Snow surprise then?

We need a big umbrella over Britain it seems. We can't cope with snow, we can't cope with rain, and we don't appear to be able to cope with hot days. In fact, whilst there is a minimum temperature for working conditions, there is no such equivalent for high temperatures.

David Cameron is now beaming down from posters proclaiming that he'll get us out of the mess we're in. Perhaps the best policy he could construct would be one containing lots of joined up thinking. Britain suffers from short-termism. Just getting by is no longer any good. We need to learn from our mistakes and try our very best to get it right. So let's have some policies that actually mean something and let's have them without spin.

It was refreshing to hear President Obama tell the intelligence community they had failed to "connect the dots", adding "That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it." I hope the British voters will not tolerate any politician who is incapable of connecting dots.

Snow in Solihull

I see the council is predicting "snow disruption" as if this is a given. Another thing is that the chief executive is saying that school closures are up to the head teachers and the head teachers are saying it's up to the council. That's what I call responsibility (as we've come to expect it this country!). A decision will be made at 21.30. Don't hold your breath! I'm quite prepared for them to shut up shop and let the kids have a day off.

What if it freezes over until March? Have they thought of that?

UPDATE!!!

All schools will be closed in Solihull tomorrow, so no lessons learnt from last year then. I walked to Sainsbury's tonight and witnessed the traffic moving slowly. No gritting but perhaps it will happen overnight. Now we know that teachers can't drive in the snow. My suspicious mind tells me it has rather less to do with snowflakes but everything to do with ticking the boxes and keeping the rules in place. I also think, having witnessed the children getting extremely excited in the playground that a certain level of juvenile excitement is OK but too much is far too much.

I think they ran the white flag up the pole - couldn't see it - and decided it was all getting beyond their ken!

Snowed in and snowed out

Britain is in the grip of a snowstorm. Grip is a word much favoured by the media. It helps to send a feeling of helplessness over the poor British pysche. Rather like Private Fraser in Dad's Army "We're all doomed I tell you!", the council executives up and down the land are preparing for a period of battening down the hatches rather than attempting to deal with the situation.

On the Today Programme it was trumpeted as being the "worst weather in 100 years", "nothing like it before" and such nonsense. I wonder where they were in the sixties or late forties. Of course all this paranoia is just so they can excuse the fact that they don't have the necessary preparations in hand. Chief executives are paid a king's ransom but deliver paupers' promises when it comes to wintry weather conditions.

I'm quite prepared to walk to school tomorrow with my children only to find the schools closed because the teachers got stuck somewhere or they were told to stay home in the warm. What a world! David Cameron says that if elected he will get us out of this mess. Well, first off he could get rid of all the backsliders and excuse merchants and get a load of people in who do know what to do when it snows!

Blair seen as a liability

When was it ever different, I said to myself on seeing this piece in The Times. Apparently senior Labour figures have voiced concerns that Tony Blair’s appearance at the Iraq inquiry in the coming weeks will wreck any prospect of him helping the party at the general election. Helping them out? They'd be far better advised giving him a wide berth. The man is generally seen as being trouble on two legs. Blair's entourage are none too pleased with their hero being asked to explain his fibs and foibles. There is growing criticism being voiced within the former Prime Minister’s inner circle about Gordon Brown’s decision to hold the inquiry with public hearings in the run-up to the election. It was nicely put by a stooge as “The whole f***ing thing is Downing Street’s fault.” And these people used to run the country?

These Blairite types want him to "nuance" his testimony at the inquiry. What's new. He's nuanced everything since he knocked on his housemaster's door seeking attention. He nuanced his politics, he nuanced his religion, and he's currently nuancing his lucrative business career. He nuanced the Labour Party and no doubt nuanced all the mirrors in his house "Well, yeah, mirror, mirror on the wall, who is, yeah, the greatest nuancer of all?" "Oh, you are, Great Nuancer!"

Gordon Brown has had his Granita days. Tony Blair is not much use to the election or the future. New Labour dies a death in May!

