Labour Party leader and Aliens

So Red Ed is not dead after all, but very much alive and kicking, after he came from behind on Saturday to beat his brother David in the Labour Party leadership election by just 1.3%. David had more support from MPs and party activists, but Ed won through thanks mainly to the votes of union members.

One of his first tasks was to try and rubbish Tories’ claims that he was now in the unions’ pockets. However, they (the unions) will undoubtedly consider him as THEIR man, and will demand their pound of flesh somewhere down the line. He will discover that it’s rather difficult to appese them whilst trying to keep some of his MPs happy as well. He also informed the media yesterday that since his election on Saturday afternoon, folk have been joining the Labour ranks at the rate of one per minute. That’s 1,440 a day; 10,080 a week, or over one million new members within two years. Surely those new members, along with the existing party faithful, should be enough to see him safely into No 10 at the next election, as long as he remembers to bow the knee to the bigger unions as well, of course.

I see that trainee nurses are now to attend lectures on how to listen to patients, and show compassion towards them. Now, maybe I come from a bygone age, but I was led to believe that kindness and compassion towards their fellow beings was part and parcel of a nurse’s job. Indeed, we were told that it was more of a calling for them, and not so much of a job. The scheme has been added to the nursing student curriculum at Edinburgh’s Napier University following a £1 million, 3 year survey of patients, relatives, and nursing students sponsored by Ann Gloag, Stagecoach tycoon and former nurse. It seems ironic that the money was given by a woman who went to court, and successfully managed to get the public banned from part of her Kinfauns Castle estate in Perthshire. Is that the type of compassion that she had whilst a nurse, and is it the kind of attitude that she would like the student nurses to have?

Hundreds of bird watchers have flocked to Norfolk to catch a glimpse of a yellow-bellied flycatcher, which has been spotted for the first time in Europe. The 5 inch bird, which usually migrates to Mexico and Central America, is obviously no coward, as it has landed up to 4,000 miles off course. Maybe it just got fed up of going to the same bogs over there each year, and has heard that one can get around here fairly easily using Ryanair.

Talking of flights, and folk who are involved in such, it is being reported that the UN is to appoint a space ambassador to act as the first point of contact with any aliens who want to make contact with us after landing on our planet. They are set to give the job to Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist, who is currently head of the little known Office for Outer Space Affairs. Presumably, they will be intellectually more advanced than us, and to save room in their craft, they will probably be sent by their leaders as individual sort of flatpacks, to be assembled on touching down here. I would imagine that their first words might be, “ Greetings, Madame Othman, we come in pieces”.

Post Election Blues

There have been two things fluctuating every hour in Britain over the past few days – the volcanic dust cloud from Iceland, and the state of talks between the Tories and the LibDems, and Labour and the LibDems. Funny how a Party that came third in the popular vote and in the number of seats, can stop our Parliament from getting on with its business, cause a dip in the money markets, and ultimately even have the final say in which Bills manage to get through the Commons.

In the past couple of hours, Labour seem to have given up their wooing of the LibDems, so we’ll just have to wait and see if they (the LibDems) will crawl under the duvet with the blue brigade. The talks are cloaked in secrecy, making the election of a Pope seem like a school open day. We don’t even have the benefit of smoke being emitted, to give us some idea of how things are going. I suppose the no smoke rule is because they are so worried about the environment. It’s certainly not done me any favours, as I was hoping to make a quick buck out of my not inconsiderable number of peatbanks.

Of course, most Labour top knobs will see this as a blessing in disguise – tough measures have to be taken right from the outset if our economy is to recover, and their hope is that the electorate will clamour for an early election, blaming the other two parties for making us tighten our belts. Gordon Brown’s belongings are exiting Downing Street as I write, leaving another scramble for the leadership of the Labour Party. Many Conservatives do not like the idea of being in a coalition of their party with the Liberal Democrats, and vice-versa. Alex Salmond is bleating over his Cullen Skink that nobody seems to want to make a deal with him. As far as I can see, not many politicians in Britain today care a hoot about the electorate or how to reverse the country’s slide into poverty – all that matters to them is their own inflated egos and bellies.

