The Tale of the Useless Gardener

Several years ago the parks department appointed a gardener to run the village park. The gardener had no qualifications in horticulture but he told the people he was really good and would make their park the best in the country.

Because they trusted the parks department the people paid him well knowing they were investing in a park for the future, they left him to decide what plants to buy and where to plant them. All summer long he planted many many tropical plants from far and wide making the village look fantastic.

Several people in the village were concerned that he was planting so many tropical plants and spending so much money, they thought that the plants would die in the winter. But the gardener told them he knew what he was doing and that everything was completely OK.

The parks department collected a huge Christmas bonus for the gardener from the people of the village for making the gardens look so good.
Then winter arrived, the plants at first seemed to be OK, but one by one they began to turn brown and die until there was nothing but dead rotting plants in all the gardens

The gardener saw the plants and said "no matter give me more money and I will go and buy more plants". Some of the people thought this was wrong but Mr Brown the head of the parks department said it was OK and gave the gardener a huge sum of money from the village funds to buy new plants.

Spring arrived and the gardener re-planted all the gardens with tropical plants and the village looked wonderful, but then a late frost killed every one of the new plants. The villagers were furious with the gardener for what he had done. But Mr Brown said it was not his fault and gave him more money.

The gardener replanted all the tropical plants and all summer the gardens looked splendid but the villagers were not pleased, they knew what would happen as soon as winter arrived.

Christmas came around again and the people said that the gardener should not get a bonus because he had done a terrible job and cost them a fortune. But the parks department said that if they didn't give the gardener a good bonus he would leave and go to another parks department. The people of the village were delighted at the though of the gardener going, they knew he was a rubbish gardener and was doing a terrible job.

But the parks department took the money from the people of the village and paid the gardener a huge Christmas bonus so that he would not leave.

Based on a true story ? - You can bank on it.

Nick Griffin - BNP - Question time

I thought I would share my observations and comments on the leader of the BNP who appeared on BBC Question Time last night.

That's it, that's all the time I can be bothered to spend on him.

Womb transplants - What the heck for?

The scientists, doctors or someone today has announced that womb transplants have come a step closer.
You may disagree but what the heck are they doing. If I had my way IVF would be banned along with any other types of fertility treatment. The world is over-populated and only just able to sustain the number of humans that we have at the moment, so why do we need to help another group of women have babies.

Again you may think what an awful person I am to make such a suggestion, but truly we need to stop helping people have babies and leave it to the will of God who can and can not have a child.

There is no earthly reason to help create more babies than are naturally conceived, and if you are a woman who wants a child and can't have one then tough. Think of it as your way of helping the planet.
If nothing is done to slow the expansion of the population then it will only be a few generations before starvation hits big time as countries stop exporting food and seas become empty of fish.

Persil - What is the point of it?

The heading is Persil but it could just as easily be Aerial or any other of the multitude of powders and liquids that are on the shelves. The reason I say Persil is because that happens to be the one that is by my washer at the moment, but they are equally as useless.

Let me justify that, at the weekend I enjoyed a takeaway meal, unfortunately so did my t-shirt upon which I dropped just one piece of rice with sauce. The next morning together with the rest of the washing in went my shirt. A nice long wash at 60degC, I don't ever do 40deg especially if it has one of those stupid "think environment wash at 30" labels, the necessary amount of Persil added plus water softener and the washer left to do its thing.

A little over an hour later I unloaded the washer and you guessed it the greasy rice mark is still there. Yet how come on the TV ads the clothes go in covered in everything and the next minute there they are all glowing white again.
I suggest that there is a trick of TV, the soiled clothes go in the bin and new ones find their way to the washing line.

I have yet to find a washing powder or liquid that removes any actual dirt from clothes, everyone knows this is the case too because they are happy to buy Vanish or Shout or some other chemical that will get clothes clean to add to the already overprices washing chemicals. And you guessed it these chemicals don't work either.

The washing chemical market is worth billions of pounds and for 30 or more years the TV has been telling us that this or that washes whiter, brighter or whatever so we all waste money on them in the misguided belief that the adverts are true and they will remove stains from our clothes.

