“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
Martin Luther King.
A Message To You Rudi
Your boy has been here a month now and Master has tried to teach Grasshopper many things.
He’s learnt how to operate a washing machine and the must-know trick for any man, how to make your sheets last a month before they walk to the washing machine. There are more flies congregating outside his bedroom door than the local curry house.
We’ve had a pasta making session so he can woo the local girls with something more than Don Carlo’s pizza parlour courtesy of head chef Abdul. He also now knows how to make a pasta sauce but one spill on my sofa and it’s deportation.
Unfortunately my teachings appear wasted re breakfast given his choice of peanut butter and jam on toast…seriously?
On the subject of girls he started work at the local pub this week and if he emulates his countryman of two years ago I will need a new stair carpet. I have told him to avoid the one that giggled all night, used my anti-ageing cream and ate my Jaffa Cakes.
Gradually we are teaching him that we don’t play 20/20 on a Saturday although I blame myself for getting out so early, perhaps suggesting to him that time was short rather than simply I am old, blind, useless and only in the team because I drive.
We’ve got him a midweek game with the local team – The Tracksuits – who are even more useless than we are but will convince him that most of them are in the thoughts of England coach Trevor Bayliss.
And as summer finally arrives I am teaching him local meteorological phrases such as “‘ee it’ll be crackin’ t’flags!” and “by ‘eck me bollocks are sweaty!”
Three Girls
The BBC drama about the horrific grooming and abuse of teenage girls in Rochdale was compelling and harrowing viewing. It took guts to make this and the acting was top class.
Perhaps as sad as the pitiful abuse of the girls was the predictable outcome with not one senior figure in authority censured; most likely many were pensioned off as the teams of barristers raked in the legal aid cash.
The only woman to eventually bring these savages to justice, sexual health worker Sara Rowbothan, was unbelievably sacked from her job and subsequently made redundant by this abhorrent Council.
If like me you continue to be sickened by the weakness of people in positions of authority, then take a minute to sign this petition because without this woman, how long would this barbarity have continued and across the nation?
Of the nine men convicted in 2012, only Shabir Ahmed, 64, who was caged for 22 years, and Mohammed Sajid, 40, who was jailed for 12 years, remain behind bars. Ahmed continues to appeal – funded by you and I – but who cares if you are part of the judiciary raping the system that failed little girls being raped by monsters?
Take a minute to sign and share the petition because, if you value a civilised society, this woman stood up for us all.
Picture Of The Week
As his beloved team battled away at Wembley, one lonely man was forced to enjoy the Canarian sunshine many miles away unable to change a pre-booked modelling assignment for Speedo Grandads Do It On Tour.
The cold beer was scant consolation nor soothing words from model wife Wendy Woo who said: “Just look who you could have been with luv!”
One Hundred Years Ago
More tales from another age in a week when such huge personal sacrifice may well cause you to contemplate our modern society.
Dumb Britain
Parents are up in arms at Bradford Girls Grammar School due to new parking restrictions which mean they might actually have to encourage their kids to walk a few yards to the school gates. Shock, horror!
The local rag revealed grounds staff were being verbally abused and threatened as they tried to manage cars in and out, and also that staff vehicles were being damaged by careless drivers. And all this at one of the city’s “prestige” schools.
So what a really swell idea to build a new swimming pool in an area more congested than most of London given a school and a hospital, compounded by parents with lard arses and lard brains.
Still, this is nothing about coherent planning nor local need simply political horse trading by Hapless Hinchcliffe – where is she hiding these days – to keep her local paymasters happy. It’s all about who you swim with.
Smug Britain
It’ll never happen again they all said after the last consumer debt-fuelled crash. If course it will and, judging by latest indicators, it will not be long.
Last time it was cheap debt fuelling house sales; this time around it is more cheap debt this time creating the same apparent “boom” in new car sales via a surge in Personal Contract Purchase (PCP).
Briefly, a PCP works by deferring a slug of the amount owed to the end of the contract – the guaranteed residual value – which enables people who should think twice about buying a banger to convince themselves they can afford something they never thought they could. We can have it all….can’t we?
A Daily Mail article revealed how this product can enable people on the minimum wage to jump into a new £19,000 car.
The clueless punter can get into a car for a few hundred quid a month but the catch – and there are a few surprise, surprise – is that the finance and motor industry has not suddenly become charitable.
At the end of the contract the punter has the option of handing back the car – ending up with zip – or paying the final value – not a hope in hell.
Hand it back and you may get clobbered for mileage over and above that you agreed with the caring salesman several years back before you found out your new zero hours contract job was in Birmingham.
Or you may also get clobbered for scratches you never even saw. It’s a bit like fining a teenage kid for having spots.
The big win for the industry is that most punters have no choice but to start a new PCP – often funding the deposit out of savings or more likely debt – which boosts new car sales. It also provides a regular supply of low mileage second-hand cars to dealers.
On the face of it this all looks great. But what happens when punters start to struggle with repayments? Well, the same as happened in 2008; they have to hand back the thing they now cannot afford. And when you get repossessions on a massive scale, values plummet.
All is calm whilst interests rates remain low but when they start to move – as they surely will – and household budgets continue to tighten what goes first?
Have a great weekend y’all.
Leave a Reply