The Daily Piestar

And Finally, Esther

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:17:00 +0000

Do you ever wonder why our governments seem quite relaxed about holiday companies collapsing?

Once upon a time, our glorious leaders would be at the microphone pretty sharpish to reassure and offer assistance in this situation, which happens fairly cyclically, and quite inevitably, which you will realise when you see how the business operates.

The reason being, of course, that politicians didn't want all of those electors to feel that no-one cared when their one holiday a year came to nothing, along with their savings. Of course, we've had a good insurance system for the travel industry for ages, but there's more to it than that.

You see, when a travel company or airline goes bust these days, air traffic is reduced, and that means a reduced carbon footprint. And that means the gov. gets better CO2 figures (at least temporarily) without having to tell people they can't go on holiday anymore.

Total recall: T. Blair, when asked if HMG intended doing anything about emissions from aircraft, replied that he wasn't going to tell people they can't go on holiday.

Don't expect anyone to offer much help to any travel company or airline in difficulties these days.

The Long Arm

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:57:00 +0000

We hear that an English teenager was visited at his parental home by the rozzers on the basis that he'd been very rude to Barak Obama in an email he had sent in a fit of drunkenness.

As we understand it, and the story is mainly one that comes from the youth in question, he didn't make any threats - he simply disagreed in a particularly Anglo-Saxon way. And I'm sure many of us are guilty of drunk-mailing. I know I am. It is the nature of the result that disturbs. And this is merely another example of a trend that is, frankly, dangerous.

The result being that one of the US security agencies - probably the FBI - having intercepted the mail, which I'm sure would have been flagged like a battleship at a coronation, then 'requested' that the UK authorities take action - that this 'request' was routed via the Met (most likely Special Branch or Anti-Terrorism) to the local bobbies, who then had to go round and castigate said hung-over spotty youth (m'lud).

Common sense prevailed - they left him without so much as a caution, but apparently DID take a photograph (why?) and left him with the thought that he was probably never going to be allowed to travel to the US again. Of course, this might have been a joke. Or it might have been an unwise remark based on certain knowledge. Given the nature of the Patriot Act, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Land of the Free has taken umbrage.

Hands up anyone who'd like to see Barak repeal this piece of discriminatory nonsense?

Hands up anyone who'd like to see the UK police stop acting on orders from Quantico?

(BTW, I have to add that I speak as one who discovered his phone was being tapped by MI5 shortly after 9/11)

The French Unveiled

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:14:00 +0000

The latest news from our Paris correspondent is that the upper house of the French parliament has also approved the legislation that makes wearing a face veil illegal.

To many of us, this must all seem rather inexplicable. Apparently, a woman found in public wearing a garment that covers the face will face (har har) a fine. And a man found to be forcing a woman to do so will also face the wrath of the law.

There are, of course, imbecilities in this. Covering up your face is illegal. The government defines what clothing you can and can't wear. But only if you're a woman. What if you were a man wearing a face veil? I don't know how many cross-dressing Islamic traditionalists exist, but surely there is a loophole here. How comfortable will it be for French police to stop and fine women in the streets for choosing to uphold their traditions and beliefs?

Oh, for sure, there will be many Muslim women who are expected to wear veils by their significant others. And by their male-dominated community values too. But what we seem to have here is a piece of painfully discriminatory legislation designed to combat.... discrimination? Well, maybe, but that argument has been weakly put. In truth, this is all about integration French-style.

We hear that word applied here on the same issues. We want immigrants to integrate. What that actually means is entirely open to interpretation, but in the UK we seem to feel, nutters excepted, that this means mutual respect. So we're not so bothered if a woman wants to maintain their traditional garb and religious views, but we are bothered if they never learn English, or are found to be treated as slaves in their community. And we understand that anyone can wear pretty much what they want, just as they can say pretty much what they want, inside a broad limit of decency. By and large, we seem in the UK to be willing to enjoy the rainbow effect that such immigration brings. Just so long as there aren't very many of them.

In France, the interpretation of liberty, egality and fraternity is somewhat different. Looking at what happened to the North Africans is a good viewpoint. The idea is that anyone can come to France (if they're allowed), but once there, it is expected that any cultural differences will be abandoned in favour of La Belle France, on the philosophical basis that France, embodied by those three words and a republican constitution, is a place of 'egal': "people should be treated as equals on certain dimensions, such as religiously, politically, economically, socially, or culturally..." (Wiki). And that translates as: 'we won't let you be different'.

This has already backfired spectacularly - just look at the Paris Banlieue. You can't let people from utterly different traditions and cultures come and live in your place and expect them to be exactly the same as someone from Nantes (or expect the same from them in contribution). The end result was that these people were disadvantaged from the start. And hence the riots.

It is evident that the French have learned nothing. Or perhaps it is the reactionary knee jerk of a society under tremendous pressure to change. As Joseph Maila of the French Foreign Ministry said 'To hide behind the veil is to barricade oneself against society.'

Right. So you're legally not allowed to be antisocial?

What makes me laugh is that the French Constitutional Council, which does all the oversight for legislation, has repeatedly said that it will almost certainly have to strike down the bill as unconstitutional.

Idiots.

Brave New Rant

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 14:47:00 +0000

So I suddenly found myself ranting on Facebook. Looking back, I concluded that I was slightly proud of this particular rant, so I've decided to put it here too.

******

It would make a difference if some UK govt (any govt) would take a look at what the people of the UK can do for a living. There has been complete inaction by all sides on this score ever since WW2.

Basically, the left has believed in state subsidies for individuals left without meaningful employment, while the right has believed that market forces will provide a new gold dream to replace industry. Neither works - market forces drove the working classes into unemployment in the first place. What market will provide without an incentive?

