Hippo birdie to me

What can I say? It's been a year. Traditionally I should close the blog down, but not this time.

I'd like to thank my family, my agent and the voices in my head.

I'd also like to thank all you bloggers out there who have proven how so very sexy you are by linking to me.

I love you all.

My regions, they trouble me so

I've just received a pointer to this in my email. It's an answer given by
Nick Raynsford when asked about the government plans for regional assemblies in England; Are you not then going to end up with a constitutional mess with different levels of power devolved to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, London and the other English regions? Would it not be easier to give them all equivalent powers?:

Scotland is a country which has its own parliament. No one has suggested other than people who want an English parliament, which is not a very sensible suggestion, that there should be parliaments with legislative powers in the English regions.

The London assembly doesn't have legislative powers and as I said, the powers for the North East assembly will be broadly comparable to those in London. So all the English regions will have the opportunity of an assembly with powers relating to economic development and quality of life issues, including some of those that I have described. Those will be comparable to other English regions.

Yes the position is different in Scotland because Scotland is a nation in its own right and similarly Wales.

There is a logic behind these proposals that relate to the nature of the United Kingdom, which is a grouping of four nations, of which England is one and within England there will be devolved regional bodies with broadly comparable powers.

So, Raynsford states that the situation is different in Scotland because it is a nation in its own right and then he goes on to say that the UK is a grouping of four nations, of which England is one.

I am a software engineer by trade; I deal in logic. His comments mean that
England is a nation but not in its own right. He has been drinking; something
French I suspect.

I need to think upon this a while. Perhaps try to change my frame of reference so it is something akin to his. I will have a drink or two or three, something new world I think, and then see if his comments make any more sense.

New document

I've now added a copy of Kipling's England and the English speech to the documents section of the sidebar.

(Repeated hat-tip to Tim).

The Resistance - its name has been spoken

Lurch, over at Gun Culture ends his post with:

Those of us in what might be described as ‘The Resistance’ hear that the Queen has been taking advice from people outside the corrupt and institutionally treasonous inner sanctum of government officialdom and that the cry of the people is at last being heeded. Perhaps we are deluding ourselves, perhaps it is even too late for the Crown to take back that which has been so cravenly stolen and given away.

I hope not, and I hope that we are all doing that which we can to facilitate the return of our country.

This 'Resistance' he speaks of sounds interesting. I once told a Conservative councillor that this EU business would give rise to a real resistance movement in Britain and that he should not be surprised if this resistance truly believed that many of the democratically elected MPs in the UK Parliament were actual real life traitors. He looked at me as if I was a loony and dismissed my suggestion.

I still believe that this is a likely outcome, though at least the rise of the UKIP gives us a useful safety valve of political expression that people can get behind if they wish, but I suspect that the future holds far more in the way of trouble than many of us are expecting.

Right, that's it

Impeach Blair!

Is someone playing moonbat bingo?

I for one support the constitution and believe it is time we become a Europe of one. Most people I have spoken to know little about Europe and make xenophobic judgements of the French and Germans. I do believe we should become one country.

Mark, Barnstaple, Devon

Come on, own up.

The EU-Serf wades in on Tony Blair:

As you pose for photos on this day which the BBC will constantly refer to as historic, the people of the UK, whom you legally and by tradition represent, may wish you to ponder on the gravity of what you are doing....

The Countryside Alliance

Do you know why the Countryside Alliance has my deepest respect as a campaigning organisation? Just look at all this. It's just one demonstration after another come wind, rain or shine. Again, again and again.

Each and every time the government comes for our guns I reflect on the CA and look to see which organisation is offering the same kind of proactive approach to the defence of our sport. I always come up empty handed.

Sorry Italy, I know he's your man but we don't like him

Here is Boris Johnson (MP) on the recent troubles in the EU parliament:

Sig Buttiglione was sent to Brussels with all the solemn authority of the government in Rome. That government's authority in turn derives from the sovereign people of Italy. And yet Sig Buttiglione has been rejected by a polyglot babel of 25 countries, and the will of the people of Italy has been frustrated. What we saw yesterday was the collision of two democratic imperatives: the right of the people of Italy to have their government's man in Brussels, and the right of that nebulous demos, the people of Europe - represented in this bizarre mother-in-law of parliaments - to say no.

And there we have it. You may not agree with Buttiglione but there are many, many people who do and quite a few of those come from a very Catholic Italy. Who will answer to them over this? No one. The politicians who have denied them their representation don't ever have to listen to them and can never be voted out of their seats by them. The parliament they sit in isn't even in the same country. Tough shit peasants. You've had your Empire now let us have ours.

Looking with suspicion at the Guardian

What are the Guardian pack up to? Are they trying to lull us into a false sense of security or something or has someone hacked their web site? Today they carry two interesting articles that make perfect sense:

• Glenn Reynolds (of Instapundit fame) introduces Guardianistas to the Anglosphere
• Bjørn Lomborg says first things first when it comes to climate change

Something is afoot I tell you.

