Nuisance calls -HM Government the worst offender

I live in a big house. The telephone rings and -often as not - I am the best part of 40 yards away. I run for it -I don't want to miss out on a good invitation -or -perhaps an editor wanting me to write a piece. I pick up the receiver- there is a short pause- then a disembodied female voice starts to say : "We are calling you to tell you about a new government .." I scream down the telephone, but it is no good as this, of course, is a recorded voice.

How do I stop these nuisance calls from the government? Why can't they just write a letter like they used too? One day -inevitably - as I rush to pick up the telephone - I will trip over the dog or have a seizure. There must surely be a way to silence this ghastly woman and her message, if anybody knows how too please let me know before I do myself and injury.

Harvey Wallenstein

Who or what is Harvey Wallenstein? Till a week ago I had never heard of him nor  - at a rough guess-  had 99.9999% of the population of the UK so why have we had his repulsive features spread over even the quality press.  Honestly I don't know. Apparently he is a top Hollywood film producer and is, by all accounts, a sexual predator. Having been brought up on such salacious reads as the Carpet Baggers  and Valley of the Dolls I thought such behaviour by Hollywood film moguls was par for the course so can't help wondering what all the fuss is about.

Of course the real joke is our Harvey was  a 'right on' member of the 'liberal' establishment. donating money to Hillary Clinton's campaign  and raising many millions for the Democrats over the last twenty odd years. Don't you love it when a full on member of the 'liberal establishment' is found with his trousers down. 

Now we read that Harvey has gone into a clinic to have his 'sex addiction' treated. I can't help wondering how you treat 'sex addiction.'  Do clinics - as public schools allegedly used to - pop Bromide in patients tea in the morning in order to calm natural urges.  In fact an old fashioned English Public School regime might be just the thing for Harvey.  An early morning run, in just a pair of shorts, followed by a cold shower should cool his ardour. Follow that up with nearly inedible food and compulsory games he might lose some weight as well. What though if he misbehaved?  Would Harvey relish receiving six of the best on his voluminous bare behind or would he screech like Billy Bunter did when beaten?  Yes, I think I can safely say that if Harvey attended my specialist clinic for sex addicts he would  emerge as a very different person, possibly even a better one.     

Paying for a 'hard' Brexit

Talk about a row over nothing. One the one hand there is that arch weasel Hammond saying that he has 'not put any money aside' to pay for a 'hard Brexit' and then there is the Prime Minister seemingly contradicting him. The truth is that we don't have to put any money aside to pay for a 'hard Breixt' because if that happens we certainly won't be paying Europe anything like the £30 billion plus they are demanding from us - not to mention our annual membership 'fee' of £13 billion.  In other words we will have simply oodles of money to help smooth the path of leaving Europe.

But all this talk of 'hard or 'soft' Brexit is so much eyewash. The truth is that a 'hard' Brexit will happen. It is simply a matter of mathematics. Twenty seven countries will have to agree the terms of a 'soft Brexit.'  Can you imagine how difficult it will be to get all twenty seven to agree on something so contentious and momentous. Each country will have a particular axe to grind. Spain will want access to our fishing grounds as will France and the Netherlands. Poland, Roumania and Bulgaria will want a special deal for their citizens in the UK ,Germany will want to ply the part of Miss Whiplash and give us 'six of the best' before allowing us to leave and so on.  In other words what is being played out by the Mrs May and her acolytes is a charade designed to show the 'Remainers' in her party and in the country at large that she has really tried to do a fair deal but it is the hard liners on the other side of the Channel who by demanding impossible conditions have made it imposible   

Poldark -a load of rubbish

Every Sunday evening I am now sentenced to an hour of hell- watching Poldark.  Alright I know I watch a lot of rubbish TV but this has to be the  tops as far as rubbish TV goes. My wife though loves it. Apparently women up and down the country swoon every Sunday at Ross Poldark, switching on the TV in the hope that -once again - he will take off his shirt and scythe some hay.

Perhaps if Teresa May and her advisers watched Poldark they would not have called the election because our 'Ross' bears a striking resemblance to Jeremy Corbyn. Not just in being unshaven, or always slovenly dressed but in his complete absence of even the slightest knowledge about economics or actually what's going on in his own county-yet everyone loves him!.