Now, an incentive could have been a workforce willing to work for next to nothing, but with our cost of living, that's not going to happen. Current Osbornism suggests we should go down this route anyway. Consequently, our Govt is proposing a return to 19th Century social mores in a form way more acute than any accusation thrown at The Blessed Marge.

Stick and stick.

(TBH, though, this has been happening for a while. We are expected to live poorly in a very expensive country. Remove opportunity (because it costs) but leave high taxation. This is not a model that you'll find being advocated in many other countries. Of course, our politicians tend to suggest this is a modern dilemma that is an unsolvable balancing act. Only if you allow it to be. And they do. And we let them.)

And, worst of all, this current infantile yearning for creating a cheap whore of a country completely misses out on our actual advantages. Sure, we don't absolutely NEED comprehensive free healthcare and a complex and expensive welfare system. But we decided that we WANTED and DESERVED it, and history has shown that 'mature democracies' include these ideas because it takes these societies into areas where they can SHINE, like education, research, new technology, creative industry, and so on. And to do this, you need to subsidise the poor so that they have time to re-educate and adopt new skills for the future.

This, apparently, is a recipe no UK govt has been willing to follow properly, and some, as at present, find it ideologically impossible.

So we turn our education sysytem into a money-grabbing free for all and watch universities that ought to have remained colleges go bankrupt, while kids sink under the millionth curriculum change in a system still dedicated to top-down teaching for providing imperial cannon fodder, while we argue about whether private companies should be directly paid taxpayer's money for doing a public service we pay others to do anyway, while people who are primarily the casualities of this very political malaise have their subsidy made conditional on doing pointless tasks.

We, the people, need our governments to lead properly on forming the sort of society we want. Isn't it time we sorted this all out?

The Dorkins Cometh

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:18:00 +0000

This post dates back several years, but the current barrage of TV Dorkins has led me to re-post.

Richard Dawkins. What a guy.

You know, I read some of his early works (Blind Watchmaker, for instance) with genuine pleasure and a real sense of awe. He made me think. And mostly, what I thought was, 'Oh, yeah! Of course!'. He even helped me through an ecology course, in a third-hand kind of way.

Ever since then, he's been becoming an angry, unlanceable boil on my bum, to the extent that I think he's now generating real hatred in me. Or maybe just a lot of pus. (Did I ever tell you about my blocked sweat gland? Oh boy.)

Basically, he's turned into anti-spiritual fascist.

He commands us to abandon our foolish ways, and overturns the market stalls of the credulous. He wishes us to turn the other cheek to the matter of the meaning of life, for there is none. There is no God, no spirit, no afterlife. Just us, our genes, and a planet. Believe in me, he says, and you shall believe in science, and if you do that, you shall be happy for all your days in the full and certain knowledge that your life is utterly meaningless outside of what you make of it.

He might be right, but you know what? Try it. I dare you.

Try not believing in anything, deliberately. For evermore.

You know what happens? You go bonkers, that's what. And how do I know? Because I'm a depressive with an ancient history. I've spent some 30 years denying the existence of any God, and I can tell you from the heart that it is a truly painful and nasty experience.

You know why Dawkins isn't hurting? Because he's got religion.

Believe in me, sayeth the Dawkins....

My Kingdom For A Brain Cell

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:45:00 +0000

This is not to be expected - a midweek special.

I just wanted to share my sense of utter exasperation for today. Although it comes with a sense of surprise and satisfaction too.

I've been doing up a bicycle for a friend. It's been hanging around on the To Do list for quite a while, and, as the summer has now passed, I thought it would be a good time to catch up a bit.

After having cleaned and polished and adjusted and inflated and what not, I was quite pleased everything was in good order. But then I couldn't seem to get the front gears to work. 'Bugger', I thought, 'Indexed gears. Hmmm. Well, I'll just have to give it a go.'

In the end I realised that the whole shifter was KO and would need replacing.

Now, Ayrshire prides itself on being very keen on cycling. There are cycle shops in most towns, including mine. In an emergency, there's even a Halfords.

So off I toddled to my local independent bike store, where I admired the packed displays and rows of interesting but unidentifiable gadgets, together with lots of neoprene and Lycra, and some very expensive bikes.

Now, I used to build my own bikes, back in the 1880s, so I do know a wee bit about bicycles, even though the whole twist-gripped-shock-absorbed-perforated-disc thing has passed me by.

Anyway, there I was standing in front of a slightly chubby young man who looked far more interested in his computer than in me. 'Can you help?' I asked. 'The barrel adjuster on this shifter has broken and I'm not sure the cam is working.' I handed him the offending lump.

'Um, you mean the while thing snapped off?'
'No - the barrel adjuster has broken off.'
'Oh.' [Goes in the back. Comes back a few seconds later]
'The barrel adjuster is broken and and I don't think the cam is working. I can't get another adjuster to fit. It's quite old.'
'Yesss. Well. You don't have any spares hanging about do you?'
'No.'
'OK, what can I do?'
'That's up to you.'
'What?'
'They come in pairs. Cost a bit.'

At which point I thanked him and left, walked across to Halfords and had a concise conversation with a sales assistant while he cycled round the aisles. (Really.)

'Yeah. I think you're screwed on that. Try Ebay.'

So I did. And I found an exact replacement in 2 minutes. Thank you Halfords.

And you won't hear that said very often.

The Times They Are A'Changing....

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:18:00 +0000

If they were talking about the newspaper, I wish they bloody would, but however....

I recall the time when I got very bothered by an infantile editorial from Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger on the occasion of the anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. It was pretty much a 'Hey! Hey! LBJ' kind of piece, and, being keen on history, I was irritated by the amount of utter bollocks the article contained.

