Queen's Corgis at Risk?

 

It’s been revealed that the owner/occupier of Buckingham Palace, London SW 1V, has seen her bank account plummet from £320 million to a mere £270 million, mainly due to her investment portfolio losing 30% of its value. I’m not sure how she’s going to cope, what with having all those utility bills to pay for, MOTs for Prince Philip’s carriage driving vehicles, and of course, keeping the corgis in the style to which they’ve become accustomed. Maybe she could lease out some of the 52 bedrooms to the hordes who congregate there every day. Failing that, charging £1 to use one of the 78 bathrooms would bring in some much needed pocket money.

I see that a chairperson has been appointed to an independent group to examine the future of bull hire programmes in crofting areas. This group announced a couple of days ago that they were to hold a meeting to see what kind of bulls were most suitable for the crofters. I think it would be a better idea if they were to decide what kind was most suitable for the cows, and I would suggest that they start by deciding that it should definitely be male.

I’ve always been aware of the fact that ants were excellent workers, but I didn’t know until this week that they could carry up to twenty times their own body weight, and move together to move heavier objects. However, it also came to my attention that the South American giant anteater consumes more than 30,000 ants a day, or 210,000 a week.  Although the anteaters’ numbers are estimated to have gone down to about 5,000, that’s still a lot of ants that aren’t going to reach pension age.

Britain’s Dismal Budget

Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, delivered his Budget speech a couple of hours ago, but before I have a quick look at it, I’d better mention Gordon Brown’s announcement yesterday concerning the ongoing row about MPs’ allowances and expenses. A formal statement by Commons’ Leader Harriet Harman revealed MPs may vote within a week on the package. It would scrap the discredited annual £24,000 London housing allowance for MPs’ whose main homes are in their constituencies, including the much-criticised “John Lewis list” of items ranging from fitted kitchens to plasma television screens to bath plugs for which they can claim. Mr Brown plans to sweep away the present system by July 1 and replace it temporarily with one under which MPs would receive a daily allowance based on attendance at Westminster. This might save a few pounds, but it sounds even sillier than the present arrangement. It’s rather similar to me, as a bricklayer, being told by my boss that I was assured of my wage at the end of the week, but that I would be paid expenses if I actually turned up on the building site, and shouted “’Ear, ’Ear” every time anyone else laid a brick or a block. No wonder Britain’s in a mess.

As I mentioned, the so called Budget was delivered earlier this afternoon – I’m not really sure if we can rightly call it a Budget, as there’s nothing in the coffers to budget with. Our fellow in charge at the Treasury, Mr Darling, seems very economical with the truth. During his difficult speech, he mentioned that even now, most people manage to find work within a couple of weeks. Does he honestly think that even the most fervent Labour supporter is going to believe such utter rubbish? A few months ago, he had announced that Britain’s economy would shrink by 1% -- today, his forecast was 3.5%. The Brahan Seer, Coinneach Odhar in Gaelic, was well known in the 17^th century for his prophecies, especially concerning the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. He was reputed to have been born in the Uig district of Lewis, where Alistair Darling now owns land and property, but obviously the gift of accurate foretelling has not rubbed off on him.

Of course, all Labour Governments have been known to run out of money, leaving the Tories to pick up the pieces, but I doubt if any of them have got Britain into the situation that it now finds itself in, as the country has double the debt that it had when Labour came to power. It doesn’t stop there, either, as the Chancellor announced that he would be borrowing a further £348 billion over the next 2 years. We cannot even begin to imagine those figures, as we search for the cheapest tin of baked beans on the supermarket shelves.

The car scrapping scheme, which he also announced this afternoon, is likely to raise, rather than reduce emissions. The carbon costs of manufacturing new cars – and the materials required to produce them – appear to outweigh the savings from driving more efficient models. There is no way, either, of ensuring that folk will buy an economical model of car – they can go to the garage and buy a Mercedes instead of their 2-door Vauxhall Corsa, for example. This scheme is obviously not about the environment or jobs.  It's simply another installment in the history of government subsidies for the motor industry. But in this case it's mostly the car industry in other countries that we'll be supporting, as 85% of our new cars come from abroad. This, to me, is absolutely stupid. The building and civil engineering sectors are those which have lost the biggest percentage of jobs during this recession, but nothing is done to help them. Investment in the construction industry would get hundreds of thousands back into work, because of the extra jobs generated in manufacturing and haulage businesses etc.

I have to stop here, as I need a calming smoke, and Mr Darling will be charging me more for a packet in an hour’s time.      

   

Immoral and Obscene?

