Sunday 28 December 2014

Putin The Sex Spy


Someone had a dig at Putin. Nothing major, just a minor poke, but next thing he knows his sex life is on the ten o'clock news. Putin didn't like Viktor Shenderovitch likening his Sochi fandango with the 1936 Nazi Olympics.
So he dug out a  secret sex tape he had handy - as they do in Russia - and aired it on prime time TV.
Well that'll teach him. Sure to be plenty of satirists over there keeping schtuum right now. Who knows who's been planting cameras in their nooks and crannies? Bet Putin's got a stock of films, ready for the next   brave soul who fancies having a go.
Back here though it would liven up the telly no end for us, wouldn't it? Worth stopping up for, I would say. Still, when you've got to have the secret police planting surveillance kit in your critics' bedrooms, chances are you are running a bit scared, wouldn't you say?

Monday 22 December 2014

Bin Me Up Scottie!


Bung me in the bin. I'll write it in my will. Composting a corpse is the new way to go. 
The idea is the brainchild of Katrina Spade of the Urban Death Project who says: "The deceased are folded back into the communities where they have lived as the great potential of our bodies to grow new life is celebrated." Nicely put.
What she means is that the dead are wrapped in linen and dropped into a three-storey high concrete box then topped off with sawdust and woodchips to keep the smell down. After a few weeks relatives can claim a cubic yard of compost, or give it to farms.
It's a great idea. In this age of recycling it's incredible no one has thought of it before.  It frees up our land for the living and helps the grass grow while saving 4 million acres of trees we cut down to make coffins. Count me in.

Sunday 21 December 2014

Slim with Hot Chocolate - Fatty Fantasy


Fatties love a bit of fantasy - imagine waking up slim, no diet necessary. Today the Sunday Times is pedalling such a dream. You go to a posh clinic, drink hot chocolate standing up while a doctor "sculpts" your body to the perfect shape. No pain. You dress and walk away a new woman.
Fabulous. Worth it at any price. Does it sound too good to be true? Maybe. Let's face it, the lipo Brits are used to involves a huge wodge being mined by a brawny surgeon, the business end working away under increasingly bloodied skin as yellow gunk drains out. God it's horrible.
And dangerous. People have died trying this. So hot chocolate and straight back to work? No bruising? It may be happening in New York, where everyone is stick thin and anything bigger than a pimple has them rushing for the knife.
Don't reckon it will catch on here. Our problem is too massive to be managed in a lunch hour.

Monday 15 December 2014

Greedy Penny Market Grab


How happy are those guys who got games for a penny? So thrilled with their bargains they went on Twitter to say Amazon was "broken." Pricing errors  left small companies picking up the costs, which runs to thousands.
How do these people sleep at night? What made them think this was the right thing to do? Just because the system has a glitch allowing you to rip off someone else, doesn't mean you should.
Everybody who bought their 1p items on Friday evening knew that it was a mistake. If a cash point goes wrong and people take free money, they are thieves. I see this in exactly the same way.
They should send the stuff back and then, if they still want it, buy it at the right price. One woman bought an incense burner she had no use for, just because it cost her 1p. 
Many more bought games that should have cost them at least £18. They know what these things are worth and they know it is only possible to produce them if there is a profit there. Just play by the rules, that's all, if you don't want your games supplier to go out of business.

Saturday 13 December 2014

Torture or Death on a Train?


Torture - for or against? Waterboarding or 28 dead on a tube train. Which is it to be?  People held for 11 years without trial, interrogated by the Americans and the Israelis - both no slouches at the job - and nothing gained except worldwide revulsion.
An SAS expert says the only useful information will be garnered in the first 48 hours. After that all plans will be changed, locations re-arranged, so your man in the cells is no longer in the loop.
Yet he may still have massive influence and be a huge danger to innocents.What to do? How about admitting that some people need to be made to talk if lives are to be saved? Some techniques can be seen to work.
But there is a time limit. Hardened souls may not break. You can't let them go. You can't bring them to court if that means revealing information that only a spy still in the camp could have given you. You can't risk them either.
But you can stop the horror. You can keep this person away from the world. He, and increasingly she, will no longer be useful to the bad guys. It's a terrible choice, but to carry on torturing regardless of benefit shames us all.

