Redefining poverty: another Piss Poor “Minister”: Aussie Olympics: Laptop loon: Surstromming is a gas: and Millions of Virgin Hermit crabs.

More than enough solar stuff, not enough lack of cold stuff, too much lack of wet stuff and a dearth of windy stuff at the Castle this morn.

The windows are in need of a clean, the Honda is in need of a polish and his Maj is in need of a door mat to wipe his paws on.

 

Apparently the Irritable Bowel Twins have decided that poverty is nothing to do with the amount of money in our pockets

According to the knob at the top of the Dept for Witless Pillocks a “fixation” with giving the poor money to lift them out of poverty is doing nothing to make them take responsibility for their lives.

Unless people’s lifestyles are transformed, they will almost inevitably slip back into poverty, he will say.

And he is calling for the definition of poverty, which is based on a family’s income, to be torn up and replaced with one that takes into account their wider circumstances.

For the first time, factors such as family breakdown and unemployment are expected to be recognised when deciding whether someone is genuinely living in poverty.

And while income is important in determining who is genuinely in need, if it is taken on its own it can distort the picture, he will say in a speech to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the social research group.

 

They still don’t get it do they... He married Elizabeth "Betsy" Fremantle, daughter of the 5th Baron Cottesloe, in 1982. The couple has four children. His wealth is estimated at £1 million much of which has been earned by working as a high end after dinner speaker.

 

Up in the leaning tower of Westminster

Chloe Smith, the Conservative minister who shot to public prominence for her disastrous attempt to defend George Osborne's petrol duty U-turn on Newsnight, has been appointed minister responsible for lobbying.

She was moved from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office in the recent reshuffle, and yesterday it was announced that she will be taking responsibility for overseeing the Government's preparation of a statutory lobbying register.

According to The PRCA, the professional body that represents UK PR consultancies Smith has joined the Cabinet Office from the Treasury, where she was best known for her poor performance when interviewed by Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman".

 

No change there then...

 

Dahn Unda

In the spirit of the London Olympics, Australia has hosted its own "Outback Games" with events including 'camel' equestrian, 'waterhole' swimming and a flip-flop marathon.

Contenders in the Northern Territory joked that they did Bikram yoga to acclimatise to the extreme temperature and ate garlic to ward off crocodiles.

The event showcased unique home grown sports including sandbar soccer -- football played on an uneven patch of beach -- and 'camel' equestrian involving hobby horses.

"The swimming one requires us swimming with the crocodiles in the waterhole," joked competitor Alison Coulthurst, referring to the fake, inflatable reptiles racers wrangled in the swimming pool.

"We're adopting the Northern Territory approach that, if you lose or you're feeling bad, you just sit back," said competitor Ben Crank.

"Relax and have a beer and it all kind of washes away. It's a great mentality to have as an athlete. If you don't win, don't worry, relax, have a beer. It's all good."

 

What a corker-and it didn’t cost £9 billion...

 

West to the home of Silicon Valley and the land of laptops

Police in Vermont said a man became stuck on some rock ledges after dropping his computer about 100 feet and attempting to retrieve it.

Colchester police said Randy Lamore, 42, of Winooski dropped his computer while walking along the railroad tracks near the Gorge Road power dam and the device landed about 100 feet down on the bank of the Winooski River, WCAX-TV, Burlington, reported Tuesday.

Police said Lamore, who had been drinking, attempted to climb down to retrieve his computer, but became stuck on ledges in thick underbrush.

The man called 911 on his cell phone and it took about half an hour for rescuers to find him and an hour to execute the rescue.

Police said Lamore was not injured.

Unlike his laptop...

 

East to the place where a syndrome started

Emergency services rushed to a suburb of Stockholm after reports of a gas leak - only to find a bucket of fermented herring.

Two fire engines, two police cars and an emergency gas leak team all rushed to investigate the reports in Sodermalm, reports The Local.

They had been alerted by concerned neighbours who thought they smelled gas in the stairwell, but it turned out to be something less dangerous.

The strong smell came from fermented herring, or surstromming, a notoriously foul-smelling Swedish delicacy traditionally served at autumn parties.

 

Red herring?

 

And finally:

 

Over to the Island where there probably aren’t many

 

Millions and millions of hermit crabs decided to take a walk at Nanny Point near Concordia on one of the Virgin Islands.

 

Need a lot of lemon garlic butter for that lot...

 

That’s it: I’m orf to watch a black hole having lunch

 

And today’s thought:

Paint your wagon.

 

Angus

Down the drain: Moptop Milton: Another Potty old pair: Pippa’s buns: Cuba peas in its coffee: and taking a lump out of the law.

