The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez Oil spill in Alaska was $80,000.00. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.

Still think you are having a Bad Day????

A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places. Up to that mom ent, he had been happily listening to his Walkman.

Are Ya OK Now? – No?

Two animal rights defenders were protest ing the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn , Germany . Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly. The two helpless protesters were trampled to death.

What?!? STILL having a Bad Day????

Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet didn’t pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with ‘Return to Sender’ stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits. God is Good!

There now, Feeling Better?

Wow does President Obama face a number of challenges or not as he takes office?

But probably the most urgent is addressing the state of the US economy, much as Brown’s is over here.

The US economy has already been in a recession since the beginning of 2008 whereas we have just gone into recession, and that slowdown is expected to last at least another year, making it the longest recession since World War 2.

The rate of job loss is accelerating, with 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008 alone, and the unemployment rate has soared to more than 7%. Not good!

Some economists believe the real jobless rate, including discouraged workers and those working part-time, is closer to 14%.

The housing market is still in freefall after two years of declines, and the number of repossessions, is at a record high.

The credit crunch has spread from the housing market to other sectors, with credit cards, car loans and commercial property lending all affected – as well as loans to businesses.

All this is likely to push the Federal government’s budget deficit to over $1 trillion, the highest in history and more than double what it was during the last financial year.

Tackling the jobs crisis President Obama will take office with 11 million citizens out of work, and he has signalled that his highest priority will be job creation again very similar to Brown’s pronouncements. Well let us be thankful that Bush is gone both for the sake of the US people and even more so for the sake of the rest of the world. At last we have a man in the White House who realises what’s really important, not crappy messages about how powerful the US is and how we are defending freedom but playing a responsible global role that is inclusive and not divisive.

I got only one reaction to that previous post probably as no one reads this blog. However it was interesting as it was basically a stream of vitriol from a young woman in the states who had obviously (a) not read the post or else she would have seen that it was not written by me and (b) she hadn’t read my profile (less surprising). The level of bitterness and hate in her words was truely worrying.

Bring it on

Makes one stop and think after reading this :
Michael Richards is better known as Kramer from tv’s Seinfeld series.

This was his defence speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act.
He makes some very interesting points. He said :
I’m proud To Be White.
Someone finally said it..
How many are actually paying attention to this ?
There are African Americans, Mexican Americans,
Asian Americans, Arab Americans, etc.
And then there are just Americans.
You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction.
You Call me ‘White boy,’ ‘Cracker,’ ‘Honkey,’
‘Whitey,’ ‘Caveman’ … and that’s OK.

But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head,
Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner , Gook, or Chink ….
You ca ll me a racist.
You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you,
so why are the ghettos the most dangerous plac es to live ?

You have the United Negro College Fund.
You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month.
You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah.
You have Ma’uled Al-Nabi…
You have the NAACP.
You have BET.
If we had WET (White Entertainment Television) we’d be racists.
If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists.
If we had White History Month , we’d be racists.
If we had any organization for only whites to ‘advance’OUR lives we’d be racists.
We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce.
Wonder who pays for that ?

A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant,
but any color can be in the Miss America pageant. If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships you know we’d be racists. There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US . Yet if there were ‘White colleges’, that would be a racist college.

In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights,
you would call us racists. You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you’re not afraid to announce it.
But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists.

You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us.

But , when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or
beats up a black drug-dealer running from the law and posing a
threat to society, you call him a racist.
I am proud.
But you call me a racist.
Why is it that only whites can be racists ?

There is nothing improper about this e-mail.