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Jihadis Find New Use For Teenage Girls


No fan of the burkha me, but even less so now that they are using teenage girls wearing their own shrouds to blow up ordinary people. Old men, little kids, other women, anyone who could make a difference, all are victims when a female fundamentalist gets God into her head.
Nobody is spared. Now 52 women are waiting in the wings, bombs strapped to their bodies, for the order to go out and cause carnage in Nigeria.
They are the hand-maidens of Boko Haram, that terrorising bunch of scumbags who kidnap girls for going to school. They marry them off to their mates, because no one would have them otherwise.
Why waste a wild-eyed jihadi when you can get a girl to do your dirty work? Women are worth less than nothing after all. Just send them out into the crowded streets and there will be fewer mouths to feed. It's beyond tragic.

Friday 28 November 2014

Time To Shut Up About The Scots?


Not getting the Scots. They seem to want to have their haggis and eat it. There was a vote, they took the right decision by a large, ten per cent majority. All hunky dory. Promised more powers to decide Scots business,  they can now raise income tax and pay their own bills.
Sounds good to me. If it also means that Scottish MPs have no say on matters that are strictly English, that's as it should be too, particularly since down here we have no say over stuff North of the border.
But all this doing the right thing is upsetting the Scottish MPs. They like to shout and bang on about Scottish rights, but when they get some they're not happy, maybe because they think they might soon be out of a job. It's all a bit bonkers to me. Shall we just shut up about the whole lot of them for a bit?

Sunday 23 November 2014

Calpol Cruelty Family Not Alone


Nipping out to the chemist to get Calpol almost cost a Dad his kids. His two-year-old was in the car outside the chemist when the police pounced. She was probably the one with the ear-ache, but no matter, she was put on the child protection register and the family went through a year of hell.
Sounds unlikely doesn't it? I left a baby in the car outside a nursery while I dropped off my three year old and came back seconds later to be confronted by two constables.
I told them I could see the car from the nursery. The baby was asleep. They still said they would call in the social workers if I dared to defend myself further. Cue grovelling on a grand scale.
I've seen kids left in cars outside shops. I would certainly call the police if they were left for too long, or if the day was hot and the windows shut. It happens, as I discovered in July.
But those cases are rare. Meanwhile a toddler is abused and dies in this country every week. We just don't hear about them. Time to get our priorities right and our police  and social workers getting tough on the real abusers.

Saturday 22 November 2014

Put A Bond In Their Stocking


Christmas has got weird, really weird and that's official. Want the proof? Parents should get their kids investments, not pressies, say the money gurus
Something in gilts not glits that will mature in time for a university education or a deposit on a house. Well that will go down well. Top marks for whoever thought of that, Jessie Hewitson in the Times.
They've calculated that between buying a gift and giving it the value drops by  20% - add on the inevitable breakage by Boxing Day and it's money down the drain. Put it in shares instead, that's the way to keep it safe. Or Premium Bonds. Maybe an ISA will float little Izzy's boat.
Hand over the envelope on Christmas morning with a bright smile and trill," Look what I got you !" No tat, no plastic, no remote controls or stuff without batteries, just a safety net for the future.
Well thanks mum, I can hear them say. Great. No. Christmas is for fun. get them the ISAs, bonds, everything else if you can afford it, but not at Christmas, because that's all about joy, family fun and giving rubbish just for the sake of it. Forget that and you might as well give up on Cristmas altogether. 

Monday 17 November 2014

Worst Doctor Ever


Ever met a doctor who knows it all? No, me neither but yesterday I met the one convinced she does.
I expect to see her up before the General Medical Council any day soon. It won't be my son she's hurt, but someone else at the sharp end. My lad refused her care yesterday, even though he was two days out of a major op and she was the only doctor on duty. That bad.
He'd been told to expect  a tough time and needed more morphine. She decided to tap hard on his wound to see if he really had pain. Percussive techniques have their place, but on new stitches holding a drain? Does that sound sensible to you? Anyway, he definitely had pain.
So did the guy in the next bed, the one with new staples she wanted to remove to see if he had pus. He said no. The guy  opposite wasn't so fortunate. She messed with his wound, determined to get rid of apparent infection until he made it very clear he wantetd no part of it.
We have nothing but the highest regard for everyone else in that hospital which is a centre of excellence. This woman, who calls herself "Bubby" is a menance and it really is only a matter of time. The whistle has been blown.