Washing powders and liquids must be the longest running con in the history of retail. On holiday the washer only had these "eco" balls to wash with, they have been proved to be no better that washing with water alone, yet surprisingly I thought the clothes came out just as clean and fresh as when I wash with Persil.

So, Eco balls wash as well as Persil, and they wash as well as water alone. Ill leave you to draw your own conclusions on that.

Climate protest & other Points from the news

Climate change protesters

The great unwashed drongos were out over the weekend again, this time they were in Nottingham trying to "shut down a coal fired power station".

Who do these people think they are and why are they not treated as terrorists and shot, or, I have another idea that might wake these low-life up to reality.

Let them into the power station to turn off the generators, then tell them they can all go home but to remember the journey home, in the VW camper smelling of cats, might take longer than usual because there are no traffic lights working and if they need petrol they are out of luck because the petrol stations can't pump and the service stations are all shut.

When they get home to their squats proud of their days work they can't have a cupa tea because the power is off, can't cook, cant buy food can't use the phone or mobile, cant go on the computer, can't use the toilets because the sewage treatment is out of action and oh there isn't any water either or gas.

So come on all you climate change dim-witts, with your mates stopping any new nuclear power stations being built or trying to turn off the gas ones, how exactly do you think you are going to live now.

Security undresses you at the airport

The latest security scanner to be trialed at Manchester airport strips you off so the security staff can see through your clothing.
How exciting for them, they can apparently see how well hung the guys are and if the woman with the big, you know whats, is using a wonder bra or had implants.

Within days of saying it is not a breach of our rights for someone to be using a device to see through our clothes someone has stopped them scanning anyone under the age of 18 because its an offence to make an indecent picture of a child.

Hold on, "make a picture" I thought they were just looking for explosives and knives I didn't realise that if I walked through my image would be posted on www,airportsecuritywanksite.com or some such place.

Two other things come to mind, if it is OK to scan someone who is 18yrs old then why is it wrong to scan someone who is say 17yrs and 363 days, and secondly isn't there just a chance that a terrorist might be under 18 or heaven forbid get their under 18yo offspring to carry the weapon through.

If its OK to subject me to being virtually nude as I walk past security in the interest of safety then it should apply to everyone regardless of age, or no one at all.

Everyday we get closer to the science fiction that used to scare us, and everyday we let it happen.

MPs' Expenses - They still don't understand

Funny how views of a person can change over just one thing they say. I had thought that Anne Widdecombe was one of the more sensible of the loonies in power, until she opened her mouth about expenses this week.

Anne raved that "if any other employer had changed the rules" on expenses after you had claimed them and "stuck fastidiously to the rules" then the employer would be up before a tribunal.

Sorry Anne, you and the rest of your mates have really still not got it have you.

I defy you to find any other employer in the world who would pay you expenses to clean your moat, buy a £15k bookshelf, pay to furnish a second home, build a duck house, pay for your usual daily expenses of living twice and still give you a huge salary.

If any other employer paid expenses for all these things to all their staff they would be bankrupt and out of business, or if you claimed them you would be out of a job at the least and the way some of you lot have fiddled your claims, possibly in prison.

Can you believe that some MPs are thinking of taking the case to the High Court, I guess they are not worried about how much that will cost, it will just go on expenses.

Debt Collectors - Pay what you don't owe or else!

Have you ever wondered where the saying "crime doesn't pay" comes from when crime quite obviously does pay very well.

Three years ago we were victims of identity theft and had £10k worth of fraud done on one of our credit cards. To this day we are sure that a call centre sold details because the fraudsters knew everything, and other people with the same credit card company had similar experiences. Still as the police were not interested and after a lot of hassle we got the money refunded we thought the matter was dead and gone.

Until this week. Imagine my shock when opening a letter from a phone company I have never had any contract with to be told that they had sold my debt to a debt collector and a letter from the debt collector saying pay us in 10 days or we will send the boys round. I could not grab the phone fast enough.