The bedraggled battle-standard of freedom

A nice article in the Times by Robbie Millen:

Alas, “South Park Republicanism” has few champions here in Britain. But there is a growing market for it. A younger generation of Britons — overtaxed, tolerant and modern — can smell the hypocrisy of political correctness. They have grasped that PC is just a job-creation scheme — do we need yet more diversity officers, counsellors, and vision co-ordinators? They know that the welfare state’s raison d’être is to ensure that “chavs” are supplied with Burberry caps and hooded tops. But the Tories are a shower. Boris Johnson, who has some satiric South Park qualities, was forced to apologise for having unvirtuous opinions. Oliver Letwin, the weedy Shadow Chancellor, believes there is something called the “moral case for low taxation” but he appears to have left it in the luggage rack on some train going nowhere. So Britain certainly needs to import a dose of hardcore liberty-loving. Just look at some news stories from the last few days, and you will see how bedraggled the battle-standard of freedom is.

...

Three hundred years ago today, John Locke, that great exponent of true liberalism, died. Being a Godly chap, he would not have been a natural South Park fan, but he would have found it perplexing that Britons were so idle in the defence of their own freedoms, so keen to deny it to their fellow countrymen, so unwilling to see liberty flower in other parts of the world, and so willing to see the state devour so much of their income. But at least you are still free to ignore every word of the above.

Cunning

The urban fox gets everywhere:

On Wednesday, a fox was also caught inside Parliament but it is not yet known whether it was part of a protest stunt.

The animal did not get into the chamber of either House of Parliament.

A spokeswoman for the Commons said: "We know that a fox got in early this morning. It is not yet known how he got in.

"He was captured swiftly by Parliamentary staff and cared for and fed and watered until the RSPCA turned up to care for him."

What? Eh? Pardon?

Reading this story about Kilroy-Silk leaving the UKIP parliamentary party in Strasbourg (though not yet UKIP it seems) I couldn’t help but gawk at the following:

Earlier, Mr Kilroy-Silk caused uproar as MEPs discussed the controversy about the proposed appointment of Rocco Buttiglione as a European commissioner.
Laughing, he shouted: "Point of order. Oi! Point of order."

Socialist group leader Martin Schulz accused him of being a hooligan and of "behaving like a spoilt child".

In a point of order, Mr Kilroy-Silk said the European Parliament should not have waited when commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, arrived late for a hearing on Tuesday.

He wants a vote of no confidence in Mr Barroso, who he argues has treated the parliament with further disdain by producing no proposals on Wednesday.

Am I reading that right? Kilroy-Silk accusing someone of treating the parliament with disdain? Isn’t that why the man himself is a member of that parliament; to treat it with disdain?
I thought he wanted to wreck it himself.

Today's special is freshwater ostrich

Tim points to a waiter blog and suggests that we check it out. It's called Waiter Rant and the content is excellent; this bit is about a waiter called Carl:

Erudite and able to converse about a wide range of topics, I found he was a pleasure to talk to: a welcome change from the coarser discourse usually found in the back of the house. Yet there was sadness th[at] clung to him like tobacco smoke. Divorced, childless, living alone in a small apartment in a downscale neighborhood, he had the air of a man who accepted that his moment in life had come and gone.

One for the blogroll.

Ahhhh, politics - that most corrupting of vices

So, the House of Lords has voted to amend the bill to ban hunting so that it may continue under license. No real surprise there then and, I might add, good for them.

We all know that Blair would rather have never put the issue on his manifesto (isn't hindsight a wonderful thing) but the depths of shame he should be feeling over the following revelation can never make up for his supposed support for a compromise on the issue:

Mr Blair is understood to be deeply unhappy at the prospect of introducing an outright ban. He regards that as contrary to his new Labour ethos of governing for the whole country and not acting out of spite towards any group of voters. He also accepts, however, that he missed the opportunity of introducing a “third way deal” in the last Parliament. Since then he has given pledges on a hunting ban to MPs in return for their support over bitterly contested votes for the Iraq war and top-up tuition fees.

So his 'ethos' of not acting out of spite is, effectively, for sale.

Yes, yes, I know. This is the way politics works; I am not naive. And this is a perfect example of why millions of voters no longer engage with politics to any great extent.

Some really old Frenchman blogged the same thing in one of those book thingies.

Deconstructing the myth

This deconstruction of Mr. Austin Mitchell's (MP for Grimsby) notion that an English Parliament would be disastrous makes interesting and entertaining reading. It is some months old but that does not make it any less potent:

Mitchell and his ilk obstinately refuse to accept that it is Scottish and Welsh devolution that has already undermined the viability of the UK by rendering the previous 'asymmetry' unworkable. They must now reconcile themselves to the English dimension; they have no choice if they wish to maintain the Union.

I hope that Phil Evans had as much fun writing it as I had reading it.

EngBlog!

The guys over at The Campaign For an English Parliament are blogging. This blog represents a dissenting voice to the third and final point on the triangle of doom, a triangle showing the three biggest issues of crisis facing the modern English nation.

1. EUropean rule.
2. No English Parliament.
3. The Guardian.

Update you bookmarks, if you will.

WikiNews

Well, here is a new definition of BIG MEDIA:

We seek to create a free source of news, where every human being is invited to contribute reports about events large and small, either from direct experience, or summarized from elsewhere. Wikinews is founded on the idea that we want to create something new, rather than destroy something old. It is founded on the belief that we can, together, build a great and unique resource which will enrich the media landscape.

