Starvation Army and England's Woes

As some of my readers might be aware of, I will be in Inverness on and off for the next few months, in order to have some of my bodywork seen to. I have not been able to eat solid foods for a couple of months now, but I have plenty of high energy drinks with which to fill the tank. For that, I am very thankful, especially when I see, or hear about, millions out there who are starving each and every day.

My daily food regime, however, has reminded me of a landlady with whom I stayed in this very city over 20 years ago, when it was still modestly referred to as a town. She is no longer with us – she has passed on, not due to starvation in her case, I might add, although some of her lodgers could easily have become the subjects of obituaries at an early age, because of the lack of proper food on their plates.

If cornflakes were asked for at breakfast time, I think she counted them in to the bowl, and as she could only count up to the number of fingers she had, and the milk seemed to evaporate before it hit the bowl, it meant rather empty stomachs. Well, there was always the ensuing fry-up to look forward to. She had been brought up during the War years, when rations were the norm, and maybe she hadn’t been informed that they had been done away with; that there was plenty of food to be had. Anyway, she used to fill the plate with half an egg, half of a small tomato, a thimbleful of baked beans, some kind of bacon rind, and a slice of see-through black pudding. I did see a gentleman come down to breakfast one morning carrying a pair of binoculars, but it turned out that he was going to use them for bird watching, and not to make it easier for him to find things on the plate. You won’t be surprised to discover that I still blame her for the lack of hairs on my chest.

There was a certain game on in South Africa yesterday where the so called English Lions were thoroughly tamed by their German counterparts. I am not going to gloat about it, but I have to say that some of the English players, throughout the tournament, have been abysmal, and a huge letdown to their fans, most of whom have had to save huge amounts of money over the past 4 years in order to cheer them on. Those players do not think of themselves as footballers anymore, but as celebrities – pulling on their country’s shirt is an irrelevance to them; in fact, an irritation, to be got out of the way as soon as possible, so that they can get on with holidays and with more sponsorship deals. They behaved like adolescents since arriving in South Africa, some of them rebelling against their coach, Capello, and others moaning about being bored in the camp (the best in the place, incidentally). They are simply overpaid, arrogant mediocrities. Meanwhile, Capello has played a blinder, having negotiated a new deal with the FA in the past few weeks which guarantees him millions of pounds even if they sack him today. The FA have again shown themselves to be thoroughly incompetent in having agreed to those terms with him. The media seem to blame everyone, but maybe they should take a hard look at themselves first – they hyped up the players as the “Golden Generation” of English footballers, when “leaden” seems to be a more appropriate adjective.

I suppose I should really thank the players, though, for making it to South Africa, as the amount of emails flooding into my inbox, and texts on to my mobile are sufficient to keep me laughing for the next month or so. Thanks, guys!

MPs, Expenses, and Elephants

I mentioned Willie Roe on 6^th May, in connection with contracts that his consultancy firm, Rocket Science, had been awarded by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the quango of which he is chairman. He is to step down from the company following an investigation into contracts worth £150,000 that it won from the development agency. The audit found that William Roe’s company did not benefit from his HIE position, but he said he was quitting Edinburgh-based Rocket Science to prevent any “perception of a conflict of interests”. He said: “I asked myself if there could be an even higher standard of separation of functions that would prevent any possible perception of a conflict of interest arising in the future. As a result, I decided on May 21 that, irrespective of the outcome of the HIE review, I would completely separate my public service functions from my private business interests.” Does this mean that he loses out on money from his private interests? Of course not! However, he would have lost quite a bit over the next 3 years if he had resigned from his cushy chairman’s post. Should he still be in that post? Just ask the bosses of many small firms who were not even allowed to apply for those contracts, and the answer will be readily apparent.

As the fuss over MPs’ expenses has fizzled out, at least for the moment, we should look at the body that allowed those outrageous claims to be rubber stamped. The Fees Office has for years been the custodian of “The System”, which originally stated that expenses could only be allowed if they were absolutely unavoidable for an MP to do his or her job. Actually, The Additional Costs Allowance, which seems to be at the root of all the trouble, was introduced in 1971 during Edward Heat’s days. (I wonder if he was one of the first to claim, maybe for a conductor’s baton, or gold plated taps for his yacht). At that time, it was capped at a few hundred pounds, but was raised to many thousands of pounds under the leadership of Tony Blair, the supreme conman. With that carrot being dangled in front of them, is it any wonder that many stood for Parliament who do not care a hoot for their constituents, but only for their reinforced pockets?

I would think that the main aim of most MPs, once elected, is to make sure that they are elected again, given the amount of money that they receive for doing practically nothing. Hence, although most of his MPs would like to see Gordon Brown step down as Prime Minister, they decided on Monday night to give him another chance. Not out of any love for the PM, but because they thought that having another unelected leader of Government would lead to an imminent General Election, when a lot of them would lose their seats. Actually, even with a later Election, a lot of them will lose their seats, as the British public has been roused from their customary apathy by the stream of revelations in the past few weeks.

Given the dire state of the economy in most countries at the present time, it seems preposterous for a football club to be dishing out around £138 million for two football players. The club will recoup the money, of course, some of it from sponsorship, but also from fans who will be shelling out more than half their weekly wages on admittance to games, and on related items, thus leaving them and their families in even more poverty. I’ve also read that over £1.4 billion is spent each year on pet food – four times the amount spent on baby food. A world gone mad, with its priorities all mixed up.

On a happier note, being one of those folk suffering from a nervous disposition, I was very relieved to hear that an elephant is the only mammal that cannot jump. I’ll feel so much safer when I’m on my next annual trip to Africa.

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.