Category Archives: idiotarianism

Please arrive at the station three hours prior to your train.

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Awaiting the 0815 to Cannon Street, sometime next week.

Wow, just when you think you’ve heard all the stupid ideas there are to be heard, a new idea comes along that is so amazingly stupid you wonder why some lackwit didn’t think of it ages ago.

Well this one’s a doozie.

The Government wants to security scan at least a quarter of all train passengers for explosives, knives and guns to protect railways and the London Underground from terrorists.

Really? And who came up with this great idea? You can’t move for terrorists on trains. Yes, I know there have been a couple of incidents, one horrifically successful, but really, have we come to this? Why stop at trains? Why not the National Express, the water taxi from Embankment to Canary Wharf, or the car from my gaff to the shops?

The Home Office has published details of what it wants the scanners to detect and how they should work, and is asking for advice on the technology available.

“The main focus is on the detection of explosives and weapons on people and in bags,” the research brief states, suggesting that technologies including X-ray, magnetometry, vapour and trace methods, electromagnetic radiation and ultrasound could be used.

Right, so let’s take a train from a big commuter town, let’s say Ashford. We’ve normal speed trains into the central south of town and the fast trains running up to St. Pancras via Stratford. I can’t be arsed to go and check how many an hour pass through Ashford in peak time, but it must be at least two of each. How many people get on at Ashford? A lot, and it isn’t just there, there’s Tonbridge, Sevenoaks, Dover, Folkestone, Canterbury, Margate. . .

And you want to screen a quarter of these people?

Oh, that’s not all, you might have an exploding leg. . .

The researchers also want to know whether wheelchairs, false limbs, crutches, pushchairs, and bikes could be scanned and whether so-called dirty bombs could be spotted.

Yes! Quick! SCAN ALL THE THINGS! Look, I’ve tried the ham and plastic cheese meltie from the charming ‘Disinterested School-leaver Cafe’ on the platforms at SouthEastern, I’m more concerned about the damage that will do to me than a dirty bomb.

“Ooooh, now come on, Wolfers,” I hear you say, “nasty people want to kill us, to take our freedoms.”

Here’s a thing to think about, we live under a government that has taken more of our freedoms than anyone or anything else, except for the government that came before it. All in the name of our safety. Do you feel safer?

Is standing around in a queue for an hour to get on a train going to make you feel safer, or will you find it just the slightest imposition?

Here comes the really delusional bit:

Crucially, the document insists the scanning must be done without holding anyone up.

“Any screening methodologies proposed must not delay the passengers any more than they are currently as they pass through the station,” it states.

Yeah, right. See how long that lasts as the 25% is upped to 37% and it becomes a regrettable and unavoidable delay, but really you should factor it in to your day, it is for your own safety, after all. And don’t you dare complain or crack a feeble joke, and for fuck’s sake, don’t tweet anything about it. If you do, that disinterested school leaver selling you your overheated, over-priced, under-flavoured savoury product will not be using those latex gloves to handle your food, they’ll be using them with lube.

And who will be paying for this? Well because of the unique way our rail system is run, the companies who pay the government for the right to run trains on our rails get most of that money back in the form of subsidies, and then they bend you over, and when you think you’re getting a body cavity search, they fuck you. Sans lube. Apparently that is free market economics, sounds like corporatism to me, but hey what do I know?

Anyway, you will be herded, treated with suspicion, delayed, inconvenienced, humiliated and be not one bit safer. Why? Because if you want to kill shit loads of people on a train, all you do is drive to some remote rural spot and put a bloody great big bomb on the track. And you will pay through the nose for this.

If you allow me to put my tin foil hat on for a moment, I might forecast a country where you will not be able to board a train or a plane without being bollock naked and sitting silently with your hands open and in clear view on your knees at all times, your car will be tracked. Until cars are abolished and you can only hire them like a Boris bike. And they’ll be electric with a 15 mile range, to stop you going too far, and you’ll be tracked every inch of the way.

They’ll probably outlaw shoes so you can’t walk anywhere.

I’ll make another forecast. We’ll swallow it, every last drop. Because we always do. Except you and me. And we’re the nutters.

Maybe they’re right.

I’m past caring.

What fresh blue hell is this?

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I’m just in from the pub.