The sun has taken his hat off this electoral day at the Castle, cloudy, calm and chilly, bit late this morn, been to Tesco for stale bread and gruel, and been to vote, and to break the habit of a lifetime and reveal my preference I voted “Yes” to the AV change, why? Because U-turn Cam is so afraid of it and anything is better than the system we have now that allows politicians to vote themselves and their mates into government although they lost the election.

Peter Dunn at the Independent has written an interesting article on our green/brown/black/burnt country about poverty, have a click on the link and peruse his thoughts.

And the bonkers Health Minister Ann Milton has come up with a cunning plan to make our spawn fitter.

She has been looking at a scheme in operation in South America, where roads were closed to traffic on Sundays.

She told MPs that the idea, which began in Colombia, could help tackle childhood obesity.

During a debate in Westminster Hall, Mrs Milton said: "On Sundays, they close certain streets so that everybody can play in them. That is an outstanding idea.

"Before constituents email to complain about their streets closing, I should say that I accept it would not work everywhere. It could, however, work in some places."

Mrs Milton said that the latest Department of Health figures showed that 28 per cent of children aged between two and 10 in England were overweight or obese, along with 61 per cent of adults.

Yeah right, or it may be that the reason for the obesity is that many families can only afford to buy junk food for their off spring, or it could be because the lazy fat bastards can’t be bovvered.

Over the big bit of briny that begins with A.

Two women, dubbed marijuana grannies by prosecutors, have been jailed after California police found 800 cannabis plants in their home.

Aleen Lam, 72, and Virginia Chan Pon, 65, of San Bruno, were caught when police were called to a burglary.

No fool like an old fool-or two.

Back in Blighty

It seems that the latest craze is Catherine what’s her name’s sister Pippa, or in particular her arse.

Pippa Middleton's bottom looks set to go viral after pranksters posted a cheeky music mash-up on YouTube.

Set to the song Shake Ya Ass by Mystikal, the video highlights Pippa's most eye-catching moments from the Royal Wedding.

At one stage, it appears as though a clergyman is nodding in approval of the maid of honour's derriere, reports the Daily Mirror.

Pippa caused a real stir in her bridesmaid dress and a Facebook group praising her assets has already attracted more than 10,000 fans.

Her 'bum' also seemingly has its own Twitter account, @pippasass, which has just under 800 followers.

The YouTube clip has already notched up nearly 60,000 hits in just one day. It is one of dozens of clips of Pippa at the wedding posted on the video-sharing website.

Never seen coppertop Harry go so red….

Back over the thingy and down a fair bit

Cubans' morning Joe is getting a little more bitter and a little less potent. The island is once again mixing coffee with roasted peas in a cost-saving move.

An announcement in the Communist Party newspaper Granma says the new blend is being distributed for domestic consumption beginning this month.

Coffee for export will continue to be pure.

Cubans are accustomed to drinking coffee cut with peas, which was the norm here until 2005.

Some even complained when they started getting the pure stuff, saying it tasted funny.

Local cafes were still selling supplies of pure coffee Tuesday.

I couldn’t cope with pea-d-in coffee first thing in the morn; it would take me till noon to finish the post.

And finally:

Up a fairway to the old, warm bit of the colonies

A 10-foot-long alligator has taken a bite out of a Florida deputy sheriff's patrol car.

Alachua County Deputy Victor Borrero spotted the reptile, which was later put down, on Saturday evening near the Gainesville Golf and Country Club.

It attacked the patrol car while the deputy was waiting for an alligator trapper to arrive. Sheriff's spokesman Todd Kelly said the car's front bumper was heavily damaged.

The insurance claim form should be interesting.

That’s it: I’m orf to probe Einstein.

And today’s thought: "Speak when you're angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret" - Lawrence J. Peter

Angus

POVERTY, BENEFITS, THE UNDERCLASS AND THE GOVERNMENT

Long title not so long blog.

First let’s get the Psychotics out of the way.

Gordon Brown Trousers thinks he has saved the world, and Mugabe thinks that the Cholera epidemic is over.

What can you say?

Anyway back to the title- Question Time watch it, because it is very enlightening.

I watched the above program last night, as usual, but while watching it I had a “revelation”.

There were the expected questions, such as “is this a good time to “force” people on benefits into work” and the usual answers-yes and no from different panellists. Apart from the labour MP who was all in favour of it, and vomited the usual bollocks such as “support” and “preparing”, “pride” and “self esteem”.

How you prepare for a job which doesn’t exist I don’t know, because if we ever come out of this Recession the Country is going to be a very different place. And the Conservative “lady” was also in favour. (Remember that at the next election).

But the “revelation” was that all these people considered that people on benefits were in poverty and an “underclass” and that made me think.

If people on benefits are in poverty, the poverty is imposed on them by the level of benefits given, which means that the Government is responsible for that poverty.

And it is responsible because the levels of benefits are so low.

The Govs’ solution to get people out of poverty is to remove them from the benefits system and make them “ready for work” while still paying below the poverty-line benefits.

