocols that are produced in any arena of work, but especially in any area where computers play a very big part.

If however, you are unemployed and poor, then your ability to improve your employability decreases at an exponentially marked level. 

The job centres are really only concerned that you can read/write/apply for a job (any job), forgetting that having this lowest common line in the sand is damaging in the long term, to the economy, the unemployed person whilst bolstering the how much can we get away with paying mentality. 

Case in point been tjk parent of tk maxx, of the losing millions (45.7) of customers banking details and making the uk government look competent in comparison, company based in the us. Yes this company pays a bit more than the minimum wage for its uk staff. But the staff forego overtime pay, easily working an extra 4+hrs over allotted scheduling per week. Breaks are short. Cancelable at short notice, as the one off goods are priced up for consumers to whip off the shelves.

But back to the point.

Colleges, which used to have subsidised courses for those who where unemployed - but keen to re-enter employment by re-skilling - now find they have to scrap particular courses under the current governments "re-balancing" of educational need towards those in the 16-20 year old age bracket. With those over the upper age, considered over the hill and past it!

In today's environment, webdesign, plumbing, engineering, are a few courses of note that would be beneficial to potential employers and to those seeking work. With the added bonus of improving the unemployeds earning potential, way beyond that of the idle giro payout; thrown in. 

But the Wisdom of Brown seems to be striking again. As those very same courses have been favourably targeted towards the under 21's whilst those over 20 are forced to consider different courses or learn by themselves as the courses are no longer subsidised, or even worse, have been cut altogether.  Sort of when Mrs Thatcher made away with the milk and deprived many growing children (from deprived backgrounds) of a valuable source of daily calcium and nutrients.

Invariably as this carries on, it will mean temp/part-time workers will have to create and fund their own learning map.  Which is as it should be, as generally they're financially on par, or better off, in the particular employment situation they currently inhabit than their full-time slave to the boss colleagues.

During my webering (web wondering), bumped across this carton from Paul Toner on his ruebritannia site. Excellent work.

Lowest of the low

So a Doctor who rushes to the aid an elderly person injured in an accident -and forgets to remove her keys - has her car stolen, obviously from an opportunistic parasite at the scene. 

There will be those who say it's her own fault for not removing the keys, after all it only takes a second. But those few seconds could be all it takes, for that person she's rushed to help, to die in.

I just hope the person who's nicked it doesn't need to be cut out of an upturned car, waiting for the emergency services to cut her/him (more likely to be a him) out.  Only to have it burst into flames and him (or her) burnt to a crisp; all because the services have to go through those extra few seconds of procedural diligence, due to the lowest of the low!

Instead of village stocks, we should have tasering posts.  Were the victim of criminal activity can, if they wish, go along to off-load a well aimed taser.

Own goal raspberries

Have decided to throw a couple of raspberries at myself, for forgoing that staple of the written word - no not self censorship - but proof reading.  But then, it's not always the case that undergoing umpteen amendments ensures the best body of work. 

Sometimes the only things amendments, changes and redrafting achieve, is the neutering of that initial burst of enthusiastic anger, which threatened to burst a couple of blood vessels or two.

Luckily, this particular entry only required the one (well nearly one) redraw. Now, where's my musings on the olympics.....

Dead Mercenaries Found in Tskhinvali

One side of me had to muse on this for this while. But I suppose it could well be true.

'Authorities in the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia claim that dark-skinned mercenaries took part in the attack on Tskhinvali, reports RIA Novosti, citing representative of the South Ossetian president in Russia Dmitry Medoev. He said there were bodies of many Georgian soldiers on the streets on Tskhinvali. “There were blacks among the dead, who were probably either mercenaries or instructors in the Georgian armed forces,” Medoev said.

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity had said earlier that mercenaries were fighting with the Georgian forces. That information has not been confirmed in Tbilisi.
Latest information indicates that the Georgian Foreign Ministry has announced the withdrawal of its forces from the conflict zone. Russian peacekeepers have not confirmed that information, however.'

