BillotheWisps Crystal Ball for 2010

Billothewisp wishes his readers a Happy New Year.

I have decided it is about time a set of Neanderthal predictions were made for the coming months up to 2011. After studying my nearest neigbours entrails I have given a general weather forcast as well as a political prediction for each month. I would implore readers to regard both set of predictions with as much temerity as they regard Gordon Browns financial acumen.

1. January will be cold. The government will unveal a new uncosted program to boost the income of a key group of swing voters. The program will be targetted to begin sometime after June.

2. February will also be cold. In some parts it may be extremely cold. Gordon Brown will be busy with various photo opportunities with other World leaders to show how Britain is leading the world forward out of stagnation. A significant increase in foreign aid will be announced, showing Britains commitment to the poor of the third world. The money, earmarked to be donated after June will go directly to third world governments in order to ensure it is spent wisely.

3. March will be blustery with some ice. There will be some structural damage due to high winds. The government will unveal a another new uncosted program to boost the income of a key group of swing voters. The program will be targetted to begin sometime after June. Inflation will rise to 2.8%. The pound will slump to parity with the Euro. Unemployment will reach 2.7 million

4. April will have many showers. The budget will emphasise the governments commitment to "Investment in People, Jobs and Industry". There will be several uncosted programs to boost the income of key groups of swing voters. These programs are due to start later in the year. Many will refer to the budget as a give-away budget. Others will refer to it as out-and-out bribery. Bankers (amongst others) are accussed of sabotaging the Labour economic miracle. The government proposes undefined measures to ensure that it cannot happen again.

5. May There will be a short warm period within May that will be unseasonally hot. The election will be held on Thursday 20th May. The Conservatives will win with a majority of 12. Labour will lose heavily to the SNP and Plaid Cymru. Their losses in England will be mainly to voter apathy rather than a full blown swing to the Tories. Smaller parties will do well, with the English Democrats receiving an overall 5% of the vote although no MPs. The Greens will also poll around 5% but again, they will win no seats. The big shock is the election of a BNP candidate in a previously secure labour seat in the North East, although nationally the BNP vote is actually below that of the Greens and the English Democrats. Respect will maintain their single MP although their share of the national vote is below 2%. The voting statistics will show that the turn out was an all time low. The pound will rally back to 1.10 euros from parity.

6. June will be warm and a welcome introduction to summer. David Cameron will jet about meeting and greeting the various great and good from around the world. There will be a fist fight in the House of Commons over a supposed remark made by the BNP MP.

7. July will be hot. The first really hot July for three years. The preliminary economic audit ordered by the Tories on winning the election will be completed. The audit will show the country is in a much worse state than feared and is catastophically over-burdened with debt. Inflation will reach 3.5% Unemployement will hit 2.8 million. A trade union leader will announce that we should not be surprised at these calamities after electing a Tory government.

8. August will also be very warm. Because of the three previous poor summers the climate will feel unnaturally hot. The BBC will produce an Horison Program "Is This the Start of Global Warming?" Satellite data fror 2009 will show an unprecedented increase in the size of the Artic ice sheet over the winter period. This will be regarded as a single cycle anomoly by CRU.

9. September is warm and blustery. Inflation edges near 4%. The government adopts deperate measures to try and remove £100 billion pounds of the money printed by Labour from the money supply. Unemployment continues to rise.

10. October is wet and stormy. There is talk of a public enquiry into labours handling of the economy over the last two years. There is talk of the discovery of deliberate financial sabotage in the last few months of the Labour administration.

11. November starts out wet and turns cold with some frost and ice towards the end of the month. The government cancels the two aircraft carriers currently being built. Some sections of the public sector take strike action.

12. December is a repetition of 2009. Extremely cold weather causes disruption and travel chaos. This is not helped by a series of one day strikes on the London underground

So there you go. I hope it is rosier than that and I desperately hope it is not worse. Lets hope that in the new year we can move things forward to give the countries of Britain the meaning and identitiy they desperately need.

