Saturday 29 February 2020

The good old days.

Does anybody remember the good old days when we had hosepipe bans, happy days eh!
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The House of Lords.

There has been a bit of a hoo-ha in the press just lately concerning the House of Lords basically complaining that there are too many of them and that they do bugger all for their vastly inflated salary.
As with everything there are always two sides to the argument and I have to admit you can’t argue the case that there are too many of them as the Lords is now at over 800 second only to the Chinese peoples congress.
Image result for the house of lords too many members
Now for the argument that they can earn £300 a day for doing nothing which is quite clearly not true as we constantly see images of these Peers asleep in the chamber no doubt exhausted from their hard days labours.
I don’t like change for change’s sake and I think this is where we went wrong with the Lords, as they say “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” When the chamber was filled with hereditary Peers you could hardly say there were too many of them for you had to wait years until your father died before your turn and in the mean time many of them succumbed to death from drink, drugs, gambling or killing the family nanny before they got anywhere near the place.
It has been said that the Lords is a little like a gentleman’s club in that one can arrive in the morning, meet friends in the bar before a rather splendid subsidised lunch with a couple of decent bottles of wine, a little nap in the chamber and then home for teatime.
I’m beginning to warm to the idea of leaving well alone, especially as I have recently purchased my “Lord Joe Wells” title from the Principality of Sealand, I think I’d fit in like a glove!

Friday 28 February 2020

Prince Harry, the gift that keeps on giving.

It seems not a day goes by without some story in the papers concerning Prince Harry and here is another one, from a bloggers point of view it is the gift that keeps on giving.
The latest episode in this long running saga is that Canada will not be paying for protection for Harry and Megan as they are no longer members of the Royal family.
Image result for security for Meghan and Harry
Unfortunately for Harry and Megan they have chosen to leave the Royal family and join the ranks of the independently wealthy who one assumes have to pay for their own security, as the old saying goes, “you’ve made your bed now you’re going to have to lay in it.”
Let’s hope they manage to find a sensible way to earn a substantial some of money as I imagine the cost of security would be quite substantial, judging by the photo I found the bill for sunglasses alone must be fairly hefty.

Wednesday 26 February 2020

Yorkshire tea.

Just having a tea break after checking my emails and my latest post on Facebook, such a busy life!
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Friday 21 February 2020

The scourge of white van man

I'm not sure if I'm being unkind to white van man but just lately I have been plagued with white van man, not strangely enough the aggressive bad driving yobbo type normally portrayed in the press but a different type altogether.


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I'm not entirely certain that I didn't prefer the older version driving like a mad man causing havoc and mayhem in his wake.

 Image result for white van man

Perhaps I have been unlucky just lately but it seems every time I leave my home and drive down the road I am immediately stuck behind a white van man who seems barely able to achieve 35 mph let alone exceed it no matter what the speed limit is.

The strange thing is it seems to be the same van every time and I'm wondering has this poor fellow had some sort of safety device fitted whereby no matter how hard he stamps on the accelerator pedal the vehicle steadfastly remains at a constant 35 mph, or is this the new snowflake generation of white van driver who is scared stiff to exceed 35mph even in a 60mph limit.

As they used to say in the old days, "answers on a postcard," or you could just post a comment below!  

Wednesday 19 February 2020

Severe flooding in Great Britain.

How very sad to see great swathes of our beautiful countryside under water especially when it can’t be rocket science to solve the problem.
I know I tend to look at things in a very simplified way but surely if we dredge all the rivers this will increase the flow they can handle, although I believe the EU has stopped us doing this.
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The argument I believe is that if you dredge the river banks you will endanger all the small animals who live in the river banks, conversely if you do nothing and the river floods the animals will die anyway, from the small animals point of view it’s a bit of a Catch 22 situation.
The other solution is so obvious to the vast majority of people but seems to have escaped the notice of local planning officers, stop building on flood plains! I’m forced to wonder who is stupid enough to buy a house built on a flood plain, perhaps it should be made law that developers have to declare when selling these houses that there is a severe danger your house will be under water during the winter period.
If I’m not mistaken when engineers build a dam they have to dig a new channel to divert the river whilst the building of the dam is in progress, perhaps we could use the same principal with rivers that flood by digging another channel and joining the two the flow rate surely must be doubled.
Let’s stop blaming global warming for the problem and instead start blaming the real culprit, the planners who are unwilling to take the appropriate action to solve the problem, as I said it’s not rocket science.

Sunday 16 February 2020

Standards of dress for newsreaders.

I was watching the news last night which I think may have been on Sky when I was met with a female reader who appeared to be dressed in a pair of black stretchy jeans and a red casual top.
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Whilst not advocating a return to the good old days when Her Majesty’s BBC newsreaders would wear a dinner jacket whilst on the wireless, I think we can do better than skinny jeans and a casual top!

Monday 10 February 2020

The trial of Christine Keeler.