Thursday 13 November 2014

Space Age Bake Off


All those millions of miles away from home and little Philae is planning a bit of cooking. There's a sample to be collected and baked in her onboard oven, to see what gases come off a comet.
How homely is that? This amazing machine the size of a fridge is settling in nicely. We hope. We'd like her to stay put, but by the time we realise she's off to party among the stars instead it will be half an hour after it happens and we can do nothing about it.
But - what a wow moment that was! How brilliant are we to send something into space and after ten long years link up with a comet travelling at 34,000 miles an hour?  Awesome ! Those nerdy scientists lost it when the moment arrived. Academics were wetting themselves with excitement and really who could blame them? 
Pity the poor soul who built the harpoons though. They didn't work. While everyone else was dancing and celebrating, chances are he slipped off early for a silent weep under the duvet. His stuff may yet all come good and Philae will still get her gases done to a turn. If not, it was a hell of a ride!

Saturday 8 November 2014

London Earning, London Earning !


There are binmen living in London. Hospital porters, cleaners, nurses and teachers. How? How do they afford it? People living on £15,000 a year - how do they find a place to sleep?
This genuinely puzzles me. Do we all make up their wages so that they can afford a bed, a room somewhere? My son is a student in London. He's looking at £600 a month for a room in a crummy, converted, council flat. If he can get it. Rooms this cheap are snapped up within hours.
I used to have a bedsit in Knightsbridge. It was one room in Beaufort Gardens and it cost me £45 a week. I bought my loo rolls in Harrods. Long time ago. These days Knightsbridge is dark at night, streets of expensive properties stand cold and silent, earning money for their owners abroad. Empty shells.
Nobody lives there, they just accumulate wealth for investors. I want people to invest in Britain. We need their cash. Do we really have to sell them our cities, our souls, just to keep the coffers full? Can we keep some of this for us, so we can look our kids in the eye and say, yes, if you work hard, you too could have some of this.
Not now they can't.

Wednesday 5 November 2014

Crappy Way To Go


On fireworks night a few years ago a young guy thought it might be fun to stick a rocket in his anus and light it. He paid a heavy price. He's probably still paying it. 
Frankly trouble with the pipework is no joke. We should all be massively grateful when it all works like clockwork. When it all goes too fast or too slow we don't laugh much. 
Lovely Linda Bellingham died of colon cancer last month. She was brave and smiling to the end, cheering up the friends who found it hard to hold back their tears.
 Why, when it is a universal part of the human condition, do we still find our waste so embarrassing? So much so that we ignore signs that things are not well and refuse the tests that could save our lives?
Sticking a piece of cardboard into a poo and smearing it on a card to be scanned for cancer is a step too far for many of us. That's what all over 60s are asked to do. Almost half refuse.
Bonfire night turned into a tragedy for one young man. He was probably drunk. Too many of us don't have that excuse.

Friday 31 October 2014

Bride Wanted Dead Or Alive


China has come a long way - but maybe not far enough. Want the proof?They dig up corpses to marry them to their dead relatives - ensuring them a partner in the afterlife. The fresher the corpse, the more attractive they are. Skeletons need not apply.
It's Match.com gone mad. Offer up the recently deceased and you could be looking at £2,000.
We all knew women were in short supply in China after their disastrous one child policy lead to too many boys, unwanted girls being dumped in the gutter. 
Men are dying without ever knowing a woman, so gangs prepared to do the dirty deed are raking in big money, so that the rotting pair can be buried together, problem solved. It's not legal and eleven grave robbers in Shandong province are looking at three years in jail. Who said romance is dead!