No, don’t worry, I was the very model of temperance, it was a catch up with a few friends, and to drink I have to be in the mood to drink. Of the three big evil vices which threaten our very civilisation – smoking, meaty fatty foods and booze, I could give up the booze the easiest. I won’t though. My alcoholic libation was limited to a nice glass of merlot this evening.

Well, almost. There’s a brewer down this way called Shepherd-Neame. Britain’s oldest brewery. You’ve probably seen the very imaginative and not a little controversial advertising campaign promoting their Spitfire ale, their bottle conditioned beer is a staple of supermarkets nationwide.

They’ve just got the licence to start brewing Samuel Adams beer in the UK and this has now made its way to the pumps. Now, I’m not a big beer fan, I’m a Kentish lad and as a result my heart belongs to proper cider, Kent makes the best in the country and is second only in the world (in my opinion) to the Bretons, although the Breton stuff can be a little wine-like for some tastes. Don’t believe the Hereford, Somerset and Cornish hype, when it comes to English cider, Kentish is the business.

I digress. Despite not being a big beer fan I did remember quite liking Sam Adams when I visited Boston and took a sneaky little taster, very good it is too. But when tasting the beer I was told something by the barman that left me quite astonished. I had to ask him to repeat it, as I was certain that I’d misheard him.

What did he tell me?

He told me that they were prohibited from serving it in pints. At first (re)hearing my mind went back to a pub of my youth in a beautiful little Kentish village called Biddenden. The village brews a superb cider (and makes a very nice wine as well), imaginatively named ‘Biddenden Cider’. This stuff is nectar, but it is rather potent, and this pub wouldn’t serve it in more than a half pint unless your face was known. But surely this beer, this American beer, couldn’t be as potent as the Kentish cider that gets you drunk from the feet up (don’t have a session on the Biddenden when sitting down, your head will be as clear as a bell, but your feet will not respond to any instruction you give them)?

No it isn’t as potent, and that isn’t the thinking. There has, I’m told, been a bit of legislation passed to prevent us looking like extras from Hogarth’s Gin Lane (and yes, I believe that Beer Street is more apposite). This in effect means that any new beer product launched onto the market will be limited to servings of a maximum of 2/3 of a pint.

I knew nothing of this, and was quite taken aback. Does anyone out there in blogland have any more information? It seems to me to be one of the most stupid items of legislation to have ever sprung forth from the prolapsed rectum that is Westminster. I’m also betting that the next step will be that any existing line that has even the merest alteration to its recipe will qualify as a ‘new product’.

First they came for the smokers. . .

Gosh! Really? Wow, thanks for telling me that.

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Playtime at St. Arseclown’s Junior School for the Terminally Hard of Thinking earlier today.

 
The Snowolf Den is undergoing a spot of spring cleaning today, the curtains are out on the line, the wardrobe has been cleared out and the stock evaluated and swapped for some of the stuff that was moved out in autumn, the light fittings have been taken down and cleaned and the furniture has been moved about and cleaned under.

Mrs. Snowolf is struck down with terrible hay-fever. She’s been streaming and sneezing and snotting all over the place, therefore it’s been down to me. I don’t mind, I’m quite happy pottering about doing my thing. As an aside, and speaking as a non-sufferer of hay-fever, I’m convinced it doesn’t exist, is purely psychological and a good excuse for the big pharma companies to hawk their lotions, potions and pills like some sort of latter day snakeoil salesmen.

Between the sneezing, blowings of the nose, rubbing of the eyes, popping of pills, administration of nasal treatments and increasingly violent exhortions of frustration and general yukness, we’ve had the shining beacon of public service broadcast; the finest purveyor of the televisual arts on the globe, the BBC on this morning. I’ve been exposed to one of the interminable programmes, that one with the slightly fey chap and the socially incompetent antiques ‘expert’ (and why do they always have such terrible dress sense and unfortunate hair?) who stomp around some old dear’s house and evaluate the worthless tat she’s managed to accumulate and then take her along to an antiques house, where she is coerced into jumping up and down in excitement at the thought that the sum total of the nik-naks in her house could cover the cost of a weekend in a caravan in bloody Frinton. I get the impression it is the commercial arm of the situation outlined by Leg-Iron the other day.