So last night we were informed that in the year 1792 or thereabouts there was 'famine in Cornwall' and the 'people were starving.'  No they weren't. There was no famine in Cornwall in the 18th or 19th century. We were then shown harrowing pictures of starving Cornishmen being shot down by wicked red coat soldiers as they tried to loot a ship which had just arrived full of grain.  Apparently the wicked nouveau riche banker Warleggan- seeing the masses starve -had decided to import some grain to feed them and make -it is true - a handsome profit on the side.  But at least he was bringing grain in for the starving, no one else apparently was. Then the hero, the imbecilic Ross, waking up suddenly to the famine(rather late in the day one would have thought) organised a shipment grain himself and gave it all a way free!

Ross, the hero, is oddly, a member of an old Cornish gentry family fallen on hard times.  He reads the Guardian daily (Ok I made that bit up) , has married the daughter of a Cornish peasant, who keeps on having babies.  Everyone apart from the villain and Ross speaks in a BBC 'mockney' Cornish accent. In other words an accent which has absolutely not a scintilla in common with the real glorious West Country burr which I so well remember from my boyhood.  Why can't the BBC hunt in its voluminous sound archives for genuine Cornishmen speaking and get these overpaid half wit actors to try and get their tongues around the beautiful tones and nuances of broad Cornish, too idle I suppose. 

To add insult to injury most of the filming in the series is not even done in Cornwall. Warleggan's house is, for instance, actually in Gloucestershire. So the history is complete and utter rubbish , the economics laughable, the accents pathetic, and most of the sets bogus. The only good thing are the occasional 'artistic' shots of the glorious Cornish coast. But who cares as long as the ratings are good. Well I care because with a little bit of care and attention the BBC could have made a cracking series which DID get the history, the accents and the details right.  Once thirty odd years or more ago that is what they did better than anyone else in the world. Not any more. Now sadly the BBC is run by morons for morons.

ties or tieless

The ghastly Bercow - otherwise known as the Speaker of the House of Commons - has given permission for MP's to remove their ties.

This 'tieless' move is -I suppose- yet another example of the 'dumbing down' of every aspect of public life. I think it was Tony Blair who begun it all with his shallow 'folksy' image of being 'one of the lads.'  Cameron then took it all a step further - taking his coat and tie off and rolling up his sleeves with the idea - I suppose - of hoping everyone would think he was hardworking chap -rather than what most of them actually thought - that he was a complete phoney- which of course he was/is.

For it is an odd thing about your average Brit that they actually rather like you to 'dress the part.'  We want our Prime Minister to look and behave like a Prime Minister not like a second rate accountant on a day off.  We also -I think - want our MP's to look and behave like MP's (OK I know that's wishful thinking.) 

But there is more to 'dressing up' than just looking the part - I believe the dress you wear helps you to be  the part.  Those of us who remember when policemen where smart as paint also remember that they were very polite and  were admired the world over - now they look like slobs and more often than not behave like slobs and I can't help thinking that discipline in schools would be enormously improved if masters once more wore gowns and mortar boards. 

The UK election - lessons learnt

Predictably the 'Remoaners' are rejoicing at the disastrous Tory election result. Now we must have a 'Soft' Brexit -what ever that means - sounds like a brand of lavatory paper to me..

Well actually NO -the election didn't say that - or anything like that.  The UKIP vote mostly went to the Tories whilst the openly 'Remain' parties, the SNP and the Liberals had a really bad election. it would be a grave mistake of politicians and 'the business community' (of which more later) to think they have killed the UKIP Dragon, it's not dead but only sleeping and Nigel Farage is already half awake ready to re-join the fray. In other words if the Conservative government now thinks it would be good politics to cuddle up to the Germans then they risk reigniting UKIP and a large scale fall off in their electoral support.

Have we learnt anything from this election. Well one thing is that education is clearly a complete waste of time and money - a view I have long held, noting that most successful companies are started by those who leave school at sixteen with one GCSE not graduates with double firsts.  so Cambridge - that seat of learning - retuned a Labour MP for the first time ever- why - because Corbyn said he would not only stop charging students tuition fees but- at a cost of a mere £30 billion- wipe out the debts of any graduate with an outstanding student loan!