Christmas Shopping Tales

The run up to Christmas was rather different this year. For once we got some snow, at least in Solihull we did. Then there was the rather depressed feel about it all. Everyone seemed to be on the look out for bargains. I overheard a young woman say to her partner, "I don't find it very Christmassy, what with all the sales on!" I thought for a second, looked around and the very first shop I spotted declared that they offered "0% Finance" with the poster virtually covering the window. Then I saw it's next door neighbour with a vast SALE poster in brilliant red letters. That was one of many "overheards" that day.

Christmas shopping has always been relatively stressful. Not because it's unpleasant to do or anything, just that "the world and his wife" are out, as my father often used to say. What sort of world and and what sort of wife I cannot really say, except that one particular person caused an outrage in the pound shop. Breaking wind whilst trying to grab a bargain is not on my list. Someone had dealt a low one indeed. It hung around the back of the shop. Customers were eager to give a look as if to say "that's not mine, you know!". I felt a dash for the door was called for but thought a measured exit more preferable. With all the shelves having been ransacked, merchandise was on the floor. I had visions of the paramedics bending over me. "Broke 'is neck rushin' out of the shop, apparently". "I was trying to avoid the fart!", I opine gently. With my daydreams intact, I wandered off into Mel Square.

The German Market was on. Looked very festive and it was indeed a very joyful sight. There was a beer garden and lots of little stalls decked out like German alpine cabins. Trouble was, I thought at least, there were no Germans there. You can't have a German market without Germans. Brummies don't quite make up for that much of a difference. I had visions of Basil Fawlty. "Don't mention Aston Villa. I did, but I think I got away with it!"

As usual each shop visit was greeted with an enterprisingly eager young assistant. "Need any help, mate?" Mate is now officially in every retailer's training programme. "Now, Colin - when a customer enters the store what do we say?" "Need any help, mate?". "Splendid!" I ventured into one store and got two young men saying almost the same thing followed a few minutes later by a young woman using the "mate" terminology. Does anybody today stand their ground like my uncle used to do. I imagine he'd be arrested today for gross political incorrectness.

The Wednesday evening, 23rd December, found me in Tesco. It was 9.30 at night but it could have been anytime during the day. It was packed solid. People had picked the largest shopping trollies possible to push around and into each other. I only went in for a few things. I must get the hang of this better next year. As I pondered the selection in the confectionery displays I heard a male voice speaking loudly. "She said I had a big nose?", he enquired in a rather tetchy manner. It was another mobile phone user on autopilot. "She's no right to say that. She's just stirring it". I tried turning round, my curiosity needed assuaging. But there was a trolley pinning me to the shelving. By the time I did turn round he was gone. Big nose or not, I will never know. I eventually got out of Tesco, having queued up for the self-service scanner (warning those in front of queue-jumpers).

Christmas was good for us this year and still is. After all there are twelve days of Christmas, although in this secular age it's more important to bother about the 120 days before Christmas. I hope the New Year brings us all some prosperity and happiness. My goodness, the world needs more of that!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY 2010 to one and all. I'm looking positively into the new year determined to make it a good one. I've been off the air, so to speak, with festivities and family fun. Will attend to the matter of pontificating later.

TWENTY TEN - Well I never!

Tony Blair and his Iraq notions!

So Tony Blair only had a "notion" that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the Middle East region and to the rest of the world. Well I have a "notion" that Blair is a dissembler, a deceiving spinner and a man whose politics were mainly built on the "notion" that all the people he met whilst gallivanting around the world would help him become a multi-millionaire. The bonused bankers achieve wealth through making money out of thin air. He has made money out of hot air.

These are "notions" but what the hell. We all have them these days. Nobody has much to say for politicians mainly because they have too many "notions". I'm glad Blair's gone. He was always on the make with his "well, yeah, so" type of approach to it all.

The fact that he sleeps at night is because he believes his own bullshit. I doubt if he ever will get round to thinking in any other way. What a life, eh?

Bats in Quentin Davies' belfry!

Quentin Davies is an MP who left the Tories in a huff so he could dance to the New Labour tune. Having rubbished Gordon Brown's stewardship of the economy as Chancellor, he praises him as Prime Minister. I once canvassed for the man when he was describing himself as John Davies to the more humble voters of Birmingham. I introduced him to a particularly bewildered high-rise council flat dweller as John Quentin Davies (which was the name the agent was touting!) whereupon Davies had a go at me saying that he didn't want the man to think he was some kind of double-barrelled toff.