If you think our politicians are bad, bickering and sniping and taking a couple of days to form a coalition government, then take a look at Taiwan - where legislators have finally passed a controversial law after repeatedly getting into physical fights in parliament over the issue. The controversial legislation - which would open university enrolment to students from the Chinese mainland - has sparked repeated bouts of fisticuffs this year. It finally passed late on Monday after legislators grabbed one another's arms and necks, in a move that is expected to bring the two main rival parties closer together - and not just so they can get more punches in. The new law would allow the admission of up to 2,000 top students every year from China, which claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan. It is intended to help build people-to-people relations after decades of limited contact. But it's raised fears that it will force Taiwanese students out of the system and see them going to offshore universities. 'The Chinese mainland will attract our best students, meaning Taiwan's educational industry will go bankrupt and unemployment will rise,' opposition legislator Tsai Huang-lang said.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine across the Pond sent me the following snippet -- The outer road along Interstate 44 near St. Louis is freshly paved — with asphalt made from recycled swine manure. It is believed to be the first time asphalt has been created from swine manure. Two St. Louis County companies, road contractor Pace Construction Co. and the engineering firm Innoventor, joined together on the project. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Innoventor perfected the process of converting the animal waste into a bio-oil used in asphalt binder. Hog producers are optimistic that, if the project works, it will create an additional source of revenue while helping the environment. I don’t think I’d like to be driving on it in one of their sweltering hot summers, somehow.

Election, Golf, and Dolphins

Having been off the planet for a few weeks, I thought I’d come back to earth, and find out that politics had disappeared off the front pages. Alas, I soon realized that my hope was misplaced, given that a General Election has been called for next month, with thousands of aspiring pocket liners advising us on where to scribble our crosses. Lampposts, signposts, and even scratching posts, are covered in leaflets bearing the different parties’ names – so much for helping the environment, given the waste of paper involved. Do those who go around sticking up those works of art really imagine that I am going to be swayed by how many they’ve managed to put up, or by how high up a poster has been placed? I had a phone call on Tuesday night from a canvasser, informing me of how useless our sitting MP has been over the past few years, but she neglected to tell me what miracles HER candidate was going to perform in order to brighten up my existence. As I was trying to watch some football at the time, I wasn’t too amused with her rantings, so I gently told her that I liked planting XXXXXs on an attractive female’s lips, but that she need not apply.

Whilst I was away, I attended my nephew’s wedding, in the lovely town of Troon, famous for its golf courses and ice cream. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to sample either of those delights – the ice cream would have played havoc with my aftershave, and the golf was ... well ... too expensive. The marriage ceremony and wedding went off without a hitch, the reception being in a very nice hotel, with spacious grounds. We had excellent food and service, but unfortunately my ferric levels dropped alarmingly, as there was no Irn-Bru to be found on the premises. I suppose there was some consolation to be found in the array of beautiful females there, mostly from the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Wha’s like them? If Tiger Woods had been in town having a round of golf, even he would have been put off his stroke.

Exercise Joint Warrior, the biggest training operation of its kind in Europe, kicked of last Monday. It takes place twice a year, and is held around the Clyde, the Western Isles, and Cape Wrath in Sutherland, with 11 countries being involved in the present one. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) are present as well, of course, in order to monitor the effect of the exercise on marine life. It must be rather difficult for them to assess properly, as they are land based, although they have managed to come up with the fact that research on a population of minke whales that appear off the west coast in the summer showed that the number of animals fell during each exercise, suggesting that they disappeared whilst it was being carried out. Of course they do – they’re not daft, and have no intention of being blown to bits by a rogue torpedo. By the way, if you’re walking around those coasts this week, and think you’ve spotted a bottlenose dolphin, do not be surprised to hear someone calling, “Bonjour, Monsieur”, as it will just be a French submarine up for a breather.

I see that our very own snowy owl has returned to the Hebrides this year in its continuing search for a female companion. It has been visiting most of the islands, including St Kilda, for the past 7 years, and although it was joined by another owl of the same species in 2008, hopes of a happy ending were dashed when it emerged that it was another male, presumably with the same idea of finding a mate. I suppose they’ll have to move with technology, and start using an online service, such as “Feathered Fling”.