Anyhow, they uncovered a couple of well rusting 19th century cavalry swords. But, watch out, peasants! There’s an important lesson to learn here, although to be honest the lesson I learned was don’t watch daytime BBC whilst stood atop a ladder cleaning light fittings, as the effort expended in trying to come up with an inventive, eloquent, yet fatally offensive rant significantly raises the risk of falling off. The lesson?

Wait for it. . .

“You don’t need a firearms licence for a sword. . .”

This brought forth one little explosion of enquiring as to why we have to hand over good money to the BBC for the privilege of watching this bilge. This was as nothing when compared to what followed:

“. . . but swords should be kept well out of the reach of children.”

Oh? Do you think? That puts me in a bit of a bind, because I’ve just uncovered a cache of weaponry whilst cleaning out the loft, all of it bladed, there’s dirks and a cutlass, a broadsword, a battle-axe, a collection of lances, pikes and spears, I think I saw a mace as well. I was going to go and take it all down to the local primary school to see if they fancied having it, but now I’ve learned that bladed weapons may not be entirely appropriate playthings for kids. Who knew?

Oh, that’s not all. Oh, no. Because the swords were rusted, it was also vital to be mindful of the risk of tetanus.

Listen mate, if I come bearing down on you with a five kilo cavalry blade, hell bent on cleaving your skull in twain, the last thing you’re going to have to worry about is bloody tetanus.

Who is at fault?

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I had either the good fortune, or bad fortune, I haven’t made up my mind yet, of listening to some half-wit chuntering away on the wireless last night.
The poor old sod was stuck in his car on the M6 near Wigan in the snow, having travelled about a quarter of a mile in about three and a half hours.
One feels a degree of sympathy, as it would appear that our transport system is, once again, completely unprepared for the winter weather we tend to get in winter.
My sympathy began to waver when I heard his plaintive cries about lack of action, lack of information (it’s snowing, you’re on the motorway, traffic has stopped, use your imagination – in this case a jack-knifed HGV) and that calls to the Greater Manchester Police non-emergency number had resulted in referral to the Highways Agency. Well, it wasn’t an emergency, so that sounds about right to me.
Apart from it could have been an emergency.
You see, despite advice from a copper with scrambled egg all over the peak of his cap, the usual stuff, you know, ‘the weather is very bad, do not travel unless it is a matter of life or death’ that was given out that afternoon, this man was in his car with a colleague of his who was eight and a half months pregnant.
No, he wasn’t taking her to the hospital in an act of fraternal solidarity. He was giving her a lift home, and found himself stuck in the snow, with a very pregnant woman, returning from their office Christmas party.
My sympathy evaporated quicker than a Scottish footballer playing in a Qatari world cup match when I discovered they were estate agents.
So, senior copper says stay at home, and what do you do? Take your pregnant colleague out into the snow to attend the office shindig?
And you have the nerve to demand to know who is at fault for your current predicament?
OK, here’s how you find out. Whilst you’re sat behind the wheel of your immobile car, the fuel tank indicator needle inexorably drifting to the red ‘E’ as you keep the engine running to power the blower, look up at the centre of the top of the windscreen. Just tilt that mirror until you see a face in it. That is the person at fault, you utter, utter mong.

Well it’s failed every other time, so it is bound to work now.

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Should the UK tax high-fat junk food to cut obesity rates? 

Oh Jesus, here we go.

Because the increase in tax on tobacco, alcohol, petrol, flying, electricity and gas has slashed the number of people who smoke, drink, drive, take holidays, cook and heat their homes, hasn’t it? I mean, why wouldn’t it work?

In the same way as taxing cigarettes helped to reduce smoking and related illnesses, could putting up the price of junk food – as Denmark has done – cut obesity rates in the UK?

Whoa, hang on. Taxing cigarettes has helped to reduce smoking related illnesses? Has it? Come on, you are a correspondent for a ‘reputable’ programme on a ‘reputable’ broadcaster, so I’m assuming you’ve referenced or linked to your source material for that, have you?

*scans the article*

No, they haven’t.

I went on a day trip to Brugge (the French can sod off, it is a Flemish city, so I’ll use the correct spelling, thank you very much) last week. Very nice it was too. Just on the Belgian side of the French border is the town of Adinkerke, it has a most impressive collection of tobacco retailers, all patronised almost exclusively by French and British. Why? Because tobacco taxes drive them there. So I would say that taxing cigarettes has helped to increase the profits of those living on the Franco-Belgian border and reduced the income to the treasury in both the UK and La Belle France.

