Diabetes Mellitus and My Life

Oops

2011-02-06T16:30:00.002Z

Went out for breakfast this morning at Costa, and forgot to take my drugs as the dogs were playing up... Had a nice choccy muffin and when we got back discovered my grumpiness was probably due to 16.2 blood sugar. So took the drugs, walked the dogs around the fields and had a carb free lunch... Felt crap cos blood was down to 3.4... So toast and coffee and now i feel almost normal. This disease just does not allow you a day off...

Another 24 hours

2010-12-06T13:25:00.001Z

Thursday.

Day 14.

Finishes normally, around 8.30 go upstairs for a read in bed as i have a good book and the kids want to watch something crap on the telly. Eyes won't stay open and i fall asleep. Wife comes up at 10 and i wake with a start, in a cold sweat and anxious. Sleep has gone away, and after 5 minutes of grumpiness i waddle downstairs to leave the family to sleep. The dogs are glad to be out of the kitchen 5 minutes after being put to bed, and together we snuggle up in the lounge with a dying fire to watch the start of the Ashes test.

Somewhere after about 10 overs, with England in a dream position that makes me wonder if i am still asleep, I need the toilet. And every hour on the hour for the next 6 or 7 I make that trip. I dont think the tofu was cooked right through, and i will not describe to you the effect. i drink litres of water but still feel parched, and know that solid food is a way off.

So around 7 the family rise and find me curled in a ball on the sofa muttering incoherently about run outs and catches. They dont care. They all need to be off and out, although the coating of snow means they go out and come back quite quickly. Eldest gets to work, younger stays off school.

The stomach starts to settle, and having decided I am too ill to have my injection or tablets, i stupidly decide i am now well enough to have some toast. i test my blood, and its 13.7. Not that much higher than normal reading, so toast it is. And a small bowl of muesli, because i am so hungry, and what harm can it do, its no added sugar and wholemeal...

It's about 11 and i think i should check my blood again. I am grouchy and have a headache and still trying to read the signs. The needle clicks, the strip draws up the blood, and the egg timer changes to numbers.

26.5

That is very high. That is frighteningly high. Should i go to hospital? I don't know. I dont have insulin, so the only option is metformin. The wife demands a recount. So i try a finger on the other hand. 22.7. Ok, so maybe i'm not dying. But i remember being told that fingers on different hands can be wildly different, so i try the original finger again. 26.7.

It's going up. I am dying. Ok, metformin. Supposed to have 4 of these a day, they haven't made much difference over the last 6 years, so lets inject the byetta and then have all 4 now. And some gliclazide. I need to get the numbers down. But i cant take these things on an empty stomach. So the injection goes in, the tablets get down, and i pace around the snowy garden for 20 minutes. Time for some oatcakes, somehow i come up with the logic that the insulin needs to be released by eating stuff, and then the drugs can do their work....

I am panicing and nervous, and leave it 2 hours before checking again. I am tearful and stressed, I am not in control and i am frightened.

11.7

It worked.

So now its about 4 o'clock and having felt so much better when it was down at 3pm i think i should check again. 5.0.

Er, that's too low. Is it officially a hypo? Am i dying again? Is it a metformin overdose? OMG, i killed myself with my drugs.

Eat! Eat! But something that is low Gi, low Gl but will get my sugars slowly up again. I cant remember now what i had, but an hour later it was back at 11.

And i felt better. I know i felt more in control and better because we had to go out driving and i let the wife take the keys. Normally my chauvinism manifests in chaufferism, but tonight i know its not wise.

So what did i learn? Illness makes your sugars go up. Don't panic and make stupid huge corrections - everything needs to be in moderation.

And the most important lesson i think was that i saw the drugs work. i saw the reading of 26, i took the drugs, ate a little good food, and it collapsed down to 5.

For the first time I actually saw that the drugs can work. And hope is not something i have had much of recently.

An awful day, but a day i saw hope.

Byetta

2010-12-06T13:24:00.000Z

After a hard summer of anxiety and concern, I came round to believing that insulin was the answer. My last Hba1c had been 10.6 which was down from the first one of 16 about 5 years ago, but it wasn't ever going to get down low enough. The needles had scared me, and i had put it off too long. So i strode into the surgery, hands outstretched.

"Give me the insulin."

"No."

I wasn't expecting that.

"No, you are right, i have come to understand that. Let's do it. Give me the insulin."

"We have been thinking..."

This was confusing. This was upsetting. This was not what I was expecting. 6 months of worrying - after 6 years my blood levels had never been below 10 and i had never experienced anything remotely resembling a hypo. And now i was resigned to injecting myself with this mysterious, frightening, life changing, no returning drug that was going to send me hurtling towards hypos. It was serious. I was serious. I was ready to take control.

"..that you would be ideal for Byetta."

"For who?"

"Byetta. It's a fairly new drug which we think you should try for 6 months before insulin."

"But... What?...Do you know what i have put myself through mentally to be ready to accept the insulin? To finally, finally get the importance of taking control, taking back ownership of my body..."

"We think you should try it."

And so it continued. Two nurses, a heap of medical training and experience behind them, were telling me I should try it. I was the ideal candidate. Basically, I was fat, forty and not taking it seriously. And then they abused my scientific mind.

"You will lose weight."

"Really?"

"Yes. You won't need to do any exercise or change your diet. You will just lose weight."

"Really?" This seemed to go against everything I had ever known. How?

"It makes you nauseous. It gives you diarrhoea and vomiting, and you simply dont want to eat."

That is not a line that is going to win any plaudits in the advertising industry. But the idea of a drug that makes you thin with no effort from you. That can't be true?

So we argued back and forth, and in the end the idea that it was a 6 month trial and then we could start insulin, made me think why not try it. The pen wouldn't arrive for a couple of days, so I went home to look on the web. Some of the forums were very blunt. It did make you ill. 90% of users said they felt appalling for a month, and then settled into a life of feeling just rubbish. But they all lost weight. Some only a few pounds, some claimed fantastical figures of 60 pounds. It did seem the fatter you started, the more you lost. I tip the scales about 17 and a half stone (112 kgs in Euros) so I could probably lose a couple of stone (12 kgs) without worrying about the onset of winter. So I have to try this stuff...

Day One

Unwrapping the plastic lid from the needle and screwing it on to the pen creates all the feelings of apprehension and fear that I was expecting, just on a much larger scale. You screw the little plastic tool onto the end of the pen, pull the cover off and slide off the needle case. And there it sits, 8mms of cold thin steel that you have to push into your stomach. You twist the end of the pen to prime it, pinch up a layer of blubber (anywhere around your belly button she said, and let's be honest that is a sizable target for me) and start to move the pen closer.

You expect the pain. You expect the coldness. You expect the sharp feeling shooting up your nerves and colliding in your brain. But there is nothing. It slides in effortlessly and without any feeling at all. The top of the pen pushes against your stomach and you realise you are pushing too hard. You relax a little. Press the end. Hold it. Still nothing. No feeling. Pull it out. Slowly, expecting the blood to pour out, the muscle to spasm, the nerves to wake up... but nothing. Didnt feel anything.

And then the brain switches to the drug. It's inside you. Is it working yet? Is that nausea? Am i going to hypo right now? No, nothing is happening. Maybe it takes more than 10 seconds. I sit down. The dog jumps onto the sofa, I leap up, worried that it might catch the wound and my guts will spill out. I check. No, everything is holding together.

Am i over-reacting? Probably, but then it was less than a minute ago when i stabbed myself for the first time. The wife needs to go out to pick up one of the boys. "Don't leave me."

"I have to pick him up..."

"Ok..." What if i die? How will i get to hospital? Who will call the ambulance? What's for dinner?

In hindsight, yes it was a lot easier than i expected. And maybe i was just a little over sensitive and over anxious. The actual injection was painless. And what about the drug? What was it doing?

No nausea. No vomiting. Dinner was taken, I deliberately ate small - not my style and went to bed hungry, but expecting to be woken up in the night with the cold, icy hand of death throwing me to the bathroom.

I slept well.

Hello Again

2010-12-06T13:22:00.002Z

Its been a long while ...

I signed up with the NHS to do a blog on diabetes, but having made a couple of posts on there i found out that they were getting about 3 page views a day - people i had invited to read it! So if the NHS get no new readers, then I may as well use my own blog.

So forget the travelling of yesterday... now its Diabetes time :)

d

oh dear Tiger

2009-12-02T07:32:00.000Z

Sitting in terminal 5 next to a giant screen showing Accenture adverts with Tiger Woods.
"The road to high performance is not always paved."
"Its what you do next that counts."
Indeed.

Its November...

2009-11-20T20:04:00.002Z

Its difficult to believe that its been nearly 3 months since i last wrote anything on here. I guess the big difference is i'm not travelling anymore and everything has got a lot easier. There are no long dull nights trapped in a hotel in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but witter away on here...
So no more Sabre, how does that feel. A relief really. I joined Sabre last year as i needed to get out of XL and it was the best offer on the table. And the job started well, the travel was interesting, the work was challenging, the learning was fun, and whatever the problems professionally, the customers in Bodo, Melbourne and Stockholm were great. It was a fantastic team too, i learnt so much from them and really enjoyed getting through some of the problems we faced. But then management changed, and we became Americanised. It was the right decision for head office to make - it was crazy having a small little swedish pocket ignoring what the rest of the world was doing. So Rocade became Air Centre and the magic was gone... The choices were Kenya or Saudi for a very long time, and the prospect of being bogged down in FT for the next year was not a pleasing one. So time to change, and what was out there... well nothing really, so for the second time in a year, in the middle of the worst recession the world has ever seen, i quit my job with nothing lined up.
The plan for a long time was to take over another company, develop their software, turn it into a freelance IT centre, and take over the world. 5 months later that all fell apart, and we were back where we were.
My old boss had promised some work when things fell into place, and this came to pass. And now those few weeks have turned into a few months, and things are going well. We will be installing the Operations / Commercial / Crew system, and judging by initial contact with the chosen supplier its going to be our project and we are going to run it the way we want. Looking forward to getting stuck into it and making things happen. Next week off to Stockholm for the first time in 6 months so will get to catch up with whoever is left at Rocade, and the week after to Athens. Would imagine from then until May 1st will be busy busy busy.
Have also started my degree course with the Open University, a bit of a shock to the system but proving manageable so far.
And money arrived from Italy. Blimey.
Will try and write about those things separately later.
Need to get back into the swing of this, although the serious stuff has left me disinterested recently. Still shout at the telly, but feel more detached from politics and the rest of the world than ever before.
Thats the first one down, lets try and do some more of this...

Random Thoughts

2009-08-26T20:25:00.002+01:00

Mrs Dno has taken the kids to Turkey for a week and I am missing the lot of them. Have done enough travelling over the last year to be quite happy being away from home on my own, but its weird being alone in the big old house. There is a strange quiteness and calmness that isnt right. Miss my wifelet, and although the dogs are doing their best to keep me company it just isnt the same...
Bingo sneezed a few times, so I took him to the vet to make sure it wasnt the first sign of the lungworm. The vet poked him, prodded him, and listened to his chest. "Probably not" he said. But then he said Algie only had a throat infection... So i had to give him £58 for the very vague diagnosis and a few antibiotics. And yet vets still struggle to make money. How?
Renato Pagliari died. Save Your Love. Just one cornetto. Best mate of Big Ron Atkinson. Another legend passes...
One benefit of being unemployed is the opportunity to transfer your cd collection onto mp3. The idea is to do that, and then ebay the lot of them. So far I think i have done about 500, so about 800 left. If anyone wants to help...
And what has listening to the first 3 songs of 500 cds taught me? Fleetwood Mac really were a very good band. The Beatles really were that good (and if anyone wants to buy me the upcoming remastered boxset please feel free). My wife has some appalling cds that will not be recorded - Hearsay, Leann Rimes, Status Quo, Chris Rea... oh dear! Enrique Iglesias? All Saints? SHANIA TWAIN??? Its not easy loving Mrs Dno, especially when she has a CD in her hand...
Lindt 90% chocolate and ice cold Coke Zero. Its the new cheese and wine...
How does Radio2 get away with being so rubbish? Sarah Kennedy could be replaced by a drunken baboon, Terry Wogan is just not funny, interesting, relevant or even alive sometimes. Ken Bruce will die if he doesnt play an Abba song every 2 hours - and he must have the largest collection of 70s male singer songwriters in his phone book - Andrew Gold, Boz Scaggs, Al Stewart, Al Jarreau... Steve Wright - dont start me. Even Chris Evans is annoying. And then Radcliffe and Maconie are the best thing on the radio - how can Radio2 be so good between 8 and 10 pm and then so terrible every other minute?
The Wire. Watching it for the 3rd time from beginning to end, and i get excited Tuesday morning when i have a new episode. Its perfect. The best thing ever on TV by a country mile.
Talking of the country. Want to combine fox hunting with 3 day eventing. The boys obviously love a good blood sport, so if the only way the country folk can ride horses over fields with their dogs is to kill something at the end of it, then why not introduce that to Olympia? Dressage, Show Jumping and then seal clubbing. I think the Puissance would be great if the last 3 riders in it had to jump over the wall while firing a crossbow at suspended kittens...
Why do people say to me I dont "understand how the Countryside works." I do. It doesnt. Its like the town but everything is further away and shuts earlier, and everyone seems to bear a grudge against everyone else. Its brilliant to be out in the middle of nowhere and have fields and trees all around, but that is because people everywhere are rubbish and i would rather look at trees. And i think people like the fact that i am safe, far away in the middle of nowhere...
Oh, and the country has more fox poo.
Which brings me to Bingo's death toll this week. In the last 7 days one rabbit, one moorhen, one pheasant and we found a rabbit's head on the lawn. Bless.

BINGO update

2009-08-13T15:58:00.003+01:00

The little fella has been here a month now, and he is a most wonderful little personality. As the photos show, butter wouldnt melt in his pretty little hinged mouth. However yesterday a little baby bunny did more than melt, and once we got him to drop it I had to carry the poor little thing into a field and leave him for the foxes.
And one of my shoes has just appeared on the other side of the lawn minus the tongue...
And he eats cat poo.
And he has no idea what his own name is.
But we love him, and once he stops nibbling at your hand, he is soooo adorable!

Freedom!

2009-08-09T19:03:00.003+01:00

So tomorrow is my first official day of unemployment...
I have left Sabre of my own free will to pursue other interests. It would be mad of me to sit here and slag off my previous employer - to be honest I think they were doing the right things to standardise their business and provide a consistent product across the world - it just wasnt what I want or need at this point.
So why does one leave a perfectly well paying job when they dont have one to go to?
The obvious answer in the middle of the "worst recession since 932" is that i must have gone a little bit mad. Its the second time in a year i have handed in my notice without a job to go to, and like last year i dont think i am mad. I cant imagine Sabre possible going the same way as XL, but of course the company will be just a little bit wounded by my departure. For about 3 minutes...
So what are the options? The favoured option is still buying a software company and developing the company and the software to change the world... That is trundling along but could take another year at this speed. Lets put that on the shelf marked "Burners, Back...".
There is always the Irish connection. And who knows, maybe even an extended spell oop North?
And then there is freelance. And I am quite enjoying typing up proposals and playing with Visio and Powerpoint and making ever more elaborate presentations. Have made some good contacts with a few airlines and I am now at the frustrating stage a lot of my colleagues in the consultancy word must know well - "We love the idea of working with you, just that the guy who can sign this off is in Vladivostok for 8 months..."
So one sits, one waits, and one sends emails and phones people. The internet makes it a lot easier than it must have been years ago, but doesnt help at all when it comes to getting a signature.
So if anyone knows any businees that needs someone to tell them what they are doing wrong, suggest a different way of doing it wrong using spreadsheets and flow charts, and then look on bemused as the company decide to change nothing, then i am your man.

Allingham and Patch, heroes

2009-07-28T12:27:00.002+01:00

Just a quick note to add my condolences. The news that Henry Allingham and Harry Patch have both passed away in the last week or so is the closure of an incredible piece of history. The oldest man in the world, and the only other British survivor of the trenches of World War One. Peaceful men who wore their sorrow so well, and both worked in memory and honour of their lost friends. Courage I can only imagine, the world has lost two very important men.

Altogether now... B I N G O, Bingo was his name-o

2009-07-13T21:24:00.002+01:00

It was never the plan to get another dog so soon after Algie, but i rang the rescue centre to tell them the bad news, they said they had a Terrier puppy, he was reserved but the guy never turned up, we did...
And Bingo joined the gang. A lot of Jack Russell, Staffie head, maybe some Beagle in the legs and God knows what else...
Monty has declared total ambivalence, Jenna has attacked him on sight, Squiffy only noticed when he went near the food bowl... And the wife has gone gooey and was found earlier curled up on the dog's sofa with him on her shoulders.
Time for me to build that big kennel down the garden for Me and Monty i think. And i know which of us will be missed first...

Distractions

2009-07-13T21:19:00.001+01:00

Until you have spent an entire week staring out of the window at a herd of cows, trying to work out which one has the most white, or the shortest legs, or is the leader...
I'm just saying - its fun!

