Tally-ho!

And now for something completely different.

 

The latest bit of angst emanating from the Masters of the Universe is to do with deer and foxes.

 

Foxes first.

 

Apparently old Brer is getting to be a real nuisance in his adopted urban environment, biting babies, rifling garbage bins, fouling lawns, climbing through bed-room windows and other kinds of anti-social behaviour.

 

They are also disease-ridden, lousy and mangy, and their bite could have serious consequences since they feed off refuse tips.

 

Now deer.

 

The man from the Ministry tells us that they are at record levels, although quite how he knows the number of deer at the time when William the Conqueror banned the hoi-polloi from hunting them is not explained. Be that as it may, they are now believed to total 1.5 million.

 

They have become a major traffic hazard and a pest to both farmers and gardeners.

 

So what to do?

 

Some would have it that foxes should be caught and returned to the countryside. They would almost certainly starve to death for lack of hunting skills or immediately return to the nearest town.

 

Common-sense suggests that they should be culled in large numbers, but if a householder blows one away, the RSPCA, which is more concerned with urban foxes than babies, will prosecute him.

 

The Ministry has appealed for licensed hunters to shoot a large number to restore some kind of control. How many deer? 100,000? 1 million? That should bring down the price of venison in the shops.

 

(Some years ago these metropolitans were proposing to cull ruddy ducks. Now, they are charming little birds, Canadian immigrants,  but very randy, and they were breeding with the native mallard. For some reason this did not sit well with the tree-huggers. I worked it out that the cost per bird would have been about the same as a business-class fare to Toronto, so perhaps a better solution was to send them back courtesy of Air Canada).

 

What will not be contemplated is the return of hunting with hounds.

 

But the unpalatable fact is that this is the most humane way of dispatching both.

 

Neither the deer nor the fox have natural predators, so left uncontrolled they will outbreed their rural habitats and infiltrate areas where they are less than welcome.

 

Hunting is the best form of conservation.

 

Hounds will usually take out the sick, aged, or starving. Banning hunting deer has resulted in sick deer straying into stock-farms and spreading disease amongst farm animals. Without hunting, both foxes and deer are left to suffering from disease and starvation and to miserable deaths.

 

But of course nothing will be done. Hunting is indelibly and wrongly linked to landed toffs and others of the  privileged classes, and the British love a bit of class prejudice. The RSPCA has morphed into  animal-rights activism, and is spending vast amounts of donors’ money on persecuting and prosecuting hunters and farmers.

 

So get used to it. And don’t leave baby in the garden.

China's spies & Korea's loonies.......

One item of interest is the relatively recent penchant for hacking that is going on. China is credited with being the biggest and possibly the best at getting into American political, military and commercial/industrial information technology vaults. Now, North Korea is credited with doing much the same; at least to institutions in South Korea.

 

Earlier this month, a Chinese citizen working on sensitive rocket data for a NASA sub-contractor, was prevented from leaving the USA because of suspected intelligence he was transporting back to his masters in China. He was reportedly taken right off an airplane destined for Beijing and was found to have various data storage devices with him. Working out of Langley, Virginia, the fellow was alleged to have made previous trips to China carrying classified data.

 

I cannot understand why America needs to hire Chinese citizens to do sensitive rocket science work for us. What happened to all those super-scientists from Germany? Surely they have offspring that followed in their parents professional foot steps. This is not the first time a Chinese citizen has been charged with espionage.

 

I am told that there is a severe shortage of American scientists capable of performing the tasks needed by high technology manufactures and researchers. There must be a number of bright graduates from UK universities who would qualify. All in all, the USA seems to be doing a rather poor job of maintaining high technology security and preventing military and industrial espionage.

 

North Korea is behaving so enigmatically that they are under the US microscope. Their rash proclamations about attacking the USA and South Korea, firing missiles all over the Pacific and Sea of Japan, hacking everything in site, and their renewed nuclear program gives rise to new suspicions about their intentions. In the past, we have taken their unsteady behavior as juvenile and have dismissed it accordingly in favor of more pressing and real problems.

 

Now, the concern is that the Kim  and his boys may decide to put their money where their mouth is. Even their Chinese mentors express frustration at their spoiled brat comportment.