Taken verbatim from, the Russia's Daily online english version news otherwise known as kommersant.  But then I thought yes it probably is possible.  After all there couldn't be any Georgian soldiers who happen to be darker than the President... surely that sort of thing, just isn't possible.

Golden dragon - the computer says no!

No not a swipe about the olympics, but it does start tomorrow. Oh I can just see the disasters.  No nothing about the olympics, except that.

A wee tale about the bending of space and time? No. Of warp-holes in the fabric of macadam tarmac? Again no. 

This is a regaling tale, of the dire state of trying to order a chinese takeaway. Supposedly, in one of the most populated chinese takeaway parts of the globe.

The fridge was bare. The flatmate, although soon to leave for pastures new was elsewhere entertaining, and so it was a case of what should I do. 

Over to friends?  No, I'm sure they're tired of giving me doggy bags to take home.  Hmm. I could pop to the "salmonella" café and spend the rest of the morning heaving as it leaves my system...

A couple of hours zip along before I realise I've tied myself into a tizzy. I should just relax. Count the pennies and bring out the faithful old dusty chinese menu, for a treat. 

Proceed to give them a call, only to hear "I'm sorry. The number you have dialled has not been recognised, please check and try again." 

And I do.

Of course, my phone's speed-touch button had misdialed?  It couldn't be a network fault or the business closed down? Perhaps just another exchange's stopped working?

So I do a little online search on yell.co.uk, justeat.co.uk. And pick out the nearest two.  Dial the first and start to order...

"It will cost you an extra pound," the order taker informs me. "You're too far!"

"To far? I'm not even one and half miles away from you. How can I be too far!"

"The computer says you're to far."

Apparently, the system they use to calculate the food bill also incorporates a postcode checker, which can't be overwritten (suppose it avoids tampering by the staff) so he couldn't do anything. 

Obviously the credit crunch isn't affecting this particular business as they're more than happy to lose my order, because to all intents and purposes, the computer said "no!"

Do I hear a "so what?"

Well the main reason I was so particularly irked was, in comparison, the company that I usually call up is approximately - thank heavens for dependable google - 2.5 miles or 4.1 km (one way), and doesn't charge delivery if the amount of the meal exceeds £9. Whereas this interloper company wanted to charge an extra pound for less than two-thirds the distance, whilst requiring a spend of at least £10, to be entitled for free delivery.

So I try another restaurant, which is 1.4 miles away only to have the number permanently engaged.  No-doubt myself and another 500 people using re-dial.  Perhaps it was a major hack on chinese takeaways by the "hackus of tibet".  Or maybe, it was just one of nights. 

I had forgotten how delicious beans on toast could taste. Had to include that link, as I came across it in my ever frantic attempts at finding something.  Even though the webowner thought it looked unpleasant, it looked far more appetising than the fare I managed to eventually scrape together and swallow down.

When I initially penned this, the last sentence was going to end on a dire trembler.  But the olympics started and russia invaded. Bombs went off, the international community showed just how impotent it is when dealing with an ex-upandcoming-muscleflexing superpower. 

I just hope the games can make it through without any other major incidents taking place.  That would be nice. And in honour of the sporting achievements been created by the many thousands of athletes taking part in this years olympiad here's a wee collage...

... or it will be, once it's finished.

Rambling missives - revisited

At 01:22hrs (GMT) watched the Constable Savage clip from youtube. Not on the official auntie channel, or any of the other "authorised" terrestrial, cable or satellite channels, but from a link posted on a comment read from the PC Pro website) and remembered just how comically excellent the "Not The Nine O'Clock News" series was.  Enjoyed it so much, I will now consider purchasing the series on DVD - if that is, they're out. 

It's little things like this which, over the years, enable people to remember things they've forgotten (have I just uttered a bushism?) - which those silly companies that wish to take people to court should consider is actually helping to keep their income streams flapping around in the breeze.  People will watch and see far more in the future from the interwebual than by simply sitting in front of a slivering television box watching the latest advert about henna hair. 