Lil Guy

2009-06-30T18:58:00.003+01:00

Its hard to know where to start, but losing a dog is never easy, and when the little fella is so young it hurts more.
Little Algie was just over a year old, and on Saturday night we lost him to lungworm.
He was a wonderful bundle of love and energy, a typical terrier when out, a perfect lap dog when indoors. He brought smiles and happiness to all who met him, and made the house complete.
These last few days have been difficult adjusting to the lack of Algie. No little black shadow following you around, no having to wrench him from the sofa late at night to throw him out, no yapping at any rabbit in a 5 mile radius... and most of all no black furry love muppet to snuggle up with the wife in front of the fire.
We have lost a friend, a family member and a brave little fighter.
I really want to say thank you in public to my darling wife, who looked after him so well during his illness. She put him before herself, and made him so calm and comfortable, and i know she made it easier for him to bear his pain. She did a wonderful job, and showed me again so many reasons to love her so much. She has suffered more than anyone the last few days, and i hope she finds peace in understanding how great her care was.
Love you Algie, thanks for giving us so much, in the little time we had together.

The King of Pop Remains Dead (and still no national clamour for Nick Beggs to replace him)

2009-06-26T15:09:00.002+01:00

The BBC are running a page where you can leave your memories of the dead monkey loving kiddy fiddling minstrel. The moderators have allowed only a few mentions of child molestation in over 26 pages. So who at the BBC is deciding which voices get heard and which dont? Seems the lunatic fans have all had their say and the normal people are now starting to post "calm down" messages...
Some of those nuggets of wisdom that have been allowed:

"I still remember hearing he had died this morning"
That was so long ago now...

"allow me to leave my message to my cousin brother Michael Jackson who has departed you could have first wait to witness the 1st Africa World Cup before you die"
Excellent advert for South Africa 2010, best product placement in a celebrity condolence page

"Michael Jackson is NOT dead!! It is all elaborate ruse to fool people. My contacts tell me in early hours of morning small plane land at Zhukov to refuel. Many men with dark glasses surround it and it have no flight plan. During refueling he see Jackson peeping out window!!! Jackson is running away from all his problems, his debt and ridicule. Financially he is bankrupt. He is going somewhere to live in peace."
Some Russian bloke says what we are all thinking

"jackson will be the guy by whom american culture is introduced to country like bangladesh.i urge to his family and obama please show his death body face for the last time."
A Dr from the middle east

"Michael Jackson was the greatest man in pop, I have grown up with him since the age of 9 and now im 34."
Stats you just cant argue with

"I hardly think "World Mourns Pop Legend Jackson" is an accurate statement.
Personally i think the "World" needs to get a grip"
Finally...

"His legacy encompasses maximum & the best utilization of "Equal Opportunity" by a minority person in America, which eventually paved the way for Barack Obama to be the Ist black American Presid"
Whites are not yet the minority in America. Oh, you mean blacks?

"The lost of Micheal Jackson will be a lost to all the world,his music will go on for ever.A showman in so many ways,my heart goes to his family children and fiends.Rest in peace Micheal."
Yvonne from Milton Keynes. Spell check, love. Fiends is most unfortunate. And at least dont get his name wrong. Twice.

"I never liked Michael Jackson or his music when he was the King of Pop.Later I realised that is his life was, in many ways, a tragedy. Then his music and life had new meaning for me. Now he is gone, I will miss him forever."
Fickle, Graham. And next year? He will just be a nobody again...

"I remember when I was about 6 years old, and Michael Jackson had a video included at the beginning of the first Free Willy movie on VHS."
Relax, she means the one with the whale in. 6 years old, Michael Jackson, Willy... all the ingredients.

Goodbye King of Pop.

The King Of Pop is Dead

2009-06-26T08:29:00.001+01:00

So does Prince get promoted now? He did actually make it to the O2 and by all accounts was sensational. And he is weird and alive, so seems qualified.
Who are the other candidates?
H from Steps springs to mind.
Rick Astley is another.
Peter Andre has time on his hands, and we all know and love his hits.
My personal vote would go to Nick Beggs from Kajagoogoo, but alas you can't vote for kings.
There was no doubt that from around 71 to 75 and 79 to 85 he was a phenomenal artiste. (Jacko not Beggs - he did nothing in the 70s). But since then the monkey loving kiddy fiddler has been an ordinary artiste with an exceptional back catalogue. Which in my book ranks him alongside Cliff Richard, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney even. And as the president of his fan club said - "People will forget the child molestation stuff, it was so boring." Welln sorry, but anyone who gives a 12 year old $15million to go away and shut up is guilty.
How do all those people who got so upset about Maddie McCann also get upset about a dead child molester????
Yours from outside the herd
D
Ps Farrah Fawcett also died yesterday after a long, hard battle against cancer. That was a real tradegy.

Western Arrogance over Iran

2009-06-16T07:44:00.003+01:00

Why do we always assume that if the people who win the election are not "our team" then they cheated. How can we possibly know if the elections in Iran were fixed? We need to investigate, collect evidence, talk to people... and even then since when did we support insurrection (oh yeah, in Burma for a bit, in the Ukraine when the commies won, in Afghanistan when the Taliban won....)
What would happen if the US government declared that the BNP should win the next election, and spent the next year funding them, providing support, creating positive vibes on the world stage... Would Gordon's moral compass tell him that they need to be beaten at any price? Surely a bit of fraud is better than the BNP getting in... Only we never believe we are in the wrong - its only the darkies and the ragheads that would possibly cheat in an election. Who could possibly imagine that an American president could get power by using a wave of lawyers to contest a state run by his brother and be declared the winner even though he got less votes...
I am sure that the election in Iran was not 100% clean in the way we imagine that we are. But it wouldnt surprise me at all if a majority did actually vote for the incumbent. Sometimes people vote for people we dont like. That doesnt make the people of Burnley evil and ripe for shooting, it just means the bloke we dont like won.

Blunkett has rib broken by cow

2009-06-09T16:17:00.001+01:00

Thats it. No real comments needed.
David Blunkett was attacked by a cow at the weekend which pushed him over and then fell on him.
Brilliant :)

Brown - authority to lead

2009-06-03T08:41:00.000+01:00

According to The Independent and The Times yesterday, Mr Brown on Monday personally rang Piers Morgan AND Simon Cowell to ask how Susan Boyle was getting on at The Priory.
Am I the only one who hoped our PM may have had more pressing matters of state to deal with???

Air France disaster

2009-06-01T19:17:00.003+01:00

A quick note to pay my respects to the families of the Air France crew and passengers, a very sad day. Had the strange experience of sitting in an Air France office all day in Dublin, and the professionalism and calm manner of the Ops staff was quite impressive.

Team Excellence

2009-05-30T07:09:00.002+01:00

Good news readers, your humble correspondent has been nominated at work for the Team Excellence award. He is one of only 53 people in his team that have been nominated, and while recognising the others probably do something he is happy to accept that his efforts alone have been sufficient to merit the award.
Some of the criteria we will be judged on include the following:
- Embrace Partnership Equity
- Think WE, not ME
- Be humble (ok team, i've got this one)
- Operate with managerial courage
- Leverage the solution advantage
- Develop the global community as a strategic asset.
I know you are all excited to know how we get on, so will keep you up to date as things develop.
Hopefully if we do triumph we can write a team song to sing every morning to celebrate our success. Oh, and the prize if we win? They take a photo of our American team members and put it on a website. Coooooolllllll!

Lion Man - what a mess!

2009-05-28T21:03:00.002+01:00

Craig Busch - the Lion Man from New Zealand. Star of the show of that name and owner of Zion Wildlife Park, home of 40+ big cats....
was all going so well as the star of the show that Mrs dNo enjoyed so much on Sky3.
Until it ended abruptly.. why so we thought? On to Google we went...
"Lion Man found guilty of assault." Apparently a year after they split up he broke into his ex girlfriend's house and found her in bed with TWO other people. One was a lady called Hermes. Went a bit mad, and was fined $8000 for "unlawful sexual connection."
Ok,so he was good with animals, we all loved him, he carried on at the park...
"Lion Man park closed by government over concerns for animal welfare." Govt inspectors took control of the park, and were so concerned with some of the animals that they were thinking at one stage of having all the cats put down.
The outcome of this - Craig's mum somehow got control of the park. And sacked him. She tried to change the locks on the front gate one night, he got angry, and police were called again when he threatened to release the tigers...
Two days ago his appeal was thrown out, and the park was released to his mother. And he was banned from going there. And then yesterday Abu the white tiger attacked and killed Dalu, the African keeper who had been heavily featured on the TV show. It is very strange timing, and you have to assume the tiger was not commenting on the court case...
So Lion Man is now lionless. He is out of work, out of his home, his mum hates him, and his ex has most of his money and she is sleeping with a woman called Hermes.
The cats looked great on the telly though.
And seriously, thoughts go out to Dalu's family, he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy who got killed doing what he loved.

Dublin. Just like my fun keeps. Dublin. Doubling. Do you see what i did...

2009-05-28T20:42:00.003+01:00

So what have we learnt?
This travelling game is fun isnt it? Four weeks now in Dublin, and it is getting a little tedious. Its nice to be in a country where the people are friendly, they talk the same language and you can always get decent food (so different to America). Comes a time though when thoughts turn to home, and thats always hard. Miss my woman - a strange thing which no one seems to understand. Why is it so strange to want to be at home snuggled on the sofa or walking the dogs, talking crap and just sharing space...
Every day in the office i have to offer my advice and opinion and see the herd trample it underfoot in their efforts to do the complete opposite. And then i have to explain patiently why what they did broke the system. And then have to find a workaround so that they can carry on doing what they are doing. Ethically i have found this contract quite difficult, as various practices do not look meet my standards. I have put my concerns in writing, but no one here has a loud enough voice to make a difference, and most of them seem to like it that way. I was always trained about the "subsequent board of enquiry" - would i be able to stand in the dock and say i had no guilty conscience about the pilot being tired when he landed in the side of the hill... Maybe that's just me. By refusing to help with these things am i doing the right thing, or should i just do whatever the customer wants? Sometimes its hard to think of the crew as humans, and not just employee numbers. And here they have completely lost sight of the idea that passengers are any more than just seats filled as against seats empty. Its sad, as the future of airlines of this size rely on the passion and professionalism of its people, and you see less of both all the time. The Mothership will soon descend from the sky and swallow up this little enclave, and apart from a few dozen locals no one will shed too many tears. New jobs will be found by the majority, new careers they never dreamed of, or crappy jobs they never wanted. Their friends will rally round, and the pilots will all piss off to the next island contract where tax breaks and free housing will make this all a distant memory...
When XL went under it was the end of the world for many, lost and bewildered and not sure how to cope with not seeing so many friends every day, and wondering how to pay the bills. It was talk of the town for a week, and then people moved on. A cluster of old employees kept fighting, kept believing it would be born again... and then people moved on, and soon it became just another former airline. Another DanAir, Caledonian, Laker...
So from this downbeat mood new determination arises to start something new. To get involved in something more positive, more useful. I need to deal with people who want to change things. When project managers run away from change then I know I am in the wrong building. I need to change the world. I need to be with people who want to listen to new ideas, who want to change their minds when they meet a good idea...

Maybe i should stand for parliament?

MPs... well you have to mention it

2009-05-13T20:25:00.002+01:00

And i think all you need to do is tip the hat to Douglas Hogg MP.
Just over 2 grand to have his moat cleaned. Yes, his moat.

So how to fix it? Simple, treat them like we treat airline crew.
Firstly reduce their salary to 50k, and then hopefully only those who actually want to work rather than earn would run for the job.
Secondly, the House sets up a travel department, which organises air and train tickets, and hotel rooms in London near Westminster.
The MP calls them and says "I will be attending tomorrow and whenever," and they book him travel and a room.
Receipts for food, or maybe even a per diem.

Take away the profit motive. After all, why on earth should there be a profit motive. Why should it be a job for life? If you want to serve, you will stay. If you want to take the cash, then take the directorships now.

Sometimes we make things too complicated, and thats when loopholes appear...

Peter and Jordan

2009-05-13T18:32:00.002+01:00

I apologise for no recent blogs, but the news of Peter Andre and Katie "Jordan" Price splitting has left me devestated.
Coming so soon after the death of Jade, Princess of our Tarts, it has left me short in the heroes and role models department.
Where once I had Diana who could wear really expensive dresses and have her hair done so nicely that she looked like a Princess, now there is only Kate Winslett.
Where i used to dream of being as clever and quick witted as David Beckham, now i dream only of beating Wayne Rooney at Connect 4.
In olden days i could rely on Mariah Carey not doing stairs. I knew that Ben Kingsley would remind me to call him Sir Ben. It was taken as read that Naomi Campbell was chucking phones and in court...
Then Jade died, and although the queue for pies got a lot shorter something inside me was hurting. Even the reforming of Spandau Ballet couldnt ease the pain...
And now this. Now this...
If i can quote from our 3 leading newspaper front pages this morning (and apologies if they are the wrong way round):
The Sun: PETER MUST BE GAY BECAUSE HE WONT SLEEP WITH ME
The Star: PETER: I'M CELIBATE GET ME OUT OF HERE - JORDAN DOESNT WANT SEX
The Other One: JORDAN - TAKE ME BACK I'LL DO ANYTHING.

Please, Peter. Please. For all of us out here who need you. Who need JordAnDre (did you see what i did there?) to be there. Even though you cant hear our silent screams of adulation, know that we love you. We wish you all the best. And we truly wish you get the privacy and peace that you deserve. The thought of 2 teams of publicists signing multi million pound deals without your consent is a horrible thought.

We love you both.

Welcome Squiffy

2009-05-04T19:07:00.002+01:00

Please welcome Squiffy, fresh from the Cats' Protection League, with his heart murmur, missing teeth, displaced trachea (???) and cystitis. And aggressive attitude. And clumps of hair falling out... But welcome the old boy anyway...

Dumbing way too far down

2009-04-27T07:40:00.000+01:00

Waiting for a flight at London City, with BBC breakfast news on the wall.
Anchor man is interviewing disabled man hobbling around marathon course on crutches...
"You are covering about 2 miles a day, and the course is about 26 miles. How many days will it take you to finish?"

Business Class Update

2009-04-23T09:15:00.005+01:00

For those of you like Polly who want to keep up to date on what is happening at the front end of our aircraft... Had to fly economy back from Stockholm last week as it was internal training so couldnt bill it to one of our lucky customers. And i missed the chance to sit between Nick Beggs and Kim Smith. Let me take you back to the departure lounge... everyone else had booked on the 4pm flight, but being a company boy i booked on the 6.15. Sat drinking my 3rd coffee when they announce boarding from my row back. So i trundle over to the back of the line where i stand behind a group of guys wearing sunglasses. Not essential, thinks I, and ignores them. And then you notice the cowboy boots. And flat caps. And bizarre facial hair arrangements. And very expensive baggage. Drug dealers, you think. Maybe backing band for someone like Phil Collins or David Hasselhoff. And you think no more of it. Then at the other end you stand behind them again at passports. And they have added a dumpy little blonde to their number. She is about 50, hair has been bleached far too often, and you can tell she was once cute and dirty, now just looks a bit messy and dirty. 5 foot nothing, and squeezed into a black and diamond short thing, with leggings and boots. Signs of money. Probably designer clothing. Its Kim Wilde. God, it is as well! So i play it cool, thinking the backing band look like a bunch of idiots, dont want to be associated with them. And then as i wait at the baggage claim, off come all the hard cases with KAJAGOOGOO stamped on the side. I trawl my bag over to customer services (for the 4th damaged bag this year) and there beside me is the mighty Nick Beggs (use Wikipedia, i had to) complaining that his case has been scratched and bumped.

I like to think that it was that sitar / guitar thing that was in the case he damaged...

St George's Day

2009-04-22T19:01:00.003+01:00

Britain is great, and here is why.
The Newspapers.
BBC.
Football.
The South Downs.
Drinking water.
Jade is dead.
Bluebells.
Animal rights.
The language.
The freedom to shout at policeman.
The fact that people who shout at policemen are arrested.
The fact that people who are arrested for shouting at policemen are generally not killed in secret.
Cakes.
Spring evenings with the orange sunlight, swarms of midges and children playing.
Castles.
Vimto and marmite.
Terriers. One for each village north of Rutland.
Rivers. Riverside pubs. Watching dogs shake themselves as they climb out. Barges. Locks. Ok, canals as well then.
London Brick Company.
Chimney sweeps.
Roses.
Stephen Fry.
Chips.
The London Underground. Go on then, you build it better.
May Bank Holidays.
Oak trees.
Driving on the left.
Proper shoes.
Stags at bay.
Regional accents. Especially funny ones you cant understand. And Brummie.
History. Real proper, we started it, we were there, we did it history, Not American wham bam now you're history.
Mark Steel.
The Beatles. The Stones. Led Zeppelin. Queen. The Smiths. Radiohead, Ooberman. It could all only have been British, and it was, and it changed the world.
The NHS. If you want to criticise it, first get operated on in the Sub-Saharan African country of your choice - any one beginning with Democratic Republic of.
Shakespeare. You dont have to read the stuff, just appreciate that he wrote the book.
Funiculars.
Cadburys.
Being able to buy anything, absolutely anything, at an affordable price in Tesco. It may be bad for so many reasons, but for me and you its brilliant.
We dont use phrases like "leverage the economic opportunity to maximise the customer service advantage." Or "EBITDA 1Q over 1Q is 47.5% better YOY… Revenue was 1% below plan. Net /net we are well ahead of plan." Both in recent emails from my American boss.
The Houses of Parliament. Ok it doesnt work this year, but the building, the green benches, the position of speaker, the tradition, the history, the meaning behind it all...
English Beer. Spitfire. Old Speckled Hen. 6X. Fursty Ferret.
We are the transport hub of the world. Heathrow really is the centre of the planet.
Meadows, with daisies and bunny rabbits.
Cheese. Wensleydale, Caerphilly, Cheddar, Stilton....

