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Bullet dodged
A shedload of snow but not much anywhere else. That's the official verdict on the village's first brush with winter. The morning snow came down as if making a statement of intent, but it was all flash and no substance.
 Those treading the "Pavement of Death" in the centre of the village had a few moments of fear and trembling as the slush built up, but there have been no reports of serious injury.
The snow made the Xmas trees parked outside the Fruit Bowl look very festive but by the afternoon of Friday the 16th, you wouldn't have known there had been any snow. Unless you had a view of a shed or some other structure offering a good bit of thermal insulation.
 "Expired Sky Cover" spivs target Romiley
What happens is that you get a phone call out of the blue and a guy tells you that "his system" shows that the cover for your Sky TV set-up has run out [even if you don't have Sky] and you could end up paying £70 for an engineer to come out and £300 for a new digital box. But he'll kindly give you cover on all this for a fiver. Great deal. But are you going to trust some guy on the phone with your credit card or banking details for the payment? Only if you're out of your tiny little mind. Or you're an MP and the taxpayer will get stuck with the bill.
 Dull, dull, dull
Egypt's tourist industry is liable to crumble if the Islamistas get their way. They want hotels with no booze and beaches which are well-separated geographically for men and women. Not exactly user-friendly to Western tourists with the money to go elsewhere.
NoW to be revived?
The Metropolitan police service has confirmed that the slain Sunday scandal sheet the News of the Screws did not delete voicemails for murder victim Milly Dowler, as reported in theGrauniad. In fact, the organ of the right-thinking leftie is being accused of "sexing up" its story in Blair/Campbell style, which raises the interesting prospect of the 200 people who lost their jobs taking out a class action against Grauniad Newspapers in search of compensation. And maybe the News of the Screws rising phoenix-like from the ashes if News International does the same. (Assuming GN doesn't go bust, of course.)
More PC posturing
A footballer turned pundit uses the word "coloured" and the usual suspects throw wobblies "because it lumps everyone who isn't white into one group". Just like "white" groups everyone who isn't a person of colour into one group. If it's not racialist and offensive to do this, then the reverse cannot be true, you nit-picking wobblers.
 The lights go out in 2016 – official!
There are dark days ahead because the Coalition is signing the country up to increasingly lunatic and unachievable "green" energy targets involving renewable energy sources. They are the ones which produce intermittent and weather-dependent power, and which need so much idling back-up that there is little nett saving in CO2 emissions. And when the plans to build millions of windmills hit the buffers, there will be an unbridgeable energy gap at the middle of this decade.
 When the EU is involved, things get worse
The EU ordered the abolition of incandescent light bulbs to cut carbon emissions. But the old light bulbs were cheap to make, safe to discard and generated a lot of heat in use. Abolishing them means that people will have to turn up their heating to make up the difference, which will raise carbon emissions. Manufacturing compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs also increased carbon emissions. Result – no huge saving in carbon emissions and everyone will have to spend more money, which is typical of the EU.
 "Fittest" necessary for survival
The EU has brought age and fitness into the equation for picking a country's leader. It's all very well for the diversity lobby to insist that ancient, one-legged transvestites should be given a chance at the job, but the country now needs someone young enough and fit enough to stand up to the EU's negotiation tactics. Especially if meetings are structured to drag on into the middle of the night to force leaders to take decisions affecting the future of their country at 3 a.m. after a long day in the hope that the weaker ones will crumble and agree to anything that France and Germany want so that they can crawl off to bed.
Beware of Xmas Blight!
According to Dr. L. Kuriandsky, sometime employee of Upstate Medical University, New York, a fir or spruce Xmas tree in a warm house can release mould spores, which make people feel as rotten as they do after eating and/or drinking too much. So there's an alibi for the hangover.
Tell 'em anything, a judge will believe it
Got drunk, beat someone up and want to get away with it? Just tell the court you're from Somalia and you're a Moslem, so you're not used to being drunk because of your religion, and you'll walk away scot free, especially if you kicked someone half to death in Leicester.
Not very good at the job
You knew where you were with Communism in Russia. There was only one party, everyone voted for it – 100+% of the population, sometimes – and the Communist Party always won. But in new, pretend-democracy Russia, things are different. There's the Putin Democracy Party and a couple of others, but the rest have no chance because the PDP makes sure that most of the ballot papers are printed with a cross in its box. But the PDP isn't quite clever enough to get the rigged ballot papers into the nation's ballot boxes without being spotted. But the good news for the PDP is that it controls the meeja in Russia so only people who can read foreign newspapers or get to their websites ever find out, after an election, that they've been swindled.
 Something else the police won't do any more . . .
. . . is give a lift to hospital to someone who is ill – no matter how desperate the emergency – or even help the sick person's driver get through thick traffic. It's against current 'elf 'n' nazi rules, apparently.
Guilty but without consequences
Former French president J. Chirac is a crook; it's official. He has been found guilty of corruption and operating a phantom payroll during his time as mayor of Paris (1977-1995). But he doesn't have to go to gaol or suffer any inconvenience and, according to his lawyer, the French people still think he's a jolly fine fellow.
That's another £30 million down the EU drain this year
The EU is using taxpayers' money to let political parties send their activists on free holidays disguised as study trips. The jaunts go to towns, spas and holiday resorts all over the Continent and very rarely go anywhere near the EU institutions, which are supposed to be under study.
Oh, no! Not again!
The Great Martian Gremlin has struck early this time. The Russian vehicle intended to visit the moon Phobos in 2013 is stuck in Earth orbit and ESA has given up on attempts to reprogram its computers to get it to fire the rocket to send it Marswards. The Russians are now 0-16 on attempts to send stuff to Mars.