So it comes as no surprise that his bell tower needs attention. Too many political bats crapping in the thing. He has denied trying to claim on expenses the £20,700 cost of rebuilding the tower at his constituency home. As usual, it's all a misunderstanding. A bit like the whole of the New Labour regime's time in office. Blair was good at misunderstandings! "Well, yeah, look!" kind of stuff.

I haven't been proved wrong. This nonsense will rumble on and on until someone gives Brown a kick up the backside.

Is CPS wanting to be judge and jury?

It seems to me that the Crown Prosecution Service is never satisfied by the outcome of court cases which involve them taking people to court over politically correct offences. The case over the Christian hotelier and the Muslim convert woman has ended with the judge dismissing the case. Now that more facts have emerged pehaps I was hasty in putting forward a judgement. However, it does appear that the two sides were acting like two dormant volcanoes suddenly erupting on the same day!

My attention was drawn to a comment by CPS senior lawyer Nicola Inskip. She said of the case, "We were satisfied that there was sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction that a religiously aggravated offence should be charged." Implying that she felt the Christian couple was at fault not the woman who was a Muslim convert. They basically took sides and came down in favour of the Muslim.

Each time that a case like this is thrown out the CPS offers up a whining comment that they were right and that, by implication, the judge, and jury if involved, were wrong. It is a sign that the infection of political correctness or more actually political incorrectness has invaded almost every part of our civil structure. It is insiduous and somehow we must put a stop to it.

Christian hotelier 'abused' Muslim guest

The BBC reports that at a court hearing it was revealed that a Muslim woman was asked by a Christian hotelier if she was a terrorist and a murderer because she was wearing Islamic dress. The hotelier is alleged to have been abusive using threatening or insulting words which were religiously aggravated. And there's more!

The man may be from a Christian background but he appears to have left all traces of Christian charity at the back of his brain. An organisation called The Christian Institute demonstrated in support of the couple outside the court. Did they indeed? "By their fruits ye shall know them comes" to mind.

Bugger the bankers!

In a time of deep recession, brought about in part by the headlong scramble by some bankers to make money out of loans that were past their subprime value, it would be nice to think that a kind of patriotic move might not go amiss. The bonus greed currently sweeping the City of London is very unsavoury to say the least. Angela Knight, she of the British Bankers' Association, whines on amount bankers leaving the country if they don't get more money. Even Croesus would have thought better! Well, if they are so hellbent on going, let them go. As George V might have said on his deathbed if confronted by these blackmailing types "Bugger the bankers!". Quite so.

No wedded bliss under New Labour regime

In some ways the New Labour regime mirrors the US Episcopal Church as some kind of secular PC alternative. They are all for a bizarre idea of equality, thrusting alternative lifestyles at us in place of married bliss and generally failing to help the disadvantaged and the wronged because they have a blanket approach to it all.

New Labour heard that some sub-continental brides had been sold into marital slavery and abuse in order to obtain cash dowries for the grasping grooms. At first this was dismissed because no self-respecting New Labour apparatchik could bring himself/herself to accept anything untoward from the Asian community. Then they were forced to admit that forced marriages needed acting upon. Of course, being New Labour, they couldn't construct an act that dealt with the problem. No, they had to include every race, creed and human being possible into their law. So it is that totally innocent people get caught up in this legal minefield.

The Home Office is diligently applying the rules and regulations with vigour. British bride Amber Aguilar, from Friern Barnet, north London, faced the dilemma of having to choose between her career ambitions in the UK or living abroad with her Chilean husband because of the policy. The ‘heartbroken’ 18-year-old chose to live with 19-year-old Diego Andres Aguilar Quila, who had to leave the country recently after his student visa expired. The Home Office has been labelled heartless. I'd say they were just a bunch of jobsworths with a penchant for momentary lapses into jobsworthlessnesses (like losing computer data!).

It is not what Britain should be about. The sooner this lot go the better for all of us!