FICTIONAL REALITY

I read an article recently on Yahoo News that has been lurking in the back of my mind ever since. The article was written about a group of scientists that had been researching the possibilities of making an Invisibility Cloak as per Harry Potter. The bottom line was that said scientists had taken the fictional prop penned by JK Rowling and made it a reality. As I read the article it was passing through my mind that well paid research scientists must have something better to do than try and bring a literary device off the page and into the real world. However, further reading revealed all. One day it could be used in a military capacity to hide military hardware on a battlefield.

I have to wonder whether any of the scientists involved in this project were part of the team that proved it was possible to teleport atoms from one side of a laboratory to the other, in much the same way that Gene Roddenberry had people teleported from the star ship Enterprise to the surface of whatever planet was in whatever episode of Star Trek. I am sure that one day US forces will find a way of teleporting in and out of whatever their hot spot of the week is, armed with copies of Luke Skywalker's lightsabre and Ripley's pulse rifle, hiding under their personal Harry Potter invisibility cloaks. Meanwhile tanks and aircraft will be hidden from view using a version of the Klingon cloaking device. It is very possible that George Bush Jr already has a Penseive like Professor Dumbledore's, because his head seems to be remarkably empty at times. It used to be said that "war was the mother of invention", but it seems that the roles are reversing and invention is becoming the mother of war. It wont be long at this rate before politicians start reading about fictional battles and start looking into the possibilities of taking them off the page and fighting them for real. Who needs Virtual Reality when you can have Fictional Reality.

WASTED MONEY AND NATIONAL PRIDE

I was somewhat astounded to see a policeman drive past me today in a brand spanking new 07 reg BMW X5. Police forces across the country are regularly complaining that budget constraints prevent them from doing their jobs and providing necessary resources yet Sussex Police have managed to add yet another luxury vehicle to their ever expanding fleet of luxury Sports saloons/estates and SUV's. An X5 is not a cheap vehicle in standard road trim and I shudder to think how much public money has been wasted on purchasing this bazza'd up Bavarian Land Rover rip-off. I suspect that it isn't the only X5 to have been added to the Sussex Police fleet either. I can understand that Sussex Police will have a need for a certain amount of off-road vehicles but they are already in possession of Land Rover Defenders for that kind of work. A BMW X5 is a symbol of how much money you've got to waste on a vehicle to go posing around the town, and Sussex Police don't have any money to waste.

I think it is fair to say right now that I have a problem with local authorities spending public money on over-priced, German-made vehicles. Call me jingoistic if you will but we had a national car manufacturer in the shape of MG Rover who built a car that was considered by the people in the "know" to be quite a good car, and that was the "75". The Touring estate was an ideal base for a general purpose emergency response vehicle that would have been usable by all three emergency services. To be fair to the Fire And Rescue, and the Ambulance Service, they both seem to run fleets of quite ordinary cars like Ford Mondeos and Vauxhall Vectras but the Plod seem to consider themselves special and have to have the most expensive luxury cars they can lay their bent hands on.

Central Government could have saved MG Rover if the Home Office had had control of the budgets for new police vehicles instead of allowing the umpteen police forces across the country to spunk money away like it doesn't matter. If you go to Germany you will find that the Polizei drive German-made vehicles, go to France and the Gendarmes drive French-made vehicles, go to Italy and the Polizia drive Fiats. Come to Great Britain and you will find we are not so great after all because the Plod drive round in cars made anywhere but Great Britain, and we don't have a national car manufacturer anymore. "And why not?" I hear you ask. Because our glorious leaders took what was left of our national motoring heritage and sold it down the river to a German rival, specifically BMW who asset-stripped MG Rover and left it to the wolves.

Just to finish up, I put the evening News on the television after I started writing this, just in time to see Mr Des Browne MP (Government Minister for Pathetic Excuses) climbing into the back of a nice new ministerial car. Surprisingly enough it was a BMW. It is not surprising that the people of this Country have very little national pride when even our egotistical Leaders don't have any.

