Petitions: not worth the paper they are not written on

Usual suspect

My last post was a tongue in cheek nod to the silly season with a hot gypsy side salad.

Imagine my obvious pleasure to learn that the new British five pound note contains traces of animal fat. The note, made of plastic, is virtually indestructible, unless you decide to burn it. Perchance to leave it in your trouser pocket and expose it to a heavy wash, spin cycle optional, and it will come out pristine and brand new. Hoorah, I hear you say. No more soggy notes and heavy labour matching up friable fragments so you end up with two definable serial numbers: thereafter trotting to the local bank to convince a dozy spotty teller to proffer a replacement. We truly live in wondrous times.

Some sectors of the populace are not convinced. In fact the presence of rendered animal fat has upset the vegetarian fraternity (and sorority) and indeed they have been moved to pen a petition, to wit: The new £5 notes contain animal fat in the form of tallow. This is unacceptable to millions of vegans, vegetarians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and other clueless sods in the U.K. We demand that you cease to use animal products in the production of currency that we have to use. Apparently over 15,000 signatures have been garnered from folk with nothing better to do. The Royal Mint and government are dearly worried and are considering recalling all five pound notes. All future issues will contain only the finest tofu lightly seared with extra virgin olive oil. ARSE. This will make the notes more palatable to meat eschewing, whining, pansy minorities. Anyway, who gives a fuck about what the Jains want?

This sort of thing is likely to tip your gallant host over the edge into frank insanity and propel me on an incendiary bound frenzy. And let’s be honest, my propensity to ‘burn stuff’ is never too far from the surface at the best of times. Just one more push.

Dog Days of Summer

We are fast approaching the 'silly season', well at least in the southern hemisphere. That time of year renowned for its lack of meaty news stories. It is no coincidence that this time coincides with the closure of Parliament and the law courts. Seasoned journalists need to cast a finer meshed news net to capture stories for the delectation of the eager reading public. Tis the time of year when we hear of how 'Mittens the kitten' became stuck up a tree. Heart warming stories of the frivolous type which momentarily restores our gentle faith in humanity and distracts from our trite, meagre and often pointless lives (steady Flaxen). I am not interested in those stories today. Instead I'm going to share a few news headlines which have made me smile. Don't expect to feel all warm and fuzzy inside after casting your meat pies (eyes) over this sorry collection. If you are a seeker of wisdom then I beseech you to close down your browser, NOW and go and delve elsewhere. For here lurks madness which appeals only to those endowed with a twisted, nay sick, sense of humour. And if you are kind I might even be tempted to throw in, gratis, a few hot flamenco gypsy dancers. Hola!

Whether it is a well placed typo, a weird statement or sentiment, or a phrase which  simply defies belief, I now place them before you like a ferret dropping a well chewed Kiwi.

Read on and weep

Yes, that is a woman: A face that would worry rats

A face that launched a thousand binges. I suspect, at some time or other, we have all been tempted to 'freshen' up the black bean beef. And let's be honest who would notice the difference?

Who said pasties are not 'hot and sexy'

This one reminds me of the classic scene in 'American Pie'. The poor bugger in this story should have waited a while before putting his twinkle in the hot meaty goodness (silly sod). Luckily for future generations, this moron has voluntarily decided not to have kids. And for that we thank him.

Too clever

This is funny and clever. For god's sake give this journo a  pay rise, he or she deserves it.

"Who's a pretty boy, then?"

Poor Tommy is no longer with us, he is no more, bereft of life and joined the choir invisible. He is an ex-budgie. I'm hoping they put the intrepid Inspector 'Kipper' of the Yard on the case. Can't be having unsolved suspicious budgie deaths now can we? Spoiler alter: Twas the cat.

One word-Magic mushroom

Here we leave reality as we know it and enter a parallel universe fuelled by psychedelic drugs. Actually this one reminds me of the 70s, if only I could remember the 70s........

Not an easy word to spell

O the irony. I can sympathise as I'm not the best spella in the world. That said, with the ubiquitous spell chucker, there is no excuse.

Naughty ferret

My personal favourite. I've owned ferrets (no shit, you say) and I'm at a total loss how anyone can confuse a dog with a ferret regardless of anabolic steroid misuse. Just goes to show how gullible and stupid some folk are. 

Why would you think this is a good idea?

I suppose as long as you insert 'going with the nap' it shouldn't be too much of a problem, that is until you want to remove the poor hedgehog.

No comment

That looks like a very contented dog.

I do see the resemblance

Got it all: dwarf, sex, badgers and syndicated chef. Isn't life great?

