Goodbye, award, it's been real

Advanced astronaut training.
I never made it this far

I'm supposed to pass on the award I got the other day, so it goes to Kate Lightfoot. Kate runs a warm and chatty blog from a village in Spain and she never fails to cheer me up, although her recipes are making me chunky. And no, those aren't her real ears.

I am reminded that a condition of the award was to reveal seven things about yourself. A deal's a deal:

1. I have been in a succession of bands with dubious names; The Flying Bogeys, The Sensible Jerseys, The Puffy Daddies, and these days, Hot Rabbit, to name but a few. The Sensible Jerseys gave Billy Bragg his first gig at some godforsaken college in North London. He blew us off the stage. I then left and they promptly got a record deal

2. I was turned down for astronaut training because of claustrophobia, and a nasty propensity for haemarrhoids in zero-gravity situations. Since that fateful day, I have never been on one of those free-fall rides at Thorpe Park, Six Flags, etc

3. Whilst attending the Bolshoi ballet in Moscow, as you do, I once stood at the next urinal to Peter Gabriel. And no, I didn't take a sneaky look at his manly parts, I was too busy trying to look nonchalant. This is tricky when you're peeing, even though Frenchmen seem to manage very well. We ran into David Byrne of Talking Heads in the hotel lift that very same weekend

4. I started a software company in the UK and US on the very same day (with some buddies, obviously). Its first name was 'Harlequin' which here means 'witty and sharp', but which stateside turns out to mean 'buffoon'. We quickly changed it to MATRA which everyone then mistook for MARTA, the Atlanta so-called public transport system

5. I drive a shiny Jag-wah supercharged turbo nutter bastard, and a really beaten up old Nissan Primera, and I think on balance I prefer the Nissan, even though it's a bit smelly from taking garden rubbish to the dump. This is mainly because it has more seats, and it doesn't have those ludicrous alloy wheels that cost you a bazillion quid to fix if you brush up against an awkward obstacle, like, oh, a pedestrian, or Sainsburys

6. I cut my own hair, apart from the awkward curly-wurly bit at the back which my wife hilariously pretends to do, but actually leaves so the kids can have a good giggle. Ha! Didn't think I knew, did you?

7. While revealing facts about myself I always tell one lie. Or is it two?

It's Frothy, Man

Phew! I'll have another Grande please

Sainsburys used to corner off a section where the old ladies and gents could come and have a natter and a cup of tea, for the princely sum of 30p. It was all a bit greasy and the tea was cold, but they'd warm it up in the microwave at no extra charge, and they'd wipe the old lipstick off the cup if you asked nicely. It had a rather pleasant, chatty English feel to it.

You could get a bacon sandwich if you stumped up a bit more. As a bonus, when your teabag broke, they'd read your fortune in the tea-leaves. ('You will feel slightly queasy this afternoon...')

But a couple of years ago they wiped all that away and put in a shiny new Costa Coffee.

I don't like it. £2.79 for a coffee. Two pounds seventy-nine! The word 'Costa' seems a cruel irony. And you can't get tea at all.

I resisted for a long time, but I thought I'd finally try it. I went in today and joined the queue of yummy mummies with Nasa buggies, and serious-looking business guys. (The old ladies and gents have gone somewhere cheaper). After a long wait it's my turn at the vacant-looking serving person. I ask for a coffee. Coffee? Blank face. Do you want Latte? Cappucino? Americano? Al-caponeo? No, if I want pasta I'll go to bloody Italy, I just want a coffee-o.

Will that be Fair Trade, she asks? No, I say, it's daylight robbery, but I'm thirsty so let's not argue any more.

Much scratching of heads, and whispered negotiation with the 'manager'. How can she be a manager? She's only 12. They duck behind the bar and do something very loud (whooooosh!). Clouds of smoke billow up. I'm just casting around for the fire extinguisher when they pop up and present me with an enormous mug. I negotiate a quick re-mortgage on the ole' mobile phone and pay up.

I sit down with the daily rag and a refreshing curly-wurly, and take a sip. Or rather I don't. No matter how much I tip the mug nothing comes out. This is strange. There's a lady wiping tables. I aske her if ther's something wrong with my coffee. Oh, she says, you'll have to ask the barrista, I'm only the wipe-ista.

Barrister? I only want my coffee, I'm not pressing a lawsuit. Yet.

No, barrista, she says, patiently, they're the schoolchildren who make your coffee.

Enlightened, I return to the bar and politely ask why they've given me coffee-flavoured shaving foam instead of the coffee-o that I asked for. More blank faces. The manager puts down her colouring book and looks sternly at me. Ah sir, she squeaks, our customers like their coffee this way.

I'm your customer! I just handed over my life savings! And I can't find the coffee!

It's there in the bottom, sir, she says, be patient. If you'd wanted less froth you should have asked for it dry.

Eh? Dry coffee? Once when drunk, nearly hung over, and desparate for food, I tried snacking on undissolved instant Nescafe. I have to report that it's not good, although on the plus side your head clears pretty quickly.

I hand back my cup of froth with a haughty sneer. Never mind, I say. I'm off to Tesco. They've got a nice old-fashioned Starbucks.

Unaccustomed as I am...

My wife wins heaps of awards.
This isn't her, obviously

I got an award! Check it out! (I hung it up on the right, there). Thank you Sarah of The Good Girls; I'm quite touched. Go visit her for a warm taste of California sunshine.

The last time I got an award was, I think, when I was 11 and I won the maths prize for swottiest kid. As I remember the prize was a bag of curly-wurlies and an eye-opening book on sex education for the under-12s. I've never looked back.

That was a good year; I also won the slow bicycle race at sports day although my joy was spoilt at the finishing line as I found out you were supposed to come last. It felt good for a while though.

I did win a prize once for Most Reckless Beginner when skiing at Killington in Vermont, but I don't count that since it was awarded mostly for falling all the way down the bunny hill, and may not have been entirely sincere.

So this award is all the more heartfelt, particularly since it comes with a £100 book token at Amazon and lifetime membership of Mr Bojangles, the happening nightspot for over-40s in downtown Eastleigh. Well, OK, it didn't, I bought those, but we all deserve little treats now and again.

My wife, naturally, gets hundreds of awards; tennis, skiing, euphonium, javelin, shot-put, etc. And I suspect there's another one coming. When she was late back from yoga the other day I called her mobile, only to get her instructor. He explained that they were practicing some extra tough positions, and he did sound a bit breathless. They were obviously working hard. Pretty soon I expect he'll be pointing a knick-knack or two her way.

But this one's all for me! I think the etiquette is to pass it on. Hmmm - off to the blogosphere...

EuroFudge

Referendum? What referendum?

At last! Europe has appointed its first president. Please welcome: Herman Van Rompuy! Herman Van Who? You may well ask, and you wouldn't be alone. He is the prime minister of Belgium, a country about the size of Disney World, but less sunny, where the belligerent French and Flemish population are continually at each other's throats. Belgians brew insipid beer, make over-sweet chocolate¹, and - ah-ha! - host the vast bureaucracies of the sprawling European Union.

