Lets have higher drink prices. (NOT)

"Alcohol focus Scotland", has a poll asking us to vote Yes or No to the proposition “Cheap alcohol is damaging health and society. I support minimum pricing.”

You know it makes sense.

Go over here and fuck up their poll by voting NO. 66% have already.

H/T to Red Nev & the Pub curmudgeon

Oh so plain

They're still banging on about how plain packaging of cigarettes will stop youngsters smoking.

As many commentators on this article stated, "This will just mean that many customers will ask for the cheapest, thus starting a price war and driving down the price."

I do not think this is a good idea, if all cigarettes came in identical packaging it wouldn't make me stop smoking. I also think that taking brand loyalty out of the equation will cause a price war between the tobacco companies. I would no longer go and ask for a specific brand but for the cheapest. This would cause the price of cigarettes to plummet and young people would by them because they are so cheap. Sorry ASH i think your shooting yourself in the foot here!

Time for a fag.

Game

I just came across these paragraphs on another site. They seemed most apt.

I was more than slightly amused the other day to hear a 'loyal' Labour MP referring to the Prime Minister as 'a man on top of his game'. It smacked of the syndrome decribed in the piece below, but more than anything else it made my head start playing with the word 'game'. The word has several meanings, but three above all: a type of meat that is still hunted; a team activity in sport; and a distraction played for amusement, of little or no relevance to big life issues. These are listed in order of seriousness.

Gordon Brown has a powerful whiff of game about him at the moment. Already shot several times, he is hanging upside down until such time as another, better bird can be found - at which time he will be eaten....or thrown away. And yet despite that, you could never describe him as 'a game bird'. Mr Brown is, as everyone but him now realises, a dead duck.

H/T to Not born yesterday

Mmmm. Police.

The world has gone barking mad.

Eleven G20 campaigners are being prosecuted for impersonating police officers despite some being half-dressed and wielding toy machineguns.

Apart from the sheer cost of all this idiocy, by the prick who authorised this prosecution, anyone can see that they're not plods.

Then of course. it's this man again.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer decided they must face a four-day trial despite critics describing the charges as “a terrible abuse of power”.

I'd like to be arrested by her.

H/T to the Evening Standard

Let them try

They really don't know when to stop digging.

Police are threatening to report motorists to insurance companies if they leave valuables, CDs or even old coats on show in their cars.

They are planning to sneak around car parks and streets checking vehicles for anything that could catch the eyes of thieves.

When are the Police going to go back to the old fashioned notion of catching the offenders? I can't for one minute, see how this is going to get the law abiding citizen on side.

I'm also wondering if in giving the info to insurance companies might be a breach of the data protection act.

No wonder the complaints are up by 25% this year.

Police target the innocent

I've been around for a while in this sceptered Isle and I'm afraid to say that my opinion of the police, as a force for good, is no more.

Michael White is an out of touch TO**ER

Michael White gets a roasting over at the Guardian over his article intimating that Baroness Scotland has only made a silly little mistake.

I don't think we can expect the attorney general to have spotted a dodgy passport.

This is not such an occasion. Labour is short of competent lawyers (they make so much money in private practice today). Scotland is a competent female, black lawyer. A second chance is called for. But don't do it again.

He really gets it in the neck.

Conspiracy, Naaah.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Stephen Hesford, MP for Wirral West, has resigned in protest as parliamentary aide to Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, after she was allowed to keep her job despite being fined for employing an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper.

It sounds like an honourable thing to do, but me being a bit of a conspiracy theorist, wonder if he has resigned to take the heat of the Baroness. After all it's filling the MSM and the blogosphere.

I shall watch the New Year honours list with interest.

Lord Hesford of Wirral West maybe.

Gordon's Medal

It's what he should have been awarded.

They're coming to take me away ,ha, ha

Just been over to Fausty's blog and followed this link:

Personality disorders


Seems like they can lock you up without you even having to do anything these days. Bloggers beware!

*Writing this from behind the sofa, as there are some strange men in white coats outside*

I'm stupid?

I might be a bit thick.

Baroness Scotland has only been fined for not copying the documents of her Tongan maid. Surely, if there are no copies of the documents, then how do we know, that she even looked at them at all? Shouldn't she have been fined the maximum?

Even Elvis says NO to the lisbon treaty

A catchy little number from the King.



H/T to VOTR

They stoop even lower

How can they get away with such a hate video as this.

