Wednesday 10 June, 2009

Funny Old World

Photo: stock.xchng

Immobilised by the mobile!

Well, I’ll just have to get on my soapbox and rant on about one of my pet-hates. Having reached the ‘magic’ age, I am allowed to be a ‘grumpy old man’.

Now I know mobile phones have their uses, especially when my wife was stuck on a steep hill on holiday in Whitby after stalling the car and was able to call the men (who had been out golfing) for assistance. But emergencies are surely what they’re for.

There was an old saying that the devil makes work for idle hands. But it’s not PC now for two reasons – one, we don’t believe in the devil any more and, secondly, we’re not suppose to accuse anyone of being work-shy because that’s discrimination.

But it’s rare to see a young woman walking down the street without a cell phone stuck to her head. I can never understand why whatever conversation they are engaged upon couldn’t have been carried out before they left home, or waited until they got back. Other women who surely have enough on their hands pushing two young children about in a buggy manage to get completely distracted by a phone conversation. Certainly, the children concerned are relegated to second place in those circumstances – no wonder they end up running wild.

And far too many arrogant people (men and women) continue to use the phone while driving (even while turning corners) – although, if I may digress, if mobiles are illegal while driving so should smoking as cigarettes have to be lit, and ashes and fag-ends have to be disposed of. I know cars have ash-trays, but our ignorant, lawless natives prefer to throw them out the window.

Anyway, back to mobiles. What took the biscuit for me the other day was arriving in the northern suburbs of London on the way to visit my mum and, with the lights turned green, to find myself being held up by someone on a mobile. He was actually a runner, crossing a busy road against the lights completely oblivious to the rest of the world. Was he the President of the United States that he couldn’t even go for a run without his mobile? Charles Gardner

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Strange fruit

Having knocked the BBC over their excesses, here’s a heart-warming story of ingenuity and frugality from that quarter. Apparently Watchdog presenter Anne Robinson complained that her dressing room fruit bowl had a ‘too hairy’ kiwi fruit. Faced with no more stocks of such fruit, catering staff whipped out a pair of scissors and gave it a trim. Now that’s cost-conscious! Nick Thompson

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Otter madness

The Labour Conference made a symbolic return to Brighton’s Grand Hotel with a security operation costing £6 million, making it the most expensive in UK history, so there’s another record for Labour. The operation code named Otter required a year’s planning and involved hundreds of police. Why do I wonder if they should have bothered? Nick Thompson

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Fleecing the public

In the face of the pronouncement that Pandas should be allowed to die out, it has been revealed that the environmental lobby have a hierarchy of animals who tug on the public’s heartstrings – the top three being Panda, Tiger and Whale. So they seem to have devised an evolutionary strategy that makes the Panda the height of development in that its super-cute looks make it the most powerful species on our planet. Nick Thompson

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Marr’s attacks

Doubtless you have read Andrew Marr’s follow-up on the blogosphere ramblings over Gordon Brown’s alleged usage of anti-depressants, which he justified with the explanation ‘everyone in Westminster is talking about it’. Well, here’s another thing people in Westminster are talking about but which hasn’t been subject to the same very public scrutiny. Apparently Andrew Marr has taken out a swingeing injunction against the press concerning aspects of his own private life. So swingeing is this injunction that Private Eye has spent a fortune on lawyers simply to be allowed to say that the injunction even exists. However, there is an old saying about people in glasshouses which feels appropriate, and there are rumours that Labour worthies are discussing using parliamentary privilege to reveal Marr’s secret. Ouch! Nick Thompson

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The gene pool needs some chlorine

James and Wayne Snell planned a brilliant bank robbery after carefully surveying their target with their two accomplices. They struck late at night, dressed in dark, anonymous clothing and wearing balaclavas. They made off with more than £100,000. It was the perfect crime, but for one tiny detail. The car in which the four carried out their surveillance operation had a personalised number plate – J4 MES. It proved extremely memorable to passers-by outside a branch of the Halifax in Cardiff and it proved extremely useful to the police in tracing the culprits. They traced James Snell’s blue BMW to a flat in a suburb north of Cardiff, which in turn led them to a flat in another part of the city where the two brothers were caught red-handed, and somewhat red-faced, with £30,000 in bank notes. Nick Thompson

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Sense and Sensibility

Microsoft boss Bill Gates apparently presented these rules of life to a group of high school students.

1. Life is not fair – live with it.
   
2. The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. It expects you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
   
3. You will not earn £60,000 per year straight out of school and you won’t be a director with a company car until you earn both.
   
4. If you think school is tough, wait until work.
   
5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents have a word for this kind of work – opportunity.
   
6. When you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault. Don’t whine about mistakes, learn from them.
   
7. Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they seem now. It’s the result of paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you telling them how cool you are. So before you go and save an endangered species, clean out your wardrobe.
   
8. School may have done away with winners and losers, but life hasn’t. Life has not abolished failing grades.
   
9. Life does not divide into terms, there are no long summer holidays and not that many employers are that interested in helping you find yourself; it’s a self-help subject.
   
10. Television is not real life. Real people have to leave the café or pub to do their job.
    
11. Be nice to nerds; you will probably end up working for one. Nick Thompson
    

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Education, Education, Education

Well, that was Tony Blair’s mantra but now Gordon Brown seems to be dabbling with football.
Not satisfied with congratulating England on qualifying for the World Cup, the game has moved on though we aren’t yet quite at the stage of the PM taking over at the FA.
If you haven’t read about it, Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe has written to the FA, the Premier League and the Football League, expressing concerns about various issues, including a perceived lack of development at the ‘grass roots’ level of the game.
When asked whether the government could pull their £25 million funding from football’s lower levels, Sutcliffe said: “That’s one of the levers we have. It would be a last resort, and we certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that would harm grassroots football. We will wait to see what The FA’s response is to the letter that we put forward.”
As we said, it’s not exactly a coup d’etat, but those on high might want to take note of what happened to the Hellenic Football Federation in 2006. Greece and its member clubs were banned from international competition due to government interference, and breaking rules on ‘the independence of members and decision-making in each country’. Greek law was eventually altered and the ban lifted, but it’s just something to bear in mind. Nick Thompson

