Category: Rant

Twatting Britain

ASDA Stores LimitedAsda – whatever you want,
except the word “****”

This is yet another example of what pisses me off about the UK. A book is being reprinted with a change in the text because one word has upset a few parents who don’t want their kids reading it. Of course, these parents obviously have no ******* idea of the language theit little preciouses are using at school.

The part of the text that got me more than anything else was that Asda would refuse to stock My Sister Jodie after “a complaint from one shopper”.

One.

A single, ******* one.

Out of 28,000 sales.

That’s an enormous 0.00357142857% of total customers, if my maths is correct. And because of that, they’ve withdrawn it from sale.

It reminds me of when I was back in Low Fell and wanted to get some Richard Laymon books out. I couldn’t find some of them on the shelves, so asked if they had them in stock. “Yes”, was the reply,”but you’ll have to reserve them as they’ve been removed.”

Someone (and I mean “one”) had complained at the content. Of a horror book. In the adult section. Thus it was taken from the shelves and only obtainable if you paid money to make a reservation for it.

The country’s gone to ****. Is it any wonder I’m not hanging around there any more?

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My manifesto

Palace of Westminster in London

OK, we all say things like “If I was in charge…”, or “this government’s ****, because…” so here’s a run-down of my thoughts and what I’d do about it if anyone was stupid enough to vote for me. I doubt I’ll ever try to become an MP, mainly as I can’t be arsed with my private life being torn apart by the press, but it’s nice to have ideas.

1. Speed cameras. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely “anti” the things. I just think they should be better used, and nobody can get round the fact that a large number are simply revenue-generators that don’t have any effect on driving at all. I want transparency on these things. If they’re not somewhere that’s statistically an accident blackspot where the accidents were hugely speed-related, take them down. Recalibrate them to 20mph and pop them back up around schools and playgrounds to enforce the mandatory 20mph limit I’d enforce on such areas.

2. Human rights. I’d remove the UK from whatever Human Rights agreement we have and draft a new one. The essentials would be the same, but I’d insert some caveats which relate to some of the following points.

3. Personal protection. If you enter someone’s property without their permission, it’s a safe assumption you’re there to rob or harm them. As such, you have violated their rights as set out in the document I’d draft in section 2. And as such, you have forfeit your own rights. They can do that the hell they want to you with no fear of legal recourse. Club ’em, shoot ’em, beat them unconscious and call the police, bury them in the garden. I don’t care.

4. Arrest. On arrest, jail time in custody will be reasonable as far as comfort goes. Our law states – and will continue to state – that you’re innocent until proven otherwise. As such, you’ll be kept captive but in reasonable comfort. That is, no more than two to a cell; a fair amount of space to move; exercise; decent food; and so forth. Bail will be very hard to get as too many people on bail have screwed that one for you in the past. Sorry, deal with it. If convicted, you’re in the same situation as the guy in number 3. You’ve committed a crime, so your human rights are forfeit. You breach the rules, you pay the price. If the jails are packed, tough ****. Four to a cell. Five. Sharing beds. Crapping in buckets you have to clean out yourself. Don’t like it? Don’t commit a crime.

5. Jails. In fairness, there does come a point where physical limits cause problems. So if you’re in jail, expect to do some work… building a new one, if we need them. Learn how to plumb, build walls and so on for the next generation of scum.

6. Sentences. Life = life. 20 years = 20 years. A system may be worked out for prisoners showing exceptional effort to improve themselves. Rewards, personal freedoms and so on. The likes of entertainment, exercise, improved food, education… all will need to be earned not expected. Reductions in sentences likewise will be earned by the remarkable few.

7. Courts in favour of the innocent, not the guilty. Likewise the police. Do something wrong, expect to get punished for it. Act like a ****** in front of a policemen, expect to get led away by the ear or bashed on the head. Assault a policeman, expect to be taken into a dark room and have the **** kicked out of you. These people are there to protect you. Assault fire fighters, and your own home becomes blacklisted for protection. They’ll turn up and douse the adjoining houses, but yours will be left to burn. Any house insurance you have becomes null and void. Likewise for abusing health care staff – remember that thing about losing human rights? You go right to the bottom of the queue. In extreme cases, so does your whole household. If they have a problem with that they’re welcome to officially ostracise you.

