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.

Nurse, he's out of bed again...

Oh my. I settled down with a bag of prawn crackers and a glass of decent brandy, with a white cat on my lap, and look what happened. More than a year has passed.

The world seems strangely altered. There is much dust on my html console. My fingernails have grown rather extravagantly and my beard is unkempt. I'm not sure where the cat has gone. All of this may take some time to comprehend. Bear with me, won't you?

Olympic fail

Apologies for the long lacuna – life has been a bit hectic.

Here at the Observatory, we thought the Olympics coming to London was an embuggerance that could only have been surpassed by the Olympics coming to our own much fairer city. Howsomever, our electorally anointed ones (of all flavours) have pushed on with the idea, so we have to make the best of the multi-billion shindig.

When it comes to the engineering and construction side, we seem to have done pretty well. Very well, in fact. It's some of the soft stuff that's going pear-shaped. I give you, exempli gratia, the question of security personnel. The Guvmint having pimped itself once again to G4S for £300 million ("thanks, darling, same time next year?"), it seems there won't be enough trained personnel on hand. G4S have, it seems, "... encountered some issues in relation to workforce supply". Despite enormously high unemployment, and notoriously low pay for security staff, G4S have managed not to be able to fulfil this contracted undertaking. So the armed forces will have to step in. Well, it's not as if they have anything to do, there being only a couple of wars on. So that's all right.

Moving swiftly to Heathrow. OK, that's just my little joke – as if anyone could move swiftly to or from Heathrow – but moving on. Will we be able to get our foreign friends into the country to see the Olympics?

It seems that today a long queue waiting to get through border control at Heathrow started a slow hand-clap by way of weary comment at the more than two hour delay. Your man on the BBC report appeared to be American. Well, we accept his point; that kind of wait isn't acceptable, and it all bodes ill for the Olympic influx. That said, trying to enter America has become notoriously difficult even for people who don't look swarthy and have beards. Let's imagine the chances of anyone starting a slow hand-clap in the border control queue getting into the US of A? Lightning would strike first, I suggest.

Police and Crime Commissioners

I must apologise for the lack of recent activity. My analysis of who really runs the world evidently ruffled a few feathers – or should I say 'antennae' – and I had to spend the whole of February avoiding several large and threatening prawns. Fortunately for me, Mrs QO's countering tactics involving a wok and some hoi-sin sauce seemed to deter them, and I think I can safely put my head above the parapet to discuss the question of who will, after 25 November, really run your local police force.

If you haven't really noticed that in November you will be offered the chance to vote for a Police and Crime Commissioner, you aren't alone – some three-quarters of the electorate haven't twigged either. Your PCC will have the power to hire and fire the Chief Constable, set the police precept (a lovely word, isn't it? Much nicer than 'tax') and generally throw his or her weight around, setting policing priorities for the area. And receive between £60,000 and £100,000 a year, depending on the size of the local police force. And have a nice office, staff and an expense account.

Now, you may think this is A Good Thing. Popular accountability, my chance to influence policing in my patch, the democratic Dibble at last... well, that's certainly the Conservative line. They were hoping that some splendid candidates would spring forward, giants of community leadership, famous faces, big beasts of entrepreneurship, "... those who have built and led large organisations" as Nick Herbert MP said. And the cost of this bright new policing world is surely a snip at a mere £75 million.

Well, now. The Conservatives and Labour are intending to field party candidates in most if not all areas. So they'll be 'acceptable' politically, i.e., won't have an original thought in their head, will be great at kissing babies and doing the rubber chicken circuit, and won't have a proper big job to do anywhere else. The vast majority of candidates so far are local councillors, the lads and lasses with dodgy dress style who've been on the old-fashioned police authorities all these years, salivating at the thought of a much bigger payoff. Genuinely able independents are either busy running their large organisations, or appalled at the thought of having to kiss babies and do the rubber chicken circuit rather than get the job on merit, and are probably earning a sight more than is on offer. You can see who's up for it here, if you're interested. But I'm guessing mostly you're not.

