Climate change and noise pollution.

Anywhere else in the world and the weather in the UK (South zone) the past couple of weeks would be called the monsoon. But, because we are a developed country with an internet speed of 20mbps  and only 5500 ppl per branch of Starbucks, the weather is described as unsettled as a monsoon is third world weather. Climate change is bringing us in line with the rest of the world and not just with the weather. We have had mosquitoes for years but call them midges instead, again, because mosquitoes are a third world insect. I had the fortune once to spend several days in a jungle/rainforest combo - and no, I had not been in an airplane crash over the Amazon. It was a wondrous experience of colour, aroma, awe and peace. That was during the day. At night, the jungle went crazy. The racket was worse than living under Gatwick’s flight path. All manner of cackling, croaking, caterwauling, shrieking and squawking filled the night and that was just from the bush outside my tent.

In central London, an area protected from every kind of human attack possible, there is, nowadays, in the dead of night, in between the sirens, helicopters and primal love screams, the very occasional sinister sound. Not your cooing doves or laughing crows but other sounds, sounds not of these parts, sounds that send chills up the hairs on your arms: an almighty screech followed by a panicked rustling or a strange whooping and then a fluttering and flapping of what can only be very big wings.

Once you have got through the torrid night you might fancy a stroll in a nearby park. Find yourself in Kensington Gardens and, walking along particular avenue, North to South, towards the Albert Memorial, you will see the real results of climate change. You can hear them before you can see them, squawking and fluttering. Look up into the trees and they are there: wild green parrots – proper parrots straight out of a glossy wildlife book. But they are actually called parakeets as parrots are a third world bird.

Robbing Hoods tax

The richer are getting richer while everyone else is getting poorer. Some people are so desperate in South East London they are renting out parts of their homes during the Olympics for surface to air missile launchers.

The reason that the government does not deploy a Robin Hood tax on financial institutions for their speculative trade (the trade that brought the economy to its knees in2008) is that those businesses will shut up shop and go to the continent – causing vast unemployment in the City. With that there would great strife amongst landowners and property developers as their steel and glass skyscrapers buildings empty out and can only attract charity shops. The City is the goose that lays the golden egg and that egg has to feed a lot of people. All those thousands of support staff in Starbucks, wine bars, sandwich shops and Sainsbury’s who fight and scuffle desperately to get the egg crumbs the City workers drop just so they can earn their national minimum wage will also be jobless. They will no longer be able to go to work at 6.30am in a choc a bloc bus and return to their overfilled hard to let flat in Thamesmead.  London will be transformed. Bereft of Land Rovers, Porsches and taxis it will be easier to get around. London will be affordable to live in as rents will go through the floor and the desperate but savvy cheap mobile labour will follow the egg elsewhere. Selfridges and Harrods will become pound stores.  So what.

Bus Lanes Just For Taxis Now!

The Government is not going to renew its contract with Addison Lee, the people carrier, for carrying its people. This comes, coincidentally, at the same time as AL has been forced not to use the bus lanes following its boss’s promise to pay its drivers’ fines for doing so. John Griffith claims that black cabs that are allowed to use said lanes have an unfair competitive advantage. Personally I think it is outrageous that any important people in London still are stuck in traffic. The lane used by buses should be turned over to exclusive use for the people London is for – proper important people with proper jobs. These people have to get around London quickly. Passengers in buses aren’t that important enough to have such a privilege. That is what is wrong. There should be a clear run from First Class train or plane seat to the desk or important business meeting – a run not hampered by a busload of cleaners or administrative assistants or whoever it is travels by bus. Those kind of people work in London for the benefit of the proper people and their place is not in the fast lane!

Over the Counter

It is a process buying cigarettes anywhere now. It has the level of embarrassment that once went with asking for condoms. While not quite under the counter, cigarettes are no longer simply over the counter as they are now over the counter and behind a cupboard door.  While the fag heads towards its bitter end the Pill is about to take its place. Presumably there will be a wide range of brands to choose from all with different unique selling points – different flavours perhaps – heart shaped ones. Then of course they will be youngsters outside trying to persuade older sisters and brothers to go in and buy a pack for them.

But, of course, whether you are buying smokes or the pill you will not be able to buy a hosepipe as these are still banned.

The Age Of Retirement

There are all kinds of currents at work on the issue of when to hang up your P45. I expect to be working well into my hundreds one day, then the next, I am being told to resign my post of general cleaner to allow a youngster to have chance. We should however try a third option of working part-time or having a sideline. One idea springs to mind: selling batteries to the Iranian car industry. Most people might think about something a little less hazardous, such as designing Christmas cards or carving trinkets out of teak in the shed but not Christopher Tappin, who would have, incidentally, made a good striker.  Unfortunately his retirement plans have become a little discombooberated having been extradited to the US on charges of being a terrorist.

“I'm not a terrorist. I didn't know these batteries were for Hawk missiles and I didn't know they were destined for Iran.”

I am wondering what kind of batteries they were. Obviously there were not AAA or C type, or part of the value range at Argos. And, what kind of packaging do these kinds of batteries come in?  How would anyone buy batteries for their missiles?