Enough to put me off my vindaloo

For once I'm lost for words. I'm off to lie down and take my medication.

As promised

                                                                     Bloody gypos

Nature vs Nurture

You don’t have to be a genius to realise that women tend to live longer than men. When I visit my mother in the ‘Old Folk’s Home’ it is clear that the old ladies outnumber the old fellas by a heavy margin. It is not too far from the mark to describe the home as a ‘Granny Farm’. And to be fair there is the air of vegetation amongst some of the poor inmates, er, clients. A wise man once said: “Old age is a shipwreck”. Not only is old age a shipwreck, some of the wrecks have accumulated a heavy crust of barnacles and the anchor has long since drifted away…….

So why do women, as a group, outlive men? Do men take part in riskier pursuits? Does testosterone drive us to violence? Are we more stressed? Maybe we take less care of ourselves and eat and drink less healthily than women? Are men exposed to hazardous work environments? Could it be that when we become ill we are less likely to visit a health professional? I can certainly relate to this last piece of folk wisdom, or as I like to call it: “First sign of death I’m off to the doctor”.

I think there is an element of truth in all of the above and perhaps combined they help to explain the observed discrepancy to some small degree. Also noted is that males are more prone to cancer overall, than females. And this being the case and accepting that cancer is relatively common, especially amongst the aged, it may go a long way to explain life span differences between the sexes. Many factors affect predisposition to cancer and environmental factors as mentioned previously may have their role to play. Certainly stress, testosterone and unhealthy living contribute to cancer predisposition although not as great as you might expect. Certainly not as great as finger wagging, lifestyle controlling politicians and doctors would like you to think: but that is another story, for another time.

Cancer is essentially a genetic disease and I’ve always suspected that the difference in cancer rates between the sexes may come down to genetic differences, but to date I hadn't seen any hard scientific data to back up my suspicion. Speculate no more! Researchers publishing in the prestigious, Nature Genetics, found that females have an extra copy of a gene which confers a degree of protection from cancer. The gene represents another line of defence against cells growing uncontrollably. Tis no surprise that this gene is carried on the X chromosome. Males only have one copy of the X chromosome while females have a luxurious, two. The gene in question is called a 'tumour suppresser'. If a mutation occurs which destroys its function then the affected cell is not necessarily cancerous but becomes predisposed. Generally, further mutations in other tumour suppresser genes are required to provoke the cell to become cancerous. Because women have two copies of the gene, both copies need to 'knocked out' to achieve the same mutational state of the male counterpart with one copy.

Researchers estimate that this gene may be responsible for 80% of the bias in certain cancers. Overall males carry a 20% excess of cancer burden in comparison to females. So once again an important trait in humans is mainly down to genetics and only marginally influenced by how we live our lives.

The debate concerning the extent environment and genetics differentially influence our make up as humans has become contentious; bitter and understandably carries political overtones. For instance, there is very strong evidence that our innate intelligence is mostly determined by genetics and the influence of environmental factors is marginal. Wise politicians and educators stay quiet on the issue. Scientists who talk openly about the issue are shouted down and branded as fascists. Just because society, or some aspects of it at least, do not like the findings of objective scientific endeavour doesn't mean it is not true. Science, or good science, should be indifferent to whether it is in accord with prevailing mores or political correctness. Anyone is free to disregard what they like and on whatever grounds, but let us hope Anyone never becomes a scientist.    

Harden up

The world is a tough place and let us not diminish it's impact. That said, sensible folk navigate life's minefield with care. The foolish man runs amok and suffers accordingly. The wise and prudent man treads carefully as if in a burning building.

Tipton Secondary Modern c1972

It was a shit school- but burnt well

I was rummaging through some old documents the other day when I found this newspaper clipping betwixt the pages of an old book, entitled: 'The Art of the Incendiary'. The news article concerned the tragic conflagration which engulfed my Alma Mater the day after I graduated.

The police came knocking on my door a few days later with all sorts of questions. And of course I had an alibi. On the morn of the fire I was in the company of fellow ex Tipton school pupil, Sally Ault. As I distinctly recall we were involved in extra curricula activities in my unkempt bedroom. Sally's testimony, bless her heart, was unshakable and remarkably consistent. 

