100-Year-Olds on the Line

Once upon a time making it to your centenary actually meant something, well, meaningful. In days gone by people quite genuinely respected their elders. Mainly because it was really quite the achievement to rack up so many years without succumbing to disease, malnutrition or the axe wielding homicidal maniacs who so often roamed our country lanes and public highways. Nowadays there are so very many people making it all the way to a hundred that they’re practically piling up on the streets.

No longer is it a simple matter of a telegram from the Queen, once you’ve made it to the big one double o you have to start earning your keep once and for all. Or to put it a slightly less delicate way, they’ve long outlived their usefulness to society so someone somewhere had to devise a vaguely fair way of deciding who would or wouldn’t make the cut. Cut not being anything even slightly resembling an allusion to how those who failed were dispatched.

The ageing population is absolutely beginning to cause a rather genuine crisis. We’re running out of food, oxygen and liberty or whatever. Resources for we free youngsters are in increasingly short supply and we’re not having it any more. This is the perfectly reasonable excuse for a group of teenagers who decided to start lashing pensioners to railway tracks. It definitely wasn’t a hate crime.

I’m sure the prevailing logic was something along the lines of that if the seniors were savvy enough to get them out of this relatively dire situation then they had more than earned the right to live another day. If not, then when has a body on the line ever ruined a commuter’s day? Plus the advantage of youthful vigour is that you really ought to be able to outrun an elderly centenarian. Even if they happen to own a motorised scooter.

Lenders Get Tough Over Roma Gypsy Palaces

That an Englishman’s (or lady’s, I’m sure it’s appeared somewhere in the statute books that we actually are allowed to own property. I’m not entirely sure where and I really ought to stop drawing attention to this liberty or the chaps might start trying to curb it once more) home is his castle is a bit of a lie. Come on, the bank owns over three quarters of it, it’s falling to pieces and the only situation in which anyone would be interested in having it off you would be if you were giving it away for free.

Sorry to kick things off on such a low note but I’m sure that you will have realised we are no longer a society of independent landowners. Those who manage to scrape together the funds sufficient to buy the most run down clanker of a property without plunging into debt are the lucky ones. For the rest of the generation, home ownership remains a pipe dream as rents soar to never before seen heights.

And yet the banks are continuing to crack down. They don’t want anyone else to have the precious funds. Especially not for such frivolous purchases as property. No one should be allowed to build either, folk are dreaming far too big already and must be quashed, ground down into the dust so they won’t even think about trying to get up ever again.

For example, a certain person wanted to build their own home. They’d spied a plot of land and started piecing the plans together. Soon, in their mind’s eye, a glorious Roma gypsy palace was shining away. The lavish details kept piling but thanks to sharp budgeting and a keen financial mind the sums didn’t run away with anyone. However, the bank rejected the proposition before you could say ‘this is grossly unfair and I’m telling my mummy on you.’ But such is life.

Teachers Won’t Lead Pakistan Terror Hunt

Well, obviously. When you think brave leaders urging their people onwards in some variety of crusade you’re probably not all that likely to make teachers your first port of call in your thoughts. Or perhaps your early educators were strapping heroes who imbued you with the sense that you could accomplish absolutely anything you felt inclined to set your mind to. There will always be a certain level of variety across any profession and teaching is almost definitely not an exception.

So to learn that teachers will not be the ones leading the Pakistan terror hunt ought not to be all that much of a surprise. Or should it? Was it the case that they really rather desperately wanted to? Did someone at the top of the organisational ladder believe that the task should fall to the educational staff? There’s almost definitely no way to get to the root of this surprisingly thorny matter but I might as well have a crack at it anyway.

In practically any endeavour in life you’ll find yourself at one point or another in need of a guiding hand. Even if you crash in with guns ablaze you can become hopelessly ensnared by your own incompetence and wishing you’d paid just a touch more attention to the friendly and well-meaning advice you were given along the way. Given this, it’s not all that much of a wonder that the architects of the initial plan wanted to get some outside help.

They figured that the very best people to get involved with the scheme to frighten the bad people away from Pakistan (or possibly some other way round, there’s ambiguity afoot here) was to get the teachers involved. The teachers, however, disagreed with this notion wholeheartedly and saw theirs as a strictly more supervisory role rather than getting their hands actually dirty.

Storm Chaos to Hit Bouncy Castles

We have angered the sky gods. They have given us everything, a temperate climate (we could have had boiling lead pouring from the skies every other day or other even more creative horrors but no. The rain and hail and occasional gale force winds ought to remind us of how good we have it most of the time. When we’re well behaved and respectful we’ll be blessed with candy floss clouds and precipitation made from alcoholic treats) and yet we are ungrateful.