..

While Wikinews aims to be a useful resource of its own, it will also provide an alternative to proprietary news agencies like the Associated Press or Reuters; that is, it will allow independent media outfits to get a high quality feed of news free of charge to complement their own reporting. Thanks to copyleft, anyone can create their own free news source - even a non-neutral one - on the basis of our work. Even if our articles will initially be few, they will be free, permanently available and not require registration before reading.

Press passes for all!!!!!

Banjo boy wizdom

Saturday night was spent at my gun club, enjoying a few wet ones in the company of Paul Young and his Tex Mex band. As we sat at the table nearest the stage in what used to be the pistol range, I could not help but notice the lead guitarist making eyes at Mrs. England Project.

The front of the man, I thought, and a little unwise given the venue.

The night went on and I began to believe that perhaps my imagination was running away with me. Perhaps the fellow wasn’t gyrating his instrument toward my beloved in that way. Perhaps he couldn’t actually see the audience through the dense smoke of my cigar, held firmly between my teeth as I squinted at the dog in a manner not unlike Mr. Eastwood’s.

Are you looking at my woman?, I imagined myself saying to the rogue while tying my holster cord to my thigh in readiness for the inevitable quick draw, crack of a single shot and subsequent sound of a man falling heavily onto a stratocaster.

Ahhh, beer, source of my greatest imagined victories.

Perhaps he was twanging at one of the other of the three ladies that I brought with me to the bash. It’s always wise to carry spares don’t you think?

No, it must be all in my head. The stage is bright and the audience is in the dark, I thought. The man would have to have the eyes of a wolf.

Then Mr. Young announced that the band were taking a short break and as the wolf passed my table he whispered something into the ear of my good lady.

I enquired of the Mrs. what the departing entertainer had said and was informed that, apparently, he wished to convey to her that in his opinion she was gorgeous. It was nice of the minstrel to notice but I couldn’t help thinking that my presence deserved a little more recognition. She was clearly unavailable, having been marked out with bands of gold and diamonds the size of small moons.

Mrs. England Project was clearly enjoying herself and my other two young ladies seemed to be revelling in the possibility that I may have finally met competition of some worth. He was skilled with the guitar and not bad looking in that wanted dead or alive kind of a way and, for some reason, I got the distinct impression that my cohorts would have like nothing better than to see me taken down a strip or two. Flogging would have been too good for them.

Wolfey and the rest of the band returned to complete their set, we continued to drink and make merry and as the night drew to a close I found myself playing croupier at a blackjack table in the casino that had been kindly provided for the night by our hosts. How I got from the seat that I had occupied nearly all night to that particular table in a completely different room was unfathomable. I seem to remember being annoyed about something. Why was I continuing to twist my cards when I was already way past thirty something? Who were those people standing in front of me? When did I start drinking rum?

I made my excuses to my new card playing friends and went in search of my trio who I eventually found in the company of a some people I thought I vaguely recognised. Something to do with the banjo or something.

Anyhow, we eventually left for home and the girls filled me in a little on what had transpired while I was loosing the house thousands on the tables. As it turned out the errant guitarist had been put straight by Mr. Paul Young while the band were on their break. Have you seen that girl in the audience? the fender grinder apparently remarked. Yes, and have you seen the size of the rocks on her finger? Mr. Young replied.

That night Mrs. England Project seemed even more sparkly than she normally is and I have to hand it to wolfey for his remarkable distillation.

She is gorgeous.

When the demons arrive

So, I've gone and won a bid on this painting of a chick being felt up by some kind of alien tripod freak:

That makes me cultured.

Honestly though, you would not believe how difficult it is to find original art work (not just prints and the like) on my chosen subject (which is not, I might add, women being felt up by tripods). If I had money, I'd commission some.

Why do you think that is?

Damn those dominating middle class girls!:

Schools are doing a thriving trade in violin, flute, guitar and recorder lessons, but they are too often dominated by middle-class girls, according to an Ofsted report published today.

While extra-curricular music lessons are good, and there are plenty of opportunities to learn how to play an instrument, pupils from lower income families are less likely to take them...

Not surprising really. I've never really considered that knowing how to play a musical instrument is a likely path to riches. Just goes to show that ordinary folk are far more likely to know what their priorities should be than a chicken shed full of Guardianistas.

DIY - not just about putting up shelves

Michael Knowles, chairman of the English Constitutional Convention, gave a speech at the convention launch. The content of that speech is available to read here. His point about the relative silence of MPs on the issue of political representation of the English is a good one:

Why should people as unknown as us, village hampdens, have to take it [the issue of an English parliament] on? There are 550 English MPs in the UK Parliament all of whom must be aware of the injustice and disadvantages to England I have listed. What are they MPs for English constituencies for unless to stand up for the welfare and the rights of the English people? They must know that Scotland has acquired unique advantages from Devolution 1998 denied to Wales and to England. Yet they do nothing. This island is a political union of three nations, and the basis of the union must be political and constitutional equality. Yet these 550 MPs are strangely silent.

