So Harriet Harman has pledged to “look again“  at the issue of blacking out details on MPs’ published expenses claims.

That’s nice.

Staring at a black piece of paper with the odd figure peeking out isn’t very enlightening.

And MPs’ could also face up to a year in jail under plans for new criminal charges for Parliamentarians.

That’s interesting.

Strange that we should have to consider our leaders as nothing more than a bunch of crooks and vagabonds (well they do like to flip their principal residence), out to screw you (the taxpayer) if they can and the need to legislate accordingly.

I think it may be along time before we can say we are proud of our parliament again.

Maybe it’s a period of our history that should be blacked out.

                 Another fantastic prediction ...

Weather , weather all together what’s it gonna’ do?
We don’t know so let’s just ask weather man Emu!

- EBC 1, Emu’s Broadcasting Company (Children’s TV: Late 1970’s)

I’m not sure if it shouldn’t be weather Emu Emu, but I’m not going to complain. I’ve got other fish to fry. (Mmm, trout with fennel on a bed of … well I digress.)

As most of us have been basking in glorious weather recently I thought it’d be nice to dwell on our obsession with all things weathery.

Apparently down in Devon, they’re not just clotting cream and whacking jam on scones, they’re busy building the mother of all weather predicting machines. It’ll be 30 times more powerful than the present weather forecasting computers. (Does that mean 30 times more liable to get it all wrong?)

To people, who this kind of fact-thing impresses, it has one PetaFlop of performance.

What the hell is that?

Sounds to me more like something that a rapid rush to the Docs. for Viagra may cure rather than something to boast about.

It fills two halls about the size of two football pitches. So obviously NOT something you’re going to just tuck under the desk.
As well as that it uses 1.2 megawatts of power. WOW! That sounds like something from the sixties where it took the electrical output of a small town just to produce a bank statement.

This beast should be available for derision, mockery and insurance claims by August. I can already imagine the cries of parents with their distraught children, trying to console their charges because of ruined kids parties.

“The bloody ‘30x’ better forecast said it would be lovely!”

Likewise, I find it hard to believe that I won’t find myself sat on a beach somewhere in my waterproofs, hiding behind a windbreak, because I was reliably informed it would be scorching that day.

I think we should just leave it to Emu.

Y’know of course, of Watergate (1974) which first coined the phrase -gate for political scandals; Irangate, Monicagate, Iraqgate etc. There’s a whole list of them here.

But what about all those scandals from history that haven’t had their own -gate attached because they were too early?

Here’s a few contenders …

Caesargate (44BC). Oh he of the multiple stab wounds. Poor Julius. Worst case of suicide I ever did see. (Old joke but what the hell, it’s an old story.)

Marygate (1586). Mary Queen of Scots. Caught sending crypto messages and beheaded for her part in a plot to overthrow Elizabeth I. Swore to the last she was just writing to an old pen-pal about nothing in particular. Swapping knitting patterns I think.

Appeasementgate (1938). Easy mistake to make. They just like to do a bit of off-roading with tanks, armoured vehicles and the like. No harm in them. It’s not their fault they get a bit lost and drift over borders accidentally. All 100,000 of them.

And finally one of my own …

ItWillBeOverByChristmasgate (1914). Oh it will, will it? That old chestnut appears under different guises with the same regularity as real chestnuts at Xmas.

So what are we to call the present -gate then?

I guess it could be named Allowancegate or CaughtWithYourDamnFingersInTheTillgate or StickyFingersgate.

But I prefer NewGardengate.

I mean bloody in the kindest (you know me) sense of the word. I’m amazed that we don’t hear more stories about the carnage on the cricket ground. Forget murder on the dance floor.

Considering the fact that it consists  of whizzing a cannonball about and trying to score runs while someone throws those same cannonballs back at you, I mean at the stumps, to get you out, I would expect the body count to be higher than a Rambo film.

Rollerball? Ha! That’s like playing shove ha’penny with the grand kids compared to dodging one of those projectiles as some spotty young oik, out to prove himself, tries to flatten you with the village greens version of WMD’s.

I know that the few instances I’ve been persuaded, cajoled, press-ganged into playing cricket I’ve felt the need for more than just a box to give me some modicum of protection. More like full Kevlar body armour. And that’s when I’m fielding on the boundary.

Yep, there’s nothing like stretching out to try and catch a ball as it hurtles past you at sub-sonic speed, only for it to catch the tip of your fingers and damn near take your finger nails off. And what do you get for your kamikaze efforts? Looks of dismay from your team members and shakes of their heads.

So I tip my hat to those about to do battle for Queen and County and hope they’ve got their slot booked at A&E.

It certainly is a huge price to pay for cucumber sandwiches in the pavilion.

But really this post was just an excuse to show this cover from a new book by Simon Hughes which I think is marvelous.

A sneaky plug?

It’s just not cricket.

And God Created Cricket (shame he didn`t use softer balls)

I couldn’t decide whether I should be appalled or impressed by the coke can. On the one hand it’s amazing that you can mine aluminium, move the metal half way across the world, produce a can from it, print on it, fill it with a liquid and sell it in a multi-pack and all for a few pence.  It truly is a modern wonder.

But then again what an amazing waste of resources! All that effort just so I can have 330ml. of fizzy, frothy, nothing.

So I finished my drink and pondered, “How can we justify the enormous infrastructure that it requires just to present the bloated Westerner with a piddly bit of a drink?”

And went and got another …

The two teams had just two days to become media advertising geniuses and create a breakfast cereal brand name, character, box design, TV advert and client pitch.
Wow! It’d take most execs. that amount of time to clean the whiteboard and get out their felt marker pens.

One team achieved the task admirably and produced a good campaign. The other team? Well, like all bad products, it all starts with a crappy list of ingredients.