Sunday 26 October 2014

Roll A Newspaper To Fight Ebola


There's no underestimating the imbecility of the British public is there? Sometimes it's jaw-dropping how stupid people can be. Take the pensioner who came into the cafe my daughter works in on Saturdays. 
Seeing the odd fly, this daft bat said: "You should stop those flies coming in with all that ebola about."
What! She knows there is this terrible, devastating disease called ebola - and absolutely nothing else about it.
Brave journalists walk the line in Sierra Leone and Liberia, telling us via our screens every night of the horrific toll this is taking on poor Africans living in appalling conditions. Their streets run with sewage. There will be a few flies about.
Who could possibly see their courage and not realise that contact with the ill, and especially the dead, is what causes the contagion to spread?The heroic grave diggers in their plastic suits running with sweat do their job, often unpaid. Flies are the least of their problems.
Despair at the ignorance of the rest of us must surely come next.

Monday 13 October 2014

NHS Waste - Blame the Patients


Patients - they are the worst thing about hospitals. It's not poor care, though that still happens, or waiting times, but the people who take up the space. 
Harsh? Not really. A recent visit to A&E was a traumatic affair, not just because of an urgent need to be admitted. A huge, scary guy was ranting and raving, rampaging about and crashing into walls. A kind nurse put us in a side room for safety, saying: " He has been in here every night for the past week doing the same thing and every time he gets treated like royalty."
Shocking - but even more so was the discovery that Mad Dog, as we called him, was given the next bed to my sick son. He continued to rage and abuse. On the other side was drug addict Dean, in with a sore foot and still there well after he should have been sent home. He kept finding symptoms. After ten days we left him to it.
Yes the system needs reform. Today the Government admits to mistakes. There is waste on a grand scale, but with patients like this, who's to blame?

Friday 5 September 2014

It Might Cure Cancer But ...


God knows I'm up for a cure for cancer - but maybe not at any price. There's this rat you see that doesn't get cancer. It lives for ever too, well thirty years or so, which is an eternity for something four inches long.
 It can wiggle its teeth independently and run backwards really, really quickly. It also produces masses of jelly-like hyaluronan, which we have too, but not in such huge quantities. So this rat is a born survivor which may hold the answer to cancer.
It is also ugly. And hairless. The other animal that has loads of hyaluronan is the shar pei dog Yes, that's the one, that has a face like a ploughed field. Not just wrinkles, more crevasses. Oh dear.
It's going to be a hard sell, isn't it?

Friday 29 August 2014

Cure for Horrible Hospital Food


Crap hospital food? I have the answer and it's cheap as chips. Install a microwave on every ward and a small fridge. That way patients can have nutritious food reheated, making it possible for relatives to bring in dishes, or for wards to stock ready made meals.
The idea is the brain-child of my son, fed up with the rubbish doled out to him in hospital. He said a fridge on each ward would keep everything fresh and reduce the huge amount of waste, because patients would order what they want to eat, rather than face the unappetising slop that is the usual fare.
So why not? It must be better than what is available now., and way less expensive.  Any thoughts?

Wednesday 6 August 2014

Wise Up Before The Lights go Out


 A cover on the back wheel of a 4x4 reads: "Adventure Before Dementia" and it causes massive upset. So much so that a reader bothers to write to The Times, saying: " I feel this is quite the wrong message."
Really? Hilary of Norfolk might have good reason to think this way.  I can't fathom it though. For me, this is exactly the right message. Dementia is everywhere. Pretty much everyone in any old folks' home has some level of confusion. A lot have no idea where they are or what day it is.
That is the reality we are all facing as our bodies stay in good nick but our minds disappear down the toilet. Get out the truck, head off into the hills and live a full and active life full of fun and yes, adventure, because sitting in an armchair staring out of a window comes far too quickly.

Friday 11 July 2014

Fat Costs More - Fact


Fury is being flung at fat people who are to get free surgery on the NHS. The enormous, waddling, ugly, obese masses are to get gastric band surgery if they turn out to have type 2 diabetes. 
It's like a red rag to the rest of us who are being told that doctors may soon charge us, hospitals face closure, prescriptions will go up but all of that will not get the NHS out of the deep pit of debt.
These fatties are their own worst enemies, just tell them to STOP EATING! So goes the argument. Yet these moutains of lard did not get that way overnight. Their problems go deeper than the rolls on their bellies.
I say give them the surgery, because it's been trialled in Sunderland and it seems to work. They all lose weight. Some stop being diabetic. Their general health improves and they don't need the buckets of tablets that cost us all thousands each year. Shed the fat and the rest will cost us less. The maths make sense.