 

It is like a mini cold war all over again.

 

What does UKIP stand for?

There has been much ponificating about UKIP, but what does it actually stand for?

 

Here's a C&P from its manifesto.

 

1 Restore Self Government & Democracy

• Commissioners in Brussels dictate 75% of our laws. None can be repealed by Parliament. We cannot vote for those who make these laws – we cannot remove them.

• EU controls Immigration, Business and Employment, Financial Services, Fishing, Farming, Law and Order, Energy and Trade. It seeks now to control Foreign Affairs and Tax.

• The British people must decide through an immediate referendum if we stay in the EU or to come out and claw back independent power over our national life. We do not have to be ruled by this regime to work with our European neighbours who depend on us for their markets.

• Abolish the EU’s bureaucratic VAT and replace it with a local sales tax to support Local Government finance and to make it
accountable at the ballot box.

• Give the public power to require binding local and national referenda on major issues.

 

 

2 Rebuild Prosperity

• By leaving the EU we save over £45m a day plus £60bn a year due to EU trade barriers, business regulation, waste, fraud,
administration costs and the destruction of our fishing industry.

• According to Open Europe EU business regulations cost over £20bn a year. Abolish those determined not essential by a
commission appointed by Parliament.

• Take 4.5 million of low incomes out of tax altogether with a simple, flat rate income tax. With a threshold set at minimum wage.

• Financial services yield £61bn in tax revenues or 12% of the UK total. Exclude the City from EU controls.

• UK national debt is to reach over £1.4 trillion by the end of the parliament. This is unacceptable.

• UK national debt will exceed £1.4 trillion by the end of this Parliament by which time Osborne’s cuts will not even equal our EU contributions. Public spending is increasing and the Coalition’s cuts do not scratch the surface of Labour’s deficit. We must cut down Government if we are to return to a sound economy.

• EU ‘renewable’ energy rules will double electricity bills by 2020. Global warming is not proven - wind power is futile. Scrap all green taxes, wind turbine subsidies and adopt nuclear power to free us from dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil and gas.

• Quangos cost us £60bn each year – at least half the cost of the NHS. Bring them under Parliament’s control and cut the cost substantially.

• Cut taxes on small businesses and abolish the tax on work – Employers’ National Insurance.

• Make real and rigorous cuts in foreign aid and replace with free trade.

 

 

3 Protect Our Borders & Defend Our Country

• The tide of mass EU immigration has pushed down wages and restricted job opportunities. Only by leaving the EU can we regain control of our borders.

• Freeze permanent immigration for 5 years. Immigrants must be fluent in English, have minimum education levels and show they can financially support themselves.

• Bring in a points based visa system and time limited work permits.

• The State must defend its peoples. Keep our nuclear deterrent and make increased defence spending a clear priority, even in these difficult times, to underpin Britain’s global role.

 

 

4 Safeguards Against Crime

• No cuts to front line policing

• Make sentences mean what they say – life must mean life.

• Double prison places to enforce zero tolerance on crime.

• Establish locally elected County Police Boards to set policing aims approved by
voters.

• Scrap the European Arrest Warrant.

• Repeal the Human Rights Act to end abuses by convicted criminals and illegal immigrants.

• Free the police force from the straitjacket of political correctness and ‘targets’.

 

 

5 Care And Support For All

• Assure for all people prompt and caring treatment in ill health.

• Radically simplify NHS management and set up locally elected County Health Boards.

• Launch partnerships with the private and charity sectors to increase efficiency and choice and bring in health care vouchers for those who wish to opt out of the NHS.

• Give parents school vouchers to allow them to choose their children’s schools.

• Support grammar schools and vocational education.

• End the 50% university target for school leavers , scrap tuition fees and reintroduce student grants.

• Roll all State pensions and benefits into a simple, substantial Citizen’s Pension.

• Ensure that benefits are only for those who have lived here for over 5 years. Make welfare a safety net for the needy, not a bed for the lazy.

 

 

6 Our Way Of Life

• Our traditional values have been undermined. Children are taught to be ashamed of our past. Multiculturalism has split our society. Political correctness is stifling free speech.