So I wrote a letter to the editor, calmly highlighting his inaccuracies and making a few points about the mythology of the war. And it was published. I felt quite warm inside. Until the next day, when I read about 10 reader's responses which ranged from the hysterical to the downright sinister. I became an Imperialist Lackey for a day. I was shaken, but nevertheless quite proud of the temporary notoriety. I also changed newspapers. These days I don't read them at all, and make do with alerts from Reuters and the BBC, which seems to work reasonably well.

Which leads me to the Russian spies. The one's the US just deported, right? And without a hint of Harry Palmer in a hearse, so it wasn't really very much like the Cold War at all, despite the dribblings of the press. (I know a guy who used to get paid to transfer people between West and East Germany, so really...)

Anyhoo, what erupted in my psyche was the image of Anna Chapman.

You see, what bothered me was that, apparently, out of all of the sleepers the FBI rounded up, Anna Chapman is in some way more evil. At least, that's what TV and Print seemed to be saying.

By the time Channel 4 news gratuitously described her as 'infamous', I was beginning to get a bit annoyed. The only way in which Ms Chapman is infamous is because the media have decided that she is so, and that's because she is an attractive young lady. She has done nothing more than any of the other agents; and in fact she seems to have gone native, if anything. She wants to stay in the UK.

Teresa May, of course, wants to see her hanged, but can't, so is seeking to have her declared persona non grata instead. But is she really the baddest apple? Or is she the target of prurient chauvinism?

Honest to God, I am beyond exasperation with UK journalism. Making stuff up was always in the mix, but has now become the default for news. I'm beginning to think it might be a GOOD THING (see 1066 And All That) if individuals and organisations simply stopped speaking to the press in entirety.

It would be more entertaining, for example, to see Jon Snow (whom I used to respect very much and now have only contempt for) continually interrupting his own tendentious monologue.

Anthony Bourdain wrote of a chef friend who described keeping his bread dough on the make as 'feeding the bitch'. Perhaps we should stop feeding this bitch and see what happens.

BTW, in assembling some tags for the above, I've noticed I have some witty combinations to choose from: Politics, Porridge and Power Lines seems like a good one to quote.

Ohhh The Irony

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:16:00 +0000

I've just been reveiwing and updating this site, and guess what? There's a Google ad for Katie Bloody Melua!!!!!!!

Have you seen the trails for her latest album? Kate Bush without the voice or imagination. Right?

Abandon hope, ye who are already here...

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:42:00 +0000

42 days. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. 42 days.

All right, so the request has to be cleared by a court of law, but still...

All right, I believe the police and security services are honest in their support, but still...

The Lord Advocate in Scotland opposes the measure as being unnecessary; the Attorney General and the Solicitor General in England and Wales have both expressed severe doubts over the need or desirability of the measure.

In the end, there isn't any chance to properly debate the issue, because good ole Gordy makes it into a vote of confidence in his premiership. Vote for the Act or lose your job. And, even with this amount of arm-twisting, the Government only just scrapes in, with the help of a small number of Ulster Unionists who, any fool could tell you, would never need any bribing to vote for a security measure.

I've had it with Gordy, and I hope he notices.

By the way, if you're a fed-up UK motorist, remember that it is unwise to vote for someone who doesn't drive (not to mention someone who has a demonstrable inability to understand the consequences of their actions).

Gordon is a smart guy, so what is the problem here? I suspect he has spent so much time at the Treasury that something quite unique has happened - he's gone native. We've heard of this happening many times now, since the days of The Blessed Margaret, in respect of Civil Servants, impartiality and the impossible separation of politics and state. It's supposed to happen the other way around, of course, with permanent under-secretaries turning into party spin-doctors and so on.

But here we have an example of a once-great politician, an intellectual revolutionary, a modern socialist colossus, seemingly subsiding beneath the surface scum of spin, taking on the typically bureaucratic approach to decision-making and generally losing the ability to converse normally and relate to other human beings.

Yes.

Gordon has, I fear, become a Mandarin.

You Read It Here First

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:26:00 +0000

Well, not entirely. Maybe not at all. But then you won't be reading this either, so... well...

A couple of quickies for you. We all like a nice quickie, don't we? I know I do. Oh yes...

Prince Harry. Sorry to do this to you, but I just wanted to point something out that seems to have been overlooked: no one in their right mind would pretend to imagine that they could brief the world news media on a story and then succeed in keeping it embargoed for months. This story was as bound to leak a the Sun (not the tabloid) is bound to run out of hydrogen. It was just a matter of time.

Consequently, while the British press congratulates itself and looks down its dirty nose at those terrible untrustworthy foreigners, we must assume that the Palace and the MoD and the Army all had a contingency plan worked out on the basis that the news WOULD come out. And then Harry WOULD come home. And it WOULD be more newsworthy that way. And very, very positive. Do you see?

I feel quite sorry for The Drudge. After all, they just picked up on what an Australian magazine did in early January. I wonder who was primed to get excited and spread the word once a more worthy source had gone public?

Meanwhile, you might recall I had a lot to say about the shambles that is the Department for Work and Pensions the other day. Would you know it, in the same week that the Gov. announces the advent of it's ludicrous 'kick the beggar' plans for welfare reform, the DWP is to have another 12,000 redundancies on top of the 30,000 previously announced. That would be 12,000 less people to do all the work HMG will need done on getting people off welfare. Presumably by ensuring that no-one is there to take your obligatory application phone call.

Unless, of course, they were thinking of farming the whole process out to, ohhh, I dunno, a 'financial services' based call-centre operation... i.e. a debt collection agency. Watch this space. Please. I want to have more 'I told you so' experiences.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:07:00 +0000

Katie Bloody Melua

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:54:00 +0000

What do Tony Blair and Katie Melua have in common? Well, you never see them in the same place at the same time, do you? Also, they are both highly successful in their chosen spheres despite having nothing to say. Given that one of them is a celebrity psychopath and one an 'artist' (and I'll leave you to figure out the which), you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, but it's true.