It bugs me too, as I said earlier:

But, and this is the dirt of the matter, why do we not hear English MPs pressing the issue? Why do we not even hear them talking about an English parliament? They sit in English seats, put there by English voters and they are fully aware that, for instance, Scottish MPs are voting on English only issues whereas they themselves cannot vote on Scottish only issues.

Why are they not spitting teeth?

My guess is that they are either hoping to avoid mainstreaming the issue by pretending that it does not exist or, instead, don't give a flying hoot. Either way chaps, one day there are going to be a number of new, shiny seats available to sit on in a new parliament building somewhere in the middle of England. If you want to displace a peasant by sitting in one yourselves you'd better start talking fast.

Ceterum censeo Unionem Europaeam esse delendam

Here's a rehash of something I did earlier.

Ceterum censeo Unionem Europaeam esse delendam is Latin for something along the lines of I say, the EU is not what we're looking for really. A better definition can be found over at Tim's place.

Ps. I'm not sure that the image above scales down well due to the smallish bullet holes.

Gun laws' effect on rise in crime

A good letter in the Times by Alex Swanson:

Sir, Your report (October 16) on the rise in gun crime dramatically illustrates the complete failure of government policy in this area for decades.

Past action has been based on the repression of legal firearms ownership, on the presumption that if fewer legal guns are available fewer will find their way into criminal hands, and that in general any “gun culture” must be, by definition, undesirable.

It is now clear that this has been a completely futile exercise. Criminals can easily obtain guns that have never been legal, and the “culture” of legitimate shooters has nothing in common with inner-city drug dealers. Worse, the suppression of shooting sports, especially pistol shooting, means that there is nowhere for teenagers to learn about guns in a controlled, disciplined environment from positive role models. Finally, the illegality of weapons means that, simply by possession, a criminal obtains absolute power over the ordinary citizen whom, he knows, the authorities will not allow to defend him or herself.

We need acknowledgement on all sides that the current intolerant laws do not reduce crime, and may even increase it, and hence should be relaxed. The police should start co- operating with legitimate shooters, in order to allow the law-abiding the same access to firearms currently enjoyed by criminals. The Home Office should stop persecuting the law-abiding, and turn its attention to the killers.

It has long been my opinion that tougher laws on what legitimate shooters in this country can and can't do are just a tool used by the government to abdicate their real responsibilities. Look, look, we're doing something!

It is easy to ask me what they should do instead but that is not my point. My point is about what they should not do. More gun laws are just a dangerous distraction from real problems which would have benefited from a better use of the time, effort and money British governments have wasted doing the wrong thing.

Like I said before The notion that more gun legislation is the answer to reducing gun crime is a distraction that will continue to fail to deliver.

BBC votes for president

The BBC asks:

The citizens of the United States will be voting on November 2 to choose the next president of their country. The US election has attracted a lot of international attention with President Bush's foreign policy and the Iraq situation emerging as important election issues. As a world citizen, what do you think about this election?

If you could vote in the US elections, who would your choice for President be?

and then provides each and every one of us World citizens the chance to take part in a poll.

I can tell you now, it doesn't look good for Bush (18% of the vote at time of going to press) which just goes to show that everyone at BBC headquarters has already voted and that, somehow, Guardian readers were told about the poll early.

If you don't wish to vote just keep clicking NEXT to get to the results.

Next up, World citizens get to vote on the retention of the BBC license fee.

Mmmm, mmmm, mad sir

Those peeps in the Guardian really are bonkers:

"In order to be truly free, both personally and politically, we need to mandate our freely elected representatives to control what companies and individuals can and cannot do. This is not hiring a nanny, it is looking after ourselves."

Dear American Navy Seals,

Can we watch?

Love,

Nearly Everyone.

Hmmmmmm, Scot-shire?

The historian, David Starkey, whose channel 4 series Monarchy is currently showing on TV has offended some of our Scottish friends:

"Scotland matters for a single reason, which is its involvement with England from the 17th century onwards. Then it becomes important. Could Scotland have had an empire of its own? The Darien scheme suggests not."

He went on: "I love Scotland but it is not an important country. Your own political elite don’t want independence because they love swanning around as Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"Given the choice of being First Minister of Scotland or Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown would always choose the latter."

Not important? Swanning around? Naughty Dr. Starkey!

Neal Ascherson, some leading Scottish historian responded by dismissing Starkeys remarks as "a basket of cheerfully stupid English prejudice". Starkey is apparently annoyed because:

"It is a fact that England failed to reduce it [Scotland] to Scot-shire and maybe that’s a source of annoyance to some people."

This has all the hallmarks of a good old fashioned cross border bust-up. But let's face it, we don't need to give the Scottish another piece of baggage to burden their shoulders with for the rest of human history. I suggest that the two historians take this to the field (perhaps behind an old church at sunrise) and settle the thing before it gets out of hand.

New gun laws for the law abiding?

Lurch over at Gun Culture has read the 12th Annual Report of the Firearms Consultative Committee so we don't have to. Go read

English Constitutional Convention

This just in:

English Constitutional Convention - House of Commons; 20th October 2004.