Lucky Herman ascended this lofty throne courtesy of a disastrous general election in 2007 which nobody won. Out of this mess, the King Of Belgium asked him to form the government of Belgium. It's like Willy Wonka handing over the chocolate factory. (This Herman seems like a nice kid; let him have a go.)

Behind closed doors, Herman has now been chosen by the leaders of the EU's 27 states to be our glorious leader. He's the president of 500 million people. I didn't vote for him, and neither did anyone I know. We didn't get the chance.

And second place goes to: Britain! The position of foreign policy supremo is handed to Lady Ashton, the EU trade commissioner, who has never held publicly elected office and has only been in post for a year. You've never heard of her either? Neither had I, until just now. But apparently she's jolly nice. And she does have a sociology degree, so she's obviously pretty damned smart.

What have these two paragons of fluff got in common? They're both completely bland. They haven't annoyed anyone, except people like me, and we don't count.

In Britain we were repeatedly promised a referendum on the constitution, which then became the Lisbon treaty. It never happened. The promise meant nothing because it was made by Blair/Brown. At least they're consistent.

Cameron's turn now. Sigh.

Can you imagine this happening in the US? American elections may cost as much to enter as the GDP of a small country like, ooh, Belgium, but at least they get bumper stickers ('Vote Herman and Lady Wotz-er-name 09!'), and everyone gets a say. Even in places like China or Russia they're honest about their dictatorships.

This is the biggest stitch-up in history, bigger even than Jedward on the X Factor. It doesn't feel right. Can it last? Of course it can. No-one cares. Chocolate, anyone?

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1 - Not curly-wurlies, obviously, they're British

Doctor Who?

One of Belle's many fans

Who is Doctor Brooke Magnanti? Why, none other than Belle De Jour, the infamous £300-an-hour courtesan who has blogged her way to fame with detailed and very naughty accounts of her professional exploits. Apparently she got into this after running a bit short of cash for the old PhD. I'm kicking myself. When I was short of beer money at yoony I went and stacked shelves in Sainsburys, which is a much less fun way of doing your back in. But hats off¹ to BdJ for a job well done.

Nevertheless, I for one am shocked. £300! And what were they doing for a whole hour? Negotiating? You have to feel a bit sorry for the punters who parted with their hard-earned readies for an illicit quickie, only to find their inadequacies plastered all over the blogosphere, with great wit, erudition, and detail. Explain that to the wife.

The good Doctor now works in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology, where she is a respected specialist. I'll bet. How does she find time to develop all those neurotoxins between book signings, movie rights negotiations, and in-depth interviews? This is one serious over-achiever.

What's she got that I haven't got? It's taken me months to build up a modest following, and there isn't even a sniff of "UberGrumpy: The Movie" yet. A change of tack is needed. Perhaps I need to start blogging about my exploits between the sheets. I think I could raise an eyebrow or two.²

So watch out for my racy new blog. It'll be called "In Bed With UberGrumpy", and the first article will be "Surprise her with a curly-wurly". I'll post as regular as clockwork, once a month, except summer when it's too hot. And Christmas, when we're too tired after all the shopping.

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1 - And trousers, presumably
2 - And not much else these days, if the truth be told

Roger Less

Where do you want these?

I've gone right off the cinema. I'm not unsociable, but I have the family curse; Strange Attraction. If I ever get on a train, the drunk sits next to me. On a plane, I'm in the middle seat between the sumo wrestler and the travelsick Mum with triplets. In Tesco's, old ladies pigeonhole me demanding to know where the luxury toilet rolls are. If the animal rights mob or the Hare Krishnas are in the neighbourhood, they always bang on my door first. You get the idea.

So the cinema is a nightmare. Do you have a mobile phone, BO, extra large popcorn, and four noisy children? Come and share my row. Do you spit when you chew your gum? Yup, the seat behind is free. Did you just buy an enormous hat? Sit right down in front of me then. Yes I can see just fine. Sigh.

So the Family Grumpy tends to watch DVDs. Which is why I've only just seen the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

Here's how a Bond movie should be. Bond, interrupted while servicing a beautiful ambassadoress¹, is summoned to fight a rogue General/Businessman from Germany/Russia/Korea. He stops off to sexually harrass Miss Moneypenny and diss poor Q. With his gorgeous assistant, agent Dee Cupps, who he sleeps with forty-five seconds into reel two, he flies first class BA/Virgin² to Budapest/Hong Kong/Iceland where he uses his exploding pen/rocket bicycle/homing jockeys to escape from the yacht/castle stronghold/ice palace.

And so on. It all ends with a terrific explosion and lots of shot-up villains descending on ropes, but lucky Bond escapes with the villain's girlfriend, who obliges him with a damned good seeing to. 'No, M, can't talk to the PM right now, I'm on the job'. Snigger. That's a Bond movie.

So what's with this Daniel Craig chap? He must dispatch about a thousand baddies, and some goodies (oops), but there's not even a kiss. There's no time.

And it's not only the love interest that's gone. OK, Dan's got the man boobs and a good pout, but where are the pithy quotes? ('Shocking!', 'No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!', 'Is that a curly-wurly in your pocket or are you glad to see me', etc). Where is the comic American policeman? Gadgets? Q? Big lapels? Jaws?

The argument I keep hearing is that Bond is better now because it's much more realistic. Come again? Realistic how exactly? I've never killed anyone but I've done sex heaps of times, at least five, although admittedly never with a beautiful ambassadoress³.

Bring back Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, or that bloke who only got one movie (George Lazerbeam was it?) They may be wrinkly. But they had heart.

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1 - I know it's not a word, I made it up
2 - And that's the only virgin you'll see in this film
3 - Yup, made it up again

The Ten (PC) Commandments

And there'll be none of that either

1. Thou shalt not debate. At dinner parties thou shalt restrict thyself to talk of house prices, and the X Factor

2. Thou shalt never criticise the NHS, and thou shalt hold dear its essence, of being free to everyone forever

3. Thou shalt pay without complaint NHS parking charges, prescription fees¹, eye tests, dental work, substitute edible food for in-patients, poncey coffee in the lobby, essential services in thy dotage, vaccines, etc., and thou shalt cough up charitably for the MRI scanner which shall remain forever idle for lack of staff

4. Thou shalt keep thy Private Healthcare a close secret, although thou canst swank to thy heart's content about the expensive school to which thou sendest thy progeny

5. Thou shalt mightily endorse all things gay, even when thou becomest slightly queasy during Brokeback Mountain, and thou findest Graham Norton to be the most annoying and unfunny midget on TV since the Crankies, or even Ronnie Corbett

6. Thou shalt never criticise anything Jewish, lest thou be branded anti-semitic and have valuable banking services withheld from thee. However thou canst enthusiastically kick the Christian, for he will offer his other cheek, at which point you can kick that too. Thou canst likewise diss the Muslim, although thou riskest a Fatwa on thine arse

7. Thou shalt not read nor peep at the tabloids. Only The Guardian shall be thy organ of choice, even if thou preferest the crossword in The Telegraph, and thou findest Polly Toynbee to be self-righteous and up herself

8. Thou shalt express a preference for Labour although deep in thy heart thou longest for a bit of common sense, and the return of thy pension dividend credits

9. Thou shalt be in touch with thy feminine side, but not in a naughty way. Wolf whistle shalt thou never, except where it be an ironic endorsement of a male colleague who looks particularly buff today

10. Thou shalt stick to only Ten Commandments, and Ten shall be the count, even though thou feelest thou've only just got started

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1 - Unless thou art Scottish or Welsh

The Dark Side Of The Sun

Too much Sun is bad for you

You've got to hand it to The Sun. Despite accusations of being a tawdry two-dimensional witless rag, they keep on plugging, and they're still Britain's most popular paper by a very long chalk. We Brits may not have much taste but we read voraciously. Or at least we look at the pictures.