Thursday 10 July 2014

Taxing Pence As Billions Go Awol


So the taxman bungled the paperwork and we are all massively short changed because of it. Is anyone surprised? Is anyone thinking: "How could this be?" No. Why?  We all know what a shambles HMRC is.
This week they sent me a bill for 41p and said I need not pay it now but interest would be charged if I left it too late. Forty one pence! That's less than it cost to post the letter. I took it to the post office to pay  but no, can't be done, because they do not include the paperwork. Post lady got one for 60p, so she knew.
So I sent a cheque. Stupid, bungling beaurocracy. Now we discover they are too late to charge the celebrities who secreted away billions to avoid paying tax, despite chasing them for ten years.
That's a lot of letters to and fro. The whole operation needs overhauling and some of these pen pushers shoved out of their jobs. Then we may get a fair and efficient service.

Tuesday 8 July 2014

Justice For Little Girl And her Evil Doctor Uncle?


Many years ago I met a very brave little girl. She had been so badly adused by her uncle, a doctor, that her chances of having children were nil. She stood in court and told the horrific story.
Afterwards I was with her when the jury came back with their verdict: "Not guilty." I remember her mother's screams to this day, while this brilliant little person just said: " They didn't believe me did they?"
All I could do was tell her very forcibly that I certainly did, that the jury were fools to be swayed by a powerful man, that the truth was staring them in the face but they couldn't believe that someone so eminent could do something so evil to his neice.
His little victim seemed resigned, she went to comfort her mother, but not before I gave her a red scarf of mine that she had been admiring. I have never forgotten her, or her name. I cannot say it now, but wherever she is I hope she can finally get justice for what was done to her. Rolf Harris and his fingering was as nothing compared to this. 

Friday 4 July 2014

Killer X And His Cure


Ever wondered if you are in the wrong job? Some psychiatrists have no such worries. They believe they can work miracles, so convinced are they of their power to cure.
That's my impression of an horrific case now being discussed. A man known only as X wants anonymity. He is a double killer, having also sexually mutilated one of his victims. For fun, presumably.
Last year he wanted the right to unescorted leave as he was being prepared for release. The courts said no, he was still too dangerous. His lawyer argues that now he is a hospital patient he has the right to hide his past: " No matter how horrific these crimes are and I accept these crimes are high up on  the scale of horrific crimes," he said.
So that's alright then. The man is in hospital, the experts are working their magic and no one else has the right to know what he has done. There were no details of when he committed the crimes - let's hope it wasn't recently.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have such self belief that you would be happy to let this man walk among us, sure in the knowledge that you have cured him? These people are amazing! We should all bow down before them.

Thursday 3 July 2014

Young Guys Dicking Around


Been to your local dump recently? Only ask because the place is likely to be a revelation. Not only in the amazing stuff people are prepared to throw away, ie, almost new kitchens they have decided are not to their taste, but the staff.
They really are a joy to behold and basically that's what you do, behold them. There they are,standing about in high viz jackets, sweeping up leaves, stuff like that. One dramatically made up woman had an elaborate up-do and was singing. To herself.
What she was not doing was helping anyone. Nor was anyone else, because they can't. It's against Health and Safety. So they watched me and teenage daughter struggle to lift a double mattress up eight metal stairs and then heave it into the dumpster. Heavy, sweaty, work, but not made any easier by two young men standing idly by, watching our every move.
I think they felt a bit embarrassed. I hope so, but if they do lend a hand and hurt their backs they can't claim any compensation because they have officially been told not to bother. Makes them a bit of a spare part, to be honest - and I know what part that is.

