Pre-Empting Silly Pricks Day

As you would probably imagine, I’m not a fan of the supposedly serious TV channels and so on acting like cocktrumpets just because it is April 1st. I can feel the blood pressure rising. Just like last year.

An Irregular Book and Film Review

Book – Mirrors of the Unseen : Journeys in Iran - Jason Elliot

A book about a chap’s journeys around a country with a pretty dire image problem in the eyes of the Western World. Having dealt with Iranians in my job, I have come to like the ones I’ve come across. They may have thought of me as a bit of a whelk, but my English cricket inspired approach to negotiations – the straight bat defence – seemed to gain their respect and we also had a few laughs. This book conveys much of the Iranian psyche that I saw – but Lord almighty, he is a bit full of himself, this author. His snippy recount of an American with a baseball cap on backwards seemed to come straight out of a charicature I really haven’t seen a lot of in my travels. His obsession with Islamic art and architecture didn’t float my boat, but his recounting of history and ancient civilisations all moulding into this pot was of great interest. Truth is, when this book was dull, Jesus… it was dull. But he frustrated me by making the end of the book a lot more interesting to the degree that I asked myself, had his publishing company got fed up and just told him to end it there. A delicious irony is his lambasting of Lonely Planet tourists, but then we have a piece on how he forgot the battery for his camera! You damn tourists….

6.5 / 10 – A struggle, not unworthy, but a real slog. Added to my knowledge and feel for the place and I seriously would love to go there. The beloved may not share my keenness. I may dip into his book on Afghanistan if I come across it on my secondhand book travels.

The Bourne Identity

Lord, you may ask, why are you reviewing a film released in 2002? I’ll tell you why – because I watched it for the first time while doing the ironing downstairs when the beloved was upstairs moaning about me putting Goldfinger on! She was watching some old reality TV bilge, and I watched the first hour over the Timberland clothes…. I completed my viewing last night instead of watching tedious old Glen Beck on Fox News. The joys of being married to a lovely American lady…

Anyway, I thought it was excellent, as indeed I found the Bourne Ultimatum which clearly had a larger budget, a decent location allowance and more SFX. I don’t watch a film for the deeper meaning of life, to enable me to touch my chin thoughtfully on Newsnight Review or contribute to Pseud’s Corner with the Guardianistas. I want to be entertained in this life of mine, not lectured to or made to think any more about my wasteful existence, this waste of oxygen, this carbon footprint I am. And this film entertained me. Jake was upstairs not jumping all over me after his walkies, and I settled down on the sofa to watch the second half. The plot was implausible, the US secret ops playing the familiar role of villain, and the assassin with the heart of gold who did not shoot the president because he was surrounded by his cute African offspring. All terrific cliches, but still the film rolled along, at a decent pace and I now need to watch Supremacy to complete the list.

I have no idea if this follows the path of the book, that I’ve never read, but it appears from reviews it does not. Oh well. I might read it if I ever feel the need to devote my time to fiction again.

Excellent stuff. 8.5/10.

Currently reading a biography of Sachin Tendulkar by Vaibhav Purandare, which is showing early worrying signs of being a bit of a lovefest. Already had some interesting bits on Mumbai cricket though which I never knew, and that is always a good sign for me.

BBC Breakfast Climate Change…

Oh dear. It didn’t take long this morning. I switch on the TV to find out how the cricket went last night, and given I was taking the old jalopy into work this morning, to find out what the tunnel situation was like before another one of the climate loonies was allowed his say. This one was official. This one was from the Environment Agency. The fact the muppet sounded like an automaton off a soundboard with cliche after cliche in what I recognise from my days in a job preparing this as “line-to-take speak” was one annoyance. The fact he was patronsing and moved his arms in a clearly coached way was another. The fact he was talking total bollocks on behalf of the highwaymen who run our water industry now is quite another.

The argument being that in 40 years time (we’ll all remember this in 40 years, won’t we) that our river beds etc. could dry up by over 80% leaving us all thirsty and in dirty clothes. Hmmm. I thought the really wet summers we’ve had the last couple of years have been due to climate change, and haven’t they replenished our reservoirs? Now these hot summers are going to be dry, and London and the South East will be the new Costa Del Sol, if you believe these soothsaying morons who couldn’t predict tomorrow’s weather, let alone 40 years down the road. The guy in Newcastle who did a passable impression of the contempt I’d have shown said instead of the water companies hitching their convenient bandwagon onto the lovely climate change kerching circus, could they actually look after the water they have first before lecturing us. You know, selling reservoir land to build houses, leakages in the pipes, inefficiencies down the chain. that sort of thing.

Environment Agency Patroniser waved his hands in a vaguely disturbing manner to give effect to “comforting” and instead got a huge “why don’t you fuck off” from your’s truly, waking the beloved from her enchanting slumber.