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Do the maths

A BBC report on last Saturday’s Sunderland match had the following commentary. “By handing Jones the chance to convert the second penalty, Bent also missed the opportunity to go level at the top of the Premier League scoring charts with Wayne Rooney, who has six compared to the Sunderland man’s five.” Clearly they’re so dazzled by Fernando Torres’ eight league goals they believe it’s unfair to lump him in with the rest. Nick Thompson

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Important v urgent

I spend a lot of time at work encouraging my departmental heads to focus on the important rather than the urgent. And this week has given them an object lesson in what not to do.
Length of time it took Gordon Brown to comment on the release of Libyan terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi – around 13 days. Length of time it took Gordon Brown to comment on England’s success in clinching a 2010 World Cup place – around 13 minutes.
It’s good to know our PM has his priorities right.Nick Thompson

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It’s all about value

I was privileged to sit in on a round table with the Archbishop of York this week and one of the things he said shocked me. Apparently Rover Cars were asking the Government for a £1 million loan to tide it over whilst it tied up a partnership with a Chinese automotive company. But that was refused and the rest is history, with thousands of jobs lost.
Now compare that to the cost of holding the enquiry into what went wrong, estimated at about £13 million without a single job created.
Now is it me or would it have made more sense to make the loan? Well at least to everyone bar the Chinese automotive company who saved a fortune picking up the scraps from a bankrupt Rover. Nick Thompson

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Mercury rising

It was the Mercury Music Awards this week, and whilst we have been led to believe it tends to focus on struggling young artists who need a hand with the sales boost nomination brings them, it may not be such an altruistic process as that.
Apparently the award costs £200 to enter and £300 per head for the awards dinner, and that doesn’t include a pay bar. Rumour has it that some of the nominees smuggle booze in so they can enjoy a drink. And with ten each at around 100 tables, it all makes the £20,000 prize feel like small beer. Nick Thompson

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Gentler times

In the week that Chelsea were landed a lengthy transfer ban for using their financial muscle to lure young players and other Premiership clubs breathe a ‘There but for the grace of God’ moment, it might be good to remember simpler times.
Around ten years ago a 16-year-old called Jermaine Defoe apparently left Charlton for West Ham on the back of the latter promising to buy his mum a fridge.
Isn’t it good to see that boys still love their mums? Nick Thompson

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Biological basics – the difference between a man and a woman!

The extraordinary time taken over the so-called gender test of the South African woman athlete who has outrun her opponents by miles at the World Championships in Berlin defies common sense.
Why it takes so long to work out whether she is male or female is something which the likes of me, who is the son of a doctor and went to boarding school where we used to shower in front of dozens of fellow boarders, finds particularly hard to grasp.
I do not wish to be crude, but take it from me – the quickest way to discover whether someone is a man or a woman, surely, is to ask them to take their clothes off! Charles Gardner

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Children are more intelligent than ever!

The annual A-level saga of whether the constant improvements in results devalue the examination has, of course, come up again. And in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme, an education ‘expert’ replied to the traditional question with the quite simple explanation: “Today’s children are more intelligent!”

He obviously believes in evolution. But as one who has monitored the credentials of school-leavers over nearly four decades (albeit unscientifically), I struggle to agree. The three Rs alone – reading, writing and arithmetic – seem to have gone down the swanee over the years. Few can spell, not many can add up (judging by shop assistants) and even less can string sentences together with any degree of cohesion. Charles Gardner

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I know how to spell nepotism

Jay Hunt lives well as a BBC senior executive – great pay, amazing expenses and yet it would seem even that is simply not enough.

She is also company secretary for a media training business – run by her husband – providing training services to the BBC, which spends £45m per annum on its in-house training department.

Three years ago it was revealed that her former husband set up a similar business. The BBC’s response is similar to that of MPs in the expenses row. Ms Hunt has acted within the guidelines, we are told – guidelines that would never have been accepted by Lord Reith. Nick Thompson

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Death duties et al

Isabel Cosgrove, a BBC human resources worker, has written to Ariel, the BBC’s in-house magazine, complaining that she has been banned from sending wreaths to the families of colleagues who have died while working for the corporation.

Which seems almost ‘Animal Farmish’ given that executives can spend sums in excess of £100 on bouquets for talent of the nature of Jonathan Ross, and BBC bosses claim expenses for attending funerals including: Richard Deverell – head of Children’s Television ($45 for a wreath in April 2008); Jonathan Beazley – Controller of BBC Vision (£4 tube fare for a memorial service); and Mark Damazer – Controller of Radio 4 (£25 for returning from a funeral – would anyone have noticed if he’d stayed?)
So we are all equal brothers, but some are more equal than others. Nick Thompson

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Thick hearts and thin skins

The BBC has run into another storm this week with Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘Berlin to Warsaw on One Tank’ spoof advertisement for VW Scirocco, and I am wondering what on earth all the fuss is about. OK, so it wasn’t in the best of taste, but does anyone seriously think it was a real advertisement?

Actually, I think all the fuss is symptomatic of a modern malaise where we have thin skins and thick hearts. So never mind that Hamas and Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers years ago and no-one knows what became of them, never mind about the Britons kidnapped in Iraq, never mind that Iran is building nuclear weapons, who cares. But hang on, Jeremy Clarkson has run a poor taste advertisement – a matter of serious import.

Europe came to a watershed when Martin Luther protested the indulgences of the Catholic Church. Perhaps it’s time for another watershed created by a similarly prophetic figure protesting the self-indulgences of modern Western society.

Then we might get back on kilter with thick skins and thin hearts. I sense that is the way God would have us. Nick Thompson

Revenge is sweet

Just a guess here, but I suspect these two things have a link somewhere:

Wednesday July 8: The Guardian runs a major lead on News International title News of the World running a phone-hacking ring that embarrassed News International executives as they tried to explain it to MPs.

Sunday August 2: The Sunday Times leaks a report that the Guardian Media Group are considering an option to close The Observer. …Coincidence? Nick Thompson

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and… Respect!