• The law of the land must be single and apply to us all. We oppose any other system of law.

• End the ban on smoking in allocated rooms in public houses, clubs and hotels.

• Hold County wide referenda on the hunting ban.

Who follows Cameron?

One would have thought that a party that calls itself ‘Conservative’ would have cleaved to conservative values – loyalty, integrity, country before party and party before one’s self.

 

If the political chatterrati are to be believed one would be wrong.

 

Instead, we are led to believe, the Tory Party is a steaming midden of treachery, plotting, back-stabbing and briefing against colleagues. MPs, from Cabinet Ministers to scarcely-known back-benchers, are positioning themselves to topple Dave.

 

The Home Secretary, the egregious Mrs May, has been trailing her coat for a while; there are many others, including a black guy of whom nobody knows anything (hardly surprising since he has never held a Government post).

 

Well, it’s not going to happen in this Parliament, but I predict that if the Tories lose in 2015 Dave’s feet won’t touch the ground. The Tories are notably ruthless with losers.

 

So who are the runners and riders in a future leadership race?

 

Not Kitten-heels May. She is a walking disaster. She has failed in her efforts to deport terrorist suspects. When she browbeat the unfortunate head of the Borders Agency to speed up immigration clearance at Heathrow whilst reducing the staffing numbers, she created the fiasco of lax passport checks and then forced the man out of office.

 

Immigration policy is a shambles, limiting admissions of bona fide foreign students who are an important source of income for our universities,  key workers, free spending Chinese tourists, and  other categories which benefit the UK, but she will not be able to exclude Eastern European gypsies.

 

Michael Gove has been widely touted, although he vehemently denies having any such ambition.

 

Andrew Mitchell has the ability and character to make a good leader, but the Police Federation stitched him up.

 

George Osborne will be lucky to keep his present job if he implodes on Wednesday.

 

This leaves the joint favourites, ‘Boffo’ Johnson and David Davis.

 

BJ carries the image of something of a buffoon. He isn’t. He is a consummate politician, and a crafty political operator. He would probably gain a lot of votes in a General Election because he is very likeable and a celebrity who has been seen on the telly. He also earns his own living.

 

But he carries some ‘class’ baggage – public school (but a scholarship boy, if that makes any difference), Oxford, the Bullingdon Club, and quasi-upper class.

 

It may be that people have simply had enough of toffs.

 

By contrast, David Davis is of working-class background, a self-made man of integrity, with a successful career in business before entering politics, a down to earth ex-member of the SAS, and a political big-beast.

 

If people are looking for a safe pair of hands, they will vote for him.

 

My money is on Davis.

Obama has Offical Food Taster - no kidding!

The political news here is boring to all but the most mundane of journalists. O is falling in popularity. The latest anecdote about his self-image is the news that he refused to dine with a group of selected politicians hosted by a political figure from the state of Maine and featuring one of America's most iconic dishes: lobster. One might blame allergies, a dislike for bottom feeders, cholesterol issues and a host of other possibilities.

 

The simple truth is that O found himself isolated from his food taster and would not touch a thing. Yes, Robin, I said food taster. We Americans have now graduated to the rank of royalty well above that of the UK and modern-day lords and ladies. We have indeed gone back in history to the epoch of Louis IV and what we are now promoting as the Sun President.

 

O has an official food taster and as such, the OFT tastes everything the President is served. Well, I am not sure that Michelle's breakfast is spiced with the OFT. Nor am I sure that Michelle actually prepares breakfast for our Royal President. How absolutely out of touch with the people of America can one get when POTUS needs to have an OFT?

 

And I thought the big news this week was a Jesuit Pope. The entire Vatican drama will be overshadowed by tales of O and his OFT. I wonder if the OFT is limited to determining whether the food fit for a POTUS is poisoned or not. How long does it take for food ingested by an OFT to expire should his sample be contaminated with a deadly brew? Then again, I wonder if the OFT is also commissioned to opine on the quality, taste and presentation of Presidential epicurian potpourri. Does OFT drink the water, taste the wine, sip the cocktails? Is there a relief OFT who spells the No. I OFT when on holiday?  Just how many OFT's are there? What is the qualification top become one?