So busy has it been in its headlong rush into the abolition of England as a political entity, and so eager to embrace unwanted regionalisation, that the UK Government actually forgot to consult the English nation on this major constitutional change.

A slip of the mind we're sure.

Not so the Campaign for an English Parliament. Today (20th October 2004) sees the launch of the English Constitutional Convention at the House of Commons.

www.englishconstitutionalconvention.com

It is an ambitious project but we very much hope that this will be the launch pad to a frank and open debate on the way that England should be governed.

Whether this convention is a success or failure may well depend on the involvement of the major political parties but we are now taking our argument into the halls of Westminster. Today's politicians should take note, because the Campaign for an English Parliament is the advance guard of a movement that will not go away. The longer our voices are ignored, the louder and more numerous our voices will become.

Campaign for an English Parliament Secretary, Scilla Cullen, will make an address to the Convention on behalf of the CEP.

www.thecep.org.uk/ECC/ECC_address.pdf

For more information on the Campaign for an English Parliament please visit our website at www.thecep.org.uk or phone 07071 220234

Gareth Young

www.thecep.org.uk

Wake up!

Tim Worstall has a post up on the issue of self rule for the English. He identifies three ways forward:

• An English parliament
• An English grand committee within the UK parliament
• Dividing England into regions

Tim thinks, perhaps, that the committee is the right way to go which I have to admit is not my favoured option. I would go for the English Parliament every time, though having said that better the committee than regional assemblies. If regional assemblies are ever allowed to happen there will never be a time when the whole of England is represented by a single parliament. Self interest and billions in infrastructure will ensure that an England of regions will never be stuck back together again.

Tim includes the following very interesting commentary:

Behind all of this seemingly recondite constitutional manouvering are some hard political facts: The Labour Party would find it very difficult to get a majority (they would have one today, but not in more normal times) in an English Parliament, just as the Tories will never get one in the Scottish. An English Parliament would not allow the Barnett Formula to continue, the system by which 30 billion a year of tax money is sucked out of England and spent in Scotland. And, of course, all those Scots, people like Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, John Reid, would never be able to be Ministers with authority for England.

Which just goes to show that the current state of affairs remains in place at the disadvantage of the English.

Whenever I think of this issue, and how the English are allowing it to remain and further develop to their disadvantage, some rather fine lyrics from a song I quite like by Rage Against the Machine go through my head.

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

I misread Tim's posting. He writes to put me straight:

...one teeny correction if I may? I actually say I would prefer an English Parliament, but would compromise for a Grand Committee if that's all we could get.

Quote of the day

This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat.

From a collection of subtitles used in films made in Hong Kong.

Reasonable Free Trade requirements or half baked interfering claptrap?

So Blair wants to take on EU inspired red tape, the increasing of which is apparently a popular pastime with local civil service types. Nice try Tony, and very welcome indeed. We don’t like red tape over here on The England Project. However, I have a better idea.

You see, I’ve been thinking about this red tape stuff and this EU regulation business and I’m wondering just how much of it is to do with free trade (you know, common actual quality requirements and the like) and how much of it is really, well, interfering and burdensome rubbish. So, I’ve devised a test called …..erm….. The England Project Regulation Standard Test.

This is how it goes.

Companies that do not trade with the EU (perhaps ones with only local markets and the like) should be studied. If they are subjected to any EU regulation then those regulations fail The England Project Regulation Standard Test and should be immediately discarded as interfering claptrap. After all, if these companies don’t trade with the EU what business has the EU of imposing business regulations on them?

Guardian improves briefly

These letters from the USA are a lot of fun. Best content in the Guardian for years.

Unclean

Posting has been light because I have the plague, or perhaps a nasty cold.

Anti-Americanism - I only see it on the news

This (via Melanie Phillips) should not go unchallenged:

Frankly, I don’t like what is happening in Britain and am shocked and dismayed at the level to which anti-Americanism has peaked in recent months.

I am not aware of this level of anti-Americanism in Britain and I certainly know that I would not behave in the way that the article describes.

Has anyone else witnessed or experienced this kind of attitude? Are there any American readers in the UK who see things differently?

English regions

Heh, good letter in the Times today:

Sir, Mr Richard Caborn, our Minister for Sport, was moved to write to you (letter, October 6) to underline the tremendous support for London’s bid for the Olympics from “the English regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”.

Since he is undoubtedly a Times reader and may be having difficulty finding the score of last Saturday’s football match, could you please tell him that it was English Regions 2, Wales nil.

Yours sincerely,
ROY BOND

I suppose the minister is of the mind that if you use the term often enough people will come to believe in the principle of a regionalised England.

Mirror mirror on the wall, it is my willy after all

Last night a few friends, my family and I went to a leisure centre in Hemel Hempstead. We were there to celebrate the birthday of the son of a very good friend of mine. The young lad decided that a couple of bowling games were in order and the grown ups were in total agreement with him.

As is often the way with these things one beer led to another and those eventually led to the need to visit the boy’s room. It was a pretty typical facility, a little smelly, no hot running water, but it was passable and I had certainly been in worse.

Or so I thought.

To throw a little light on this let me ask you a question. How, dear readers, can one be the only person in a toilet and yet not be alone?

Take a moment.