8. Recompense. Miscarriages of justice do happen. In which case the innocent party should be refurbished with accommodation and a job similar to that when they went away. Education to bring them up to speed in their line of work (if relevant) provided. Compensation equal to lost earnings based on current income at time of conviction paid in full. And so forth. No charges for “rent” due to the cell space they took up, as seems to be current regulation.

9. No more excessive suing. Sorry, but it’s been abused far too much. If you can’t walk 100 yards without tripping over a paving stone, you can’t blame the council. Stay at home, you clumsy sod. Tripped over your own child in Tesco and thinking of suing them for your sprained wrist? Better idea – buy some books on parenting. All attempts to sue anyone will be looked over by a tightly controlled body. Anything remotely frivolous will be thrown back at you and you’ll be fined proportionately. Fair do’s suing a builder who signed off on your supporting wall which then collapsed and destroyed your kitchen – that was their fault. But if there’s a sign telling you not to touch something… and you do… and it hurts… that was your fault. We wouldn’t need big bloody fences if people like you would take responsibility for your own actions. Learn to.

10. Bye-bye benefits. There are jobs out there. Dole-scroungers are just too damn lazy to do them. I appreciate in some cases, taking a job can effectively cost money in the lost benefits as a person is now employed. However, I always thought that if you turned work down you lost your benefits anyway. Well, that’s how it would go under my rule. If you’re offered a job on minimum wage and turn it down, then you’ll be living in thin air. If other people can manage it, then you can. If you have to ditch your SkyPlus and cut down to 1 fag a week instead of 2 packs a day then deal with it. It’s called budgeting. Want more money? Work harder, learn more and get a better job.

11. Schools and the schooling system will be run by people with an educational background, not some tosser who thinks they know better. It’s a simple system of democracy and promotion. Start as a teacher, work up to head, regional overseer and cabinet position. The exact same for the police, health service, military defence of the nation and so forth. Isn’t it just common sense that the best person to oversee people is someone with hands-on experience?

12. Immigration. I heartily welcome people of other cultures and backgrounds. I don’t care if you’re rich or poor. All I ask is that you speak one of our national languages at least passably (and sensibly choose to live somewhere that understands you – moving to Glasgow and speaking Welsh is not much use to yourself or anyone else), are able to support yourself when you arrive and are prepared to work for a living. I don’t care if this involves sweeping streets or performing neurosurgery. Work, integrate, make friends, feel welcome.

I think that’s it for now. There are a few smaller points, and hopefully some benefits from the above that would become apparent over time. A reduction in bureaucracy would make the government more open and people would therefore trust them more. Improvements in police power and more severe (and likely) punishments would reduce crime. This would increase property prices and quality of life.

Then there’s the abolition of cash handouts to the chain-smoking dole-scrounging lot. Less cash out means more in the coffers. More workers = more income tax. Therefore tax could be reduced in other areas, such as on fuel or as VAT, or that ridiculous bloody inheritance tax. Frankly, I see it as the only way to get us out of this money “hole” the nation’s in at the moment. We just have to stop giving free cash out to people who don’t bloody deserve it. It’s simple, but we have to stop being soft on wasters who are taking is for a ride.

I’m also fully aware that it’s never as simple as having a list of things you want to do. Other people don’t agree (either because they have a valid point you didn’t think of or – more usually – they’re an idiot who just has to be awkward to keep themselves in a job) or things just don’t work out.

Thing is, I love my country. But in the last 30 years or so it’s gone to ****. And the only way to turn it around is to do something radical. Like step back a few years and use some bloody common sense. Is that too much to ask?

OK, enough’s enough

United Nations Human Rights Council logo.

I’ve avoided commenting on this story because it covers so many bases that get me riled: politics, human rights, children, foreign aid… It’s the Burmese / Myanmaran disaster caused by Cyclone Nargis. I just need to get a lot of things off my chest and also – amazingly – tip my hat to our foreign secretary for his very public statement today that perhaps we should use military force to help those in need.

Frankly, this whole story is making me more angry than sad; more helpless than I felt during the aftermath of the Boxing Day Tsunami. The scale of this natural disaster is being compounded hugely by the uncaring attitude of the fuckwit bunch of ******** who are apparently running this country. Ideas have been bandied around of dropping aid directly onto the country. Unfortunately, these ***** in uniform would see it as an act of war, most likely. Because that’s what countries at war do. Drop food on each other.