I digress.

The first thing that struck me on the taxi journey into Copenhagen was how slim everyone looked.
I really had trouble spotting anyone fat.
And the second thing that became obvious the moment I stepped out of the cab and was almost run over by a cyclist, was that the Danes are clearly no strangers to exercise. 

Oh, for the love of God.

I’ve been to Copenhagen as well. Lovely city, very nice people, the Danes.

One thing I noticed; the national sport in Denmark, alongside eating pickled fish, is . . . smoking.

Prohibition does not work. Minimum pricing is illegal. Taxing junk food, really? Who is to say what counts? Are you willing to take on the legal might of McDonald’s when you say their burgers are bad, but the burgers sold in the pub two doors down are ok?

I’ve an alternative, you could just fuck off and stop trying to make people into little grey miserable clones. Try it.

Oh, and BBC, Panorama markets itself as a news programme. Try covering some bloody news for a change, eh?

No, no, no, no. That’s a no.

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Another assault on our God given rights today. This is not a civil liberty, this is not a ‘nice to have in the ideal world’, this is not an ‘only if you qualify.’

This cannot be taken away. It is not in Parliament’s power to remove from us the inalienable rights which were granted to us by God before Parliament came to be.

When Louise Casey says that:

“We should not view the right to a jury trial as being so sacrosanct that its exercise should be at the cost of victims of serious crimes”

She is attempting to usurp God, she is placing herself above the concept of the Almighty creator that is so important to the constitution of the country. She is also portraying herself as one of the most disgusting, odious, objectionable people in the country.

Victims’ Commissioner? What? We are all victims if this is introduced. If I were to be tried under this scheme by a Magistrate, I would find myself in Court refusing to comply or cooperate and shouting, very loud, that my God given rights had been infringed by a body which has no power to do so.

Perhaps the money spent on this department would be better spent on the Police or Courts Service, because I’ll tell you what victims want; they want the criminal who has wronged them to be caught, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to a proper punishment that is really, properly proportionate to the offence committed. What they don’t want is another self-important, attention whoring, mindless fucking quango headed up by another poorly tailored suit of toss all with a mouth that looks like a slit in the side canvas of a curtain sided artic.

Got it?

Just in case you are in any doubt, here is the clause of Magna Carta, which has served us perfectly well for the last 795 years, written in a plain style of English that is easy to understand, salient, concise and quite beyond anything that a shower like Louise Casey could write if her miserable, insignificant and pointless life fucking depended on it:

No free man shall be captured, and or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold, and or of his liberties, or of his free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we proceed against him by force or proceed against him by arms, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, and or by the law of the land.

Fuck you and the broomstick you rode in on, Casey.

You want to do away with this for the sake of expediency? I’ll tell you this, doing away with the right to trial by jury (yes, even in the case of like, really complicated fraud trials) is but one step removed from sweeping away innocent until proven guilty.

Compare and contrast.

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I’m making no points about either event, but how does (emphasis mine):

New rules aimed at banning discrimination by employers, covering areas such as age, disability and pay, have come into force.

The Equality Act covers many workplace areas and draws nine separate pieces of legislation into a single Act.

Sit with:

The national minimum wage has risen to £5.93 an hour from £5.80 and for the first time people aged 21 will benefit from the rate.

[...]There are also corresponding increases for younger workers, with 16 and 17-year-olds seeing a rise from £3.57 an hour to £3.64.

So in effect, if an employer were to deny a 17 year old a promotion on the basis that they were too young, they’d be liable to prosecution under the new Equality Act. However, the government is totally at liberty to limit minimum wage payments for those under 21.

Some are obviously more equal than others. . .

I see, so what you’re saying is . . . whoa! Hang on! Where did that come from?

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Just caught a few minutes of Jeff Randall on Sky News this evening. No problem with Jeff, he’s quite entertaining. What I was struck by was the report on the demonstrations across Europe today, with special focus on the one taking place in Brussels.