Katie Melua's songs are dreadful - largely without reason and bereft of rhyme, they talk of the inconsequential on a Brunellian scale. Also, she can't sing. At all. She can't even hold a note. Or a key. Utterly appalling and hugely appealing to... er.... well... to devotees of the world's most inept radio DJ, Sarah Kennedy, whose show I use as an alarm clock mainly because listening to her amoebic drivel coming out of a loudspeaker makes it impossible to stay in bed. She drives me to the toilet, and ensures I start the day furious.

Why, then is Melua the weapon of choice of so many? Is her bland incompetence what we savour as our benchmark? Is she taken as an aural Valium? Secretly, I hope that people buy her recordings because they like not to listen to her. This, I am sure, is the answer.

Jamie Cullum in in the same galaxy. Exec pt he's a nice chap with obvious talent - but not that much. Anyone listening to his version of the lounge standards must surely have thought - 'Yeah, nice, but not great.' Well, no they didn't. What they actually said was, 'This man is the most amazing artist I've heard of!'

I don't understand. I don't understand. But I suspect.

And that brings me back to Tony Blair. Well... it's not all his fault, unfortunately. John Major had a lot to do with it. And The Blessed Margaret, so Beloved of Brown, laid the foundations. (Well, actually, maybe Clement Atlee laid the first stone, but I don't really want to blame him... he was such a nice guy.)

Meritocracy.

What does it mean? Rule by those who deserve to rule you. Put another way, advancement in society by means of your abilities. That sounds much nicer, although it still rather leaves us with the standing order that thou shalt advance to prosper. Not much socialism there then.

It's very popular as a one-word concept, though, because it sounds cool and fair to all, and it's advertised as what it isn't - narcissist, old boy's club, establishment, masonic, secretive, aristocratic, unfair, undemocratic etc etc.

What it means in the real world is anyone's guess (and who judges the judges of merit?), but it has come to be synonymous with mediocrity, and that's where Katie comes in. We have become obsessively happy as a society with 'bigging it up' - hyping up our lives, our businesses, our country and our politics, whereas the 'it' is most always an old chipolata in reality.

We have swallowed our own crap, I fear. Think call centres. Think 'a job well done'. Think Peter Mandelson. Think Millennium Dome. Think Holyrood. Think Iraq and Afghanistan. Think domestic debt. Think Northern Rock. Think Katie Melua.

Lest you feel I'm just being a miserable old arse, a positive plea: isn't it time we stopped living in other people's ideas of life, and just did our own thing? I'm sure we'd be good at it, if only we would try.

Maybe that's what I'm annoyed about.

How Do I Scan?

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:41:00 +0000

Hello.

Today, I'm going to burble about three completely different things in a way that is like 'stream of consciousness' but not sufficiently for me to want to use what has now become a terrible cliche... Everyone is emitting SOC these days - the papers say so; so does the TV; it enters into casual conversation ('Would you like a drink?' 'No thanks - I just put one out' 'My, that's very stream-of-consciousness' 'Erm... sorry, I wasn't listening'). Russell Brand is said to be a SOC comic. I think he's actually just a prurient arsehole who has 'arrived' at a time when everyone who is anyone is wearing the Emperor's New Clothes.

Are we becoming consciousness-incontinent? Obviously, to paraphrase your GP, we need to get out of it a bit more. Or maybe just shut up. Yet here I am...

So, today I had an MRI scan.

It was jolly interesting, too. All in the name of research, I hasten to add - some chap at Glasgow University wants to find out if loonies' brains light up differently to squares' brains when subjected to the same stimuli.

Consequently, I spent an hour pushing the same button over and over while stuck in a helmet not unlike Richard Chamberlain's in The Man in the Iron Mask, lying in a very narrow tube and having extremely loud, Frankenstein-like noises made by a bloody enormous electro-magnet. Encouragingly, I was told that I was also surrounded by LOADS of liquid nitrogen, which explained why the place was so fecking cold.

In the end, and bizarrely, I nearly fell asleep. The technician greeted me with the news that (a) he always falls asleep inside the thing and (b) (very tiredly) I do, indeed, have a brain.

He was so convinced of the latter that he let me have a look at myself, and a very odd specimen I was too, with my spherical eyeballs sitting on stalks looking like they weren't attached to much at all. It was, I concluded, a bizarre and amazing experience and I vaguely considered that maybe the NHS should charge people to have a go for fun. I recommend it.

With a mighty leap - ebay. Or is it Ebay? Or eBay? Bugger it, I hate this playing about with the rules.

Ebay has put its prices up again, and, staggeringly, they are trying to make out that this is a price CUT!

Once upon a time, ebay was the world's greatest online car boot sale. That was the whole idea. Ever since then, the company has been ceaseless in its mission to push out the hobbyists and make the place an Internet High Street.

The latest wheeze involves cutting insertion fees for a listing by 33% (for most of us, from 15p to 10p - by the way, these reductions mean that it is proportionately much cheaper to have a high starting bid, which is supposed to be unwelcome). The flip side is that they are increasing their commission on sales from 5% to 7.5%, which means that anyone who doesn't operate a shop, basically, is going to pay loads more for every sale.

The jolly anchorites have the gall to advertise this as a price cut because they've brought out a discount scheme where you can get from 20 to 40% off your commission charges. How do you qualify? By being a high volume seller of course!

And so another great idea bites the dust - watch as everyone but the sellers of CDs, edible underwear and office equipment drifts away to find something else to do. Like going to a car boot sale maybe. Anyone who wants to compete with ebay, now is your time, people!

So, the Department of Work and Pensions then.