Each time a relief aid worker gets a visa, it’s a major headline. For ****’s sake, the embassy in Bangkok was shut for a ******* holiday at the start of this week, so no visas could be issued. People within the country who have money have been told to give it to government offices if they want to make a donation – only they’re not that stupid. Those with cars are having to make umpteen return trips in small groups to ferry helpers around – large convoys of Burmese people, let alone foreigners, are being prevented from moving around to help their fellow citizens. External nations have been told to send supplies, not people, and that the government would deal with things.

Problem one – they don’t have enough resources and people to deal with the distribution. Problem two – who here is retarded enough to believe that those supplies wouldn’t go directly to the cunta…. sorry junta in charge, while the poor got **** all?

David Miliband‘s argument is to use the UN charter that we and other nations have signed up to. It’s designed to allow our military forces to “invade” (for want of a better term) where we have evidence of war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Refusing to help well over a million people from dying certainly classes as a crime against humanity – and I would be very easily persuaded to see it as effectively passive genocide. They’re killing their own people by refusing to be helped, for no good reason other than they’re frightened that they might lose some of their own, pathetic grip on power.

If any good comes of this horrendous mess, I can only hope that the people will rise up and crucify these greedy ********. It seems they have 400,000 troops. But how many of these have lost family as a result of this tragedy? And how many of them could have been saved? I bet nobody in power, or their families was harmed as they would have acted on the intelligence they received far in advance of anyone else.

I still want to visit this country. I so wish I could do something to help. I so wish we were allowed to. And for once, I’d fully support an army involving our troops “invading” a country to provide aid. This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan with a fortune in oil reserves. Let’s see how the Western governments deal with it.

Enjoy a bit of slap and tickle? Well, you’re not allowed the slap any more

Patellar reflex. Note that this image includes an interneuron in the pathway of the patellar reflex for purposes of illustration. The inhibitory component of the reflex involving the hamstring muscle is not shown.

At least, not if another ridiculous Labour government motion gets passed (which it likely will). As a knee-jerk reaction to a horrible news story five years ago, David Blunkett (then the home secretary) promised to ban anyone from owning “violent” sexual images. The story in case was that of a poor woman, Jane Longhurst, who was brutally raped and murdered by a mental case called Graham Coutts.

Coutts had been visiting some pretty hardcore sites, and obviously that made him go off and try it all for himself. The same way that every teenager who’s played Grand Theft Auto has gone on to steal cars, shoot police and shag prostitutes. Oh, wait. No. They haven’t. One respondent to the original post is a licensed, certified, qualified psychologist who’s taught in this exact field for 10 years. I’d say he knows more about the workings of the brain that most politicians. How come he knows that over 1000 studies have been done that provide no evidence that viewing something increases the subject’s likelihood to do it when the government – with all their resources – can’t find those same studies?

The motion was put forward due to an appeal from Jane’s mother to her MP who forwarded her concerns to Blunkett. Who, incidentally, has been blind since birth and at the risk of sounding terribly politically incorrect, wouldn’t know what it’s like to look at porn anyway.

The bill is stupidly worded, including horrendously vague descriptions of what is and isn’t allowed. An example of such is “an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life”. As one respondent on the BBC page says, that makes at least one scene with Xenia Onatopp in the Bond film Goldeneye illegal.

It also drags up another insane British habit of making it legal to do things, but illegal to view other people doing them. Within the new law, it’d still be fine to tie your partner up, spank them and even draw blood; to throttle them; to suspend them from chains; to pierce them; and so on. As long as they’re consenting and no permanent harm results. Some people get off on that (I know some of them) and fine. No harm done in the long term and it’s a private thing.

However, if those couples (or groups) were to take some photos of each other or look at pictures of some of their friends that they had taken, this couple is breaking the potential new law. This is in line with having an age of consent of 16, but not allowing people to legally look at porn until they’re 18. Madness. You can do it, but not look at other people doing the exact same thing.

I replied to the comments on the BBC post listed above, and I’m paraphrasing from that to save repeating myself now.

I’m scouting out Oz and NZ again later this year with a view to moving permanently. I’m not a lawbreaker, and I’m feeling more and more restricted by a government in my own country that thinks it knows better than I do or that experts do about everything.

The whole situation is a knee-jerk reaction to a horrible incident that – let’s face it – would never have prevented the crime in the first place. If Coutts was prepared to murder, then he’d have had no qualms about illegally acquiring those same images. In fact, making them illegal may even have increased the thrill for him making the matter worse.