This Pan-European Union Trade Union Marx-in revealed the usual it’s all the bankers’ fault. There was one British moron going on about how capitalism had failed. Well, it would have done, had we had capitalism, rather than governments trying to tame lions, milking them and coming running when they get a thorn stuck in their paw.

That isn’t capitalism, the best description I can think of is corporatism, and we all know where that had its best run, don’t we?

What caused me to stop, press pause on the old Sky box and whip the camera phone out was this quite remarkable banner carried by some of the participants today:

You actually think the EU is Liberalising things?

Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus and all the little orphans!

I don’t know which is worse, the fact that you think that the EU is a force for liberty, or the fact that you think a process going towards more liberty is a bad thing.

I’m speechless, except to say, remember folks, these people elected the leader of the second biggest party in the UK.

If you live near some hills, I’d run for them, if I were you.

The One That Was Waiting. . .

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Didn’t take long, did it?

I’ve been waiting for the clangers to drop, and now they’re dropping. It was only a matter of time until this new administration proved itself to be as hopeless as the one that came before.

First there was Oiky Gove’s arseing up of the school lists. Nice one. Too soon to be sacked, I would think. That, and the fact that he’s one of Dave’s star performers. God help them. 13 years they’ve been itching to get back in, and the first opportunity they get, they screw it right up.

And people wonder I have so little faith in the State organising stuff. It’s because of things like this. Just because one is an elected MP and appointed by a bloke who didn’t do enough to win an election that a flatulent amputee giraffe could have won, doesn’t mean that you’re actually any good. Walking into a government office, and sitting in a government chair, behind a government desk doesn’t mean what you do will be any good. People don’t seem to realise this, I have friends who really do believe that if the government takes control of something, it will, somehow, be alright in the end.

I believe that if the government takes control of something, it will, inevitably, a twisted, burning wreck before Countdown goes on air that afternoon.

Then, we have the farce of Clegg’s repeal act. I could bang on about it, but why bother when two of the best in the business, Leg-Iron and Dick Puddlecote, don’t just hit the nail on the head, they drive it through the wood, the workbench and into the floor.

It makes me angry, but what really exasperates me is the low level, mean spirited and small minded idiocy that pervades our lives on so many levels.

I couldn’t care less what you believe, I have no objections. Two caveats; don’t restrict anyone else’s activities, don’t try and make me sing your hymns.

Even worse, when morons, no doubt well intentioned, go and restrict other peoples’ activities on behalf of people who are quite capable of making judgements for themselves. You could pick from a plethora of examples, but let’s take this one from Stoke on Trent Council.

Swimming lessons in some Staffordshire schools should stop during Ramadan to ensure Muslim pupils “do not swallow water”, a council has suggested.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has issued an 11-page Ramadan guide for schools to help pupils who may be fasting when the school year starts in September.

It said swimming was acceptable to Muslims but posed a high risk of swallowing water that may break a fast.

Islam requires Muslims to fast from dawn until dusk for one month per year.

OK, so if the Muslim parents or indeed the Muslim child decides that they don’t want swimming on the agenda, then fine, don’t go. I wouldn’t expect them to be penalised or punished for it. That’s what you believe, then that’s fine. It has no adverse effect on anyone else.

But no, you see, you can’t have that.

Schools with a significant number of Muslim pupils should try to avoid scheduling swimming lessons during Ramadan to remove unnecessary barriers to full participation.

No-one must be allowed to swim. If denying everyone a swim isn’t a barrier to full participation, then I don’t know what is.

I despair, I really do despair. It is precisely this sort of action which means that people of different race, religion, sexuality or any other quality which is relevant only to the individual concerned, will only ever look upon the other with resentment and mistrust.

I fear we can elect as many new politics, coalition governments we like, it will make no difference, the bastards have taken over, I really don’t see what we can do about it, all the time people are scared of being branded racists and Nazis.

The One That Is Carrying On In The Same Fashion. . .

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I hope you all had a pleasant Public Holiday period. I now have enough stock to open my own branch of Sock Shop.

When the council sent around their cunningly worded invitation for me to surrender huge amounts of my money to them, they included a little booklet, telling me the sort of thing that they’d be wasting my cash on instead of making sure that roads and pavements were gritted during a cold spell and organising a sufficiently regular rubbish collection so my bin area doesn’t resemble some Monrovia suburb in summer.