 

I suspect that O's OFT would first of all have to be a Democrat who has sworn a loyalty oath to POTUS and who have been thoroughly vetted by the FBI, CIA, NSC and the Secret Service. It would not surprise me if such a process took so long that by the time the OFT was cleared, we had elected a POTUS from the opposing party. Perhaps the current OFT was actually vetted to serve Bill Clinton, but by the time he or she was sworn in, W was in office.

 

Had the OFT served under Clinton, I wonder if the person would have been obliged to sample some of Bill's concubines, lady friends, aides, and the like. Perhaps there was another type of OFT for that type of work. We cannot be too careful these days and it may be much easier to have offed Bill through a lady friend than by serving him a lobster dinner. Indeed, many Americans are amazed that Hillary didn't hire someone to serve Bill that lobster dinner.

Others might confide that Hillary had lobsters of her own in the closet.

 

Returning to the point, the POTUS now has an official food taster. His or her importance must be such that in his or her absence, POTUS refuses to dine. I cannot help but wonder if the current OFT has some sort of death wish, or is simple a super patriot willing to be poisoned for America's greater glory. Further to the point, does O have an Official Bullet Taker? I should think so and the OBT would surely have to be someone who is independent of the Secret Service body guards who are all primed to take a bullet for our dear leader.

 

The OBT would have to be a stealthy figure who nobody would suspect but who is ever present. Perhaps it is our VPOTUS, or one of O's chief and omnipresent advisors. It has to be asked as well whether the OBT would also stop a knife, or do we also need an Official Back Stabber. Add to this an Official Insult Absorber and we are almost to a point where O needs to appoint a Queen of Hearts. Either gender would do for this position.

 

So, ye olde England, we have finally advance to the realm of royalty and you know what, we can afford it.

 

Oi, Dave...leave the booze alone!

Unsurprisingly, Dave has kicked the lager can far down the road.

 
But he vows to return to his addlepated notion of minimum alcohol pricing later.

 
We have to ask ourselves cui bono?

 
The simple answer is Diageo and the other booze producers. It would be a burden on ordinary responsible drinkers, but not on the target group, the binge-drinkers who would merely spend more of their disposal income (e.g. benefit money) on getting rat-faced at week-ends.

 
Neither would it be of any perceptible benefit to the Treasury; if it had its intended effect there could well be a tax-revenue loss.

 
So why would he put his weight behind a proposal that is a blatant interference with the operation of the free market that Tories are supposed to support, and, much more importantly for him, one which is a certain vote loser?

 
The government says that excess drinking costs the economy £20 billion a year.

 
We don’t believe it. It says that this figure is made up of lost productivity and costs to the NHS. How do they know? They said that there was a ‘report’. My guess is that a conclusion was reached and the figures massaged to give the required result. Statistics can be tortured to say anything you wish to hear. As Goebbels said ‘The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed’.

 
The real villains are the supermarkets which charge more for bottled water than for alcohol, deliberately targeting the teenage market with alcopops and cheap six-packs of strong lager, who get boozed-up before going to the pub and then cause mayhem. Our locals suffer because they can’t buy their stock wholesale cheaper than the supermarkets sell it retail. Some landlords will buy from supermarkets because it is cheaper than buying from the brewery.

 
The solution to the problem, if there really is one?

 

 

Increase the VAT on off-sales of beer and spirits by an amount that would make supermarket prices uncompetitive against pubs.

 
Reintroduce the 11 p.m. closing time for pubs.

 
Ban Happy Hour, and require pubs to charge the published prices.

 
Ban drinking in the street and other public places.

 
Be ruthless in closing pubs with a record of under-age drinking and violence.

 
Charge drunks for treatment at A&E.

 
Enforce existing laws on drunk-and-disorderly and drunk-and-incapable, starting with a night in the cells.

 
And stop listening to focus groups.

 

 

 

 

Ban the banger and the bacon butty!

 

Did you start the day with a full English breakfast. If so, hold the rasher. Forswear the banger. Bacon and sausages can be fatal, according to the ‘experts’.

 

This latest health scare was the headline item on BBC News. Of course, there is not one jot or tittle of scientific evidence to prop up this piece of nonsense, but we get these health scares several times each week.