I was at a family funeral on Friday – it has come to that time of my life where the generation before me are coming to the end of the road. My uncle and aunt had been married 70 years and died within three days of each other. The service was lovely – a walk through the memories of their lives – and at one point the Catholic priest taking the service remarked that they had learnt the 4 Rs at school. That had me scratching my head, metaphorically of course, so I later asked about the fourth. “Respect,” smiled the elderly priest.

As a youth I had loathed standing up for teachers, asking permission to go to the toilet or leave the table, and then in a flash I realised the whole point of it. And I also realised that, in our drive for treating young people with kid gloves, we are in danger of robbing respect from their experience. Some recover and go on to be fine young men and women of whom we can be proud, but for others school is the only place they will ever have the chance to learn respect, and our liberal politicians have robbed them of it. I shed a tear for the departed – and it wasn’t my uncle and aunt. Nick Thompson

Take that Lady Gaga

I don’t know how many of you keep up with pop music – I do by proxy – but this week I was able to tell my daughter something a little bird had told me.

Lady Gaga, this year’s pop sensation who for some Freudian reason I persist in calling Gargoyle, was backing Take That in their current tour. Sadly she fell ill and missed two shows in Manchester. Or did she? My little bird told me that Lady Gargoyle turned up with two truckloads of kit for her show, only to find that the perfectionist leader of Take That, Gary Barlow, had his own show planned. Cue big fall-out which took two days for Lady Gargoyle to bow to the inevitable and get with the plan. So now the show is back on and everyone is in harmony – well, relatively. Nick Thompson

My old man’s a milkman

My dad was a milkman; in fact I spent several years helping him every Saturday and Sunday. Reminiscing on this with a mate the other night, I learnt about a host of celebrity ‘milkies’ – Liz Hurley’s granddad delivered to the Palmer-Tompkinsons, Noddy Holder delivered to Ozzy Osbourne’s dad, Sean Connery delivered to Betty Boo’s gran and Sting delivered to lots of people. So I walked with the greats! Nick Thompson

Old tricks, new dogs

You may recall that I laughed at the O2’s trick of trying to save some of the ticket revenues from the not-to-be Michael Jackson shows with the memorial ticket stunt.

Evidently it’s nothing new. Field Marshal Montgomery was apparently a gambling man and when he lost he would pay his debts by cheque, writing on the back words to the effect “Beaten by the better man, your gambling friend Bernard Montgomery.” It seems few were ever cashed, but there was a whole load framed and displayed for posterity. Nick Thompson

How to win friends

You’ve probably read about the alleged attempted murder of a pupil by a teacher in Mansfield. But did you know that there is a website called ratemyteacher where Mr Harvey, the alleged perpetrator, enjoyed a five out of five mark which, even after the alleged incident, only dropped to 3.7 and is now back at 4.6?

The average score for other teachers at the school is 3.6 which means that even after these events Mr Harvey is more popular than the other teachers in the school. All of which makes me wonder where the victim of this alleged assault would appear on the popularity charts. Nick Thompson

What’s in a name?

In the week in which we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landings, it might be a good time to reflect that the maiden name of Buzz Aldrin’s mum was Moon. Nick Thompson

Jamie’s rescue was worth every penny

The rescue of British backpacker Jamie Neale from the Blue Mountains of Australia, where he was lost for twelve days, is a warming tale of ‘all’s well that ends well’ – even though it cost the host country millions.

Most heart-warming of all was the down to earth frankness and geniality of his dad, who at the same time as being overwhelmingly grateful for the recovery of his boy, vowed to “kick his (backside)” for his stupidity, saying he must be the only teenager in the world to go on a ten-mile hike without a mobile phone!

A teenager without a mobile! Now that is novel; young Jamie must be quite a character to swim against the raging tide of coolness with such aplomb, and I reckon it was worth all the Aussie taxpayers’ money to rescue a young man who shows such a clear inclination for a recovery of sanity among the new generation.

And in any case, having a mobile would not necessarily have helped to pinpoint his position in that vast forested area. Charles Gardner

On the one hand

I have seen two stories presenting different angles on the same subject over the last week. One, well researched and with ample evidence, received little or no coverage in the mainstream media; the other, which seemed entirely speculative, received almost wall to wall coverage. The first was news that scientific research had demonstrated that the size of dinosaurs had been massively over-estimated in the course of which scientists have probably doubled their size.

The first I knew about this was when I read Andrew Halloway’s excellent article on this site. The second was the story that some dinosaur bones have been found by palaeontologists in Australia and that these bones introduce us to three new types of dinosaur – one massive predator and two herbivore. And they know this from a few bones? The story was covered on TV, radio and in the newspapers.

The thought that struck me was whether or not the speculation around this story was based on the old flawed estimation system or the new improved one. Oh and, of course, why our news media chose to promote speculation over demonstrable fact. It isn’t as if they’ve got previous in that area is it? Nick Thompson

Gravy train hits buffers

The news that our government has taken the East Coast franchise away from National Express should be the final nail in the coffin of the idea that what is essentially a public service can be run by private companies whose focus is earning dividends for their shareholders and bonuses for their executives rather than delivering a national transport strategy.
Of course it won’t because someone else will come in with the belief that they can make the service pay, and why shouldn’t they? Trains are packed, fares keep going up. So where did it all go wrong for National Express?
I suspect it was in the Machiavellian financial arrangements that seem obligatory for our current government. If they could concentrate on providing essential services, rather than continually going for complex and flawed financial engineering, then the UK would be a far better place. Nick Thompson

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Desperately seeking something

Promoters of Michael Jackson’s planned shows at the O2 Arena in London have offered fans the option of a “specially created” souvenir ticket rather than a full refund.
AEG Live said full refunds are available for all legitimately bought tickets, but went on to suggest that some fans of the singer, who died last week, might prefer to receive a ticket “inspired and designed by Michael Jackson for the fans” and made with a “special lenticular process”.
Sadly these fans are not able to have their cake and eat it. “Since Michael loved his fans in life, it is incumbent upon us to treat them with the same reverence and respect after his death,” commented Randy Phillips, president and chief executive of AEG Live. So nothing to do with keeping hold of some of the ticket revenues then… Nick Thompson