We can all be negative, we can all write a longer list of things that are wrong. But I say stand tall for England, King Harry and St George. Lets celebrate this great nation, just for a day, No comparisons to any one else, no exclusion of anyone who happens to be here on this day. Lets just celebrate that we live in the most historic nation on earth, and speak the most beautiful glorious language there is.
Rule Britannia.

Gawd Bless

2009-04-22T18:50:00.003+01:00

You can say what you like about the Queen, and she wont punch you in the face. That is one of her endearing qualities. Seriously though, i have no idea how she has reached the age of 83 without smacking some idiot with a mace or whatever she carries around. Ma'am this, ma'am that, fresh paint, no one else ever in the toilet, and she has reigned through the Swinging Sixties, the power strikes, Duran Duran, Eastenders, Blair and his wars... and then she had to put up with the public baying for action when the moistened wastrel Diana finally went to the great free yacht holiday in the sky... SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO WEEP LIKE YOU IN THE STREET - SHE'S THE BLOODY QUEEN!!! And the death of Jade showed us just how measured and accurate those weeping harpies were... And she has had to live with Philip alongside her for over 60 years - there must have been a moment when they got home after he told the factory workers "looks like it was built by Indians" that she wanted to boff him with a corgi... But anyway, my point is, the bloody Queen. She is truly marvelous. I will never see a monarch like her again in my lifetime. If Charles takes over in 5 years he will be nearly 70 so wont be on the throne for more than 20 years, by which time i will be 60 ish. So Wills would have to reign until i was about 107 to last as long in my lifetime as Liz. But anyway, the point is, the Queen. Wonderful woman. ANd yesterday was her birthday, and tomorrow is St George's Day, And i just wanted to say to The Independent "SHAME ON YOU." How we laughed when they employed the Private Eye method of reporting royal stories - "Duchess has baby, bear takes Andrex to woods" type thing... But yesterday they shamed themselves. I searched the paper in vain.. and then in small type... in the area normally reserved for celebs, retired naval colonels and "author of definitive guide to Polynesian fungi and butterflies" type people, well there it sat.
BIRTHDAYS
The Queen, 83.

Ah let's patronise the little people...

2009-04-10T05:07:00.000+01:00

Bless!
Malta departures lounge, Hard Rock Cafe...
You normally expect thongs worn by Madonna, Prince's discarded stewardesses or Bruce's gee-tar.
Its a bit smaller here in Malta....
Melissa Etheridge and Hootie and the Blowfish have signed guitars, and there is a glass case just for a pair of shoes apparently worn by the late John Entwistle, he of The Who.

Room Service

2009-04-05T16:39:00.002+01:00

Back in Malta and staying in the trendy little Juliani...
Been in the room 10 minutes and there is a knock at the door...
Open it to find a cute young girls standing there with a smile....
She reaches out... and she is holding a big jar of Lindt chocolates!
"Chocolate, Sir?"
"Yes please!!"
"Take another one.." and with a smile she is gone.
Hotels take note - that is the way to welcome guests. Forget all this 3 day pass to the gym, 10% off the Sushi restaurant or free shower caps :)

If I Could be for an only an hour... cute... in a stupid ass way!

2009-03-30T17:16:00.002+01:00

Hope you all spotted the title was the catchy line from Jacques Brel's "Jackie"...
So who cares whether Mr Smith watched porn, Oceans 13 or the Teletubbies. Claiming for it was the wrongness.
And Ms Smith's defence - "I will carry on doing my job because people are not interested in this tittle-tattle" or something similar.
And last week, when it was exposed she had claimed £116,000, effectively by staying with her sister during the week: "The electorate are not concerned by this party political game...".
Au contraire Jacqui, we are very, very concerned. And that is why I predict not a Labour victory next time out, nor a Tory, not even a Lib Dem / BNP alliance... but I predict the lowest turnout ever in a national election.
And that will be all because the Labour MPs who rode in on a ticket of good honest values, and no more sleaze, have proved themselves more shameful than even the Tory's Fattest Cats.
They have killed democracy in this country.
And a new game to play - what on earth has to happen to get a Labour minister to resign? Say what you like about Mandy, he did the honourable thing twice. Shame it wasnt with a service revolver...
"Locked up inside my opium den, surrounded by some Chinamen, I'd sing the song that i sung then, about the time they called me Jacqui...."

Belated birthday news

2009-03-24T19:59:00.004Z

Last year the wife bought me 2 tickets to Bruce Springsteen for my birthday.

This year she bought me a monkey.

Gotta love that woman.

http://www.monkeyworld.co.uk/topic.php?TopicID=25&Template=standard

Check out Bryan :)

PS: Pot Noodle

2009-03-23T14:46:00.001Z

Forgot to add one thing about the Pot Noodle i was served in business class...
The instructions on the lid advise you to add 326ml of hot water.
Does anyone have a foolproof way of measuring exactly 326ml?

Kuala Benait Sunset

2009-03-23T14:40:00.000Z

Ding Dong - probably the final Jade post on here!

2009-03-22T10:02:00.003Z

It was reported with much wailing and gnashing of teeth that the "reality tv star" Jade Goody passed during the night.
Apparently her dying wish was to live until this morning so she could get a mother's day hug from her kids.
But she didn't.
For those of you forget quickly, the terms she used in Celebrity Big Brother were "Shilpa Poppadom", "Shilpa Fuckawalla", "Shilpa Pashwa whoever you fucking are", and then laughing at Danielle Lloyd who said "She's a dog They eat with their hands don't they? You don't know where their hands have been. She can't even speak English properly, she should fuck off home." Her reply to Jade's comment about "Shilpa Poppodom."? "That was fucking fantastic, i love it. I think she should fuck off home."
Cue much laughing and sniggering.
She signed up for the London Marathon and "trained" by eating a curry the night before. When interviewed afterwards she said "I don't really understand miles, i didn't actually know how far it was going to be. The most i ever run on the treadmill was half an hour."
She thought Cambridge was part of London, and that East "Angular" was abroad.
Her "husband" is a violent, convicted thug, who i am sure will entertain very soon with his memoirs.
There is some kind of weird irony that the cancer started where it did, but lets not go there.
And now she is dead, which is nice...

Singapore

2009-03-16T08:40:00.003Z

I may have only been transiting through Singapore, but i had a great time! And i lost my bag on the way...Qantas delivered me half an hour late, so i stepped off (first) from the A380 at 8.28. I got met by a lady on a golf buggy who drove like a demented lunatic through the busiest, longest airport terminal i have ever seen. We started at gate C30ish, and finished at F60. And every letter had 60 gates. And with all those gates you can imagine how many people were around - and we just ploughed down the carpet honking at people and hoping they were going to move... brilliant fun and everyone should give it a go!And then on Silkair, with the tiniest little hosties in their nice little green silk dresses... and one of them wondered up to me in my seat and said in perfect English "Good morning Mr Stewart, can i get you a drink." They could teach those Qantas / BA / American hosties a thing or two in customer service. Throughout the flight every time a hostie walked past, even ones i hadnt seen before, smiled and used my name. Excellent customer service - and i know i'm quick enough to knock it when its bad, so a big thumbs up from me is worth ten from you!And then the crowning glory... bureaucracy had not told them i was veggie. Qantas knew it a few hours earlier, but it hadnt transferred... so two of them put their heads together, disappeared behind the curtain, and came back with a vegetarian pot noodle! Where the hell did they find that at 37,000 feet??? Considering most hosties wander off and bring me back something with fish and purser spit in it i was very impressed. And warm crunchy garlic bread, and a rye bread roll... and the Qantas breakfast had been two slices of cold bread (on the menu it clearly said "toast" and they forgot tea and coffee entirely...)

GENIUS

BECAUSE ALL BUSINESS CLASS FOOD MUST BE SERVED ON DOILIES

So, my new favourite airline, Silkair. My best flight ever? Well, until we landed...We stopped on a taxiway in the middle of nowhere, although there was a marshall waving the old lollipops so we were clearly expected. The only building i could see was the international cargo centre. And then we got a PA which said that everyone had to stay seated while the VIPs got off, as we were at the VIP terminal. Thinking this was for me i rose to get my bag, but was gently lowered back into my seat. And from the back of the aircraft about 20 women in very colourful local dress accompanied by a dozen kids and 300 bags of shopping came barging through. They got off, and a tug then reversed us about 200 yards until we found a lonely air bridge that had been waiting for us. And one of my little hosties then grabbed every economy passenger who had chanced their arm, and marched them back to their seats! At last, something i have wanted to see for years.So Silkair, i love ya!And oh yeah, the A380. Well its a big plane really. For a moment back there i was excited, but up close, and from the inside, i might as well have been on the 777. Plane. Yawn.And because Qantas were late i am now in the priviledged position of being separated from my bag for the 3rd time in 7 weeks. If anyone knows what the record for a calendar year is do please let me know. But again, the mad woman driving me around the airport told me to go to Lost and Found at Bandar and they would collect it from the next flight. Expecting European standards of appalling disinterest and rudeness (yes, thats you TAP and Alitalia) i wandered up to the lost and found desk as commanded, to be waved in by a happy smily chap (with a wild hacking cough) who greeted me with "Mr Stewart?". He filled in the paperwork for me, walked me through customs to find my pickup, explained to him what was going on and that i needed to wait 2 hours, and then recommended the best cafe and where to meet the driver later. I can not stress how well the locals down here have dealt with a problem not of their making, and reinforced all my beliefs that European aviation is doomed - and dont even get me onto European society!Need to talk to the missus and see if we can move to Singapore, just so i can fly Silkair more often.

Comic Soddin Relief

2009-03-12T17:47:00.002Z

I know i am a miserable old bugger who wees in the milk of human kindness, and laughs at stories of 10 year old girls having their heads bitten off by crocodiles "larger than buses" (ie 40 feet long, 14 foot high and about 10 foot across, weighing around 6 tons - nicely researched Mr Sun Journalist :) )....
So you have probably guessed by now that this is not a piece that is going to include the words "give" and "generously" very close to each other.
I object to the BBC being involved in this. They are not just reporting on it, they are actually giving over many, many hours of TV and radio airtime, and giving their presenters and stars' time all over the place. Radio5 have people in Kenya, Radio1 sent some idiots up Kilimanjaro, the BBC keeps showing us pictures of dying children (which i have learnt are not funny, apparently).
The BBC is funded by taxpayers' money. These celebs are paid from the public purse. How can the BBC refuse to show an appeal for Gaza, but then say we should raise money for a school in Sudan, where the president has just been accused of genocide?
And i dont want to wear a bloody red nose and do something "funny." Wearing pyjamas to school, sitting in custard, getting your head shaved - its just not funny. I dont have spare cash - i have bills to pay, dogs to feed and Costa Coffee refuse to give away free coffee. I have worked hard for 20 years, paid my debts, paid my bills, and when i need a spare 20 quid no one knocks on my door.
Aid doesnt help these people. Since WW2 we have sent over 60,000,000,000 pounds to Africa in aid. (Not just the UK, dont be silly). And we have not spent it wisely. It doesnt matter what we do, the governments have wasted it all. Its not racist to call someone incompetent, and unfortunately that is what the vast majority of African leaders have been. When we started this, 10% of Africans lived in poverty. Today, 70% do. That means the situation is 700% worse.
There is no point sending kids to school - there wont be any jobs for them when they finish. And that is why there is poverty. We have not developed their economies, we have not spent the money investing in infrastructure, in creating wealth. Why are China, India, Indonesia, South America all doing so much better than Africa? Because central governments have planned for the future, they havent just squabbled with their neighbours about diamonds and who should get the bags of rice. This is a massive failing of the World Bank, the UN, the US and UK and all the other huge global organisations who are run by the rich Western countries who quite like the status quo. One day the Americans will work out that there are a billion potential customers in Africa, and then copy the Chinese who are all over the continent building roads, bridges, railways, hotels - investing in infrastructure.
So if it makes you feel better to buy a red nose and act like an idiot, do it. But please dont think you're really helping.
The West could put clean drinking water into every African village tomorrow if it wanted to. Just think of the numbers.
The banks just got 700,000,000,000 pounds
Comic Relief collects 30,000,000 pounds.
Put your money back into your own family, and vote for the party that promises to put water into every village. Then you would have made a change.
But then you wont get your own name read out on the radio, or maybe even on telly. So you wont...

Thanks Jonny Mac, for making me read the Sun

2009-03-12T17:36:00.004Z

Its brilliant! I forgot how much fun you can have!

Today's best story - undoubtedly the man who had his bits chewed on by a horse. Perhaps one of the best photos ever used to illustrate a news story...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2315461.ece

Also, a lesson for me on where to draw the line. Apparently a horse biting off a man's meat and two veg is a humorous story (after all, he was a foreigner), where as the story of a crocodile who bit a 10 year old girl's head clean off is treated as a human tragedy. Sounds quite similar to me. Interestingly they dont say whether the girl survived, just that they found a headless body 3 days later...

And then we get Jose Mourinho accused of punching a Man Utd fan who was apparently chanting abusive words at him. Picture the scene - he was leaving the ground, heading for the team bus, to take him to the airport back to Italy where he lives.
What was the fan singing???
"You're going home." Ok, he repeated it twice, but how on earth is that anything other than a factual comment on the current activity of the Special One?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2315266.ece

And finally, my current bete noire... does anyone else remember the words "Jade's last interview, now she wants privacy and to die in peace..."

No? Just me then... I got told that saying "good riddance, Jade" was controversial. How does "Just die already???" score on the scale? Just because someone has a bad disease, does not mean they are a good person...

Thats what i've been trying to say...

2009-03-10T16:26:00.002Z

Matthew Parris in Saturday's Times:
"We didn't elect the government to manage the house, but to build the house."
Exactly. All this politics of reaction, trying to answer what the other bloke said, before he says it, press releases read out on Today to tell us what a minister will say at lunch time so that the opposition can rubbish it before he says it, all the reacting to whatever is in the paper that morning, the prime minister making comments on Come Dancing or the X Factor...
Every politician today is so obsessed with the spin, the look, the message... I yearn for the days when the government were identikit men in suits who you never heard of because they were taking 3 years to set up the NHS. Can you imagine Bevan, McMillan, Churchill putting out press statements at 7am to say that later that day they would visit a school to ask pupils if they had any idea how to incorporate mobile phone voting into the Bank bailout plan?
A man in a suit would have read out a short statement saying "I have just invented the Social Security system, please visit your town hall for more details." And bloody good it would have been too.... Am i getting old?
ps Can you imagine Churchill and Chamberlain appearing on the radio at all at 10 past 8 to argue via John Humphrys about the merits of being nice to that Mr Hitler chap... and being told, with respect, that they were an absolute nincompoop, and could they please answer the question...

Myners - its not technically illegal....

2009-03-06T11:11:00.002Z

So, Lord Myners worked as a director in banking.
His bank were bought by Natwest.
Natwest were then bought by RBS.
He stepped down, i think before Fred Goodwin became CEO, but they would have been aware of each other.
Years later, he gets to decide whether Fred Goodwin gets a huge pension and pay out.
As he has said, its not illegal, and as they never directly worked for or with each other, its not technically a conflict of interest.
But, it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and to the uneducated man in the street, sure as hell looks like a duck. Calling it a drake doesnt make it ok.
Dont forget, as per Mandy, Myners is unelected. At least he doesnt draw a government salary. And after all why should he, as in the last year he started collecting his generous pension from...er.. well after all the takeovers it would be from RBS... so that's us then...
Quack.

No trifling matter

2009-03-06T10:46:00.002Z

Leila Deen, I salute you.

Southend United - memories of the worst team ever...

