Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I’ll begin.

The other day I was in my daughter’s car with her driving and my one year old grandson in the back. After much general small talk the conversation turned to their upcoming holiday in the Canaries. The only part that my daughter expressed concern about was having her son on her lap for up to seven hours.

At that I remarked lighheartedly that they shouldn’t be so tight and should have bought a seat for their son. I was wrong. Apparently airlines do not allow children of his age to have a seat of their own. For safety reasons.

This struck me as very odd. If my daughter was to ride in my car with her son sitting on her lap we would most likely be prosecuted for child abuse/ reckless endangerment/ or attempted murder of a minor, etc.(Pick crime of your choice). We’d probably end up in a maximum security prison in this strange day and age.n E

Of course my daughter would do any such thing as she has a state of the art car seat which fits all modern cars. All modern cars have an Isofix system specifically design for the quick and secure fitting of these seats.

My point is that as parents of a child this age will be taking their car seat/ push chair with them to their holiday resort. Why the fuck aren’t the aircraft seats fitted with Isofix?

Too expensive? No. Especially if I was a budget airline owner I could coin in the cash.

Just insist, in the interest of safety, all children would have to be seated in an isofix seat. Of course you would still have to pay for the airline seat. They could also rent out the isofix seat to you for a huge small fee.

After all if the PTB consider it dangerous for a child not to be suitably restrained in a car at 30 Mph, then surely it makes sense that a child should be suitably restrained in an aircraft doing 500 Mph.

PS Ryanair and Easyjet. This is my idea. Gimmee ten percent of the profit you make.

The flip side of a cordless drill

The driver is looking really, really, impatient.

Next time use a lower torque setting.

Stoptober. The success story.

Well no actually. I didn’t smoke for the equivalent of approximately ten days.

Then again I’ve always found that either the ciggie goes out when I’m trying to sleep or that  Mrs FE gets seriously annoyed at me pissing on the bed sheets to put the fire out.

Joking aside there is the law of unintended consequences.

This is what the Tobacco Control industry ahs to say.

Stoptober, backed by Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation, hopes a united effort will help many of England's eight million smokers to quit successfully.

Research shows people who stop smoking for 28 days are five times more likely to stay smoke-free.

Smokers who join Stoptober are given free support to help them quit, including a mobile phone app that can monitor quitters' progress and offer daily motivational texts to keep them on track.

Ok, Those week willed people might stop and save money.

However this could derail the Tobacco Control Industry’s desire to smash those evil Tobacco companies.

But perhaps smokers looking for somewhere sensible to stick their new cash - which would have been spent on fags - could invest it in tobacco companies' shares?

Ethical? Maybe not, but tobacco has long been recognised as a solid performer in terms of gaining returns, particularly during times of economic stress - typical returns range from 7% to 16%.

Charles Stanley's tobacco analyst, Tina Cook, told Huffington Post UK that tobacco companies make for a good investment as its strong industry pricing power has continued to more than offset the smaller volumes of sales despite the challenging economic conditions

"The sector boasts strong defensive qualities, global reach, and secure dividends underpinned by robust cash flows," she added.

"A recent surge in news flow around tighter tobacco legislation in mature markets has been negative, witnessed by recent share price underperformance, but growth continues to be fuelled by increased trading in emerging markets."

FE larfs like a drain at the irony of the situation.

I actually ordered one of their quit packages to see what was in it. A propaganda leaflet and an abysmal CD. Full of half truths and wishful thinking.

Almost as bad as my dentist who gave me a give up smoking, self hypnotism memory stick which urged me to quit. In the end I had to smoke twice as much to purge the droning liturgy from my head.

Flights

I’m just about to pick up my niece from Gatwick shortly.

Rather than trust the airport to give me correct/incorrect arrival time, I use a very nifty little programme called flightradar24. This allows me to track the progress of a flight in real time.

For instance at this moment her flight is at 38,000 ft and travelling at 442 kts, and on a course off 332 deg.

When it gets to Paris I shall jump into the car and head to the airport.

Just thought you might be interested.

Water proof cigarettes are not approved.

Not even ASH could beat this for pure stupidity.

I’m actually very disappointed with the Tobacco control Industry. I’ve seen very few showings of their Stoptober advert. Look come on you Tossers, you’ve only got five days to cure me of my filthy habit. I’m so worried about that, I think I’ll have to have a cigarette to alleviate the stress.

Update courtesy of Anon

Upgrading

 

I’m babysitting all day so posting will be light. I’m just taking the opportunity to make a few essential upgrades to my laptop.

Fifty shades of grey? Err No.

He was in ecstasy, with a huge smile on his face, as his girlfriend moved forwards then backwards......forwards then backwards......back and forth.........back and forth........in and out.........in and out.

Her heart was now pounding faster, her face flushed as she moaned, softly at first........then she began to groan louder! Finally.....totally exhausted she let out an almighty scream!!!

"Ok, Ok! I can't park the f**kin car! You do it you smug ba**ard!!"

My Smartphone

It has a good battery life as long as you don’t use the flash.

The humble Blogger

Donna Laframboise pens an interesting article about how the sceptical Blogger will eventually defeat the the vastly wealthy big guns of AGW proponents.

Of course the AGW’s spread disinformation about us sceptical bloggers because they think that we are the same as them.

Another day, another smarmy accusation that [click each word for a separate example] people who are skeptical of climate change are being funded by a shadowy conspiracy connected in one manner or another to big oil, big coal, big tobacco or – horror of horrors – right-wing think tanks.

However she rightly points out that your humble bloggers against the premise of AGW, are mostly self funded. operating without any outside support.

Compare and contrast to how independent individuals of utterly modest means from all over the world currently behave. They sign up to a service like Blogger.com (which is owned by Google) and, within a few hours at most, for no cost whatsoever, have launched themselves as a blogger. Alternatively, for well under $10 in hosting fees a month, they can publish their own website.

For no money, therefore, climate skeptics in the early 21st century are in a position to theoretically communicate online with as many people as is Greenpeace. From their basements and their attics, in often non-trendy geographical locations, it isn’t their funding that matters – it’s their skill sets.

In that last sentence she sums up with who these dastardly bloggers are.

In my case I was a marine engineer for 43 years. Over that time as an engineer I learnt to deal in hard facts. If I repaired machinery, I had to make sure I did it correctly. If someone had observed my work practise and computer modelled it, with the result that I had carried out the work with a 90% chance of the machinery working I would probably have hit him.

If you’re on a ship, you have to get it right, not 90% right. People die with that sort of reasoning.

Us sceptical bloggers are I think like a swarm of bees with no queen. You can swat one but the others will sting you.

Go on read her http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2010/02/22/independent-bloggers-vs-corporate-environmentalists/whole article.

I'll Trust That One Other Dentist, Thanks...

Just a thought.