I see what goes through her mind - “why do you watch this?” And the truth is, I don’t know. But they’ve won, these cretins who’ll send us back to the dark ages, in the eyes of the BBC and the politicians. They’ve won. It saddens me, it angers me. I don’t believe those that can’t convince, and these do not convince me. When you use the climate change handle to control and to implement the most authoritarian of rules which binds us all, you are moving down the slippery slope to totalitarianism, because that’s the only way this plan can work – verboten, forbidden, control, penalty, punishment, non-compliance. I know I’m not the only one who can see it. But what can anyone do?

Oh well. Be happy. The clock’s went forward….. Another British Summer beckons. Bet we won’t be confusing Margate and Malaga any time soon.

Heavy Hearted, WindyBrickery

The Dmitri Not Quite As Old phone call was chilling. “We won’t be going next season” he said. “What are you on about?” “Haven’t you seen the post on Tight WindyBricks? The one about the Family Enclosure”. “What’s it say?” I retorted. “They are moving us. Well they ain’t fucking moving me, because they can fuck off.” Dmitri not quite as old was in rambunctious form. He’ll jolly well tell these rotters. These septics, coming over here all high and mighty and nicking Dmitris as their playthings….

Sure enough, the American offspring of the annoying old Scottish Crone comedian on Celebrity Squares (this one) sent a letter, signed in his fair hand but which he admitted he had not even read, to tell us to fuck off out of our seats and let the kids sit there. For that we’d be shunted off into the corner and told to stop fucking moaning because its for the kids. Then we’d have to pay full whack after a year for these corner seats, and we should shut the fuck up moaning because the kids will love it where I am and their pittance is much more important than my money, and any sentimentality I might have. He told us we had to grow the fuck up and live with it, or more like, please grow the fuck up you fucking retarded mong and move your fucking fat arse when I tell you to (try that in the City of Brotherly Love, old chum, and they’d be stringing you up from the Walt Whitman, and that’s no fucking lie. The Brotherly Hawks aren’t known for their bonhomie).

Then his stooge in the pannelled corridors of power, elected in the same way as Dunwich’s seat was handed out  in the 1700s, said one of the perils of his job was making “tough decisions”. The stooge on the board, that is, not son of the annoying crone off Celebrity Squares. Decision? Do me a favour, mate. You may be elected like a politician but don’t act like one. Anyway, he’s told me before to fuck off and support Arsenal, so now he’s telling me to fuck off near the corner flag because the kiddies will love my seat. The Jamaica Road Unfeminine Barber Shop Quartet approved, saying he couldn’t understand why the likes of me would moan about being moved from the best seats in the house to some shit place up in the Gods (we sit where we do for a reason, but not enough of a reason to trump the last vestige of an argument of any scoundrel – “for the children”). Stunner. He’s told me to fuck off as well in the past. So I probably will. Me, and the what, £700-800 a year I put into the club will be no loss. After all, the local kiddies will benefit…

Anyway, to matters on the field. Mandleson’s Beating Water sounding effete French in style were given a penalty, which they missed, and a two goal start by someone who clearly lived in the 70s with John Thaw, but this was not enough as the Carpet Bomber With Indian Cutting Instruments, also named after a relic of the 70s in bicycling lore, notched three in ten minutes to send us home from the hunting ground of hanging apes with a surprising three points when none looked likely.

The following Saturday saw us up at the gang of railway people from northern Egypt, and with so few fixtures on Sky had the gargoyle reporting as he watched the game on a monitor. Why can’t we all see it, you ugly ponce? Anyway, 70s bicycle splattered his nose all over his face, thus ending his scoring streak, and the game seemed to be ebbing away to a 0-0 draw. Then at about 6:20 it seemed, the gargoyle said he had a goal to report. Lawks a mercy, if the ole WindyBricks hadn’t gone and done it again. Away win number six in a row, and the Bricks are up and throwing. A goal from our new loan signing, disturbingly wearing gloves, the tart. Donovan Market Value, I think they said. Well in these times of credit crunchery, Donovan Market Value will do for me, gloves and all. That keeps us safely third, the economists are running out of numbers, the dog chains are bigging themselves up for another fall, Ancient Pork are imploding, Integrated Iron and Steel Works Firewall Favourites are keeping themselves in the hunt, while the plassie Scallies and the other wretches are fading. It just leaves the Tax dodging jockeys who lost on Saturday to the Number One Disciples Manor… We meet this second place upper class buffoons on Easter Monday.

Before then we have Community Singing Charlie’s Coke Bunker at the Surrounding Gambia Playing Area tomorrow night. I will have just three more occasions, possibly four, after that to sit in the sentimental position that my late mum secured for me when the ground opened. I’ll be terribly sad, but then, really, according to the people who’d sit in shit if the board told them to, I’ve got to fuck off. FOR THE CHILDREN………

Night Night, kiddies.

Silence Should Not Be Deemed As Contentment

Contentment would be very nice, but at the moment I am not. WindyBricks have decided to evict me without a public vote and move me to another diary room, higher up but not central and certainly not near the tunnel where I am sedentary at present. They may well be poking next season’s ticket up their rectal cavities, sideways.