Prescott: Declared Inedible

Neanderthals, being unashamedly carnivorous, sometimes look on their Homo Sapien friends as lunch.

Be assured though, Billothewisp does try to eat as few of his neighbours as possible.

Still, he firmly believes that the inhabitants of the House of Commons, and their associates should, if necessary, be regarded as a potential emergency food store.

But there are limits to everything.

It has been known for a long time that John Prescott (Prezza to his mates, of which he has none) has always been a marginal food store as he is so full of shit.

But his toadi-ing up to the Chinese over emissions control finally removes him from the menu. See Guido Fawkes Post Here

You may know that Prescott once planned to dismember England into a number of rival regional assemblies. He got as far as appointing regional dictatorships with powers that trumped those of the elected councils within the regions.

His intention was to roll out some form of fixed/spun regional democracy into the dismembered England and cement the murder of nation. His little plan came a cropper when in the first regional referendum, the people of the North East, told him to bugger off.

Since then the whole plan to dismember England has been somewhat muted. Some steps have been made but today, for example, The South West Regional Assembly is essentially run by delegates from local councils rather than by the original imposed flunkies. Soon the whole sad abortion will be abandoned.

Perhaps when this travesty is finally buried in its own cess pit we can get back to looking for an English assembly or even an English Parliament, just like the one in Scotland.

Meanwhile Prescott, in backbench retirement continues with his bitter tirades against anyone he designates as non-working class. (which must included most of the labour party these days)

He appears to simply regard his own background as the sole point of reference for a continuing class struggle. Anyone living south of Watford is, by definition, an oppressing toff. While his narrowness is unappealing, I do have a level of sympathy. As he is undoubtedly from a working class background he must feel very lonely in the upper echelons of the Labour Party.

But that does not get us past the unsavory fact that he is without doubt inedible. Luckily as he has now retiring, his removal from the House of Commons will not affect the the number of specimens available in the food store.

It may also improve its quality.

Globalisation, rotten nails and rubbish tools

BillotheWisp can hardly be called a fan of globalisation.

Basically he finds the concept of keeping the worldwide contigent of rich, powerful and extremely well fed in the manner they have become accustomed to, rather distasteful.

This all leads to Bad Doors.

For his sins (which are many) Billothewisp builds latch and brace doors. A nice simple design made from good quality French Pine floorboard. Glued using a fine English PVA glue. Hammer and saws are by Stanley. Made in England.

So why, on occasion, do we get a bad door?

The answer?
Bad Nails
and a Bad Router.

The nails are made from very poor steel. (one recently literally shattered when hit by the hammer), but now it is difficult to get anything else.

Then the is (was) the cheap router. This was great to start with, then it fell apart. It became unpredictable and dangerous.

Even Old Neanderthals do not want to accidently lop off assorted body parts with lethal tools so, with much regret ( and cost) it was binned.

Both nails and Router were made in foreign fields (China). They were made down to a minimum quality to maximise the profit for the posh, powerful and exceptionally well fed. No doubt the actual makers earned next to nothing.

The router lasted barely one year. The nails will be binned immediately I find a good quality replacement (price immaterial).

In the end only the social layer consisting of the very well fed would consider this a good deal. I won't even consider the environmental friendliness or economic practicality of it all.

The router has now been replaced by a German router. ( Deutschland uber alles Englander!! )

I have yet to find a decent nail.

The evil of Globalisation is that it chases down the price irrespective of the damage done to native industries or peoples. If there was a cheaper place to make crap nails or routers then thats where the manufacturing would migrate to, irrespective of the consequences for the original manufacturer. Product quality will always come a poor second.

Luckily there are still a few places left in Europe ( even in England)that treat their workforce reasonably well and still make good tools, but they are diminishing.

However BillotheWisp has learnt a very important though expensive lesson.

