Monday 10 September 2007

We’re all going on a Summer Holiday...

Apologies to regular visitors. Postings are likely to be a little sparse on the ground for the next couple of weeks. The ‘staff’ will be taking a well-earned and overdue break.

Given the complete absence of the (was it the met office?) predicted record summer temperatures and continued drought we intend to escape and maybe find some actual summer.



Somewhere there is no need of the ‘evil’ patio heater, the new 4x4.

Somewhere the tax on alcohol is far less punitive.

We do plan to do stuff that would have the hearty disapproval of the health fascists – and possibly others.


Some ‘binge drinking’ (over 4 glasses of wine in a session), or possibly some ‘problem drinking’ (two or more glasses of wine a day), oh - and eating plenty of good food. So that’ll upset Sir Liam Donaldson, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer.

Don’t tell, the BMA, or Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Cheshire, but we will probably be doing some drinking in the street too – well sitting outside a local cafĂ© or taverna having a drink, or two, at some point.


A flight or two may also be involved…

Comment moderation is on.

Please don’t get out of the habit of visiting.

Nu-Lab plan free £120 handout for getting pregnant

How stupid is this? Alan Johnson, Nu-Lab’s Health Secretary is promoting another half-baked scheme, largely, by the look of it, in persuit of a sound-bite.

They want to promote healthy eating in pregnant women so they are planning to give a £120 hand out to pregnant women, ostensibly to buy extra 'healthy' fruit and veg.

Sounds ok until you realise the cretins are just dishing out the ‘dosh’, without a care as to what it is actually spent on, no checks nothing to ensure it is spent as intended.

So what will practically happen is that those already inclined to eat a healthy diet will still do so and may well benefit from the hand out as intended.

Others may use it to buy baby items, or stock a nursery.

Unfortunately, as any one with half a brain can work out, those who most need a healthy diet boost are just as likely to spend it on booze, cigarettes, or a new pair of shoes.

The idiots might at least have issued the hand out as vouchers to be spent on certain products, though even this would then free up an equivalent amount to spend on something else it might at least get people to eat fruit and veg that might otherwise have been eating burgers and fries.

So basically it’s a hand out for getting pregnant. Have the Government been listening to the Pope’s concerns?

This waste of money is estimated to be likely to cost the long-suffering and much abused taxpayer between £70, and £80 million a year.

A sensible person wouldn’t leave someone who could come up with an idea like this in charge of a newspaper round collection, let alone public money.