What's not to like? Irrepressible editorial style, unconstrained by conventional journalistic norms (truth, accuracy, ethics, etc). Attention-grabbing headlines. Handy format. Free DVDs featuring ropey films of yesteryear. Although admittedly the scantily-glad female in every copy is a bit of a cheap gimmick (ahem).

The Sun is so popular it has its own Cockney rhyming slang - it's the Currant Bun, my son, innit? Perhaps this unique blue-collar accolade is not such a surprise. There aren't many words that rhyme with Guardian (Cardigan?) and Telegraph is downright impossible.

But a watershed has been reached. After twelve years of Labour love-in, The Sun has decided to support the Tories. Cue furious reaction from the jilted party. We've seen copies ripped up at conference, Harriet Harman complaining about 'News In Briefs', and Peter Mandelson hinting at some dark contract between Murdoch and the Tories. He should know.

Does this strike anyone else as a teensy bit hypocritical? Can anyone remember them complaining as they enjoyed all that support? And the love was reciprocated. During Blair's glory years, Murdoch's News International enjoyed no shortage of favours from him. It's not every company that can persuade the UK PM-in-waiting to fly to Australia to give a pep talk to its executives. And Hattie Harperson was notably absent from her high horse, wasn't she?

It's all changed now. The Sun has been accused of distortion, rabble-rousing and hysteria. But UberGrumpy can reveal it's not just them. Here's a sample of articles from the so-called respectable press this week:

• 'Butcher Takes Pen To Queen'


• 'Dimbleby Surprised By Wife's Bullocks'


• 'Bobby Robson Compost'


• 'Thatcher Dead!'


• 'Curly Wurly In Space'

So don't believe what you read. Except on the Internet, of course. Here, it's all true.

Fat and happy

Sudoku schmudoku! Let's eat!

Check out this terrifically sexist article from the BBC, saying 'curvy' women (their words) are cleverer than skinny ones. I particularly like the way the article reports that 16,000 people were tested, but the Beeb, scientific to its luvvie core, affirms the research with a sample of one, the very lovely Nigella Lawson.

Bloody cheek. What about us guys? I have long suspected that as I get fatter I get more brilliant. And the effect is instant. Picture me this week, seduced by the secret addictive ingredient in McDonalds, wolfing down a Supersized Big Mac with conscience-salving Diet Coke. I'm loving it, I think as I tuck in. But two minutes later and five pounds heavier my eyes are opened! It's disgusting. (Belch).

The converse also applies; lose weight, lose wit. Many an evening I've hit the pub and come out a lot more bloaty, yet extraordinarily wise. But beer, alas, doesn't last, so I wake up feeling stupid, until I embark on my five a day.¹

The government hasn't cottoned on yet. They're still trying to make people thinner. A brilliant new NHS scheme in Essex, obviously conceived by skinny doctors, is tackling obesity by giving people 50% off in the chippy if they choose the healthy option. What healthy option? Mushy peas? Pickled eggs?

So Gordon Brown's new jogging habit is a big mistake. He's losing his edge over that lightweight Cameron. Perhaps they should both move over; yield the Despatch Box to MPs with gravitas, gravity, and, er, gravy. I nominate Prescott and Pickles. Prime Minister's Questions will be a great deal livelier.² Between them they'll soon sort out those imbecilic Fat Cats at the banks. Here, hold on a minute...

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1 - Sausages
2 - And a lot shorter, as they'll need to stop for their afternoon curly-wurlies

Ka-booooom!

Bosons: small but fascinating

Anyone with a passing interest in science will know that the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, will start operating pretty soon, after the odd false start. This monumental machine will move science forward in ways that are tremendously important, more mysterious than a UK government budget, and eye-poppingly expensive, obviously, as it's a European project.

I have done some research. I now know what hadrons are. They are not the invisible villains that Captain Scarlet struggled valiantly against - those are Mysterons. No, hadrons are tiddly¹ bits of atoms, composed of even tiddlier quarks².

'Large'? It ought to be called the Absolutely Gobsmackingly Enormous Hadron Annihilator. It's a circle 27 km in diameter, like the North Circular Road, but quite a lot faster. It's got to be terrifically cold, so that the magnets can superconduct; a bit like Andre Previn in a freezer.

This all persuades the unlucky hadrons to hurtle round at huge speeds and then WHAM! They smite each other mightily, producing energetic and wacky particles that we can then observe, if we have the right sunglasses and a high-quality magnifying glass.

It costs about £4.5 billion. A mere bagatelle; the Bank of England could Quantitatively Ease that much in about a week.

Could it go wrong? There is a risk that it might produce a black hole, which would obliterate all matter within a 100 km or so. For this reason it has been built in Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU. Wales was ruled out because all the documents would need translating into Welsh and it's already quite tricky enough, thank you very much.

What's it for, you may well ask as you fill in your tax return? Ah. We are on a quest for the Higgs Boson. This produces the Higgs field, which allows us all to have mass. Most of the Higgs bosons disappeared very soon after the Big Bang. Problem. If there are no Higgs bosons then we will get lighter and lighter, and eventually float off into space.

So the LHC will produce a steady supply, gluing us all to the Earth. Because it's been paid for by the taxpayer, Higgs bosons will be provided free of charge, except in America where you will need to buy Higgs insurance. Unless you are poor, in which case you'd better not plan to go outdoors anytime soon.

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1 - To give you an idea how tiddly, if we used hadrons instead of sugar to sweeten our tea, then the question 'one lump or two' would need to be '10²⁴ hadrons, or a multiple thereof'? If you then put them in one at a time, as fast as you could, your tea would be cold by the time you got to drink it, but you wouldn't care because you'd be long dead anyway.

2 - If you think that's a Star Trek character, just stop reading and look at the picture.