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Desperately seeking some of the other

An Oklahoma prostitute was apparently so desperate for business that she was caught having sex with a man in exchange for a box of crisps. Police officers who followed Lahoma Smith’s vehicle eventually discovered her and a man engaged in sexual activity inside.
She told officers that the man asked her for sex but did not have any ready cash so they had agreed that he would give her the crisps.
I sincerely hope they were good quality crisps, maybe something like Seabrooks or Kettle Chips; the idea of Quavers or the Gary Lineker-promoted Walkers just doesn’t bear thinking about. Nick Thompson

Happy campers

I see that Richard Dawkins is the prime mover behind a summer camp to protect children from the insidious threat of Christian versions. Now I might be missing something but I thought that TV, music, films, computer games etc are already doing a pretty good job of capturing the attention of young people up and down the land, indeed around the world.

However, this camp will allow children to search for unicorns. Now again I might be wrong but I think your average chav would probably kill and roast a unicorn if they could find one. You know, this project actually makes me stop and wonder if Mr Dawkins isn’t just interested in promoting himself and his books. Then again, I could be evolving into a cynical old git. Nick Thompson

There’s no business like showbusiness

Farewell Setanta, a brave underdog fighting the corporate behemoths who fell prey to the ravenous monster that is the credit crunch. Or maybe just a profligate entrepreneurial company run by a group who gained their collective MBAs from Planet Zog.

Here’s the thing… To screen a Premier League game Sky Sports take two car park passes and 22 stadium passes for crew, pundits and guests. By contrast, Setanta demanded 66 car park passes and 120 stadium passes. …Any clues there? Nick Thompson

Armpits of mass destruction

Apparently President Ahmadinejad is known in political and diplomatic circles for his body odour, being described as rather musty and smelling like a billy goat. How do they know that? A Whitehall source, who was apparently rather drunk at the time, gave a revealing insight into the West’s view on Middle East politics.

According to this source, the Chinese are very particular about personal hygiene and are appalled by President Ahmadinejad. So much so that he actually offends them. And so setting aside all concerns about democracy, the rule of law, electoral fraud etc, both Britain and the USA are quite happy for him to stay in power on the basis that China is highly unlikely to give political support to someone who offends them so much. All of which will help delay the day when Iran gets nuclear weapons. Now that is a funny old world. Nick Thompson

Bit of a tiff

The very day after President Obama praised the Iranian protesters for showing bravery in the face of brutality, President Ahmadinejad responded by criticising the comments and stating that Western leaders who make insulting and irrelevant comments about Iran will be put on trial, also vowing to take a tougher approach to the West. Perhaps as a result President Obama will reflect on the futility of nice words and gestures to Iran. Then again, at least he was given the promise of a trial, which is something the protesters don’t seem to be getting the benefit of. Nick Thompson

The essential internet, by Gordon Brown

I was somewhat perturbed to hear Gordon Brown’s view that everyone should have access to the internet in their homes in this digital age …that it had become as essential as electricity and water.

Hmmm! When the power fails it’s either because the switch has fused, the bulb has expired or the bill hasn’t been paid. When the tap is turned on, water comes out, and when it leaks, it probably needs a new washer.

But when I have a computer problem – at work anyway where we are on a network – I get messages like this popping up on my screen: “Get latest tasted communication link failure.”

Just what sort of gobbledygook is that? It’s presumably designed to keep an elite world of IT technicians in constant employment rather in the manner that legal jargon ensures plenty of work – and extra money – for lawyers, if only to decipher what they could have told us in plain English at a much earlier stage.

There’s another message that, when it comes up, you know the system is about to crash – something about “getting the last ticket” rather like a lastminute.com promotion. Only they never mention a tempting destination. But I do feel like telling them where to get off as I’m left at the terminal in a fog of confusion. I’d stick to water and electricity if I had the choice. Charles Gardner

Electric cigarette banned from office

I was gob-smacked the other day when, as a member of our firm’s Health and Safety Committee, the subject of ‘electric cigarettes’ came up. Not only had I never heard of such a thing, I thought it was a joke. No, it does indeed exist, I was assured, and it was on the agenda because in our brave new world of smoke-free offices with chain-smokers booted outside into the ‘fresh air’, it was thought necessary to declare that electric cigarettes are also banned from the workplace.

Apparently they contain an element of nicotine which gets expelled into the atmosphere. But the most dangerous part of the process, to my mind, is the potential shock to those ‘plugged in’ to such a contraption. Or do they run on batteries?

Anyway, it all serves to add to my ‘policeman’ duties at the office where I often find myself having to reprimand those who neglect to turn off lights in the loo etc (I’m also the ‘carbon footprint’ officer).

Yes, it’s a funny old world – mad even. But you are welcome to bring your electric cigarettes to my 60th birthday party at beautiful Osterley Park on the western outskirts of London this weekend. Only bring your own electricity – and picnic! Charles Gardner

A leopard cannot change its spots

So there is trouble in Iran after the current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is accused of vote-rigging and electoral fraud.

Well, there’s a surprise! This is the man who was reputedly involved in the American hostage-taking, has called for Israel to be wiped out and continually assures the world that he is not building a nuclear weapons facility. He is also the man who said he felt a halo over his head while he addressed the UN and who believes it is his destiny to usher in the 13th Imam or Mahdi. So is anyone shocked about these claims? Nick Thompson

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Wisdom for life

I was sent an e-mail the other day that listed the 45 most important things someone had ever learnt. Here are some of them:

Life is too short to waste hating someone

You do not have to win every argument. To agree to disagree shows maturity

It’s OK to get angry with God – he can handle it

Save for retirement, starting with your first wage packet

When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile

Make peace with your past so it doesn’t screw up your present

Never compare your life to others; you don’t know where their journey has taken them

If a relationship has secrets, then you probably shouldn’t be in it

Get rid of everything in your life that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful

It is never too late to have a happy childhood, but your second one is up to you

The most important sex organ is your brain

No-one is responsible for your happiness but you

When faced with disaster, ask yourself whether in five years it will matter

What people think of you is none of your business

Forgive everyone everything

Time heals everything – so give time, time

Don’t take yourself so seriously – no-one does

God loves you because of who he is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do

Growing old beats the alternative

If we all threw our problems onto a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d take ours back

Envy is a waste of time; you have all you need

Even though life isn’t tied with a bow, it is still a gift

Nick Thompson

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Staff relations

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics?

