Is This Lord Lucan?

John Darwin turned up and Radovan Karadzic has been arrested. Gallimaufry claims the £10 prize for finding Lord Lucan:




Lord Lucan


Robert Mugabe

A bit of plastic surgery, a sunbed season ticket and Lucan's your Bob. The parallels are obvious. They're even wearing the same shirt! Has Private Eye noticed this yet?

What If Thick Athletes Were Treated As Badly As Disabled Academics?

Alice Miles has written an excellent piece in today's Times about the patronising approach that the world of work has to disability.
I was born with a minor physal disability that was not corrected despite much physiotherapy and surgery. It blighted my childhood and has blighted my adulthood. Don't believe that one can rise above the ignorance of strangers and strike one's own path in life. To do that you need money. Lots of it. When the well meaning person asks how one hurt one's ankle and then smilingly suggests an activity that is safe and suited to one's ability but is mind-numbingly dull, it takes a special sort of bravery not to respond with "big tits, well we won't be wearing a safety belt then." No wonder many people with disabilities are aggressive and rude: it's like the sign in the French zoo "this animal is dangerous; when attacked it defends itself.
I remember my first line manager in the Civil Service. After a month of working in a mindless mind-sapping job, I asked him how I was doing (I was proactive in seeking feedback before it was invented). He said, very well as they hadn't had to install rails. "Fuck me you turd-burgling arse bandit", I wanted to scream at him, "I meant how well am I doing this crap job?" I stopped working then as I realised that I would never be assessed for my achievements but instead marked down for my differences. Fortunately, as their are a lot more thicker people than me in the working population, jobs are designed for their abilities so I was able to switch off and coast along knowing that success would never be rewarded (and it wasn't on many occasions).
To be honest, the way I feel at the way I have been treated would earn me lots of folding money if I were a fenian or muslim just to stop me putting any violent thoughts into practice.

Beyond The Call Of Duty, Surely

A protester attempted to stick himself to Gordon Brown at a 10 Downing Street reception.
According to the BBC report of the incident:

"Spokesman Graham Thompson said Mr Glass - a 24-year-old post-graduate student at Strathclyde University - had smuggled a small amount of glue through Downing Street security checks in his underwear at about 1700 BST. "

Now Gordon Brown is unpopular and there's a war on terrorism going on but security checks in one's underwear is a bit, well kinky. What could they be looking for? I'm not going anywhere near the place now.


Hat tip to Womble On Tour for the original story.

Put Ed Balls In Charge Of ID Cards

Edward Balls has ballsed up his big school project, the marking of Sats papers. One thing I learned at my school*, a similar school to the Minister's, was that I was responsible for handing in my homework on time. The only excuses that might be accepted were extreme ill health and death. Now Edward is 41 and one of the brightest boys in the Lower Sixth, but he must show more responsibility and maturity if he wants to become a Senior Prefect or, possibly, House Captain of Tossers.

That is why we should stretch him with the ID Card Project. It will teach him that leaders are not necessarily the most popular members of the Junior Common Room, that application of hard work to the immediate matter in hand is most important and, hopefully, it might take the irritating twerp down a few pegs in his own estimation. He'll be better for it. And if he does make a pig's ear of it then all the better.



* St Abbs, actually.

Home Secretary Says Police Can Make Up The Law On Public Photography

As King John agreed in Magna Carta and even Jacqui Smith agrees, there is a right to take photographs in public places and there is no presumption of privacy for individuals in a public place. Go here for a download on the legal position.So the PCSO who allegedly threatened the photographer with a charge of assault for snapping pictures of stone throwing thugs was wrong. Up to a point.

According to the British Journal of Photography, our Jacqui wrote to Jeremy Dear, NUJ Secretary General on 26 June . In her letter she stated that local restrictions on photographing might be enforced "in reasonable circumstances" (my italics). "It is for the Chief Constable to decide how his or her officers should best balance the rights to freedom of the press, freedom of expression and the need for public protection." So no need for Parliament to worry its pretty little democratic head about freedom. And the Police Reform Act 2002 has granted the Home Secretary greater powers over the appointment and dismissal of Chief Constables.

So despite David Davis' by election victory, (YAWN), if the rozzers wish to do something that could bring them bad publicity or which might produce contrary evidence to the official line, or if they think it makes their job easier, they can impose a Stalinesque information blackout by preventing photographers taking uncontrolled pictures with only the legal legitimacy of a baton and pepper spray. Be very wary going about your lawful business if you are a fox hunter, a Brazilian or a mental - no one need ever see you again.

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself." George Orwell, 1984

picture with thanks to http://www.freesignage.co.uk/

Second Lieutenant Indra Lal Roy, DFC WWI Fighter Ace

He scored 10 victories (two shared) in 13 days between 6 and 19 July 1918 on his return to flying duties following recuperation after a serious air crash on 6 December 1917. The types he bagged in his SE5A (similar aircraft shown below) included Hannover Cs, Fokker D VIIs and were regarded as particularly difficult opponents by highest scoring British ace, Major Mick Mannock.

Second Lieutenant Roy was killed in combat over Carvin with Fokker D VIIs on 22 July 1918.

So much like the two weeks life expectancy of a pilot shown in the film Aces High.

Welfare Reform Is Not As Clever As James Purnell Thinks He Is

Thanks to Daily Mail

Mr Photoshop, James Purnell (extreme right in photo*), wants those sponging unemployed to pick up litter or clean graffiti in return for their benefits. I thought that those jobs were already done by Council employees or offenders under the restorative justice banner. Perhaps it offends the human rights of convicted criminals to be forced to work or there may be health and safety problems for them. Cleaning streets is dirty and hard work and I for one value the contribution that street cleaners and binmen make to society. Wouldn't it be fairer for unemployed people** to be given work more appropriate to their alleged levels of idleness? As MPs perhaps?

Summer Recess dates for the House of Commons:

22 July 2008 -
6 October 2008 (76 days)

Well the harvest has to be got in.

* Mr Purnell was delayed arriving so the official photo was doctored by an apparachik.

**An unemployed does not receive jobseekers allowance for up to 26 weeks if they are sacked for misconduct or leave their job voluntarily. Unemployed have to be looking for work as a condition of claiming jsa. If they do not satisfy the adviser they may be sanctioned and lose benefit.