Greece In a Downward Spiral
Not my words, but those of Jason Manolopoulos in an article in The Times today.
This paragraph sums up Greece’s progress to get their economy in check.
The technocrats are nominally in charge and the EU elite is applying plenty of pressure on my country to accelerate reform, but they are discovering that the Greek system is almost ungovernable. It took Ireland just a few weeks to make more progress on cutting back their public sector debt than we have seen in two years in Greece.
And there’s a lot more in the same vein.
The article finishes by saying that an unplanned Greek default and return to the drachma would be catastrophic.
I think I may get hold of Jason’s book called Greece’s Odious Debt.
Everybody else should get hold of today’s Times and read the article, as it has a lot of repercussions for us all. For instance, he claims that the IMF is breaking its own rules, by lending to a country whose debt is above 120% of GDP. nd who’s funding the IMF? We are for a start!
Joan Collins on Men and Sex
This was from the Evening Standard last night.
Joan Collins is a minx. Asked by Shelf Life which literary character she would share a bed with, she picks Gone With the Wind’s Rhett Butler “for sheer macho magnetism”. And what book would she give to a lover? The Joy Of Sex.
Joan certainly doesn’t pull her punches.
Has Anybody Asked The Queen?
They are talking this morning about a new Royal Yacht for the Queen.
Obviously, a lot of the great and good are in favour, as they like a good jolly and hope Her Majesty might ask them to come aboard.
I’ve been to one of her good jollies and I enjoyed it. But then you could say that I earned my invitation.
If you look at the list of royal yachts on Wikipedia, you’ll see that most large ones are owned by Arabs, with bad human rights records, except perhaps for the royal families of Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands. The Iranian president might have one too.
I think the Queen has said she only misses the yacht for her family cruise round the Scottish Islands and since the decommissioning of the Royal Yacht Britannia she has twice hired a small cruise ship called the Hebridean Princess.
So for her personal pleasure she has found a sensible substitute. According to Wikipedia, one year she paid £125,000, which doesn’t buy a very big yacht and pay for the maintenance.
But obviously, this doesn’t satisfy the great and the good, who get nothing out of it.
On the other hand, the owners of the Hebridean Princess get publicity that money can’t buy.
Why Not A John Lewis Prison?
John Podmore, who has run prisons for many years has written a book called Out of Sight, Out of Mind, which describes why Britain’s prisons are failing.
On BBC Breakfast this morning, he talked about how he went some of the way to making Brixton a community prison, by opening the doors to local businesses, charities and churches. He also indicated seriously that local prisons could be run on John Lewis lines, with all the community having a share.
Now there’s an idea! But I think a good one, as our current penal policy is unsustainable.
Weird and Wonderful
The Sunday Times has a column of this name, which collects odd news from around the the world. This is the text of one this week with a title of Call the Pants Police.
Brides should be forced by law to wear knickers at the altar, says a Brazilian councillor. Ozias Zizi claims a growing number of women are being married without underwear because a superstition says this will guarantee a longer marriage.
The councillor from Vila Velha wants to introduce a local law that would not only force brides to wear knickers, but would bring in a minimum neckline for dresses.
“The moment they enter a place of worship they must show some respect,” he said. But Enoch de Castro, a local priest, said: “It would be absurd to try to police something like this, to find out whether a bride is wearing knickers or not.”
I think the priest has it right. Although, I don’t think that the police would lack volunteers for the job.
Has Anybody Looked at the Harlery Medical Group Website?
You wouldn’t think this was the website of a ompany with a bit of a problem and especially as the site is still advertising for new punters.
One interesting thing is that typing Harley Medical Group into Google, the first entry you find is a firm of solicitors.
I also found this article on the Daily Mail’s website. So was the head of the firm advising how to smarten up NuLabor’s image? Probably not, but it just shows how high-profile Harley Medical Group was.
But not in the same way as now!
Why The Queen Doesn’t Wear a Hard Hat when Riding
The Sunday Times discloses today ewhy the Queen doesn’t wear a hard hat when she rides a horse, despite the fact that various organisations are always telling her to set an example.
She was once took to task by the racehorse trainer, Ian Balding, when he was hacking with her in Windsor Home. ‘I really think it is ridiculous that you above all others, do not wear a crash helmet.’ She never does, as this piece shows
The Queen replied: ‘I never have and you don’t have to have your hair done like I do’ As it says in the article in The Sunday Times, this is an expression less of vanity than of the practical need to be ready for her appointments.
Cherie Blair Moves Into Private Health Care
According to The Sunday Times and the Daily Mail, Cherie Blair is part of an attempt to setup a chain of private one-stop health clinics called Mee Healthcae. Read about it in the Daily Mail here.
The domain, meehealthcare.com, seems to have been registered, but the website hasn’t been setup yet.
The registrant appears to be Gail Lese, a business partner of Cherie’s mentioned in both articles.
What would Mark Serwotka and Bob Crow think?
Our New Aircraft Carriers Won’t Have Any Aircraft!
The Sunday Times today says that the two follies of Gordon Brown’s tenure as Prime Minister won’t have any aircraft, as the new F35C, that have been chosen by the Coalition, can’t land on a carrier. There’s more about the F35C’s problems here. To be fair to the Coalition, they had little choice but to go for the C variant, after the B variant, which had a limited vertical take-off and landing capability, was not performing well in test flying.
Perhaps though we’ll come up with a better solution, given that the British public won’t support another Iraq or Afghanistan. We’ve also proven that for operations near home, such as Libya, that we don’t need carrier-based aircraft. In addition, we’ve also proven that attack helicopters can work very well off ships like HMS Ocean. Perhaps we need another ship like this one, which was built at a small fraction of the propsed cost of one of the new aircrsft csrriers.
The Anonymous Widower 