The evidence against me was circumstantial at best. And just because I'd had my shoulder length blond locks sheared on the afternoon of the incident proved nothing. The Inspector was unrelenting in his questioning and hung in there like a ferret clinging to a rabbit's neck. Confess, confess! Tis true the suspicious youth seen hanging about at the time matched my description exactly, as several witnesses were willing to attest, but I'm a great believer in doppelgangers and parallel universes and such. Wisely the witnesses had an epiphany and recanted. On second thoughts the youth's hair looked more mousy brown than golden hued. This ruled me out in a thrice. No way it could be me as I had just washed my golden locks which bedazzled in the sun and bathed the scene in an ethereal glow as if a cleansing H bomb had gone off in Tipton High Street. Here is a gratuitous tip: never use cheap shampoo or conditioner- false economy and I should know. Have I digressed? Anyway, without witnesses or a confession the poor Inspector was bereft of a conviction. No court in the land would have convicted on the evidence to hand and rightly so. It is better for ten guilty men to go free than one innocent man to be unjustly convicted. Isn't our justice system wonderful? The arsonistically (not a real word) inclined miscreant was never caught and probably lurks unrepentant within our very midst waiting for an opportunity to assuage a hunger which never abates.     

Is there a statute of limitation on this sort of thing? I suspect after 44 years it would be very difficult to identify the perpetrator and gain a conviction. Best to let it go then, eh Inspector?



 

Sally on the day of our graduation- I wonder what she is doing now?

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth......

There is a precedent for this sort of thing, ya know

Tis been a rough week for many parts of New Zealand. First the earthquakes quickly followed by widespread flooding. For all her beguiling beauty, Nature is an unpredictable and vicious bitch. But according to the self-styled Bishop Tamaki of the ‘Destiny Church’, New Zealand, the current mayhem represents the wrath of god directed against the sinner. Specifically, the ‘Old Testament’ deity, Yahweh, is punishing the good folk of New Zealand for the heinous sin of homosexuality. Considering that most folk hereabouts are heterosexual it seems a little unfair and downright indiscriminate. But the warrior storm god of the Jews has always been a grouchy, testy sort of deity, prone to much smiting on the slightest provocation. Remember what happened to the Tiptonites?

Arse big sore arse. Arse.

'O woe to the Tiptonites’! 

As soon as the ‘Plague of Ferrets’ becomes manifest I’m buggering off to Australia.

Not as far fetched as you might think

Did the earth move for you?

I see no ships

There is much I love about New Zealand: a place of great natural beauty and contrast. In the winterless north the climate is sub-tropical while in the far south the weather is akin to that found in Scotland and lush bush land gives way to majestic mountain peaks. I love the gentle nature of the society. While it is true that all of societies’ ills can be found here, they do not occur to the same extent as beset the UK, Europe and the USA and inexplicably the economy is thriving. I love New Zealand’s isolation. The hurly-burly of the world’s political maelstrom passes us by as we bask in the South Pacific unmolested by quarrels petty and profound. New Zealand is quaintly insular. The media is highly egocentric and almost oblivious to major world events. NZ rugby is king and dominates the newspapers to a farcical degree. The Kiwis are friendly, without guile and wonderfully frank. My dry expressionless humour is often misinterpreted. The other day at a health and safety meeting I made the suggestion that staff should be issued with Tasers in the remote possibility of violence in the workplace. I even suggested a YouTube video describing how to make one from an electric fly swatter. The room went very quiet until the Chairperson chimed in: “I was thinking along the lines of psychological techniques to defuse potentially dangerous confrontations”. No one picked up that I was just joking and I didn’t have the heart to disabuse the good folk attending the meeting, although I did receive a couple of odd looks.

For all the positives and advantages of living in this wonderful country there is a downside. New Zealand sits fair and square on multiple seismic fault lines. At midnight last night a 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked large swathes of the South and North islands. I awoke to violent shaking that seemed to go on forever. Vases crashed and the house groaned. I went out onto the deck (probably not wise) and felt the piles under the house sway side to side. After, what seemed an eternity, the shaking stopped. All through the night we experienced major aftershocks. There has been significant damage to parts of the country and as I write two people have been killed, this is likely to increase as the emergency services scour remote areas. My home city has suffered damage especially around the dock area. The Cook strait ferries remain anchored forlornly in the bay unable to enter port until significant structural repairs are made.  

Tsunami warnings have been issued for much of the east coast on both islands however, at this time it is unlikely that there will be a significant surge.

Tis wearing on the nerves especially as aftershocks continue to occur at an alarming rate throughout the day. It appears that this quake was as large as the one that devastated Napier in 1931 however, lucky for us the epicentre occurred in a sparsely populated region. Still, the damage is major and likely to run into billions of dollars. As this follows not long after the Christchurch quake it is bound to put a severe strain on the NZ economy.

And so life goes on. Hopefully no more 'biggies' for a while as every tremor adds another streak of silver to my crown of spun gold............