I've had quite a bit to do with these guys over the past year and a half, as a recipient of state aid, and while I can say that claiming benefit has never been fun, it has now been reduced to some kind of (I don't want to say it... ooooh...) Kafka-esque (bugger) farce.

There are Jobcentres and benefit offices - but the latter also call themselves Jobcentres... but you can't go in them. You can go in the former, but they can't deal with your claim because they aren't allowed to. And they aren't allowed to talk to the benefit office either... but they are nevertheless the place where you have to sign on, go for interviews and what not. But not if you want to make a new claim. No. In that event you have to phone up a special number and speak to a call centre, who put you through the whole application process over the phone... and you are encouraged to do this in public, at the Jobcentre.... but all they actually do is (a) tell you if the computer says 'no' and (b) send you a form, which carries all the wrong details, for you to give to the Jobcentre, who then ask you all the same questions again... and then send it to the benefit office because it's not up to them... who then ask you the same questions... who call you to be interviewed at the Jobcentre by someone who says they are your case worker, but who can't answer any questions because that's the job of the benefit office... who take the traditional bloody ages to do anything, and then don't tell you what they've done.

One of the main reasons why none of this works, asides from the normal organisational lunacy involved, is that Government ministers have been unable to stop fiddling with the system (in the same way as we now have a shambolic education system thanks to a couple of generations of non-stop tinkering for tinkerings sake) and won't put in the funding to support their brave new initiatives.

If HMG really wants to reduce the number of Incapacity Benefit claimants, I strongly suggest that they spend some money on letting DWP staff do their jobs. My local friendly IB Adviser has a caseload of nearly 100 claimants and is so over-worked she can't service them (that means 'work on getting them off benefit'). If you look around the offices of any Jobcentre these days, what you will see is a bunch of desperate people, and they are all the staff members.

Which is why I was so pleased to hear that Caroline Flint MP, having just moved on from the DWP, is keen to try out some of her great ideas from her former role on public housing - like getting people to work for their homes. Asides from the moral issues, how in ****'s name does she think this will work?

I, for one, am getting sick and tired of junior politicians using their postings to trumpet ridiculous schemes in order to get themselves noticed. Once upon a time, civil servants were able to squash these before any damage was done. Now that the CS is merely the politicians' whipping boy, we are all suffering the results, across the board.

It doesn't really matter what shade of voting belief you hold - the fact is we are drowning in unnecessary law and regulation, much of it badly composed and often actually illegal.

NB: Check out how many times the present administration has broken the law and ignored court rulings.

...And Now for Something Completely Different

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:24:00 +0000

How to Kill a Mockingbird

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:42:00 +0000

My last post (ho-ho) prompted a veritable flurry of two comments from my dedicated readership.

In one of these, Dave took it upon himself to point out the error of my ways and, in the ensuing exchange of wordy emails, we arrived at two agreed conclusions:

Humans definitely can't be anything other than subjective, and...
I was talking pish about most of the other stuff

OK, not ALL criticism is a waste of time AND, yes, there really is an objective universe outside of human existence AND Descartes wasn't all bad. And he wasn't Belgian either. Humph.

So, for the physicists out there, here's a little curio. I have a thing.

It's an air ioniser thing. It takes the form of a small column of plastic, into which are placed two batteries and a cartridge of nice-smelling liquid, the idea being that it emits an ionised vapour on a regular basis. It's approved by lots of worthies and actually seems to work, as it has dramatically decreased both the volume and incidence of my snoring, which usually makes it sound like a distressed walrus is lurking under the bed.

There it sits on top of the shelves at the other end of the room, winking away with it's little LED on an occasional basis and producing a gentle waft of apparently harmless perfume (I say this because perfume things usually make me gag).

But I'm worried. It works off two AA batteries, right? And it has an on-off switch, and it's switched off during the day. So how come,when you pick it up or feel it, it's cold to the touch? Always?

Where's the heat exchange? One end is room-temperature, and the other is cold. No part is warmer than ambient.

The only thing that I can come up with is that this bizarre machine is dumping heat through a tiny black hole at it's core, although so far I have not noticed any ornaments sliding towards it. It does tend to draw you to it though....

Have I installed a monster?

Thoughts, please.

I Object!

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:13:00 +0000

A student friend of mine was complaining the other day that she had managed to write a fairly bad essay for her philosophy class on the subject of whether objectivity was important or not (or something like that).

It made me think (which I guess is the point).

We can, of course, never be objective. We each see the universe through our own eyes as an individual experience (our own reality), and, no matter how much in agreement we all might be about something, we are each seeing it slightly differently. This concept is pretty much accepted these days, but then forgotten about in the general mush that is our daily lives. (I'm not going to dwell right now on the possibility that our own reality is all there is to dwell on.)

It is, however, an critical point. We are, as human beings, both very alike and very dissimilar. We are homogeneous and heterogeneous all at the same time. It depends on the scale, as meta physicists might like to say.) Necessarily, this also means that we are dichotomous and often contrary. We are, in fact, individually more than one. So much for schizophrenia.

So we see things differently, not only inasmuch as being individual brains and bodies, but within our own entities too.

How very confusing.

Anyway, this all goes to restate just how impossible the Enlightenment-sponsored concept of objectivity is to achieve. Just ask anyone involved in working with witnesses to a crime.

The best we can do is discipline ourselves to try and work towards objectivity. This can sometimes be a very useful tool. Too much, however, it is assumed to be THE way of thinking, and that is as silly, frankly, as assuming that rationality and/or logic (the two tend to go together) are basic human assets (actually, they are socially ingrained philosophies).

Sometimes I really hate the Renaissance...

Which is why I will now drop in 'Descartes was a great mathematician but a lousy philosopher' and 'all facts are widely accepted opinions'.