NHS Birmingham North & East 'Fight Back' anti-smoking advert directed by photographer Rankin, in which a smoker is shown being beaten up by an invisible assailant as he smokes a cigarette

Maybe it should be classified as a hate crime against smokers? It encourages violence to smokers.

Fun

Automatically Guilty

An article in the Times today. Labour are considering changing motoring law so as to make drivers automatically guilty.

MINISTERS are considering making motorists legally responsible for accidents involving cyclists or pedestrians, even if they are not at fault.

So I'm going to be guilty if some Lycra clad, "Twat in a hat", runs into the back of me, or weaves in and out of the traffic and gets hit? Labour really are desperate to get someone to vote for them.

Where I live, they converted the pavements into cycle lanes, filling in the bus laybyes in the process, causing traffic snarl ups in the rush hour. Pity no-one uses these cycle lanes.

Read the full article here

They seek him here, they seek him there.

Tractionman.............the Movie



It was waiting to be made.

H/T to Tractionman

Just don't get ill

If you ever have to be interned in the NHS, let this be a warning to you.

I do hope I don't get called into Matron's office this evening for a dressing down since the blog appears to have gone mainstream. Time to put the tin hat on, I think.

Just visit here and be afraid, very afraid.

Multiculteral is OK then?

We've brought on ourselves by not standing up and saying, NO, not in my name.

Pat Condell is upset again

This time it is Anjem Choudary.

Back to the drawing board

Listening to the Today programme this morning, it would appear that the ISA are going to rethink the depths of the new CRB checks for those working with children and vulnerable people.

I would hope that this will be scrutinised more completely by our Politicos and not just nodded through, as would seem to have been the case with the original Bill..

Will we see this before the election?

It's on it's way.

Priceless, World war has started.

Frank Davis excels himself on his blog. Do go and read it.

The Royal Blogging Corps

frank_davis

September 13th, 13:13

Blue skies. Light winds. Perfect flying weather.

I feel like I'm in a war. It's a war that started on 1 July 2007. The day after tomorrow it will have been going on for 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 2 hours, and 2 minutes. But actually it's a global war, and it didn't start everywhere at the same time.

It's a war that's very like the Second World War. Once again we weren't ready, and the Nazis overran us easily. They had a war machine, and we didn't. These latest Nazis have, as before, overrun most of Europe in short order. There are smoking bans from Bantry Bay to Bratislava. They haven't captured Spain yet. And they haven't fully pacified Holland or Germany or Croatia. All the rest seem to have given up without a fight. And the news is always unremittingly grim. Iraq is the latest country to fall under the heel of the jackboot.

Absolutely Hilarious, read the rest here.

Mmmm

I am not a Paedophile either.

I presume you've all heard about the new database that will be compulsory for more than 11 million people to be registered on.

In case you haven't, its the "Independant Safeguarding Authority, and it's pernicious aim is that every person that comes in to contact with children must be registered. Even if they are just helping out at the scouts, or a regular school run.

The Children's Minister claimed today that millions of Britons must be placed on a new Big Brother-style child protection database to stop a repeat of the Soham murders.

Under the plan parents could face a £5,000 fine for driving their children's friends to a sports event or Cub Scout meeting if they have not been vetted first by the massive new government agency.

An astonishing 11.3million people - one adult in four - are likely to come under the watchful eye of the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

Full article in the Mail

Yes, I'm all for protecting the Cheeldren, but this really oversteps the mark. Who an earth is going to volunteer to carry out any of the regular, taken for granted jobs, that we all carry out on a daily basis?

There is a facebook page just started up. Please join up if you agree.

Binge drinking?

Just been pointed to an article in the Times back in late 2007 relating to safe levels of drinking.

The Times reveals today that the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for women, first introduced in 1987 and still in use today, had no firm scientific basis whatsoever.

That's the bad news. But then comes this:

Subsequent studies found evidence which suggested that the safety limits should be raised, but they were ignored by a succession of health ministers.

Gets even better:

One found that men drinking between 21 and 30 units of alcohol a week had the lowest mortality rate in Britain. Another concluded that a man would have to drink 63 units a week, or a bottle of wine a day, to face the same risk of death as a teetotaller.

Well that's me out to the Offie to stock up then.

It looks like the bansturbators have been running with this for some time, as the end of the article comes up with this gem:

In a further attack on Britain’s drinkers, it was revealed yesterday that a coalition of health organisations is mounting a campaign to force a 10 per cent increase in alcohol taxation.