Let’s see which of you are proud enough to send it on

1. Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.
2. A man in Johannesberg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practiced shooting beer cans off each other’s head.
3. A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film’s depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while watching the film.
4. The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.
5. A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and back pain.
6. Swedish business consultant Ulf af Trolle labored 13 years on a book about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.
7. A convict broke out of jail in Washington D.C., then a few days later accompanied his girlfriend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he went out for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had him paged. Police officers recognized his name and arrested him as he returned to the courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.
8. Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message “He’s lying” was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn’t telling the truth. Believing the “lie detector” was working, the suspect confessed.
9. When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the police. They still refused, so the robber called the police and was arrested.
10. A Los Angeles man who later said he was “tired of walking,” stole a steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop.
11. A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise’s car into a river near Naples, Italy, in 1983. He managed to break a window, climb out and swim to shore — where a tree blew over and killed him.
12. Mike Stewart, 31, of Dallas was filming a movie in 1983 on the dangers of low-level bridges when the truck he was standing on passed under a low-level bridge — killing him.
13. Walter Hallas, a 26-year-old store clerk in Leeds, England, was so afraid of dentists that in 1979 he asked a fellow worker to try to cure his toothache by punching him in the jaw. The punch caused Hallas to fall down, hitting his head, and he died of a fractured skull.
14. Two West German motorists had an all-too-literal head-on collision in heavy fog near the small town of Guetersloh. Each was guiding his car at a snail’s pace near the center of the road. At the moment of impact their heads were both out of the windows when they smacked together. Both men were hospitalized with severe head injuries. Their cars weren’t scratched.
15. George Schwartz, owner of a factory in Providence, R.I., narrowly escaped death when a 1983 blast flattened his factory except for one wall. After treatment for minor injuries, he returned to the scene to search for files. The remaining wall then collapsed on him, killing him.
16. Depressed since he could not find a job, 42-year-old Romolo Ribolla, in 1981, sat in his kitchen near Pisa, Italy, with a gun in his hand threatening to kill himself. His wife pleaded for him not to do it, and after about an hour he burst into tears and threw the gun to the floor. It went off and killed his wife.
17. In 1983, a Mrs. Carson of Lake Kushaqua, N.Y., was laid out in her coffin, presumed dead of heart disease. As mourners watched, she suddenly sat up. Her daughter dropped dead of fright.
18. A man hit by a car in New York in 1977 got up uninjured, but laid back down in front of the car when a bystander told him to pretend he was hurt so he could collect insurance money. The car rolled forward and crushed him to death.
19. Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down and found himself in the city prison.
20. In 1976 a twenty-two-year-old Irishman, Bob Finnegan, was crossing the busy Falls Road in Belfast, when he was struck by a taxi and flung over its roof. The taxi drove away and, as Finnegan lay stunned in the road, another car ran into him, rolling him into the gutter. It too drove on. As a knot of gawkers gathered to examine the magnetic Irishman, a delivery van plowed through the crowd, leaving in its wake three injured bystanders and an even more battered Bob Finnegan. When a fourth vehicle came along, the crowd wisely scattered and only one person was hit, Bob Finnegan. In the space of two minutes Finnegan suffered a fractured skull, broken pelvis, broken leg, and other assorted injuries. Hospital officials said he would recover.
21. While motorcycling through the Hungarian countryside, Cristo Falatti came up to a railway line just as the crossing gates were coming down. While he sat idling, he was joined by a farmer with a goat, which the farmer tethered to the crossing gate. A few moments later a horse and cart drew up behind Falatti, followed in short order by a man in a sports car. When the train roared through the crossing, the horse startled and bit Falatti on the arm. Not a man to be trifled with, Falatti responded by punching the horse in the head. In consequence the horse’s owner jumped down from his cart and began scuffling with the motorcyclist. The horse, which was not up to this sort of excitement, backed away briskly, smashing the cart into the sports car. At this, the sports car driver leaped out of his car and joined the fray. The farmer came forward to try to pacify the three flailing men. As he did so, the crossing gates rose and his goat was strangled. At last report, the insurance companies were still trying to sort out the claims.
22. In a classic case of one thing leading to another, seven men aged eighteen to twenty-nine received jail sentences of three to four years in Kingston-on-Thames, England, in 1979 after a fight that started when one of the men threw a french fry at another while they stood waiting for a train.
23. Hitting on the novel idea that he could end his wife’s incessant nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself. When his wife came home and saw him she fainted. Hearing a disturbance a neighbor came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses, seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she was leaving the room, her arms laden, the outraged and suspended Mr. Fen kicked her stoutly in the backside. This so surprised the lady that she dropped dead of a heart attack. Happily, Mr. Fen was acquitted of manslaughter and he and his wife were reconciled.
24. An unidentified English woman, according to the London Sunday Express was climbing into the bathtub one afternoon when she remembered she had left some muffins in the oven. Naked, she dashed downstairs and was removing the muffins when she heard a noise at the door. Thinking it was the baker, and knowing he would come in and leave a loaf of bread on the kitchen table if she didn’t answer his knock, the woman darted into the broom cupboard. A few moments later she heard the back door open and, to her eternal mortification, the sound of footsteps coming toward the cupboard. It was the man from the gas company, coming to read the meter. “Oh,” stammered the woman, “I was expecting the baker.” The gas man blinked, excused himself and departed.

Worlds Largest Model RC Plane

My son went through a model aircraft phase a few years ago but we NEVER saw anything like this. It is, to use one of his words, ‘Awsome!’