Also, has anyone noticed that Creationism is doing nothing more than winding the clock back to when we ALL thought that the Golden Rule was God's Own Work? It reminds me of the time I listened to a university chaplain asking us to pray to God in thanks for evolution and hedgerows. That's the only time so far I have ever laughed in a religious service.

So, we are all subjective; insular by default, with varying tints of spectacles.

And this is why we have complicated and subtle forms of communication. It's why we have language (and why our brains are already coded for this complexity), the written word, music and painting. We are constantly trying to say things to each other and that is why we are creative, whether it's graffiti, this blog or the Mona Lisa.

In fact, it is, to me, the most important aspect of human life - communication and creativity. I love it, so I do, as an abstract as much as in the doing. That might have some reference to my involvement with an arts festival.

Finally, subjectivity and individuality are also the reasons why criticism, and other variations on trying to decode these communications into objective messages, are a complete waste of time. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder is a universal.

...And Now For Something Completely Different

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:09:00 +0000

A Few Random Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:48:00 +0000

Congratulations to the National Grid for figuring that it costs more to move electrons from the wilds of Scotland to English suburbia, and thus deciding that anyone generating electricity out in the boondocks should suffer a financial penalty to actually make their electricity do anything.

Presumably, what the controllers of the nation's power lines would like to see is The Solent filled with tidal power stations and London replaced with wind turbines. (Actually, maybe that's not a bad idea...)

You see where I'm going with this? And all happening at a time when the said monopoly is trying to strong-arm the Scots into accepting a massive new overhead line system running straight through the middle of a National Park.

This stupidity prompts me to wonder how many NG executives used to work for BAA.

*****

The other morning, I covered my cat in porridge.

I've taken to eating the stuff for breakfast partly because everyone says it's good for you and partly because I have an addictive character. Possibly also out of nostalgia. I even use my Mother's spurtle, and I bet not many of you can say the same.

I recall that she always soaked the oats overnight, although instant porridge had been the thing for decades. But then she was born in 1919 and was brought up in a two-bedroomed tenement with her parents and three siblings. Probably she had to grow her own.

Anyway, porridge is one of those things, like popcorn, that can divide a society. Salt or sugar? Being a freak, I naturally prefer BOTH. AND milk. Possibly that inhibits the 'good for you' part, but while my blood pressure skyrockets and my body fat reproduces exponentially, I am well defended from an excess of cholesterol. Cool.

Where was I? Oh yes - the cat.

Well, there I was at my breakfast. I had just given our tiny evil Siamese-cross her daily licking of butter, but apparently she was convinced that my cereal was worth a try too, and she jumped up onto the table. That's a no-no in our household, but I was caught with spoon in mouth so, waving energetically, I gurgled at her disapprovingly, and this was the point at which a guerrilla sneeze rushed up and caught me out.

Sneeze - porridge - cat.

Oh dear....

Later that morning I dropped my door keys, but, reacting with lightning speed, I caught them on the way down and then followed through to punch myself neatly in the testicles and fall to the floor in some distress.

Oh dear....

This Just In....

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:10:00 +0000

Giant 6-Year-Old Devastates Ant Community

And Now for Something Completely Different

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 13:46:00 +0000

They're Not Playing My Song...

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 12:45:00 +0000

We are living in interesting times.

Here in Scotland (that 'dark land populated by homosexuals' as humorous U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson once had it) now that the excitement summed up in the declaration 'they may take our airport doors, but they'll never take our freedom' has all died down, we are left with Wendy Alexander.

There is probably no-one better qualified to lead Scottish Labour in this troubled and perplexing time for the monolithic Scottish party establishment. There was no other choice, actually. What will happen next is anyone's guess.

Despite all the dire poll predictions, Jack McConnell spent his last days at Holyrood looking utterly dumbfounded and speaking as if he were somewhere else entirely. Perhaps never in British political history has a political leader been left so speechless for so long. He is off to Malawi I hear.

Poor Africa - I have never seen much in Mr McConnell beyond the adept slipperiness of the talented cad, and have yet to encounter anyone who thought he was a good maths teacher either. Certainly, only in Scotland could a man who looked in public as if he was about to leave the room having parked a bomb under the table be felt to be a charismatic leader.

So, Wendy then...

Well, good luck to her I say. I was always rather bemused by Jack's insistence on putting her on the subs bench. I suspect they hated each other - the 'get things done' woman of business versus the 'let's wait and see' man of cunning. Still, there's something about Wendy... and I think it's Lord Cardigan.

I am pursued by an image of Wendy Alexander charging into battle against the cannonade of the faux consensus politics of the Scottish Salmond Party, only to turn around at the last moment and find that no-one has followed her.

Particularly not George Foulkes, I suspect. This past week, George, now Lord Foulkes, has been having a go.

He lambasted hapless Henry McLeish for speaking out against some of the rather sillier aspects of Labour's failed election campaign. The former First Minister, who was forced to resign for cocking up his expenses, was described by Foulkes as a 'strange guy' who lacked 'any degree of statesmanship and diplomacy and understanding of politics' and who should 'shut up'.

That's not advice that George has ever been prone to follow, though. He's a veteran politician now, to be sure, but he is best remembered, perhaps, for talking a lot of tosh about anything that came his way. He was a bit like a 'good guy' version of John Reid.

The real subject of George's ire, however, was Wendy's press-man - Brian Lironi - whom George described, simply, as 'an idiot'.

Apparently, (and get the irony) George has a campaign underway to raise MSPs expenses allowances. Now, for all I know, there might be a case to be made, but I'm guessing that New Wendy Labour won't be taking up this particular flag and waving it around, not least because politicians expenses is one of the electorate's pet hates, and one that arguably went towards losing Labour the election.

