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Better known for cycling around Britain in flourescent lycra for Local Heroes, the famous writer and broadcaster also offers quite a bit of beautiful photography and a very interesting page concerning toilets.

If the results aren’t what you hoped for, you can call the National Exams Helpline. Their number in the UK is 0808 100 8000. Calls are free from a public phone box or a landline.

The truth is, though, that the UK and the USA run on some very strange kind of democracy – if it can be called a democracy at all.

Let’s take a look at what the Collins English Dictionary defines a democracy as:

democracy n, pl -cies 1. a system of government or organisation in which the citizens or members choose leaders or make other important decisions by voting 2. a country in which the citizens choose their government by voting. [Greek dēmokratia]

Now here comes the interesting part. Sense 2, which applies to most countries calling themselves ‘democratic’, is a fundamentally flawed system. Well, I think so at least. And I’d like to explain why.

Imagine that we have a country with a population of 100,000. Those are then sub-divided into constituencies of 10,000. And each constituency elects one MP to represent them in Parliament.

I should point out now that this is a simplified version of Britain’s voting system. The concept of the system is called first past the post, where points are calculated based on the general consensus of subdivisions, or constituencies.

Now, on Election Day, each citizen casts his or her vote for either the Red Party or the Blue Party. Here is an imaginary table of results for each constituency.

Now see how many seats each party actually won.

The difference is quite marked. Now comes the interesting bit.

Supposing all said MPs from the Red Party were unable to attend the house due to an illness going around in the Red Party club. This means that supporters of the Red Party, regardless of whether or not their vote was successful, get no representation in Parliament whatsoever.

Now comes the more disturbing part of all this.

Supposing that all those in Parliament had views that were not shared by the general public. As a frivolous example, they all like strawberries and cream.

Now, if a bill is going through Parliament to ban strawberries and cream, and the general public opinion is that strawberries and cream are vile and a threat to society, the members of Parliament may not go with the public opinion, and instead all vote against the law.

I know this example is slightly frivolous, but if research concerning subconscious racism, sexism, homophobia and Islamophobia is to be believed, it could, in the end, widely impact on how the Government represents the people.

So, in short, we’re not living in a ‘true’ democracy because of the fact that instead of the people making decisions, the people elect other people to make decisions for them. This is technically a ‘republic’. The same is true in America, the self-styled ‘home of democracy’.

The only way we could ever achieve a true democracy is if ordinary people are permitted to make important choices. For example, if every week each citizen was given a list of proposed policies and asked to state their level of approval for each policy, that would be a ‘true democracy’ of sorts.

However, it gets worse. Even in the present state, a lot of people are denied the right to vote in Britain. Schoolchildren have reasonable intelligence, and politics affects them as much as anyone else – but they can’t vote. Prisoners can’t vote – even if they’ve been wrongly imprisoned. Asylum seekers (who often have genuine reason for fleeing to Britain, despite what the Daily Mail would have you think) can’t vote. Countless others can’t vote – and this has to stop if we really can charge into other countries calling ourselves ‘liberators’. Otherwise we’re just a bunch of hypocrites.

Described by its author, Simon Howard, as “Reactionary political ramblings from an ill-informed medical student”, this blog is so well respected that it’s been classed as a More4 News blog of interest. And I can assure you that he is not secretly blogging for the Conservative Party.

(That’ll be two investigative journalism items in one week – and it’s not even your birthday!)

I dislike McDonald’s. The last time I went I wasn’t off the toilet for weeks. That was around three years ago.

So, with some spare time on my hands earlier today, I decided to find out if the quality of the food and the service had improved in any way (last time I was asked by someone ‘you ea’in i ear?’) by taking myself down to my local McDonald’s.

(Yes, shock horror! Some investigative journalism from this website! You are not hallucinating.)

The trip there was uneventful, apart from seeing some lunatic bump into someone else’s car, causing a mini-traffic jam on the High Street while they filled out each other’s insurance details.

Before I went in, I had some business to settle. This is mainly because I was worried that I might suffer a heart attack after eating the food. Mercifully I did not, although I would like to know what on Earth McDonald’s is doing selling alcohol.

I went in, queued, paid my money for a large portion of fries, six chicken McNuggets (!) and a large Coca-Cola. I was offered a free Coke glass, which was nice. The lady who served me was very kind and friendly, and actually seemed to speak proper English.

Before I was served, I scoured the restaurant looking for nutritional information. There was absolutely no obvious information on the walls or posters. I checked the leaflets – nothing.

I was minorly annoyed to say the least, but I was served the food and took it out of the restaurant.

The fries were OK – this time they actually tasted like they consisted mostly of potatoes. Which is more than can be said of the nuggets. UGH! They tasted like the sort of stuff that a dentist uses to make a mould of your mouth. It tasted utterly McDisgusting.

(I sort-of wished I had had the McHeart attack so that the torture would end.)

The paper cup of Coca-Cola I was given seemed to have some kind of quantum warp at the bottom – it was 500ml. 500ml is a lot – that’s around half the size of a bottle of Coke you’d get from a supermarket. UGH! By the time I’d finished I felt like I’d put on four stone in thirty minutes. (I’m quite a skinny person by nature, so that’s a lot.)

After finishing the food, I finally managed to find the nutritional information. But only just.

Yes, that is the nutritional information. On the back of the packet of fries. And it seems that they’ve resorted to heiroglyphs.

Even if you follow the website links, there’s no actual reference to what the symbols mean. It seems only to apply to adult women, and also only applies to the fries. What about the nuggets and the Coke? No mention whatsoever.

So, has McDonald’s improved? Let me put it like this in two McLists.

What I McLike about McDonald’s

1. You get a free Coke glass (even if it is a little small).
2. The lady who served me was very nice and courteous.
3. Can’t think of any more.

What I McHate about McDonald’s

1. It’s a McRipoff. I could have got something more substantial from the baker’s down the road for around three quarters of the price.
2. You can’t look at any of the McNotices in the McWindows without people inside thinking you’re a McLunatic.
3. It makes you feel McBloated afterwards.
4. You need the Rosetta McStone to understand the nutrition information.
5. Two of the fries were shaped like McWalruses’ tusks.
6. Their ‘chicken’ (ha!) nuggets taste worse than McCardboard.
7. They’re trying to censor the dictionary. (You can’t rewrite the past…)
8. I would type more, but my browser would crash.
9. So there.

The Coke glass I got for free with it looks quite good though.

So McDonald’s has improved, but only marginally. And I still want to know what a dial with a value of 59 grammes is meant to represent.

The simple fact is that these sixteen-year-olds are effectively adults – they can do full time work, start learning to drive, live on their own, and (if Gordon Brown gets his way) they’ll get the vote. True, they are young, they can’t drink in a pub, they can’t legally drive and all that, but surelythe fact that the police force is employing such people proves that they are reasonably intelligent and responsible adults.

In the end, it’s not likely that this is going to escalate into a) four-year-olds being put out in uniform on the streets or b) children being forced into working in uniform for the police force. In this country we’re protected by relatively well-enforced rights, as defined by the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.