You might have thought that the educated elite would have been able to do the sums and work out that showering such largesse on graduates now wallowing in highly paid jobs in business and banking, was, for both economic and political reasons, just not going to happen. But Oh No. These over educated morons voted Labour. so that's one major lesson learnt  - spending more money on education doesn't equal producing a more intelligent electorate - rather the opposite.

Now for the 'business community.' I know - though press studiously ignores it - that many truly successful businessmen -who have actually built up their own businesses -like Lord Bamford - are pro Brexit while the 'Buggins turn' bosses of Britain's banks and large PLC's  are predictably 'Remoaners' also that there are many superb economists who think that a hard Brexit is quite manageable economically.

The thing to remember about the 'business community' is that their vision is short term - for them
five years is a long term project. Governments though should be thinking long term. So the 'business community' loves immigration because it gives them cheap labour. they don't have to worry about the long term consequences of it or pay for the education, health and housing problems it brings in its wake - they just like counting their -mostly unearned -bonuses.

As for the 'banking community' don't get me started on these pariahs. The whole reasons we are in the economic pooh is because of their gross incompetence and they have the nerve to lecture us on the follies of Brexit.  But don't worry when they threaten that 'jobs will leave London' because - frankly- they are most likely to be foreign jobs anyway - by that I  mean a job carried out by a foreigner working and living in London. A friend working for a large Investment Bank told me in his department - employing some 70 people -he and one other where the only Englishmen -So bye bye  banking jobs and hello to affordable house prices in London. sounds like a good deal to me.  

Oh and if a banking exodus means a fall in tax revenue - well we now know where to make the savings - in the higher education budget - it is - as they say - a no brainer

The World we Live In -South West Water - a moron company

The telephone rings- I am  in the middle of breakfast -my wife picks up the receiver - she talks - then turns to me :

"It is South West Water they say they will only speak to you."

Cross - I hate my breakfast being interrupted - I pick up the receiver

"Hello"

"is that Mr Fulford "

" Yes"

"Could you give the first line of your address."

"Why"

"It's because of the Data Protection Act"

"Well as you are calling my home number you must know the first line of my address"

"We have to ask for it -it is the Data Protection Act"

"I am sorry I cannot speak to morons at this time of the morning" and put the telephone down.

Bullying Germany

When will the Germans ever learn. Twice in the 20th century we had to teach them that bullying other countries was just 'not on' and here they go again.  Now they are the big 'I am' of Europe they think once again they can throw their weight around and tell everyone what to do.  Well not us Mrs Merkel.

You would have thought that a day or two reading the history of the last century would have taught her that threats and bombast have the opposite effect on British people than is intended. If instead of being aggressive Merkel and her chums had used soft words and conciliatory phrases plus an little bit of flattery they would have got a very different reaction from the British people. But the more they bully and bluster the more our hackles rise and the more we dig our heals in as the Kaiser and Her Hitler both discovered to their cost.

 

UKIP and the General Etection

Sadly UKIP -at the moment - is in disarray.  It has won the WAR - namely getting a referendum and then winning it - but seems currently to be running around like a headless chicken without direction. So here is what it should do

Firstly announce that it will only field candidates in those constituencies where the Conservative candidate is either a 'remainer' or a 'soft' Brexiter. It would be stupidity itself to put up candidates against proven 'hard' Brexit conservatives.

Secondly it should put forth a populist anti 'metropolitan elite 'manifesto, which should include abolishing the rule that we spend 0.7% of our GDP on overseas aid and instead announce that this money -some £13 billion will be redirected to defence and the health service. It should also contain a commitment to leave the absurd European Convention of Human Rights.

Thirdly - sadly Nigel Farage has said he won't stand for Parliament - which is a pity as I think if he had put himself forward in that ghastly vertically challenged little prig of a Speaker- Bercow's- constituency he would have romped home.  So in Nigel's absence perhaps the current UKIP leader, Mr Nuttall might give it a go  

Prince Harry and his Feelings

I'm afraid I am not going to join the majority in congratulating Prince Harry on 'coming out' with his stories of mental anguish and of showing his feelings.

