I'm away.

Blogging will be light. I'm away at my son's place. He's having a radioactive scan to ascertain if he has any cancerous nodules left from his lastb treatment.

Stunning display

Now the aircraft are not ours, (Have we any?) but you have to admire this air force for this stunning display of aerial hardware in action.

Watch in full screen mode to capture the full mood of the piece.

#freethebexleyone

I see that the Ollie Cromwell case has just hit the MSM. In the case of the Daily Fail, only online. Bit slow as this has been blogged and tweeted since Friday.

Freedom of speech row over blogger who faces jail for calling councillor a c*** on Twitter

I wonder if this man will get charged with the same?

I doubt it.

Here is all the facts in case you missed them

Helping those in need.

As I walked down a busy street, knowing I was late for Church, my  eye fell upon one of those unfortunate, homeless vagabonds (you  know, tattered clothing, long hair etc) that are found in every town  these days.

Some people turned to stare. Others quickly looked away as if  the sight would somehow contaminate them.

Recalling my old parish Vicar, The reverent Mike, who always  admonished me to 'care for the sick, feed the hungry and clothe the  naked,' I was moved by some powerful inner urge to reach out to this  unfortunate person.

Wearing what can only be described as rags, carrying every  worldly possession in two plastic bags, my heart was touched by this  person's condition.

Yes, where some people saw only rags, I saw a true, hidden  beauty.
A small voice inside my head called out, 'Reach out, reach out  and touch this person!'

 

 

 

 

So I did......

 

I won't be in Church next week....

C*nts

I’m copying the entire post from Dioclese’s blog.

In an episode that would not be out of place in Orwell's 1984, Bexley Council have persued a prosecution of blogger Ollie Cromwell for calling one of their councillors a c*nt on Twitter.
The so-called 'c*ntgate affair' came about as a result of Ollie tweeting that he thought one of their councillors was a c*nt. Now if you honestly hold an opinion and believe it to be true, then you can't prosecuted successfully for libel or slander, but apparently if you express an opinion on Twitter then you can be found guilty under section 127 of the Communications Act of 2003 for using an offensive word - which is what has happened to Ollie.

More worryingly, the judiciary failed to kick this trumped up piece of crap into touch thus signalling what has been suggested in some circles as 'the herald of the death of free speech'.

Clearly, Bexley councillors are a touchy lot. I refer readers to a tweet posted under #freethebexleyone where @cjmillsnun says 'I am an elected councillor. As long as I'm not being harassed, residents can call me names if they want'. Well said, they man!!
There's an old saying that if you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen. Perhaps councillors at Bexley should take this to heart. You are, after all, elected to serve the wishes of the people. Now admittedly, people can be right c*nts but you knew that when you took the job on.

What you are not there for is to offer yourself up for self-aggrandisement and to set the thought police on your electorate.
Bexley Council are asking the judge to impose a 180 day custodial sentence on Ollie. By my reckoning this is therefore deemed to be more serious than causing death by dangerous driving where you can get off with less than this.

And while we're on the subject, guess where this prosecution was brought? Yep, Bexley - so clearly no chance whatsoever of any undue influence or bias in the proceedings at all, is there?
Surely, only a c*nt would suggest otherwise..

More HERE and HERE and HERE. And now HERE

Work

Liberal my arse

In January I was attracted to a blog hosted by a Liberal Democrat MP by the name of Stephen Williams. He of course is on the Committee that is pushing discussing the plain pack, packaging of cigarettes.

I just happened to see a link to that post this morning. This MP of course is an expert (Definition: Drip under pressure), who has served for a whole year (2005 – 2006 )(He has a degree in History BTW) as an opposition health committee member. WOW. In his post he states:

This morning I was pleased to help launch Europe’s first major campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of glitzy tobacco packaging to children.  The Coalition Government will shortly launch its consultation exercise on whether to follow the example of Australia and introduce the plain packaging of cigarettes. 

Glitzy. WTF is that? The biggest piece of “Glitzy” on my fag packet is half of one side  taken up with “Smoking Kills”, and the other side taken up with a pic of a bent cigarette with the caption “Smoking may reduce the blood flow and cause impotence.” (I’ve smoked all my life and impotence is no way an issue). You notice that they never say will, it’s always “may”.

It was interesting to review the comments. In a normal post of his, he would attract probably ten comments. In that post he attracted over nine hundred. The few Anti-smokers that appeared were comprehensively shot down with facts and figures, and as usual resorted to playing the man not the ball. Even Mr Williams was not so cocksure towards the end.

However I suspect that being one of our lords and masters he will have decided that us proles are to be treated with contempt, as plain packaging is all for the sake of the Cheeeeldren. (The professional bansturbators love to find someway to use the Children in their cause).

My opinion is that after the plain package introduction and the display ban we will see a rise in smokers. Anything that is tried to be hidden from view will tempt people to try it. It’s human nature.

Nuts!

I lost my job

I just got sacked from my job with the Samaritans and I don't really understand why ?!

A guy called Abdul phoned and said, 

"I'm lying on the railway track waiting for the train to come".

All I said was, "Remain calm and stay on the line" . . .

Epic fail

I’ve written before about the failures of offshore wind turbines before.

Apparently the grout failure problem is worse than first thought. From my source I quote the following:

Grout connections, based Densit’s Ducorit product, which sets to a strength similar to that of stone, ran into problems in 2010.

Then, IHS Emerging Energy Research reported that the grouting had started to dissolve on more than 60% of Europe’s offshore turbines, leading the machines to shift on their foundations.

So sixty percent of these turbines are in a dangerous condition.

of course they are trying a different solution for the new turbines. Will it work? Probably not.

“I am not at all convinced the new solution put forward by DNV will solve this problem,” says Golightly, an independent engineering consultant who has been working on offshore wind projects since 2010.

“Allowing what is essentially a brittle hollow cylinder of rock to take the full bending and shear force from the wave and wind loading that the turbines apply to the tower was simply a systemic design error decision, blindly followed by all developers and designers to save time and money.

“The bottom line is it is not good engineering to have two steel tubes joined with rock.”

I think a FOI request to DECC asking how many turbines are out of action is over due.