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Romiley Blacked Out The monitor screens went blank, the comforting whirr of computers ceased. All unsaved work was lost. At 12:41 on the last day of the month, the power went off in Romiley for 61 minutes and everyone was deafened by the chorus of burglar alarms. And what happened when the citizens tried to ring the emergency number of Energi (stupid name) for information? They were told that the number 'wasn't taking any more calls'. So they were a lot of help. Parking Loophole Parking tickets issued by hatless traffic wardens are invalid, shock horror! Wardens must be 'in full uniform' when they issue tickets to avoid the risk of people going round handing out bogus tickets. A reckless parker in London was told about this loophole by another warden with an unusually helpful disposition, and he's now claiming that his ticket was issued by a hatless warden in an attempt to 'beat the rap'. Brown by name but not by teeth! The Chancellor, or perhaps our readers would know him better as The Mugger, has taken a break from inventing New Labour Stealth Taxes to have his teeth done. No longer dingy brown, they now gleam like an American film extra's gnashers. Speed Cameras Kill? According to a transport consultant at Leeds University, motorists drive erratically at speed cameras. They jam on their brakes when they see them, like the Porsche driver who was clocked at 94 mph when 500 metres from a speedcam, then they jam their boot on the accelerator when the 'danger' is out of range. And this erratic driving leads to more accidents - double the pre-camera rate, in some cases. | ||||||
Sorry, Mr. Prez, Our Toys Are Broke! Reasons for not getting involved in the Saddam Hussein of all wars No. 2: Our soldiers aren't fit enough, our sailors get seasick and the RAF is no better off. Our tanks don't work in desert conditions. Likewise, our helicopters. Our warships crash into well charted rocks in full daylight. Our boots melt in the heat. Our old-fashioned radios can't take the desert, the new ones won't be delivered until 2004 (not that there's any guarantee they'll do any better) and there's no mobile phone network in Iraq. And the Enfield SA-80 rifle doesn't work, it never has worked and it never will work. Nominal Adjustments The War Against Terrorism has been called off because, as Keith Waterhouse pointed out, you can't go to war against an abstract noun. No, we're having a War Against Freedom Fighters now, as that's what most terrorists call themselves. EU Double Think Talking about 'making money for the lawyers', the War Against Motorists took an interesting twist when the EU proposed that the motorist should be declared the guilty party in all shunts involving cyclists and pedestrians whether or not it was the motorist's fault!!! In view of the obvious breach of motorists' human rights, it seems clear that the ambulance-chasing fraternity has been bunging the EU's legislators, knowing that they can clean up not only on claims for bogus injuries from drunken or crazed bikers and pedestrians, but also on appeals against conviction by motorists citing abuse of their human rights.
Israel's War On Truth Rolls On Palestinian Prez Yosser Arafat is "the richest man on the planet" according to Israeli Intelligence. He has a bank balance equivalent to the combined wealth of several medium-size countries in off-shore accounts, which he set up for his retirement. No War In Rhodesia After Bung For Vice-Prez? That nice Prez Bush has come out (finally) against the Dictator M'Ugabe and put him on the list for a 'regime change'. Not a word from our own dear Vice-Prez, though. Could this mean that New Labour has been bunged by the ZGPC (Zimbabwean Governing Party of Criminals)? Silence is certainly very odd from someone who thinks he's Action Man when it comes to getting the rest of the world organized. | ||||||
Another EU Whistle-Blower -- History Repeats Itself Marta Andreasen, the former chief accountant of the European Commission, has been suspended from duty by the Welsh windbag. Why? Because she was exposing massive fraud at Europe's rotten heart and mismanagement by corrupt and/or inept officials. This is exactly what happened to a previous auditor, Paul van Buitenen, 4 months before every member of the European Commission was obliged to resign. | ||||||
Carry On Junketing The Vice-Prez decided to "downsize" the gang going to the international ecology junket in Johannesburg after press criticism. The obvious dead wood was old Two-Jags (J. Prescott, deputy prime minister Ed.), who has no environmental responsibilities as a minister and whose policies are considered a major threat to the environment. But Environment Minister Michael Meacher got the chop instead. Rumour has it that he dared to call the Sarth Efrican mini-break a total waste of time, effort and money, and upset the freebie-guzzling Vice-Prez. Greenpeace Shrunk Our Glaciers! Photographs released by Greenpeace show that during the time this organization has been in existence, whole glaciers have totally disappeared! Indeed, there is a compelling relationship between the growth of this band of allegedly ecology-minded individuals and the loss of other vital resources, such as our ozone layer, fish stocks and rain forests. Chinese Smog Floods Europe A vast, dirty-brown smog cloud over the whole of China is reducing rainfall in the East -- but the rain has to land somewhere. And that somewhere is Europe. Chinese rain has swollen the river Vltava and put most of the Old City in Prague under water. In Dresden, the trains at the main station have become novelty ferries. Austria, Italy, Romania, Russia and Switzerland are also suffering -- and planning to join the Czechs and the Germans in a class action for compensation against China in the World Court. | ||||||
Prez-For-Life (since 2002/08/08) Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan (Iran & Afghanistan's northern neighbour) is on a real power trip these days. He's only renamed the months and the days of the week after the important things in his life -- like himself (the former January) and his Mom (the former April). Turkmenbashi the Great, as he likes to be known, seems to be well down the same road as a certain Roman Emperor, who renamed July after himself. The FO Is At It Again We always knew that the Foreign Office was a den of dodginess. The activities of the bunch of spivs running the passport office in the former Rhodesia prove it yet again. They're selling passports to white farmers who are being persecuted by Pres For Life M'Ugabe at the black market rate of 1,000 Z-dollars to the pound instead of the official rate of 85 Z-dollars to the pound. | ||||||
Vandalized Work of Art Restored (Almost) Back in 1938, a patriotic German forest warden created a work of art near the rural village of Zernikow, which lies 60 miles north of Berlin. He planted a design of larches which contrasted from the dark-green pines around them when their leaves turned yellow-brown in the autumn or when the light-green larch blossom came out in the spring. The swastika pattern could be seen only from the air but everyone knew that it was there. | ||||||
Jobs For The Butchers Muammar Gadaffi, Prez For Life of Libya and a veritable Saddam Hussein among the sponsors of international terrorism and those responsible for the persecution, torture and murder of Libyan dissenters, has been appointed the next chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, which 'investigates' human rights abuses. | ||||||
Dumb and Dumber A guy in Steinvik, Norway, stole a power mower and drove it away at its top speed of four and a half miles per hour. A whole bunch of people heard him taking 6 hours to make his 43 kilometre getaway and the police arrested him after multiple tip-offs. The Real Cost of Crime The Home Sec. and the Judiciary want to keep criminals out of gaol for some reason known only to themselves. [Maybe they should be required by law to suffer an annual burglary or mugging as a test of the strength of their convictions - Ed.] On the other hand, the think tank Civitas has used the Govt's own statistics to show that the UK's 100,000 hard-core criminals are responsible for half of all crime -- and they cost the country around £300,000 per annum each. | ||||||
22nd August, 2002
Leni Riefenstahl, film maker extraordinary, hit 100 on the 4th Thursday of the month. Born in Berlin, she became a dancer "as an experiment", a film actress and then a director. She is best known, or notorious, for the documentary films which she made in the 1930s. | ||||||
Created for Romiley Anarchists' League by workers in revolt against oppression. Sole © RAL, August 2002. |