LIFE IN THE 1500′S-

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by
June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean
water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By
then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don’t throw the baby
out with the Bath water..

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying . It’s raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren’t you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they
lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would
eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.
Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat..

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a
couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They
were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig
up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a …dead ringer..

And that’s the truth…Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Educate someone. Share these facts with a friend.

After 20 years of marriage, a couple was lying in bed one evening, when the
misses felt her husband begin to fondle her in ways he hadn’t in quite some
time.

It almost tickled as his fingers started at her neck, and then began moving
down past the small of her back. He then caressed her shoulders and neck,
slowly worked his hand down over her breasts, stopping just over her lower
stomach.

He then proceeded to place his hand on her left inner arm, caressed past the
side of her breast again, working down her side, passed gently over her
buttock and down her leg to her calf.

Then, he proceeded up her inner thigh, stopping just at the uppermost
portion of her leg. He continued in the same manner on her right side, then
suddenly stopped, rolled over and became silent.

As she had become quite aroused by this caressing, she asked in a loving
voice, ‘Honey, that was wonderful. Why did you stop?’

‘ I found the remote,’ he mumbled.

============================================================

Don’t you wish that you had written this? ……

Dear Minister,

I’m in the process of renewing my passport but I am a total loss to

understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and

telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in

1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on

what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every

Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I

have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you

still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with

contractors working for the government?

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am

watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the

government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will

keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.

Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one

with all the income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 30-odd years. It’s on

my health insurance card, my driver’s licence, on the last four passports

I’ve had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out

before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and

all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the

electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our

lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead

on the 4th of March 1957, my mother’s name is Mary, her maiden name was

Reynolds, my father’s name is Robert, and I’d be absolutely astounded if

that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I’m obviously not myself this morning. But between you

and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then

you ask me for my address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of

Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin

Laden? I don’t want to activate the Fifth Reich for God’s sake! I just want

to go and park my weary backside on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of

week’s well-earned rest away from all this crap.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get

another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to

the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to

have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new

passport the same day? But nooooo, that’d be too damn easy and maybe make

sense. You’d rather have us running all over the place like chickens with

our heads cut off, then find some tosser to confirm that it’s really me on

the goddamn picture – you know… the one where we’re not allowed to smile

in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!

Hey, you know why we can’t smile? ‘Cause we’re totally jacked off!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years

at the Ministry of Defence inLondon. I have had security clearances which

allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime

Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been

doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the

Services.

However, I have to get someone “important” to verify who I am —

you know, someone like my doctor… who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago ….

WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN !?!?!

Yours sincerely,

An Irate British Citizen.

Scenario 1: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.

1977 – Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up mates.

2007 – Police are called, Armed Response Unit arrives and arrests Johnny and Mark. Mobiles phones with evidence of fight are confiscated. Both are charged with assault, ASBOs are taken out and suspended even though Johnny started it. Diversionary conferences and parent meetings conducted. Mobile phone video shown on 6 internet sites.

Scenario 2: Jeffrey won’t sit still in class, disrupts other students.

1977 – Jeffrey is sent to the principal’s office and given 6 of the best. Returns to class, sits still and never disrupts the class again.

2007 – Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. Counselled to death.
Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADHD. School gets extra funding because
Jeffrey has a disability. Jeffrey drops out of school.

Scenario 3: Billy breaks a window in his neighbour’s car and his Dad
gives him the slipper.

1977 – Billy is more careful next time, grows up normally, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2007 – Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. Psychologist convinces Billy’s sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison.
Billy’s mum has an affair with the psychologist. Psychologist gets a promotion.

Scenario: Mark brings cigarettes to school .

1977 – Mark shares a smoke with the school principal out on the smoking area.

2007 – Police are called and Mark is expelled from School for drug possession. His car is searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Mohammed fails GCSE English.

1977 – Mohammed retakes his exam, passes and goes to college.

2007 – Mohammed’s cause is taken up by local human rights group.
Newspaper articles appear nationally, insisting that making English a requirement in school is racist. Civil Liberties Association files class action lawsuit against state school system and his English teacher.
English is banned from core curriculum. Mohammed is given his qualification anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers, puts them in a model
plane paint bottle and blows up an anthill.

1977 – Ants die.

2007 – MI5 and police are called and Johnny is charged with perpetrating acts of terrorism. Teams investigate parents, siblings are removed from the home, computers are confiscated, and Johnny’s dad goes
on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly with American airlines ever again.

Scenario: Johnny falls during playtime and scrapes his knee. His
teacher, Mary, finds him crying, and gives him a hug to comfort him.