But perhaps you should be. Policing in the UK is in something of a crisis. Morale is low among rank and file officers, resources are being significantly cut (except among Diversity Managers and PR departments), there's still a huge target culture despite what Kitten Heels says, and to this already toxic mix the Government is introducing political control and increased privatisation. Does that sound promising to you?

It may help if I summarise your options:
1. You get what you've already got, only it'll cost more.
2. You get something radically different which will probably be worse.

In either event, as far as the Guvmint is concerned, it will be your fault. You voted for the twat.

So have a think about your options come November, and have a look at your candidates. The good people of Humberside, by the way, have as one of their candidates one of the very few big names to have emerged so far, and I show him below discussing local affairs with a member of the public. Yeah, it's a cheap shot, I know, but it just seems emblematic of how this bright idea is likely to pan out.

Scottish independence – the way forward

As we're nearly at Burns Night, some thoughts on Scottish independence. Having read a good deal of argument on either side, part of the interest for me has been seeing the panic among some Scots at the notion of not being part of the UK, and another part has been the amount of enthusiasm for the idea among the English. Cynics might say that the latter is partly out of jealousy – sod off with your better healthcare, your free university places, and so on – and partly due to the perception that money is currently flowing from England to Scotland, and it would help England to stop this transfer.

I don't think Alex Salmond is thinking big enough.

Here's what he – and Scotland – should be arguing for: not just independence for Scotland as it currently stands, but an independent and enlarged Scotland. Here's the map as I would suggest it.

Note that the new border runs roughly from the Mersey to the Wash, such that the new most southerly Scottish cities would be Stoke, Derby and Nottingham. To the existing Scottish economy would be added a good number of people and the great cities mentioned above along with Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle... and of course Carlisle and Berwick-upon-Tweed would return once more to the motherland.

The character and temperament of these parts of England would fit much better with Scotland than with the Shires and the Home Counties. All of the areas going to Scotland under my modest proposal are marked by their citizens being stroppy, argumentative, up for a drink and a ruck (or either), and distrustful of politicians, especially Oxbridge toffs who've never been north of Watford Gap. The blood flowing in the veins of the 'English' above the new border is a heady mix of the ancient British, the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavian invaders; by contrast the Southron Londoners (and they're all Londoners up as far as Leicester, let's face it) are mostly French types and therefore only fit for sitting around in poncey winebars talking bolleaux.

Clearly there would be some adjustments to make for we 'New Scottish', but I already like whisky, so I'm not too concerned. I haven't been in the habit of drinking it much before lunch, I must admit, but this would be a small price to pay for the benefits of belonging to a new, forward-looking and dynamic Greater Scotland.

So, Mr Salmond, there you have it. Think big. Be bold. Dream of a new Hadrian's Wall along the Trent. You know it makes sense.

Merry and bright

Since Mrs QO and I don't have children, and since we're fortunate enough to be close enough to walk to my sister's tomorrow to spend the day with the family, we haven't had too much to do today. Which is nice. There has been time to take the Aggravatingly Fit Elder Parent out for a beery lunch, to fit in an afternoon sleep, and to watch a soppy film tonight. And drink a little brandy.

And in a few days' time we will be heading into the north country to spend a week with Super-disreputable Friend and his appalling wife, with whom we've spent the last 25 New Years. And I fear that once again there will be far too much merriment and alcohol. An awful prospect, I'm sure you'll agree.

And so at two minutes till midnight (here on good old-fashioned Greeenwich Mean Time), I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, be blessed and peaceful, and all good things in the year to come.

Who really runs the world?

This is a question that many are asking in the light of the financial crisis. The 'Comment is Free' part of the Guardian website is particularly rich in speculation at the moment, with what seems to this Observer to be a preponderance of opinion in favour of a cartel of international financiers determined to bleed the ordinary working peasant dry so as to keep the financiers in private jets and yachts and other cool stuff.

My brain works at such a pace that I have to give it a couple of hours cooling-off time after lunch, and while preparing myself today for this inconvenient but necessary hiatus, settling into the old armchair in the study and pulling up the blanket, I dedicated the last 30 seconds or so of mental processing time to considering the question of who really runs the world. I hereby present the results.

