A piece of cake?

How can such a simple task be so difficult as ordering a cake tin?

Mrs FE is tasked to make a cake in the shape of Peppa pig. (Don’t ask who Peppa pig is. You don’t want to know.). Of course I was tasked to order it, and it was only priced at £14.99. Or so I thought.

Mrs FE had left me the internet page of baking tins up, and I duly scrolled down to the peppa pig tin. On clicking the item I was presented with this:

Sorry about the small print, but if you squint enough you can see the price in the small print.

An unbelievable £84.99!

It turned out that on clicking further you are taken to an Ebay sale. The first bid is £84.99. Maybe it is gold plated and covered in precious stones. Bugger that.

I decide that they can stick their tin where the sun doesn’t shine and have paid the princely some of £18.99 from a site in Ireland.

Minimum pricing?

Alcohol concern and the powers that be would like us to have a minimum price for units of alcohol.

A unit is calculated as:

One imperial pint (568 ml) of beer at 4% ABV contains:

Just to make it clear.

Now the healthists cretins in the anti-fun lobby are trying to instigate a price of 50p per unit. Of course this is egged on by the pub trade who insist that supermarket booze is undercutting their trade.

Well mister pub owner, who charged me EIGHT times the unit cost, at lunchtime today, how do you justify that?

Of course the smoking ban that you rolled over and let happen, really had no affect did it? After all your pub is full of non smokers now, isn’t it?

This smoker normally drinks at home because of the ban on smoking in public places. Apart from it being cheaper I find the pubs are now soulless eating establishments devoid of character. The real characters are the ones outside having a laugh and a fag.

Some like it hot.

I’m sure the canadians would like it to be so. Another vid tearing into the cult of climate change.

All true.

Thanks Bill.

There’s two sides to a story.

 

Caterpillars reject 'very hungry' stereotype

26-03-14

CATERPILLARS have called for an end to the assumption that they are incredibly gluttonous.

Just happened to be eating when this picture was taken

Speaking on the 45th anniversary of a problematic children’s book, caterpillars said they were tired of being defined by their appetite.

Monarch caterpillar Tom Logan said: “I’m not saying I’m a small eater, but I only consume the calories required to keep me going through the pupal stage.

“No more, no less.

“And I don’t eat ice cream or cakes, I’m fairly sure that would be fatal.”

Logan described the notion of caterpillar gluttony as “lazy at best, at worst a form of racism”.

He said: “I can hear what kids say when they point me out to their parents, and yes it hurts.

“There should be more complex and multilayered caterpillar characters in literature.

“What about a caterpillar who’s a spy with a tortured past, or a caterpillar who falls in love outside her genus with tragic results?”

Nicked from here

Make up your bloody minds.

“British winters are likely to become milder and wetter like the last one but cold spells still need to be planned for, says the UK Met Office.

Summers are likely to be hotter and drier, but washouts are still on the cards, it adds.

The assessment of future weather extremes finds the role of human influence is "detectable" in summer heatwaves and in intense rainfall.

However, the Met Office says a lot more work must be done to confirm the links.

If the study is correct, it means everything from gumboots to snowploughs and sunscreen to anoraks will still be needed.”

Source

Wringing wet

 

The Crimea

I just don’t get it.

86% of the population vote, and 97% of those voters, vote to secede from the Ukraine.

The EU and the USA call it “illegal”.

I think I would name it “Democracy in action”.

Could we have some of that in the western world please?

Referenda

Can someone answer me this?

If the Crimea holds a referendum to split from the Ukraine, and it is deemed unlawful under international law, for not involving all citizens of the Ukraine.

Then how come a referendum by the Scots about leaving the UK without the English, Welsh, and the Irish, voting,  is deemed lawful?

What’s the difference?

It’s time I went.

After all, the UK is becoming a restrictive shithouse.

Don’t smoke, drink, eat, enjoy salt, use sugar, drive a car, have to use expensive wind powered energy, and finally, to have to endure the pontificatings of some of the most inept politicians we’ve seen for decades..

The cost of prohibition.

…..Of tobacco products. I just thought I’d highlight the costs involved with the eradication of tobacco smoking.

To start with I’m just going to bring up the facts of costs on the NHS supposedly from tobacco related diseases and the taxes raised from the sale of tobacco.

First is the very loose costs that are estimated to be a cost on the NHS. Supposedly the following list of ailments are associated with tobacco smoking:

Smoking causes about 90% of lung cancers. It also causes cancer in many other parts of the body including the:

• mouth
• lips
• throat
• voice box (larynx)
• oesophagus (the tube between your mouth and stomach)
• bladder
• kidney
• liver
• stomach
• pancreas

Smoking damages your heart and your blood circulation, increasing your risk of developing conditions such as:

• coronary heart disease
• heart attack
• stroke
• peripheral vascular disease (damaged blood vessels)
• cerebrovascular disease (damaged arteries that supply blood to your brain)

Smoking also damages your lungs, leading to conditions such as:

• chronic bronchitis (infection of the main airways in the lungs)
• emphysema (damage to the small airways in the lungs)
• pneumonia (inflammation in the lungs)

(Just thought I’d scare the shit out of you). However the costs seem to be very woolly. They don’t really seem to know how much it costs to treat smokers with those alleged smoking related diseases.

If current research is anything to go by, smoking is likely to be costing the NHS between £2.5 and £6 billion in today’s prices, although there’s a considerable degree of uncertainty to the estimates. SOURCE

Bearing in mind that most of those diseases are prevalent in non smokers as well, and any one admitting to being a smoker when visiting their GP/A&E, is automatically added to the list of smoking related patients. In my calculations I’m going to plump for half the higher figure. IE, £3 million.

Next we must have a look at the tax take.

The government takes in a total of about £9.5 billion in tobacco duties, and the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association estimates another £2.6 billion goes to the Treasury in VAT. So the Treasury is taking in about £12 billion directly from tobacco sales.

(Before the anti-smokers jump on the phrase “Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association”, just look at the graphic below.)

Anyway lets jump to the mathematics.

So we have a total of £12 Billion in taxes and a cost to the NHS of £3 Billion. Therefore a net taxation surplus of £9 Billion. Quite a tidy surplus for the treasury.

However Anti-smokers (and vapers), what would be the consequence if smokers gave it all up tomorrow?

Well the latest population figures for the UK are 63.7 million.

So if we divide the Net receipt of tobacco taxes of £9 Billion by 63.7 million people (Man, Woman, and child) we get a figure per year of £141 per head, of extra taxes. Or for the typical family of two adults and two children, £565.

So I’ll leave it up to you Anti-smokers. Do you really want to see the end of smoking?

Then of course they may ipmose a tax on vaping to make up for the loss of tobacco revenue. Have you thought about that, vapers?