EASTERN PROMISE(S)

I've had a few days to think since publishing my last posting and have reached a few conclusions with regards to the blatant kidnapping of British servicemen by Iran.

• Knowingly crossing an international boundary without permission with an armed force constitutes an act of war and that is exactly what the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have done.
• If British forces crossed into Iranian territory one has to assume that the airspace over Iranian water was also violated by the Lynx helicopter from HMS Cornwall (F99). If that is the case why was it not shot down by the Iranian gunboats that were supposedly protecting their own territory.
• The dhow that was involved in the incident has to have been a "plant" by the Iranians. It was moored close enough to the border in shallow water where HMS Cornwall couldn't get to it and the Iranian gunboats could. It was made suspicious enough for the commanding officer of HMS Cornwall to instigate a search of the vessel and as soon as the servicemen boarded the dhow the Iranians made their play. The whole thing was a setup from the very beginning.
• The Government of this country needs to make it very clear to Iran that they have committed an Act of War and that we are prepared to treat it as such.
• We are operating in the Persian Gulf as part of a United Nations Force. The UN needs to get behind this country and make it clear that the repatriation of British personnel will be done with force if necessary.
• It is already quite clear that Iranian Shia's are stirring up the insurgency in Iraq, and as soon as the UN forces are withdrawn from Iraq I fully expect to see the Revolutionary Guard cross the border from Iran. These two countries already have a history of conflict and it isn't over yet.
• History has shown over the years that promises made by countries like Iran are not worth the air that it takes to float them, and anybody who takes them at anything more than a few spoken words is bordering on stupid.

Just to finish up I sincerely hope that Mr Blair is not considering handing over the administration of this country to a new Prime Minister while this matter is unresolved. I notice in today's news that Gordon Brown is poncing around in Afghanistan introducing himself to people in anticipation of his expected takeover of the Premiership. His timing is particularly bad and this trip should have been cancelled until after the leadership election has taken place. Blair hasn't resigned yet and any move to do so under the current circumstances is going to be seen in the Middle East as a weakness to be used and played with to the full. In spite of his numerous failings Blair has a proven track record as a Leader and is capable of standing his ground when it is required of him, whereas Brown only has a record for juggling numbers and conning the tax paying public into thinking he's just done them a favour.

QUESTIONS FOR THE M.O.D. ABOUT THE SERVICEMEN CURRENTLY IN IRANIAN CUSTODY

• How did these servicemen allow themselves to be detained in the first instance?
• Were they totally unaware of what was happening around them?
• How can you miss the presence of five hostile patrol boats in your area?
• Why were these servicemen inadequately armed to defend themselves if they were only carrying sidearms as reported?
• HMS Cornwall must have been aware of the Iranian patrol boats in the area and surely must have been tracking their positions. Why did HMS Cornwall fail to respond to the threat as soon as it became apparent and at least provide some air cover until further assistance was possible?
• Were these servicemen in radio contact with HMS Cornwall and did HMS Cornwall alert them to possibility of Iranian interference?
• Was the dhow that was being searched for smuggled vehicles planted by Iranian security forces to enable this chain of events to take place, and were British forces reacting to a tip-off when the dhow was boarded?
• Iran is currently subject to UN resolution with regard to its nuclear enrichment program. Surely a cross-border raid to capture foreign servicemen to use as bargaining chips must constitute an Act of War and should be treated as such?

Would anybody from the MOD or the Home Office care to answer some of these questions or are we all to stupid to be told the truth?

POST-BUDGET THOUGHTS

It has been a few days since my last entry and the Budget has been and gone, giving me time to collate some thoughts on what has come to pass. The owners of gas-guzzler vehicles were taxed to the hilt as expected and used as scapegoats for all that is wrong with our environment, whilst Blue Chip oil companies who are responsible for the fact that we are all still using their products to run our vehicles have received a two percent cut in Corporation Tax... that seems fair to me. NOT!