But then the television box will in turn become even more interactive and replace the noisy PC. We can simply wave our arms in the air (aka the Wii wave) and become even more athletically couch-potatoesque, by waving our arms in the air more vigorously (whilst sweating and obtaining a hernia) in a half-assed attempt to get even more complicated remote controls functions, to do what the old plastic wedge of a remote used to do, so simply and easily before.

In the meantime, the big companies with bosses who make whopping bonuses will instead of properly bearing down on those criminals who repackage the entire DVD for resale at t'pence ha'penny, continue turning their fire and brimstone lawyers onto those people who use these little memory aides to recapture such long lost moments.

So it's a yes to "go after those making millions illicitly copying dvd's/vids etc for resale" in pubs, clubs, on the street, down Mr Parokies cornershop. But think again about the others.  The many who will actually buy those overpriced shining tea coasters.  For those of us wondering what all the fuss is about, let's just hope we only get that fly on the wall experience by reading the headlines in a Sunday paper; that the judiciary or legislative/lawmakers have finally worked out, who the real cowboys are!

And then we have Alistair Darling saying that the government aren't sure yet about what to exactly do, to help those mortgage buyers suffering from the credit-crunch.  Doesn't know what to do? What have the government been doing since all this started so many months ago?  If they initially believed what was happening in the US wouldn't wing its way over here and then make plans for it then they don't deserve to be in power, neither do the conservative party as they didn't have anything much better in place or to say either.

"A return to family values", not quite sure how that equates to been better by doing without tv, internet access, mobile phones, consoles. Smacks more of a return to the buggy and cart, quill and parchment, with food been brought in by the servants period.  But then caravanning's on the up. More people realise we can do without the latest updated upgrade and it's so much more environmentally friendly.

The olympics... 3 days and counting.

Dickens would be so proud of our brave new world - a rambling missive

Forcing people back to work, if they are unable to find work or are incapacitated, sounds like a return to Charles Dicken's country.  You could see the great man himself flicking through the pages of today's papers with depressed resignation at the direction the current government, opposition party and general populace are seemingly headed. 

With the ban on smoking, kill joys are now working on drinking, no doubt after that we'll all have to wear the correct type of clothing otherwise we'll be sent to the gallows.

Soon to, no doubt, as too many people will be perceived to be enjoying themselves, the holiday periods will be rolled back and working hours increased under the guise of research showing that if people didn't have so much free time they wouldn't:

1. get drunk so often,
2. have enough time to be obese eating all that balanced food

Whilst those who had too much free time on their hands would be made to work a 50 hour week for the benefit of the community, ensuring they are no longer:

1. idly unemployed and going around robbing people,
2. have time to smoke and so become less of a drain on the health service - eventually,
3. need to live in deprived areas and having offspring turn into feral beasts - through boredom and nothing else better to do.

Yes, it's mainly those who are poor, whom the political chatterers and right of Stalin editors seem to have it in for.  If you're rich and wealthy then you can ensure your offspring are suitably taken care of by the chauffeur and bodyguards, even if they would rather be rogering the missus.

It's could, perhaps, be also true that there are shirkers out there who find the problem of moving to pick up a remote control, to much effort.  But the vast majority do want to work. Meaningful work.  Work, that at the end of the day makes them feel like they have made a difference. Work that is more than the means to a basic existence. 

Unlike, investment bankers, whose idea of making a difference is knowing they've pushed a few million more people further into poverty or destroyed the meager savings of another bunch of pensioners.  For this group, the government should barrel down with increased legislation.  Raise taxes so many of them actually pay proper taxes.  But will they? No. As the government is in fear they will up sticks and leave for easier climes.  Not realising that in reality, easier climes could only be had at the beach house.

A spineless government that believes this group will simply up sticks and leave, creating chaos and plunging the country into ruin. Perhaps.  but with the bloodsuckers gone, ramping up inflation (especially housing), then the vast majority will be able to manage on the average meager wage, and anyhow they will have to learn how to, once China and India truly begin their inexorable climb to burgeoning middle-class hood and their respective Bourses surpass the london stock exchange.  Then the redistribution of traders will begin as the lse fades into the distant horizon, overtaken by the far east and a new european financial exchange, the last dreams of empire finally fading into the mists.