It goes like this - the Scottish public are delighted to have a Scottish Parliament, but they are sick to death of Scottish politicians acting like they are in some kind of secret society that awards itself lots of goodies that the public has to pay for without so much as a 'by-your-leave'.

Consequently, I can think of no worse an idea for New Wendy than for George's great scheme to be given any oxygen. I suspect she'd rather encase Lord Foulkes in retardent foam to a great depth. So it came as no surprise to hear Lironi tell the press that Labour MSPs don't agree with Foulkes. I don't expect this will upset anyone else really.

What does upset me is that Alexander has only been in the job a few days and she's launched a new quango. It's called Ideas Scotland. Frankly, that was as far as I got. For all I know, this thing could be about to discover a cure for cancer, but I don't care. I DON'T CARE! IDEAS SCOTLAND!!

I swore recently that if I heard of one more stupid and meaningless branding I would scream and my head would explode. Well, my cat is now typing the rest of this article. Ideas Scotland.

My ultimatum was given on hearing that the Scottish Publishers Association had decided to rebrand itself as Publishing Scotland. Consequently, I threatened to rebrand myself, and suggested that everything in the country should be similarly altered (Bigotry Scotland for instance, or Smackheads Scotland, or Smug Scotland, or, in my case, Old Fat Mad Scotland).

Well, if Wendy thinks that entertaining the same old crap is going to make a difference, she can wave goodbye to being in my good books for a start. She's bound to notice my disapproval.

A Brief Rant and a Cup of Tea

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 16:40:00 +0000

For how much time should a government help a company to make a foreign sale of high-tech goods?

According to the EU, not very much time at all, really, and certainly with no subsidy.

The French, it goes without saying, have masterfully ignored all these rules pretty much forever, particularly when it comes to things that go bang. During the Falklands 'conflict', I was terribly unamused to find out that France was continuing to sell Exocet missiles to Argentina despite all declarations to the contrary.

First they posted them to Israel, where they were taken out of the box, put in another one and mailed to South Africa, from where they were forwarded to Comodoro Rivadavia, unloaded, plugged onto Aerospatiale Super Entendards (makers; French; users: France, South Africa, Argentina) and chucked at British ships, to some effect.

One day, I must also have a rant about the 'hidden' links between France, Russia, Israel and South Africa. Diamonds, anyone? Not to mention the world-wide failure of journalism to bother keeping track of such 'power lines', resulting in most of us having no idea how things happen. I wonder who benefits from that state of affairs?

Right... as to the initial question, here in Britain, the answer apparently is 'a generation'. That's how long the Ministry of Defence has been working on the Al Yamamah arms contract on behalf of British Aerospace. Seriously. A friend of mine was a civilian in the MoD in the 80s, and she was wholly devoted to this project, 365, from 1987 until the day I lost contact, 10 years later. And they're still doing it.

Leaving aside all the discussions we could have about selling arms at all, and who we DO sell arms to, and WHY, there is one point I want to make.

THOUSANDS of UK public employees have been working on this deal, and continue to do so, at the taxpayer's expense, to ensure that a UK-based multinational earns megabucks and thus stays in existence. The Government (and there's been several of them now) would probably argue that they are, in effect, supporting a national asset, and thus the nation's interest, by the back door.

This is balls.

Twenty-two years and counting. How many worker hours? How much money? That's far more important than whether or not BAe was given a slush fund in order to 'entertain' their Saudi clients at a cost of 100s of millions of pounds. And let's not get me started about the Tanzanian Air Traffic Control System.

Here's the point. We are all being hoodwinked by a bunch of morally rotten bureaucrats who are so convinced of our stupidity and antipathy that they are certain they can wave buckets of crap in our faces and we'll never even notice.

Pass the tortilla chips, there's another reality show on...

By the way, whenever you are grumbling about how utterly f****** awful an experience international departures from UK airports has become, you should remember that the business responsible, BAA, is one that thinks it's really cool to have a trading name that is a meaningless acronym. Yup, BAA USED to be the publicly owned organisation called the British Airports Authority, and, asides from allowing the flourishing of the hugely funny criminal organisation known as Heathrow baggage handlers, they didn't do too bad a job. Then they got privatised by The Blessed Margaret, and, in a marketing stroke of genius, decided that they would continue to be known as BAA, but that it wouldn't stand for anything. Believe it or not, they even commissioned a large advertising campaign to promote that message.

And they are still a bunch of twats.

Which takes me finally to another acronym. The SQA. The Scottish Qualifications Authority.

I worked there for a while as a 'consultant'. My work was funded by the European Social Fund. I was told to log my time by activity about a year after starting. I pointed out that I did this anyway on my invoices. No good. I pointed out that I couldn't guarantee that specific blocks of time were spent on specific documents (I was working on about 100 at any one time). Don't worry about it, I was told. Just make sure the time sheets were filled out. What about the backlog? Make it up, I was told. Make it all up. Then append your signature so that you are responsible for your spending statement. Up yours, I said.

I should have seen this coming. There had been warning enough in the matter of the Clingfilm.

It was against Health and Safety to carry hot liquids around the offices in open containers (i.e. mugs). we were, therefore, instructed to use Clingfilm to cover our mugs. Quite how effective a piece of preventative action this was, I couldn't really say. But we did as we were told.

Then the catering personnel (a contractor, naturally) complained that we were using all their Clingfilm up, and they didn't have a budget with the SQA for Clingfilm use. Well, responded, the SQA, we're not going to foot the bill, and you need the Clingfilm to cover the sandwiches you prepare for us, so...

So the contractor hid the Clingfilm, obliging us all to break H+S rules.

A meeting was arranged.

If you use our Clingfilm, explained the contractor, you break health and safety, because we use it to cover your sandwiches, and your employees are getting their filthy fingers all over it.