2009-03-03T16:24:00.002Z

The Carling Cup final is not normally something that makes one think of the Shrimpers, but this weekend something was reported that made me very nearly spit my large extra hot skinny mocha all over the back page of the Times... Man Utd's goalkeeping coach is one Mr Eric Steele. Amongst his history is one season as the worst goalkeeper Southend United ever had.
Let me take you back to the summer of 1987. Dave Webb the ex Chelsea star who had shown great promise as a manager had stormed out, and after appointing Paul Clark as caretaker the chairman, Vic Jobson, PBUH, appointed Dick Bate as manager. The season started with two average 2-2 draws to keep us guessing which way the season was going to go... and then started a run of 6 consecutive defeats. And they weren't 1-0. 8-1 Gillingham stuffed us. I know, i went to Kent and counted each one of them... And our goal was an own goal so you could call it 9-0. Then 2-1, then 6-2 to Notts County, and a 3-2, 4-1 and 1-0. Eight games into the season, and 28 goals conceded. All past Eric Steele. And then Dick Bate got sacked, and effectively the same team beat top division Derby 1-0 in the League (now Carling) Cup. Roy McDonough scored the winner and the local paper headlined it Roy Boy's Derby Joy. Those amongst you in the know will remember Roy McDonough as the man who holds the English league record for red cards, with something like 14 in his years at Southend and Colchester. (A man i fondly remember knocking out a Newport defender with a beautiful right hander in the 6th minute of an FA Cup game - he didnt even look for the referee but strode majestically straight off the pitch and down the tunnel.)
A few weeks later they did share a 7 goal thriller at Sunderland (attendance about 12,000 in those days) - we scored none of them...
We finished the season winning 7 of our last 10 games, including the last one 4-0 against Blackpool when defeat would have relegated us instead of Rotherham. So i remember Dick and Eric as the biggest clowns in one of the most eventful seasons at the Hall. Dick went on to be England U19 manager before another ex Shrimpers boss Peter Taylor took over. How Eric got to be a goalkeeping coach anywhere is a miracle, but at Old Trafford????

My thanks to statto.com for confirming my worst memories....
And no thanks to ericsteelecoachingservices.co.uk which was last updated about 4 years ago...

Children

2009-03-01T16:22:00.002Z

I have the most enormous sympathy for David Cameron. To lose a child under any circumstances is appalling, and by all accounts little Ivan was a splendidly happy chap. He has my heartfelt sympathy.
But the idea that government should stop for 30 minutes is ridiculous, and another example of the country going mad. Previous prime ministers who served the country for decades have died and there have been murmurs of sorrow, expressions of thanks, and the country carries on. We are fighting 2 wars, we are in the middle of the greatest economic crisis of our lives, the world is going to hell in a handcart (whatever that means) and we stopped the government because an MP's child died. That was wrong, but i know that if there was an X-Factor style vote for the public that is exactly the kind of gesture that most people on this sad little island would have voted for. I'm glad i'm different/

And on a funnier note.... Jade said in one of her private moments shared by 18 journalists, that she was wondering how to tell her kids that she was dying. They are 5 and 6 - surely they can read by now? Surely they have noticed the media circus? Mum losing her hair? Mum's face on every magazine and newspaper? At school??? And looking at her Wikipedia page (wanted to check the kids' ages) it says she has had a relationship with footballer Ryan Amoo. Yes him. No, me neither - but he has his own wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Amoo) - surely the least successful footballer ever to get his own webpage. He plays for Barwell for God's sake...

Oh Mandy, you came and you gave without taking...

2009-03-01T16:15:00.002Z

The arrogance of Peter Mandelson...
He accuses the unions of "scare tactics", and tells them this will cost them their jobs, and be the end of the Royal Mail unless they do what he says. And if Labour MPs do not support him then they will lose the next election.
Has he no sense of irony at all???? And how exactly has this man had so many powerful jobs???

The Quandary of Jade

2009-02-23T12:44:00.003Z

Big fat loud mouthed idiot who racially abused someone and didn't know East Angular was in Britain... but she is dying so we can't be nasty any more.
Can we?
Ok, maybe not, but lets instead take the mickey out of OK magazine. They paid £700,000 for exclusive rights to her wedding. 30 people turned up to cheer her into the castle (in Essex remember). There were 50 guests, and who was the most high profile celebrity....?
Nick Ross, presenter of Crimewatch. And hubby was allowed to stay out past 7pm (one of the conditions of his probation after serving time for GBH is to be indoors by 7) by special permission of Jack Straw.
One feels Jonny Mac would have a field day in the continual dumbing down and "popular front" of the Labour govt - what on earth is Jack Straw doing personally intervening in this case??? Have we caught all the other criminals, stopped the terrorists and he thought he could do this just before he went home???
Harsh it may be, but after quite some reflection, i say good riddance, Jade. The world simply does not need you. Any complaints, please write them on a back of a £10 note and send them to Cancer Research. Catholics may forgive and forget for a deathbed confession, but personally i just keep thinking of the word "karma"... one this media whore probably has no idea about at all.

Alfie Patten

2009-02-18T19:25:00.000Z

I leave the country for 3 short weeks...

Alfie
February 18th, 2009 ·
Alfie Patten, the 13 year-old star of the latest freak show, revealed he was taking a break from thrice-nightly sexual intercourse after discovering masturbation.
He added: "I don’t want to miss out on an important part of my childhood."

Desert tours, American rules - do not lose sight of your car...

2009-02-16T02:49:00.004Z

Breathe.

The cold dry air fills your lungs, and for once they dont need to filter anything. The cold, clean air rushes into your brain and fills you with cold, clean thoughts.

Silence and emptiness, and cold, clean air. The laughter and screaming you leave behind in the car park, the cold, clean pathways covered in ice and snow stop the Americans from straying more than 10 yards from their parked patrol cars. Huge metal beasts which Freud would have found fascinating, but in the car park your little compact car looks like an automotive foetus waiting to develop into something stupidly big, destructive and fearful.

But you can leave the car. Leave the safety of the visitor centre with disabled access and a 20 yard walk down a snow covered path finds you alone. American wilderness is wheelchair accessible, but for once the snow stops even the metal wheeled fat freaks from joining you in your peaceful solitude, and keeps the screaming kids and bored dads from taking your cold, clean air.

The American desert is a wonderful place. The local Americans pervert it into some kind of endless strip mall selling spiritual enlightenment, dream catchers and yogic recentring. And the Indians play along, realising that if they take the stupid white folk on little jeep drives and feed them nonsense about their grandfathers eating rattle snakes then they too can have the Nikes and the flatscreen TVs, and of course the cigarettes and alcohol and a million white man diseases. The industry of the desert is obscene, and has nothing to do with the National Parks, who do a fantastic job in keeping a lot of this country wild and true. And so it is with enormous relief that one turns off the highway, piles through the snow, and finds oneself alone in the cold, clean air.

The worst coffee in the world, but look at the view!

2009-02-15T07:34:00.001Z

The view was spectacular.
The coffee was foul.
The muffin was inedible.
But look at that view!

Expectations...

2009-02-14T15:01:00.003Z

Sitting in Dennys waiting for my eggs over easy with wheat toast and a side of hash browns, as one does, the following vignette played out...
Little old lady, probably late 70s, polyester shellsuit, glasses on a string and shuffling, was met by Alex the fiercely efficient waitress.
"Can i get you a coffee?"
"Er..well..."
"OK, you got it, i'll bring it right over, you sit down..." and she is off
"Actually i dont drink coffee..." but Alex is gone.
Less than a heartbeat later she returns with a mug of steaming Joe and places it in front of our little lady, who meekly smiles and says thanks.
A minute later and Alex is back, forcing the poor woman to choose, and almost scared she bleats "Sourdough bagel" and Alex is gone again with the menus and the woman looking forlornly into the coffee, another victim of the average American's terror of offending a waitress (by, say, tipping less than 20% at self service buffets).
And then this little old lady reaches into her pocket and pulls out an I-phone, starts scrolling away at the screen, takes out her little ear phones, plugs them in, and is lost in what one can only imagine is a world of Michael Buble or James Last...

Wood, Tree and Koalas

2009-02-13T04:55:00.002Z

A beautiful story about koalas meeting for the first time after being rescued from the fires, and the wonderful point that seems to have escaped the author is that one was rescued by Mr Tree, and the other by Ms Wood. You wooden believe it...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090211/tod-oukoe-uk-australia-fires-koala-b7e5c6f.html

Honestly, i was just trying to get my blood sugar down...

2009-02-13T04:51:00.000Z

Dangerous low blood sugar linked to sex drugs
Wednesday, February 11 10:04 pm Gene Emery (Yahoo News)

Illegal anti-impotence drugs and herbs contaminated with the diabetes drug glyburide have caused some 150 cases of dangerously low blood sugar, researchers in Singapore reported on Wednesday.
Four people have died, they said in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The drugs include counterfeit Cialis and herbal preparations with names such as "Power 1 Walnut" and "Santi Bovine Penis Erecting Capsule," Shih Ling Kao of National University Hospital said.
The packaging listed fictitious overseas factories as the manufacturer, "so it is not known whether there was deliberate or accidental contamination," they wrote.
All but one of the 150 victims were men, ranging in age from 19 to 97.
"We believe that physicians should be cognizant of this phenomenon when evaluating patients with severe unexplained hypoglycemia, particularly if a clustering of cases is noted," Kao's team wrote.

If i got one of these put in at the house i could solve the renewable power problem on my own...

2009-02-13T04:45:00.001Z

From the BBC:

Caboverde

2009-02-03T19:24:00.006Z

Have been saving this for a few days now...
To some, Cape Verde sounds like an island paradise. An island off the West Coast of Africa, bathed in light tropical winds with a perfect climate, the people are friendly, the beaches are apparently spotless...
Different when you are working there. Arrival on the island was a little late, so we touched down shortly after 11pm and i joined the line at immigration. Maybe 100 people, with 2 extraordinarily surly and unwelcoming Police officers on duty. An hour later my passport was scowled at for a good 3 or 4 minutes, all the time staring down without a word, they stared at various visas... and then asked "Visa?"
My answer must have surprised them. For I, like everyone else that day, and probably every other day they had ever worked at the airport, had discovered that you can only buy the visa in person once on the island. So no, i didnt have a visa. I was eventually given a form (including Profession, parents' names and i think it asked for my favourite colour) and joined the back of the line i had been in before, now at another desk. It took over 2 hours to get from the terminal door to baggage reclaim, a distance of about 40 metres.
The driver was there waiting and whished me off to my hotel. I was waved in the direction of a Grace Bros style lift which took me up one floor. Room 110 was posted down the corridor so off i went. When i bumped into my room, which i discovered by braille, I was so excited about the lighting arrangements in my corridor that i took a photo of the front door:

Once inside i took advantage of the facilities and slept. Until the alarm went off about 5 hours later.

The office was a huge sprawling place, fit for 1000 workers, but actually being used by about 20. I have no complaints about my treatment by the team there, excellent, hard working people who looked after me and made me very welcome. Even Anna, the mad young girl in the canteen who decided that the funniest thing she had ever encountered was a vegetarian.

The canteen was like a 1940s pre-hygiene food tent. There was a counter, and on the other side was Anna, a spoon, some tongs, and about a dozen plates. These contained one big pile of rice, one plate of vegetables, and about 10 different ways to cook bits of chicken. Or pork. Or lets face it, it could have been dog.

I was Anna's first vegetarian. So i got a plate of rice and vegetables. And each of my 5 lunches there was a lump of cabbage (boiled 45 minutes), some squash (boiled 45 minutes), a plantain (quite tasty actually) and some rice. And she never stopped laughing at me.

My host actually phoned a restaurant for me, as my Portuguese is not what it used to be, and was told they dont serve vegetarians. Irish, dogs and whores welcome, but no vegetarians. So it was off to the supermarket for home made cheese (Laughing Cow reduced fat slices since you ask) sandwiches.

One night we did go out to a restaurant. The chef was told at table side to prepare a feast of vegetables, to use his imagination, and surprise me. He did.

I got a plate of rice, plantain, squash and cabbage. And resting ever so neatly on top were 2 stone cold slices of Laughing Cow cheese.

The hotel was a great place to stay at night. No internet, no blackberry, no tv...One light in the room, no kettle, no fridge... the air conditioning had a hose running into a bucket by the window that i had to empty every couple of hours while wondering what the gestation period for legionaires disease is...

So it was no hardship at all to work at the office past 8 every night, and on the last night we arrived at the airport at 10.30. I arrived in the departure lounge after midnight. THere was only one flight, with little more than 100 people on, but again check in was painful and security was ridiculous. And we then left over an hour late which made my bag miss the connection.

Going to lost baggage at LHR was painful. I tried to explain to the man that i was travelling again the next day so needed my bag urgently. His reply - "Its not here." I know, say I, so can i borrow one? "No, your bag is not damaged, it is lost, and you can only borrow a bag if we have damaged your's." So being unable to prove that my bag was damaged, i left without a spare change of underwear....

So what did i see of Caboverde? In daylight - the walk from the office to the canteen. I had to wait outside the hotel every morning for the driver, so i include for your delight the Escolinha Disneyland - which proves that Cape Verde is one place the Disney lawyers have not yet reached which cheered me up. And the view from my window - the corner of the market place with women arriving with boxes of fruit on their heads. In civilisations where men do the work we invented the wheel 1000s of years ago. Where women do the work, they still carry boxes on their heads....

Ok, even i wouldn't do that #2 (and dont worry, there shouldnt be many)

2009-01-22T14:08:00.002Z

An update on the Tory hopeful who went to the fancy dress party as Maddie.
Apparently he did wonder whether it was a bit tasteless so he checked with his friends. Decided it was ok as one of them was going as Baby P.
And he did.
No comment required.

FOX News - i could not live without it...

2009-01-22T13:52:00.003Z

Last night they started reporting the (ahem...) FACT that since Barack fluffed his lines in the swearing in bit of the shenanigans the other day he was not officially the President. They were trying to run with it and say that it may in fact need a new election as the country was rudderless...
And now today, with the news that Barack and the Chief Justice repeated the swearing in later in the privacy of some ballroom toilet (i made that location up, but hey, if they can...) just in case any right wing nutters thought about challenging the validity of the Presidency.
So what do FOX News now run with? "On Day 2 of the Obama Presidency - how the White House has become a secret office not inviting the press to key events..."
Has BECOME???? Seriously folks, you need to keep watching FOX News, cos when Obama does good things they will be spinning it in their usual brilliant way.
Feeding the Poor? Lets bring back tax cuts for the rich.
Just out of curiosity - is there common law in the US. Surely if 2 million people stand in the snow watching something, 100s of millions around the world watch it on TV, everyone reads about it, everyone knows... surely getting two lines of the oath wrong makes no difference at all? Everyone knows he is the Pres?
Surely?
Watch this space for news of FOX v Obama in the Supreme Court.

Isn't blogging brillllliant??!!!

2009-01-21T20:17:00.000Z

Welcome gentle reader, to the back of my cab. I am currently doing 80 on the M23, and have had enough of the driver telling me how any animal can get UK benefits without ever leaving their home in Africa....
Have just had a couple of days in Dublin, all completely overshadowed of course by the inauguration of President Obama. And yes JMP it sure does feel good not seeing the P word followed by Bush...
I will leave more educated and flowery writers to describe events, all I wanted to mention was my overwhelming sense of melancholy and fear that yesterday was the best day of Obama's presidency. Yesterday nothing was his fault, and he had promise, ideas, opportunities. Could one man change a world.
And then before he had visited his 7th ball, before he had even swiped his door pass at the White House, came news that he was stopping the Guantanamo trials due to start today. And for me that was more important than any silly parade - he has started, and in the way we wanted him to. So today I am confident. It won't all happen tomorrow, but the world will improve. And then someone will run out of water and it will all kick off anew.......

Winter Wonderland

2009-01-10T16:06:00.004Z

Took the dogs out this morning in what was about -6 frost... it was gorgeous!

Ok, even I wouldnt do that...

2009-01-09T17:19:00.003Z

Its good to know that even when all trust and support for Labour has slipped away, you still know that this bloke just had to be a Tory...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7820727.stm

Kate and Gerry McCann have condemned a Conservative activist who boasted about dressing up as Madeleine McCann at a party, calling his actions "offensive".
Matthew Lewis has been expelled from the party after telling friends of his planned exploits at a New Year party.
Tory chairman Caroline Spelman said the actions of Mr Lewis, a member of the young activist group Conservative Future, were "completely unacceptable".
Five-year Madeleine disappeared in 2007 during a family holiday in Portugal.
'Intolerable'
Despite a worldwide hunt, there has been no trace of her since.
Mr Lewis, who is believed to studying in London, told friends on the Facebook website that he planned to attend a party dressed as Madeleine McCann.
He said his costume would include "pink pyjamas, a teddy bear and a vial of fake blood".
This offensive behaviour is not only shocking but intolerable and completely unacceptable
Caroline Spelman
After the party, Mr Lewis used the website to tell another Conservative Future member that "there was a brief moment when I thought I might have gone too far with elements of the costume but it was OK".
Mr Lewis is listed by Conservative Future as its branch chairman in Staffordshire although he is reported to have resigned from the position last month.
He was pictured campaigning alongside Tory leader David Cameron during last year's Crewe and Nantwich by-election.
A spokesman for the McCanns said his actions were "offensive almost beyond belief".
"His actions are not only disgraceful in themselves, they will also cause great hurt to Kate and Gerry," he said.
"It is a complete disgrace that Madeleine's name and image should be made fun of in this way."
But the spokesman praised the "swift and appropriate" action taken by the Conservatives against Mr Lewis.
It is understood Mr Lewis is to make a "full and unreserved" apology to the McCanns, which the Conservatives hope will draw a line under the incident.
In a statement, Conservative Central Office said there was "no place for this sort of person in the party".
"This offensive behaviour is not only shocking but intolerable and completely unacceptable," Mrs Spelman said.