When doing the TV series Life is Toff  the director kept on asking me;

"Francis what do you feel about............"   to which I eventually responded :

" How many times have I got to tell you - I don't do f****** feelings."  And I don't.

Other peoples feelings (whatever they maybe) are -along with other peoples children and other peoples illnesses  up there at the top of the League table of most boring topic of conversations ever.

It is also the 'Great Excuse' - Oh it is not my fault I am a complete dickhead it was because of  X . No -I'm sorry - if you at a complete dickhead it is your fault.

It is the great curse of modern society that we look for and find excuses for peoples behaviour and tell them that 'it is not your fault' forgetting the thousand of others who have had traumatic experiences who get a grip and fight through without recourse to ghastly psychiatrists peddling their bogus science of endless expensive counselling sessions.

I always remember taking my children for a walk when they were very little. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my eldest -who was lagging behind - fall over onto the rough road - I read his mind - shall I scream and cry or shall I get up and go on - he decided to get up and go on- but I have absolutely no doubt that if I had turned round and said: "Oh darling - are you all right? "   He would have burst into tears and howled. 

What we are doing with this modern obsession with 'feelings' is encouraging everybody to burst into tears and howl and IT IS NOT HEALTHY - rather the opposite.

The Syrian Chemical Warfare atrocity

Ok -I'm back

Inspired by the furore over the chemical atrocity in Syria I think we need to just get our brains into gear and ask some pertinent questions rather than firing off missiles.

1) Who is the major beneficiary of the chemical weapon atrocity is it;

a) President Assad and his forces or
b) Rebel forces - wishing to depose President Assad

2) What strategic advantage were President Assad's forces aiming to gain by the use of Chemical weapons against a small Civilian target?

3) Why having used chemical weapons did the Syrian forces not immediately occupy the area attacked to ensure that no Western journalists etc. had access to it?

4) Unless Assad and his commanders (and his Russian advisers) are all mentally deranged  they would know

a) That the use of Chemical weapons would bring down on them the full wrath of  the western press and every politician in the West
b) That president Trump being the guy he is would quite likely unleash the full force of American power to punish them
c) That therefore using chemical weapons except 'in extemis' or in order to gain an enormous strategic victory was imbecilic

Now I do not believe President Assad is a blithering idiot. I therefore do not believe he ordered or had any pre knowledge of the chemical atrocity.  It is of course possible that a Pro Assad officer ordered the attack off his own bat though again it is difficult to come up with a single logical reason why any reasonably intelligent officer should order a very limited chemical attack on a civilian target and them not immediately secure the target to remove the evidence of the attack.

So I believe that elements of the rebel forces, facing defeat, deliberately engineered a chemical attack on civilians (probably civilians who were supporters of a different rebel group) in order to achieve the AIM of a massive western attack on Assad.

I have said it before and I will say it again. Damascus before the so called 'Arab spring' was the most cosmopolitan and relaxed city in the Middle East. Girls wandered about in western fashion and gays chatted away with each other in restaurants and coffee houses without being persecuted.  admittedly it was a good idea not to voice vociferous anti regime statements and Western Democracy was unknown (as -of course - it is through out the Middle East) but as Dictatorhips go it was pretty benign,

All the so called 'rebel 'groups would, if they got into power, have very different agenda and if any one in the West thinks, for a moment, that some lovely secular Western style Democracy with a independent press and a independent judiciary would evolve from the ashes of the Assad regime then they are very stupid. 

Macdonald's bacon roll v bacon sarney

The other day I was on the road and in need of  breakfast. I spotted a Macdonalds. Now I haven't been into a Macdonalds for about thirty years - so I thought I would see if they have improved!

I perused the menu and settled on a bacon roll. Now frankly what can go wrong with that I thought. The answer - everything. First, it was absolutely tasteless:  the roll was like chewing on cotton wool, the bacon was flavourless rubber and to cap it all it was  tepid.  So I won't be going to a Macdonalds again. But hang on - just how could they have got something so simple and so delicious as a bacon roll so wrong?