Been at work is bad for your health, especially in this day age; unless you work for google or apple and perhaps - at a push - ibm. 

In london on any working day just - if you can bear it - travel on london underground and look at your fellow travellers.  Rarely will you see anyone smiling or laughing. If they are, it's a firm bet they are tourists, or passing through, or have only lived in the capital for 6 months and not yet had the happiness and love for life beaten out of them.  But just look at the people going to work. It's a chore, the majority don't enjoy it, but they keep doing it.  For they know if they don't, that they could be that grubby beggar pestering everyone for 10 pence or is it now £50, to help buy a cup of tea.  Heaven forbid they end up like that, so away they beaver and work. 

To be fair there are people who have lived in the capital for 10 or more years and are still happy. But then they have homes overseas, holiday 20 times a year, worked hard and don't have to endure more than they need to.

But for those stuck within the boundaries of the M25 and its lofty green fields, the constant grind has the subtleness of your own personal pneumatic drill.

Changing planets

With the ever increasing noise about climate change and how it will affect the planet and all the species it contains, perhaps now is the correct time to think about what comes after. 

Imagine all that captured carbon solidified and compressed into a small space then been carted over to mars.   With the leaps and advances made in the arena of ameliorating the worst effects our own climate folly could embue upon us, the flip side could be the knowledge to change another worlds atmosphere to one of our own suiting.  Yes that wonderful science fiction staple that is known as terraforming.

Security vetoes blood soaked hands?

Amazed at the shocks revereberating around the "developed" world that two permanent members of the security council vetoed the implementation of sanctions against Zimbabwe...

Let's see now?

Russia! Oh yes, a poster child for democracy. Not poisioning ex-spies it disagrees with, nor grabbing assets that under a different premier would have been sold off for cheap trinkets - like a tantrum child. Nor showing how manly and muscular it can be by posing with upper torso exposed whilst fishing. With a tenuous, almost Mugabgiesque view of what democracy should be, that's permanent member security veto number 1.

Then there's China, sigh. Ivory back on the market, promoting quiet diploamcy whilst buying up the "developing" - as if the entire world is not in a continual state of developemnt - world's resources, but unlike the Mugabe regimie more likely to imprision for decades as opposed to have the army or ex-army go around and kill them. Duff them up a bit yes. Kill them? No! Well, if you don't take into account Tibet, or the Tiananmen Square massacres (nearly 20 years ago - strange that it still feels like yesterday), or the Falun Gong 'sect', or "AIDS activists have been followed by police and beggars rounded up." And there we have permanent member security veto number 2.

So with all that and China soon to be in bed with Russia over oil & gas, supply and demand, then it should come as no surprise at all ,that things went the way they did in the UN security vote.

And there's obvioulsy going to be no surprise when the 1920's recession clips our chirpy wings, bringing us down from the heady clouds of the never-never we (oh so seemingly briefly) inhabited, to the scrabbling scorched earth of the never-never again.

IndyMac Bank, with perhaps Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae going the same way and destroying 50% of the US mortgage backed guarantees, the green back is looking, as each day passes, more the sick puppy that will soon be on its back in the advanced stages of rigor mortis; with everyone saying 'how did it happen?'

Well those who wouldn't be giving thanks that the great satan has been laid low.

Living on £1.64 a day

Can you live on £1.64 a day in one of the worlds greatest capitals, and remain fit, healthy, in charge of all your faculties, and still have change left over for an end of the month slap up meal?

Yes? Then write in and let us all into your little secret.

No?

Living on £1,640 per day?

Then write in and let us all in your secret.

Broken distillation

Some are born to greatness, some achieve greatness and wholesome fulfillment in their lifetime, others strive for greatness only to find mediocrity; whilst some (the vast majority) no matter how much they strive, continue sinking into the mire.