Now, I may only have one brain cell but isn’t this a bit strange?

I also watched This Week, afterwards, which is a programme I don’t usually watch because I think that the “panellists” are Pillocks and over-inflated knobheads.

But the same theme was “discussed”-benefits and the Underclass.

All present agreed that the “Benefit Reform Bill” was a wonderful idea, they even dragged in John Bird, the founder of “The Big Issue” who has plenty of money, and also agreed that the people on benefits should “pay” for those benefits, I wonder if his opinion would be the same if he hadn't become "successful"? And said things such as “People on welfare are caught in an invidious situation, because they don’t have to provide for themselves the Government becomes the breadwinner and they lose the incentive to work”.

Why is it that people with money, jobs and a bit of power, such as Mr Bird suddenly become “reformers” and spout the “PC speak” that is rife on this Island of ours instead of actually remembering what life is like for the “Underclass”?

Watch it, quite revealing as well.

My point to all this is that the Government has perpetrated Poverty by paying sub poverty benefits, has ignored the “underclass” until the financial situation which they got us into kicked them in the Bollocks, and, suddenly decides to act in their usual half arsed way when the possibility of employment is about as rare as rocking horse shit.

A bit longer than I thought, maybe I am misguided but that is the state of play as I see it.

And just to end on a brighter note-I have waited 40 years for this, the QUO has released a Christmas song, they have learned a new chord (Or maybe not) and plunged into the quagmire that is Yule Tide.

Good luck to Mr Rossi and Mr Parfitt, and lets hope there are no bloody ring tones in the wings.

Angus

what a week

I’m worn out. The world is getting me down. What with the Economy, World Poverty day and Mental health day the ends of my fingers are bleeding, and I have almost worn the letters away on my keyboard.

Aren’t politicians strange people? They come out with all those promises before they get elected then, when we are daft enough to vote for them, they renege and just do what they want.

Take this story from the BBC- PM says markets' flaws exposed, back in 2005 Gordon Brown said this -“ The better, and in my opinion the correct, modern model of regulation – the risk based approach - is based on trust in the responsible company, the engaged employee and the educated consumer, leading government to focus its attention where it should: no inspection without justification, no form filling without justification, and no information requirements without justification, not just a light touch but a limited touch.”

Now, de regulation of the banking system was his idea, “risk based approach” were his exact words, well he took the risk and it blew up in his face.

But now he says “ the current global financial crisis has "laid bare the weaknesses of unbridled free markets".” And “However, he also sounded a cautious note by saying that society should not live by markets alone.”

Let me reiterate, this was his idea.

And then this year he said- “And where I've made mistakes I'll put my hand up and try to put them right. So what happened with 10p stung me because it really hurt that suddenly people felt I wasn't on the side of people on middle and modest incomes - because on the side of hard-working families is the only place I've ever wanted to be. And from now on it's the only place I ever will be.”

Well we are waiting.

But he won’t put his hands up because politicians don’t function like that, they will say that it is a global problem, or the previous government, or the pixies got into the system, or it is all our fault because we took on too much credit.

Which was supplied by the banks, because there was no regulation, because Gordon Brown de-regulated them.

Then they jump up wearing their Superman outfits to save the world, which they managed to cock up in the first place.

And how do you reconcile these stories from the BBC-

Rich and poor gap 'narrows' in UK

More children living in poverty


Aren’t politicians strange people? But we elected them, didn’t we.


Other political issues this week

BBC NEWS Scotland Funding for council tax freezes

The Scottish parliament is freezing council tax rises, very nice for the Scots, but where will the money come from? Us?

Then there is this also from the BBC- Civil servants to strike over pay

Civil servants who are members of the PCS union will strike because they are angry at a 2% cap on public sector pay.

“The union has held a series of pay strikes this year which have hit government services across the UK.

In April, 100,000 civil servants walked out for 24 hours during a strike which coincided with action by the NUT teachers' union.”

General secretary Mark Serwotka said “a quarter of civil servants earned less than £16,500 per year, with thousands paid just above the minimum wage.”

Join the club with the millions of other people in the same boat, they don’t have the luxury of striking, I think words like, selfish, short sighted, sod you and lets screw the public for even more money come to mind.

I am sure that pensioners and the disabled and the sick would be quite pleased with £16,500 per year.

I have a “cure” for the problems with people who have been lent too much money by the banks on mortgages.

Reduce the amount of the mortgage to the price that their houses are now worth, and let the fat cat bankers pay the difference, What do you think?

And again from the BBC- Hoon defends giant database plans

Geoff Hoon the transport secretary said- “He was responding to criticism of plans for a database of mobile and web records, saying it was needed because terrorists used such communications.

By not monitoring this traffic, it would be "giving a licence to terrorists to kill people".

