Not Exactly Rocket Science

Once again the North Koreans are showing the rest of the world that they are worthy of respect, by firing millions of dollars that they don't have into space, then exploding them into the sea ... thus proving that their missiles do occasionally get off the ground.

North Korean Rockets Often Explode ... And Not Always On Target.

Piped Down

Apparently Marks and Spencer that most venerable of UK shopping institutions, are to trial no background music in 300 of their stores.

Kylie Wasn't Listening To Chantelle's Requests ...

 

This, after research showed it to be amongst the top pet hates of people while shopping. Strangely, for a man who likes his peace and quiet, I am not so sure this will be a success.

The Last Voice Of One Nation

Well the people have spoken, a Prime Minister gambled and lost .... and now the rows and the inquests will commence. But even before those analysts pore over the result, there are some striking observations to be made:

1. Scotland and London are very different countries to the rest of the (dis) United Kingdom.
2. The result swung, not on the Tory areas, but in the Labour Party's former heartlands.
3. The relentlessly negative Remain campaign drove many into the out camp.
4. If you ignore the Scottish and London results, the vote to leave would have been more emphatic. 
5. We are a very divided and angry nation - half are upset and the other half are somewhat fearful.

EU Referendum - Disaster Or Providence. Only Time Will Tell.

Scotland will certainly demand another independence referendum based on its wholehearted (well 3/5ths to Remain, and 2/5ths to Brexit ... if that counts as wholehearted), vote to Remain, but how that vote goes may not be completely cut and dried. Oddly if the vote is to stay in the UK, then the Scottish Nationalist Party may regret the rush to call it, as it could end the question for decades.

Plastering Over The Facts

General Practitioners (Doctors), want to add to the sick note culture of the British (noticeably not the East Europeans or Asians who are replacing them in the workplace), by allowing 'self-certification for up to 14 days'. Now for those of you who are not familiar with the practices of UK employment, self certification is a practice, whereby anyone who tells their employer that they are 'too sick to work', does not have to go to their doctors for up to 7 calendar days to prove that they are actually ill.

How Doctors See Themselves ....

This can't directly be challenged by employers, although the number of such absences in a year can be. This replaced a system where by you went to the doctor for a sick note after a day or so of absence. Some employers fight back, by making employees ring an occupational nurse directly to explain that they are ill .... un-remarkably this produces a reduction in sick leave.

Black and White Outcomes

In Louisville USA (birth and burial place of the recently deceased Mohammed Ali), the Eastern and the Western parts of the city are divided by what is locally known as the "Ninth Street Divide," aka occasionally as 'the Berlin Wall'. On either side of this divide there are different races and different life outcomes.

The city as a whole is one of the few in the USA, where the school desegregation policies of the 1960's are still enforced (with a city wide 'schooling zone' which prevents white parents avoiding have black kids being bussed in), but despite this there are stark contrasts in the lives being led in the two sectors.

West and East Louisville

Footballs Coming Home To Work

Like I suspect many offices around the UK, mine bowed to what it considered to be the inevitable, and put the office TV's on, to show 'the game' ....

For The Love Of The Game .... Gary Neville Relives His Playing Days.

 

...... 'the game' being England versus Wales in the European Championships. There was some talk of 'people making up time later', but no-one seriously expected that to happen.

Old Stinker Is Back

This blog is never immune to a bit of 'Forteana' reporting, and indeed has often posted stories before the 'The Fortean Times', the 'Bible' on this subject e.g. the post on the sugar tidal wave. So this may also be something of a exclusive (well apart from the newspapers who carried the story) ....

Sightings Location Was Spookie In The Past ....

 

Perhaps the strangest part of the story is that its set in Hull, which is not a town you think of first, when it comes to the 'supernatural'. 

 

Generation Brexit

One final thought on the EU referendum. I haven't heard any political commentator remark on the fact that its the generation who voted to stay in the EEC in 1975, who have turned against it and now lead the vote to leave. These voters are sneeringly portrayed by David Cameron and others as 'little englanders' now, but these were the same people who were the 'brave new Europeans' back in the day.

So why has no one has really questioned why, the generation who led us in to Europe, are so disillusioned by the whole experience and want to leave?

I know one thing that really grates with that generation of voters, and oddly it isn't necessarily mass EU immigration, although that's undoubtedly a big factor for many. No, its the downright lies we were told at the time.

In 1972 Edward Heath told us that the then Economic Union was only a common trade market:

“There are some in this country who fear that going into Europe we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty. These fears, I need hardly say, are completely unjustified."

A Sea Of Federalists To A Man, Signed The Treaty Of Rome

Cooking The Referendum Books

The BBC has a point of view on the EU Referendum vote and its not BREXIT. To this end they will slant every story as pro remain. E.g."Scores of UK stars back remaining in EU": a lot of Luvvies, many of whom live and work mainly in the USA, and often pay little or no UK taxes, nor are affected by the immigration issues (except insofar as it provides cheap domestic help), sign a bit of Luvvie paper to say the UK is better in EU ..... there are contra-views (well one) but that's buried in the story.

Of course having national policy determined by actors is not new .... but even so you would think the BBc would hold back on this ...

Luvvies Back Remain - Headline News For BBC.