• 29 have been accused of spouse abuse
• 7 have been arrested for fraud
• 9 have been accused of writing bad cheques
• 17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least two businesses
• 3 have done time for assault
• 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
• 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
• 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
• 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
• 84 have been arrested for drink-driving in the last year

Which organisation is this?

It’s the 635 members of the House of Commons, the body that produces out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep us in line. Nick Thompson

Pareto’s Law

I’m sure you are all familiar with Pareto’s Law, but here is a great example of it.

Twitter is an online phenomenon that is allegedly sweeping the world. However, what research demonstrates is that 90% of all Tweets come from 10% of users. The worrying thing is that most of them are men. So much for women being the gossips… Nick Thompson

And we tell Irish jokes!

I received a selection of genuine complaints from holiday travellers and was left thinking we need to put some chlorine in the gene pool.
Here is a sample of the best/worst – it’s your choice.

“We bought Ray-Ban sunglasses for five euros from a street trader, only to find out they were fake.”
“No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled.”
“It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England, but it only took the Americans three hours.”
“I compared the size of our one-bed apartment to our friends’ three-bed version and ours was significantly smaller.”
“The brochure stated ‘No hairdressers at the hotel’. We’re trainee hairdressers – will we be OK staying here?”
“We had to queue outside with no air-conditioning.”
”On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”

As my friend says, ‘Blessed are the cracked: for it is they who let in the light.’ Nick Thompson

Mail myths

I recently received an e-mail reputedly showing a young Iranian boy having his arm crushed under a car wheel as punishment for stealing bread. The odd thing was that it was his left arm being crushed and even I know that Islamic law uses the right hand for punishment. So I did a little digging. The pictures in the e-mail are genuine, but the commentary and stated context are not. The pictures originated from an Iranian news agency and show a street magician doing a stunt to elicit cash from sympathetic onlookers.

The question that bothers me is who in their right mind, and with integrity, would go to the trouble of collating these pictures, creating a false legend around them and then circulate them around the world. I’m also confused by people who receive the mails and then blindly forward them without standing the story up. Then again, maybe I’m missing something about the subtle art of propaganda. Nick Thompson

EU law is an ass

Apparently the EU has passed a law that will forbid churches from refusing to give communion or baptism to non-Christians. Still, there is a silver lining in every cloud because this will surely mean that Christians can become members of synagogues and mosques and join any political party they like regardless of whether or not they support its ideals. We might even be able to stretch it to the point where we can claim MPs’ expenses. One guy I know is already planning to enter the Olympics and join the Royal Family.

This all comes on the back of a Christian charity worker in Southampton being sacked for discussing his beliefs when answering a colleague’s question and the announcement that teenage mums will be awarded a GCSE in parenting. Now consider the swotting for that exam for a moment. Has the world gone mad? Or are we the mad ones for accepting this tosh from our politicians? Nick Thompson

MPs’ expenses

There has been more than enough said about MPs’ expenses and I do not intend to add anything to the furore beyond this thought. This Labour Government relaxed the regulations around the financial services industry and created the conditions that brought about our current economic meltdown. They also relaxed the regulations around MPs’ expenses and created the fraud and deception currently being revealed in the Daily Telegraph.

Can anyone remind me of other regulations they relaxed that have preceded disaster? Let me think: I guess we are talking about exams, gender politics and the gay community. When will enough be enough and these woolly-minded hypocrites recognise that, for the good of our country, change is needed. Nick Thompson

The truth about prison

I was arrested and put in prison yesterday. Shock, horror – but it was all for charity and it certainly opened my eyes.

When four police officers – including three attractive WPCs – came to arrest me, I thought it was a bit of a laugh. Even when I was locked in the police van, I was still smiling and thinking it was fun. But on entering prison itself, the truth started to dawn. We were taken on a tour and, to my disappointment, I didn’t see a single plasma screen although I did see TVs and got the distinct impression that the aim of the officers was to keep the prisoners calm and quiet.

Now while I believe we are far too soft on the bad people in society, I recognised yesterday that there is a percentage of the prison population who are there because of dysfunctional families and I do not believe society is doing enough to wean them off that destructive lifestyle.

So yes, I am still in favour of capital and corporal punishment, but I am now in favour of doing more to break the cycle of despair that locks some of these people in an unending cycle of crime. And the good news is that I raised sufficient bail to be released. So thank you to everyone who kindly supported the charities and, for the messages involving the showers, please note that my bar of soap is unopened. Nick Thompson

£200m aircraft written off

Now I appreciate this is theoretically an old story, but it has evidently been suppressed by our mainstream media.

A brand spanking new £200m Airbus 340-600 sits outside its hangar in Toulouse and a flight crew from Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies arrives to conduct pre-delivery tests.

They run-up the four engines to maximum power, but the aircraft is empty and therefore incredibly light. The take-off warning horn goes off because the aircraft computers think it is trying to take off.

Eventually the noise is heard and one of the crew decides to silence it with a circuit-breaker, but of course this fools the aircraft into thinking it’s in the air, so the computer automatically releases all the brakes and the aircraft rockets forward. The crew has no idea this is an inherent safety feature which ensures you do not try to land with the brakes on, with the result that this wonderful new £200m aircraft rams into a crash barrier and gets written off.

The full extent of crew injuries was never known because of a media blackout on the story, and this is the really funny bit. The story was blacked out because it was deemed insulting to the Muslim world. Of course they should have known that in a contest between a £200m aircraft and a wall, the wall would win. Nick Thompson

Our great democracy

Apparently BNP leader Nick Griffin has been effectively banned from the Buckingham Palace Garden Party in what amounts to another step on our slide towards a fascist dictator state. On the values of this decision, it is OK to embrace IRA terrorists and allow them to claim MPs’ expenses, to accommodate Muslim fundamentalist groups, give away your national heritage to Brussels and defraud the nation through Parliamentary expenses, but to speak out on what you believe about the state of the nation, you are persona non-grata.