Twenty Feline Facts

Who, me? Yes, you

1. Cats can lick their own bottoms, and often do
2. Use of toilet paper is quite rare in the feline world
3. Cat poo does not smell very nice
4. Cats just love to sit on your lap

5. Cats have claws that are sharper than razor blades
6. Each cat has over 700 claws
7. Cats often use their claws to catch germ-infested vermin
8. When cats get on your lap, they instinctively bury their claws about an inch into your skin. They rarely hit an artery

9. Upholstery is really really expensive (not strictly a cat fact, obviously)
10. Cats need to keep their 700 claws sharp
11. You can buy purpose-bult scratching posts
12. But the bloody thing prefers to rip the back off your new leather recliner

13. When they're not licking their bottoms, cats like to lick the rest of themselves
14. Cats swallow a lot of fur and need to throw it up, often
15. New rugs are even more expensive than upholstery
16. Cats always throw up in the middle of the nearest rug

17. Cats like to spray their territory with pungent, sticky urine
18. Even female cats do this, we were unpleasantly surprised to discover
19. Cats can mistake your brand-new and very precious guitar amp for a territory marker
20. We no longer own a cat

Some useful online resources:

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com
http://catrecipes.com/
http://www.simonscat.com/films.html

Up in smoke

Fireworks used to be a lot
more interesting

It's bonfire night! Tonight's the night we set light to our garden clippings and set off fireworks. Unless, that is, we are the Ilfracombe Rugby Club. These weekend warriors, who hurl themselves at each other every Sunday with scant regard to life and limb, are watching fireworks on a telly because of Health and Safety concerns. I'm with Stephen Fry; Health and Safety are the two worst words in the English language.

What happened to proper fireworks? Anyone remember Jumping jacks that used to chase you round the garden? Or those aeroplane things that used to fly up your Dad's leg?

So what can we burn in complete safety? I know; money. The Bank of England is extending it's Quantitative Easing policy by £25bn to £200bn. So two questions. What's £25bn? And what is Quantitative Easing?

£25bn is a LOT OF MONEY. We've got so used to seeing billions and zillions bandied around we've lost our sense of scale. So, £25bn is

• About £180,000 for every doctor in the UK, or


• About £830,000 for every school in the UK, or


• About £417 for each of us, or


• MPs' expenses for well over a year.

Yup, a lot.

As to Q2; what is Quantitative Easing? Well, it's printing money. Why don't we call it Printing Money then? Perhaps QE has come to mean 'trying desperately to recover from wretched excess'; and PM already means that, doesn't it Gordon? Or perhaps it's so that we can baffle the electorate with a piece of nifty jargon, so they think we know something they don't.

But surely printing money means it arrives out of thin air? Free cash for everyone? Er, no. QE just spreads thin the intrinsic wealth of the UK. The value of the pound stays depressed; have you noticed how expensive your foreign hols feel? And inflation is just around the corner. But that's OK, because the nasty Tories will have to deal with it.

Bigger, Stronger, Fatter

Don't look up Ethel!

Interesting stories today. Apparently rugby players are much bigger than they used to be, so their injuries are proportionately bigger too. We're considering American-style padding, although that won't help much when someone is twisting the family jewels through 180^o in the scrum.

At the same time, child obesity is levelling off, which is a nice way of saying virtually all of us are now lardy. Hardly a surprise, is it? We don't buy Kit-Kats any more; we buy Kit-Kat Chunky! And we don't eat crisps; we eat Walkers Max Cheeseburger Crisps! Move over Dandelion and Burdock (what is Burdock?), here comes Pepsi Max Big Gulp!

It's not just people getting bigger. When we were at Yoony we used to watch Coronation Street twice a week on our b&w portable. Today we watch EastEnders on our forty-two inch plasma, four times a week, repeated on BBC3 with an omnibus edition and a web-site. Or rather we don't, as a) we can't afford one b) it's drivel.

Even already-big stuff has got bigger. The UK government is 866,000 people bigger today than in 1997. (Yes, really)¹. Our banks are so bloated they need to be split up, so they can re-bloat. Is everything growing?

No, not everything. When I was a kid a Curly-Wurly was three feet long. Now it's so short it ought to be called a Straighty-Waity. Also, the notes and coins with which we buy our Straighty-Waities are pathetic little things. I miss half-crowns like dinner plates and fivers the size of parachutes. With one half-crown you could buy a Party 8² and an economy bag of Monster Munch, and it was party time! Nostalgia, eh?

But our living space seems to be shrinking the fastest. In Winchester, Chilbolton Avenue is a road full of old sprawling Edwardian houses, with some wasteful open space called 'gardens'. They're being demolished at a furious rate. Same story all over the city, except for three very bland fields, where neighbouring nimbies are holding out. 'Save Barton Farm!' they cry from their old sprawling Edwardian houses. Regardless, a house a day is replaced by about fifty very efficient flats, with just enough room for a bed and a loo, and a forty-two inch plasma.

Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that the M3 is a car park from Basingstoke to London every morning. For most of these poor sods, it's the only place they can find somewhere to spread out. Perhaps we should build another lane. Sigh.

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1 - Admittedly that includes over 200,000 merchant bankers.
2 - That's 'insipid beer in an oil drum' to the under-40s.

Texty Beast

Try texting on this

When our kids were small we could fool 'em by spelling things out. We knew we were rumbled when The Boss, spelling to me 'Shall we go to M-C-D-O-N-...", was interrupted from the back seat by "We want happy meals!" And in recent times they've completed their revenge, by somehow mastering the oriental art of text.

Not so fast, kids. I too have learnt to text. You can too. It's crucial to get the rules right so you can communicate effectively with the yoof at yoony. I learnt the hard way, so here's a small tutorial for all you fellow technophobe oldies. Don't worry; it's a breeze once you know how.

Grab your mobile, and a pair of extra-strength glasses so you can see the fiddly little buttons and the rotten little screen, unless you have an iPhone, in which case you won't be able to find the buttons at all, so give up now.

Your kids hold the phone in one hand and use their thumb to text, but you will dislocate it if you try that, so you'll need both hands. You'll just have to steer the car with your knees.

Start assembling your text. There are two ways to do this. First, the traditional method, where numbers correspond to letters. For example, '2' equals a, b and c¹. To get a 'c' press the '2' key 3 times. Notice your screen shows 'aaa'. You pressed too slowly, because you are old and arthritic. Start again. Eventually your fingers will fly around the keys, and you can be as annoying as the little sod sat in front of you every time you go to the cinema.

Number two is the 'Psychic Text' method. With your eyes closed, press keys corresponding to your word, and the phone magically works it out. Perhaps you want to write 'money', a word you will need a lot to communicate with yoof at yoony. Simply type the keys 66639. The word 'bankrupt' appears as if by magic. Type in your message. When finished, your screen shows a a bunch of apprently unconnected words; but don't worry, your text-savvy recipient will understand it perfectly. I don't use psychic text because I am a Catholic.