In no particular order, let's ponder the chief candidates and award scores for likelihood.

1. God (singular, albeit in various flavours) – the obvious choice for many, but a moment's reflection questions the notion. A Creator capable of bringing into existence the Universe we see around us could not possibly do so bad a job of running just one tiny bit of it. For example, we know from various books written, translated and edited by men a long time ago that the Judeo-Christian God is perfect and omnipotent. However, a brief look at, say, Wolverhampton, suggests powerfully that there's no such divinity on the job. There is, though, an argument (also in the books written, translated and edited by men) that God is testing us through hardship to see what will happen. Wolverhampton is what has happened, so the theory is just barely tenable, and we will therefore, with a certain reluctance, put a positive score on this option: 3/10.

2. Gods (plural, various flavours, sizes and colour schemes) – Greek and Roman myths in particular offer a whole shedload of gods, mostly quarrelsome, arbitrary, illogical and downright unpredictable. They were known to favour some humans, pick on others, have fights with their sibling deities, sometimes even coming down to earth for a bit of trans-species naughty fun. In other words, just like us only more so (even the trans-species bit, but let's not drag the Welsh into it right now). This is indeed a tempting notion, but Occam's Razor says that if something like humans is running the world, the most likely candidate is humans. So despite having a rather rusty and blunt Occam's Razor, to diverse deities we award: 1/10.

3. A secret world organisation – well, as I said above, plenty of these are being suggested as candidates at the moment. Opus Dei, the Illuminati, Freemasons, the Bilderberg Group, SMERSH – take your pick. In every case, the secret organisation in question ('it is said... it is rumoured... some believe that...') meets from time to time, usually in a mountainous, remote region, and the members sit around smoking cigars, sipping expensive liquor, and making their fiendish plans to control all the world's money and keep everyone else working for a pittance to fund their insane plans for world domination. (Some of them are even said to stroke white long-haired cats while doing so, the evil bastards.) Now this idea really has some serious legs, though we do have to ask ourselves: 'If this bunch is running the world to make money which they want for themselves, how come they're doing such a crap job of it?' Presumably such a group would have to include top bankers, as they're the ones with their hands on the money at one point or another; if the world really is run by people like Sir Fred Goodwin, we might as bend over and kiss our arses goodbye, because we're seriously fucked. So I think we can discard this notion... excuse me a moment...

'Waiter! Another glass of the Hennessy Paradis Extra Rare Cognac, a hand-rolled Romeo y Julieta and a dish of caviare for Tiddles here. Oh, and pass the word... Goodwin is to be disposed of quietly by next Thursday. Off you go.'

So, as I was saying, we can put this ridiculous idea right out of our heads, not even worth considering. 0/10.

4. Aliens – well, David Icke thinks so, which is a very strong argument against. Still, it's a big universe, there may be another species out there coveting Wolverhampton and its lovely womenfolk. And I was brought up on Captain Scarlet fighting the Mysterons, and I'm not entirely convinced they've gone away, so let's give this one: 4/10.























5. Our elected representatives – ha ha ha ha! Yes, I know, quite unthinkable, but I wanted an excuse to post that pic, to be honest: 0/10.

6. Happenstance and natural selection – by far my favourite option. Every time we consider a candidate for an agency actually running the world, we bump into the problem of 'well, why is it so crap and random, then?' I suspect what we take for organisation is no more than an emergent property of chaos (much like me trying to tidy my desk every January), and that all our attempts to ascribe purposed direction of the world are no more than a comforting rationalisation in the face of something entirely out of our control (much like my desk for eleven months of the year). We are no more in charge of the world than the prawns are in charge of the Atlantic. We are not rational, logical beings, we do what we do out of ancient instincts, and what seems to work, mostly, at the time, for most people, is what tends to be carried forward. Okay, this doesn't really explain Wolverhampton, and I'm minded to leave that to David Icke, but it's got the rest of it sewn up: 9/10.

So there you have it. No big conspiracy, but no comforting 'well, at least someone's in charge even if I know it's not me' either. Frightening, or liberating? You choose. It won't matter what you choose, but go ahead anyway.