Why is the Transport Secretary getting involved with this? Why doesn’t he concentrate on his “speciality” and leave proper politics to the proper politicians?

And is it just me or does he bear an uncanny resemblance to Rick Parfitt from Status Quo?

And something to cheer us up from the BBC-Stuffed toy foxes 'saved my life'


Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, MP for the Cotswolds, stepped off a ramp outside a hotel in Beijing only to find himself falling down a concrete shaft.







But the stuffed toy foxes, given to him by a Chinese internet firm, cushioned his fall and he escaped serious injury.

"I took this huge bag of stuffed foxes and by pure luck it literally saved my life," he told the BBC.

All together-SHAME.

Any relative to Gord? Because he is good at getting himself in a hole.

And Gord, dont forget what you said in 2008-"Third, responsibility - no member of a bank's board should be able to say they did not understand the risks they were running and walk away from them."

Well?

I must go and put plasters over my fingers, and then, have a lie on the settee with a coffee, and watch the Formula 1.

This is a late entry, I have watched the F1, and am now opening a book, on who will take Lewis off at the first corner in Brazil. my money is on Alfonso.

Angus Dei















.

Really Pissed Off

Following yesterdays Blog Action Day On Poverty, the news today shows that “they” don’t care.

NHS exposed poverty action day

Bailed-out bank's secret £150k bash

The arseholes at RBS have put on a bash for the fat cat executives that cost £150,000 they flew in 100 “high flyers” from 11 countries.

This was just days after a £15 Billion payout of OUR money.

“RBS director David Manson told execs to have fun, even though “we let a lot of shareholders down”.

"ere, I can see a banker"


“Staff were told to hide branded gear and RBS teddy bears were not given out.
A hotel worker said: “There were supposed to be 196 execs but they were so worried it would leak they cut it to 100, even though all rooms were paid for.”

An RBS spokeswoman said: “This was a working event to bring together our international team.”

What a load of selfish, self satisfied, brainless, inbred, insensitive, up their own arses wankers.

Gordon Brown, what are you going to do about this? The country would like to see 100 resignations on your desk today, after all WE are in charge of the bank now aren’t we?

Tossers.


The Sun has this little item.

The health benefits of beer

“A beer a day keeps Doc away”, the problem is of course that it is rarely one beer, and when after 10 or so beers the drinker is admitted to A&E it really doesn’t keep the Doctor away, unless of course the “pissed” abuses or attacks the medical staff.

Jade Goody.

From the Sun again.

Jade hell gets girls flocking for tests

I am not that interested in the above named; my only recollection is of her racial abuse of someone on Big Brother. Which unfortunately propelled her into “stardom” backed by someone who’s name I can’t remember- Max thingy.

And then the news was filled with stories because she has cervical cancer. OK, I have some sympathy for her, but I am afraid that the whingeing of “celebrities” leaves me cold; they have the money to get instant diagnosis and treatment. Unlike “proper” people who have to wait weeks and weeks just to see a specialist. And then months until their treatment starts.

Now she is whingeing about her “Chemo hell”, F…k off, that is what happens in real life, she is lucky to get treatment at all, when many people can only get medicines, if they pay for it themselves in order to live a bit longer.

The only good thing to come out of this is that smear tests have increased by 20%.

So Jade, life is a bitch.


And yet again from the Sun.

7 ways to spot depression

Quite interesting.

Here are my 7 ways to spot depression.

You can’t afford to buy food.
You can’t afford to heat your home.
You can’t afford to drive your car.
You can’t afford to buy clothes for your kids.
You can’t afford to pay your rent or mortgage.
You can’t afford to use the stove
You can’t afford to turn the lights on.

Or is that Recession?

And from the Sun again

BBC NEWS Health Smart brains 'grow differently'

Scientists have decided that-“Clever people outsmart their peers not because they have more grey matter but because part of their brain develops differently, a Nature study suggests.”

This of course comes from the good old USA.
Apparently it is all due to the size of your cortex. One quote of these scientists is-"It could be that people with superior intelligence also live in a richer social and linguistic environment, and that it is this that accounts for the sharp increase in the thickness of their prefrontal cortex in late childhood."

What a load of class distinction bollocks.

But the good news is Size Does Matter!

And finally from the BBC

Maltesers calorie claim 'misled'

Maltesers calorie claim 'misled'

“The Maltesers advert showed a woman offering the chocolate-covered honeycomb balls to a friend, saying: "Less than 11 calories each." But the ASA has now ruled the claim "less than 11 calories each" should not have been made about Maltesers, especially when the same advert also told viewers they were not being so "naughty".

An ASA spokesman said: "We concluded that the words 'less than' gave the misleading impression that a Malteser was low in energy."

Sorry girls, it’s no use flashing your tits at anyone, because they will be down to your knees if you keep eating them.

That’s all folks.


Angus Dei