Now for the clever bit. It's common to use some shortcuts when texting to save time, and as we all know, time equals money bankrupt. First, we can leave out most vowels. Ths rmovs th need fr a lt of unncssry typng. Scnd, lve out mst pnctuatn, bcs its actlly qt hrd to pnctuat on a mbl phn Ths mks you qckr stll Thrd, dn't use cptl lettrs jst cntnue your sntnce you are frly flyng alng now 4th swp cmmn wrds fr lttrs & nmbrs e.g. 'you' bcms 'u' nw u cn b th gr8st txtr on th plnt & u r frggh sdfsjjkf gdtrgdb snzzz glpsrrfgnm

See? Easy.

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1 - The '1' key is not involved in texting, because it was invented in Japan, where one is a sacred number.

Haiku! Bless you

Lovely Japanese
Clever in her glasses but
Underwear mix-up

For those short of time, I present the week in Haiku.

Tony Blair for pres
Sarkozy Merkel nix nix
Back to lecture wealth

Bloody great big ship
Oasis of the sea (sick)
Bang goes planet earth

Helicopter fail
'It's bad!' intones Jock Stirrup
That's a funny name

Postal strike again
Backlog high like Mount Fuji
(Covered that last week)

Halloween today
Telly full of scary crap
I think: DVD


Liking Haiku thing
I think I'm understanding
Or maybe it's just too difficult to fit the words in, espcially if they're rhyming
(which they're not supposed to).

Postman Pavel

Striking

Let's hope this postal strike ends soon. It's quite disruptive. My post has been arriving quite early; so I am robbed of the happy anticipation of it arriving around suppertime. What's more, all of it is for me, so I've lost the enjoyable banter with my neighbours as I try to figure out who's got my mail.

I assume our replacement postie is temporary, because he's polite, cheerful, efficient, and Polish. I expect the usual incumbent, Darren, is champing at the bit to get back to work. He doesn't have time to be polite or cheerful; the permanent scowl and avoidance of eye-contact is because he's concentrating. However he makes up for this with a lovely pre-Christmas card ('from your postie, Darren'). I'm sure this has nothing to do with angling for a tip, so we don't give him one.

Darren is riding the crest of a wave of union enthusiasm. Life had got a bit dull what with everyone off to the office every day, so the gusto with which the CWU is failing to turn up for work is a breath of fresh air. They're not alone. Yesterday I received a Unison letter passed on from a public sector buddy. (I feel his identity is safe; there are 1.3 million of the buggers. Can you hear me at the back comrades?)

The letter was a response to a request for workers to take their full holiday entitlement. This would avoid a big budget deficit due to people carrying forward holiday. Unison helpfully suggested that if its members were being asked to take holiday, then they should share in the profits. In other words, pay me a bonus for taking my holiday. Which I'm contractually obliged to do anyway.

Ho hum. Welcome to the 70s.

Clock and Bull

Winter is coming. Brrr

I'm feeling a bit fragile today. This has nothing to do with a huge excess of red wine; it would be wretched and debauched to be suffering from a hangover on Tuesday. No, it's jetlag from turning the clocks back. Plus the sheer effort; there are no fewer than 21 clocks in my house, all showing a slightly different time. What a waste. Does my microwave really need to know it's 3:30 a.m. when it's heating up cold pizza to combat my munchies?

It's a strange time of year. We struggle home in the dark to the merry sound of schoolchildren bouncing off car bumpers. So what's the point? Apparently it's so that the last fourteen farmers remaining in Britain can have a bit more daylight. Obviously you can't buy tractors with headlights. Or at least you couldn't in 1916, when we started messing with clocks.

But what's really bugging me is this. Our cheap nasty Japanese car, used for trips to the dump, happily sets the clock from the radio. Unlike our luxurious British motor, which cost as much as a small house (admittedly nowhere you'd actually want to live). We Brits are no longer capable of practical things. So don't expect to see the clock-changing mallarkey stop any time soon.

There is one bright spot. ChrisProles reminds me that October 25th was also the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. Ha! Take that you Frenchies. We may not be able to build cars anymore, but we've got a really long memory.

Unholy Alliance - A Play In Two Acts

Look how nice we are now

Act I: White City; BBC HQ

(The national anthem plays)
Big cheese 1: Well, let's face it. Numbers are down.
Big cheese 2: Yup. We need to do something drastic.
BC1: The usual formula?
BC2: Back to 'Men Behaving Badly'? 'On The Buses'? That sort of thing?
BC1: Tempting, but no good - wouldn't fit with our new PC image.
BC2: OK - here's radical for you. How about Nick Griffin on Question Time?
BC1: What! Are you mad? He can hardly string two words together!
BC2: No problem - he'll be up against windbags from the main parties; he'll never get a word in edgeways. He'll just sit there and shake his head.
BC1: Good, because if he opens his mouth we could be in trouble.
BC2: Stop worrying. There's no such thing as bad publicity.

Act II: White Town; BNP HQ

(The national anthem plays)
Big cheese 1: Well, let's face it. Numbers are down.
Big cheese 2: Yup. We need to do something drastic.
BC1: The usual formula?
BC2: Back to men behaving badly on the buses? That sort of thing?
BC1: Tempting, but no good - wouldn't fit with our new PC image.
BC2: OK - here's radical for you. How about Nick Griffin on Question Time?
BC1: What! Are you mad? He can hardly string two words together!
BC2: No problem - he'll be up against windbags from the main parties; he'll never get a word in edgeways. He'll just sit there and shake his head.
BC1: Good, because if he opens his mouth we could be in trouble.
BC2: Stop worrying. There's no such thing as bad publicity.

One out, all out

Ooh! That's quite a backlog

No post today, I'm on strike.

Vive la difference

Smouldering hunk with
6-pack, as requested

I like to include a light-hearted illustration with postings, to flesh out the theme, so to speak. But it's been pointed out that a disproportionate number of pix happen to include inadequately-clad ladies, and looking back, to my surprise I find I can't disagree. So today we redress the balance with one for the ladies. Enjoy.

Feminism has come a long way since the seventies. But I've always tried to remain abreast of current thinking. When my friends were burning their bras, I tried to show solidarity by burning my y-fronts. No-one told me you had to take them off first, and I still bear the scars today. I may wince a little when mounting my bike, but you won't find me complaining, because it was worth it.

But hooray! We're still different. I offer a trip to Waitrose as compelling evidence. My good wife engages trolley, then belts up and down picking goodies up in order, by instinct, even though she's never been there before.

Meanwhile I'm on a quest for the tomato puree. I can't find it. Obviously I can't ask directions, I am a man. I begin a systematic aisle-by-aisle search. There isn't any. Then I can't find her. Are you with me guys?

Finally she rams the trolley into my ankles as she chucks in two tins from the extensive selection of international purees on aisle 12, which I'm standing in front of. Battle of the sexes? There's no contest.

Pass The Duchy On The Left Hand Side

Personal security
doesn't come cheap

Anyone who read The Times yesterday will share my sense of shock at the headline 'Prince Charles's Harpist Arrested For Stealing'. Or something like that; I threw it away after the Su Doku and the crossword. Blimey! I thought. Prince Charles has a harpist? Alas, it turns out he doesn't; she just played at one of his weddings. Apparently harp gigs are scarce, for she has gone on a nicking spree, and was caught with a flat-screen TV and other goodies in her Ford Galaxy.