Oh, said the SQA.

Stuck in-between a rock and a hard place, they did what any quango would do - they refused to reach a decision.

Me? I brought in a camping mug.

Have You Seen the Metal Man, the Metal Man, the Metal Man...

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 15:55:00 +0000

Some photos on Flikr (I'm so with-it) took me back a few years, to the time I visited Tramore in Waterford County, Ireland.

My friend and I were kinda circumnavigating the Republic in an effort to sell nylon bushes to engineering companies (hot stuff). Actually, to be honest, Patrick was doing the selling. I mostly just drank Guinness and smoked. Nevertheless, we both conspired to enjoy one of the funniest trips ever.

First of all there was the bizarreness of Patrick being of solid English stock, yet having been conceived in the hotel at the end of the Dingle Peninsula, and needing to visit the spot. On a gorgeous day, we crunched badly shelled crab sandwiches in the public bar and I worried about whether he was going to insist on seeing the actual bed.

But I digress.

We went to Waterford, and then to a B+B in Tramore, just along the road and smelling of slurry. And right nearby, on the cliff edge overlooking the wild Tramore Bay, were these three enormous stone pillars looking like decapitated lighthouses. There was a couple more across the other side, miles away. Odder still, on top of one of our three, there seemed to be an equally huge Toby Jug of a Victorian sailor, pointing out to sea. I cannot overstate quite how bizarre a sight this presented. We were utterly nonplussed.

We shortly discovered that these 60 feet high pillars represented a local take on shipping warnings - they identify the notoriously dangerous Tramore Bay, while the gaily painted monster rounds the message off. Keep away.

The Metal Man dates back to 1823, is about 14 feet high, is made of bronze and wears something of a jaunty expression for a portent of doom. Maybe it's his paint job that keeps him happy.

Up the hill a little way stands an equally lonely-looking pub with the unlikely name 'Rocketts of the Metal Man'. Perversely, this turned out to be not only seriously popular, but also just as bizarre. A large and empty bar, with a great sea view, girded out half as El Ranchero, and half as community hall, completely hid from view one of the most popular restaurants in all Ireland, as you could only reach the glorified dinner hut by leaving the pub by the back door and walking over a courtyard. Three choices - roast chicken, spare ribs or pigs trotters. We played safe and enjoyed an outstanding roast dinner for very little expense, while spectating the looks on stranger's faces as they were presented with half a pig's rib cage, boiled grey and served with cabbage. I'm sure it was very nice. And the trotters seemed popular too, but see above for appearance. Not for us.

It seems from a web search that the bloke on the pole hasn't changed one bit, but the pub has been gentrified, which is a great shame. It just looks like everywhere else in the brochures now.

Arcade Company Uses Strong-Arm Tactics

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:02:00 +0000

You couldn't invent it...

Updated: 7:19 p.m. ET Aug. 21, 2007

TOKYO - Lose a game of chess to a computer, and you could bruise your ego. Lose an arm-wrestling match to a Japanese arcade machine, and you could break your arm. Distributor Atlus Co. said Tuesday it will remove all 150 "Arm Spirit" arm wrestling machines from Japanese arcades after three players broke their arms grappling with the machine's mechanized appendage.

"The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it," said Atlus spokeswoman Ayano Sakiyama, calling the recall "a precaution."

"We think that maybe some players get overexcited and twist their arms in an unnatural way," she said. The company was investigating the incidents and checking the machines for any signs of malfunction.

Players of "Arm Spirit" advance through 10 levels, battling a French maid, drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua before reaching the final showdown with a professional wrestler.

The arcade machine is not distributed overseas.

Now I wanna have a go!

From Our Own Correspondent

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Piestar) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:02:00 +0000

Our roving American reporter writes to tell us about the Hell that everyday life in the US is descending into. (Well, for some people, anyway.)

The latest Kafka-esque adventure from across The Pond features one Harry Johnson, a Senior Citizen, and US Army Veteran who has become persona non grata at the age of 81, thanks to security regulations put in place recently in the US Civil Service.

The trouble with Harry is that, in 1925, the local doctor failed to officially register his birth. That was OK, because Harry got a baptismal certificate instead. And it did him fine all the way to 2006, when he applied to renew his drivers licence, when the clerk told him to go away and get a birth certificate.

So Johnson went to the Dept of Health to get a 'delayed' certificate. Helpfully, they responded that he would have to petition the state court at a cost of $1000.

So what went wrong? Well, Harry was named Harry by his parents, but he wasn't christened Harry. Apparently, the local priest wanted something a bit more official and saint-like, and so he was christened Henry, and that's what went down on his certificate.

That was also the last time Harry ever used that name. Harry was fine for his high school; it was fine for the US Army; it was fine for his house deeds; his mortgage; his bank; his passport; his marriage certificate; his social security card and his Medicare account. All of them were perfectly happy with Harry Johnson. In fact, even the licensing people were happy, on multiple previous licence renewals.

But things have become different under the Patriot Act, when all officialdom seems to have lost its perspective. Harry can't be synonymous with Henry. Sorry. Consequently, Harry is guilty of conducting a six-decade deception on the authorities, and, in order to continue as a legal entity, Harry must change his name from Henry, which is what he is really called.

Er...? Right?

In the meantime, he can't drive, which means both he AND his wife are housebound. And the stress has made him ill.

Comment from the pen pushers was to the effect that they were only following orders, so presumably they will have no qualms about having killed an old man in order to keep their bosses happy.

PS: There is another point about all this: in a 'free' society, one of the central planks of personal freedom lies in control of identity. Usually, the de facto state is that you are who you say you are; you might have to prove it - you might be required to have lots of documentation, but that doesn't betray the principle. Now, in the US, apparently it is the case that the state decides who you are, and that really isn't nice.