 

This was followed by another; that salt can cause RA, MS, and diabetes. Perhaps it does if you consume it in industrial quantities. Water also has a fatal outcome if you hoover down a gallon or three.

 

And another that insomnia can cause heart disease.

 

Then there’s the asbestos phobia, notwithstanding that asbestosis can only be contracted by inhaling free-to-air short fibre asbestos over a period of years, as in mining the stuff.

 

Then there was the ban on DDT because it made birds sterile and killed the bugs that they feed on. It is also the only really effective and cheap spray against the malarial mosquito, but what do malaria deaths matter against the protection of our feathered friends? When spraying was banned in Sri Lanka, malaria cases rose from 17 to 2.5 million in five years.

 

And do you remember Three Mile Island nuclear power station? Because of a minor fault with the plumbing all children and pregnant women within a five mile radius were evacuated, and nuclear power was dealt a great injury. How many died? None. How many suffered from radiation sickness? None. What was the radiation level after the incident? Nothing abnormal.

 

Then there was the cyclamates scare. This all started when this artificial sweetener was found to cause cancer in rats. So it was promptly banned. The truth was that you would have to drink 350 cans of diet Pepsi each day to be in danger.

 

Today, we have Dame Sally Davies, the Government Chief Medical Officer, warning that resistance to antibiotics can lead to untreatable strains of bacteria, and will be a bigger danger than terrorism.

 

Well, we’ve known that for donkey’s years. What do you expect us to do about it?

 

More to the point, what are you going to do about it?

 

You are the CMO. You could start by banning doctors from handing out antibiotics for virus-related diseases, such as colds. They have no effect. You could discourage the medical profession from using them in cases where the complaint is non-fatal. You could limit their use in veterinary and fish farming.

 

To be fair, she was actually shellacking Big Pharma for not developing new antibiotics, life-style drugs like Viagra being much better for the bottom line, but radio news didn’t mention that,  concerned only with sensationalist bit.

 

But what they should take into account is that the more scare-mongering they peddle, the less we believe them.

 

They must remember the sad tale of Matilda, who was a terrible liar, when the house caught fire:

 

‘For every time she shouted Fire!’,

They only answered ‘Liar, liar’.

And therefore when her aunt returned,

 

Matilda and the house were burned’.

Murdering the language: a Kiwi writes.......

In response to my previous, my erudite chum in New Zealand comments:

 

Then there is “space”, “going forward”, “based out of” as in “our company has a range of products addressing the interpersonal communication space”, “companies going forward will need to pay attention to the new tax rules” (you mean that companies that are going backwards can ignore them?), and (a real life quotation from a woman in Otago who makes salamis to which Beefy Botham took a fancy last week) “we’re based out of a 100-year-old woolshed…”.  To which I can only say I’m not surprised, who would want to be based IN a 100-year-old woolshed? Imagine all those ancient dags (*).

Transportation instead of transport is another American abomination.  Why do they have to add superfluous - nay otiose - syllables, presumably to make the word (or themselves) sound more important?

“Customer service” which usually isn’t and means some peon in Bangalore for whom English is their fourth or fifth language.

Diagnosed with – “in 2009 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s”.  I never realised Parkinson’s was a diagnostic tool, I always thought it was a very unpleasant disease.

 

I really do hate “alcohol-fuelled” (or “drug-fuelled” and others of the same ilk), used incessantly by the press as a substitute for thought when describing yobbos’ antics on Friday night. Alcohol-fuelling should be confined to racing cars.

Deteriate.

Febry.

Govament.

There are a number of….. (“a number” is singular, dammit).

 

In re clichés - do you recall the tale of Sam Goldwyn (I think) who on being told his films were full of tired old clichés, said “OK, get me some new clichés”?  Of course, cliché was originally the French name for a stereotype block used in printing which migrated to other European languages.  I remember the word for stencil and, if memory serves correctly, overhead slide, (do you remember them?) in Croatian was kliše.

And finally, on the subject of ambiguity, “you’ll never recognise Johnny, he’s grown another foot”.