And I say leaving your kids alone and giving "someone else" the opportunity to murder one of them is pretty offensive.... and just maybe more serious than having extraordinarily bad taste? After all, as the McCanns know full well, all publicity is good publicity in the search for Maddie, and this gets them back in the news. I would like to make clear that there is absolutely no evidence at all to suggest that the McCanns did anything to their child. I am absolutely convinced they were in the restaurant. If their lawyers are reading i will repeat that - there is no evidence at all that they did anything more than leave their children unguarded...
If any other lawyers are reading and have any legal advice be glad to hear it :)

From Denis Norden's "You couldn't make it up, even if you are the kind of doctor who thinks a cock up is one more successful sex change operation..."

2009-01-09T13:08:00.001Z

A man who donated his kidney to his wife eight years ago now wants it back after she cheated on him and filed for divorce.

'I Want My Kidney Back' Says Doc
Richard Batista from Long Island in New York, US, says he wants the organ back or £2.1m ($1.5m).
The surgeon gave his wife Dawnell the kidney in 2001 after two previous failed transplants.
Dr Batista told the New York Daily News there is "no value you can put on an organ when it saves someone's life. There is no greater feeling on this planet."
He says he is only suing Dawnell to get her to act reasonably in the divorce case, claiming she is restricting access to their children, aged eight, 11 and 14.
Their relationship had been suffering due to the strain of his wife's medical issues, said Dr Batista.
"My first priority was to save her life," he said. "The second bonus was to turn the marriage around."
But it did not work and four years later she filed for divorce.
Arthur Caplan from the University of Pennsylvania's Centre for Bioethics said the likelihood of Dr Batista getting either his kidney or the money was "somewhere between impossible and completely impossible".
Medical ethicist Robert Veatch from Georgetown University said it was illegal for an organ to be exchanged for anything of value.
Organ donation is a gift which means you cannot legally get it back, he explained.
"It's her kidney now and taking the kidney out would mean she would have to go on dialysis or it would kill her," Mr Veatch said.
He insisted no reputable surgeon would perform such a procedure and no court could compel someone to undergo an operation.

X Factor contestants not being ripped off at all

2009-01-09T13:02:00.003Z

From the Yahoo news page... seems that X Factor winner who murdered Hallelujah is getting paid somewhere in the region of 150 quid a night. All the acts together will earn less than a grand, on a show that is grossing over half a million....
And that's on top of the much vaunted MILLION POUND CONTRACT which actually means that her cut + marketing + expenses + materials + production costs will come to more than a million. Her cut is rumoured to be around 100 grand....
Well done Mr Cowell, feed the cow and milk the cash. Well done my fellow countrymen who eat this crap up, year after year...

QUOTE
X Factor's Minimum Wage
Posted 41 minutes ago by Mitch Carter in The Guestlist
Despite becoming the first British female solo artist to sell over 1 million singles in the UK, Alexandra Burke is only earning £250 a night for live appearances according to the Daily Mail.
Her debut single Hallelujah outsold Leona Lewis' debut and is set to become the best-selling single by a female artist this decade, ousting current record-holder Kylie Minogue who has sold 1.1 million copies of Spinning Around.
Alexandra is currently performing alongside Laura White, Eoghan Quigg, Diana Vickers and Rachel Hylton as part of the X Factor tour. Her co-stars will receive a similar amount but boyband JLS will only earn £100 each per night for their performances.
Tax, a 20% management fee and expenses will also be deducted from their earnings.
Tickets for London's O2 arena start at £28.50 meaning a sold-out performance could earn organisers over half a million pounds.
UNQUOTE

Israel and India

2009-01-07T14:01:00.002Z

M'Learned friend Mr Mac argues with some persuasion http://jonnymacsplace.blogspot.com/ that Israel has the right to defend itself against an aggressive neighbour if it is certain that they are a threat to its security. I dont think there is any doubt left that Hamas is a threat to Israel, no one denies that, and therefore Israel seems justified in taking some military action to contain / remove that threat.
So how does one argue the case of India. The government there announced yesterday that the Mumbai massacre was organised within Pakistan, by Pakistanis, with the tacit approval of the Pakistani government - in that they know these paramilitary organisations exist within their borders and they do next to nothing to stop them. So the question is asked of the world - does India have the right to stage pre-emptive attacks against regions of Pakistan where they know terrorist training camps exist - where there are weapons and lunatics poised to inflict more killing on Indian civilians. Should India (a nuclear power) launch raids on Pakistan (another nuclear power) with the same justification as Israel?
Questions like this trouble me, and the idea of India wading into the North worries me...

A tremendous day of news

2009-01-07T13:05:00.007Z

Sat in Costa Coffee with the unemployed and old this morning, i thoroughly enjoyed the Independent, and thought i would share some of the highlights with you...
http://independent.co.uk
On the letters page they always put a daily statistic - normally along the lines of "273 - Average minutes a beetle can swim for in salt water." Amusing, whimsical, fun. This morning's made me choke on my coffee... 3645 people died in the UK last year in hospitals due to worker mistakes. So every year more people die from medical staff cocking up, than died in 9/11, or from drugs, or murders...
Peter Tatchell, celebrated Gay Rights campaigner who i admire for his work, especially in Zimbabwe, seems to be a bit short of things to get excited about. He has attacked the BBC for the "50 Most Annoying People" show, one of those talking heads things where micro celebrities slag each other off. Apparently Lindsay Lohan was one of them, and even though the annoying acts were her misbehaving and set up paparazzi shots, Tatchell has described the show as "Lesbophobic." What a great word.
Kraftwerk have lost one of their founder members, who wont be touring with them this year. He has appeared on all 4 of the band's albums released throughout their 40 year career. Now that is work rate. Poor bloke must be knackered, especially as the last album only came out 3 years ago. The idea of touring this soon after was madness...
Laura Bush, wife of the outgoing Satan in the US, has suffered the loss of her 18 year old cat, India. That itself is not news, but the fact that a Cairo based radio station which is normally reserved for Bin Laden's broadcasts and Al-Qaeda news, has started broadcasting round the clock taunts, celebrating the death of Bush's pet. I dont think even i would go that far...
And finally, a parish church in Yorkshire has put together a charity recipe book and managed to get Gordo and Dave to put forward their recipes. Dave goes for Tuscan sausage, while Gordo favours mozarella parcels. The food critic describes this as a "bit old hat." I say support the charity and dont use it as a way of attacking the politicians - they do little enough of any merit, so the fact they bothered with this should be saluted. And i am in no way biased because Mrs Dno has issued her own charity recipe book, featuring contributions from Michaela Strachan, Pat from Eastenders, Rula Lenska and Philip Schofield. Now that is good cooking... (although Michael Caine's cake was disappointing...)

And in news just in.... Golf clubs could damage your hearing... I will let the reader find out how...

New Forest Sanctuary

2009-01-03T18:12:00.003Z

Your humble correspondent has gone under cover, and in order to bring you knowledge he has disguised himself as a resident at a health spa.
Its one of those places that women go dewey eyed over. Its a nice hotel, quaint old manor building in a cute little New Forest village, but attached to it is a modern eyesore - a bizarre mix of concrete, glass and bamboo - which claims to be an authentic Thai spa. http://www.careysmanor.com/
So what happens in this strange feminine world, where everyone strolls around in dressing gowns, and small Thai ladies in little black suits are probably the most genuinely happy and friendly people you have ever met - and all are keen to get your trousers off and rub in some strange smelling unction... We have been here 3 days now and it still makes no sense...
You start in the hydrotherapy pool, which to the uneducated eye (moi!) seems like a giant jacuzzi. There are bubble jets which shoot out the wall and hit you in the groin (extremely pleasant i will admit) and bubbles which erupt beneath you. The bubbles seem to attack your shorts which swell up into life jackets and force you onto your back to avoid the most painful of wedgies.... So we move from there to the Arctic Storm shower. Apparently the secret is hot / cold / hot / cold, so we soak ourselves in icey water and wander off in search of the herbal sauna. Hot. Hot hot hot. And why Thyme as a herb? Back to the Atlantic Ocean spray so we can go into the steam room. Quite literally, and i hate that word, a room full of steam. Whoever thought i needed help to sweat was alas much mistaken. But sweat i do, and from there its in to the Caribbean Rain shower. I have no idea what the difference between all these geographical showers is supposed to be - they are all just cold water! The wife has taken a shine to the ice machine and tipping the bucket of cold water over her head, will update later if there is any noticeable improvement thanks to this technique... Madness i call it.
And then to the one i do like - the Tepidarium. Basically warm benches in a cool room. Which you just have to lay on. And who said being healthy wasnt fun. The hard work done its obviously back to the cold showers, a bit more Giant Jacuzzi and then off to the changing rooms...
The rest area is lovely, all smoothies, gift shop and sofas, but you sign it to the room and slurp the smoothy, and the world seems a long long way away...
You can also get what are referred to as treatments, but are really just ways of getting nice little ladies to paw you with oil. The foot massage was lovely, the blindfold that little touch that made it even more personal. The Swedish massage was wonderful, again the blindfold a great idea, so you have no idea who is tucking your bits back between your legs and leaning over your chest with your arm stuck between her and the bed... And this was booked by my wife??? All very above board apparently, and you get a little card that tells you what the oil was so you can buy it in the gift shop. Searched in vain for the little box to tick for Happy Finish, and little Pao delivered me back to the reception with her honour intact. Very enjoyable, not sure if it was really good for me, but very pleasurable!
So what has your roving reporter discovered then? That he can get a new key by waving one at reception and just saying "Six" (our room number) to a receptionist he has never met. I will be returning next week with a large van and some boxes.
The French restaurant has imported some genuine snotty French waiters. When remarking that the red pepper risotto was in fact a mushroom one, i was told that Chef often changes his mind half way through cooking...
The local tea shop does a cracking cream tea, and is teddy bear themed. To get the waitress' attention, one sits a little teddy on top of a stick on the table. Genius :) And the young girls in little French maid outfits (with blue nail varnish) are always welcome servers.
Christchurch is Basildon on sea with marinas. Thats like putting an Aston Martin garage in Bewbush,
The ponies of the New Forest are cute. They wander everywhere, and most houses have a gate and a cattle grid. They have right of way through the village, and i have never seen so much horse poo.
And most importantly, Southend got a draw at Chelsea. At almost exactly the moment little Pao was oiling my thigh, Peter Clarke was equalising at Stamford Bridge.... some days are better than others...

Remember Me?

2008-12-29T09:23:00.003Z

The clamour from my public has been deafening. I took the advice of Mr Bone and scaled down the quantity of blogging to concentrate on the quality. And then wrote nothing at all. But several of you (ok, one of you - alright - ME!) thought it may be about time to commit fingers to keyboard and update you on my ramblings...
I havent been anywhere for a few weeks now. Back to CityJet to tell them they are a fairly well organised outfit compared to some of the places i have seen, and that they should give TB a job fairly quickly...
No travels planned for a few more weeks, when i think it is back to Addis for a week of Hilton horror, and then a mixture of Dublin and Marrakech, which cant be bad!
Christmas and all its multitude of miseries is now behind us. People think its a bad time of year for those of us who despise commercialism, religion, families and the like. As long as you have a really wide Miserablist streak then it truly is a time of plenty. So much to moan about, so much to put down, ridicule and rant at... I am always happiest when my blood sugar is higher than the outside temparature, so many roast potatoes have been sunk, nut roasts picked at (whats wrong with a curry???) and the several presents i wrapped for myself (and labelled for myself to avoid confusion) have been greatly appreciated. Sat at the table on xmas day looking at the spread my sister-in-law had put on (quite magnificent effort, Sal) and wondered where all these foods spent the rest of the year? Everyone knows turkey and brussels are once a year - but what about the bread sauce, the cranberry jelly, mincemeat, chocolate mints, quality street, cracker jokes... what bizarre fagan ritual morphed into crackers??? If it really is a time of family and sharing and being together, then why not just make a big pot of curry? What is all this mad pressure to cook a turkey? The Royle Family christmas special was genius as usual, and i urge you all to jump on iplayer to watch it if you missed it. Denise's crying in the kitchen, saying the wanted a christmas like Nigella's, and Dave had ruined it by not getting a 6 legged turkey.... wonderful.
Our pre Christmas party was the usual triumph, with the wonderful combination of hosts (one really friendly, loves Christmas and people, excellent cook, always smiling etc, the other me) and my mum and dad proving the perfect house guests. Dad smooched the ladies and was a raging success, with at least 10 of them telling me as they left what a wonderful man he was, and mum got stuck into the kitchen about midday, and only left when the last spoon had been washed up. We shall certainly be inviting them again next year!! It was a great day filled with friends and family (and some mad woman from Cobham who seemed to know me) and as usual seemed to end up with several open bottles around the pool table. Thanks everyone for a wonderful day.
Then to Karen's party where we trotted down to Kim's boss to do the old shake and bake. First ones there which meant we could be first to leave - but at least we had a really good chat with Guernsey's very own Richard Harding. The Breakfast DJ of IslandFM no less. http://www.islandfm.com/index.php

I know its hard to believe that someone this famous and exciting should be so far away from home and bump into yours truly, but he was there, and what a really nice charming bloke he was too. Not like Ian Woosnam who i met once at a golf do. Or that bloke off the telly who was a complete idiot. No, we liked Richard, and when we do finally get to go and visit Jonny Mac's Place, we have decided we will be special guests on his morning show. It is unlikely that Guernsey has talents as wild as mine, so that will be good for them!

And now here we are approaching the new year. Like i'm any more interested in that...

Dog sitters arrive tomorrow, and we are off to a country spa hotel for 4 nights. Should be fun, as long as i get my all over massage, and she is cute....

Morning in Dublin

2008-12-02T07:53:00.004Z

Well its a Premier Travel Inn somewhere in Dublin, Lord knows where as it was taxi from airport to office and then to hotel... so could be anywhere really!
Its a sweet little hotel which is very functional and a nice big comfortable bed, so no reason to complain at all. And there is the added entertainment of having to talk Serbo-Croat to communicate with staff. I was told last night that the internet connection in the room could be found in the "cupboard provided within." Still no idea what that means. Going down to breakfast i was asked if I had "ever eaten breakfast before." News just in - Goldilocks has installed an outside loo to give the bears a more "foresty feeling"...

Also i find myself at odds with myself over the news.... This cold woman who runs Haringey children's services has been suspended. The news channels are reporting "growing feelings" that she should be sacked immediately and not be paid. Sorry, she shouldn't be. I dont want her to carry on and be responsible for anything, let alone the safety of children, but there is an internal process to work through, and so we must. The HR laws in the UK are sometimes ridiculous - age discrimination means you can't judge a job applicant based on their experience as that discriminates against young people who have not had a chance to build up experience... You cant sack someone now without a full inquiry... But what would be unforgivable would be to ignore the law (however much we disagree with it) and give someone the opportunity to sue the government and really benefit.

Spelling disaster of the week - The Perfume Shop in Horsham. They have a special offer, which i have seen before, but this is the first weekend where i actually went into the shop to complain about the sign in the window... (Sorry Beloved!!!)

Ladie's Perfume of the Week

I think this is one of the ladie's they are aiming at...

XL Airways Germany

2008-11-28T09:18:00.002Z

Have just heard the terrible news that XL Germany have lost an aircraft. Aviation is a cruel industry where accidents, incidents and closures can happen with no warning and often no reason. At moments like this it is essential to gather information and facts, and keep the speculation to a minimum.
I worked with the Captain many times, and he was a very capable pilot, and a good human too - something i dont say lightly when pilots are involved. He will be a huge loss to his family and to XL Germany, and to aviation as a whole. Sympathies also to the other families involved.

Terror Fatigue

2008-11-28T09:10:00.002Z

I have to admit that events in Mumbai have not moved me the way they should.
I woke up yesterday to find an email from my Chairman expressing sympathy with the people of India and solidarity with their plight, and then advising us not to go near the place. Strange, i thought, must be like Mandy commenting on Strictly Come Dancing or Gordon Brown telling off Russell Brand...
So i turned on the tv, and was immediately confronted by pictures of burning hotels and crying locals, while a suit shouted down a dodgy phone line that "its impossible to say how many Britons are involved." The ticker along the bottom said there were 100 dead, but it seemed on every channel that this number was irrelevant and meaningless until it could have a little asterisk attached with the phrase "x Britons among the dead." I have ranted before about how many foreign lives equal one Englishman, and it does seem that man made disasters are the natural home of this racism. Floods, earthquakes and tsunamis all seem to touch some human spirit and people respond to the "1000s dead" without demanding to know how many were English.
Yesterday the woman reading the BBC news almost fainted with excitement when they confirmed that one of the dead was German. And later when the first Englishman was confirmed no one seemed to care it was someone who had lived in India for most of his life, was dark skinned and spoke the local language. The terrorists would not have known he was not local, but for the news anchors this was the biggest moment of the day.
So i turned off the news.
Enough terrorist destruction for one day, i thought of the low paid, exploited hotel workers who had been cruelly and stupidly killed, and I carried on my pampered life....