We believe that we mere humans are sufficiently worthy to grace the skies. For this purpose we constructed our metal birds and flew ever closer to the face of the sun. But what really got their goat was the bouncy castles. To make such aeronautical feats some childish pastime for our young is going far too far and they demand appeasement. Every last turret and plastic drawbridge must be deflated and dismantled with immediate effect.

And if we chose not to comply? Oh, you really don’t want to go down that particular road. Surely it would be so much better to put away these relics of our own presumption rather than risk further ire? You disagree? Well, isn’t it wonderful to know that we’ve discovered the chosen one whose actions will battle the gods into submission? However, the rest of us are rather vulnerable to the whims of the meteorological deities.

They will pelt us with incredibly strong bouts of wind (there is absolutely nothing funny about that sentence and it’s rather childish of you to have that interpretation) in order to scatter the bouncy castles to the four corners of the earth. Then shall come the great rains, the thunder and indeed lightning. Some among the huddled populace might even say that it could potentially be described as very very frightening.

Brexit Will Raise Aid to Terrorist

Sure, why not? It’s very much in the same vein as plenty of the promotion material shoved through my front door. It’s time and past that the other side had something more of a say. They’ve got to stop mucking around with reasonable statements and furious applications of logic. If they don’t start bringing out the big guns the fight will be lost before they even realised that they were in it.

In these sorts of situations it’s worth remembering that the truth is not only relative but also incredibly flexible and only applies when it strengthens your arguments. Otherwise it really ought to keep its nose well and truly out of it. We’re all perfectly aware, thank you very much, that there’s no way to definitively state what would happen one way or the other regarding the whole should we stay or should we go situation. That’s why it’s only a matter of time before each side of the argument begins to resort to cheaper and more obvious tricks.

And since the opposition were so very quick off the mark in that regard it’s time to whip out something controversial and attention grabbing so that people will know I’m totally and utterly serious about whatever it is I’m going on about today. I can cast about for some sort of inspiration and wonder what I could come out with that would be the most readily reprehensible.

If we choose to leave the EU then terrorists will suddenly find themselves with a bit more funding. Until the first event actually happens there’s no way to prove the veracity of my statement one way or the other and to what order of magnitude. Are they suddenly swimming in great pools of well meant money or will they have just a few more pennies to rub together? Just make your decision and don’t be too influenced by outside pressures. Apart from me.

Halve Dairy Intake to Silence the Rolling Stones

I never realised that rock and roll groups (that’s what the kids call them nowadays isn’t it? Every now and then I like to remind you folk that I’m totally down and happening and know all the words for everything. I have all the words) were so open to suggestion. Rather than being the magnificent gods of the modern era that they consider themselves to be it turns out that they’re like meek little lambs following over to wherever it is they’re led.

Each music group just so happens to have their very own Achilles heel. I would go into a lengthy and no doubt incredibly entertaining list evaluating the foibles of each mounting to some sort of glorious conclusion that may or may not have been a scathing commentary on the state of the record industry. Would but won’t, I don’t have access to a sufficient number of riders for that variety of insider information.

But we do know the precise deal with the Rolling Stones. I know, that one’s something of a curve ball. You might have expected it to be one of the weaker willed new kids on the block like those fresh faced boys out of One Direction or JLS (are they both still a thing? You can tell where I’m at with being up to date on all these things) or quite possibly one of the hippier outfits like Coldplay.

The Rolling Stones are powered by dairy. Each one of them has dominion over a different arena of milk products from yoghurt to cheese to good old fashioned cow juice (I may or may not be unaware of how many members of the Rolling Stones there are and lack the inclination or Wi-Fi to look that particular titbit up). If people stop purchasing their product they’ll all come down with sudden and crippling laryngitis.

NHS Signs Up to Dine in Jail

This is not a sad story. It isn’t remotely unfortunate or anything in the legion of a tale of woe. I’m not entirely sure if you knew this (despite the railings of various politicians) the food in prison is really surprisingly excellent to the point that various government officials are starting to wonder whether or not this is a case of outrageously misplaced luxury. In fact, debates are already being held regarding the reallocation of these funds so expect changes from 2028 or so.

In the meantime, the NHS was cottoned onto the gourmet stylings of the penal system. And boy do they want in. It may well have been something that originally stemmed from the whole last meal thing (you know, in spite of the fact that’s not really something we do over here). Or perhaps a kindly soul somewhere thought that a few prisoners deserved a treat and got rapidly carried away when they spied excellent deals on dressed lobster when you order in bulk.

Just as it is on airplanes, the food in hospitals is notorious for being terrible. Maybe people are trying to use it as an incentive for getting people discharged as rapidly as possible. Whatever it is, healthcare practitioners and professionals of all kinds are thoroughly sick and tired of this totally deserved reputation. Which is the main reason why they opted to go down this slightly strange path.