I may not like Mr Griffin or his politics but I will defend his right to free speech and to represent the many British people who vote BNP. This decision is made by people who wouldn’t recognise democracy if it stood up and hit them which, incidentally, is what we should do at the European and Council elections. A curious part of me is hoping for a UKIP/BNP landslide with all the money-grubbing Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem candidates thrown out on their ears. Nick Thompson

Two lunches

A Sky News viewer’s contribution to the MPs’ expenses furore paraphrased Winston Churchill with ‘never have so few taken so much from so many’.

I also heard another great story concerning Michael Gove, one of our free-spending MPs. Apparently in his younger days as a budding journalist at the Daily Telegraph Mr Gove submitted an expenses claim for lunch with Ken Clarke. “Funny,” exclaimed his boss. “I had lunch with Ken Clarke that day.” Michael Gove’s reply: “Greedy b***** must have had two lunches.” Nick Thompson

Swine ’Flu – it’s got previous!

I had my own personal alcohol gel hand-wash delivered today – all part of the war against Swine ’Flu. Though I thought it was all a bit manic, I decided to do a little research and, to my surprise, discovered that it has visited us before – only it was frequently known as Spanish ’Flu then.

Swine ’Flu first emerged as a normal, non-lethal ’flu in the spring of 1918, but mutated over the ensuing six months or so into a monster that killed an estimated 21 million people in just four months. World War I took four years to rack up those kinds of casualty figures. And it is estimated that in the run of Swine ’Flu some 50 million victims died worldwide; some even estimate as many as 100 million. I think I’ll be using that hand-wash! Nick Thompson

Goldilocks and the Three Beds

There is so much to query in the MPs’ expenses scandal, but the £1,900-plus claim for three beds grabbed my attention. Why three beds – surely you can only use one? …Unless you are organising a new version of Goldilocks for the constituency’s children. Nick Thompson

Shock, horror – F1 driver has humour

Sebastian Vettel is the new pin-up boy of Formula 1 racing. Regarded by adoring German fans as the next Michael Schumacher, younger than Lewis Hamilton and widely liked across the sport, Vettel has evidently yet to undergo his media training.

Following his first win, a journalist asked him if it was the best day of his life. Vettel’s reply was: “You obviously weren’t around when I lost my virginity.” Nick Thompson

Gullible’s travails

The Advertising Standards Authority received 23 complaints over advertising for POM Wonderful, a pomegranate drink.

Now while I appreciate that we are long past the days of snake oil salesmen who promised immortality and then had the presence of mind to disappear, it is difficult to accept that anyone was able to take POM’s advertising seriously.

It showed a bottle with a broken noose around it, together with the words ‘Cheat Death’. Could anyone really take that seriously? However, the ASA listened carefully and pronounced the following judgment: “Although we noted there was no intention to mislead or make an objective claim about longer life, we concluded that the claim ‘Cheat Death’ was misleading.”

So what have we learnt from this Solomon-like judgment? Well, we now know for a fact that even in these advanced days there is always someone, somewhere, who will take a claim, however preposterous, seriously and literally, or clever so and so’s who are willing to defend those they consider to be gullible. So no more will I encourage my son to drink his cocoa with the words ‘Go on son, it will put hairs on your chest’ or ‘Get it down, it will put some lead in your pencil,’ just in case I offend the ASA. Nick Thompson

Living with a Twitter queen

I have just discovered I am sharing my wife with somewhat over 500 people, which came as a bit of a shock seeing we only have five bedrooms. You see,
my wife is a queen of Twitter, Facebook etc and has developed a following rivalling that of some of our League One and Two teams with people from a multitude of countries hanging on her every word.

Is nothing sacred? Am I to share the marital home with countless hordes from around the globe, or should I adopt Luddite-like tendencies and ban her from the internet? Or perhaps I should bathe in the reflection of her on-line glory and learn to live with the crowds. At least I’ll never feel alone. Nick Thompson

A game of two nations

Reflecting on the Champions League, it is clear that England stands astride professional club football like a colossus. So isn’t it a little surprising that we have turned to an Italian, whose country are the world champions, to restore our international fortunes?

Well, no actually. With England’s top three clubs accused of financial doping by the very regulators who slumbered while we went into economic meltdown, we are actually home to a game living beyond its means and with an accumulation of debts that, proportionately, make Britain seem financially rigorous.

So we stand astride a game burdened with un-payable debts, populated by mercenaries from across the globe, and with a national team managed by an Italian. But if you support one of the big four, who’s complaining? Nick Thompson

The delectable Miss Knightley

I have to confess that I have long admired the more ascetic aspects of Keira Knightley and believe she is a jolly fine, not to say rather good-looking actress.

But this week she demonstrated that she has brains as well as beauty. In a refreshing break from the hushed tones celebrities employ when speaking about the t’internet, Miss Knightley has proclaimed that she neither blogs nor uses Facebook – three cheers – and believes the internet is a dehumanising influence on society.

Now I do appreciate the irony of using the internet to applaud this view, but the girl is talking the pure unadulterated truth.

For some time now I have suspected that users of Facebook and Twitter are sad people who don’t actually have a life to live and therefore eke out a Walter Mitty like existence on-line. So bravo to the lovely Keira for being the childlike voice who declares the Emperor has no clothes on. It’s time we all started living rather than virtualising. Nick Thompson

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!

I was amazed to hear the result of a survey of chart-topping song choices for funerals. There wasn’t a hymn among the top five, with Frank Sinatra’s My Way at No 1 and Bette Midler next with that nice number about the wind.

