Man-Made Climate Change

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Evidently, scientists are now 95% certain that human beings are directly responsible for causing climate change, the melting of polar ice caps and the continuing rise in sea levels. This is the main conclusion of a recent investigation by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Now I’m no scientist but it seems pretty obvious to me that over two hundred years of smoke-belching industrialisation, a hundred years of petrol-burning motor engines, seventy years of nuclear bomb testing, the continued eradication of millions of acres of jungle, the denuding of rain forests and re-routing of rivers will have caused immeasurable if not fatal damage to the planet.

And scientists are only 95% certain? Perhaps the other 5% still believe that the Earth is flat!

Housing Abuse

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Reports of lottery winners and other wealthy people living in state-subsidised housing have at last encouraged the Government to pass legislation to prevent it from happening in the future. It is now proposed that all prospective tenants will be means tested so that if they earn more than £60,000 a year they will either have to leave their council-owned and housing association properties or pay the full market rent.

Whilst this is no more than common sense isn’t it crazy that  it was allowed to happen in the first place? Why should the taxpayer subsidise people who have the means to pay for their own accommodation? Particularly whilst others, with a genuine need of state assistance, remain on seemingly never-ending waiting lists.

Those found guilty of abusing the system can have no complaint if they are named and shamed by national newspapers. The Sunday Times, recently revealed that Bob Crow (proud communist and General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) lives in a subsidised home in North East London despite the fact that he earns £90,000 per annum (nearly four times the national average) and Frank Dobson, former Labour Health Secretary lives in a council flat despite his  MP’s annual salary of £66,000.

Sadly, we are now used to politicians of all parties fiddling expenses and screwing the system but it particularly grates when we are told of champagne socialists ripping us off whilst proclaiming equal rights for all. Perhaps they need to be reminded that the welfare state exists to help and assist those in genuine need of assistance – not to make fat cats fatter still. It’s fortunate, to say the least, that we still have a free press able and willing to expose such iniquities and bring these public figures to account.

 

Still Summer But……

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It’s been a great summer so far. We’ve actually had and are still having proper sunny summer weather. The national mood has been at an almost all-time high, we’ve had a Royal baby, a Wimbledon winner, an English winner of the US Open Golf, an emphatic Ashes cricket victory and economically, so we’re told, the dark clouds are beginning to clear.

Yes, things are going well at the moment. Such a shame that it’s all going to be tarnished by the return of the Sky TV – sorry, Premier – League football tomorrow. Overpaid prima-donnas behaving like spoilt children on and off the pitch whilst the tabloids greedily lap up and report every excess, as though we (or at least most of us) really give a damn. Oh well, at least there’s still some cricket left!

Come to Britain!

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The United Nations Tourism Organisation recently published a league table of the world’s most visited countries in 2012. In top place was France with approx 80 million visitors followed by the USA with approx 67 million. The UK was back in 8th place with just over 29 million visitors. In terms of cities London was a very close second to Bangkok with both having close on 16 million visitors a year. That means that London has more than half of the visitors for the whole UK. Now London is, of course, a splendid city but there’s a lot more to our country than its capital.

I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that the English and other national tourist boards within the UK should be doing a better job than they are doing. This country has a history and heritage to rival any and we should be doing a lot more to tell the world about it, attract more tourists and boost our flagging economy.  We may no longer a world power and we no longer sit at the top table in terms of wealth or manufacturing output but we still have a lot to offer.

The English language is the most widely spoken language in the world and derivations of our legal and political systems exist in all four corners of the globe. Move 5 miles from any given point in this country and you will see some place of significance whether it be the remains of a medieval castle, Roman ruins or an Anglo-Saxon church dating back to the 9thth or 10th centuries. The whole of the British Isles is dotted with castles, stately homes, mansions, gardens and some of the most beautiful countryside in the world.

Many of our cities boast world class art galleries, museums and other attractions to whet the appetites of tourists from across the planet. The north of England is still littered with the mills constructed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and let’s not forget that the modern world, to a large extent, owes its very existence and prosperity to that English-driven Revolution. We should be proclaiming this to all and sundry. Come to England, come to Britain and see where it all began!