Now a proper bacon sandwich or sarney is one of the great culinary delights of the world. The most memorable one I ever had was at a café halfway up a steep hill on our way back from a weekend playing soldiers in the Black Mountains in Wales.  This - Macdonalds -is what you have to do to make a great bacon sandwich.

First -obviously - choose good thick cut tasty bacon with lots of fat - then fry it - then put the said bacon between two slices of Mothers Pride white bread which have been liberally spread with margarine- then serve with a large mug of hot tea or coffee and - as Americans say - enjoy- there is nothing to beat it.

TRUMP -THE FIRST TEN DAYS

The great thing about Donald Trump's election and Brexit is that now nearly everyone is gripped by politics.   The lovely lady who comes in and helps my wife clean once a week said - as she came through the door -"What do you think of Donald Trump then?" - Well until the Brexit vote she had never voted  (she voted out -natch) and now she is really 'into politics.'  That she - and many millions like her - no longer find politics boring is -you would have thought - good news for Democracy -  unless -that is you are  member of that overeducated white middle class  blancmange who are now in meltdown (incidentally next time you see a demonstration on TV try to count how many ethnics are in the demo - hardly any -interesting ) 

So how has the Donald done to date? Well not bad.  He has castigated European countries for not  paying their fair share of the cost of defending their countries - and you know what - he is absolutely right - they don't (only two European countries spend 2% of their GDP on defence per year -one is the UK)- if European countries are not prepared to pay for their own defence why on earth should America do it for them?

He has accused Germany of using the weak euro to dump it's manufactured goods onto the USA. Undeniably true again. Although -the true victims of German manufacturing dominance is not America but all those other European countries whose industries are unable to cope with-for them - an overvalued currency.

He has announced he is going to build a wall to stop illegal immigration. So what's wrong with that? It is surely the primary duty of any leader of a country to ensure its borders are secure - just as it is the primary duty of a householder to make sure his family is safe by locking doors etc. at night.  He has also -of course -said -he wants to deport illegal immigrants - so Hurrah to the that - so do I -and most other Brits.

He has temporarily banned immigration and 'refugees' from six Muslim countries from entering America but -oddly -continues to allow Muslims from another 51 Muslim countries to come in! Again what's wrong with that? And am I alone in being bored by people calling themselves 'refugees when most are 'economic migrants?

So far so good. I am -I admit a littler concerned about his protectionist policies as I am a free trader and I would like him to make sure Israel understands that his support for it is conditional on it ceasing to build new settlements on the occupied West Bank.  But apart from these two issues I am happy to give him an 8/10 so far -But he gets a 10/10 for making politics interesting again for everyone and not for just an educated (badly) elite  

Piers Morgan - The Donald's knight errant

Flicking through Daily Mail on line today I came across this virulent defence of Donald Trump from someone called Piers Morgan

"The only hookers in this story are the cheap lazy journalists who ran with the fake Trump sleaze to urinate on his Presidency"

Can this possibly be the same Piers Morgan who when editor of the Daily Mirror splashed the front page with fake photographs of supposedly British soldiers urinating on captive Iraqis? Surely not, no it couldn't possibly be, especially as I read on : . 

"Because if the new journalism is publish whatever comes across your desk, without any independent  proof it is true, then that's not journalism, it's exactly what Trump called it today: crap "

How very true. Except that is not the 'new journalism' it is the old journalism as practised by Piers Morgan when he was editor of the Daily Mirror -for yes - amazingly -it is indeed one and the same person as -in a follow up paragraph he writes:

"I was fired for publishing supposedly fake (my italics)photographs of  British troops abusing Iraqi civilians..."

Which of course is not true - there was nothing supposedly fake about those photographs - they were fake. By publishing them without "any independent proof" he undoubtedly jeopardised the lives of British troop in Iraq for his own ends.  But Piers is so 'up his own bottom' (it must be a large one to accommodate such an huge arrogant ego)  that he still cannot admit he was wrong and that everything he is now criticising the American press for he was guilty of years back.

A last thought - what do you think Piers-if he was editor of the Mirror today- would have done with this story-published it in full with all lurid details or  refused to touch it until 'proof ' was provided?  It is a no brainer isn't it. What a putrid piece of humanity Morgan is