First take a small amount of sclerotic Noorul, the man who never says too much. Well, getting him to say or do anything would be worthy of a prize in itself.

Then add a spoonful of negative Lorraine. “We don’t need the other side to beat us. I’m gonna’ f*** our teams chances up, by whinging and generally carrying on, quite nicely without any help from them thank you.

Mix in a generous measure of  ‘tantrum of the North’ Philip. “It’s quite simple, either I get my own way or I’ll lie down on this floor right now, wave my legs in the air and have the biggest hissy fit the world has ever known.”

To finish this concoction, simmer not-so-gently with Kimberly, ‘I’m an American, get me out of here’, Davis as the finest transatlantic wet blanket project manager ever and you have the makings of a truly, madly, deeply er … mess.

I won’t go through the events of the episode. You can watch them perform in all their cringe worthy mediocrity here.

But I forgot, there’s one other ingredient that you need to produce TV gold like this.

Just add Sugar.

In a provocative set of experiments involving mice, Chinese researchers have shown for the first time that an adult mammal can harbor primitive cells in her ovaries that can become new eggs and produce healthy offspring, they reported yesterday.

Well folks, now I know how the world’s gonna’ end.

One of these re-engineered mice will escape somehow, breed and produce a new race of super mice that’ll be able to reproduce for their entire naturals. Cut to five years down the line, the world is awash with mice. End of story.

Come on, you know it’s just gonna’ happen.

The shape of fur to come. A tale of many tails

I’ve got an expenses claim form I’ve been struggling with.

The problem isn’t what items I can claim for. You know, should I claim for that coffee? Was the taxi really necessary or should I have got the bus? Nah, I can claim for whatever the hell I want basically. The problem I’m having is I don’t know when to stop.

“What!” You cry, which company do you work for? Well I’m joking really (how could you tell?). I do need to worry about claiming for coffee and claiming for a taxi to take me to my garage is very much frowned upon.

But it seems that our erstwhile elected leaders don’t need to worry too much. Now that it’s been revealed that MP’s can legitimately claim for wide-screen TV’s and their kids Xmas present list on their allowances I thought it might be interesting to come up with a few new definitions for the initials MP.

They are (in no particular order):-

Morally Pliable
Mightily imPlausible
Maybe Presentable
Mainly Predictable
Mastercard Preferable

Most of these claims are within the rules but as rules go they are incredibly flexible. What is emerging is that our golden ones have well and truly claimed the moral low-ground with their expense claims. If it’s within the rules and everyone is doing it then why the hell not?

It’s an attitude of mind I find hard to trust. If you can stoop so low as to claim £40,000 for wages paid to your son, supposedly as a researcher, when in reality they are a full time student in Newcastle, then why should I trust you?

Really they should be above, above suspicion. No wonder we vote with our arses, by keeping them firmly attached to the sofa on Polling Day.

By the way, what’s the difference between my sofa and an MP’s sofa?

Well you guessed it pretty easily.

I paid for mine.

Sources: BBC /  bbc (again)

… and lots more. Go discover!

             Quick! Claim for your lives!

Looking at Gordon Brown’s beaming face through the numerous photo opportunities it almost looks like he thinks it’s job done already.
“I’m a world statesman.”

“My place in history is assured.”

“Don’t I look good in this suit?”

Blah, blah, or Blair, Blair as that seems to be the diplomatic model he’s copying.

But why not knock the Zero off and call it G2, after all isn’t this what the whole thing is about?

Apart from Sarkozy threatening to throw his toys out of the pram and have a hissy fit and some very upset people giving the police a chance to try out some new public order tactics, isn’t all this just a smokescreen?

It looks like a summit between a superpower and an emerging one, namely USA and China, on neutral territory. Or put another way the meeting of a client (US) and a banker (China.)

America may be the world’s biggest economy but it’s also the world’s biggest debtor, hocked up to it’s eyeballs. And China is the one holding them balls. Estimated at 1 to 1.5 Trillion Dollars.
China doesn’t want the US to fail. It can’t afford for it to fail, it’s necessary for it’s continued growth. But it’s important to show the US and the West that they hold the purse strings now.
This is their chance to subtly do just that.

Yeah, the Chinese will be incredibly polite and subservient to the great West but it’ll be made clear that if your country wants a new overdraft then you’ll have to show this particular banker some new found respect.

The other 18 are little more than munchkins dancing attendance who gather round to queue up and utter the immortal line, “Please Sir, can I borrow some more?”

Their task will be (with the exception of the dear old French, trust them to try and ruin the party) to shut up, put up and tow the line as well as turn up for breakfast and piccies for the family album outside numerous doors and on various steps.

Oh and the UK has one other additional, very important, responsibility …

… pass the hors d’œuvres round.

You know you couldn’t make this stuff up better if you tried. I can’t imagine the atmosphere in Jacqui Smith’s household right now, but I imagine it’s a right Carry On.

The country’s going to the dogs and all the while someone’s fiddling (in more ways than one) while Rome burns.
It would be nice to see the Government’s finest tightening their belts, rather than watching people undoing them, in these troubled times and lightening the load (ahem!) on the taxpayer by avoiding outlandish claims.

There’s lots of jokes n’ puns I could use here but I must restrain (ooh!) myself and not view the situation too pessimistically. Maybe parliamentary instructions are not explicit (aah!) enough for layman’s (sigh!) interpretation.
Let’s face it, legal small print is usually too hardcore (Mmm) for most of us to swallow (now stop it!)

But hey give them a break. After all, where on the allowance claim form does it say you CAN’T claim for porn?

Maybe it was research?

Oh this has been a fun post to write.

Help! Someone I Know Has a Problem with Porn