Never forget that so much has to be distilled and broken down into bite-sized chunks of understanding.

Passing calamities

This was initially tapped, but left in draft form, during the merry month of May.   However, after another reading, realised there's nothing better than a bit of optimism to get the adrenalin going.

Half the year has more or less passed under the metaphoristic bridge. With more disasters, impending disasters possibly followed by a slew of really great big whopping disasters.  All ensuring we haven't totally forgotten, what a disaster feels like!

Dutch Pig Poo

Ah that time of year, when easterly winds have at us and drag the farming air from the Netherlands and northern Europe across the UK.

So for the next day or so, the smells won't be you or your neighbour, but the after-effects of farming cultivation.  Having serious second thoughts about country living.

Grammatical faux pas

That's the problem when undertaking the bish bosh principle when commenting and enjoying a tiple of cider at the same time.  Brain to finger co-ordination exponentially diminish, whilst blind righteous indignation grows ever stronger! 

Best to be avoided at all cost, as the point is swamped by the readers inability to get beyond the  wrongness of a piece.

Breadless

Egypt, once the bread basket of an empire, is now running short of subsidised bread due to the rising cost of wheat. 

But when everything is a commodity, everything has a price.  And heaven help those who don't have the ability to leverage, as they'll be squeezed further into the gutter and labelled as terrorists if they complain.

End of Easter

Well easter monday is finally here, with flurries of snow - luckily for us Londoners - deciding not to settle.

But with flakes the size of plates descending from the sky, it seemed appropriate to take a picture or two.  At least it makes up for the lack of anything meaningful over the christmas period.

Going back a day or two the peace, which does briefly occur between blaring sirens, was rudely broken by the appearance of another low flying-ish helicopter. 

A whole heap, of Chancellors doings

Well the first budget brought into existence by Alistair Darling is a roasted horse chestnuts load of landfill waste. Which will be made ever higher by his inaction.

I imbibe the odd drink and smoke way to much. So yes it's a crap budget for me. More taken out, as ever.

With 'stability' the new watchword replacing 'prudence'; they both appear like pantomime dames. All show but laddered and leaking stockings going as far as the eyes can see.

Can't wait until the next one. When things in the country really do start going downhill.

But on a good note, he's returned to using the old budgetary case that the old chancellor jettisoned. Good to see we're firmly heading back to good old tradition... Oh well boom and bust, here we come!

Boeings lcd

It's always 'interesting' watching, listening to the wranglings and hearty outpourings over the so-called loss of national standings (aka Boeing, McCain et all). But globalisation's been going on for centuries. It's just in this day and age the time to source part b from across the globe, only takes a couple of weeks and not years.

No country wants to have itself swamped, every country wants to protect its citizens employment base, unless of course the employment base gets to uppity; then a dose of unemployment (especially with the potential loss of their homes), would show them who's boss.

But with the global race downward towards the lowest common denominator of price continuing apace, more people on the ground level at home are losing jobs (which are transferred elsewhere), whilst the eating heads of big business complain they aren't making as much profit as they could due to been uncompetitive and having to worry about labour costs.

Amazing how, at the end of the day, when billions are made in net profits, it's usually the directors who see the greatest benefit, whilst the lowly employee gets a 1.49% rise in salary and has to thank his or hers, lucky stars they are still employed for another month.

But then, barring a slip up, it will either be China or India who will take technology to the next level and there the companies can still tread roughshod over the rights of the many.

Ranting checks

There's nothing more gratifying (well not for me at this moment), than doing a post.  In the firm knowledge I have thoroughly relieved my chronic-over active constipated mind, from another stray bit of arrant nonsense clogging up its ability to accurately: co-ordinate, move, breathe and effectively harmonise all areas of discordant chi's.

Until of course, that submit button's been pressed. 

But on a good note, my less than insightful insights(sic), haven't yet removed me from the list of "socially acceptables".

So it is, that friends make polite points about the odd few spelling errors and even greater glaring grammatical inconsistencies.

What did Douglas Adams id say.... "with a brain the size of a planet!"