Actually they were all good tunes, but all were pop songs, which I just feel is so sad. It seems that death, as well as life, has become trivialised by a humanistic world that puts no value on eternity. One ex-journalist colleague of mine requested Great Balls of Fire for his funeral. Such goodbyes have their moments of mirth, but there is nothing to compare with the joy of singing faith-filled songs to mark the departure to a better life of someone who loved God. Charles Gardner

Hot air going cheap

A Mr Leonard Glynn has written to the national press about a letter he received from EasyJet signed by a lady who described herself as Customer Service Champion.

Now at the risk of assuming she did not win this title through a series of martial and sporting challenges, it does highlight the extent to which our culture has fallen foul of market-speak.

To my mind champion means to defend or put first, but I somehow doubt that, where customer complaints are concerned, our Customer Service Champion will forget who pays her salary and vigorously campaign for the customer’s rights.

My personal beef is with the term ‘experience’ for, having flown EasyJet parked next to a lager-fuelled, bull-necked gentleman laying out his holiday plans in vivid detail, it was like travelling in a late night bus from the city centre.

Indeed the days of airline travel having any glamour are long gone thanks to the pile ‘em in, pile ‘em tight philosophy of our cheap airlines. Sir Stelios has come a long way with his Easy brand, but not so far that he has avoided our market-speak affliction. Nick Thompson

What’s in a name?

The Pet Shop Boys – the eighties pop group – have turned down a request from PETA, the animal rights group, to change their name to Rescue Shelter Boys. PETA’s representative Yvonne Taylor admits that at first the request may seem a little bizarre. Just at first Yvonne? Nick Thompson

‘I needed that like a hole in the head’

Doctors in Brazil report that they have successfully removed a six-inch fishing spear from the brain of a man struck by the spear while diving off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Emerson de Oliveira Abreu apparently fired the spear himself, which ricocheted off rocks and penetrated his head so deeply that only the tip was showing, family members and authorities said. Local media initially reported that Mr Abreu had been accidentally shot by a friend.

It took surgeons five hours to remove the spear, which entered just above Mr Abreu’s left eye and missed the most critical areas of his brain, Dr Manoel Moreira said. The surgeon also said Mr Abreu was doing well and was not likely to suffer major, lasting damage. “It’s a miracle,” said Abreu’s father, Edilson. Nick Thompson

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Just a slight over-reaction

A desperate husband tried to kill his mother-in-law with an anti-tank missile launcher after claiming she’d turned his wife against him. Bosnian Miroslav Miljici wanted revenge after blaming his wife’s mum for the break-up of his marriage. And when his mother-in-law survived the rocket attack on her home, he tried to finish her off with a machine gun, a court in Doboj, Bosnia, was told. Amazingly, she survived both attacks with barely a scratch, judges heard. In defence Miljici – jailed for six years for attempted murder – told the court he could no longer take his mother-in-law’s nagging. Nick Thompson

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A clean break

A German woman was last week granted a divorce citing her husband’s addiction to housework. She said that after 15 years when every moment of his spare time was spent hoovering and cleaning, the final straw came after she went away for a short break to find he had replastered and decorated every room in the house. And she’s complaining?! Nick Thompson

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Bitter-sweet sting in the tale

There have been a number of items in the news over the past year about a perceived threat to our bitter-sweet friend of the insect variety – the humble bee.

It seems there are fewer of them around, which bodes badly for flowers and crops that need pollinating and thus poses a real risk to life on earth as we know it, not to mention the bitter consequence of a honey shortage on supermarket shelves.

But now we know where they have all gone! They have been called into military service and are being trained in anti-terrorism operations. No kidding, according to the BBC’s PM programme anyway.

Scientists have apparently known for some time that, with their amazing sense of smell, bees can be trained to snuff out semtex, TNT and the like, with obvious benefits to the war on terror. And experiments have been seen to work with swarms of bees heading in the direction of known land-mines after being given a whiff of an explosive substance.

Perhaps they could even be used against terrorists in a more direct way – with a sting in the tail! Charles Gardner

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Do as I say – not as I do!

Back in October I was choking on fumes after discovering that the House of Commons bar was immune from the smoking ban that currently blights our fair land. Now this week I have discovered that, despite protests from libertarians and publicans, our Government is amending the anti-smoking legislation to create smoking rooms for next month’s G20 summit at the Excel Exhibition Centre in London’s Docklands.

So while it is OK to send pubs and clubs out of business and deny private members’ clubs the right to decide whether they want to allow smoking or not, it is OK to change the rules for visiting heads of state, presumably from nations with enough sense to let their citizens decide whether or not they should be dictated to by flaky science.

Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe said: “It’s one law for one, and one for another, and I think that sums up this government.” Well said Ann! Hopefully a future Conservative administration will see the light. Nick Thompson

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Vicars can’t be racist; but they can be anti-Israel

We live in a world of multiple inconsistencies. I recently became aware of the fact that the Church of England has banned serving vicars from being members of the BNP. Then, within a matter of days, I also heard of an increasingly influential body within the C of E that is buddying up to groups who, at the very least, sympathise with radical Islam.

Rev Stephen Sizer, the Vicar of leafy Virginia Water in Surrey, has recently shared a platform at an anti-Israeli meeting with Ismail Patel, who has accused Israel of genocide and war crimes. Oddly, he didn’t mention anything about Hamas executing Fatah supporters or anyone suspected of having even a little sympathy with Israel. Mr Sizer has agreed with President Ahmadinejad of Iran that Israel should be removed from the map and rubbishes any Christian with sympathy for Israel.

However, prize for the biggest betrayal goes to Ben White who, not content with writing a bad review of a book by fellow Christian Patrick Sookhdeo, actually drew attention to a Muslim convert who calls Dr Sookhdeo the ‘Sookhdevil’.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but there are a whole host of inconsistencies here.

1. Israel and Christianity worship the same God whilst Islam worships another God
   
2. Islamists consider Christians to be dhimmi, or second class, people who can be mistreated as seen fit
   
3. Christians living in both Gaza and the West Bank are fleeing Islamic repression
   
4. The Bible makes it clear that when Jesus returns, he returns as a Jew – the Lion of Judah
   

So how do this lot square all that up? Unless, of course, Mr Sizer and his mates are not really Christians, but ecclesiastical politicians looking for an opportunity to gain some publicity. Nick Thompson

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Green custard solution to the credit crunch

With manufacturing stalling in the face of collapsing demand and the credit crunch, Lord Mandelson took the opportunity to point a way out of this recession.