Sealing Wax and Sailing Ships

2008-11-19T05:42:00.002Z

As the Walrus said...
Its my last night in Australia and it seems to have come round quite quickly. The training is finished so i have done my last day in the little hut at the abandoned airport. Essendon is a strange place - its size suggests that once it was a thriving travel centre, a flurry of DC3s, Electras and the odd 727 which whisked the good people of Victoria off to exciting places with stupid names - Wangaratta, Ballarat, Mangalore, Mallacoota and Wycheproof (and thats just in the same state). Now it lies hauntingly empty, with a check in desk at one end of the 300 foot long building, a tea hut in the middle and nothing at the other end. There are closed shops in the middle of the concourse creating little alley ways a bit like Melbourne itself, but they never open and no one ever comes to try them. It wouldnt surprise you if Scooby and Shaggy came running round the corner shouting "Yoiks" pursued by a gnarled old cleaner who doesnt want the developpers to move in...
And communication is at a minimum to say the least. The only internet site i can access is webmail - and the guys are telling me that emails are taking 12 hours to arrive. I can phone from English mobile to English mobile (there is no landline) but there is a huge echo and delay that isnt normally there, and it probably costs a bailout every minute.
So back to the hotel where i discover that checkout tomorrow is 11am.. This will need some planning as my flight is at 2359, and i am supposed to do an office day in there somewhere... They will let me use the gym as a bathroom - i assume there is a changing room or something and they are not just encouraging me to pee on the treadmill??? - so i guess i'm preparing for a 24 hour flight in a gym changing room?
I have enjoyed Melbourne, its been a warm, welcoming place, and i have certainly shouted at fewer people this week for gross incompetence. No apologies to the taxi firm who managed in 14 bookings to produce 4 no shows and 8 late taxis - 2 on time! Today both turned up half an hour early with DO NOT BE LATE written in marker pen on their trip sheets. Just cos i ripped into the boss yesterday and reminded him we spend all day with the guys who choose which taxi company to ring... And no apologies to the barista in the fancy coffee shop who responded to my request for a coffee and sparkling water by telling me to sit down. So i did. 10 minutes later I returned to the bar and asked if i could have my drinks. He said yes, sit down. 10 minutes later i was brought a coffee. I followed him back to the counter and asked if i could also have my sparkling water. In an act of genius he wandered off to my table and collected the coffee. He then took it to his boss, told him the customer wanted coffee and sparkling water, and how much should he add... It was gently pointed out to him that they go in separate glasses. So he took a bottle of water off the shelf and handed it to me. It was warmer than the coffee. I cut my losses and left. Other than that i have had to do remarkably little educating of the unwashed masses, which is good as i needed a break. Maybe they are learning and teaching each other....
So, a shame to leave this wonderful town, but its a lovely feeling to be on the way home. My baby has had to deal with broken cars, broken roads, broken bathrooms, children, work and dirty dogs. And she needs a little break, so its good to be going home to see her again. Will be wonderful to catch up, light the fire, watch the dogs wrestle and hear the cat miaow. Its the best destination there could possibly be, so i dont care how long the flight is, i dont care if i dont get business. I'm going to see my woman!

Sunday wandering around Melbourne

2008-11-16T05:43:00.005Z

Have uploaded a lot of photos to the Facebook page - and if you havent signed up for Facebook yet then it really is about time!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45030&id=710997529
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45032&id=710997529&ref=nf

Not sure if that link works if you're not signed up, but hopefully it will!

The Botanical Gardens were a magical place, full of families with children and dogs running around, but still with more than enough space to be alone, to follow little paths between trees and stumble across glorious bursts of colour and light. Probably smelt great too if you have a sense of smell...

The Shrine was a different kind of magic. One of the most serene and beautiful buildings i have seen in. Built in the 20s to honour Victoria's men and women who served overseas, it is a huge imposing structure, yet somehow intimate and fitting. The concrete steps and marble pillars speak in soft yet mighty tones to the unimaginable sacrifices these people made. It wasnt even their war, yet over 100,000 volunteered, in an era when Europe was a month away at least. Nearly 20,000 didnt return, and those who did must have been scarred and scared until the day they died. Every hour they shine the light over the capstone reading "no greater love hath man" - just as the sun naturally falls on November 11th at 11am - and play the last post. How anyone who knows it can listen to the words that follow and not shed a silent tear... Lest we forget indeed. And talking to one of the guides, a Scottish veteran of serious years, it appears that the sensitive Ozzies have recently reduced the silence from 2 minutes to 1. Because it falls on a work day and 2 minutes is too long to lose. So the veterans here have taken to hiring buglers at 10.59 to walk into the middle of busy intersections and stop the traffic, and force the world to stop for the full 2 minutes. Good luck to them, and let us pray to whatever God or monkey we believe in, that one day these stupid, stupid sacrifices will come to an end.

Christmas Parade

2008-11-15T04:25:00.002Z

Its mid November, 30 something degrees and a 100 foot long Chinese dragon has just meandered down the road, as thousands of kids push against the barriers waving and screaming. Must be the Melbourne Christmas Parade. Seems like Christmas has been bought by Myers department store in this town - there is the Myers Christmas Santa Grotto, the Myers Christmas Windows, the Myers Christmas Parade... Although they did have a 40% off day last weekend which enabled me to pick up a great new laptop bag so i do forgive them...
Some snippets from the news this morning:

BBC - Barack may offer a job to Bill Richardson (excellent idea - the Hispanic governor of NM impressed me in the primaries.) He is described as a "former permanent representative to the UN". How does that work then?

ABC - Melbourne Police tell pedestrians to take more care crossing the road. Especially the "young, old and inebriated." While in Tasmania, there is a memorial service to remember the "victims of road trauma." Its not noted whether this is only pedestrians, or whether they also remember drivers.

Russians have stolen a church. Apparently, brick by brick over a few years. How can you not notice a whole church disappearing??
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/13/2418156.htm

No comment needed on the next one:
NEW DELHI (AFP) - A media campaign featuring a mobile phone ringtone that sings "condom condom" has pushed up sale of the contraceptive by 85 million in six months.

Children In Need. Am I the only person completely and totally disinterested in this? Well done on raising 2o million. Thats roughly a pound, maybe two, for every child in the country. That'll work then. If it does save one child from abuse, poverty or boredom then you have to wonder why the government isnt doing it. We can give hundreds of billions to banks, but dont have 20 million to look after suffering children. What sort of person makes that decision???

Phil Tufnell has tipped Joe Swash to win I'm a Celebrity... Joe who??? Sometimes its good to be out of touch, cos i've seen what passes for celebrity and the people who obsess over it and i do not want to be in that herd... Ever since the day in the Boots queue where they had 2 celebrity magazines side by side, both with huge EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW headlines...
"Jordan - my year from hell"
"Jordan - the best year of my life"

Good news on the War on Terrorism

2008-11-14T06:40:00.003Z

OK, its seven years since we started the war on terror, and 12 since Osama was named as the US' most wanted man for the first time after the embassy attacks in Africa.
Here is the CIA report on how they are getting on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7728551.stm
To summarise for my busy reader:
1/ Osama is not in day to day control of Al-Qaeda
2/ he is probably in Pakistan (which is why the Americans are in Afghanistan and bombing Syria no doubt)
3/ Al-Qaeda is SPREADING
4/ Osama is "putting a lot of energy into his own survival."
And who exactly isnt??? Maybe Suicidal Sid and Kerry Katona but the rest of us do make the effort most days not to die...
5/ "If there is a major strike on the US it will bear the fingerprints of Al-Qaeda"?????
HOW THE HELL CAN HE SAY THAT BEFORE IT HAPPENS??? You sure it wont just be some pissed off Iraqis who are fed up with their families being killed? Wont be Tamil Tigers? COlombian drug lords fed up with American interference. And of course it wont be any home grown Americans, they dont have any guns... Isnt this how we got into Iraq in the first place - the Neo-Cons telling everyone it was Saddam with his nuclear ice cream vans...
6/ Al-Qaeda is LESS active in Iraq.
Before we went in it wasnt ANY ACTIVE.
7/ A-Q is MORE active in East Africa, Yemen and Pakistan
8/ His death would have "a significant impact on the confidence of unaffiliated extremists". i thought he just said ANY attack would be the work of A-Q so who are these unaffiliated guys?

Apparently it is unclear if Obama will keep the CIA director after he takes over. Seems a shoo in as they have done such a good job so far. Excellent report writing and very honest. So the scores on the door after 7 years of war:

USA 0 - 5 Abstract Nouns

( War on abstract nouns (c)Chris Morris - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/mar/17/september11.terrorism )

Nostalgia is a four legged beastie

2008-11-14T06:14:00.002Z

A colleague uploaded this on his Facebook home page, and i have since played it about a dozen times. Loved this when i was younger, and watching it again brought a big smile to my face, and a tiny invisible tear to my eye!

Have been wondering what to do with Monty - guide dog, bomb disposal dog, reading dog for blind people with no fingers, financial analyst... Now i know - he will be tasked with travelling the world (as he does most days anyway) and helping strangers, solving crime and finding hidden treasure (and if i remember correctly even driving cars when old men have had heart attacks and a little boy has fallen off his bike into the road...)

And be back in time for tea...

Its evening and people are waking up soon - especially my baby!

2008-11-13T06:24:00.002Z

A long way from home the weather here has taken a turn for the weird. Its 32' in the shade, and shade is all there is... Its cloudy and overcast, and there is a 50mph wind howling through the streets, but its somehow made it to 32' and almost 100% humidity. Tomorrow the forecast is 19' and heavy rain.
This is not polar bear weather. And the educated reader will know that if you had to pick an animal that your author most resembled, it would be more in the polar bear area than the antelope department that one would search. Built for the colder climate, i have spent many a summer avoiding the sun whilst laying down fat for the winter, and have successfully managed to grow an all over layer of fur to fend off the very fiercest Northerlies.
And 'tis a long walk back from the doctor, who wondered why i had bothered to come and see him. He read the notes from Monday and then phoned the lab who informed him that no trace of anything had been found. Rather than declare me a medical curiosity and have me stuffed and sent to the museum, he instead very charmingly accused me of wasting his time and demonstrated with much politeness which of the available exits would be the best for me to use. Ah the pleasure of being the last appointment of a bored doctor's day!
So back to the oak panelled reception where the leather sofas and ferocious air conditioning lull you into comfort as the smiling assassin behind the desk seizes $50 from you, for the wonderful pleasure of being dismissed by Dr Really-Nicebloke. For the first time this week my thumb stands naked to the world, and apart from being a strange orange colour looks much better. I think, again for the first time this week, that i will live. And live a good, full life, free from the fear of sudden thumb death syndrome...

As you would expect, this brush with mortality (stop tutting, you really can die of a sore thumb, probably, somehow) makes you question life, makes you aware of the transient nature of all of us. Walking through streets with buildings as old as the nation, aware you are in a country with people older than time who celebrate Gods who walked the earth a billion years ago... Melbourne is a delicious contrast of old buildings and young people. Its remarkable just how young the people are - its actually surprising to see someone over 50. There are so many students and backpackers here that the average age in the City must be something in the 20s. And summer is a cummin' in, so, in the words of Bruce, girls in their summer clothes pass me by... It makes you feel young, makes you smile inside, and reminds you that your sweaty beetroot face is probably scaring a lot of very innocent passers by! There is a huge Asian population, who dont seem to be permanent, but do seem to be everywhere. Australia is still importing people at a huge rate, and has publicly stated it wants more, and you notice when working and living amongst the 2nd and 3rd generation imports that this does create some tension.
And being in Oz reminds me of the last time i was here, when a casual phone call home brought news of mum in hospital, dad crying, doctors concerned, time short... A frantic weekend of charging for home - 12,000 miles via LA and Chicago and a desperate, terrified time with no contact and no reassurance, not knowing what would greet me... And in the end a smiling mum showing absolutely no sign of any illness which was at once relief and release, and guilt at wondering whether we could have had another 3 months Down Under...
And this time is different. This time i left the wife behind, and this time i am in touch and talking several times a day. Its hard enough trying to work out the time difference without then trying to work out whether its a good or bad time to call. The excitement and joy from hearing a little hello from the other end is wonderful, knowing that your wife is happy and safe, knowing the boys got home from school, knowing that the dogs have finally decided to come home... Just the news that the chimneys didnt blow down in the night, that a neighbour has popped round for coffee, and that we have a spare bag of tile adhesive for the weekend... these things seem at home like boring and unimportant, things that are almost too embarrassingly banal to report. But for those of us a moon away they are the wonderful, glorious anchors that tie us to somewhere and someone special. There is no greater pleasure at this distance than to hear your baby's voice, and picture her there in woolly pyjamas, tucked up under the duvet with the cat saying miaow all over the place... or to hear the wind in the phone as she wastes her time calling Monty back across the field.... or just to hear that "nothing, really" has happened, again, for the fourth time this week.
I'm working with good kind people who are genuinely interestered in who I am, where i come from, what i do... And its a real pleasure to tell them - i'm not Dean from Sabre, I'm Dean from Henfield who is married to Kitty, with boys and dogs and a little house in the country. And its the stupid little stories they want to hear, the boring nothing happeneds, and i tell them, and get a little glow inside. Its an ordinary life, turned extraordinary by the house we live in, the job i do, and the path i walked to get here. But I'm glad i drove tanks, hot air ballooned across the desert, saw tigers and rhinos, had sunrise at Monument Valley, and all the rare, exciting, life changing moments that made me who I am... but dont ask me to change my life now. Having that solid base, of a loving, devoted wife, a little family of my own, and finally a house to call my own... that is happiness.
Some would say i was blessed. That implies someone gave me this, some higher power divined it. What a sad, disillusioned fool that would be. I worked for this, i chose this, and i love this life.

The 11th Hour of the 11th Day

2008-11-11T09:42:00.003Z

To the memory of the fallen in every conflict. Shared the silence today with an Australian woman whose 97 year old father fought in Europe. As he approaches the end naturally, surrounded by his family, a hero in a distant land we all need to take a minute to remember those who didnt make it through the evil, the stupidity, and the unimaginable.

July 1st 1916. Somme. 19,240 British men were killed in a couple of hours, attacking the German lines and almost completely failing to take any land at all. 35,000 wounded in one day, and nearly 2,500 taken prisoner. The offensive continued until November when General Haig finally conceded defeat. Over one million men had been wounded in this completely futile campaign.

March 16 1968. Lt William Calley told the men of Charlie division “This is what you’ve been witing for – Search and Destroy, and you’ve got it.” An hour or two later over 300 unarmed, innocent, men, women and children lay brutally murdered. Women had been raped, children shot in the back of the head and old men bayoneted where they were praying.

April 25th 1986. Chernobyl. Number 4 reactor exploded and although only 30 people died immediately, some cancers in Ukraine have risen tenfold since then, and thousands have died since.

July 4th 1988. The American aircraft carrier USS Vincennes shot down a civilian airliner, Iranian Air flight 655. 290 civilians were killed by the US warship which was in the Gulf supporting Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. They were also protecting oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz. 5 months later, December 21st, in an Arab act of revenge, Pan Am 103 was brought down over Lockerbie by a bomb, and another 270 people were dead.

April 1994. Exact date difficult to discover. President Habyarimana of Rwanda and the President of Burundi are killed when their aircraft is shot down approaching Kigali airport. In the next three months AT LEAST 500,000 people (UN estimate) are murdered by genocide squads. Hutu radio stations broadcast exhortations to murder “Tutsis like cockroaches.” The figure is more likely over a million, and nearly ONE THIRD of a nation is murdered in just over 3 months. A female government minister is later convicted of issuing orders to soldiers to rape other women.

July 12th 1995. The Dutch army negotiate their retreat from Srebenica by agreeing to the relocation of thousands of Muslims. In the next four days the Russian Serb forces round up and execute 8,000 local men, simply for being Muslim. Over the next few weeks, countless men, women and children are captured around the town, hiding in the hills, and executed.

Today - the West Bank, Congo, Iraq and Afghanistan...

Dachau is still today an intimidating, chilling place, but the Germans learnt one very simple lesson that the rest of us seem to have missed...

Nie Immer

Never Again.

But Man is not that clever...

THEY SHALL GROW NOT OLD AS WE THAT ARE LEFT GROW OLD

AGE SHALL NOT WEARY THEM NOR THE YEARS CONDEMN

AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN AND IN THE MORNING:

WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM.

Your host is well

2008-11-10T11:32:00.002Z

Oh gentle reader, please be still. Worry ye not a minute longer, for i will live.