Rock Steady

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This dispute with Spain over Gibraltar seems to be getting a little out of hand, what with the Spanish threatening to charge car owners 50 euros (approx £43) each time their vehicles exit or enter Gibraltar from Spain and our Prime Minister holding late night talks with his Spanish counterpart. The trouble started when the Gibraltarian authorities started dumping materials in the Mediterranean to construct, so they said, an artificial reef. The Spanish took offence and say that it’s just a clumsy attempt to thwart their fishermen and prevent them from carrying out their God-given right to remove the last remaining fish from the world’s oceans.

Whatever the reasons for the current spat, it is only one in a long series dating back to when the British gave the Spanish a spanking in the War of the Spanish Succession and were rewarded with ownership of Gibraltar by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. So we British have been there for two hundred years and during that time the Rock (as it is affectionately known) has served us well, acting as an invaluable base to control the mouth of the Mediterranean and allowing us to safeguard our various commercial and military interests.

Times have changed however, we no longer have an empire and we certainly have no need of a naval base in Gibraltar, or anywhere else for that matter. To need a naval base you presumably need a navy and we’ve barely got one these days, so stringent have government cutbacks been since the end of the last war. So let’s do a deal.

Let’s sit down with our Spanish colleagues and try to come to an agreement. After all, we are both a part of the European Union – at least for the time being. Let’s be sympathetic and say, that after 200 years of British ownership, we recognise their hurt and we now want to try and make things better. Many British people spend large amounts of time holidaying in the Canary Islands, which of course belong to Spain. So popular are those sun-kissed islands with rain-soaked Britons that there are in fact far more of us living there than in Gibraltar. How about a swap? We give Gibraltar back to Spain and in exchange we get the Canaries! Simple.

Obese Children – Telling it Straight

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According to a report in Saturday’s Independent newspaper, health experts in the UK are being urged to be more diplomatic (make that PC) over the way they tell parents that their children are overweight. NHS guidance notes explain that letters to parents about their children should be “non-judgmental and positively phrased”.

In the past, following NHS testing,  parents with very overweight children would be informed that “Your child’s result is in the very overweight range. Doctors call this clinically obese”. The letter went on to outline the obvious health risks and further stated “You might be surprised your child’s result is in the overweight range. It can sometimes be difficult to tell if your child is overweight as they may look similar to other children of their age, but more children are overweight than ever before”. You can say that again!

That last sentence says it all and its truth is evidenced by a random check of your local high street during the school holidays. Times have changed for sure and those of us growing up prior to the 1980s will remember a time when it was rare that fellow children were overweight, so much so that virtually every class of say 30 children had one person referred to as “fatty” or something equally cruel. Nowadays, this wouldn’t happen since the term could probably apply to half the class! The satirical “Billy Bunter” books by Frank Richards would be completely wasted nowadays. A fat boy, continuously eating pies and cream cakes and avoiding exercise? So what, what’s funny about that? Perfectly normal behaviour in modern Britain.

Another article in yesterday’s Sunday Times was headed “Obesity alert over 20-stone 10 year-olds” and referred to a 10 year old girl weighing 24 stone (that’s 336 pounds) and an 11 year old boy weighing 23 stone. The article quoted NHS figures stating that 1 in 10 children is obese when they start primary school, aged 5 years and a third are obese when they leave, aged 11. In the past decade there has been a four-fold increase in the number of children and teenagers admitted to hospital with obesity-related conditions.

So, in the middle of what is quite clearly a national crisis (in fact the crisis affects the whole western world) the NHS says that, in toning down the letters to parents, “it is important to consider that parents receiving the letter may be sensitive to the information and feel that their parent skills are being criticised”. Well, so what! With the obvious exceptions of children who cannot help their weight through medical or psychological conditions, many parents deserve to be criticised. They should think about what they allow their children to eat, they should stop banishing them to their bedrooms all day to play their computer games and should encourage them to get out in the fresh air and if possible to play sport.