I have just watched the fabulous drama The trial of Christine Keeler on BBC 1 with Sophie Cookson as Christine Keeler and would recommend you to watch it if you can, it gives a fascinating insight into the morals and sadly the hypocrisy of the times.
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Perhaps even more interesting was the Tom Mangold documentary Keeler, Profumo, Ward and me which was shown on BBC 2.
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The awful treatment of both Christine Keeler, Mandy Rice-Davies and especially Stephen Ward the society osteopath, his trial and abandonment by MI5 which led to his unfortunate suicide and death are most revealing.
Finally there is no other way to end a story of Christine Keeler without using the photograph that will forever be associated with her.
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Wednesday 5 February 2020

HS2.

Why is the new HS2 rail link costing such a ludicrous amount of money and why isn’t it built yet?
As with all the massive infrastructure projects the costs inevitably spiral due in no small part to the amount of time it takes to complete them, HS2 has taken so long I imagine when it was first dreamed up it was costed in pounds, shillings and pence.
The sooner you can build anything the cheaper it will be for inflation and the rising costs of labour and material will inevitably have an affect on the price of the finished project.
Luckily I have a plan which may help to speed up the process, starting with the protest camps that have sprung up along the route and I know this may seem a tad extreme but how much can it cost to hire a bulldozer.
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Obviously, a certain amount of negotiations may be prudent before moving in straightaway with the bulldozer but we can’t wait forever, time is money with these projects.
No need to worry about having to hire expensive cherry pickers to get the protesters out of the trees when a short period of negotiation will suffice.
“You there in the tree are you coming down?”
Start the chainsaw.
“You there in the tree are you coming down?”
Chop down the tree, job done!
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Now, moving on to the subject of Government Inquiries most of which take so long they started in black and white; a very simple answer here, don’t bother with them.
It seems the Government has set its heart on having a much better railway to assist the Northern Powerhouse to become a “powerhouse” much to the benefit if those people who live there. You want a railway, it will benefit many people and you can shave 15 minutes off the time taken to travel to Manchester, what is there to enquire about?
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Now , to the slightly easier task of removing all the houses in the way and once again I think I have the answer to this thorny problem.
Nobody wants to live next to a railway line so we’re halfway there before starting to negotiate with any house owner who is unfortunate enough to be in the way.
The simple answer here is to compulsorily purchase the house but say for three times the market value, after all we have saved a fortune by getting rid of the protesters and the inquiries, we can easily afford to be overly generous purchasing the properties in the way and I think the vast majority of people would be more than happy to move when offered such an inflated price for their house.
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Well, that’s pretty much it as I see it, all I have to do now is send my scheme to the Government and I would estimate with a fair wind behind us we could have HS2 completed by the end of the year.

Tuesday 4 February 2020

Coronavirus.

WARNING. IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH PLEASE DO NOT GIVE CLOSE SCRUTINY TO THE FOLLOWING PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS POST.
SORRY ABOUT THAT!
It seems that there has been a tie up between the eating of bats in China and the latest out break of coronavirus.
Image result for man eating bats in China"
According to some of the latest news reports it has been suggested that also on the menu have been, crocodiles, camels, snakes, raccoons, eagles, rats and many more.
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The latest video which I have seen which I assume is real is of a man eating live baby mice dipped in sauce and is ready to wash them down with a glass of wine, an extremely distressing image. If one were making a particularly gruesome horror film all that would be necessary would be the addition of a nice Chianti and some fava beans.
I assume this fellow is eating these unfortunate animals as some form of delicacy as he has tomatoes and sauce, were he starving to death he might have some excuse for this sort of dreadful behaviour.
There is really nothing more to add, except perhaps the comment; IF YOU LIVE BY THE SWORD YOU DIE BY THE SWORD! All I can say is it serves him right.

Monday 3 February 2020

Plastic pollution.

To all the people who are making such a fuss about climate change and plastic pollution by stopping the traffic and blocking the roads in London, please stop.
Image result for rubbish thrown into the sea by lorry"
Here is an image allegedly of the Vellar River at Thittakudi in India where you can see people unloading lorry loads of rubbish into the river and ultimately one assumes into the sea.
Extinction Rebellion please take note, rather than stopping the traffic in London and causing more pollution try going to India and all the other places round the world where this sort of thing happens and stop them, I’m sure it would be a much more constructive use of your time.

Sunday 2 February 2020

BAFTA awards 2020.


There seems to have been a bit of a hoo-ha about the lack of films nominated which are by black people or by women and the suggestion that those selecting the nominations are somehow sexist or racist, I on the other hand, have a slightly different take on this story, there’s a surprise.
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One of the films nominated in the “casting” category is The personal history of David Copperfield which Mark Kermode said whilst reviewing it for the BBC;  “a brilliantly inclusive colour blind ensemble cast.”
He later went on to say that he thought the film, “Bait” should win the category for Best British film and here I think we have a clue as to why there are no films nominated which are by women or black people.
Unfortunately all the evidence seems to suggest there are no films which are of a sufficiently high quality and those that qualify by being “a brilliantly inclusive and colour blind ensemble cast” are quite rightly nominated in the “casting” category and not “best film.”