Needless to say the pointlessness of life is given by way of reminders on an almost daily basis. I make a point that so many do regarding our MPs troughing it at the public expense. Why did the idiot pay for it? Couldn’t he find any online? Then there’s that Cohen fellow, the big-time socialist with a big-time ego. Yes, mate, that’s precisely what Marx was on about with his theories – buy a nice house, get a second one free. And then compare yourself to our war hero! You star. Then there’s the one who had a bunk up in the Houses of Parliament and took pictures of it. You dolt! I’m sure you are not the first, and won’t be the last, but when caught with your trousers down, don’t provide your own evidence. He claimed he was drunk. Nice one! Then there’s Mr Pickles who claims to make sure he gets to Parliament at 9:30, no ifs and buts, he has to leave home at 5:30. I once left my house at 5:30 and got to Darlington for a 9:30 meeting – this chump lives in Brentwood. You wonder why people laughed at you, trougher!

Then we have this G20 malarkey. The beloved and I went over to Excel on Saturday for the British Travel Show – where the wife got autographs from Charlie George and Eddie Kelly – where my darling wife thought it odd that the police were checking the traffic lights…. Anyway, we have all sorts of warnings from the powers that be that the Great Unwashed will be unleashing hell on anyone in a suit. We have orders to dress casually so as not to draw attention to ourselves and not to antagonise anyone who might disagree with my view that they are fucking timewasters looking to get on the TV, who would protest if Obama came here for a day trip to the Brecon Beacons. We have Stop The War marching on the US Embassy – er, why? What’s that to do with anything? We have the Dark Age Dickheads, fresh from making me turn my garden light on full beam on Saturday night to anti-protest, who are off about their Chicken Licken crap again. Then we have anti-capitalists who dream of the collectives and hate people who have aspirations. Jesus, go and moan somewhere else… I can’t even recall who the others hate. Me, probably. I may not like our Government, nor the possible even more terminally inept oppostion and the other ne’er do wells in Parliament, but I loathe these moaning minnies more. Another great journey to work beckons.

Ah well, I’ll do a heavy-hearted WindyBricks report and we’ll see what else tickles my fancy. But one thought, again read over the weekend, to leave you with. The Government wants all our details on databases and has promised to keep them safe. How much faith do you have when the Home Secretary can’t even keep her husband’s film habits private. Makes you think….

Scottish Lord Conquers Economists

Ah yes… The WindyBricks once again save their finest for the unfamiliar rather than the cosy confines of Fortress Loony Bin at The Surrounding Gambia Play Area. Last night they travelled up the first motorway, alongside the Modern Dock Facilities at Pagnell, to play the Concrete Cow Economics Professors. And away we came with a mighty 1 to nothing victory courtesy of yet another goal by the distinctly promising Samoan Sid impersonator, the Scottish Lord. This despite playing with no recognised centre backs as Stefan Dennis isn’t feeling good, and the American Disciple with no nutritional value was also absent. In addition we had no Krankie from Black Lace in the midfield, instead fielding Cassius the Italian Plug man.

The WindyBricks are now level on points with last night’s foes, and looking at the remaining fixtures, our only remaining game with a top team is the Easter Monday clash with the region of the Bestest Disciple at the Modern Lesley Grantham. And on the Bricks travel this weekend for a meeting at Lesley’s Pub Ground for a game against the Stefanie Powers French Lido.

Work that gibberish out.

Quote of the Day..

I read this yesterday.. 10 points if you can guess who the “expert” is.

I only hope that pictures of those visits persuade (name removed) at the last minute that he is missing a golden opportunity to be seen with one of the world’s recognised climate change experts.

Coming Soon…. MLB 2009

The Sox de Rouge….

I have posted my win-loss record in to the Joy Of Sox blog, which for regular readers of my witterings will note is probably politically diametrically opposed to much I believe in, but is actually run by some really decent people who I disagree with. You can disagree and get along you know. However, I am looking forward to the Sox season, and hope and pray that we can usurp the upstart Rays and keep the Evil Empire of the Beloved at bay. I am not going to try to do a WindyBricks style post for each and every game or whatever, but you’ll soon find out, if you are new, how much I love baseball.

I am keeping the anticipation in check, as the season doesn’t really start for a few weeks yet – I am not one for pre-season friendlies – but will be in full effect soon to give my views on what I’ve seen so far. Roll on April.

Rant

Ah yes. Postman Prat (see below). I got up again,  jauntily and with all the enthusiasm I could muster to seek out the post office pick up place and secure my registered post. Today my bus was crammed full of pesky schoolkids annoying the life out of me. I hate standing on buses, especially if I have to go a fair way. I got to the post office at around 8:15 only to be told, yet again, that the FUCKING LETTER WAS NOT THERE. As you can imagine, there was joy in my step as I made my way down to the station, accosted by noisy ailing banshee kids giving my arse the headache as they seemed incapable of discharging themselves from the bus without making a noise like a cat trapped in a food mixer.