Politically correct language by the NHS isn’t going to help solve the problem. Parents need to be told the truth, in blunt, clear and unambiguous terms. Your child is overweight and needs your help. Do something about it.

Proscribing the C Word

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I don’t know if it’s some kind of a record, in fact it’s probably not, so sad have we in the UK become, but two days ago, on Wednesday, July 31st, I saw a notice in a local pub exhorting customers to book their Christmas Party and even Christmas Day lunch – while there are still places!
 
I may be overreacting, but I was so irritated by what I read that I had to move tables and turn my back to the offending advertisement! I was sorely tempted, Basil Fawlty-like, to tear the darn thing down and admonish the management for their crass stupidity but luckily (though only just!) I saw sense and let it go.
 
Why, oh why, must we wish our lives away? The summer holidays have barely begun, schools broke up less than a week ago and already we are being encouraged to think about the C word! It should be a criminal offence to even mention it before mid-November and if any political party made it their policy to make it so I reckon they’d gain a landslide victory in the next election!
 
For goodness sake, can’t they leave us alone? Summer’s here and we’re enjoying some of the best weather we’ve experienced in donkey’s years. Life is good and the last thing most normal people wish to think about, right now, is Christmas and the depths of bloody winter!

Exploitation

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Typical isn’t it? After three weeks of glorious English summer weather (four words  not normally seen in the same sentence!) the nation’s schools break up for their long break and, right on cue, the rain returns! Poor kids, poor parents!

Still, they can always take their holidays in southern Europe where the weather is guaranteed to be hot and sunny. Yes, they can, but as all parents know only too well the airlines virtually double their fares once the school holidays begin and the car hire companies and hotels are not far behind either. It is so unfair and unjust. Of course, the airlines tell us that it’s all about supply and demand but whatever they call it and whatever words they may use to describe their policies the only word that rings true is exploitation.

I hope the sun returns and shines for the whole of August so that families can forget about jetting off to the sun and instead take their holidays in the UK. The trouble is, as we know through bitter experience, it’s probably a forlorn hope but you never know, perhaps this is the summer we’ve been waiting for. After 30 years we’re surely due a good one!

Incredible?

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It’s been quite a week for babies, although, of the 1.8 million or so born worldwide since the start of the week (an estimated 370,000 each day), one in particular has captured the world’s attention like no other. It seems that everybody wants to share in the happiness of Prince William and his wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, over the birth of their son, Prince George, the third in line to the throne. And why not? The birth of a child is always a very special event, whoever the parents may be.

 

What I find amusing about almost any child birth, Royal or otherwise, is the reaction the event evokes in many people. Comments witnessed on television this week such as “It’s a boy! Incredible!” or “They’ve had a boy? Amazing!” are standard, as though there were multiple choices and the lucky couple just happened to have hit upon the right one!

 

As virtually any parent or prospective parent will tell you, whether the baby is a boy or a girl is not important. The most important, and in fact the only, issue is the health and well being of mother and child. Thankfully, in this most high profile of births, that particular box was ticked with a positive and that, in truth, is all that matters. Wonderful, certainly but hardly incredible.

 

 

No Horses in McDonalds (July 22nd)

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Earlier this year newspapers were full of reports on the use of horse-meat in burgers and other consumer products in the UK. It was therefore quite reassuring to learn this weekend that McDonald’s restaurants categorically refuse to serve horses. Actually, I distorted that slightly since McDonald’s merely announced that they refuse to serve people on horseback. This followed an incident in Greater Manchester on Saturday when a woman rode her horse to her local McDonald’s drive-thru to order a meal – presumably for herself rather than the horse!

 The server refused her order and so the resourceful horsewoman dismounted and led the horse into the restaurant itself where she attempted to place her order at the counter. Yet again, she was refused service and whilst she argued with the server, the horse, perhaps unsurprisingly, raised the stakes (no pun intended!) by leaving a large deposit on the restaurant floor. The police were called and the woman was issued with a fixed penalty notice. 
 
There was no report on what happened to the poor, and no doubt, traumatized horse but, bearing in mind the burger scandal, any charge of defecating on a restaurant floor would surely be dealt with sympathetically by the courts!