Victoria (one of the respondents on the BBC post), please check out the description of the videos you’re saying show people being raped. They don’t. They show consenting adults acting. The same way that Sylvester Stallone didn’t really kill all those people in those Rambo films, and Alan Rickman didn’t – in real life – kill a Japanese businessman to steal money from the safe of his high-rise building.

It’s porn. Yes. It’s sex. Yes. It’s entertainment. Nobody is hurt (beyond their decision to be so) in its manufacture. The world has a seedy side. I’m not saying embrace it, but I’m saying deal with it.

Having said that, how on earth would this be policed anyway? The powers that be can’t even figure out how to trace illegal film and music downloads. How on earth would they trace every single house in the UK where a consenting adult had downloaded images which may or may not be classed as illegal under a hastily-written, poorly worded law?

I know I’ve gone off on one again, but this is very much one of my pet bugbears. We’re supposed to live in a free society, a free country. As long as you don’t hurt anyone else (in this case anyone who’s not consenting) then there shouldn’t be any issues. I’m very anti-religious. Not just non-religious, but pretty much an active non-agree’er in the whole thing. Yet I would fight anyone who tried to take away the right of someone to go to any church they chose if they lived in Britain. It’s their right. Just as it’s any private individual’s right to enjoy whatever kinky stuff they like behind closed doors as long as nobody else is affected, hurt, etc., etc.

Yet over the last few years, the country’s become more and more clamped down in what is allowed as if these things have never existed before.

I’d say it’s like going back to Victorian values, but they were filthier than most British folk these days.

Ryanair are thieving *****

Safety CardImage by Ultrastar175g via FlickrOK, so it’s not a huge revelation but Ryanair are, indeed greedy thieving ********. Sneaky, conniving, slippery *****. And that’s just a few of the words I’d use to describe them. Any way they can fiddle you out of more cash, they’ll do it.

I’m booking tickets for some friends for the Graspop trip in June. Three people return from Stansted, one person (me) one-way from Eindhoven to Stansted. All nice and simple. Obviously, there will be credit card fees involved, so I want to book as many flights at once to reduce the fees involved.

OK, so I can’t book three out, 4 in with one transaction. It’s 3 out on one booking, 4 back on another. Or 3 return and then a separate booking for the guy going one-way. Either way, two credit card fees.

Wrong.

Either way it’s SEVEN credit card fees. Ryanair have gone all original and charge per person, per flight segment. So if I were paying on Visa, I could expect a whopping £21 in credit card charges. Frankly – ******* ludicrous. Even using a debit card, it’s £7.

More sneakiness. If you’re booking a flight from Europe to the UK, there is no choice on currency. You pay in Euros. And the flights are rounded to nice, convenient amounts – which are higher than the cost of the flight when booked as part of a return. Example – sterling price for Eindhoven to Stansted is £9.99. Booking it as a single is €14.40. At the current exchange rate this is £11.61. It doesn’t stop there as all the booking fees, card fees, baggage fees, taxes and so on are also lifted. The resultant flight is around a tenner dearer than it would be in Pounds. not to forget that most credit cards / banks charge a fee for dealing in non-sterling.

Add to that their 15kg checked luggage limit – 5kg below that of most other airlines. A 10kg carry-on limit – 2kg below that of others. A baggage check-in fee of £6 for the first bag and £12 for the next. Which necessitates that you check in at the airport… a further £3. Surely if you’re going to check one bag in and therefore have to check in at the airport (as opposed to the free online alternative), they may as well charge you £9 for the bag and include the fee? Ah, but then they’d not be able to claim their baggage fees were low…

Also note that every money-making option is selected on the web page unless you turn it off. As if anyone really wants to pay an extra £6 to be one of the first onto the plane. And insurance is selected by default.

I still loathe their advertising. My flight – according to their advertising – was £9.99. It actually cost me nearer £45. And if you want to complain (or check up on a booking you’re not sure has gone through because their website crashed)? 10p/min in the UK (34c/min in France).

I’m currently stuck as I’ve received no confirmation details for the 6 flights I booked for my friends. Have they been booked? I don’t know. I didn’t get an email confirming the details of the flight I do know went through, so the lack of mail for the other one is no indication at all.

Ryanair – the shittest airline on the planet, budget or not. British Airways may be able to decimate an entire airport terminal in 8 hours, but Ryanair are simply just ****. And greedy. Greedy and ****. And sneaky.