The debt collecting agency were, as most probably are, totally obnoxious taking the line that you owe us money and you will pay us unless you can prove otherwise.
I told them that I had never had a phone with these people and had never even visited the part of the UK where I was supposed to have lived. Then I realised that there was no point talking with them. They had put some kind of black mark against our credit rating, were demanding money that I did not owe and were threatening me but I had no redress at all. What kind of country do we now live in.

Luckily we still had the paperwork from the credit card fraud and looking through it I found an entry with a phone company, so not only had they bought a phone they had obviously set up the payments against our card and so as soon as the card had been stopped the debt began to grow.

I phoned the gangsters, oops debt collectors, again and tried to give them details of the credit card investigation but they were not interested, telling me that they didn't believe me and anyone could tell them a story like that. Well yes they could, but taking the logic he was giving me they can, and probably do, pick anyone at random and demand money, because how do you prove you don't owe something.
It is funny that they apparently have "access to information to trace us" to our home address but not to establish that we never lived where the phone was sent.

So crime does pay and the innocent get threatened and hounded.

But if Mr debt collector calls at the door I hope he has good medical insurance. I don't know why but I think he might need it.

Biodegradable

I was at Hyde Hall in Essex the other day, if you are into RHS places and have the chance it is worth a visit, and after wandering around the gardens we headed for the cafe.

The new visitors centre is a wonderful building of lots of wood and supposed to be all Eco and sustainable, although they have a metal roof which is probably not very "Eco". Inside they serve everything in or on paper plates, with forks and spoons made of some kind of re-cycled plastic.

After munching my way through a panini and cupa tea I headed for the "recycling point" and as I sorted my various articles one of the managers there began to enthuse about how the plates and cups bio-degraded in just 80 days, "just 80 days that's really good isn't it". When I am chucking out paper plates and plastic forks when the most Eco solution would be china and metal heading to washing up I can't get excited about degradable in 80 days.
"Surely re-usable cups glasses and forks would be far better" I replied, "the kitchens don't have a dish washer" un well that's not very well planned is it, doesn't she know how much energy and bleach etc is used in making paper products.
Its like Eco re-usable shopping bags, made from fibres of a plant but they forget to tell you that the rain forest is now being cut down even faster to grow the plants for the fibres. Yes really it is.

She went on about her 80 days, "and where is it bi-degraded is it on a compost heap and then used on the gardens here" I asked. "I don't know" was her feeble reply.

So there we have it, biodegradable crockery that degrades in 80 days, and if I guess right that will be in landfill somewhere, not very "Eco" after all is it.

Gordon Brown

Would you buy a used car off of this man, or trust him near small children.

It's not just me, this is a scary picture, isn't it ?

Thank you - for driving safely

I have written about road signs before, the crazy explosion of flashing speed limits signs, but the more I drive the more I see how overcrowded our roads are with useless signs.

One that seems totally pointless is the "thank you for driving safely" or "please drive safely" through our village. I love that I have been able to find the image that heads this blog entry. What is the point, do the people who ask for these signs actually think they make a difference to the speed or manner of driving. Why would they, all they do is take your mind of the road for longer than a place name alone, as you can not help yourself reading the whole sign.

Why don't we see "please drive like a total twit through our town" signs, maybe with "sponsored by Claims Direct" or "sponsored by community speedwatch". And while we are about it I have a couple more suggestions "thank you for not crashing on this motorway" or "thank you for not rubbernecking this crash and causing a 20 mile tailback". No, that would be silly, yet someone agrees to the existing signs thinking they are not in the least silly and will actually have some effect on motorists.

Who is actually saying thank you to me as I drive past these signs, is it the local people, the council, the highway authority, or more likely the company making a killing manufacturing the sign.
We are often thanked by inanimate objects, computer screens, automatic payment devices and a multitude of do this don't do that notices, what is the point, to my mind a thank you is something that one person expresses to another not something that can be conveyed to anyone who reads it, and certainly not from an electrical device.

Which brings me to a sales assistant who was instructed by her manager not to say thank you to customers, "It says thank you on the till receipt" she was told.

Well that's the lot for this time - thank you.