Making Vulgar Abuse a Crime

If you are in the eyes of today’s media a hero, then it seems you must not be subjected to any criticism. An Olympic diver, Mr Tom Daly, messed up one of his dives and as a result missed out on a medal. This is unfortunate because the British media had invested Mr Daly with a god-like aura.

Time to disband the Nuclear Club

Apparently the biggest threat in the world is the fact that Iran might be acquiring nuclear weapons. It is a fact of life that those with something which gives them power can think of dozens of reasons as to why others should not be allowed to get that thing which gives power. There are also, it seems, dozens of reasons as to why those with the thing that gives power should not divest themselves of the thing which gives power.

Bad Banks Bank on Rubbish Regulators

Eventually the rather crooked antics of banks come to light. Sometimes it takes fifty or sixty years, sometimes longer for criminality or bad behaviour to become widely known. However, if the bad behaviour comes to light within a few years something can be done to compensate the victims of such behaviour. So it is with the latest news about Barclays.

British Gas Profits – Old Habits Die Hard

The latest announcement of profits, up by 23%, of British Gas will come as cold comfort to those that do not hold shares in Centrica, who owns British Gas. The days of Sid and ordinary folk owning their own utilities have gone, and the profits which will pay increased dividends will vanish into the wallets of those completely disconnected from those who generate those profits, the long suffering customer.

If Only Paris Had Won the Bid…

Mr Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, posh chap who speaks in a nice accent, has said that the Olympic Games, which start in London tonight, will show the world that Britain can deliver, although quite what it can deliver remains unspecified and show the world what Britain is capable of. (Forgive the split infinitive). He was responding to Mitt Romney, who questioned the commitment of the British people to the Olympics.

Slinging Stones in a Glass House

The government has been trying to persuade people to pay their tax. Of course as someone famously said in New York payment of tax is only for the little people. Little people usually means poorly paid folk on PAYE. They have no choice because they cannot re-arrange their affairs in a way to mitigate tax. Richer folk can and do re-arrange their affairs and many self employed people work for “cash in hand” thus avoiding tax and usually saving their customer value added tax.

Who pays the Piper?

We cannot hold a sporting event like the Olympics without tens of thousands of people being drafted in to search us as we enter the event or travel near it. That is very sad. It is also sad that the spectators will be controlled as though they were all terrorists. Is it worth spectating under these conditions?

On seeing mountains

When you are far away from mountains they look easy to climb.

Search Me

I spent the first fifty years of my life without ever being asked to ape the position in imitation of Christ as someone with a fat magic wand ran it, or his hands, over my body. In the past ten years this ritual seems to happen whenever I travel by aeroplane, or enter a court building, or enter a public building of some kind. I am amused to hear parts of my body

Eating

I ate a green salad in the middle of Europe recently. It was fresh; the leaves were picked within a few hours of them being in my mouth. It was local produce of a kind that is very hard to get in my own country these days. On the supermarket shelves we have salad leaves that come from exotic places and these make dull salad, as though the effort and energy expended on getting them from far off lands onto my table has taken all the taste out of them. Even fruits taste dull. These year cherries taste of water and even those English strawberries lack taste.