Dither and get dumped on!
Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Holland and Luxembourg have all been threatened with the loss of their AAA credit rating by Standard & Poors over the euro crisis. The rest of the eurozone gang, with lesser ratings, can expected to be downgraded further if they don't get a grip on their debt.
You pays your money and . . .
Nothing, most likely. People are expected to buy vast amounts of stuff on the internet this month but courier firms are warning that they don't have the capacity to deliver all of it in time for Xmas. So some people are going to have to celebrate their Xmas at about the middle of January.
In case you're wondering why you're broke . . .
Salaries for MPs have doubled over the last 30 years, which is twice the increase the average male worker in the real world got. And people in the real world don't get gold-plated pensions and encouragement to cheat on their expenses.
Guilty but irresponsible
Tony B. Liar, Gordon Broon, Ed "he's talking" Balls and Fred the Shred were all responsible for the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland into a taxpayer bail-out. Not to mention the Financial Services Authority. None of them will suffer any sort of penalty for their reckless incompetence.
Where is he when we need him?
The world economy is going into meltdown, half of Europe is going bust and taking the rest with them. It's 2008 all over again. We were saved from disaster then by Gordon "Superhero" Broon (he sez). So why isn't our saviour leaping into action again when the world needs him?
We're glad they cleared that up!
An official report to what passes for a government in Saudia has concluded that letting women drive cars would turn them into sex maniacs. Presumably, the "experts" are basing their determination on the fact that all male drivers in Saudia are sex maniacs.
 A triumph of hope over experience
Will the EU succeed in solving the crisis with the euro, a currency born of lies and deliberate deceit? Given that about all the EU is good for is banning knobbly cumbers, strawberries which are not round or red enough and bendy bananas, and deciding that carrots are fruit and not vegetables, no one is holding their breath.
Who needs "friends" like these?
Kelvingrove Park in the shadow of Glasgow university was a very pleasant place until a gang of protesters about something or other turned it into a tip. Yet the "Friends of Kelvingrove Park", who claim to be a charity which is supposed to keep the place in good nick, think the squatters' camp is a little treasure.
 Job done
The painters have finished work on the Forth railway bridge – all 9 miles of it – for the first time ever since its opening in 1890. And they won't be back for 25 years if the new epoxy paint works as advertised. "Like painting the Forth Bridge" used to be the phrase which summed up an impossible task. They'll have to think up something else now.
left: The Forth Bridge painted by Robert Eadie, R.S.W. (detail).
Democracy In Russia
The Russian government is to investigate the latest rigged parliamentary election. The probe promises to be a brief one as it will be conducted by the People's Putin Party, which knows exactly how it rigged the election.
• The Putinites will have those masters of election-rigging the Communists looking over their shoulders and hoping to pick up some hints.
Scaremongering unlimited
Pres. Sarko of France is trying to paint a picture of Europe descending into violent revolution and war if the euro collapses in a welter of lies, institutional fraud and overspending at a Gordon Brownian level. But if it's only Germany invading France again [3-0 since 1870], what do we care?
Iran must be dead hard up for heroes!
The staff evicted from the London embassy in response to the Iranian attack on British diplomats in Tehran received a hero's welcome when they got home. So has heroism now been extended to tackling the perils of packing up in a hurry and catching a coach to Heathrow?
Thank you, Tony B. Liar and George W. Bush
US troops pulled out of Iraq this month leaving the country in a shambles of corruption with no leadership and its citizens lacking even the degree of freedom they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein. The adventure has cost the United States' taxpayers the best part of one trillion bucks and provided Al Kaida and Iran's terrorists with another place to hide in the Middle East.
All talk, as usual
Rioters who turn arsonist "could be shot" in the future, we are told. But let's get real. It's "could be" in theory but "won't be" in practice because the rioter will be long gone and the fire will be out and cold before any politician gives the police marksman permission to pull the trigger.
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December 9th & 10th
Tickets from: Romiley Booking Agency, 42 Riverside Drive. |
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Big Strike? Big Shop, More Like!
What happened on the day of the strike, which was held at the end of last month by public sector staff who object to actually paying for the sort of pension you don't get in the private sector? Well, there were some token processions for the TV cameras. But most of the bruvvers and sisters seem to have taken a shopping day. For which the nation's stores, big and small, are profoundly grateful!
 This year's Turner Prize for art excellence has been won by . . . a wonky litter bin. Clearly, the judges went through what is laughingly called the British education system, which coughs up pupil-products who can't read, can't write, can't add up and have no aesthetic sense.
Visibility Strategy
Tory MP J. Rees-Mogg has come up with a brilliant scheme to boost British industry and improve wellbeing. He has proposed that all council jobsworths should be obliged to wear a bowler hat when they're out and about, causing trouble, so that people can spot them arriving and disappear in the opposite direction.
Success? No, it was just an illusion
New Labour's "education" legacy is exam boards which leak what will be in their tests to teachers for a fee so that pupils get false grades and the board gets a high pass rate and lots of customers.
Is there any escape from Victoria Wood? She seems to be doing adverts for Sky, the BBC and every bugger else right now, and everyone we know just shuts down and refuses to take in what that smug voice is droning on about.
Redward Milibandit is supposed to be less popular than Gordon Broon ever was. But is that even possible? we keep asking ourselves. |
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A recycled Merry Xmas & a Good New Year
Anyone and anything to do with the euro.
"Far queue, far queue very much!" – Frank Zappa.