But it made me think. We haven't heard much about ole' Royal Big-ears in recent times; has creeping republicanism under New Labour bitten hard? Will we soon be seeing G. Brown's horrible fizzog on our hard-earned pound coins, ar at least those he's left us? Did Chas lay off his harpists, punkah wallahs, polo ponies and palace polishers?

No. Check out the very classy Duchy of Cornwall web-site. The royal train is still brimming with prime gravy. His Nibs owns 54,000 hectares spread over 23 counties (mostly Devon, funnily enough). Next time you're munching on one of those slightly weird and cosmically expensive orange biscuits, consider this; in 2008/9 the Duchy pulled in a tidy £20.2m, with costs of only £7.3m. Not bad eh? I suspect he could afford to charge a bit less. But one does need to maintain a dignified distance between oneself and the jammie dodgers.

So where do all those profits go? Well, the Duchy gave away £86,000 to charit-eh (I wonder if he supports hard-up bloggers?) which accounts for about 0.6%. The rest you'll find in section 13 of the accounts; 'Balance due to his Royal Highness' which shows his payment last year as £16,458,000. Nice work if you can get it.

To be fair, this princely sum (sorry) covers a bunch of other stuff too, including £3.4m of tax to Mum. That, and other things like 'official duties' (Good heavens, Camilla, is it Thursday already?), 'maintaining official residences' (Sorry, too tired, I'm orrf to sleep at Clarence House), and 'military seconders' (I say, Major, are you free this Thursday?). In all they eat up £13.88m. Makes your average MP's expenses look a bit weedy, eh? But HRH is left less than three million quid to spend on himself and the family. That would hardly keep one supplied with decent biscuits. No wonder he's sent the lads off to the army.

Spandau Belly

Phew, Kylie's getting on
a bit

Like most 48-year-olds who are scared of motorbikes, I'm in a band. When you hear the words Hot Rabbit you may think 'marital aid' but a lot of people round here think 'Hampshire's Hardest-Working Band'. We're pretty good. As NME¹ puts it, 'These guys can rock, and sometimes do. If you're planning a wedding, bar mitzvah, or funeral, look no further. It's party time. Discounts for over-60s.'

So when I watched Strictly Come Dancing last night, and saw Spandau Ballet, still rockin' after all those beers, it felt like an encounter with true kindred spirits. Tony Hadley may not be able to quite reach the high notes any more, but he has more than compensated by beefing up his stage presence.

I love Strictly, like everyone in Britain is obliged to. I can put up with Bruce Forsyth, the god-awful face-lifted judges, the tooth-grinding pregnant pauses when one of the b-list celebrities is kicked off, the 15p per call 'but mobiles cost considerably more', the stilted chat segments, the endless follow-ups with Cladia Winkleman, and the odd purple lighting that makes my TV go funny. The nine minutes or so of actual dancing, which is knockout, make watching the entire two and a half hours worthwhile. Plus my family like it, and they'd be quite annoyed with me if I grumped. So I won't.

Instead let's focus on Spandau Ballet themselves, and the phenomenon of the never-ending rock group. Never mind if names like 'Gerry And The Pacemakers' 'The Mamas and the Papas', or 'Derek, Pass The Dominoes' get to sound a bit ironic with the passing of the years; the songs live on, man. When the competition consists of Lilly Allen or Mika² then they'll live on for a while yet. So if they can still sing, wheel' em out! The fans will overlook a pork pie or two, and if you can't dive into the mosh pit any more because of your hip replacement, they'll understand.

Bottom line; if Ozzy Osbourne can do it, so can we, even though we have to carry our own equipment. We don't intend to retire anytime soon. And we're quite cheap.

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1 - New Milton Echo - one of the South's most influential free newspapers
2 - OK, a matter of opinion, I know. But have you heard We Are Golden?

Brick, Lame

Shhhh!

Why are all new novels 600 pages long? I am wading through Stieg Larsson's new effort, and boy is it a marathon. It's full of lists. Pages 73-5 describe a shopping trip by our heroine in unprecedented detail, with such immortal sentences as 'She bought two Karlanda sofas with sand-coloured upholstery, five Poang armchairs, two round side tables of clear-lacquered birch, a Svansbo coffee table and several Lack occasional tables'. And it doesn't stop there. Let's hope she had all the bits when she got home.

This whopper is the follow-up to his last bestseller¹. Larsson, if you don't know him, was a slightly earnest balding forty-something journalist who is alas no longer with us. The underlying stories are pretty good; it's racy stuff, in which a slightly earnest balding forty-something journalist solves murders, mostly by drinking coffee, and sleeping with every female character he comes across. There are whole chapters where you're willing him to just get on with it. (The plot, I mean).

He's not the only novelist where skipping pages is required if you want to finish before the plane lands. It's a common trend - so what's going on? I have a theory. (Don't roll your eyes, it's a good one). I blame the word processor. Yes, the simple, ubiquitous PC, or, as Stieg L might have it, the Mac Ibook G3 with 35 cm screen, 32 Gb hard drive, 2 Gb of RAM, a zip drive and a coffee-cup holder, set on a clever desk from Ikea. With one of these babies every word you write can be preserved in formaldehyde and regurgitated later on with a nifty cut and paste manoeuvre.

In Jane Austen's time they didn't have word processors; they only had the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and TV hadn't been invented so even they weren't much use. No, Jane had to use a pen, with proper ink, so in order to achieve more than one book in a lifetime she had to choose her words with care instead of spewing them forth like an MTV presenter.

Imagine if she was equipped with MS Word. Darcy's rejected proposal to Elizabeth in the original novel is far too short; just a sentence or two. Where's the detail? Here's the revised version in Pride, Prejudice, Propriety, Providence, Privilege and Prosperity:

He sat down for a few moments, uncomfortable on the edge of the two-cushion Karslanda with peach print and laminated oak legs. Then getting up, he walked about the room, frowning absentmindedly at the volumes lining the Billy in beech veneer. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. Quietly she waited on her Poang, maintaining her composure, concentrating silently on her upcoming lunch of swedish meatballs and curry sauce. After a silence of several minutes, Darcy came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. This has been a rollercoaster ride of emotion, but it's my dream, I've earned it, the moment I've been waiting for all my life. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. And respect you as a person of course."

See? Much better.

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1- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Short Hair, Interesting Piercings, Leather Trousers, High-Heeled Shoes and Underwear from Stockholm's Raciest Shop

AdNonSense

I'm feeling lucky

Observant readers may notice that where there used to be ads, there now aren't. This is because Google switched them off. They have a program called AdSense that the new blogger is sold quite hard. Monetise your blog! reads the blurb from the George Bush school of sales. It's supposed to earn you a bit of cash when people click on targeted ads. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I signed up. But over the weekend alas! I received a mysterious e-mail saying my ads are no more; and they can't tell me why, because it would reveal mysterious proprietary secrets from the very bosom of Googledom. I suspect my sin is having kids who are clicking a bit too enthusiastically, particularly on the yoga ads. Or possibly using the word 'bosom'.