You only get what you pay for.

One day, I hope we see that Chinese workers need to make stuff for China (currently they end up exporting it all) and English workers return to make stuff for England rather than working in banks and insurance companies. This may well end up with the Great, Good and exceptionally well fed getting slightly smaller portions, but hey, they have a great deal of fat to spare.

The Ghost of Tyneham Village

Tyneham village is (or was) a small village deep in the Dorset Purbecks. The people there eked out an existence living off the land and fishing from the nearby Worbarrow Bay. It was a typical early-mid 20th century rural community. No doubt the chocolate box exterior his veins of squalor and poverty, but generally the people loved their village and were devoted to it.

Along came World War 2.

Tyneham village has two peculiarities. The first is that it lies in the middle of a very large army firing range, the second is that Worbarrow bay has a passing resemblance to a Normandy beach.

Needs do as needs must.

The people were asked to leave so the army could practice for D-Day. They were promised they would be able to return after the war. In 1943 they were given one month to leave. Most of the folk were simple and poor tied farm workers . They rented their homes. Although they may well have lived there for generations the only compensation they received was for the value of the vegetables growing in their gardens.

That is not a joke.

I will repeat it in case you mis-understood.

The only compensation they (ever) received, for losing their homes and way of life, was for the value of the vegetables in their gardens when they were requested to leave.

But these were patriotic people who were more than willing to do their part in the sure knowledge that the Great, Powerful and Extremely Well Fed would honour their word and allow them to return at the end of the war.

But politicians had other ideas and they were not going to let a group of naive, honest and patriotic Englishmen get in their way. The village remained closed. A campaign in the 1970's to have the village rightfully returned to its original inhabitants was stone walled by successive governments ( and investigated by MI5). Eventually the campaign failed.

Today Tyneham village still remains a ghost town. At weekends the remains are open to the public where they can see the ruins, frozen in time. They can visit the restored school house or church but the village remains firmly in the grip of the MOD. There are no plans to honour the 1943 promise anytime soon.

Of course, the longer the MOD leaves it, the less they have to worry about. The displaced villagers now, at least, have the right to be buried in the churchyard. But that is all. Soon there will be no-one left that has a direct link to the village and the MOD's worries will be over.

Nobody is more patriotic or supporting of the Army's need to have adaquate training areas than BilloTheWisp. But I fear we lose something fundamental from our democracy when promises to our own patriotic and hard working people are broken so brazenly for so many years. Especially when the breach is for little more than a convenience of access.

Finally I would also suggest that such a governmental transgression against ordinary people would have been corrected long-long ago in Scotland or Wales. Only in the non country of England where working people like those from Tyneham are held in such contempt by the Rich Arrogant and Extremely Well Fed would this travesty have been allowed to cast its shadow for so many decades.

If you come and visit Dorset try and visit the Ghost Village of Tyneham. It is open most weekends.

Car Scrappage: Insult to Neanderthals

Oh! How Green! The Environmentally Friendliness of it! The Massive Support for British Industry!

I think not.

I take my ten year old car to the crusher. The government generously donate 2000 quid of taxpayers money to the local car dealer. He lops off about 1000 quid from the inflated asking price before giving me the keys to my nice new shiny Hyundai, Fiat or Skoda.

This old Neanderthal has to scratch his head at this point. (No, it is not lice or nits). First of all the majority of the cars on offer are built abroad. They directly compete with British built cars ( even then, these British built cars are all made by foreign owned manufacturers ) so, how does that help British industry?

The Neanderthal grey matter gets even further stressed when it comes to the environmental friendliness of this.

After all 50% of the energy consumed by a car in a 10 year period is used in its manufacture. It seems rather ludicrous that crushing a ten year old car and replacing it by a shiny new one somehow reduces energy consumption.

Why not get the ten year old car re-furbished. i.e. REBUILD IT.