Anyway, full of the joys, I can add another thing I would like to moan about. I have to speak in vagueness, for I actually don’t have specific individuals in mind. But if you are new to a place of work, are a consultant and not actually formally employed by the organisation, and thus earn yor crust at the behest of the organisation to which you are contracted, treat the place, and the indigenous work force with the respect we deserve. Use some common courtesy, please. By this I mean…..

TURN YOUR FUCKING MOBILE PHONE OFF. YOU C***.

The Pardew Incident – Some Proportion Please….

It has just come to my attention that one of the biggest tossers ever to manage a football club, Alan Pardew, has made a bit of an arse of himself.  As readers will know, one of my common phrases is “I am no fan of….” – that tag squarely applies to Pardew who when “comparing” a tackle to rape, has moved a touch into the stupid. But stupid and football are common bedfellows these days.

 

Anyway, where rape is concerned, Pardew has clearly crossed the line into the territory of “mock outrage”. Number 1, I am a keen football follower, but not that keen that I watch MOTD 2, so had no idea this had been said until I stumbled upon it – so, rule of thumb, the average man with a predilection to listen to Alan Pardew and go out and rape a woman, a large cross section I’m sure you’ll agree – probably missed it. Second, I don’t think anyone seriously believed Michael Essien actually raped Ched Evans. Thirdly, even if the phrase was used, it is hardly a cause for the righteous to pounce on… However, the Daily Mock Outrage Mail clambered on the bandwagon with its customary gusto…

 

But then some individual, a woman with a bloke’s name, obviously on someone’s rolodex, came out with this beauty…

 

“Lee Eggleston of Rape Crisis England and Wales, today slammed Pardew for ‘trivialising’ sexual violence.

She said: ‘The use of this language is completely inappropriate and I’m shocked to hear about it – I can’t imagine why Pardew has said it.

‘That something as serious as sexual assault has been misused to describe football is appalling.

‘He has trivialised and undermined the seriousness of rape and anyone who has suffered sexual violence will rightly be angry hearing of it.

‘I think he should apologise because otherwise it sets an example that it is okay to use the word rape in that context.

‘We have spent 25 years making sure sexual violence is not acceptable and rape is a serious crime and this can only hurt that.’”

 

Read the bits in bold and tell me this woman with a bloke’s name isn’t seriously unhinged. Who the hell cares what Alan Pardew said? He once went in the press to tell all who would listen that his West Coast Main Line Otis XI were a better team than my beloved WindyBricks in 2001, and had his arse handed him on a plate when his team were murdered in the first 50 minutes (can I trivialise the taking of another man’s life – I can only hurt the taking of murder seriously by trivialising it). That we battered (I can only trivialise domestic violence) them, leaving them beaten to a pulp (there’s trivialising assault and/or battery), and it certainly wasn’t robbery (trivialising theft, burglary etc.) was apparent. Pardew was left abused (don’t go there) and ashamed.

 

Imagine, Lee… Pardew has harmed all your 25 years of making sure sexual violence is not acceptable (only 25?) – please, please, please, get a grip of yourself, laugh the crap off as the witterings of a bloke trying to be blokey over a bloke’s sport, and treat the mock outrage huckstering of the Daily Mail et al with the barely concealed contempt it deserves. Pandering to their salivating anti-BBC (rich coming from me) tendencies by fuelling their mock outrage over trivialities is even more sickening than the stupidity of the quote. But that’s just it. In this country now “freedom of speech” is a myth – and there is the new, much more worrying trait, of a right not to be offended. Why bother calling for an apology. No-one takes Pardew seriously other than himself.

 

Oh yes, there are more idiots from the rolodex queueing up to be “outraged”…

 

“A spokesperson for Women Against Rape also criticised Pardew for ‘trivialising’ such an important issue.

‘Anyone who can say such a thing has no idea what rape means.  It is really insulting to rape survivors to have the word trivialised in that way.’”

I had a couple of thoughts – I doubt there are any societies, fake charities etc, called Men For Rape? And are those that are raped, but are not survivors? Are they represented by anyone?

 

I abhor the use of violence against women as much as anyone – YES I DO. I am even one of those who believes rape should be a life sentence – but also that those women who falsely accuse should be subject to huge sanctions too (and it does happen).

 

But I take stupid comments for what they are, and do not raise the offence-ometer when someone says something stupid. A word of advice, people who get phoned up by the Daily Mail on a shit-stir…Try being fat – you get state sanctioned insults all the time. I’m not supposed to be offended when people say horrible things about me due to my weight. Last night I was told by a pundit on a news station that because I eat the wrong things, I’m stupid and lack concentration (ooh look at that plane flying by). Nice one. So when a football pundit says something stupid, just tell the Mail to eff off. (and the Telegraph et al….)

Hopping The Wag

Readers will note how I referred to the mother of all Parliaments as the House of Scoundrels, Rogues and Ponces in my post “Sunday in London”.

 

Some may say I am being a bit harsh. Some may say that politicians are doing a valuable job trying to save an economy falling on hard times. Some may say we have a parliamentary system to be proud of.