The group, headed by the Royal College of Physicians, is also seeking to secure the support of MPs for stricter regulation of the drinks industry and warnings on alcohol advertising. A total of 21 bodies, including Alcohol Concern and the British Liver Trust, will form the Alcohol Health Alliance, according to Harpers Wine and Spirit magazine.

Nazis

Sense at last?

"The British public has become more sceptical about climate change over the last five years, according to a survey."

And that's from a BBC article.

The most sceptical are:

Men more than women

Rural more than urban

Older people

High earners

Conservative voters more than Lib Dem voters; Lib Dem voters more than Labour voters.

Read it here

Maybe I'll send this to my MP

There's a DVD coming out, attempting to show what the measures taken by the climate change hysterics, will mean to ordinary people.

I've only seen the trailer, so I can't really comment much, but I think I'll buy it anyway.

The site is here

And yes, it will go to my MP after I've watched it. That is if it's any good.

UPDATE:

The greenies hate the thought of this film, so they do what they usually do, call the producers denialists. Even death threats.

Read here

Bloody BMA.

I know everyone else is ahead of me on this one, but I needed to have my say.

I've just been reading their report and consider that is most definitely a temperance movement in all by name.

Changing these excessively pro-alcohol social norms cannot be achieved by targeting irresponsible drinkers alone. We all have an obligation to balance our collective relationship with alcohol. This does not mean that we should all become abstainers. Many human behaviours carry risk and this commonly adds to their appeal; these risks need to be properly understood and appropriate precautions taken. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) reminds us, alcohol is no ordinary commodity, but a toxic and addictive drug that should be carefully regulated and controlled. Strong
measures are required at a population level to eliminate the unhealthy cues and prompts that serve to encourage alcohol consumption. By far the most important of these is the marketing and promotion of alcohol. At the same time, the choice to abstain from alcohol use should be supported as a viable
and acceptable option.

It's that last line that gives it away.

And this, Here they want to control us like lab rats:

In the case of young people, selective targeting is also likely to make alcohol more attractive by reinforcing its forbidden and adult nature – and smack of double standards. As with tobacco control policies, reducing alcohol-related harm in the UK requires a comprehensive strategy that promotes individual behaviour change across society as a whole and seeks to remove or mitigate the unhealthy and unhelpful influences on that behaviour (Berridge 2007).

More control:

As the leading professional organisation representing doctors in the UK, the BMA aims to promote the development and implementation of comprehensive alcohol control policies.

Of course, think of the children is there as well:

The frequency of heavy drinking by the mother is also associated with the occurrence of a range of completely preventable mental and physical birth defects

Naturally people are drinking more at home. Remember the smoking ban:

Recent years have seen an increasing trend among UK adults toward home-based alcohol consumption.

They still won't admit it:

This trend toward home-based alcohol consumption most likely reflects the lower cost of alcohol in off-licences compared to licensed premises in the UK.

And of course take no notice of studies that don't match the crusade:

Early attempts to measure the impact of alcohol advertising on young people relied on econometric studies,l mostly conducted in the 1980s and 1990s. These examined the correlation between the amount of advertising taking place in a particular jurisdiction (typically in terms of expenditure) and the amount of alcohol being consumed (typically in terms of sales). With one notable exception (Saffer & Chaloupka 2000), these have found little or no evidence of advertising influencing young people, which has led one author to describe the effects as ‘barely measurable’ (Duffy 1989). The fact that they are difficult to measure, however, does not mean that they are minimal or do not exist; it may just reflect inadequate research methods.

I could go on but I won't. If you want to read it all. It's here

A day in the life of a Marine Engineer

I'll just explain how hard working I am.

Glossary:


FE.......................Filthy Engineer (Me)
Bow....................Pointy bit at the front end of the ship.
Stern..................Blunt bit at the back of the ship.
Poop Deck.........At the back, and the only place to have a fag.
MCR...................Machinery Control Room.
HQ1....................Part of the MCR where firefighting and DC incidents are controlled from
DC.......................Damage control.
R.O. Plant..........Magical fresh water making equipment.
Down below.......Nautical term for Downstairs.
Up Top...............Nautical term for upstairs.
Smokoe..............Strange name meaning Tea break.