Friday 27 June 2014

Lone Wolf Cameron Takes Them On


Go David Cameron! Out on his own he's a Billy No Mates in Brussels but should he care - no way! He's sticking to his guns about Jean-Claude Juncker being the wrong man for the top job. 
He may be wrong, but he is prepared to be a lone wolf and that counts for something with the rest of us. On balance I think he might be right. We are not alone in thinking Europe may have too much power over our lives already.
We saw the crowds out on the streets to say so - though there were also plenty who thought differently. With UKIP on the rise and Brussels legislation surging relentlessly onwards, we Brits want to take a step back and look at our options.
We want some changes - other countries have said they do too but where are they when it comes to backing the man seeking them? So for what it's worth I'm with you David - and I can bet I'm not alone either.



Tuesday 17 June 2014

Fine Parents For Not Caring


The schools chief wants to fine bad parents who don't turn up at parents' evening, supervise homework or read to their children. Plenty don't, including my sister who, as a busy nurse, left that side of thing to the kids. Hers turned out alright.
There are some very crappy parents about. Dentists in Manchester were filmed taking out the teeth of toddlers because : "You can't stop kids eating toffees - he'd wreck the house," said one fat, toothless mum of her lively four-year-old.
Four! He hasn't had teeth long enough for them to go bad and rot in his head has he? Seems so. "They'll put a needle in and put you to sleep and the pain will stop" she added. Thanks mum.
 Do these parents care at all? My sister did, she banned sweets before her two went to school. Result - perfect teeth. They read pretty well too.

Friday 13 June 2014

Don't Bank On Barclays


No cash but counting my blessings - and so glad I don't bank at Barclays. My poor old mum-in-law does. She's got a pot of money in there but they don't give a rat's bum about her.
 I had to drag her into the local branch in a wheelchair because they hadn't paid her care home fees, despite getting the signed direct debit in plenty of time. She must be here in person, they said, and got cross when told she had been bedridden for weeks - what then?.
Then they said all the signed letters I had given them to try to help with her affairs were useless. They took them with a smile anyway.
But when a tired, hot, patient old lady in pain asked after a while if she could use a toilet they said no. Only staff.
So I am so glad I don't bank with Barclays. One of my better decisions.

Thursday 29 May 2014

Easy Answer to Deadly Driving


I've got a solution to would-be killers who use their cars as weapons - grab them. Right there and then. Take the means to murder out of their hands.
William Ray, 23, was doing 149mph in his Porche Boxter on the M25 when he was caught. He's now disqualified for just six months. Motoring organisation boss Simon Best said: "149mph equates to two and a half miles in a minute. If anything goes wrong you are unlikely to walk away and you are a grave danger to innocent road users around you."
Do you want to share the road with this lunatic when he gets behind the wheel in a few weeks time? Thought not.
If we took away his prized Porche, at the time of the offence, no argument accepted, then he would have to walk home. Ban him too. We could sell the car to help victims' charities. If idiots like him realised this was the inevitable outcome of his lethal driving would he slow down? I think so.

Sunday 25 May 2014

Teachers Take Holidays in Term Time Too?


Fair cop - I did it. Took the kids out of school in term time. For snow days. or holidays, or even to visit their grumpy gran. Bad parent, but in fairness it never happened after infant school.
Except once, when we wanted to go to the States after one of us recovered from a life-threatening illness. We owed it to ourselves - but we had to jump through hoops because the rules had changed and without detailing the 999 calls, the surgery and the years of anxiety it was a no go. The head had the final say.
Was she right? Too many kids are kept away for silly reaons. What about the teachers? We have two in the family. If they want a holiday in term time is it ok for Tyrone to have a stand-in for two weeks when he is struggling with maths GCSE?
More than 200,000 parents have signed a petition seeking to change rules imposed by Education secretary Michael Gove. How about we just go back to the old days, when two weeks a year out of school was the limit. Fine the parents if they can't keep to that. That's fair and would save us all an expensive and pointless judicial review. 