 

I have an interest in a bill currently before Parliament. I’m not surprised to have read what is contained in this excerpt, I am not surprised at what it contains, I’m not surprised that the situation it concerned.

 

“This has been a short debate. That may be simply because this is a relatively uncontroversial Bill, but I am saddened to note that the Minister has sat in pretty much solitary splendour on the Labour Benches. No Labour Back Benchers have spoken, although one or two are present and their presence has been much appreciated. It strikes me as incredible that at a time of some of the worst economic conditions that we have experienced for not just one generation but probably several, not a single, solitary Labour Back Bencher thought it important enough and could care enough to turn up and add his or her tuppence-worth. Labour Members apparently did not think it important not only to support their Minister in what he is trying to do, but to try to ensure that their constituents and people around the country understood that they really care about the parlous economic conditions in which businesses are trying to operate.”

 

I have said it offline many times before, and it applies to all parties. You should receive an allowance for the time you spend in the Commons chamber. If monitoring our every move is passed by the powers that be, then those that represent us in the mother of all Parliaments should also be monitored. When we elect our MP, we don’t expect them to bunk off work. We pay them to represent us in Parliament, and that does not mean sitting in the bar, or having a chat with their mates. It means sitting in the Commons, listening and participating in debates and voting. No attendance, no allowance. If you are encouraging us to productivity, to knuckle down, to get the UK out of this mess, then at least have the courtesy to put in the shift you are paid to do. You get more holidays than us. You get nice allowances. You get more friendly hours than us. You get two homes if you work the system. You get a nice subsidised bar. The least you can do to repay us is to not take the piss and bunk off.

Sunday In London

Some pictures from a lovely Sunday afternoon in London town… It was a beautiful, glorious afternoon as I took the beloved on the Thames Clipper up to the London Eye…

Tower Bridge, of course…

St. Paul’s Cathedral…

Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, House of Scoundrels, Rogues and Ponces more like…. From the top of the Eye..

Sun goes down over London – taken on the way down in the London Eye…

The House of Scoundrels as the sun goes down…

Waterloo Sunset….

Eye Eye….

Crimson Snide’s Dementia Worsens…

Worrying news reaches me from The Times, where it appears the senile old twat in charge of Manchester United is blaming everyone but himself and his team for their humiliating defeat to the rednecks on Saturday.

If having the most money, a handy little disaster to pull on everyone’s heartstrings, the refs in your pocket, all your games against the top teams at home in the second half of the season, a media love-in in case they don’t get quotes to fill their tedious rags, every game live on TV that they can possibly have to bolster their revenue yet further (funded by Sky, sad to say) then a little bit of a scheduling issue which would have given Liverpool more time whether it was played on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Passover, and Snide does his usual mature method of protest.

“I’m not talking to you.”

He really is a senile old goat. Or are these the legendary mind games we have heard so much about. After all, he refuses to speak to the BBC for some daft reason or other (the Premier League should grow a couple of bollocks and fine the old bastard, as the authorities do in America if someone has a similar hissy fit), and now he holds Sky responsible in part for this?

Senility.

Postman Prats

It is only a small thing, but annoying nonetheless and symptomatic of the (lack of) service ethic prevalent in this country. On Saturday a registered piece of mail came to my address, but due to circumstances outside of the beloved’s control, she was unable to answer the door. So, as is usual, the postman left his calling card which told me to pick the said piece of mail up from the depot. On the card it said I should leave 17 and a half hours from the time on the card. I know, a mystifying time, but who am I to argue.

 

So, as I need to pick it up, I get up early to avoid being late for work, and take the bus to my local post office. There was no queue, so I handed over the card.

 

“Sorry, this is not back in the depot yet.”

 

“Eh?”

 

“No, won’t be in until later today. See, it was delivered on Saturday.”

 

“Eh?” (I’m really loquacious in the mornings)

 

“Can you come back later?”

 

“Er. No.”

 

“Well it isn’t here, sorry.”

 

“I suppose I’ll just have to get up early again tomorrow then, won’t I?”

 

If the damn thing was never going to get to the sorting office on Monday, WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T THEY SAY THAT ON THE FUCKING CARD. I left the office feeling like an idiot as if I’d made the mistake. I checked the card again – nowhere does it say “don’t bother turning up on Monday morning because it won’t fucking be there.”

 

So I have to get up early again tomorrow. Great.

Sunday Anger

Roger Harrabin, he of the BBC environment team who cross refers his stories with pro-green lobby groups , was on the BBC last night taking the piss. (If you want to read the extraordinary way that Harrabin negotiated a story with a green lobbyist, read the e-mail transcripts here…)

Now I love a nice holiday or two, and I do love a bit of snorkelling on coral reefs. I have been very fortunate to have a day out on Agincourt Reef off Port Douglas – Steve Irwin, we miss you – and on the reef that Cousteau did not go to off Cozumel. It is a great thing to do and I wish I could scuba dive to get up closer to the beauty. Harrabin took it one step further. He got miced up, with scuba diving gear on, and reported from off the coast of Eilat in Israel to tell us we were making the sea more acidic and coral is dying.