Donate the 2000 quid to the rebuilders. (aka more jobs: less waste: less pollution: less dole: more employement in Engineering: More tax revenue. Ugh!) Convert it to LPG! Keep it on the road for another ten years. That in itself saves 25% of the total energy bill per car in one hit. Simply by not paying the manufacturing energy bill twice.

But alas, Neanderthals are a simple folk. Of course using the car scrappage money for saving cars rather than destroying them is a non-starter to our Posh, Powerful and Extremely Well Fed elite. They would not be able to display this palty £2000 figleaf of support for an industry they have singularly destroyed over the last 30 years. It would also mean that money would actually go to those nasty people who get their hands all oiley and mucky and create wealth for the rest of us.

Meanwhile BilloThe Wisp will continue to drive his 11 year old car with pride. After all, he is sure in the knowledge that his vehicle is considerably more environmentally friendly than a new ugly Korean tin box available from the local dealer.

He also takes it as a personal insult to have the Posh, Powerful and Extremely Well Fed suggest that he should crush a perfectly good car simply to appease some Mung Bean eating Nazi twits who know bugger-all about energy use or conservation anyway.

Finally A brief Neanderthal tirade on the term "British"

Thougout this post I have used the term "British". This is a term used for those who live in Britain. Britain is a grouping of real countries along with the non country of "England"

It is easy to tell which are the real countries because they have their own Parliaments or Assemblies. Of course the non country of England has no representation for the English in any form of Assembly.

One day, regrettably, it may end up that even the fair-minded English in the non country of England feel so ignored and despised by the Great, Mighty and Extremely Well Fed that they are lured towards Ugly forms of politics.

The Great, Mighty and Extemely Well Fed may well then ponder on the fact that this is what invariably happens when a peoples identity is air-brushed out and they are denied fair representation.

EFPYPW6QE538

Amazing Radio

Even though it is Christmas day this has to be said.

Note: This has nothing to do with the amount of Old Speckled Hen that has been consumed.

Billothewisp has recieved a digital radio for Christmas and has had fun tuning it in while drinking his customary 10 litres of Old Speckled Hen before lunch ( a modest Neanderthal array of Chicken, Duck and assorted hamsters, puppies and fluffy kittens).

I found the usual shite BBC radio 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 closely followed by commercial "this" and commercial "that" all playing at least 2 toons per hour to interspace their interminable adverts for double glazing and constipation remedies.

Then I found it. I fell over. (nothing to do with the Old Speckled Hen I hasten to add).

It was, well, Amazing

A radio station called Amazing Radio in fact. (you can also listen to it on-line at the link)

Before you think this is some form of promo, I can assure you that BilloTheWisp has recieved no form of monetary, reciprocal, sexual or other favour, or any blackmail, bribery or threat to his person or property from the afore-said digital radio station known as "Amazing Radio" .

Neither has he been offered a peerage, or a seat on the board. Nor has he been given a baseball bat and the opportunity to spend five minutes in a small a room with Gordon Brown.

Amazing Radio works by playing the music of unsigned artists. It pays the bills by selling the music (they say 70% goes to the artist).

Imagine listening to the pure energy and power of the music off the first album of your favoutire band.

Remember the first time you heard that music. The tracks that stopped you dead. You had to ask you it was and then go out and buy the album yourself.

Amazing Radio is like that. Track after Track. OK some are just so-so but most are wonderful. But all have the raw energy and unbridled commitment of people who need to present their art.

That is it. A simple idea. No bloody Simon Cowells no rubbish politically correct self important shite like the BBC, just new fresh clean music.

But really, it is Amazing. Fantastic.