Wednesday 14 May 2014

Stephen Sutton And A Life Well Lived


So sad to hear that Stephen Sutton has died. His mum's heart is breaking with pride and pain.  Stephen knew he was dying but refused to fade away. He made a bucket list and lived his remaining days to the full, hoping to raise £10,000 for the Teenage Cancer Trust. His courage  touched millions and he quickly passed the £3m mark
When he had to go back into hospiial as his bowel cancer took it's tolll, 19-year-old  Stehen  put a big smile on his face and said,"It's been a great life!' He showed no self pity, only gratitude for the days he lived to the full.
He even joked that he was sorry to disappoint the snipers who saw a brief respite in his condition as a sign that he was not as ill as he said. Stephen left the ward for only a few days before returning. He died early this morning. His mum mourns her " courageous, selfless and inspirational son."  What a man.

Thursday 8 May 2014

Gods Spit Fury


Allan is very angry. He is letting off steam to fellow god Jevon. "The stupid fools have let me down again! Idiots, all of them! Taken a whole lot of girls and sold them, sold them you hear, because they say I don't want women to go to school!"
"Tell me about it!" says Jevon, "I've had them killing thier own kids. Letting them bleed away the life I gave them! Doctors I bless with intelligence and healing have to sit by and watch. They've learned nothing! Zilch. Unbelieveable!"
"I thought I'd seen the worst of it when they flew those planes into tall buildings. Shouted my name as they did it! They reckon that got them right into my good books! They spatter bits of themselves and everyone else all over the street and my name is the last word they utter. 
"Makes me look like a right tosser!"

Friday 25 April 2014

Kindness for Mum who Killed


Three lovely little kids are dead by their mother's hand. Three beautiful toddlers who also suffered a terrible disease. It's enough to make a paramedic weep on the job - and that takes a lot.
But to add to the tragedy the mother is not allowed to talk to anyone. Not her distraught husband, her friends or the beautiful daughter she has left. Her solicitor, My Lloyd Marshall, said: " No one is allowed to see her at all, not even friends."
Why? What difference would it make? Surely she is in 100 degrees of hell right now. Why would seeing a friend make matters worse? This is someone who struggled, fought and lost. No one can judge her unless they know all of the facts and that's impossible without inhabiting her head.
We all know what she did. Compassion is all that is needed now.

Friday 28 February 2014

Phish Food


Odd folk us pet lovers. We think we know what's best for the little blighters.A fish lover gave his gourami prawn cocktail crisps. Gerty, a 40cm fish, blushed pink instead of her usual grey. Too many additives.
So now the London Aquarium is  feeding her a healthier diet - grapes and bananas. Since when did fish eat grapes and bananas? Last time one was lounging on a beach perhaps.
Grapes and bananas! Of course they know best, these aquatics people. Obviously looked it up. We feed our dog Marley chicken and rice, plus kibble twice a day, every day, no change. Apart from the odd bit of carrot. And sup of tea. A new delicacy just discovered and whined for piteously.
Bound to affect him. Got to - but how?

Wednesday 26 February 2014

Why Our Kids Hate Maths


At last it's official - our schools are rubbish at teaching maths. Kids in the Far East do better. Go into any primary and it's easy to see why. I did - and stood back amazed as they taught three different methods of doing a sum.
Don't get it this way? Try this. Still not sure? Here's another way. Not got it yet - have a shot at this then. 
Instead of trying one method until everyone was happy with it they kept moving the goalposts. Kids who were confused at first ended up hopelessly lost by the time they had not understood the third, new, method.
Teachers said it was because not everyone would understand one method. Yes they will, just explain it properly to them, explain it again if they fail to grasp it and carry on until - bingo! - they've got it. The way I learned as a kid.
The way my kids learned, all of them excellent at maths. Not because of the schools. They did Kumon, invented by the Japanese. Simple. 

Monday 24 February 2014

Piers Morgan Picked The Right Fight


How well does Piers Morgan know himself? Pretty well, I'd say. Like him or loathe him, how many other guys will freely admit that they have been banging on about their pet subject like a bore at the bar?
If that subject is gun control, and you go on about it because little kids were mown down in their infant class, then fair play to you. Shout about it as loud as you like because YOU ARE RIGHT!
Instead, watch the footage as Morgan patiently sits out the rant of a bullet-headed bigot who demands to be able to carry high velocity weapons because he is an American and no one will take his armoury away from him, certainly not some jumped-up Brit who thinks he knows best. 
Even the President backed down before that barrage. His biggest regret when he leaves office will be that he couldn't make the USA safer. The gun lobby got their way. 
It may be that Morgan got boring and people switched off, but if they just got tired of his message then shame on them for not putting their children first and doing whatever they could to stop the shootings. At least Piers tried.