Oh, nice one. How did you get there Roger? Are you Siena Miller in disguise? Or don’t BBC bedwetters counted by Gaia when it comes to this sort of thing?

Add to that, some climate change sceptics are not exactly convinced by the science that the CO2 levels that are increasing will destroy the corals. From Junk Science…

Recycling this nonsense, again: Carbon emissions creating acidic oceans not seen since dinosaurs – Chemical change placing ‘unprecedented’ pressure on marine life and could cause widespread extinctions, warn scientists. (The Guardian)

Before getting excited about this nonsense people should look at the geological evidence — life thrived in the oceans when Earth had atmospheric carbon dioxide levels 10-20 times those of today. Another little point they omit is that the reason mollusk shells tend to be thicker when the globe is cooler is that cold water absorbs more CO₂ than warm, meaning there’s more available material which which to construct calcium carbonate shells.

Coral reefs may start dissolving when atmospheric CO2 doubles – Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting effects on ocean water are making it increasingly difficult for coral reefs to grow, say scientists. A study to be published online March 13, 2009 in Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at the Carnegie Institution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem warns that if carbon dioxide reaches double pre-industrial levels, coral reefs can be expected to not just stop growing, but also to begin dissolving all over the world. (Carnegie Institution)

Corals evolved in the Ordovician, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels ranged between 4,000 and 5,000 parts per million — i.e., in excess of 10 times what they are now. Either these guys know this, which makes their claims knowingly false, or they don’t, in which case they appear unqualified to make any claims to begin with.

Watts Up with That does its best to debunk this story when it was floated back in January…

I do despair that the stories being used to scare us are not being tempered when quite a few people are questioning them. But please, if you are going to run the story, don’t jet your correspondent out to Israel, give him a cracking diving holiday for him and his film crew and then tell us all off for putting too much in our dustbins and driving to work. Don’t take the piss.

I did like this quote from Watts Up With That..

“Perhaps corals are not so tough as they used to be?  In 1954, the US detonated the world’s largest nuclear weapon at Bikini Island in the South Pacific.  The bomb was equivalent to 30 billion pounds of TNT, vapourised three islands, and raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees.  Yet half a century of rising CO2 later, the corals at Bikini are thriving.  Another drop in pH of 0.075 will likely have less impact on the corals than a thermonuclear blast.  The corals might even survive a rise in ocean temperatures of half a degree, since they flourished at times when the earth’s temperature was 10C higher than the present.”

(Apologies for the hanging text at the end – still not mastered all of WordPress as yet!)

It’s Coming. Prohibition Is On Its Way…

Anyone with an iota of sense knew that the health lobby were not going to stop with cigarettes. It took them long enough to get to the stage where smokers are now treated as pariahs, but they got there. Now, with tax on the things high and getting higher, the cancer sticks being banned from pubs, clubs, workplaces etc., advertising banned, health care services denied to those that won’t give up, patronising ads on TV et al to tell us to stop smoking by making people feel like war criminals if they still light up… the campaign has been templated, noted and laid out to follow in future. The only question is which of the two issues will be battered first? Fast Food, or Drink.

So, Sir Liam Donaldson, with the undoubted patronising acquiescence of the BBC, put forward his agenda yesterday. It isn’t too much of hearing stories like the one where a mother was stopped from buying a bottle of wine in case she gave it to her 14 year old daughter who was food shopping with her. If it isn’t that whatever tax or levy is put on the stuff, the drinks cabinet at the BMA or the House of Commons will probably be liberally stocked, and lightly taxed, and also subsidised in the worst way by the taxpaying saps who will be victims of any policy. If it isn’t because the state believes they need to save us from ourselves, so we can fund their nonsensical bailout policies. No, Sir Liam believes that alcohol should have a minimum price based on the alcohol units in a drink.

The people will rebel on this one, because the vast majority of us like a drink. Me included. Do you know what, I admit it, I’ve been terribly drunk in my time. You know how many people I’ve beaten up or knifed drunk? You know how many times I’ve been to hospital as a result of being drunk? The answer to both is zero. So you are proposing, Sir Liam, in ever such an egalitarian way that because some people who have that fucking problem because they are reprobates and cads, and have the law to stop them from so doing if it were enforced properly, because of them, you want to punish me. You illiberal prick.

The Daily Mash put it so appositely in their spoof article, re the Government’s CURRENT response…

Government sources last night hinted they would reject Sir Liam’s plan stressing they may be catastrophically incompetent and hopelessly out of touch with public opinion, but they weren’t morons.

Indeed. But the Tories are making worrying noises, and never fear, the binge drinking assault is coming and we’ll all be in the firing line. Just as soon as they start their attack on fast food outlets which will be a gnat bite to McDonalds and the death knell to your local chip shop.