Once a week, no more often no matter how much they might like to, a group of staff from the NHS go along to the local prison. It’s an extended lunch break where they get to put their worries aside for just a little while, forget about those urgent patients and other drains on their time and energy. There they get to dine like the kings of old. And it is most wonderful feasting.

Freed to Help our Security

Oh my do we need to find a new way to try and get things sorted out. We’re afraid for our very lives as the chances of being murdered in our beds or out on the street late at night mounts exponentially. There are men and women of a variety of naughty persuasions running amok around our nation and next to nobody is actually doing a single thing about it. Which I for one think is something of a shame.

So someone somewhere (I don’t know who, genius that they are they seem to value privacy and discretion over other facts which is almost definitely a manifestation of some degree of madness) had a brainwave when they returned to the absolutely not completely terrible plan of setting criminals loose. With a flash of brilliance illuminating the situation the cobwebs fell away and it was suddenly obvious how to iron out the creases of problems that had presented themselves previously.

An unrepentant ne’er-do-well is a danger to general and polite society. The whole idea of the penitentiary system is that we stick these people behind bars until they learn to behave or something of that effect. However, if a wrongdoer isn’t prepared to admit the wrongs they’ve done there are other ways to integrate them back into non prison dwelling life.

What you need are rather more pressing incentives for good behaviour than just the threat of removal of liberty. It’s been found before that material rewards have worked surprisingly well. As has the chance to prove oneself when granted certain responsibilities. Especially when said activities involve just a little bit of violence. What I’m saying we need to do is to employ offenders as security guards for the country. Sorry, independent safety contractors tasked with project managing the haven initiative masterminded by a caring government.

Terrorists in Easter Eggs

So today I had something of a choice. I could be sober and refined, respectful to the dead in the wake of something awful perpetrated by people we have little to no hope of stopping in their tracks. Or I could continue in my slightly strange ways of making things up in the potential services of silliness. There might have once been a middle way or a tendency towards one end or the other of certain extremes. I’m not entirely sure where I ended up.

However, when I read that supermarkets had discovered a surprise infestation held within their seasonal stock. It could have been a lot more disgusting, tiny dismembered bits of disreputable men encased in limited edition confectionary. It was something of a more carefully orchestrated plan to launch an offensive on an upcoming bank holiday just because they could.

Their recipe was simple in its very essentials. Take a truckload of outsized novelty Easter eggs courtesy of the good people at Cadbury’s, Mars and the other one. Then crack them open ever so carefully, pop some guys up to no good (far too lighthearted and euphemistic I’ll grant you but I don’t want to bring the tone down by going into all the violence, fire and death. It’s letting them win, giving them and their abhorrent ideas credence. They pay an inordinate amount of attention to the blogosphere) and seal them back up with an extra blast of cocoa-y deliciousness.

These eggs were then shipped to locations of all sorts wherein their inhabitants would break out to wreak havoc. Sure, it’s a terrible fairytale of horror but imagine just how ridiculous they would have looked with those fluffy ears and bunny girl tails. There;s no real way to make sense of the tragedies that have occurred this week in the West and throughout the rest of the world in days gone by. All we can do is hope for better and not give into fear. I wish there was more wisdom than that but the very least you can try is to indulge in some delicious empty calories.

Police Spend £1bn a Year on Low Calorie Diet

Sure, that sounds like a bloated and festeringly corpulent sum of money but I would beg you to remember to take into account the number of policemen being catered for. If there were a billion people enlisted within the ranks of the constabulary you’d be impressed for sure at the incredible efficiency of management capabilities to feed them on an annual quid. Of course we’d be positively overrun with pesky cops but think of the crime rate that would surely plummet.

But there aren’t even a tenth as many police folk. Probably. It’s not like I have any official figures in front of me or anything. Even over the course of a year, a billion of your English pounds does seem like quite a high figure. On the other hand, can you really put a cost on the benefit of a healthier diet?  The technology required to make food contain fewer calories without compromising that excellent genuine sustenance taste was never going to be free now was it?

A certain former snake oil salesman (though obviously he’d snap your leg off for the very suggestion of the merest hint of charlatanic behaviour) rolled into town. With him he brought his most recent innovation on the service of fleecing impressionable suckers. Sorry, I meant to say that he was equipped with nothing short of a revolution in the nutritional experience.

He wove a glorious picture of how it would be now in the emergency services. Policemen would become super beings akin to the gods fuelled by imagination and the tasty treats only he could provide. Halfway through a daring midnight chase with a perp all a copper would have to do is to break off and slurp down an energy bar so they can surge onwards, catch the criminal and save the day. All for the low price of a billion a year for the rest of recorded history.