In this year of recession, with some families struggling to put a meal on the table, never mind being able to afford their utility bills and mortgages, it seems obscene for thousands to be holding down two or more jobs. Of course, as I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s been happening at the top for years, with guys who are on the Boards of various companies companies etc, but what we should realise is that it’s happening across the whole employment spectrum. I was reminded of it yet again this morning, when I heard a radio show being plugged, along with its new presenter, who earns a good salary already as a teacher. As the show starts whilst he is still supposed to be imparting knowledge to his pupils, obviously the show has been recorded beforehand. It is still on air as he drives home, comfortable in the knowledge that his bank account is being increased, whilst others (some of whom are perfectly able to present the above mentioned radio show) are at home, wondering how they will manage to cope with the next week’s bills. Immoral, unethical? I certainly think so. Remember – he is only one of thousands in this situation.

 

I’m not sure if recession is to blame for the next incident or not. I happened to be at a wedding reception for some 180 guests a couple of weeks ago, and as I hadn’t been out for a meal in the preceding few months, I starved myself all day, in anticipation of a lovely meal being set in front of me. I chose soup for my starter dish – I deliberately haven’t mentioned what type of soup, as I’m still trying to figure that one out. There were about five spoonfuls of coloured water, with some bodies floating about it, which I assumed to be lentils, or something closely related to them. Suffice it to say that I don’t think even Oliver Twist would have asked for a second helping. The service was at snail’s pace, and by the time the main course appeared, I’d nearly forgotten if I’d had the soup or not. I had opted for roast beef – it certainly wasn’t roast, and I’m not too sure if it was beef, as it was nearly impossible to eat. In fact, on first inspection, I thought it hadn’t even paid a visit to the abattoir. The meat was still pink, and so tough that I wished there was a hardware shop nearby where I could purchase a Stanley knife, or maybe a mini hacksaw. The few vegetables accompanying the meat were also very much undercooked, and the gravy looked as if it was the soup, without the lentil lookalikes. I’ve wondered since then if the hotel was trying to save money by cutting down on the cooking times, thus their gas or electricity bills, or was it a case of the chef, if there was one, having arrived late, and dishing out the stuff partially cooked, so that we wouldn’t be having the meal at breakfast time the next morning.

 

Of course, it’s been said that every cloud has a silver lining, and that was true in this case, as there were no post wedding cases of food poisoning reported, seeing folk hadn’t been able to digest anything in the first place.   

 

Scandal in Politics and Football

Because of other commitments, I haven’t been able to write a post to this blog for the past couple of weeks. I’ve kept an eye on the news during that time though, and it’s no surprise that politics, or rather, sleaze in politics, has been the main issue being covered in newspapers, and on TV and radio. As always, commentators and journalists invent a main name for the current scandal, in this case “smear”, then add the inevitable “gate” to it, thus giving us the highly original name, “Smeargate”. Do those guys not realise that the original case in 1972/73, involving President Nixon, was named “Watergate” because it was the actual name of a place, the Watergate Hotel and Office complex. It obviously follows that it simply doesn’t make sense to keep adding “gate” to the name they concoct for any new sleaze story that emerges.

 

Of course, about two weeks ago, we had the infamous “Boozegate” here in Scotland, when two Scotland international football players were deemed to be out of order for still gargling with alcoholic beverages at Sunday lunchtime, after being in the bar from around 4.30am. They might have cleared their throats, but obviously not their minds, as their behaviour at the Scotland-Iceland match on the following Wednesday night showed. As far as I’m concerned, they should not have been named as substitutes for the game, but seeing they were, they should have sat there, looking contrite, and supporting their team mates. They chose instead to flash ‘V’ signs at the photographers, which could also be construed as being offensive gestures to every Scottish fan. Obviously, this was not done on the spur of the moment by two individuals – that would be too much of a coincidence, and as I don’t think either of them has the intellect necessary to think of carrying out those actions, I keep wondering if someone involved with the media masterminded the whole thing. In any case, the whole episode proved beyond doubt that we have a bunch of bungling idiots running the Scottish Football Association, who don’t need to be in a bar for 7 hours in order to come to some crazy decisions.

 

I’ve referred to Jade Goody before now in this blog, and after her death last month, I hoped that the media hype concerning her would have stopped by now – that she would be remembered best for the awareness of cervical cancer that her illness prompted. Not so, I’m afraid. Jack Tweed, who got married to her a few weeks before she died, has been jailed again, this time for assaulting a taxi driver. Only last Friday, he was pictured leaving a giant Cadbury’s crème egg at her graveside. It might have been her favourite treat, but she’s gone Jack. Before becoming a resident at one of the Queen’s residences, it’s reported that he also visited Madame Tussaud’s, for talks about immortalising her as a waxwork. It seems that Jade had said that she’d love to have a statue made of her, especially as it would help her sons to remember her. I don’t think they’ll bother to amble into Madame Tussaud’s every day, but I’m sure that a photo in the wallet would serve the purpose, and I somehow don’t think it would cost as much either.