Liverpool FC To Jesus – Watch Where You Stick Good Friday

I see the rednecks are at it again. This time the plea is to UEFA to stop them scheduling a game in the You Don’t Have To Be Champions League on 15 April because of Hillsborough.

I was there that day, as my friends and family know. It was a horrific, harrowing day. I will never forget it as long as I live. That day destroyed football because the consequences since – seating areas, new stadia, and then from then the concentration of power at the FA and the Premier League to ensure standards were met that only the rich could really fulfil, all in part or in full derived themselves from that fateful day. If the whole of football took the day off to commemorate the death of the competitive game then I could understand it.

But get over it, Liverpool. I can’t ask my work to give me the day off every 1 July and 19 April to commemorate my mum and dad’s passing. If I have an important meeting, or am needed in the office, I will do so. Don’t tell me this communal grieving is more important than my personal loss, because this vicarious grief is sickening. Play on 15 April, play with black armbands, play for those people who died, commemorate their loss with a great victory, not wallow in a date and pull up sticks. Good grief, they’ll be asking the church to move Good Friday or Easter Sunday if it clashes with the 15th next.

No-one is commemorating 29 May, I hear. I don’t ever hear of Bradford not playing on 11 May (they may not as the season is usually over by then, but if it is, its not publicised). I’m sure Rangers and Celtic have both played on 2 January since 1971. Why do Liverpool have the sole possession of grief and maudlin reminiscences?

And yes. I was there. No, I didn’t lose anybody but I saw what I saw. We got rid of fences because of this disaster so some good came out of it, but then again, Liverpool fans ran all over the Wembley field a month or so later to show why we had the bloody things up in the first place. Let the bloody thing go, and play on the day if UEFA draw you out as such. You get enough special treatment (being let in as holders when no such thing existed a few years back) and yet you still want more. Dear God.

Three Coins and a Round Thing

Another three games on which to report, and 6 points out of 9 is not a bad return but certainly not enough for the masses who demand perfection at every turn.

 

On the 7th Day of Mars, on the occasion of the confirmation of marriage of the beloved and I, the WindyBricks were playing away at the large area at the back of that unfunny prick my dad liked but I thought was tiresome’s house – It’s the News Huddlines made my skin creep, Dad – and we won 2-1. The Scottish Lord put us 1 up early in the second half, but the northerners in blue stripes and three sides to their ground when I went there, equalised shortly thereafter. Just as the David Seaman lookalike was calling the flock in for the mock wedding, St Elmo’s Fire told me that the WindyBricks had snatched the lead in injury time, with a goal courtesy of Hooray not Thierry. He’s good he is. Joy unconfined, yet again.

 

Last Tuesday, and the WindyBricks had a load of old cobblers from up the M1. Never good games at the home of the Bricks, and this one lived down to expectations. A few decent chances early on were spurned before drudgery ensued. Just a few minutes before a break, Hooray not Thierry, he’s good he is, diddled the full back, squared the ball across for The Great Gary to sidefoot in from where he couldn’t probably miss. Hooray not Thierry missed a great chance early in the second half to kill the game, but at the end the old cobblers were threatening us, and given they were as threatening as Clive Dunn, our panic was misplaced, and the WindyBricks held on for another three points before our crack at home to the top of the table Tax Fiddling Jockeys.

 

We lost this big game to a goal by Frankie Howerd, who netted past Dagenham Dave from just outside of the box while the WindyBricks cognoscenti were screaming at the linesman for offside. The Tax Fiddling Jockeys were comfortable most of the afternoon, with the Holiday Village in goal returning to his old stamping ground having a quiet day. The WindyBricks were subdued and never really threatened. Alas, when a big game is in town, so does the knobhead quotient increase and the game was interrupted by a number of missiles descending on the playing area, most ridiculously a hard boiled Edwina Currie. I do despair at the primeval thought processes wandering through some of these Brickheads, especially their tone deaf serenading of the followers of the Tax Fiddling Jockeys at full-time. I’m all for singing a choon or two, but wouldn’t it be better during the game than afterwards. After the singing took on a bit too much Charlie rather than Charlie Chester, the Old William, despairing that they hadn’t had too much of a rumble down Senegal Way waded in for a merry old baton dance, by all accounts. The Brickheads reciprocated with their customary generous donations to the Old William’s Christmas Fund, and also their kindly attempts to assist in urban regeneration by relocating old masonry free of charge, and everyone went home to reflect on their contributions to a day of nonsense. I was confused because their manager looked nothing like Five Star’s Dad.

 

Off to the Concrete Cow Academics in Economics on Tuesday night, before two further away games at Mandleson’s place and the gang from the railways. It’s getting tight with the WindyBricks….

Three Coins and a Round Thing….

Another three games on which to report, and 6 points out of 9 is not a bad return but certainly not enough for the masses who demand perfection at every turn.