Oil companies are predominantly responsible for preventing new fuel-saving technology from ever reaching the market place. They have spent many years buying up Patents and designs to prevent technology that would have weakened their stranglehold on the market place from getting further than the drawing board. NASA sent men to the Moon using fuel cell technology forty years ago, yet we still cannot transplant that technology into a modern motor vehicle because of supposed astronomic production costs. I am obviously very thick because I cannot for the life of me understand what it is that makes a Hydrogen Fuel Cell so expensive to produce, particularly on the scale required to support the manufacture of motor vehicles. The only reason I can find for it is that the global economy that thrives on how many barrels of crude oil are sold each day would collapse overnight from the sudden loss of revenue. Governments would fall and a New World Order would arise where the oil baron held no sway, and America was no longer the voice of the planet.

On a slightly different tack but still looking at "Green" Gordons' Red Box of Surprises, it seems to me that a chance was missed to really make a difference to our environment and tax something that has no place in the modern world... the humble, indestructible, non-biodegradeable, plastic carrier bag. There is no excuse for anybody going shopping to come home with armfuls of carrier bags. It is high time that the bloody things were made illegal and people went back to using proper canvas bags that last a lifetime. Start charging a Pound for every plastic carrier bag that leaves a shop and everyone will start to think twice about using the damn things. I shudder to think of how much of our valuable landfill space is full of plastic bags that will never degrade, or how many plastic bags are burnt in local authority incinerators every day adding to the general atmospheric pollution.

So here we are. Next year it is going to cost me an extra Two Hundred Pounds to tax the car, and an extra Fifty Pounds in increased fuel duty to add to the Twelve Hundred Pounds combined(approximately) that I already pay the Government of this glorious nation every year for the priveledge(!) of owning a car. Gordon, if you're reading this I would just like to let you know on behalf of the car owning public that you're taking the F***ing Piss!

VEHICLE EXCISE DUTY - A FAIRER WAY?

Gordon Brown's alleged plans to tax 4x4's and gas-guzzling cars off the road are a complete travesty. It is apparently only going to affect some 225,000 motorists so what precisely is the Government expecting to gain from this ridiculous plan? Added to this is the photograph on page4 of The Times(20/03/2007) showing a woman holding a placard saying "no 4x4's on the school run". The amount of such vehicles on the school run is minimal in comparison to the amount of vehicles that are actually on school runs in the first instance, and Gordon Brown is the idiot who made it cheaper for families to own a second vehicle with which to do the school run by reducing the excise duty on smaller cars. It is these vehicles that clog up our roads on a twice daily basis, polluting the atmosphere and bringing our town centres to a standstill at a time when people are trying to get to work. It is a pleasure to drive during school holidays when the school runners are off the road and the normal daily congestion is non-existent. It is these vehicles that need to be taxed off the road and then this generation of couch potato children who can't walk any further than the car would have to learn to use their feet and walk to school.

We already have a system of taxation that charges us for the amount of fuel that we use in our cars and it charges us at the point of purchase in the fuel station. Approximately 90pence in every pound that we spend on petrol/diesel is passed on to the Treasury in some form or another. The vehicle excise duty as it exists should be scrapped altogether and replaced with a much fairer system of taxation. For example, introduce a personal annual mileage allowance. Is it fair that somebody who uses a Range Rover to drive 6000 miles a year should pay twice the amount for a Road Fund Licence as somebody who drives 35000 miles a year in a Vauxhall Vectra? No it isn't. MOT testing stations already log vehicle mileage so it wouldn't be difficult for the DVLA to use this data in tracking vehicle mileage for excise purposes. Mileage allowances could be purchased in blocks of 1000 miles and paid for through the network of pay points that we use to pay for telephone credit or gas credit, and the beauty is that nearly every fuel station has a pay point machine behind the counter. Any imbalance in our mileage allowances could be paid for prior to a new MOT certificate being issued and everybody is squared off and happy. It would probably save the DVLA some money as well because half the pen-pushers at Swansea wouldn't be needed anymore. We could then use the redundant office space by converting it into flats to help relieve the so-called housing shortage in this country.

