There's definitely something individual about this city. I give you three headlines from the local news, all datelined 25 October 2013:
Carlton man with aquarium in his living room features on Channel 4 show
Nottinghamshire folk are among friendliest in Europe - it's official
Father-of-four threw lizard at man in revenge attack outside Beeston pub
It'll tell you something about Nottingham if I say that I grinned at all of those but wasn't very surprised by any of them.
Friday 25 October 2013
Tuesday 22 October 2013
My bad
So the Government scorns Ed Miliband's idea of a 20-month energy price freeze while signing a deal for the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset (to be built by French and Chinese interests) that guarantees a fixed price – double today's price – for its electricity for 35 years.
No, I don't get it. I expect I'm missing some subtle detail.
Meanwhile, Facebook are again allowing videos of people being decapitated, although they're still apparently banning videos of women breast-feeding their babies.
No, don't get that either. Lacking in insight, me.
No, I don't get it. I expect I'm missing some subtle detail.
Meanwhile, Facebook are again allowing videos of people being decapitated, although they're still apparently banning videos of women breast-feeding their babies.
No, don't get that either. Lacking in insight, me.
Friday 18 October 2013
Someone wants shooting
See, this is what comes of spending a year in silent meditation, studying prawn recipes. Where to start?
A while ago, I offered up the concept of the Bollocks-Finder General. If we had them in office now, they'd have serious work to do. I'll have to be posting quite frequently to cover it all. Let's get under way.
The badger cull.
Anyone who remembers the foot & mouth epidemic and the official response to it will know that politicians have no idea whatsoever about farming, wildlife, the countryside or the relevant science and statistics. But bless them, they're politicians, they're not supposed to know too much about anything. They'd be dangerous if they did.
However, Defra (the Department for the Elimination of Farming and Rural Affairs) should know something about all those things. More precisely, those paid by the taxpayer to work at Defra should know something about all those things, and should be able to offer sensible guidance to our politicians, much as those lovely Golden Labradors steer the blind around. But it turns out that Defra are more like Red Setters, the most notoriously bouncy, loopy, braindead dogs ever. One step ahead of the politicians, admittedly, but you take my point.
So we have a problem with bovine TB. The Guvmint feel it's become necessary to be seen to do something. Defra advise that some options are troublesome: vaccination of cows (illegal for various arcane reasons, most of them to do with money); vaccination of badgers (tricky, as they're not good at keeping appointments at the surgery); culling of dairy farmers (generally felt at Westminster to be a temptingly obvious answer, but the PR wonks were uneasy about how to present it).
So Defra concludes that the only option is to shoot the badgers. Those bastards wander round the countryside breathing on cows, you see. In trial areas 'trained marksmen' are encouraged to go and knock them off, following strict rules laid down by those nice people at Natural England. After a tense period during which lads with shotguns on zero-hours contracts (aka 'trained marksmen') are blundering around at night pursued by anti-cull activists with torches, the badgers move the goalposts. Although it seems a rather small number of badgers have been knocked off, that's OK, as according to Owen Paterson (Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Fuck-ups) it's now believed that there weren't that many badgers there to start with, so they've got the right percentage. Only just in case, they're going to extend the cull period so the lads might be able to knock off more of the badgers they don't need to.
That's right. They have no idea what they're doing.
At this point, a Bollocks-Finder General would be hitting the doors of Defra HQ. If you were standing outside, as it might be quietly sipping a cup of coffee, you would after a few minutes hear a lot of shouting and a few gunshots. And maybe after that we might get some clarity of thinking on the whole subject.
But don't hold your breath. Unless you're a cow near a badger, of course.
A while ago, I offered up the concept of the Bollocks-Finder General. If we had them in office now, they'd have serious work to do. I'll have to be posting quite frequently to cover it all. Let's get under way.
The badger cull.
Anyone who remembers the foot & mouth epidemic and the official response to it will know that politicians have no idea whatsoever about farming, wildlife, the countryside or the relevant science and statistics. But bless them, they're politicians, they're not supposed to know too much about anything. They'd be dangerous if they did.However, Defra (the Department for the Elimination of Farming and Rural Affairs) should know something about all those things. More precisely, those paid by the taxpayer to work at Defra should know something about all those things, and should be able to offer sensible guidance to our politicians, much as those lovely Golden Labradors steer the blind around. But it turns out that Defra are more like Red Setters, the most notoriously bouncy, loopy, braindead dogs ever. One step ahead of the politicians, admittedly, but you take my point.
So we have a problem with bovine TB. The Guvmint feel it's become necessary to be seen to do something. Defra advise that some options are troublesome: vaccination of cows (illegal for various arcane reasons, most of them to do with money); vaccination of badgers (tricky, as they're not good at keeping appointments at the surgery); culling of dairy farmers (generally felt at Westminster to be a temptingly obvious answer, but the PR wonks were uneasy about how to present it).
So Defra concludes that the only option is to shoot the badgers. Those bastards wander round the countryside breathing on cows, you see. In trial areas 'trained marksmen' are encouraged to go and knock them off, following strict rules laid down by those nice people at Natural England. After a tense period during which lads with shotguns on zero-hours contracts (aka 'trained marksmen') are blundering around at night pursued by anti-cull activists with torches, the badgers move the goalposts. Although it seems a rather small number of badgers have been knocked off, that's OK, as according to Owen Paterson (Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Fuck-ups) it's now believed that there weren't that many badgers there to start with, so they've got the right percentage. Only just in case, they're going to extend the cull period so the lads might be able to knock off more of the badgers they don't need to.
That's right. They have no idea what they're doing.
At this point, a Bollocks-Finder General would be hitting the doors of Defra HQ. If you were standing outside, as it might be quietly sipping a cup of coffee, you would after a few minutes hear a lot of shouting and a few gunshots. And maybe after that we might get some clarity of thinking on the whole subject.
But don't hold your breath. Unless you're a cow near a badger, of course.
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