0645. Alarm goes of and theFilthy Engineer leaps out of bed. (That bit was utter twaddle).

0700. Make a cup of tea.

0715. Down to the poop deck for a fag or two.

0745. Down below to the MCR and settle down with one of the computers to read E mail, and hide in the background .

0800. The working day starts. Boss starts by asking who has any priority jobs. FE sticks hand up from where he has been busy on the computer pretending to read pompous E mails from his boss.

"Please Boss, I've got some essential maintenance to do on the Refrigeration plant."

Now FE knows that the Boss has never done the refrigeration course and considers that this is one of the black arts akin to alchemy, Turning heat into cold. All I have to mention is that the superheat on the evaporator in the deep freeze room needs resetting and the next hour is mine to do with what I want.

Luckily the Refrigeration Machinery room is close to the poop deck, so a quick fag is in order.

Ok, must show willing, down to the Fridge plant, look in, all is well, but the peeps in the central store are looking bored, so better wander in and chat with them.

Time goes by.

Another Fag on the poop deck.

After Smokoe, Boss nearly catches FE playing solitaire on the MCR computer, but quick as a flash, FE lets it be known that he was just checking the Fresh water tank levels, and that the tanks need filling.

Now as you may realise we all need fresh water to survive. (FE needs water for the copious amounts of duty free whisky he needs for his personal survival). Therefore water making is important. Water making on ships used to be by using steam powered evaporators but is now produced from Sea water using RO plants. (If you have been too lazy to read the Glossary, please do now).

These RO plants look incredibly complicated, and of course my Boss has only worked with an Evaporator and knows nothing about RO plants. Good, thinks FE, I'm on to a winner here.

Right then, off to make water, but first things first. FE sidles over to HQ1 and does the first step in making Fresh water. Turn off the surveillance camera that monitors the RO plants.
Next put on ear defenders. Not because off noise levels in the Machinery space but to stop the Boss from telling FE that he has something else to do like clean out the shithouse treatment plant.

This is where FE should panic. The RO plant looks incredibly complicated with pipes, pumps, valves, wires, filters, membranes, teamakers (made that up), and all sorts of sundries. However FE is an avid reader and has read the instruction manual page 33. The first 32 were dire warnings from the HSE about fires, floods, and pestilence. No need. The RO plant has a touch sensitive display, looking complicated at first glance, especially to the Boss, only needs one command. Press "Start". Voila, off it goes, and there's the FE's morning completed. Fag break beckoned after such hard work, then off to lunch.

Maybe I'll let you know what I did after lunch.

(If the Commodore reads this, tough shit you Tosser, I've retired, and no bullshit about you've signed the official secrets act)

They're dead right.

From an article in the Times today shows that even the MOD are overstaffed with civil servants.

The Ministry of Defence is so stuffed with civil servants that they outnumber the combined manpower of the Royal Navy and the RAF.

The statistic, produced by the Conservatives yesterday to attack the Government’s record on defence manpower, followed condemnation by General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, a former Chief of Defence Staff, over imbalances between uniform and non-uniformed personnel.

Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, said that 16 per cent of the Civil Service resided in the MoD, and that the number of civilian officials (86,620), was about 12,000 more than the Royal Navy (34,830) and RAF (39,260) put together.

I work for the Royal Fleet auxiliary, and worked ashore for a couple of years in an office helping to manage the re-fitting of ships. My job was to collate the work for each ship's refit in my group, and edit each job specification to weed out cost overruns.

Now as most engineers know, it is not an exact science and you can't plan for every eventuality. Because of this we expected a cost overrun on several jobs.

For instance, if you open up a pump for survey you may find that the wear is far more than predicted, therefore extra cost incurred.

To this end we were allowed a package of extra money, usually between 5% and 15% depending on the age of the ship to be refitted.

Our outfit was comprised of 50% uniformed staff and 50% civil servants.

One part of Office was entirely staffed with civil servants devoted to writing specifications for alterations to the vessel, ie new equipment to replace the obsolete stuff. (Every thing wears out in time and can't be fixed)

What shocked me was the length of these specs. Sometimes 20 pages or more with endless waffle. The number of lines stating the bleeding obvious such as, "The contractor will carry out the following work", beggared belief.

Needless to say, often these specs arrived at my desk only just in time to be sent to the various tenderers, which procluded me from giving them the real once over.

5% or 15% overrun?