1977 – Johnny soon feels better and goes back to playing.

2007 – Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces three years in prison. Johnny undergoes five years of therapy; becomes gay.

How many men does it take to open a beer?
None. It should be opened when she brings it
——————————————————————-
Why is a Laundromat a really bad place to pick up a woman?
Because a woman who can’t even afford a washing machine will probably never be able to support you.
——————————————————————–
Why do women have smaller feet than men?
It’s one of those “evolutionary things” that allows
them to stand closer to the kitchen sink.
—————————— ——– —————————–
How do you know when a woman is about to say something smart?
When she starts a sentence with “A man once told me..”
——————————————————————-
How do you fix a woman’s watch?
You don’t. There is a clock on the oven.
——————————————————————-
If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife is yelling at the front door, who do you let in first?
The dog, of course. He’ll shut up once you let him in.
——————————————————————-
What’s worse than a Male Chauvinist Pig?
A woman who won’t do what she’s told
———————————————– ———- ———-
I married a Miss Right.
I just didn’t know her first name was Always.
——————————————————————-
Scientists have discovered a food that diminishes a woman’s sex drive by 90%.
It’s called a Wedding Cake.
——————————————————————-
Why do men die before their wives?
They want to.
——————————————————————-
Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer
gut, and still think they are sexy.
——————————————————————-
In the beginning, God created the earth and rested.
Then God created Man and rested.
Then God created Woman.
Since then, neither God nor Man has rested.

But the problem is we still go to them at least once a week so all that is written in this post is so hypocritical.

(I’ve hated them for a while now but I guess I don’t hate them enough to handle the inconvenience of not using them, what with both myself and my wife working full time blah, blah blah, excuses excuses.)

 I thought that I loathed them because of the way they are destroying local shops, how every one looks the same so that no town seems to have an seperate identity etc etc. But then today I had reason to visit a producer of  pure farm produced apple juices. You can picture the story, gave up one job, sold up moved to the countryside, pressed some apples by hand and sold the juice at a farmers market, got bigger, invested, worked hard.

Now in talking to this chap I realised why I loath supermarkets. He began by selling his apples to supermarkets but soon felt that he had to stop because the only thing they were interested in was apples that were all the same. Same size, same shape and same colour. They had NO interest in taste or smell. Why I hear you ask! Because that’s what the public want the supermarkets say. Is this TRUE? Do you all want identical fruit, vegetables whatever, do you all have no interest in taste?

Anyhow this guy wasn’t going to put up with this so told the supermarkets to shove it. Stopped selling apples to them and sold them only at farmers markets, and moved the resultant surplus into juice production. Now has a thriving juice business as more and more people want local, pure juices.

The other major problem I have with supermarkets (this is turning into a rant) is the way that they take on these local farmers as suppliers, set impossibly high specifications and impossibly low prices then build the business with the particular farmer until he is beholding to the supermarket and then ask for yet cheaper prices. Result farmer operates uneconomically or loses his livlihood.

By the way the apples at this farm looked like apples, none were identical to any other one, they tasted great and smelt great and the juice tasted great. 

End of rant.

When is someone in government, power, authority whatever phrase you want to use going to come out and say that this type of behaviour is forewarning of a society splitting into two. We are finding ourselves with the majority of people that have one set of values and a small but growing minority that seem to have little or no values at all. I know many people will say that there has always been ‘bad’ people about and I am sure that is true but has there ever been so many people in society that operate on the basis of purely doing whatever they wish and to hell with everyone else? Indeed has there ever been so many people whose only way of expressing themselves has been through violence? Indeed are we not now seeing violence perpetrated as ’fun’, enjoyable?

What example can we think of that is not as extreme as ‘happy slapping’ the mere name of which expresses the thought processes of the perpetrators?

How many of you know someone who has been involved in a minor traffic accident, it may be even just a small bump in the supermarket carpark, or a poorly executed maneuver that is a minor inconvenience to someone? Now most of us would apologise, or if required exchange numbers and insurance details and move on, today it is not uncommon to find oneself in such a situation receiving a torrent of foul mouthed abuse and even physical violence.

Society seems to be moving towards a ‘I want it now and come hell or high water, I’m going to get it now’ attitude rather than considering whether one can afford it, or whether it’s right to have whatever the ‘it’ maybe. Many people’s natural reaction to an issue or problem is a violent one.

We have such a ‘weak’ government that rather than operating on principle operate on the basis of how to be inoffensive. They need to come out and state what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and if people act unacceptably then there will be consequences. Now this is not some right wing rant; in fact I’m very centrist; but it is the musings of a pretty mainstream guy who is genuinely concerned about the way we are going.

