Please engage sense of humour before reading!
NICKNAMES
If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla and Four-eyes.
EATING OUT
When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in £20, even though it's only for £32.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.
MONEY
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need but it's on sale
BATHROOMS
A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from M&S.
The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.
CATS
Women love cats.
Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.
FUTURE
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
MARRIAGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, but she does.
DRESSING UP
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the bins, answer the phone, read a book, and get the post.
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.
NATURAL
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.
OFFSPRING
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about their dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favourite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Any married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing.
What a woman says:
“C'mon...This place is a mess. You and I need to clean. Your trousers are on the floor and you'll have no clothes if we don't do the laundry now.”
What a man hears:
“C'MON ... blah, blah, blah YOU AND I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah ON THE FLOOR blah, blah, blah, NO CLOTHES blah, blah, blah, blah, NOW.”
Hat tip to Vicki
Sunday, 15 October 2006
Monday, 9 October 2006
Just not enough, I'm afraid
Hat-tip: Image from Hunts Post I attended the march on Saturday morning to “Save Hinchingbrooke Hospital” along with my boys, Oliver and Jasper. Lara was working in the hospital that day.
I won’t beat around the bush. I won’t pretend that the earth moved for me. To be honest, I thought it was pretty weak and I was disappointed.
Huntingdonshire has an adult population of about 150k. All reports suggest that around 1000 attended. That is about ½ a percent. It is not exactly the sound of thunder, eh?
No doubt others will be more upbeat. The media, who played a large role in organising the event, will crop the pictures and the news reports to make the crowd look big; the Unions will say it was as good as could be expected and local politicians (all except this one that is) will say it was an effective demonstration of public opinion.
This local politician will say only this: If we are really want to save our hospital, we are going to have to do are darn site better than that. A turn out of ½ a percent is music to the Health Authority’s ears. If that is genuinely the level of concern in this area, then we will lose the hospital for sure. Even if they don’t level it in one go, they will bleed it of services over a few years until it becomes untenable.
Signing a petition is all very well, but we all know just how little effort that requires. What is needed are feet on the streets, a rally that fills Hinchingbrooke Park and some speakers that set the crowd alight.
This Government is spending at least double the amount of YOUR money and taxes on health services, and yet they threaten to close our hospital. Square that circle if you can? We have a right to these services and we must fight much harder to keep them.
If we do not fight to keep Hinchingbrooke, heart attack victims will die on the A14 and mothers who hemorrhage in labour will lose their babies on the way to Peterborough.
The simple fact of the matter is that the unnecessary loss of the hospital in Huntingdonshire will inevitably lead to the unnecessary loss of life in Huntingdonshire.
Friday, 6 October 2006
Insubordinate coward? - I doubt it
In Northern Ireland over the past three decades a vast number of unfeasably brave officers have defied the threats to their person to serve their community without fear or favour. However, it is also a fact, overlooked by David Davis in his Telegraph article today, that we have for years been excusing Catholic policemen from policing protestant areas, and always on grounds of personal safety.
If you want a multi cultural police force, you have to apply common sense to the way you deploy them. If Muslims applicants think that they and their families may be placed in personal danger, they will not join and the end result will be the very white uni-cultural police force that common decency would suggest is unhealthy in a multi cultural society.
David Davis also grossly misrepresents policing as equivalent to soldiering. The two are fundamentally different. Soldiering is, frankly, about 'identifying and neutralising an enemy', i.e. killing people. Policing is about maintaining peaceful, law abiding communities, from within those communities. Soldiering necessarily comes with a tolerated cost in human life. Policing does not and should not.
This man did not refuse to police, he simply raised an uncomfortable issue resulting from an unforseen consequence of his service and asked for some common sense. It is most unpleasant that we cast this man as an insubordinate coward. He represents great bravery simply by wearing the uniform in today's society.
This man will have served for a number of years prior to his appointment to this specialist division. I wonder what an examination of his record would reveal? After all here is a Muslim man who has policed communities in our country during some particularly turbulent years. Just stop for a moment and ask yourself what sort of person volunteers for today's police, let alone what sort of Muslim person.
The most important point is that he only appears to have requested the redeployment because the threat was to his wider family. As is revealed in a further Telegraph article today, PC Omar Bashar's employment is widely known within his community and by an extremist cleric living in the Lebanon, where his wife's family also live. He had already previously intervened to prevent Muslims from distributing offensive material outside a North London library.
No policeman should request redeployment through fear for his own safety, nor should they refuse to police on any grounds. But when it can be demonstrated that the lives of innocent relations are at risk, common sense applies. It was not his own safety he was trying to preserve but those of innocent bystanders.
If you want a multi cultural police force, you have to apply common sense to the way you deploy them. If Muslims applicants think that they and their families may be placed in personal danger, they will not join and the end result will be the very white uni-cultural police force that common decency would suggest is unhealthy in a multi cultural society.
David Davis also grossly misrepresents policing as equivalent to soldiering. The two are fundamentally different. Soldiering is, frankly, about 'identifying and neutralising an enemy', i.e. killing people. Policing is about maintaining peaceful, law abiding communities, from within those communities. Soldiering necessarily comes with a tolerated cost in human life. Policing does not and should not.
This man did not refuse to police, he simply raised an uncomfortable issue resulting from an unforseen consequence of his service and asked for some common sense. It is most unpleasant that we cast this man as an insubordinate coward. He represents great bravery simply by wearing the uniform in today's society.
This man will have served for a number of years prior to his appointment to this specialist division. I wonder what an examination of his record would reveal? After all here is a Muslim man who has policed communities in our country during some particularly turbulent years. Just stop for a moment and ask yourself what sort of person volunteers for today's police, let alone what sort of Muslim person.