Bollocks! Some of these came in at 150%. What made it worse, is that for a lot of the specs, they called in outside contractors to write them.

Just to end it all, (Not me) when I went into the office there were 21 ships. Now we have 16 and the office has expanded their personnel by over 25%. Make sense to you? Me neither.

Here is the Time article

I'll write a post about the shipboard workplace sometime.

Let them drink beer

A well deserving cause.

RAF chiefs are appealing for donations so British troops returning from Afghanistan can enjoy a cold beer on their flight home.

Dutch brewery Grolsch has donated 10,000 cans, enough for all the personnel coming home after six months away from their families. But Wing Cdr Chadwick would like to be able to offer troops a beer on every military flight out of Afghanistan. "It would be nice to do it all year round, not just for the Rip," he said.

Anyone who wants to contribute to the "Beer for the boys" fund can send a cheque, made payable to "SIF Funds, RAF Brize Norton" and with "Beer for the boys" written on the back, to Wing Cdr Chadwick at 216 Squadron, RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire OX18 3LX.

You know it makes sense.

PS Bugger Liam Donaldson and his Ilk

Think on this before the next election . This means all parties.

My MP voted for a smoking ban, that's why I'm now a Libertarian.

A Tangential attack by the new puritans?

Just another good post at Frank Davis.

Regardless of any claims to the contrary, it has always seemed perfectly apparent to me that the war on smoking is above all a moral crusade. The fundamental objection of antismokers to smoking is that it is a vice, a perverse instinct, an unnatural practice, a species of self-abuse. This is where the antismokers start out. This is their underlying conviction.

It is not, however, the main thrust of the case that antismokers actually make against smoking. They do not say, "Smoking is wrong" or "Smoking is bad". Instead they say, "Smoking is bad for you" and "Smoking causes lung cancer". They do not make a direct assault on smoking as something that is immoral in itself, but instead make an indirect attack by pointing to the consequences of smoking, rather than to smoking itself. After all, nobody is going to say that lung cancer is a good thing. And if lung cancer is an evil, and smoking causes lung cancer, then smoking is also necessarily an evil. QED.

Read The rest here.

Growing Polarisation

I've just read this article over at Frank Davis's blog and find it fits my mood about the smoking ban and the bit by bit loss of our freedoms. Especially the end. Do go over there and read it all.

I'm getting isolated. I realised today that I haven't met up with any friends of mine for months.

I used to meet up with my friends in pubs mostly. Either I'd call them, or they'd call me. And we'd meet up for a few drinks. And maybe other friends would show up, invited or by chance. And we'd sit and have a few drinks, and smoke cigarettes and eat peanuts and talk about this and that. It doesn't happen much now.

With the smoking ban, the pubs became unwelcoming places for smokers. They became as sterile as dentists' waiting rooms. Smoke-free is friendliness-free. The bar girls still smile winningly, and they're still as pretty as they ever were, but it's not the same as it was any more.

Read it all here

Is he ill or....... is it an exit strategy?

ESTABLISHMENT 'COLLUDING IN PLIGHT OF SICK MAN BROWN'?

"The Prime Minister of Great Britain is a man too ill to be holding the Office." This was the conclusion last week of a senior civil servant liaising regularly with Gordon Brown. For reasons which will become clear, the person involved will not go public with the evidence for this conclusion. The same applies to a high-ranking Treasury official who told us "In both a physical and mental sense, the Prime Minister is a very sick man, seriously disabled." Three years ago, an Opposition MP told nby "He is on extremely heavy doses of cutting-edge anti-depressants, but so far they have made little difference". And during the last fortnight, another high-ranking government source claimed "He is now on pills which restrict the foods he can eat and what he can drink. He is losing the sight of his good eye quite rapidly. It's a mess, and nobody knows what to do".

You can read it all here. It makes disturbing reading.

If this is true, and is known about in Cabinet circles, then those ministers that do know, should be hounded out of office for allowing a mentally sick man to be left in charge of the country.

However my thoughts are that this could be a way for Brown to leave office in October with his supposed (In his mind) reputation in tact. There would be no need to have a public leadership election, for the very reason that they could state that the general election in May would be close enough.




©2009 Not Born Yesterday and John Ward.

H/T to Anna Raccoon and Old Holborn.

Lest we forget

Just to remember the Men and Women in our armed forces.




Thanks to VOTR for taking me back to my youth with this melody

Maths the easy way

Mmm, Difficult.