Assaulted by a young woman who threw green custard in his face because she doesn’t believe he is taking the airport expansion debate seriously and is too pally with a CAA lobbyist, the Prince of Darkness chose to simper and play on an old urban myth about confusion over mushy peas and guacamole rather than lodge a complaint.

Now, setting aside the legalities of the assault, are we witnessing an opportunity to rekindle demand and resuscitate our manufacturing industry? Imagine it, you are sitting at work and hear an opinion from a colleague you don’t like. No more shrugs of the shoulders – just throw some green custard in his face. And don’t go home after a football game grumbling about the referee – simply run onto the pitch and throw green custard in his face.

Think of the untold thousands you will be keeping at work in the custard and green dye factories. Disagreement will become the new Marshall Plan and we will surge into the new information age with a succinct and pithy response to disagreement – green custard. No more weapons of mass destruction – just good old bio-degradable custard. Wow! They have even thought about the planet with this one. Nick Thompson

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Get Out of Jail Free Card

A new word – blastwall – has been added to the BBC vocabulary in recent weeks.

Now you may ask what on earth it means. Well, it is a new management word for when you have got someone in place to take the blame for any management cock-ups.

Not for the BBC the hoary old chestnut of plausible deniability, nor the good old-fashioned scapegoat. No, in our modern ‘cutting edge’ (licence-payers might call it bleeding edge) BBC, the blastwall has become the latest executive accessory, and your rank is signified by whether you have just one or multiple blastwalls.

Now why would BBC executives go around thinking that they might need one of those? Nick Thompson

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The lie, the Which and the war probe

I was brought up to believe that Which was the consumers’ champion, giving you an honest and realistic appraisal of the way things are.

Well, that cosy belief has been shattered by the publication of a survey claiming that a staggering three million people – some five per cent of the UK population – have resorted to DIY methods of tooth extraction, including pulling out teeth with pliers simply because they cannot get a dentist appointment.

One would, of course, have expected this to have resulted from robust research but, no, the findings actually came from extrapolation of a 2,631-strong survey – thus based on 0.003% of the population. That’s as reliable as a chocolate teapot, but when the objective is sensationalist headlines why let a little detail like reliability slow you down?

Not content with that, Which went on to claim it was six million people who had despaired of getting a dental appointment and reached for their pliers, or at least knew someone who had. Surely this is urban myth dressed up in scientific clothing.

But it doesn’t get any better in the world at large. For we have been fed screaming news headlines that over 1,300 Palestinians, including women and children, died in the Israeli response to continuous missile attacks from Gaza, but actually no-one accurately knows how many died.

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera quoted a doctor working in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital as saying that Hamas had intentionally inflated the number of casualties and that the actual number of deceased totalled some 500 to 600, the overwhelming majority of whom were young men aged 17-23, recruited as cannon-fodder by Hamas.

Additionally, a Tal al Hawa resident told the newspaper that Hamas gunmen actually fired on their properties and then blamed Israeli troops. This report is consistent with many others emanating from Gaza, and is entirely consistent with other similar claims in the past, most notably relating to Jenin where Israel was accused of massacring 1,500 people when in reality the death toll turned out to be 54 – 45 of whom were armed men.

At the same time unverified charges of the use of white phosphorus for purposes other than creating a smokescreen have been laid out but are unsubstantiated. And already the charges of Israel bombing a UN school have proved groundless.

But the damage is done. People remember the headline, not the retraction, so while our news channels would have us think that a two-second apology buried at the back of the news makes up for a two-minute screaming headline, the reality is that they don’t really care as long as the initial headline is a good one.

All of which makes me wonder why I keep listening to, watching and reading the news. It’s about as reliable as a Which survey. Nick Thompson

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Relax, there are no buses!

So within weeks of buses carrying the ‘Relax, there is probably no God’ advertising, the UK is shivering under an icy white blanket and there are no buses! So is it coincidence or divine comment?
And thinking of that icy white blanket that declares this is the worst winter for 18 years, does this mean that global warming is a busted flush, like all those frozen pipes in houses up and down the country, or are we going to be told by supercilious global warming evangelists that actually global warming means that it is getting colder, just like the government is busy telling us our economy is in good shape to ride out the economic storm? Nick Thompson

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What do you mean inconsistent?

So Carol Thatcher has been sacked for refusing to apologise over a private comment that a tennis player looked a bit like a golliwog. What does that mean for the worker who says their colleague looks like Mr Blobby? And where was Jonathan Ross’s apology on his first show back on air?
The BBC is full of politically correct luvvies happy to fill us up to the eyeballs with foul-mouthed Peter Pans who refuse to grow up but at the same time happy to sack someone for displaying reasonable observational powers. So much do they despise the sensibilities of their viewers that they refuse to pay any attention at all to polls and blogs from all over the country telling them they’ve got it wrong! Definitely a case of ‘Don’t do as I do, but do as I say’. Nick Thompson

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Regression is no progression

Here’s a thought to toy with. As we mark the bi-centenary of Charles Darwin’s birth, we are surrounded by proof that mankind is regressing or devolving rather than progressing or evolving as theorised by the man himself. And isn’t it appropriate that it is the UK, Darwin’s birthplace, that is leading the way. The speed of the devolution is off the scale – particularly the theoretical scale of evolution – in that it is happening before our very eyes.

Aided – perhaps even spawned – by the nanny state, we are assailed by television targeted at a mental age of 13. The BBC’s top-paid talent, Jonathan Ross, constantly demonstrates that even in his late forties he really hasn’t progressed beyond pubescence. Indeed, what masquerades as comedy these days is invariably dressed up in a ménage of F words and speculation over toilet and sexual habits. Our national newspapers too pitch themselves at a reading age of 13 and, over recent years, first the mid-market and now the so-called quality press have dived into the territory of less than three syllables. In fact I read somewhere that The Spectator, a serious organ of quality if ever there was one, has recently featured an interview with pop star Lily Allen.