(*) As explained to me many years ago when I was a fairly new Kiwi, dags are “the lumps of shit-stained wool on a sheep’s arse”, giving rise to that wonderful colloquialism “c’mon, rattle yer dags”, i.e. “get a move on, please”.  Dagging is one of the less pleasant aspects of a shearer’s life.

'The cold-bloodied murder of the English language!'

So let’s get started.

 When did we start to meet ‘with’ people? I may meet you. Or I may meet with you (accompanying me). I always talk ‘to’ people, but if I talk ‘with’ people, it must be a duet or an Irish Parliament – everybody talking and nobody listening.

 I heard a ghastly one on Classic FM this morning. The idiot broadcaster pronounced ‘homage’ as in ‘fromage’. Where on earth did this come from?

 ‘State of the art’ is something well-known or commonplace. Now, to the PR mafia it means just the opposite.

 And there’s the use of ‘of’, such as ‘take it off of the table’ or ‘I should of gone’.

 The American disdain for prepositions has now completely taken over in the media. ‘He will appeal his conviction’. No he won’t; he will appeal against it. We can’t protest Cameron’s cuts, only against them, much good it might do us. I don’t suffer osteoporosis, but I do suffer from it, hence mobility assistance when flying, otherwise I would never get to the bloody gate.

 One I picked up in The Oldie: which is as much cliché as bad English – ‘The close-knit community is in shock’, when they almost certainly knew hardly anybody in Little Snoring, and are indifferent to the violent end of someone of whom they have never heard.

 Then there’s ‘alternate’ instead of ‘alternative’, ‘floor’ instead of ‘ground’, and so on ad infinitum.

 As for ambiguity – I was the son of a miner  who joined the army’ and ‘I was a miner’s son who joined the army' - don’t get me started!

 And re The Oldie, there’s a monthly column simply called ‘Words’, which tracks down the meanings of the obscure, esoteric etc. This week it is ‘moider’. Its meanings include to confuse, or stupefy (as with drink).  

 

So don’t get moidered tonight.

 

Sexual harassment: time for a bit of perspective

Immediately prior to the Eastleigh by-election, the meeja was making a big stink about sexual harassment by Lord Groper, a hitherto completely unknown Libdem politician. It appeared to have no traction with the electorate whatsoever.

 

However, the press seems to have got its teeth into a running topic, so we are bound to hear much more about it.

 

We are asked to believe that there is a widespread culture of groping, unwanted sexual invitations, and obscene remarks, which has grown in recent years. If correct, this raises a number of questions as to how this trend has developed. Perhaps it has always been a feature of office life, but if so I never came across a single incidence in a very long career.

 

Part of the reason may be that men have lost their former respect for women due  (amongst other reasons) to the rise of feminism and ‘equality’ that encourages the more stupid of the male species to believe that you can treat a woman as ‘one of the boys’,  a culture of sexual promiscuity, the behaviour of some women who taint their sex with constant foul language and fashions that in earlier times would only be seen on a hooker.

 

Perhaps one answer is for these inadequate men to grow up and for women to be a little more ladylike.

 

Some of the conduct by men is almost beyond belief, such as posting around the office the face of a woman employee superimposed on a porno pic. This was an out-and-out case for instant dismissal.

 

Current scandals at the BBC point to a gross management failure. Women who have complained of sexual harassment or discrimination have been paid-off subject to gagging orders, to the extent that they are not even allowed to disclose that a gagging order even exists. One can be pretty certain that there have been many similar cases in other organisations.

 

An yet it should be very simple to stamp out. One case of instant dismissal for gross misconduct, which would not carry compensation, and the problem would probably quietly disappear.

 

Some perspective is needed.

 

The women complaining about Lord Groper were not shrinking violets, 18-year old filing clerks. They were tough, educated women of the world. The press has tried to compare it to the Savile scandal. To link sexual assault including rape of under-age girls over 3 or 4 decades with conduct that amounts largely to misbehaviour is an obscenity in itself.

 

One simple fact seems to have been ignored; touching a person on the genital area or breasts is the crime of indecent assault.

 

 

And finally………

 

A friend has a small factory that employs 20 men and one woman.

 

One morning she told him that she wanted to complain about sexual harassment.

 

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked,

 

‘There isn’t any!’ she replied.