 

On the 7th Day of Mars, on the occasion of the confirmation of marriage of the beloved and I, the WindyBricks were playing away at the large area at the back of that unfunny prick my dad liked but I thought was tiresome’s house – It’s the News Huddlines made my skin creep, Dad – and we won 2-1. The Scottish Lord put us 1 up early in the second half, but the northerners in blue stripes and three sides to their ground when I went there, equalised shortly thereafter. Just as the David Seaman lookalike was calling the flock in for the mock wedding, St Elmo’s Fire told me that the WindyBricks had snatched the lead in injury time, with a goal courtesy of Hooray not Thierry. He’s good he is. Joy unconfined, yet again.

 

Last Tuesday, and the WindyBricks had a load of old cobblers from up the M1. Never good games at the home of the Bricks, and this one lived down to expectations. A few decent chances early on were spurned before drudgery ensued. Just a few minutes before a break, Hooray not Thierry, he’s good he is, diddled the full back, squared the ball across for The Great Gary to sidefoot in from where he couldn’t probably miss. Hooray not Thierry missed a great chance early in the second half to kill the game, but at the end the old cobblers were threatening us, and given they were as threatening as Clive Dunn, our panic was misplaced, and the WindyBricks held on for another three points before our crack at home to the top of the table Tax Fiddling Jockeys.

 

We lost this big game to a goal by Frankie Howerd, who netted past Dagenham Dave from just outside of the box while the WindyBricks cognoscenti were screaming at the linesman for offside. The Tax Fiddling Jockeys were comfortable most of the afternoon, with the Holiday Village in goal returning to his old stamping ground having a quiet day. The WindyBricks were subdued and never really threatened. Alas, when a big game is in town, so does the knobhead quotient increase and the game was interrupted by a number of missiles descending on the playing area, most ridiculously a hard boiled Edwina Currie. I do despair at the primeval thought processes wandering through some of these Brickheads, especially their tone deaf serenading of the followers of the Tax Fiddling Jockeys at full-time. I’m all for singing a choon or two, but wouldn’t it be better during the game than afterwards. After the singing took on a bit too much Charlie rather than Charlie Chester, the Old William, despairing that they hadn’t had too much of a rumble down Senegal Way waded in for a merry old baton dance, by all accounts. The Brickheads reciprocated with their customary generous donations to the Old William’s Christmas Fund, and also their kindly attempts to assist in urban regeneration by relocating old masonry free of charge, and everyone went home to reflect on their contributions to a day of nonsense.

 

Off to the Concrete Cow Academics in Economics on Tuesday night, before two further away games at Mandleson’s place and the gang from the railways. It’s getting tight with the WindyBricks….

Two Climate Change Conferences..

This week there are two conferences going on. One is in Copenhagen. One is in New York. One is a meeting of scientists, and other interested parties on the issue of climate change. The other is a meeting of scientists, and other interested parties, on the issue of climate change. One says that we should debate climate science, make sure the facts are the facts, and that people aren’t scaring the world and their politicians unnecessarily. The other puts out statements including that the Amazonian rain forest could decrease to 25% of its current size, that Southern Europe could become a desert, and that the time for debate, such as there has been, is over. Politicians have no more excuses, it’s worse than we thought.

Stop for a minute. Worse than we thought? Erm… you are supposed to be predicting this stuff, and you are already telling us you are wrong? Oh leave it Dmitri…

You see, the only sources I’ve had for the conference in New York, the one bringing together those sceptical with the means, motive and opportunity of those seeking to hitch their caravan onto the back of the climate change (RIP Global Warming) juggernaut, are sites like this and this. Libertarians also smell Government taxation based on guilt, a modus operandi currently being floated for eating chocolate by cranky doctors, and think the climate change stuff may be a load of horse manure. But whereas the BBC and other news outlets have wet themselves over the apocalypse coming out of Copenhagen (where, presumably, everyone from the other side of the world jetted in on nasty aeroplanes), they’ve ignored the Heartland conference in New York as if the people there are members of the KKK. I just ask for some balance.

Because with my own eyes, with our own eyes, in the UK we had a cold winter. Last summer we had an awful time. We haven’t had a truly belting summer since 2003. It isn’t getting warmer to our own eyes, yet we are told whenever ANY event takes place, be it cold, or warm, wet and windy, icy or burning, the demonic climate change is at hand. Some of us, and given a poll I saw today in the States, I’m not alone, DON’T BELIEVE IT. A large swathe of the population think this is nonsense. You cannot convince people by ignoring them and pretend that they will go away. Unless, of course, you have another motive here other than the always heart-rending “we have to save the planet”.

As Neil Cavuto, in a civilised and quite interesting debate with a chap from Greenpeace, said recently..

“I just want to know what the hell is going on. When it’s warm you’re right. When it’s cold you’re right. When it’s raining you’re right. When it’s blizzarding you’re right. When it’s, like… I don’t know… it just seems you’re always right…”

The debate is settled, and a conference of quite distinguished people is ignored, while extreme outbursts from a climate change panel who are admitting they got their original research wrong and have underestimated (how convenient) the effects of “climate change”.

I love the even-handedness. Or even the acknowledgement.