The Fightback Against Cable Theft Has Begun
Last night there was a debate in the House of Lords about the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester said this, whilst proposing two amendments to deal with scrap metal theft.
As an indication of what we are up against, I would draw your Lordships’ attention to a giant screen advertisement at West Ham United’s football ground,which was seen on 27 September and which, I believe is there on a regular basis. It says, in huge letters, “We want your scrap for cash”, followed by three exclamation marks. All that was missing were the three words “No questions asked”.
So what was the evidence on the 27th of September? The picture is shown here.
Sense on Wind Farms From the Duke of Edinburgh
Wind generation of electricity has its place, but it will never generate the large amount of electricity we need. They only work economically with heavy subsidies and when the wind blows. They also need back-up power plants for when the wind doesn’t blow.
On the front page of the Sunday Times, the Duke of Edinburgh is quoted about his opposition to the farms.
We would be much better using the subsidies we all pay with our electricity bills to insulate houses and other buildings, rather than waste it on uneconomic wind farms.
Simon Barnes on Blatter
Simon Barnes is one of my favourite columnists and he said this in The Times today.
Dear reader, if you have ambitions of achieving power without responsibility, give up all thought of standing for local council or joining the civil service, or becoming head of state of a small African country. Go into sports administration instead.
You can be as mad, as foolish, as ridiculous and offensive as you please, but so long as you keep the sport a-coming, you will be safe as President-For-Life. All of which explains Sepp Blatter, President of Fifa. Blatter is a man who genuinely believes that he has a sort of King Midas Touch but the President Sepp Touch doesn’t turn dross in to gold.
I suspect Simon has just got himself struck off Sepp Blatter’s Christmas card list. Especially, after the last paragraph.
Blatter has offended women, the gay community, every non-white person on the planet, anyone with any feeling for football, and everyone who approves of such things as honesty, financial transparency and straightforward common sense but he’s just been re-elected. Precisely as you would expect.
I do hope that the British public make Sepp Blatter really welcome at the Olympics.
Is There A Link Between Youth Unemployment and Smoking?
It is being reported that youth unemployment will be announced at a record level today.
As I walk around London, it would appear that I see more young people smoking, than people say over thirty. Many appear to gather for fags on street corners and it would appear that some don’t have jobs.
So are employers, saying that if you smoke, then we won’t employ you?
If I had a business, then I certainly wouldn’t employ anybody who smoked. After all, there is a very good choice of people out there.
One Law For The Stone Roses Drummer and One For Everyone Else!
Apparently, Ian Brown, the drummer of the Stone Roses, was only fined for doing 105 mph on the M6. The full report is here.
Everybody else would have been banned, but then he has to get to London to see his son and for rehearsals.
There’s nothing wrong with the train and it’s probably quicker. He could I suspect also afford a chauffeur!
The Value of Online Gambling
Six Premier League ckubs have shirts advertising on-line gambling; Wigan Athletic, Bolton Wanderers, Sunderland, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Swansea City and West Bromwich Albion.
They occupy six of the bottom nine places in the league!
Hillsborough
My thoughts go out to those who died or lost loved ones in the Hillsborough tragedy.
In my view though, we were very lucky that it didn’t happen earlier at any number of grounds.
In the 1950s and 1960s, I was in some quite bad crushes at various grounds, like Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton and Hampden Park and my father told me of similar crushes before the Second World War.
In one match, I saw Spurs play Wolves at White Hart Lane and getting away from the ground was dangerous to say the least. At least the steps to White Hart Lane station seem to be better now, but there was a disaster waiting to happen at Tottenham. Luckily it didn’t!
It may be a cop-out and complacent to say that all-seater stadia mean that we can’t get another Hillsborough. But I hope we don’t.
People in Liverpool, talk of conspiracies and dark underlying frces behind Hillsborough.
It was the reluctance of the football authorities to spend any money on grounds and their surroundings, that really caused the problem at Hillsborough.
Is the Metro the New Grauniad?
When I went to Coventry, I found a Metro newspaper with two bad spelling mistakes in headlines.
- Chesterfield was spelt Chersterfield.
- Exercise was spelt Excercise.
The Grauniad lives!
News on the Health Lottery
I don’t play any lottery, but I am not in favour of Richard Desmond’s Health Lottery.
So I just wanted to see what others thought and typed Health Lottery into Google News.
So what did I find?
There are a lot of articles about hospices worried that they will lose money. There was this piece from the Yorkshire Post for example. And quite a few more too, in the same vein!
This article in the trade magazine, The Grocer, wasn’t very optimistic about sales for their readers. Good!
The only positive articles I can find are in rags, like the Daily Star and the Daily Express, papers which are owned by Richard Desmond.
But this is balanced by articles in more serious papers.
Let’s hope that the good people of the UK soon realise the real purpose of this lottery, which is a money-making scheme for its owner.
I shall be following this story with interest.
I’m also boycotting shops that sell the tickets for the Health Lottery. As that includes W H Smith, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Tesco and Asda, I now can only do my grocery shopping at Waitrose or Marks and Spencer. I could include the Co-Op, but they don’t have a decent shop near me.
Amanda Knox and the US Justice System
I have no idea if Amanda Knox was guilty of murder or not.
The Americans put a lot of support behind her in an effort to persuade the Italians to free her, from a possible miscarriage of justice.
But then so many of the people in US jails have been failed by their own justice system. Several have been executed lately who didn’t get a trial with the care shown by the Italians.
But then Amanda Knox was white and intelligent, whereas most of those who suffer injustice in the States are black and illiterate and defended by lawyers, who aren’t the best to say the least.
But then the victim in the Amanda Knox case wasn’t American. We also don’t know how much pressure was put on the Italians. After all their economy is rather rocky and if the United States withdrew support, it would have been serious.
The Anonymous Widower 