Had a minor operation on my thumb this afternoon (well a nice lady GP sliced it open) to remove some aggressive infection... once test results are in i will of course be confirming the exact strain of bacteria - a subject i know you will all be hotly debating in the coming days.

Any donations, please send cash to me, flowers and charity donations not necessary.

As you will understand, my bravery in this matter has been incredible, so if i do not answer emails immediately, be grateful that your beloved author breathes yet.

If i were Barack...the Deano manifesto

2008-11-09T06:34:00.005Z

Hotel television is a selective way to look at the world. Apparently today the big issues are Day 37 of the Melbourne Cup horse racing... the Discovery Channel on a never ending search for killer nazi sharks who terrorise fishing boats where the men wave crabs and cry a lot... public broadcasting where you can pay to show what you want, and so is full of dubbed greek films and Russian soap operas... and BBC World News, which really is fair and balanced but makes the news seem like the most boring thing happening today. They insist on being "world" news, so will not mention the UK at any cost. Instead stories like elections in Peru, a Spanish actress buying a hat, and the Congo fill the airwaves. Especially the Congo.
One of the most depressing hope vacuum stories to emerge for years, there is no relief, no joy and no solution in sight. Every reporter, and the BBC appears to have a dozen in Africa, keeps asking "Did we learn the lesson of Rwanda" and at the risk of being flippant, the answer is quite clearly no we bloody didnt. The ongoing puzzle of the wickedness of man leaves you breathless at the numbers - towns of 50,000 people being emptied overnight. You know they will start finding mass graves, you know the UN peacekeepers will "look on helplessly", you know the African Union will host a banquet so they can collectively look the other way. There should be a prize for every world leader who uses the phrase "An African solution to an African problem" - its people being slaughtered and moved from one killing field to another...
So it got me thinking of how to solve this, and i thought it was about to time to launch my world manifesto...
First, saving the World:
1 - Obvious - troops out of Iraq. We now have an international peace keeping force gathered together - keep them together and send them where they are needed. Half can go to Afghanistan where we need to rethink the tactics and push into West Pakistan and actually attack the training schools and the camps rather than chasing Taliban round the desert. Tough love? Who cares if the Taliban get control of Kabul? Lets get Al-Qaeda and destroy them, and then come back for the Taliban. Dont give me any rubbish about Human Rights - we have bigger problems now and when did we ever rush anywhere just to help the locals. Afghanistan is a country we will never conquer, and a people who dont want to be conquered. We need to sort out the Congo too, and sending a few 1,000 US troops down there would do that. Its not a huge, organised rebel army down there - they just happen to have all the guns in that particular area. And people are dying now, so send them in.
2 - North Korea - seems that Kim may be dead already, but is certainly on the way out. And that will lead to confusion and chaos in a country so tightly controlled. There will be a power struggle and no doubt the army will want to keep control. And the army over there is about 10 times the size of the US army. So we need to start talking to the Generals now. Diplomacy is the only possible solution, and we have to get them inside the international community now.
3 - Iran. Its a democratic country - they had elections, people voted, the ones with the most votes now govern. So get over it and leave them alone.
4 - Israel. Cut them off. We know the holocaust happened, it was a hugely terrible event, but it is now history. We dont support Cambodia, Rwanda, Serbia, Uganda or any other country that has suffered genocide since, and we certainly dont open museums and make films about them. You have our sympathy for what your grandparents went through, but now you are a country like anyone else and its time you grew up and took the responsibility seriously. Build roads and schools in the West Bank instead of walls, and maybe you might have to stop looking over your shoulder so often.
5 - Palestine and friends. Israel exists. Get over it. If we stop giving it favourite child status, you have to stop treating it like a diseased dog you want to shoot. Get on with them, you have no choice in the long run. Look at Ireland - they did it. And if you keep trying to kill Israelis where do you think your water and electric is going to come from?
6 - Poverty. OK, enough hypocrisy. Banks run out of money and several trillion is raised overnight by the world governments. Yet every day 50,000 people DIE because they do not have clean drinking water. Build wells now. Give the money to Oxfam, Action Aid, anyone who has well kits. Tell them to put a well in each village on the globe, and send the bill to the World Bank. Please explain to me how supporting a few Western banks is a better way to spend the money. It isnt.
7 - AIDS. There are countries in Africa where 50% of the adult population has AIDS. In Addis 75% of sex workers are HIV+ and yet they gladly have unsafe sex because they can charge higher fees. Again Mr World Bank - throw some SERIOUS money at this. Education, education and free condoms. Lets not worry about keeping the white man rich, lets spend some time and money trying to keep the black man alive.
And domestically? I guess while i'm saving the world i should give some thought to the UK...
1 - Scrap Trident. 75 billion pounds saved.
2 - Get out of Iraq - probably 20 billion over the next few years.
3 - Screw the banks. All savings are protected so let them go. Take the 100 billion, wave it in their faces, and then spend it elsewhere.
4 - Raise income tax for the rich. I dont mind paying a bit more, ,and those on high salaries should pay a lot more. Top rate of 50% up to 100k, and then anything earned over that at 60%. Corportation tax - actually collect it. How the hell do i end up paying more tax than BP every year??? Lets make it clear this is for 3 years, and we have to do it because of the mess we are in.
5 - Spend the money. I mean, really blow it. Schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, regeneration projects. And not on PFI and private sector rubbish. That doesnt work. Nationalisation baby, thats the future. Build a high speed train line, and control the project centrally. Huge fines for any late deliveries, and insist on a DECENT minimum wage for any contractors. Lets get people working, and lets pay them well. That is how "trickle down" really works - not by giving tax cuts to the super wealthy. Buy a fleet of 10,000 minbuses and give one to every parish council to use as a FREE local bus. Fine councils who have money stacking up in foreign bank accounts - make them spend it locally. Lets rebuild this country and make it the envy of the world.
6 - Climate Change. Bring in congestion charges in each major town - but reduce the cost. 2 or 3 pounds is reasonable, and if it isnt a deterrent then at least we have some money to research and build solutions. Tax polluters - give them tax breaks for real, genuine improvements. Not trading, as that doesnt reduce the totals. Go through with the plans to tax gas guzzlers, and put the price of petrol up. Reduce the tax on diesel, and set up a scheme where professional hauliers can claim the tax back. Make it difficult, but subsidise rail freight to encourage them that way. We all cried when stage coach drivers lost their trade... oh hang on, no we didnt. Freight should be on rails not roads, so drivers will lose their jobs. Retrain them on diggers, fork lifts etc and get them into the building projects.
7 - Agriculture. Nationalisation! Bring back the Milk Marketing Board - centralise control of key products, ensure that farmers get a fair price for their goods, and take control away from Tesco. How did we ever get to a situation where a bunch of Supermarket directors control the UK price system? We dont need price control, but we dont want Tesco getting richer and richer while farmers struggle. And time to reform the CAP with help from our friends in Europe. Reward growing and good crops, and ensure that across Europe prices are kept reasonable. Tesco have been in charge for years, and prices have risen sharply, so there is no argument that the market keeps things in check.
8 - Social crime. Anyone convicted of a criminal offence with a sentence of 6 months or more gets the option of 2 years in the army on full pay instead. And if they dont complete the 2 years then they get sent to prison for 5 years. Extend the offer to anyone who is currently in prison. And on that point, pay soldiers more. Scrap ASBOs, play hardball and jail the little bastards. Punishing someone for feeding pigeons is one thing, persistant trouble making should adopt the zero tolerance policy. First offence, 3 months prison. Second offence - into the army or 6 months. Third offence 5 years. Carrying a knife should be 6 months or the army instantly. And white collar crime should be punished. Fraud, embezzlement, anything done with a computer which is illegal and wrong, punish it hard. None of this making an appointment to come to the police station when convenient - arrest and charge as if they were a drug dealer.
I would also provide a 1000pound voucher for anyone under 21 to use to travel to a distant land. Not Spain or Greece, but South America or Africa, somewhere they would learn something and experience a bit of life. Non refundable vouchers that have to be used at travel agents against listed destinations.
9 - Drugs. Hmmm arent we doing well on the war on drugs. Legalise them, everything. Make them available from pharmacies with a prescription, and control the supply, quality and distribution. If someone wants a gram of coke for a party why not? If they want 10 grams of coke then they need to go to a doctor and get a prescription. Take away the criminality, take away the profits to be made, you take away the crime and you take away the desperation. No heroin unless you attend rehab. Drugs hurt people, no doubt about it, but taking drugs only hurts the user. Stealing to pay for them, selling your body for a fix, murder over sales turf is what hurts society.
10 - Cigarettes. Ban them. We can make up the tax from rich people, but how much more evidence is needed that they kill users, and can kill non users? What good do they do?
11 - Alcohol. We need to educate children so much better. We are the worst drinkers in the world. We drink to get drunk, every other nation either drinks to enjoy it, or to forget the hell they are living in. We need to rebuild a society where binge drinkers are social pariahs, and people just are not allowed to get drunk and violent. Responsible drinking is the responsibility of the individual and should be monitored and controlled by government, not the drinks industry. Raise the minimum age to 21 and enforce IDs seriously.
12 - BBC. Increase the licence fee. Its fantastic, and the more you travel, the more you appreciate it.
13 - Scotland, Wales, Ireland. Time to let them go. The United Kingdom should be a commonwealth of separate states linked closely for the common good. Westminster should be for England only, let the others have self rule. Just make sure that taxation is distributed only in the country it was raised. This will be good for England, and the other countries will become minor European nations like Luxembourg and Latvia. It seems to be what they want.
14 - Abortion. We need to review the science of when the foetus becomes sentient. Women must always have access to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, but we need to carry out extensive research on where to place the limit.
15 - Roads. Town speed limits to 25mph, roads where schools are painted red which means 15mph. Motorway speed limit removed entirely but tightening of definition of driving recklessly or without care. Speeding fines doubled to 120 pounds, but down to 2 points on licence. Middle lane hogging to be targeted with on the spot points. Young drivers to be refused insurance on any car with an engine greater than 1.2L, or over 99BHP. Advanced test to be compulsory to all drivers every 10 years.
16 - Captital punishment. Castrate rapists and paedophiles. No doubt that will not be easy with human rights legislation, but we need to return the advantage to the victims. Restorative justice - ie the victim is entitled to money or community service from the perp for small offences. All victims to be given court time to tell the jury how they have been effected by the crime. And the death penalty? No. Even for the most heinous crimes, we dont have the right to take another life. We also dont have the obligation to protect and segregate the worst prisoners from the general prison population.

I think thats enough for now, will add more as they pop into my head :)

i have spent the last 24 hours in the wrong time zone

2008-11-05T06:37:00.003Z

Its been a few years now - i think it is nearly 17 - since i was last Down Under. That was a great trip full of empty roads, stupid dreams and nothing to come home to. Travelling for the sake of not being anywhere in particular.
This time its work, which wont be as much fun, but already Melbourne has redeemed itself. In those dark days of yore i remembered it as wet, miserable and uninviting, and when we turned up to the Sydney sunshine and the Bridge over the Bay... well of course Sydney won. But today is a bright spring day, the streets are full of young people of all shades and costume, and there is a lively friendly vibe. The shop keepers manage to say the same words as their fake US cousins, but sound like they do actually care whether you have a nice day or not, and despite the old buildings and weathered stones, you really do get the sense that you are in a young country, a can do country.
Only its coming up to 6pm, not 7. No idea how that happened, but somehow the time changed... I think last night was the cutover from Daylight Savings, but i really am not sure. If anyone knows how the time works out here...

Obamalamaloo

2008-11-05T06:31:00.002Z

Relief. The over riding emotion that is sweeping over me.
The world has a future.
Americans, i am sorry for doubting you. I was so unfair. (You weren't in a car crash were you?)
And now i can stop worrying, and start being excited that maybe, just maybe, there may be a future for this crazy messed up planet...

Bole Road Pt 1

2008-11-01T14:45:00.006Z

Greetings from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and a town so brilliantly African it could be 1950s Surrey.Staying alas at the Hilton, a monstrosity of job creation and paperwork with metal detectors and body searches on the main door (accessible only through a car checkpoint) while the back door opens directly onto the street... The bed has a wooden mattress, the internet connection is the slowest available, and at the bargain rate of $27 a day. A diet coke in the restaurant is $6. I'm complaining and i've just come from Norway.

Bole Road is the main stretch from the centre down to the airport. Its about 5 or 6 km which takes at least 30 minutes to drive down, mainly because of the constant stream of people who just cross the road as and when they feel like it. The road is a human river, flowing in all directions, ready to burst its banks, and you cant help wondering "Where are they all going?".There are little blue minibuses which stop on every corner and fit in about 12 lucky punters all paying around 10p to cross the town. They are driven by men who range from blind and alcoholic to Schumacher. The rules of the road seem simple - if the car in front stops, change lane. If the car in front stops because he has hit someone crossing, change lanes while beeping madly. If the car in front has not yet stopped, but you suspect it might because there is a donkey on fire ahead, then change lanes, and beep at the donkey. Oh, and there are donkeys. Seems like someone loads them up and throws them out, they just wander down the road looking for somewhere to deliver.There are stray goats, there are even herds of goat who seem to survive on grass verges. There are a few mangy dogs. There are a lot of bathroom shops. I gave up counting at 30 on the way home this evening (i had to share the car with a Frenchman called Gill who was getting a little too animated about interface integration...)

Personally watching the drivers here is much more exciting than Formula1 could ever be - and no one ever seems to crash.

But the big mystery is where the people are all going.Like anywhere in Africa, the people always seem to be either moving or laying down dead. I dont think there is much in the way of welfare here, so how do they all live? Do they really get paid for walking around? And its not like there is a job shortage...You arrive at the airport and head for the little booth that says 'Visa on Arrival'. The first man greets you, confirms you have a passport, and hands it to his colleague. She carefully copies all the details onto a receipt pad, and passes this all to another colleague. She meticulously transcribes this (do you like the way i avoided repetition there?) onto a sticker which she then sticks in your passport. I now have a brown sticker in my passport which contains the following information: My name and my passport number. Invaluable. Finally all of this gets passed to the guy at the end who takes my $20.I arrived at the hotel having been awake for 30 hours and feeling giddy, and was greeted at reception by a registration form asking me for 3 pages of information. Fortunately the man at the desk said if i gave him a business card he would take the essential from there. In fact, he asked for 2, and stapled them both to the same form...

Even Nazis have feelings, and Naughty Arabs (allegedly)

2008-10-23T15:00:00.003+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7685905.stm

What a lovely story of how love survived against the odds, and probably against the wishes of his wife...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7684407.stm

6 months to "talk to" a man accused of molesting a 15 year old girl....
Either:
"They wont arrest him cos he's Arab and they are worried he has terrorist friends"
"They would have arrested him sooner if he was white"
"They come over here, molest our girls..."
It would be nice to think there is an innocent reason why it took 5 months to get round to talking to him, but can you think of one? Should we not be jumping on suspects a little quicker than this - especially when descriptions of him are "He is the man who owns Harrods and is there every day." Its hardly "Where in the world is he?"

This note's for Jonny

2008-10-23T14:35:00.005+01:00

Who says Sarah Palin has no executive experience...

Only 4 months ago, and it has the word Russian in it so qualifies as international...

Governor Sarah Palin helped unveil the new logo for the Anchorage Cooperative Weed Management Area at the “Citizen Weeds Warrior Kickoff” at Russian Jack Park in Anchorage, Alaska on June 17, 2008.

Joey Barton

2008-10-23T14:29:00.002+01:00

Apparently Joey Barton wants to be a role model.
So kids, get your brother in prison for life for a racist murder, then beat up a 16 year old in the town centre at 3 in the morning while lagered up, then maybe slap a few mates and finally try and kill one of your teammates at work. Do all this while earning the best part of #50k a week, and then perform maybe one week in ten at the office....
I'm not surprised kids want his lifestyle, but i will do all i can to make sure mine don't learn a thing from him.
And while we are on the subject of Newcastle.... ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

musings

2008-10-23T14:10:00.007+01:00

Tis a dark and stormy day... the view from the office window is alternating between the darkest day and shards of sunlight breaking through...

Its about time i caught up, realise i havent ranted for a while!

Firstly, i caught 10 minutes of Fox News this morning, and that is enough to drive anyone to blog. Joe the Plumber. Ah, Joe the Plumber...

One right wing ranting host (cant remember if it was Brad or Shep or Tipp...) and 3 panellists. The question - "Why is everyone talking about Joe The Plumber?"

3 answers - all the same - "Because the left wing liberal media are obsessed with him." One of them almost said that John McCain had mentioned him 20 times in the last debate, and they were shouted down and i think may even have had their mike turned off. It was being denied - almost unhappened... No, it was the Liberal Media obsession, especially the East Coast media...