The most important point is that he only appears to have requested the redeployment because the threat was to his wider family. As is revealed in a further Telegraph article today, PC Omar Bashar's employment is widely known within his community and by an extremist cleric living in the Lebanon, where his wife's family also live. He had already previously intervened to prevent Muslims from distributing offensive material outside a North London library.
No policeman should request redeployment through fear for his own safety, nor should they refuse to police on any grounds. But when it can be demonstrated that the lives of innocent relations are at risk, common sense applies. It was not his own safety he was trying to preserve but those of innocent bystanders.
Wednesday, 4 October 2006
I am right, I am bloody right!
On this blog just a day ago I wrote this:
"It is our society that needs fixing, not our economy. It is not 1979."
36hrs later, David Cameron said this:
"When our Party was last in power, our task was to restore economic responsibility....The task for us today is different...Our fundamental aim is to roll forward the frontiers of society."
I have always agreed with David Cameron, but I had no idea he agreed with me.
Tuesday, 3 October 2006
I don't want tax cuts...
Until there are double the number of policemen on our streets to stamp out the complete breakdown of civil behaviour and violence in our communities and until we have built the prisons and Courts required to handle those who think they are above the law.
Until we have taken control of our borders so that we know exactly who and how many are coming into our country. I repeat, taken control of - I did not say closed.
Until our social security system actually works.
Until our servicemen and women have both the resources to fight the wars we send them to and the care they deserve if they come home injured.
Until our state schools actually teach our children to read, write and count and until discipline and standards are returned to our schools.
Until our health system is sorted out, either through effective management of the system we have or a subsidised transition to a system that actually works.
Until we have taken control of our law making and retrieved powers from Brussels.
Until we have invested in renewable energy and stopped the pollution that threatens the very earth that sustains us.
Until we have sorted out the mess into which our farming and fisheries have descended.
I am as Conservative as they come, but I do NOT want tax cuts.
It is our society that needs fixing, not our economy. It is not 1979.
Cameron has got it right.
Until we have taken control of our borders so that we know exactly who and how many are coming into our country. I repeat, taken control of - I did not say closed.
Until our social security system actually works.
Until our servicemen and women have both the resources to fight the wars we send them to and the care they deserve if they come home injured.
Until our state schools actually teach our children to read, write and count and until discipline and standards are returned to our schools.
Until our health system is sorted out, either through effective management of the system we have or a subsidised transition to a system that actually works.
Until we have taken control of our law making and retrieved powers from Brussels.
Until we have invested in renewable energy and stopped the pollution that threatens the very earth that sustains us.
Until we have sorted out the mess into which our farming and fisheries have descended.
I am as Conservative as they come, but I do NOT want tax cuts.
It is our society that needs fixing, not our economy. It is not 1979.
Cameron has got it right.
Monday, 2 October 2006
Cameron's Clause 4
I hate trite comparisons, for example the habit of putting "gate" after the name of every scandal, but in this case there really is no other way.
Cameron has chosen tax as his defining battleground; his equivalent of Tony Blair's Clause 4. He positively wants a huge row over tax cuts. He wants Tebbitt and all the others to attack him. There is no better way to demonstrate the level and extent of change.
But why has he chosen tax? I'd say that was simple really. Tax cuts are definably "old Tory" so their rejection is emblematic of the change he represents. Furthermore, in this new world tax cutting promises don't work at election time. 2001 and 2005 being proof should you need it. The true legacy of Thatcher is an electorate of feel-goods. They have their relative wealth, now they want as much as they can get for "free". For the Tories to capture the masses as Thatcher did, they must now have relevant policies for the "cake and eat it" generation. They don't want tax cuts, they want free health and education. Most of all they want mortgage interest to remain stable and they want house prices to march upwards unwaveringly.
A public scrap over taxes with his own party is the most effective way to underline economic trustworthiness in the public's mind and that is the most essential thing. He has started early and he intends to keep the issue simmering for as long as he can. He will lose a section on the right of the party, but he could do so much more to hang on to them. Immigration and Europe are two areas where he could balance the equation. I hope he does.
I would love tax cuts, but I want a Conservative Government more. I think he is reading the public profile correctly. On this issue I think he has got it right and I continue to support him.
Cameron has chosen tax as his defining battleground; his equivalent of Tony Blair's Clause 4. He positively wants a huge row over tax cuts. He wants Tebbitt and all the others to attack him. There is no better way to demonstrate the level and extent of change.
But why has he chosen tax? I'd say that was simple really. Tax cuts are definably "old Tory" so their rejection is emblematic of the change he represents. Furthermore, in this new world tax cutting promises don't work at election time. 2001 and 2005 being proof should you need it. The true legacy of Thatcher is an electorate of feel-goods. They have their relative wealth, now they want as much as they can get for "free". For the Tories to capture the masses as Thatcher did, they must now have relevant policies for the "cake and eat it" generation. They don't want tax cuts, they want free health and education. Most of all they want mortgage interest to remain stable and they want house prices to march upwards unwaveringly.
A public scrap over taxes with his own party is the most effective way to underline economic trustworthiness in the public's mind and that is the most essential thing. He has started early and he intends to keep the issue simmering for as long as he can. He will lose a section on the right of the party, but he could do so much more to hang on to them. Immigration and Europe are two areas where he could balance the equation. I hope he does.
I would love tax cuts, but I want a Conservative Government more. I think he is reading the public profile correctly. On this issue I think he has got it right and I continue to support him.
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