But even when the stories highlight issues, its a positive spin all the way ... for instance. If you read this story its obvious that the slant is 'oh my gosh .... EU citizens are being 'deprived' a vote on whether the UK leaves the EU ... all 3 million (enough to win the vote easily) of them of voting age."Barred from voting on their own future": 

EU Citizens Barred from voting on UK EU Referendum ... Unfair?

They then follow it up with another story .... a paean of praise for the fact that Australian backpackers and Malayan students are able to vote to stay in the EU. "EU referendum: The non-Britons planning to vote": 'Commonwealth citizens can vote in UK on the EU referendum. Again totally against the concept of British people solely being able to determine our own future, and happily ignoring the fact that Brits can't vote in elections in either Malaya or Australia for example. There are 900,000 such residents of the UK and along with the Irish citizens (and yes, amazingly they are also able to vote in the UK EU referendum), they could be the deciding votes .... how fecking ridiculous is that?

How ridiculous is it when the BBC takes these stand points that clearly run contra-wise to the idea of an independent nation voting on its future .... if the BBC was paid for by the EU then fair enough, but its not and it should be neutral, but it isn't, and that tells you the most about this organisation and the remain campaigns dirty tricks.

But the real point is that if the vote is to stay in by about a million votes, then you can look no further than these stories, to realise that Cameron cooked books the moment he allowed non Brits to vote.

Strapped To A Corpse

The thing about the idea of staying inside the EU is, that I can't help thinking its like a man stranded at sea strapping himself to a corpse for buoyancy. Sure its bloated and gassy, and floating, but at any time soon it could burst open and then sink, dragging anyone strapped to it, down into the depths.

We Risk Going Down With The EU Corpse

Dumb-Ass In Detroit

According to 'USA Today', in January 2016 a rather desperate man suffered severe burns, when his St Antoine Gardens, Detroit apartment and three others in the block were gutted in a severe fire blaze .... another two dozen were also badly damaged by water from the fire tender. Fortunately no one else was injured, but it took a little while for fire inspectors to work out what had happened.
 

Night Night Don't Let The Bed Bugs Bite .... If You Can!

They determined that the fire started in the man's apartment, and that accelerants were used. 

Waving The Flag

The town of Ledbury is not necessarily one which you would associate with the cult of political correctness but this pernicious illness to common sense can raise its head anywhere.

For instance Councillor Liz Harvey who is also deputy leader of the It's Our County party (must be a home rule for Herefordshire thing?) reportedly suggested at a council meeting that no Union Jack bunting be used to mark the Queens 90th birthday celebrations.

In Ledbury Bunting Is Offensive To Some?

Project Fear In Full Force

The EU referendum campaign took an uglier turn when the remain campaign commissioned a poster to 'encourage ethnic minorities to vote'. This apparently is legal while a poster to get non ethnic minorities to vote would probably not be. Similarly the campaign by the Advertising Agency was named 'Operation Black Vote', which again is not racist apparently, while a campaign entitled 'Operation White Vote' probably would be considered racist by the same agency.

This is what the EU Referendum is all about according to a well known advertising agency

Played For Fools

Pretty soon we will get a last chance to decide whether to break away from the bear like hug of the European Union or finally fully accept the ever closer union. I say last, because the Tories will never offer another referendum, and the Labour Party would never even have even offered this referendum.

EU Brexit Referendum .... Last Chance To Leave?

 

The Labour Party used to be very 'Euro sceptics' in the 1970's, but have since realised what a generally 'Socialist' organisation the EU really is, what with all those federalists, spouting on about ever closer unions. The EU, with its unelected Euro-leadership, unbalanced budgets, corruption, graft and anti-democratic power structure, has made the Labour Party a real convert, and now it campaigns for the EU, with all the zeal that only a true believer and convert can muster .... well apart from its current leader, Jeremy Corbyn who is still lukewarm about it, having been forced by his new role to publicly adopt a more pro-EU stance.

 

When Nature Calls ... Unexpectedly

Stupidest story for a while ... and kind of proof that some urban myths do come true ... plus it made me laugh.
  

A Happy Ending For The Python

Peanut Putty

Actually, despite the title for this post, you can't use peanut butter as a window putty, but you would be surprised what you can do with it, apart from just eat it of course:

Peanut Benefits .....

What A Drag

There are some people who flirt with danger ... these reckless fools are driven by different motives to take what on the face of it are wholly unnecessary risks. For example being a homosexual Muslim is risky enough as it is, given that despite the fact that its highly practised in many of their societies, its still 'haram' (forbidden) by both the religion and its clerics. Iran for example still hangs homosexuals.

Of course given that in many Islamic societies, women are all covered up and highly restricted in their activities, so the streets are almost entirely male orientated in their social make-up, it then leads to male practices which are risky .... so in many of these societies such as Afghanistan, complicated social 'justifications' are made up to ensure that the men only consider the penetrated male to be 'homosexual', whereas the aggressive lover is still deemed 'heterosexual'. The Libyan soldiers who raped a man in the UK, would consider themselves to be heterosexual.

Not In Arab Lands .....

The Real Boswell's

It may or may not surprise you to find out, that the Merseyside area holds the greatest number of welfare recipients in the country (per head of population that is). This 'fact' has been suggested at by comedians and residents of other towns for some years, but as far as I know its only recently that anyone has quantified it as a real 'fact'.

The Late Carla Lane's 'Boswells' - Atypical Liverpudlians?