Obviously I read the Terms and Conditions¹ in fine detail when I signed up, and when they switched it off I read them, er, again. We are prohibited, among other things, from using 'repeated manual clicks' (i.e. if anyone clicks on an ad twice you're doomed); and 'engaging in action that ... reflects poorly on Google'. Oops - blown that one then. There are other clauses that are beyond me, although I'm well up on legalese, having read several John Grisham novels.

I can understand Big G's desire to protect their advertisers - in my professional life I am one, and I pay about £300 a month for the privilege. What's more, they host this blog for free, so I don't feel I can complain too much. And the cash that potentially flows is way too small to get worked up about.

But there is a problem here. The contract is one-sided and slack, and allows them to disable AdSense for, well, anything. The disabling process is instant, uncontestable, and precedes any actual payment; it must at least be tempting to disable vigorously, in the interests of driving up revenue. It's starting to feel like the Microsoft model, i.e. generate vast gobs of cash without ever having to deal with a real client. What an awful fate for our nice 'do no evil' chums at Google.

It's mighty galling to be lumped in with those clever but repellent souls dotted around the world who write programs to deliberately defraud. Excuse me, but I'm not one of those, and not only because I'm not clever enough. I've also put effort in to my blog, youthful though it is, and I'm quite proud of it. So I'll appeal, and I'll let you know how I get on. But I'm not expecting much. I feel fortunate not to be one of those hard-working writers who rely on this system to make a living; because this feels like a court where all are guilty until proven innocent, and the only sentence is terminal.

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1 - Check the Hong Kong version for extra legal clarity

Lessons From Marrakech

Our tour guide

I've just been for a lad's weekend in Morocco. I can highly recommend the guided walking tours in the Atlas mountains. It's a long way for a short time, I know. But fear not ecomentalists; I offset my carbon footprint in several ways. First, we travelled home from Heathrow via National Excess. Our genial driver ('No ticket? This bus leaves in one minute, mate') found us a space on the roof between chicken-carrying baboushckas, and students with halitosis and Ipods playing The Prodigy. Secondly, I left behind non-essential items, like my mobile phone, and the wife.

Morocco is an interesting lens through which to view Blighty. I've been reading a lot about waste of all kinds recently, but apparently food is a biggy; 20% of all UK carbon emissions, and if you came to a barbecue at my house, that statistic wouldn't surprise you. Compare this with Marrakech. There is a huge square there called Djemaa el Fna ('place of a thousand scams'). We sat down to eat there and Brits that we are, didn't complain when they bought twice as many dishes as we ordered. We left a lot.

But as we left the table some enterprising locals pounced on the remains of our meal and spirited it away. Nothing got chucked, even the 'small fish of a thousand bones'. Why don't we do this? I would gladly give the large collection of Black Cherry yoghurts and half a Curly-Wurly at the back of my fridge to anyone who asked. What's more the supermarkets won't give excess food to local homeless people because of their fear of litigation, unless the homeless one concerned carries the appropriate insurance. Can you spare a few coppers for the premium, guv?

In Morocco this efficient approach to life doesn't stop at food. They even dispense with expensive power-hungry alarm clocks. Instead there is an obliging chap who climbs up a tower at 4:30 and wakes everyone up. Oh, how we laughed the first time that happened. There is also a thriving moped pool which sees little Hondas everywhere, groaning under the weight of three or more Marrakechians who wave cheerfully as they neatly deflect you into the gutter. Oi! Where's my camera?

Inspired by all this, I'm going to make a few changes close to home. This afternoon I shall be bartering for the weekly food shop at Waitrose. After that I'm off to buy a loudhailer with all the money I've saved, and a stepladder long enough to reach the roof. I'll be up there at 4:30 tomorrow to surprise the neighbours. I can hardly wait to see their faces.

Squeezyjet And The Carbon Conundrum

Those were the days

A few years ago I used to fly regularly across the atlantic (in a plane, obviously). There was a bit of jockeying for position shortly after take-off so that you could bag a row of middle seats to stretch out and lie down. That's if you hadn't managed to chat up the ground staff and wangle an upgrade. Sleeping generally wasn't a problem anyway once they introduced free drinks; the problem was waking up at the other end.

I'm glad to say all that inefficiency is long behind us. If there's an empty seat in a plane now it's because someone's feeling rich enough to use the loo. (I'll resist comments about feeling flush). Either that or the co-pilot hasn't turned up. Planes now fly fully laden from A to B, umless they're diverted to C because of fog at B. It's an awesome business, particularly when you think that the Airbus A380 can carry 800 people. Eight hundred people. That's more than go to Southampton home games.

It seems half-empty planes are a thing of the past; a famous victory for the ecomentalists. Or is it? Since Stelios O'Leary introduced his famous 'fly for a quid, pee for a fiver' business model, we seem to be flying everywhere, a lot. The only people who don't fly are guilty middle-class types, with the strange but somehow gratifying result that tourist destinations close to home, like Ventnor or Swanage, are slyly becoming quite chic. By the same token Harry Ramsden's may now be enjoyed from Florida to the Middle East, if enjoyed is the right word.

I'm particularly focussed on this now as I'm about to board a train for an hour's ride to London. This is followed by a four hour flight. The train costs more than twice as much as the flight. Unsurprisingly, then, we've developed some ludicrous habits. I'm sorry, but flying to New York for a weekend's shopping is insane. If the ticket cost a grand for a three-legged stool in the back of the bus, like it used to, even your keenest bargain hunter would think twice.

So how can we save the planet? There's one way - and that's to make flying a lot more expensive. Tax aviation fuel like other fuels - problem solved! Except this would involve the EU and US etc. actually agreeing on something.

Some imagination is needed then. Perhaps we could try discouraging the punters by forcing them through overcrowded dilapidated airports for hours, being hostile to them at interminable customs and security checkpoints, confiscating their deadly toothpicks and suntan lotion, forcing them to eat Harry Ramsden's chips whiling away the three-hour delay, then cramming them onto badly maintained uncomfortable vehicles and sending their bags to Athens. Or did we try that already?

Grumponomics

A typical fund manager

Investing is a tricky game. It's all in the timing, as I found out when I recommended to my investment club buddies that we buy Railtrack shares a week before Stephen Byers, bless 'im, 'nationalised' (i.e. nicked) the lot. It wasn't all bad, though, as it's given the lads an opportunity to relentlessly take the mickey ever since. Sigh.

If you don't take an interest in the stock market, or gilts, or bonds, take a bow, because the smug podgy half-wit who's taking 3%-5% out of your pension pot each year for 'managing' it is relying heavily on your disinterest to fund the balloon payment on his/her Aston Martin. I stopped paying into pensions some time ago. My retirement plan is now to ask my wife to hit my lower leg with a mallet just before we retire, so I can get some of this disability benefit everyone keeps talking about. A moment of pain, a lifetime of gain.