Now I need to get back to another bucket full of Old Speckled Hen and do some more listening to Amazing radio.
Merry Christmas
BilloTheWisp

A Christmas Apology to Thingy( Nick Clegg )

He may lead an out of date, irrelevent political party with no hope and no policies. But even so, I really should not have been so rude as to refer to the leader of the Liberal Democrats as Thingy in this post. But honestly, at the time, I simply could not remember his name. I have however been scratching through the Neanderthal grey matter (of which there is not a great deal) and finally, through much miming and mouthing of possibilities (Cligg Cleeg Clogg Clergg Clugg) I finally got to Clegg. Eureka!!

Now for the easy part:- his first name

and Of Course!

Its Brian.

Ah No. Unfortunately I have just been informed that thats wrong too. Perhaps Brian may well have been a better choice for his parents but I am now reliably informed by my colleagues that his first name is Nick.

I assume that is Nicolas rather than Nicola or Nicole, but then, his parents didn't call him Brian (which was clearly the best choice) so they may well have gone completely off track. After all the Liberals are a rather sexless lack-lustre group of no-hopers so all bets are off.

Perhaps I will simply call him Nick Clegg.

So, finally,

An Apology

Dear Nick Clegg,

Please accept my apologies for calling you Thingy in this post

But perhaps you should stop trying to be all things to all men. If you spent a bit of time addressing the needs and aspirations of the English in their non country of England you may become more memorable. You could also keep your power base in the Outer Hebrides or Outer Mongolia or wherever it is. We wouldn't mind.

Kind Regards
BilloTheWisp

Finally a seasonal little poem to get us through the yule-tide roo-ha-ha. Aknowlegment to Jethro Tull (aka Iain Anderson) and also whoever wrote the original bit. (No. it wasn't Nick Clegg)

Once In Royal Davids City,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby,
You would do well to remember,
What he later said.

As you are stuffing yourself at Christmas
You would do well to think,
That the Christmas spirit,
Is not just what you drink.

Anyway, it went something like that.

Merry Christmas
BilloTheWisp

The Striking Out of England

Today at mid-day I had no lunch. Not one morsel passed my lips. Even the bloody "Oily Rags" I have to work with had their "Ham" sandwiches and "Muesli" snackbars. But I had nothing.

Anyway to kill the pangs of hunger, I decided to surf to the BBC website to read the news instead.

BilloTheWisp decided to navigate to politics. More precisely to this page. Nice layout! Lots of fine words (well, they do get nearly 3 Billion quid a year from you suckers) but....

There was something missing.

Underneath the headline stories there was a section Scottish Politics. Another for Northern Ireland Politics and finally a third for Welsh Politics. Really, there was something missing. Neanderthals are really built for stability rather than speed so I had to mull it over for quite sometime.

What could it be? Then it came to me. In a flash. Or more a rumbling of discontent, a bit like the rumbling of my unfilled belly. There was no mention of English Politics. Not one word. Let alone a heading. It was as if England had been airbrushed out of the political make-up of the UK.

BilloTheWisp is a trusting sort of chap, though a bit hairy. Consequently, I have decided that until justice is served and fairness established for England by the establishment of an English Parliament, I will follow the lead of the exceptionally well fed at the BBC by airbrushing England out. This will undoubtedly also save any embarrasment to our leaders in England, who of course, cannot be our English leaders anyway, because England does not exist. Let alone have any political representation.

Unfortunately this Neanderthal centric blog is mainly about England. Consequently I felt it would be rather messy to simply remove all references to England and the English. So please excuse this simple Neanderthal who, instead of airbushing England out, will now ensure that any reference to the non country of England is now struck out from this blog instead.

I hope that will enable all of us who live in England to stop worrying about silly things like democracy and fair-play. We can then get on with paying our English taxes into the Barnett formula so the other real countries around us can flourish and push forward leaving us English ever wistful for the fiction of the non country of England

TV Debates: Cameron, Brown and Thingy. Who Eats Who?

We Neanderthals have a way with politics and politicians. Generally we think they need a good stewing in the heat of public debate, if not in a bit of Garlic and onions, with marrow from the bones of long dead Mammoths hmmmm.