Nowhere in that little booklet did it explain to me that they’d expend energy and resources in making sure I didn’t get upset. To be honest, from where I’m sitting, the whole raison-d’etre of the council is to upset me. It’s like the Python argument sketch, I’m paying for it. Perhaps it’s OK for them to upset me, but not for anyone else to upset me? Perhaps I’m just unlucky not to live in an area governed by the sensitive souls of Suffolk council.

Neither have I ever heard of someone being prosecuted for upsetting someone. I don’t recall any offence of ‘causing upset’. Bodily harm, certainly. Alarm and distress, yes. Causing upset? No.

What am I whittering on about?


A bingo caller has been advised to stop using phrases such as “two fat ladies” for fear of offending his audience.

John Sayers, who runs charity games in Sudbury, Suffolk, says he was told by a council clerk the traditional bingo call could upset some players.

Oh dear, here we go.

A town council spokeswoman said it was “sad” they had to give the advice but they had to be “politically correct”.

Why did you have to give the advice? It’s all very well sitting there, wringing your hands, but did it not, perhaps, occur to you to mind your own fucking business and not get involved? As radical as it may sound to you, people do not actually want nor need grey little fucks from the council overseeing every aspect of their lives. It’s sad that I have to give this advice, but I have to point out the bleeding obvious, and this could hurt, you really aren’t that important or wise and people couldn’t give a pair of dingo’s kidneys what you think.

The 75-year-old, a member of Sudbury Town Council and former town mayor, said the clerk advised him to cut the traditional comic calls in case the authority found itself facing legal action.

And why would the ‘authority’ (over what do they have authority? Certainly not me.) face legal action? Is this a council run charity games event? If so, why? As we’ve already explored, I pay the council to grit the roads and empty the bins, not to run bake-offs and jumble sales.

“The concern was that if there might be two large ladies in the audience when I said ‘two fat ladies 88′ or someone might think I was looking at their legs when I said ‘legs 11′,” he said.

“I was advised that someone might take offence and we could end up being taken to court.”

Fear is king, let’s pick out the key words in those lines, shall we? might, might, might, could. As in ‘The Emperor Klang might arrive with his planet destroying starship, and he might have his stormtroopers with him. He might decide to invade Earth and take control of Sudbury council which could lead to significant congestion outside Matalan.

Why would someone take the council to court for offence caused by a fairly standard practice in one of the country’s most popular activities? And why would the judge not just tell her to stop wasting his fucking time?

A council spokeswoman told the East Anglian Daily Times: “In particular with John being a councillor we have to be politically correct.”

If John is a councillor then there’s a very simple way of dealing with him if he pisses you off. You take his job away from him by placing a little X against someone else’s name. Good God, does this mean the council is legally responsible for the conduct of its elected officials? Or is it because you just CAN’T HELP STICKING YOUR FUCKING NOSE IN WHERE IT ISN’T WANTED YOU ODIOUS LITTLE TWATS? Just asking, like.

She added: “It is very sad because it is part of the fun of bingo but unfortunately in today’s society people take it literally.”

No, no they won’t. And if they do, so what? What damage is done? None. None at all. Which by happy coincedence is also the degree to which you live your life in the real world. What she meant to say was:

“It is very sad because it is part of the fun of bingo but unfortunately in today’s society people in the public sector are shit scared of losing their jobs and so have to do things to demonstrate that we actually do stuff to earn our money, problem is we’re so institutionalised that we can’t even do that properly so pick on stupid stuff rather than tackling the problem of asylum seekers jumping over garden walls and eating people’s trees.”

Good grief, anyone reading that news story would think we live in Utopia. ‘Hey, Zlargan, look at this place, they’ve got everything sorted to such a degree they’re concentrating on the un-intended offensiveness of bingo. Freedom, no war, no hunger, no-one living in the streets, they must even have sorted out the problem of space refugees jumping over garden walls and eating people’s trees.’

‘Nice one, Yavvor, let’s tell the Emperor Klang and invade, we can cause considerable congestion around Matalan.’

Unfortunately we don’t live in Utopia, and it isn’t because we’ve got the big problems sorted, it’s because our elected reps don’t have the balls, the vision or the intelligence to sort the big stuff out. They make a fuss about the little stuff in the hope we don’t see the big stuff hiding behind the sofa and under the rug.