A quiz. If you had built up enough debt to entirely fill the Albert Hall with £20 notes¹, what level of interest would you choose to pay? a) 10%? b? 5%? c) Bugger all? This is the fascinating position in which our fabulously profligate government finds itself. By following public spending policies to help keep interest rates negligible, and printing money Zimbabwe-style to make the debt worth less and less, it hopes to emerge from the gargantuan hole it has dug for all of us. Move over savers; we have to pay for those civil service pensions somehow.

Doubtless there are a few suckers who killed themselves in their early careers saving and paying off their mortgage. Fools! You wouldn't find me doing that.² But never fear - it's not too late. The housing market, against every law of physics or rational explanation, is on the up and up once more. So go out and get yourself some debt, and bag an executive box in Uxbridge for half a milllion quid. Money is cheap! Let the good times roll! Pop the champagne! (Did someone say 'bubble'?)

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1- No really. And some. Leave an appropriate comment and I'll send you the maths if you're interested.
2- ...again

Bloated, Biased and Confused?

Admit it, you owned one

Whither the BBC? Stick ten Brits in a room and ask them what still makes Britain great, and they will overwhelmingly answer - the BBC! At least that's what the papers will tell you. Don't believe a word of it. I've actually tried this and I got some interesting answers; including 'gardening', 'fair play' and 'table manners'. No-one said 'the BBC'. Mind you I admit I may not have got their full attention, but that's what you get when you phone people up during EastEnders.

Where was I? Oh yes - Auntie. British Telly Is The Best In The World, as we all know. The only reason it's stuffed full of American sitcoms, science-fiction repeats and soaps, is that we need to encourage the Yanks in their early efforts, and besides, the programs are quite cheap. Cheap is important; it's common knowledge that the Beeb represents tremendous value for money, and always has done.

But value for money is getting surprisingly expensive. In 1996 a TV licence cost £86.50. Today it costs £142.50, up by a mere 65%. Don't complain; we now have a plethora of new channels. We have BBC3 featuring classic programs like F*** Off I'm Fat. We have more saccharin-rich children's channels and programs than you ever thought you would need, or could stomach. And we have ever-more exotic sports coverage. Who needs football when darts is so riveting?

It's not just TV either. No exploration of the BBC would be complete without reference to the radio output, which is terrific, particularly if, at a key point during an Ashes Test Match, you want to know the weather conditions in German Bight (where is that anyway?). And those Archers are as fresh as ever. Despite the theme tune. But the list doesn't end there. What about the enormous web-site, interactive TV, programs in Welsh, the BBC Micro?

Of course, an organisation that generates content free of dirty commercial interests is a noble thing. The tasty £719.6M that the BBC made last year from its commercial arm doesn't count, because it's mostly sales to Johnny Foreigner, so it's definitely still true that there is no commercial bias or pressure within our precious Beeb. So if you elect not to have a TV, you should just put up with the endless threatening letters¹, outsourced to Capita, who are a private company; they don't have to be nice. Cough up. We know where you live.

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1 - click this if nothing else - it's eye-popping

When Irish 'Ayes' Are Smiling

Never! I mean, you betcha!

If exit polls are to be believed, our obliging neighbours across the Irish Sea have voted with a resounding 'Yes' to ratify the mysterious Lisbon treaty. Plenty of goodies will ensue; we are apparently due for Tony Bleeeuh as president. I expect his eyes are watering with anticipation. If he could drag Britain to war with Iraq against the collective will of both countries, imagine what he'll do with Europe.

And there's plenty more hidden in there. It may not be called a constitution anymore but what's in a name? In the wise words of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who despite the name isn't a girl: "Public opinion will be led - without knowing it - to adopt the policies we would never dare present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden or disguised in some way." But don't just take her, sorry his, word for it, have a look at the whole enchilada! I warn you; there are 413 articles and I dropped off after the first three. It's good reading around nap-time.

But wait a minute - didn't the Irish vote 'No' to this same treaty? Why yes they did; but that was the wrong answer. It's like the British planning system; if you want to build a monstrous carbuncle in your back garden, then (a) chuck in a ludicrous planning application (b) if accepted, build! Sod the neighbours! (c) If refused, wait a month and start at (a) again, then repeat ad infinitum.

This ingenious mechanism has ensured a plentiful supply of housing in our little country for years to come, whilst leaving intact the royal hunting grounds and allowing the MOD to retain vast tracts of Wiltshire. And because it's gradual, we don't have to waste money on annoying fripperies like extra roads, hospitals, and schools. Good, eh?

So think of the irony! Brussels, courtesy of Ireland, has at last taken a leaf out of the British book, and has reached that happy 'Sod The Neighbours' moment. Expect many new palaces, junkets, expenses, hangers-on, oh, and laws.

The Great Yoony Funding Swindle

Pay attention, boys

In common with a host of other soon-to-be-impoverished parents, we proudly dropped Number One Son at university (or yoony, as it is now called) this weekend. It's changed a bit since my day, I can tell you. When my Dad dropped me off at yoony the world was a different place; Tony Benn was still called Anthony Wedgewood-Benn, and a Thatcherite was someone who enjoyed rural roofing. Britain still made the odd ship, and the best band around was The Clash, or Abba, depending on your upbringing. Computers weighed eight tons and needed to be wound up each morning. Good days, good days.

Anyway. Number One Son's accommodation was in fact comfortingly familiar; paint peeling off the walls, a dripping tap labelled 'communal shower', ancient graffiti scratched into the chewing gum, third-world kitchen facilities, contrarian plumbing (hot in summer, cold in winter), the works. We didn't get to sample the food, we were bundled off too quickly for that; he obviously wanted to get straight down to some serious studying. But if we had, I can take a good guess at the fare. It may be called poulet en sauce riche avec vegetables mixte, followed by glace vanille en gateau¹, but it'll always be chicken a la king and arctic roll to me.

This carefree bohemian life is much as we expected back in the seventies; after all it was 'free'. Of course it wasn't, it was funded by an exuberant tax regime, but it felt free. The difference now is that he's being asked to stump up over four thousand good English pounds a year, and that's at the bargain end. Cheapskates that we are, Number One Son is denied even the basic luxury of a washbasin to pee in at the end of a hard night's studying, but comparing notes with other parents, we may have sold him a bit short. Some students appear to have an en-suite bathroom, massage area and sauna. I expect they're paying a bit more.

If your local council offered accommodation of this standard to those who need it, at this sort of cost, then they would be accused of being latter-day slum landlords. Don't get me wrong though; I approve of Number One Son living in the same sort of conditions we used to. It did us good and it'll do him good too. It's important for him to know, for example, that after a month without a shower we smell a bit, or that milk left on a windowsill during the vacation probably won't be much good when you get back. Unless you're feeling really hard up.

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1 - You can probably tell my degree subject wasn't French