We don't think that simply trying to get them to dazzle each other with the shiny glints off their ultra white teeth is really going to cut the mustard. How about some hard options like addressing their policies to a bunch redundant steel workers from Redcar. I am sure they would love to hear why globalisation is such a wonderful idea.

Simply getting them to trading their latest spin is going to be boring. Why not spice it up a bit, say, each one gets a given a baseball bat, then we could bet on the winner, and eat the losers . Hey! Perhaps that means we get to eat all three! Hmmmm.

It is nice to see that the SNP are likely to sue. I like the SNP. Although they stiff us English soooo regularly they are, after all, almost Nethanderals themselves (and I mean that in the nicest possible way).

How about seeing UKIP, English Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Greens, even the bloody BNP having a fair crack of the whip too.

Simply divvying up the airtime between the staid old boring out-of-date self important berks who have no ideas, and no hope is really just too depressing to contemplate.

Some say, that if you are going to eat Homo Sapiens, especially of the political class, they are best boiled with lentils. Personally I prefer them char-grilled. Perhaps the lads from Redcar could lend us one of their mothballed furnaces.

2012 and The End Of The World

Just to get us in the mood: A song from the Sixties:


The Eve Of Destruction

The Eastern World, It is Exploding,
Violence flaring, bullets loading,
You're old enough to kill,but not for voting,
You don't believe in war so whats that gun you're toting,
And even the Jordan river has bodies floating.
And you don't believe -
we're on the eve of Destruction?

So sang Mr Barry McGuire in 1965.

But we are still here.

One of my many old paper-backs is a blockbuster from the early 1970's titled "The Doomsday Book" by Gordon Rattray-Taylor.

The fly leaf reads:

If you thought you were going to survive the next 30 years then think again!

From Wikipediea I see that the lights went out for Mr Rattray-Taylor in 1983. No doubt, while on his death bed he confidently assumed that the rest of us would be following him to meet the Maker in short order.

But we are still here.

Skip several "the end is nigh" phophesies and now we are looking down the same old gun barrel again.

This time however, it is bound to be true. After all, I am reliably informed the Mayan civilisation have an end date to their calender which corresponds to December 21st 2012.

The Mayan civilisation, which built such wonders as the pyramid at Chichen Itza were massively skilled in astronomy and mathematics. They devised a sophisicated calender which does count up to a date which corresponds to 21-12-2012. The bit that most doom-sayers seem to miss though is that after reaching 21-12-2012... it counts on. A bit like 1999-2000.

No doubt if the Mayans had survived their own internal wars and the Spanish invaders, they would have thrown a massive party before getting back to the odd human sacrifice or two.

For all their sophisicated mathematics the Mayans were a stone age people who never even invented the wheel. I think it hardly likely they knew something 600 years ago that we don't know today.

But to keep in the mood of Mr Barry McGuire. Heres my prediction for 21-12-2012.

In Dorset, England it will be drizzling. At approximately 22:00 hours, shortly after the drizzle has turned to a whitish-grey slushy snow, and shortly before I find out that I have just finished the bottle of cider I had been enjoying all evening, the world blink out.  

As if it was never there. 

Spooky eh?

But it is bound to be true. Look at the weather here tonight. Is that not an obvious omen and portent? And exactly two years almost to the hour before doomsday.

For further enlightenment, please send cheques/postal order/paypal etc marked payable to BilloTheWisp. I will help lighten your physical burden so the passing into the cosmic ether will be less arduous for you. You can thank me later.

Just remember the chilling words of Private Frazer:  

We Are All DOOMED!

Just as a matter of interest: When nothing much happens on 21-12-2012 does anyone know what the next end-of-the-world date/scenario is? I might like to make a block-buster movie about it.

The End for Borders Books

What a shame. Today we went to Borders Bookstore in Bournemouth as they close down. I believe they went into administration a couple of weeks ago and now there is the usual fire-sale with massive reductions on whats left. While we came away with some really great bargains it makes me sad to see the passing of such a nice bookshop.