“I've never had any connections with terrorism and I'm just appalled that things could come to this sort of stage - especially in my life now, when I'm 65, been retired for four years and enjoying retirement.”

He should have stuck with organising annual dinner and dances at his golf club.

Blood donations for Olympics.

Only the other day I called for a ban on physical sport as it is a killer. If anyone read that campaigning message they would have thought I was well out of kilter with the rest of the fun loving, base layer and trainers toting country. In fact, I could expect to be regarded as a kill-joy couch potato. I was, in fact, simply ahead of the times. Only, today the NHS is appealing for blood donors to cope with the estimated 30% increase in demand for blood during the Olympic Games. The authorities say this will be for visitors and the 15,000 athletes alike. What are they going to be doing!?

If I was being gloomily sceptical I would suggest that the increased demand for blood may well come from other activities that are feared might go on during the games.

Actually, I fancy a free cup of tea and biscuit.

Double-Dipper

That’s what we are in. It’s not a ride at Alton Towers. It’s real life! We are in a double-dipper, otherwise known, amongst professional types and the educated, as a recession. But, I’m sure it is not as bad as they say it is. I was in Sainsbury’s the other day and there was a long queue of customers dying to pay for the krispy crème donuts and triple choice meal deals. There were even people with Double dip cheese and tasty stuff snacks. Maybe I should have taken heed of that subliminal warning and returned my Rudyard Kipling walnut cake to the shelf and picked up a Sainbury’s own brand supa essential everyday taste the indifference value walnut style cake instead and put aside the 57p saving for a rainy day of which we have many at this time. But the store was busy. And, lots of thirsty types had encircled a nearby Starbucks – somewhere all these hot beverages are stoking the economy’s fires. OK, we don’t manufacture things anymore but we probably produce to best takeaway cups and lids in the world.  So, what recession I say?! Oh, and I passed a little Lidl the other day and the entrance was rammed, people were fighting to get in with the people fighting to get out. What double dipper?! However, there is just one problem brewing on the storm cup. If there is another quarter of negative growth, what are they going to call it?

Chelsea’s new kings road to Munich

I have supported Chelsea for a long, long time - ever since the second leg of the Napoli match all those months ago. It had been an incredible journey to get to the Crapmeisters Sports and Leisure Bar in West One zone for the big game between Chelsea and Bayern Munich. What a brilliant match. The King’s Road Kings scored the same amount of goals as the other team but because they had only had ten on the pitch at the end they went through on player difference. Chelsea deserved to go through as they simply kicked the ball harder and further than the other side and at the end of the day that is what football is all about: the ability to kick a ball. The Italians played well, to be sure, with lots of fancy stuff but didn’t, when push came to shove – Chelsea certainly know about pushing and shoving, they lacked imagination in the last third of the soccer field, I think – though that was an opinion I shared with a great deal of genuine football fans such as myself last night.

Roll on the next big game for The Blues in the Europe League!

Call to ban activity sports.

I might be alone in this  – at the moment. I feel like Luther nailing his edicts into the door. Yesterday it was revealed that a teenager had died having taken some amphetamines. Tragic. She is the second person I have heard about to have died from taking drugs since they were invented in the 1980’s. Not a bad stat considering the number of fun lovers who partake each week. However had the teenager not died what fate would have befallen her? She could well have lived until her nineties or she could have taken up running. Running is the big killer – in fact any healthy active sport has an unhealthy tendency to kill. The footballer Muamba was dead for 78 minutes, resurrected by some fantastic medical staff. But there was the Cameroonian footballer five years ago and, just this weekend, the 25 year old Italian who was not as fortunate as our lad from Bolton. But it is the marathon that is the heroin injected into the last available vein and the London marathon is the seedy club full of hepatitis dripping junkies. A woman died in the London event this weekend. She collapsed on the final home stretch near the Queen's house. Her tragic death means eleven have died since the run was invented in the 1980s: eleven good people who have died in full view of huge crowds and TV cameras. Then there is the Great North Run – simply slaughter. Four died in the 2005 event alone – the equivalent of some really bad gear cut with cyanide hitting the streets of Kings Cross. Seven, in all, have died on that ‘fun’ run.

It is time to ban physical sports.

Are you ready for the Games?

Are you prepared for the challenges that this awesome event, the like of which has never been seen before except on those occasions it has happened previously, will bring? Are you committed to embodying the true spirit of the Games: are you all set to make as much money as possible?

These games are not for Londoners. The Games are for those people with lots of money who live elsewhere and will have to come and stay in the capital at great expense. And, once here, well and truly stuck in the money trap, any basic need they will require will cost them a fortune.

One of the burning issues about transport during that glorious 17 days is how the big stores are going to get their deliveries in so that that they can flog even more Games themed crap plus try and move over stocked Jubille pap. By the way, the Queens Golden Jubilee has no sponsors and so you can use any piece of plastic to buy that ERII 50 limited edition ice cream.

The Olympic Games in just another variation of a street fair – complete with a freak show of over built bodies bending and straining – and so the bees around the honey pot principle is nothing new as town burghers of the past put ion the fairs precisely to bring in the punters and theier ha’pennies from the sticks.

Welcome to Britain. Please have your money ready.