Saturday 22 February 2014

Baby Guaranteed? Never


God there's cruelty and there's this. Conning a woman into thinking she has just given birth to a much wanted child. Giving her drugs to mimic pregnancy, then lying her down and pretending, with weird trickery,  pretending that her body has delivered a baby.
Social workers back home know different, they take the child away and prove, with science, that she is not this woman's child. The parents are more than devastated, the baby is in care and over in Nigeria someone is gloating.
It's unbelievable. British social workers say the couple must have known. Others say they had no idea. Whatever. It's tragic. I'm just hoping that this couple still want this baby, that they will still love her and treat her as their own, as they thought she was. 
And that other desperate couples steer clear of Nigeria, or anywhere else offering a child as a certainty. Wish it could be done but there is no place on earth that can be true. Nowhere. Believe that if you believe nothing else.

Tuesday 18 February 2014

Free Drink = More Boozers. Discuss


Scientists - such a brainy bunch but this booze experiment is bound for the bin. Get a whole lot of students together and study their drinking habits. Good so far. Then the cruncher - the drinks are free!
Thump - that's the sound of a whole lot of research hitting the refuse disposal. Why? Because it's a different ball game when the booze is free. It doesn't take a PhD to see that getting them down is so much better when no cash is involved. Shorts? Sure, why not - because you are paying.
Any other night it might be a couple of swift pints and that's the lot mate, no more till the grant comes in, so it's off to the library for a study or a snooze. 
This drinking lab at South Bank University is bound to be popular, with its mahogany bar, mock fireplace and fruit machines, but they could have done away with all of that attempt at atmosphere and just put up the sign; Free Drinks. Job done.

Monday 10 February 2014

Beware Exploding Fatties


Fatties beware! All those tall tales your mum told you about going off with a bang if you stuff your face turn out to be true! A 58-year-old woman in China exploded after eating too much.
Gas in her gut set fire to a theatre where she was having an operation to sort out her swollen stomach. She'd been bingeing and boozing for Chinese New Year.
Pity the poor surgeon leaning over her at the time. Singed his eyebrows, probably. Makes you think. All those barrels of lard rolling around could turn out to be bombs, primed to go off with just one more burger.
All the stuff about obesity causing diabetes, heart disease and cancer bothered the biggies not a jot. But errant gas setting off a fire-storm? That'll have them wobbling to weight-watchers. Get the water buckets ready.

Saturday 8 February 2014

MacShane The Slimy Shyster


Denis MacShane you are a slimy low life who ought to crawl under the nearest stone. Sue me if I am wrong. Let's look at the facts. This is an MP, given one of the highest jobs in the land, who robbed the British people of £13,000 in fiddled expenses and served only six weeks of a six month sentence for it. 
He's out and crowing about the book he wants to write about the people he met inside. Among them were prisoners who: "Know the difference between right and wrong and are prepared to admit to mistakes they have made in the past."
They've learned a lesson then. Not MacShane. He compares himself with a TV star who was aquitted earlier this week. He calls himself an angel. That's not what I would call him. Would you?

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Pope Must Shovel The Sh** Out Now


"Suffer the little children," said Jesus and they certainly have at the hands of the Catholic Church.  A damning report today says that the Vatican protected the evil priests at the expense of the vulnerable children.
It's been going on so long and even the clean up that was promised is on a go-slow. Pope Francis, seen by many as a reformer, is not getting on with the job of lancing the boil and cleaning up the scandal of the sexual abuse of children
 The excuse is that he has other important stuff to do first. What? What could be more important than this? How can anybody claim to be a good Catholic if they support this stinking edifice?
Priests were allowed to do the devil's work unhindered. They were even hidden from view and helped to carry on elsewhere. If I believed in God I would expect punishment in another life. Instead I demand it here. Jesus put children first but Catholics only care about their good name. That's gone - so get on with it, there is nothing left to lose.