Yes, that’s right. Surveillance.

On one wall of the toilets was a mirror, nearly as tall as the wall itself and about 24 inches wide. On this mirror was a sticker that read something like this:

Smile!
You are on CCTV.

Now, no doubt this disgraceful invasion of privacy is there as an attempt to persuade people that drug taking and other anti-social activities are not to be tolerated in the facilities but I couldn’t help feeling a little outraged by the initiative.

Because the leisure centre is a private place of business I totally accept the existence of this invasion. I do not like it and I do not like the fact that it is not stated up front that the toilet facilities on this premises are under CCTV surveillance because I was not able to make an informed decision about using the centre, but I accept it and their flawed business practices. It is their lookout. But what I can do is to state that I will not be using their facilities again, I will not be spending any more money there and I will also supply all the information necessary to allow my friends and colleagues to make an informed choice of leisure venue.

So, to be a little more precise. The leisure centre in question (for you search engines I believe it is called Leisure World in Hemel Hempstead) is the one with the bowling facilities. It is situated opposite a Mcdonalds restaurant. To the left of the frontage of the place is a Pizza Hut and on the inside it contains quite a number of amusement machines a bar and some pool tables. I can’t really be any more precise at this moment and my search engine skills seem to be failing me right now. There may be other facilities in the area that fit this description so it might be wise to enquire yourselves of the venue before making a final decision.

If I could find the email address of the company that runs the centre I would also email them my disapproval.

Smile, Leisure World Hemel Hempstead, you are on the blogosphere.

Paul, from voice of the future mails in that the leisure centre in question is called Leisure World. He hasn't noticed the CCTV warning stickers in the toilets but will keep an eye out for them.

I have updated the post to reflect the name clarification.

England?

In my inbox yesterday morning, from the kind folks over at The Campaign for an English Parliament, was a pointer to this:

You can forget about the U.S. presidential election in November. That merely decides who'll run America. Something much more important is happening to England - something that could, incredible as it sounds, bring an end to that country as we know it.

In short, England in danger of being abolished. How could that happen? The answer lies in Britain's curious constitution, which makes England the only major democratic country in the world to be governed by foreigners.

The Englishman also carries this article.

The sorry truth of the matter, well pointed out by those at the CEP, is that England has no parliament of its own and the current danger is that representation will come, not in an equal manner to that given to the other countries in the United Kingdom, but instead by regionalising England. Bite sizing it, resulting in no real equal representation for the English and at the same time giving the government a great deal of copy to fall back on when having to answer The English Question. They will point out that they have recognised the problem and solved it in a way that gives representation to all the regions of England avoiding the issue of not having given real representation to the country as a whole.

An avoidance strategy that relies heavily upon the complete disinterest of the majority of the English which is, after all, the real tragedy of the issue. However, disinterest in the way government of the United Kingdom wishes to structure itself is no great surprise. Why should the average person actually care given that many can no longer even bare to get out and vote? Disinterest and a mistrust of the whole shooting match is par for the course these days and the general feeling of why should we actually care who is in power because they are all as bad as each other is one that does not seem to be in any danger of changing any time soon.

But, and this is the dirt of the matter, why do we not hear English MPs pressing the issue? Why do we not even hear them talking about an English parliament? They sit in English seats, put there by English voters and they are fully aware that, for instance, Scottish MPs are voting on English only issues whereas they themselves cannot vote on Scottish only issues.

Why are they not spitting teeth?

That's not a tractor. This is a tractor.

Early reports of hammering sounds coming from woodland across the countryside could have had something to do with this. Is it a fighting machine? I leave you to decide.

Spaceships and cigars

I’ve not said much on this blog about SpaceShipOne and the achievements of Rutan and his mates but that does not mean to say that I am silent on the subject. Only last night I was out in the ‘courtyard’ with the Mrs. taking in a cigar when I looked up into the cloudy sky and said: man, that SpaceShipOne really rocks.

Via Boingboing, some photos.

Good plan! Beat up on the rural folk again!

Man, you just wait until the countryside peeps see this:

The head of the UK's race equality body says low numbers of black and Asian people in the countryside is a form of "passive apartheid".

I am sure that Trevor Phillips will soon be providing us with evidence of actual racism any moment now.

You know what? I'm warming to the idea that rural folk should be recognised as an ethnic group. Maybe then people will leave them alone.

The case for inheritance tax needs to be kept in the real world

On the subject of inheritance tax Harry says:

On the other hand the average Trustafarian doesn't know the value of money at all. I've met a few in my time and the defining characteristic they exhibit is a rather unnatractive effortlessness and ennui. They know they're going to hit the jackpot when they're 21 so they don't make much of a big deal about anything until then. After that, it's too late to change their way of reacting to what life throws at them.

Now, apparently a Trustafarian is defined as:

A jobless person who has access to money — especially a trust fund income — and who affects a laid back, bohemian lifestyle.

So Harry’s observations about this type of person cannot be easily argued with as he basically relays the definition of the word.

However, using such a narrow group of people to help argue a case for inheritance tax as a social equaliser is not very convincing. Far more people benefit from trusts than just this small group and they should also be considered when putting a case for inheritance tax lest we conclude that the only people we are taking money from are the over privileged few, awash with money.