I wonder how many of the 225,000 vehicle owners that will be affected by this taxation plan of Brown's will be voting Labour at the next General Election? Not many, I'll warrant. I know that I wont be voting Labour anymore and for a Government that has fallen 15points behind in recent polls that loss of votes could be the final nail in the coffin that buries this Government and consigns it to the pages of History. I have said in other places that I believe Gordon Brown is unfit to govern as Prime Minister and there is more proof of it with every day that passes. I don't see him turning down the use of a ministerial gas-guzzling Jaguar to make the short trip from Downing Street to the Houses of Parliament every day, but I guess that is what Politics is all about; Rhetoric and Hypocrisy.

GLIMMERMAN

Glimmerman Steven Seagal has taken to the stage and is currently touring the UK with his band THUNDERBOX. I said at the time of seeing the first poster for the show at our local theatre that anybody buying a ticket would be very disappointed. Lets be honest, anybody who can name their band after an English slang term for a sit-down toilet has got to be taking the piss, so it came as no surprise to read in a recent local rag that Mr. Seagal totally failed to glimmer and that the show was a total flop which resulted in a walkout by some of the audience who had paid upwards of twenty eight pounds for a ticket.

The general consensus of the walking public was that the show was pretty poor and that the sound quality was awful. A statement from the theatre concerned ends with the words:

"Like many other theatres in the UK, we booked the show in good faith on the basis of details provided by the promoter".

The promoter concerned is ORDINARY PR, who believe that Mr. Seagal and his Thunderbox had another successful evening. OF COURSE THEY DID! They walked away with a huge sum of money which most of us don't earn in a year. No wonder Mr. Seagal is quoted as "...thoroughly enjoyed the W......g Show." I think I would have enjoyed the show for the large sum of money that changed hands that night. ORDINARY PR would have regarded the show a success as well; any promoter worth his weight will have trousered at least three grand from the night.

The moral of this little story... look a bit further than the end of your nose when a big name crops up out of their known genre, especially in a small-town provincial theatre. Anybody with a big name who is worth their weight will put their reputation on a much larger stage. and take a good look at the name, please. THUNDERBOX has got S**t written all over it.

SPREADING THE WORD.

I like my Saturday morning lay-in and the familiar sounds that go with it; the milkman doing his rounds, the postman at the letterbox, and the general hubbub of the town coming to life as people go to work. The sounds gradually settle into the general hum of life going on outside as I slowly drift off back to sleep, a sleep rudely shattered some half an hour later by someone battering on the front door. I am not expecting anybody and it is not the knocking of anybody I know. Whoever it is knocks again quite firmly in a way that says "Open the door, or else!" Going downstairs into the hallway I can see a dark-suited figure through the frosted glass of the front door. I am tempted to ignore it but it could be important so I have no choice but to open the front door.

"Good morning. I hope we didn't wake you?"

"Yes actually, you did."

"We are out today asking people if they think there will ever be a lasting peace in the World?"

"If your not of my doorstep within the next five seconds you'll find out, now f**k off!"

Standing before me are two very real MEN IN BLACK, representatives of the Kingdoms' Hall better known as Jehovah's Witnesses. They rather stupidly try to make a stand that General Custer would have been proud of, as I gently but firmly explain to them that the only thing that is going to be witnessed here this morning by them is me losing my rag and some extreme violence if they have to be removed by force from the doorstep; the choice is theirs to make. They rather sensibly beat a hasty retreat to the pavement followed by some words of wisdom.

"Religion is the root of all evil and the bringer of wars fought in its name. There will never be peace on Earth until Religion accepts Religion or it wipes itself out and ceases to exist. Now p*** off and don't come back."

