Posted in January 2006

Healing with poetry

I think that Parched Spirits is a parody. Even if it isn\’t, I still intend to believe that it is. Good effort, \’Olivia Harris\’.

In other news, Sid James is hanged

So, if you\’re a bored CCTV operator, and you zoom your camera at a fit girl\’s un-net-curtained living room, then it\’s certainly true that you\’re a sleazy sub-Carry-On dodgy person. However, the idea that you\’ve seriously harmed anyone is fucking laughable. So the fact that some Scousers have been sent to jail for doing precisely the above is ludicrous.

Quoth lunatic judge re \’the victim\’: \”her life has almost been ruined, her self-confidence entirely destroyed\”. Bollocks. If your self-confidence is so fragile that some dubious chav with a video camera can destroy it, you shouldn\’t be let out on your own in the first place. We have lithium and fluoxetine for people who suffer from such problems; jailing those who barely impinge on their life is not a sensible substitute.

Dying at the Hajj: news why?

It happens every fucking year, and in the unlikely event that Allah isn\’t some kind of amusing fairy tale, all involved will go to heaven. So why do we bother making a big deal out of it?

Would Sir care to sign the register?

If you are convicted of a serious sexual offence, you should be placed on the Sex Offenders Register, and everyone on the Sex Offenders Register should be banned from working in schools. However, if you aren\’t convicted of anything, you shouldn\’t be placed on the Sex Offenders Register.

In particular, it\’s not appropriate to issue a police caution *and* an additional extra-judicial punishment, such as being placed on the SOR. If your offence is sufficiently trivial for a caution (say, drunkenly waving your cock in public at no-one in particular because you\’re in a rugby team and therefore weird), it\’s also sufficiently trivial that you shouldn\’t be put on the perv-list. If the offence isn\’t sufficiently trivial for a caution to be appropriate, then it should go to court.

The government\’s recent nonce-teacher-related embarrassment appears to have stemmed from confusion regarding this rule.

Nothing to declare

\”I, along with millions of others, am a great fan [of Ikea] and am fortunate to live near Milton Keynes\” – Mr Manoj Gupta

Three cheers for the EU

If you buy a train ticket and the train company cancels the last scheduled train, they are obliged to sort you out with a taxi home, or accommodation if they can\’t get you home.

Making airlines do the same seems like a sensible move, and the people whining that it\’s an outrageous imposition on the free market seem like dickheads. Or at least, people who\’ve never been forced to buy a Â£200 last-minute flight home and an Â£80 taxi after their budget airline baled on them…

And in the event that this should drive budget airlines into penury – which is exceptionally unlikely, given their existing high margins – then at least it\’ll wipe the grin off that horrible smug O\’Leary bastard\’s face. Which is worthwhile at any price.

Bad/not bad

You\’re discriminated against because of your gender. Your boss bars you from socializing with clients. You are not promoted into positions that your record and personality show you can easily do.

Not bad:
Some of your colleagues go to strip clubs and sleep with prostitutes. None of your colleagues stop you from going, or compel you to go, to strip clubs. Your willingness to sleep with prostitutes is not viewed as a promotional criterion.

You\’re incapable of differentiating between the two situations above.

See also all the plaintiffs, lawyers and defendants in this lawsuit.

Don\’t be fooled by the figurehead

We know David Cameron does the Blairite flannel and superficial niceness rather well. However, the Tories are still an alliance of two unsavoury groups: businessmen who care only about opposing taxes and regulations; and provincial bigots who care only about opposing nig-nogs and single mothers.

For example, the Tories who control Calderdale council in Yorkshire have voted to appoint a BNP member as Equal Opportunities officer…