Trusts are becoming common currency and the driving force behind this is the value of property and the resentment that ordinary people feel when they realise that 40% of a few thousands of their pounds over the threshold will be going to the state rather than their family when they die. If you are a professional willwriter serving a middle class community you will know exactly what I am talking about.

The majority of those that would benefit from a trust, which are becoming increasingly more fragile because of noises coming from the chancellor, still live in the real world. They still need to work hard, put their children through state school, use the insufferable NHS, budget and balance the finances and basically do the things that most of the rest of us have to do.

Trustafarians are relatively rare. People who will pay inheritance tax are not.

Actually, I think I've made a mistake here. I misread Harry's article somewhat (I know, I know). I don't think he really does try to use the Trustafarian to actually make the case for inheritance tax. However, he does ask us to say what we feel about the subject so I'll leave the above unedited in the hope that it helps clarify the trust thing a little.

Not a good start to the day. Apparently Marcus wrote that piece on Harry's Place not Harry. I could have sworn I saw Harry's name up in lights when I first read it. I need help.

Progress! Do I win?

Eric the Unread and Laban Tall encouraged us a little while ago to try and get a lunatic Have Your Say comment published on one of the BBC Have Your Say pages.

Well, I've done it.

On the subject of the popular kiddie band Busted siding with the Conservatives the BBC asked:

Do celebrity endorsements add anything to politics?...

Now, clearly the answer is no, nothing useful anyway but I submitted:

Busted really are great. I'm sure this will do the Conservative image a great deal of good.

It got selected. Look for John J.

Ok, it's not a great comment but it is clearly crazy. It contains the outright fallacy that Busted really are great and the loony notion that it will do the Conservatives a great deal of good. What do I win?

Andrew, over at non-trivial solutions has blown my heavily disguised ship of moonbattery out of the water with this outstanding comment :

Busted are my favourite band. Previously, I was considering voting for the Lib Dems, but now I will vote Tory. They've really changed my mind.

How can we ever trust what we see on BBC have your say forums again?

The shame in Spain

Look what the Spanish government has gone and done:

US troops will not be invited to take part this year's Spanish National Day parade, the government has said.

French troops have been invited instead, as part of celebrations to mark 60 years since of the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation.

Granted, inviting the US troops was a recent initiative but it is pretty clear why they are not being invited this time.

At last year's parade, Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero - the leader of the opposition at the time - remained seated as the US flag went past, believing its presence was inappropriate, El Mundo reported.

I hope that no UK troops are going to this parade because, let's face it, it has nothing to do with the liberation of Paris and everything to do with sticking a couple of fingers up at the US.

Hey, if there are any US readers who contributed (or whose family members contributed) to the liberation of Paris all I can offer is the fact that there are a whole bunch of people on this Isle of ours who will always remember the sacrifices made by US troops.

Crime is down. No, it's up. Or is it?

Running down the brief list of Michael Howard's 'promises' quoted in this BBC report one in particular catches my eye:

Make Office for National Statistics independent.

I've often suspected that central to the Governments presentation of statistics is its compelling desire to frame the question, define the measures, spin the language in whatever way it can to ensure that the statistics we are fed tell whatever story they want us to hear.

It's a good initiative.

Quote of the day

Maybe a bit too long to fit this category properly but it's too good to miss:

We know that it is a lie that changing our aftershave will make women lust after us; we know that not changing our phone for the latest one will not mean social death; we know that confidence does not come from using a certain deodorant; we know our bank does not really give damn about our welfare; we know the government is not there to look after us and that our tax money mostly just vanished down a bureaucratic black hole regardless of who you vote for. Moreover, we know that the people who make those claims to the contrary on the TV adverts and posters are not just wrong, they are barefaced liars who try to deceive us for a living. If we buy their products, it is in spite of the crap they throw at us, not because of it. - Perry de Havilland

Taken from his excellent Business Hippos and Blogging Birds article.

Civil Contingencies Bill

David Carr lays into the Civil Contingencies Bill over at samizdata.net. The stated purpose of this piece of legislation is to "make provision about civil contingencies" (okayyyyyy....) but to be a little clearer it basically grants to the state all kinds of special powers in the event of an emergency.

What can the state do once an emergency is declared? Well, just about anything. Take your car, shoot your dog, tell you where you can and can't go. Stop you getting to your kids. A little bit of whatever they fancy. Or a lot.

Now, when you hear about this bill what the government wants you to do is think of some major terrorist attack with half of London on fire or contaminated etc. where the very survival of thousands upon thousands of people will depend upon the powers granted to the state by this bill. In reality it will be used to stop fuel protesters blockading fuel depots and the like.

If you trust this government and all following governments then you will no doubt be in favour of this bill. If you are inherently less crazy then you will, no doubt, feel as I do; that this bill is the most dangerous document that any British government has ever openly advocated.

It will be abused.

An diesem tag

Neil, the proprietor of German for Beginners has his own thing. That is he almost always publishes a German phrase for today at the end of each blog entry. He’s a public spirited chap.