I am interested to know what exactly it was that these people are supposed to have witnessed in the past. Did a bunch of street corner urchins watch Jehovah knock on someones door? Did Jehovah receive a desert wellington to the cods? Did Jehovah retire to the street clutching his shattered nuts? Did this group of urchins stand up and say,

"Lord, we saw the kicking of the Holy Testes, we will be your witnesses in this matter."

These people are verging on being cultists and in these days of Radicalism and Fundamentalism I find it hard to believe that they are allowed to wander the streets on The Knock, trying to indoctrinate people into joining their fold and giving all their property and money to the Church. The part I really hate to see is the booted and suited children that are dragged round the streets with them; children who have no toys, no television, no music, and worst of all, no friends. This is just another form of child abuse as far as I am concerned and I speak from seeing this sort of treatment first hand, having worked with two people who were Witnesses. They were both Systems Engineers and they didn't even have computers at home because they didn't want their respective kids being influenced by the evils of the outside world. What a bunch of two-faced hypocrites! If I want religion I will go out and find it for myself. I don't need it shoved in my face on my own doorstep by some fruitcake who looks like his wife has scrubbed him with a stiff broom before leaving the house.

If you have religion and it helps you along your lifepath, then good luck and I hope you find what you are looking for. There is no right way and what is right for one is not right for all.

Be well.

WORTH

I have a real problem with advertisements for products being sold off cheap or given away in a package deal using the word "WORTH" to make us feel that we are getting a good deal. Who is to decide what something is worth? As far as I am concerned, something is only worth what I am prepared to pay for it. Something worth Thirty Pounds to one person might only be worth Ten Quid to me.

The local electrical store has a DAB Digital radio in the window for 99 pounds, and they are giving away a free extension speaker to all purchasers "worth" 30 pounds. It is clearly not worth 30 pounds; it is a cheap piece of crappy plastic dressed up as something it isn't. It may well have a recommended retail price of 30 pounds but it isn't worth 30 pounds. These kind of promotions exist all the time to con us into thinking that we are getting a good bargain and that it is value for money. The only people who get value for money are the brand name owners who have had their products manufactured in some third world country for pennies. That is where the real worth of these products really comes to the fore; pennies paid to a third world population to manufacture consumer goods for a western throw-away culture that is being fleeced of a substantial sum of Pounds, Dollars, Euros, ETC for the latest must-have gadgets. It wouldn't be so bad if the people who make these products were paid a decent living wage instead of the pittance received by many who still live in poverty, but the brand name owners don't care about things like that. They are only interested in lining their own pockets with as much money as possible before their respective bubbles burst, or as is more likely these days that their factories are destroyed by an earthquake or some other natural disaster.

There are some areas of technology that I find quite interesting and Radio is one of them. I have always liked my radio and in some ways regard it as a sort of friend. There is always something on to suit the mood of the moment, and unlike the television in this country it isn't full of repeats and syndicated American trash TV (American Idol, Supernatural, etc). I would really like a DAB radio but I cannot justify spending over 100 pounds on something that in DAB terms would be pretty basic. To buy a good one is an absolute fortune and for the outlay required it just isn't "WORTH" it.

30% LESS

30% less sugar, 30% less salt, 30% less carbohydrate, 30% less fat, 30% less than what? 30% less than a gerbil? 30% less than last week? 30% less crisps in the packet? When do we get to see the magical words 30% less "E" additives or better still, 30% extra for 30% less? Never in a month of Sundays, that's when.

Go away and con someone else you useless bastards. How about 30% less marketing men pedalling overpriced shit advertising campaigns for even more overpriced shit products? Better still, lets just have 30% less shit products altogether, which would go someway towards reducing the amount of waste packaging and badly made, broken goods being sent to landfill sites or incinerators across the country. Then maybe we would all have a bit more money in our pockets to spend on something worthwhile, a cleaner country to live in, and cleaner air to breathe.