Posts filed under 'Rants & Views'

British Nationality…what’s it worth?

Remember the ‘good old days’ when going abroad meant that to all intents and purposes, armed with your trusty blue British passport, most countries would recognise your nation as one that would brook no interference with their citizens and they would, therefore, respect this nation, respect you and let you go on unhindered? Imagine also, that if that kind of safety was assured abroad, then once back in good old blighty, a British citizen must be neigh on invincible…well sadly, times have changed! 

 

Add comment December 3rd, 2007

The last Noel

I stood at the flank waiting to join the action, my head covered and my stomach churning, until finally, the decisive moment had come. I stepped into the breach, hoping that my actions that night would do me credit and not shame my fellows; I fought back the fear and walked forward…outward echoed the hymn…“The first noel, the Angels did say, was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay”…
 

Add comment November 30th, 2007

Mind your language

It has struck me that there has always been a somewhat unequal exchange of culture between our trans-Atlantic allies and ourselves. Now before I go too much further, I must make it perfectly clear that I use the word ‘culture’ in the very loosest sense with regards to America…one generally has to have at least five centuries to even lay down the roots of a basic culture (sorry guys…only another 250 years to go). Here are some illustrative examples:
 

  • We gave them Period costume dramas like ‘Pride and Prejudice’…they gave us Beef Jerky.

Add comment November 28th, 2007

Too much to bear

It’s hard to find words to describe my feelings upon reading the story of the British teacher Gillian Gibbons, who is today facing 40 lashes and/or imprisonment in the Sudan for allowing her class of six and seven year old pupils to name a teddy bear, Mohammed. 

 

Add comment November 27th, 2007

Recurrent history

I’ve always been a keen student of history, it’s been my hobby for many years now and I have spent more money on obscure history books than I care to reckon. A large part of the fascination that history holds is that through the ages, you see exactly the same events repeated over and over…ok, the time, the place, the characters and the detail changes, but the same themes are repeated continually.
 

Add comment November 27th, 2007

Leatherhead shamed!

I was appalled to hear that injured war veterans, some of whom had suffered lost limbs and severe burns, were heckled and jeered as they partook of their once weekly hydrotherapy sessions at Leatherhead public baths in Surrey. Apparently, one lane of the baths was specially roped off for the veterans use and as they went through their rehabilitative routines, several members of the public shamed themselves and their town, by raising an outcry against said veterans.
 

Add comment November 26th, 2007

Time changes everything

Today I spent a freezing cold, but fascinating day out at Old Sarum in Wiltshire. Old Sarum is a giant earthworks and hill fort complex first created by Iron Age people in around 500BC. Subsequent occupiers included the Saxons, the Romans, the Normans and at its apogee, King Henry the II. Whilst standing there in the midst of the wide plains of Wiltshire, surveying the scene before me, I couldn’t help but be aware though, that for all the power and grandeur of its former occupants, time had reduced the site and its previous owners to naught.
 

Add comment November 24th, 2007

Ethnic and social gerrymandering

Now I like to think of myself as a fairly level headed kind of chap, very logical and not given to flights of fancy, but the relentless drip of Government and Council incompetence and insanity has lead me to a fairly startling conclusion; the powers that be, have no less a plan than the total destruction of our great nation!
 

How do I come to this colossal presumption?
 

Add comment November 23rd, 2007

Islington Council vies for top spot in the stupidity stakes

Before bringing you an example of latest manifestation of the lunacy that is running rampant within our country, I must first ask you whether you have noticed the increasing habit within all Councils of systematically and savagely pruning mature trees; reducing them in a trice to mere parodies of their former selves? 

 

Add comment November 22nd, 2007

Is Northumberland County Council the stupidest Council in the land?

Well, in answer to that question; in spite of massive competition from many other Councils, I believe that they may indeed be the stupidest and most incompetent Council in the land.
 

Why?
 

Because after reading about the case of Fran Lyon 22 of Hexam, Northumberland, all the evidence proves this beyond all reasonable doubt!
 

Add comment November 21st, 2007

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