And Fair and Balanced Fox - sorry how on earth are they not shut down by the Federal Commission for blatant lying - would be like me telling everyone i meet i have never tried cake... -just kept going - East Coast Liberal Media.... So when did being Liberal, or from the East Coast, or even just a bit left leaning become such a crime? Why is it so bad to care about your fellow man. The Republicans think you should encourage everyone to make their own fortune, and anyone who cant should just be left by the wayside. Some of us think we should help the poor, the tired, the lets be frank, huddled masses, so if that makes us Liberal or Lefty then so be it. Its not Communism, so stop being so scared Right Wing America!

Ok, on another note, we are having the kitchen and both bathrooms ripped out this week, and its a real pain in the ass... We have one guy in the bathroom, quietly banging away and you can see things changing... The other is in the kitchen, and succeeded in ripping out every cupboard in a few hours. Since then his only visible contribution has been cutting through wires 3 times and tripping the power. Nothing seems to have changed. And what a miserable old sod! A pleasure to share my house, now stop whining and get the kitchen made!

Puppies... Algy has now been here best part of a month. Its about time we put a picture of him up here...

There is a skill to naming dogs. None of this Blackie, Rex or Fido nonsense. Welcome please Mr Algernon Braithwaite. New best friend to Montgomery Montmorency Williamson III. Now they are proper names.

From johnmccain.com - this is why we should care...

2008-10-11T10:00:00.002+01:00

John McCain believes the institution of marriage is a union between one man and one woman. It is only this definition that sufficiently recognizes the vital and unique role played by mothers and fathers in the raising of children, and the role of the family in shaping, stabilizing, and strengthening communities and our nation.

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.
However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level.
(But its ok for state courts to decide, just not federal???)

John McCain opposes restrictions on so-called "assault rifles" and voted consistently against such bans. Most recently he opposed an amendment to extend a ban on 19 specific firearms, and others with similar characteristics. John McCain has opposed "waiting periods" for law abiding citizen's purchase of firearms.

Stem cell research offers tremendous hope for those suffering from a variety of deadly diseases - hope for both cures and life-extending treatments. However, the compassion to relieve suffering and to cure deadly disease cannot erode moral and ethical principles.For this reason, John McCain opposes the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes.

Senator McCain has enjoyed the quiet blessings found in serving others.

this is the official web site. its not a smear campaign, these are his actual words... and lets not even start on Sarah Palin...

Writing in Bodo where i couldnt get on the internet...

2008-10-10T19:16:00.000+01:00

5 days away in the beautiful North of Nowhere, and the mind turns to home. Travelling has been my blood for nearly 20 years now - hard to believe that next summer will be the 20th anniversary of that first Inter-Rail trip. Memories and people pass and fade, places merge from one to the next and parks and hostels and bus stations have turned to 5 star hotels, taxis and work work work... Travelling for me is watching and listening, moving and waiting... absorb understand, compare and relate... move and absorb some more... to travel is more important than being somewhere, and sitting still becomes addictive in the middle of this constant airport flow of people on deadlines and holiday dreams... and now a new angle to travelling that i havent really had before - the going home. More specifically going home to someone. Going home to someone who makes it a pleasure to stop moving, to stop sitting still, and to be back amongst the familiar and the mundane. For the first time in life i am anchored. "No man is an island of himself" said John Donne, everyone knows that line but then he carried on to say something like "one foot fixed he returns..." and now for the first time in life i finally understand the feeling. The temptation to descend into saccharine is there, but if there is one thing the Metformin does it stops that coming out in print. But to have that solid base, that one foot planted so firmly - life has changed and developped and i am no longer looking in the mirror and seeing the 23 year old just moving and running and looking for a home, somehwere, anywhere, nowhere... home is found, and it is with my wife. Its not the building, its not the walls, not the fields and fences - it is with her that i am home. It is with her that i belong. And it is too her that i am now travelling, and that feeling is the most wonderful feeling. Travel remains exciting, the experience of the new, the mysterious and the far away... learning words and phrases, listening to stories, forcing down a beer for the boys - all remain wonderful - but now the best travelling is back to her, back into my baby's arms. On the road home, i now have a home to go to. So much more makes sense than it did before, so much has changed, and so much better... so much more meaningful. To move.. to travel... to be somewhere.... Now i know where i am going, and peace and happiness descends... Ok, enough of this poor reader, lets return to slagging off politicians :)

The Unspeakable Rage

2008-10-09T17:30:00.002+01:00

Ok, so no prizes for guessing i have been listening to the best of Sarah Palin. One of the joys of travelling is returning home to 5 episodes of the Daily Show. So i finally got to hear the VEEP debate, and see the Katie Couric interviews. And so this is the woman who will be Pres should 93 year old McCain get cancer for a 5th time.
Its all been said more eloquently than i could... so i wont repeat it again.
Frightening. Terrifying.
"If a 15 year old girl was raped by her father would you make it illegal for her to have an abortion?"
"I would counsel her to consider choosing life."
What the almighty Jesus sponsored God in his heaven fuck is that? Shouldnt be given a library card or internet access, and yet... a heartbeat away.
RUN!!!!

Back In Bodo

2008-10-03T13:40:00.005+01:00

This is a beautiful town. Some shots from this morning from the hotel window and down at the quayside. Worth enlarging them to enjoy the full splendour!

Today i am glad that Thatcher is alive

2008-09-26T09:24:00.002+01:00

No, really i am.
She lived long enough to see her Capitalist experiment finally fail. It teetered before, but this time its dead. When Henry Paulson gets on his knees (according to Fox News of all people) in front of Nancy Pelosi and BEGS THE DEMOCRATS to accept his proposals, so that he can ignore the Republicans saying "leave it to the markets to sort themselves out..."
Well its a strange kind of day. I just hope that the no doubt immigrant carer who daily smears ointment into Thatcher's scales and trims her talons has the economic knowledge and enough English to explain to her that this all started with Keith Joseph. (Is he still alive - i think he died but then i dont remember the street party??)
As long as the carer can do that, then let her pass quietly into the dark night. We have no more use for her in this world. And state funeral? Bank Holiday i think....

Nietzsche

2008-09-24T14:10:00.002+01:00

Should really explain the quote of the day from the guy with the impossible to spell surname.
I'm not a Nazi. I just have to respect a man with limitless arrogance and self confidence, who is not afraid to tell people just how brilliant he is.
Have recently read his pamphlet "Why I Am So Wise" and it was sensational. It is about 80 pages detailing every way in which he is superior to every other human. He is my new role model. At one point he descibes how he weeps every time he thinks about how horrible it must be for everyone else not to be him.
Genius.
And for those who know me, they will understand i have found my master :)

Where next?

2008-09-24T13:48:00.002+01:00

One of the advantages of this new job is the opportunity to get to some new countries. For me the 90s were a blur of travel, and 30 or more countries were visisted in next to no time. And then there was a lull, with only Ireland and Denmark added in about 8 years. All that is set to change as i look at my roster for the end of the year... Was talk of going to Russia and far eastern Siberia, but that seems to have been replaced by 3 weeks in Belgium! But i still have weeks planned in Malta and Cyprus which i seem to have missed on my travels, and suddenly a week in the Cape Verde Islands has also appeared on the list. I have no clue where they even are..
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/cape-verde/
Official language is Portuguese so must be somewhere between Lisbon and Rio... Looks like all flights are via Lisbon so can add Portugal to the list too!
Should also be some work coming up with CityJet in Dublin, which will give me a chance to catch up with some old friends. Will be strange going there with the new hat on, but looking forward to it.
Will be good to get stuck into some serious project work again, back to Bodo on Sunday for another week with the very hospitable Norwegians and some more stunning scenery and biting winds!

musings

2008-09-23T10:17:00.003+01:00

Sometimes life intrudes on you and you have to seriously consider whether humans are a race worth saving.
There is nothing quite like a talk radio phone in to really attract the lower end of the social scale. Its an emotive subject - why aren't more men committed on rape charges? The UK has the lowest conviction for rape in Europe with something crazy like 3% of reported rapes leading to a jail term for the aggressor. But then there are the worrying stats - we have the highest number of false allegations. What drives someone to accuse someone of one of the worst things you can possibly think of? The stories of men losing everything to clear their name, contrasted with the women who reported an assault and were told by a cheery WPC to have a cup of tea and get over it... Its not just the actions of men that can make womens' lives hell - every false accusation probably leads to a dozen guilty men being presumed innocent "cos she was asking for it... she shouldnt have gone in the house.... she was drunk...".
Banks. They make huge profits, we find out they were all based on tissue paper foundations and the first drop of rain brings down the industry. Lehman Bros move $8bn from their UK arm to their US for 2 reasons last week - first the UK administrators cant touch it, and second so they can PAY BONUSES to the American management. Yes, the same bank that has just been declared the largest bankrupt ever, is paying out over $2bn in corporate bonuses. And the world governments are bailing out the industry. Imagine if you took your year's salary and bought a speedboat, because your mate down the pub told you that in a year's time you could sell it for twice as much. And then in a year no one wanted to buy your speedboat. But you have to pay all your bills. The world would laugh at you and call you a fool for buying a speedboat. You would have to sell your house and be declared bankrupt. So why the hell is the UK government giving the banks over a hundered billion pounds????
Trident. $100bn. Do i need to say any more. I would love to hear a convincing argument for how nuclear missiles defend us from suicidal terrorists...
ID cards... finally the Labour party have started refering to them as a weapon against ID theft and not mentioning the weapon against terrorism angle. I think the idea was that if some mad fanatic hurled himself at you, laden with explosives, anthrax and body odour (an all too familiar sight on Britain's streets) you could show them your ID card and they wouldn't harm you... So now its a weapon against ID theft. Or surely just a new way of stealing IDs??? 30 million fake one pound coins in circulation and i dont know anyone who has one, so these fakers must be good.
Personal freedoms? Nah, who needs them any more? We are fighting so we can give Iraqi citizens a corrupt banking system, id cards and queues at airports.
Did anyone else notice the govt lost their court case the other week over the supposed liquid bombers? The reason we have all these stupid liquid restrictions at airports - that was thrown out when the evidence was actually examined by someone who isnt paid to generate fear and apprehension and make the public more acquiescent... But we still have the restrictions on liquids... Like the x-rays of shoes because one nutter proved that you can not set fire to shoes on an aeroplane... Even when the UK government introduces its eBorders that will be for airlines only to start with. Supposed to make the borders more secure, but the Chunnel and ferries will be exempt for years...

And what does Gordon Brown launch as his save his skin policy? Free theatre tickets for the Under 26s. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7630736.stm
But only to shows that dont sell - the talking point on talk radio seems to be "Bet you cant get tickets for Mamma Mia".
No, oh beloved nation. That is not the point. The point is we are all going to hell in a flaming one wheeled handcart with Satan at the reins and Sarah Palin cackling by his side, guns blazing, oil fires burning... and our Prime Minister wants to give out crap theatre tickets to young people. That will make them put the knives down...

XL Airways

2008-09-14T21:36:00.003+01:00

Its been a sad weekend. A lot of friends have lost their jobs, and are wondering how to cope with the next mortgage payment, and the next fuel bill. The papers are full of stories of poor stranded passengers who are angry at something, someone, hoping to blame some invisible evil force. But they will get back from their extended holidays and, if they were typical XL passengers, will return to their lives of handouts, wife beating and whining. Most of them wont know what it is like to lose your livelihood, to lose all certainty and comfort and find yourself staring into the big black hole which is unemployment. Most were born on the social, and live a life of comfort making false claims and drinking cider. For those honest hard workers who have lost their jobs this week, they deserve something more than the incidental requiem that most of the media have given them - people stranded, money owing, big hassle, oh and 1700 on the dole..
And the stories of fuel and economic climate are depressingly inaccurate...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1055606/Two-airlines-flames-bankrupt-boss-driving-Bentley.html
It almost seems like they asked me for my comments on this one - fortunately those who know me would know i would not talk to the Daily Mail even on this one. What joy is there in being right? Very little at all... No one will ever be brought to book on this one, it will go down as fuel prices. Tomorrow I'm back to the old office to meet up with some former colleagues for lunch, to help where i can, in whatever way i can.
Its a sad day, lets think of the staff...

Just told everyone this is here so i better type something...

2008-09-09T18:46:00.005+01:00

Bodo is 67.17 degrees north, has a population of 46,049 and is approximately 22.8% woodland. The nearby Mt Lurfjelltind is 1284m tall.
These facts are reassuringly, brilliantly Scandinavian.
For anyone who has bought an IKEA wardrobe and wondered how they got the measurements just right, and how they thought of the strange little bracket fixing which defies physics... well they have a lot of darkness up here and they seem to spend it drinking vodka and measuring things. Actually the amount of vodka explains why they are good at counting things, but not so good at getting the wardrobe measurements just right...
Its week 2 at the new job, and after a week in Kista, a suburb of Stockholm which is also known as Science City as it is just a collection of Ericsson offices and factories, i am now in Bodo up near the top of Norway. Last week was useful, collecting laptop and phone and getting to know my way around the Sabre systems. Its an amazing change going from a company on its knees financially, to one who boasts of the best part of a billion dollars sitting in the bank. Its an American company, so the intranet is full of photos of middle aged Texan women who have knitted a blanket for the local hospital. or workers' daughters who have baked cookies to sell... all very admirable, and despite my legendary cynicism it actully warms the heart a little. Some of the Corporate stuff is a little too near satire, but i feel energised, incentifised, and have mastered the black cat / white cat scenario now.
And they were honest to me. I was bade welcome to the Sabre Drink Yourself to Death competition, and the drinking culture is certainly prevelant. Although much credit to the team, have felt no pressure to take part, and no scorn for dropping out like a girl after 2 pints. (Curiously a pint is 568 ml and beer in Scandinavia comes in 0.6 litre glasses - strange measurement for metric lands and too close to the English pint to be a coincidence) Tonight was a boat trip to the world's most violent maelstrom - its sunk a few large trawlers - on motorised dinghies, followed by a fish barbecue and the obligatory schnapps and lager festival. I have done my share of drinking, and i have no desire to get back on a boat that isnt at least 40 feet wide. I havent eaten fish for over 20 years, so seemed like on to sit out. So that is what i am doing here, curious how the guys are getting on. Scandinavian Aviation is fuelled literally by diesel - they put it in the aircraft, and any left over gets drunk...
So, Bodo (pronounced Boo-dah like the little fat God) - is it as dull as i painted it? Well, yes it is, but, and this is a huge but... its a cute little place and we all really like it. The hotel is about as ordinary as you can get, but the bed is comfortable, breakfast is ok, wireless is free... so nothing there to complain about. The town is quaint and workmanlike - the harbour is full of fishing boats, sails taken down and metal banging into metal in the wind. The sun is up most of the day, and in 3 months it will disappear for a whole fortnight. The locals are friendly and all speak better English than any Scot, and overall it really is a lovely little place. It is stuck out on the coast a bit like one of Norway's several coastal cities. The main road runs up parallel to the coast, but about 25 miles inland, and there are a few little fingers to the larger fishing ports which act as the outside world to the hundreds of villages dotted around. The spine of mountains runs the other side of the road, and on the other side of that sunlight disappears for months, temperatures plummet, and skiers abound. The airline we are working with, Widerhoe, get subsidies from the government to fly to dozens of these little villages. When someone there makes a hospital appointment they throw in a plane ticket!

Catch up - skip this if you have been listening...

2008-09-09T17:40:00.001+01:00

It has been a year of change, of that there can be no doubt.

A year ago i was living in a mouldy bedsit overlooking the roof of a Sainsbury's that had been built in the middle of the A23. I was in a job where i was about to go to Florida for a business meeting that would lead to me falling out of love with the company - although it was many more months until i would recognise that. The cat hated the lodger, the estate agent was showing round 3 people a day, every day of the week, and i was hoping he wouldnt flush the toilet and flood the lounge...

And then in November i moved out, and moved in with my gorgeous girlfriend into Great Betley, one of England's finest examples of early 16th / late 19th Century farmhouses. Acres of grass and hedge rows surrounded us, the driveway is a mile long, the neighbours have to drive to get to us, and the pond under the willow on a cold bright spring evening is possibly the most beautiful place i have ever stood by. And the changes came in bundles then - living in a building site for 6 months was always interesting - especially when the builder decides he wants to start every day just after 6. Cheers, George!

So i was living with someone again, for the xth time having sworn blind it would never happen to me again... I will rave about the wonderful Kitty another night, in another blog...But for the first time i became some kind of Dad. Two teenage boys were forced to share their space with me, which can not have been easy for them. And i had to share theirs, which they sometimes made easy for me!

As January came around we got a dog who proceeded to tunnel to France while traumatising the cat so completely that she peed on the bed 19 straight days. The start of the year was given over almost entirely to planning the wedding, and on April 26th a very obviously mad woman was committed at a public hearing to spend her remaining days as my chattel.

By June it was obvious that there was no place for me at XL, and following Peter Owen's lead I made for the dog. My exit was a bit more controlled, and after considering various offers and ideas Sabre seemed like the best place to be. A financially secure company (first i think i have ever worked at) with the opportunity to travel, teach and actually make some changes that would help people do their work better. So here i sit in Bodo above the Arctic Circle feeling rather happy with things, and feeling a lot more confident about the future.