There was something particularly friendly and cosy about Borders. I have spent many hours in there, just browsing through the book and CD's as well as regularly buying some gem  of a book or recording that has been just sitting there, waiting for me to turn up. The staff were always helpful, friendly and also really very knowlegable about some quite esoteric areas of my personal music and literary tastes.

I dare say it is hardly going to be a great christmas for the now redundant staff. If any of them read this, I wish you well and hope you get yourself a new job soon. Thanks for all the help and friendly advice you have provided over the years.

I wonder what will replace what was, a big feature shop in Bournemouth. I'll miss browsing the books and having a coffee in the friendly atmosphere.

Goodbye Borders and farewell to all your staff..

Copenhagen: Planet Almost Saved.

130M quid. 15000 delegates/diplomats/politicians/activists plus 10000 hangers-on/camp followers/secretaries/mistresses, and it finally ended up as a conference  of  five countries.

At least they agreed. We now know they may do something about whatever-it-is someday soon. The ruling mafiosa from the developing world were originally outraged, until they found out that the cheques would stop arriving if continued acting all bitter and twisted.

Nobody took any notice of Gordon Brown (thank God) even though he was, as usual, larging it about with the national cheque book offering to financially crucify the country ever more for somebody elses benefit. 

I have been to some really good parties in my time but realistically none of them would be able to even hold a candle to the Copenhagen extravaganza.

Save the Planet (and pass the Caviar)

Did you realise that there are 25000 delegates/diplomats/etc at Copenhagen for the climate conference? My God! ....and I was appalled by MP's expenses. What a junket!

The press are already trying to build up the tension. Their woeful corus on possible failure reminds me of something called the "dark moment" in fiction writing.

The dark moment is that moment when your hero appears doomed to failure, only (of course) to win the day shortly afterwards.

Don't expect anything else from the Great and the Good at Copenhagen. Saving the world at the last moment is bound to be fitted in between the lavish dinners and self congratulatory claptrap. Then they can all all jet back to their opulent official residences. First class. Of course!

CRU Hacks and an Economy of Truth

Professional scientists have always massaged their results to emphasise their convictions. The most notorious example of this was the famous Millikan Oil drop experiment which determined the charge on an electron. During his experimentation Millikan discarded huge quantities of data in order to arrive at the "correct" answer. This only came out when his notebooks were examined many years after his death. We should not be surprised at similar data manipulation of the data surrounding climate modelling.

The problem with climate science is now that both proponents and opposers of Climate Change have taken on the aspect of quasi-religious societies, each competing to prove the other is some form of Grand International fraud or cover-up.

Meanwhile the Great and the (not so) Good grandstand it at Copenhagen. The poisonous influence of these high rolling politicians vying for influence and power pushes the science ever more to the boundaries of rationality. They know there is nothing more compulsive than another "End Of The World" story or "International Conspiracy" (I must do a post on our perennial lust for doom mongering soon).

Whatever the outcome of the contrived drama in Copenhagen, please be guaranteed that  the rich and powerful in developing countries as well as our own powerful elites will not be going short anytime soon. As for the rest of us, well that may well be another story.

22 New helicopters

Tonight it is raining and bitterly cold. I can hear our brave boys practising with their artilliary on the West Lulworth ranges. Out in the dark and cold. Shortly, no doubt they will be off the Afganistan firing for real.

The government has just ordered another 22 Chinook helicopters to be delivered over the next three years. No sight of a quick exit from Afganistan then? Oh and I thought our lads had all the helicopters they needed anyway. Or so we were recently told.

To pay for these there will be cuts elsewhere, less fighter aircraft, less training. Lets hope that Gordon doesn't decide to have a fight with anyone with an airforce, or we (or rather other lads, like the ones in Lulworth tonight) will really be in trouble.