ITN – Tuesday, February 12 09:31 am

‘Scientists believe they have found evidence of a tiny pterodactyl in China. The toothless flying reptile has been studied at Brazil’s national museum, where it was found to have a wing span of just 250 millimetres (9.8 inches) and unexpectedly-curved toes.

Most pterodactyl fossils are found in coastal areas but this specimen was discovered in the western part of China’s Liaoning province, which would have been covered in forest 120 million years ago.

As a result, scientists have called the reptile “Nemicolopterus crypticus,” which means ‘hidden flying forest dweller’,

Palaeontologist Alexander Kellner said: “The fundamental importance of this discovery is that it opens up a new chapter in the history of evolution of these flying reptiles.

“So far, we never knew that these animals were adapted to live in the canopies of the trees, which is the case of the Nemicolopterus.”

The tiny fossilised reptile has a skull that is not fully fused, so it died before reaching adulthood, but the ends of the bones were developed, so it was not a hatchling either.’

 What a fantastic discovery. Here we are in the early part of the 21st Century and we are still making major discoveries about the world on which we live and the animals that have inhabited it.  However we need to be on our guard, some people would read a story like this and have a very different take on it, being as the world was created as it is now some 10,000 years ago! It’s easy to laugh about this but there are front running politicians in the US who are creationists.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7129882.stm

Secretary of State,
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR

Dear Secretary of State,

My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would now like to join the “not rearing pigs” business.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.

Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven’t reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?

I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department.

Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not
producing harmful and polluting methane gases?Another point: these pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don’t rear?

I am also considering the “not milking cows” business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields?

In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits.I shall of course be voting for your Party at the next general election.

Yours faithfully,

Nigel Johnson-Hill

I’m finding myself with very mixed feelings at the moment. My eldest son finished his ‘A’ Levels last summer, did very well indeed, got into the university he wanted but decided to have a gap year first. Now this was something we had actively encouraged as a means to broadening his horizons etc etc. He worked hard from July to Christmas to get the money together and then left for Australia in early January. He is expected back in early July after also visiting New Zealand and SE Asia.

So why the mixed feelings? It’s great he is now an independent adult, isn’t it, and we should feel proud that we have brought up such a person and we do but still there is a great sense of something being missing from the family and then there is the worry of how he’s getting on.

But I can hear you all saying ‘what’s he on about, he’s just feeling how all parents feel when a child flees the nest’. I know but it makes no difference.

Son Two is growing up as well, we went to the England game (quality time!) yesterday (what’s that cliche about it being a game of two halves, if you saw the game you’ll know what I mean?) and I found myself having a beer with him before kick off, seems like only five minutes since he was in nappies.

I’m not complaining really I’m not, in fact it’s all probably part of starting to feel old. I’m having that spooky feeling recently that when I have a shave some old bloke seems to be staring back at me and yet the view from this side when no mirror is involved doesn’t seem to have changed!

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat crap in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing. Also, I now have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown); who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the £15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program. Or from the senior bank clerk in Nigeria who wants me to split $7 million with me for pretending to be a long lost relative of a customer who died intestate.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St Theresa’s novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a Water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca-Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I can no longer buy petrol without taking a man along to watch the car so a serial killer won’t crawl in my back seat when I’m filling up.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan.

Thanks to you, I can’t use anyone’s toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my bum.

And thanks to your great advice, I can’t even pick up the £5.00 I found dropped in the car park, because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you don’t send this message to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large emu with diarrhoea will land on your head at 5:00pm this afternoon and the fleas from 12 dingos will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump.

I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbour’s ex-mother-in-law’s second husband’s cousin’s beautician.

By the way….a South American scientist after a lengthy study has discovered that people with low IQ who have infrequent sexual activity always read their e-mails with their hand on the mouse.

Don’t bother taking it off now, it’s too late.

Three men died on Christmas Eve and were met by Saint Peter at the pearly gates.”In honour of this holy season” Saint Peter said, “You must each possess something that symbolizes Christmas to get into heaven.”

The first man fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a lighter. He flicked it on. “It represents a candle”, he said.

“You may pass through the pearly gates” Saint Peter said.

The second man reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He shook them and said, “They’re bells.”

Saint Peter said “You may pass through the pearly gates”.

The third man started searching desperately through his pockets and finally pulled out a pair of women’s panties.

St. Peter looked at the man with a raised eyebrow and asked, “And just what do those symbolize?”

The man replied, “These are Carols.”

And So The Christmas Season Begins……