Given that today is the anniversary of the first broadcast of Monty Python's Flying Circus (5th October 1969) I thought I’d do a Neil and offer up my own bit of German for today:

Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.

Bwahahahahahaha…eeek.

They're lovin' it

From The Times:

PETER MANDELSON, Britain’s most controversial politician and the architect of new Labour, said yesterday that he had moved on from British politics and pledged his allegiance to the European Union.

Lots of fun and riches to be had in the EU political playground and all it takes to gain membership is a sponsor or two and a quick change of allegiance. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

New products in store

Robert, over at Semi Skimmed, is concerning himself with a shipment of weapons grade plutonium that is en-route from America to a mainland European country. He points out that, naturally, Greepeace are on the case and that the shipment may well present itself as a tasty target for terrorists. He offers advice on what course of action should be taken if a boat approaches the shipment:

1. Shout clear warning. If boat does not turn away, then...
2. Put a patrol boat in the way, or board the unauthorised boat. If this doesn't work or isn't possible, then...
3. Fire warning shots. If boat still does not turn away, then...
4. Sink the approaching boat.

All well and good but, unfortunately, doomed to failure if the measure of success is the prevention of terrorists getting hold of this weapons grade plutonium.

You see, the shipment is going to France.

Anyone interested in purchasing the material should, therefore, seek out their designated contacts and be ready to pay in cash (dollars preferable, password: exocet). Unfortunately the usual voucher system has been compromised.

Recent cut

Here's a thing. Bloggers, on occasion, talk about music. Favourite album, current listening, most gross concert experience ever. You know the kind of thing. Well, today on The England Project we begin (and probably end) with a slightly different angle on the thing. Yes, here is TEP's Most recently cut CD. Like iTunes iMix only better.

• Wake up - Rage against the machine
• Ace of spades - Motorhead
• King nothing - Metallica
• Until it sleeps - Metallica
• Bleeding me - Metallica
• Iron fist - Motorhead
• Sad but true - Metallica
• Unforgiven - Metallica
• Bring me to life - Evanescence
• China white - Scorpions

M'kay, too much Metallica perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. It's a Sunday afternoon mood thing.

I've shown you mine.

Man seeks leash

So, Robert Kilroy-Silk has confirmed that he wants to lead the UK Independence Party. No surprise there then. I'm not a great fan of Kilroy-Silk really as he seems to lack, how should I put this, a certain amount of statesmanship. He's also a rubbish day time chat show presenter.

I watched a few of his shows when there was nothing much else on and he seemed to spend the whole time trying to sit on members of the audience.

That aside some of the things he articulates, particularly on aspects of political correctness gone mad, do ring true to me and as a general commentator on such matters he can shine.

This does not make him leadership material however. Attack dogs rarely are and are best used to advantage on select occasions, the rest of the time being spent on a well held leash.

On the BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme he revealed quite clearly that no one in the UKIP was in control of that leash. Speaking about the current leader, Roger Knapman, he said:

Mr Kilroy-Silk said Mr Knapman had told him he wanted to stand down after the 10 June European elections.

"But then of course he got a massive election result and probably he liked the size of his new train set."

Let him run riot in EUrope in his position as an MEP, not on a premier early morning political TV show speaking in such a manner about the current leader of his party.

Dismal

In light of the not unsurprising revelation that The Voice of the Future blog is a respectable 54% evil it comes as a deflating disappointment to me that The England Project is rated:

Leadership battle soon to follow.

Quote of the day

But that's the way of our public sector these days. There are so many of the useless bastards that they have to make work for themselves, or someone might spot that a few thousand unnecessary civil servants are hiding behind the Emperor's new clothes.

From the pen of Barry Beelzebub.

UKIP and Conservative policy on the EU

Sean Gabb's latest Free Life Commentary is based upon a memorandum he arranged to be given to the leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard. The creation of this memorandum was prompted by a number active members of the UK Independence Party who approached Mr. Gabb to ask him if he could use his contacts get a message to Mr. Howard and to perhaps meet with him. They wanted to urge the Conservative leader to end his official ambiguity about our membership of the European Union.

Many UKIP supporters are conservatives at heart. They want to believe that the Conservative party will help to end the ever increasing entanglement of Britain within the EU. They want to believe that the Conservative party will take a EUrosceptic view and, more to the point, they want to believe that the party really means it. If they are not convinced then, it seems, that they would rather be in opposition to Labour government than represented by a Conservative government that is unclear and untrusworthy on the issue of the EU. Better to have a clearly defined and open enemy.

They will, in other words, do what they can to wreck the Conservatives electoral chances.

Here's what Mr. Gabb has to say on the effect his memorandum and his meeting had:

I submitted this memorandum. We had a long and a personally friendly meeting. But there was no agreement. I was assured that there would be no change of policy and no change of emphasis. The Conservative leadership would under no circumstances talk about withdrawal from the European Union. For my friends in the UK Independence Party - who had almost certainly made other approaches - this was enough. They would begin their wrecking strategy. They would prepare to destroy Oliver Letwin and any other Conservative politician they thought vulnerable.

It seems that the message many Conservative voters sent their party by voting UKIP in the recent European MEP elections has been discounted and I have to say that I was pretty much convinced that this was the case.

It is the primary