All stressed up and nowhere to go – they’ve spent months ironing their frocks, saving up for a full body wax, and moisturising their little tootsie’s, and now they are faced with a national disaster. Peter Tatchell
Continue reading →Anna Raccoon
So who do we trust now?
Over the past 40 years there has been a systematic erosion of trust in the institutions we were brought up to respect.
The lessons of the Sunday Schools that we absorbed as children were shown by
Continue reading →Feed me, feed me not, feed me, feed me not…!
What havoc is wrought by the readers of the Evening Standard? Forgive them, they know not what they do!
A brief three months ago, their hearts bled as they read of children with:
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Out of the Closet, into Housing Benefit.
Much anguished fluttering of the bent-to-the-left petticoats this morning. It seems that the government’s decision to make housing benefit a financial helping hand for adults, rather than a free for all, is unfairly targeting ‘gays’.
Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma Chameleon
18 months ago, I was forced to retract a story on this site. That hurt; I am well known for careful research. I hadn’t written the story myself, Andrew Withers had done that, and within hours
Continue reading →Assange Assiduities.
I once found myself at Stanstead Airport with £20 in English money to get rid of, and lo! Julian Assange’s ‘leaked’ (oh, the irony!) autobiography on special offer. Three hours of Ryanair delay, three hours of no
Continue reading →Who is bailing who out of the leaky boat?
Women and children first, so the mantra goes. It would certainly seem to be so in the case of Portugal.
Whilst I was double checking some facts before I wrote on Angola the other day,
Continue reading →Destitution in Modern Day Britain.
Can it be true? Are there really as many as 2.2 million households in Britain scraping by on as little as £41,000 a year? And having to feed two children on that as well?
Continue reading →Ms Raccoon engages in ‘Angolan discussions…’
Are you sitting comfortably children? I did promise you more African adventures.
Long before some of you were born, a couple of ex-soldiers of humble rank were sitting in their grotty flat over an Aldershot launderette,
Continue reading →£10
Overhead this morning on BBC breakfast (I know I shouldn’t listen to the statist propaganda, but I do need something to tell me the time as I have
Continue reading →76 Arrests led the big ‘invade’…
Seventy six a-rrests led the big ‘invade’,
With a hundred and ten new laws close at hand,
They were followed by rows and rows of the finest statutory instruments;
The dream of every Fabian hand.
Seventy six
Continue reading →London 2012 Olympic Torch Flames Going Postal
So you can’t afford an Official Olympic Torch from the 2012 Relay, complete with 8000 holes:
Representing the inspirational
Continue reading →A Sign of the Chimes.
Did you know that it was a young Maggie Thatcher, in her first job as a research chemist, who discovered how to infuse perfectly good ‘proper’ ice-cream with air and thus double the quantities and the profit? I didn’t
Continue reading →Sortition and Democracy and Meritocarcy
Sortition sounds OK as an alternative method of electing MPs compared to our current system, and probably would work. But you’d also need put in place the same
Continue reading →James Callaghan PM – My Part in his Downfall…!
Think back to the halcyon days of the 70s, the last time we had such a well-hung Parliament, when dead bodies were piling up in Liverpool, and rats held mass demonstrations beneath the statue of Winston Churchill – in
Continue reading →Snide
There are many things to like about living in Britain. The history, scenery, diversity and a largely benign environment are wonderful as are many other things.
Continue reading →Sugar and Spice and Puppy Dog Tales…
What is our role as parents? Is it to protect our children from the harsh reality of the cruel world out there, to preserve a Disney varnished version
Continue reading →Manbags and waistcoats
Many apologies for concentrating on male fashion, but I think female fashion gets quite a bit of press already.
Fashion changes to suit the environment and
Continue reading →Beauty in numbers
Statistics and numbers can be pretty boring. Long lists of numbers or charts showing lots of wavy wiggly lines with no meaning.
But numbers and figures
Continue reading →Cookies & Biscuits
Just a quick post to say that cookie control has been enabled as per the EU Cookie Directive, boo hiss.
A right pain in
Continue reading →A worse crime
Last week, 32 children were among 90 people killed in Houla, Syria. The international community has united in its condemnation of the people responsible for
Continue reading →Luck of the Draw
Given the proportion of our species living in poverty
Relative to that which lives comfortably
Given the sheer scale of deprivation across the globe
It was as likely,
Diamond Jubilee Photo
This is the best 60th Jubilee photo I have seen.
Hat-tip: Peter Ould, who writes an Exercise in the Fundamentals of
Continue reading →More poor journalism: BBC Syria photo
Last time I pointed out Rob Shephard‘s lack of research when he used a tweet as a primary source.
This time around
Continue reading →Jubilee Photo Competition
Something to get you in the mood for the weekend – or not. Depends on whether you are a Monarchist or Republican.
Continue reading →Democracy in action?
Democracy is the process by which the citizens of a country, all who have an equal opurtunity, get to decide together how they want their nation to be
Continue reading →Scraping the Bottom..
150 years ago, it was reported that the ‘common man’, the man who would have been on the Clapham Omnibus, had he been able to afford the fare, was frequently found to have up to 3’ of
Continue reading →Sir Robin the Hood?
How do you write about a terminally boring, hugely complicated, but very important subject?
And especially a subject that could have 10 volumes written about
Continue reading →50 types of books
50 Shades of Grey is banned in some libraries because its deemed pornographic. Other libraries have alledgedly banned fairy tales after a
Continue reading →Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS)
I’m delighted to announce the relaunch of (yet) another left of centre lesser-spotted Flatpack Thinktank, The
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