I love Mathew Parris

Mathew Parris: Finally, I’ve decided to take the plunge. I’m coming out

Today, a big decision on my sexuality. And in this column the announcement. Something I’ve been wrestling with for months but can see at last that I’m just going to have to come to terms with. So take a deep breath . . . and here goes.

I’m coming out as a post-homosexualist. Forty years (tomorrow) after the 1967 law ending the absolute prohibition of homosexuality, 13 years after the reduction of the age of consent from 21 to 18, six years after the further reduction from 18 to 16, and two years after the arrival of civil partnerships, I have finally become bored with the whole damn thing. Bored, not with being gay, but with talking about it. I blame Tony Blair.

Do cats witter endlessly on about being cats? Do redheads drive us to distraction with their thoughts on being ginger? How many serious comment columns in the editorial pages of newspapers are devoted to the musings of straight men on what it is to be a heterosexual? No, they just get on with it – with being cats, redheads or straights. Such things are for the lifestyle sections of weekend magazines, not rubbing shoulders with the debate on global warming, housing or the terrorist threat.

Fellow-queers: stop moaning...

Whine merchants

Our biggest drug problem is an ocean of cheap alcohol

Two weeks ago, the Tories' social justice policy group proposed an extra 7p tax on a pint of beer, 20p on a bottle of wine and 70p on spirits. Last week, the new Scottish justice minister attacked Scotland's "bevvy culture" and its associated "carnage and crime". By the weekend, the government's chief medical officer was talking about increasing tax on alcohol and restricting booze companies' sponsorship of sport. Sunday saw a rash of stories about an imminent government attack on knockdown prices at supermarkets. The next day, Brown announced a review of 24-hour drinking. At this rate, a revived temperance movement will soon be taking to the streets.

Last evening my wife and I opened a bottle of wine. In order to have the money to pay the £8 .95 for the wine we had to earn £15 gross. We then had to pay the duty and the VAT. So, out of that £15 Gordon got a total of £9 - 75 in taxes/NI/duty. Now, because some fucking pissheads in Newcastle or Glasgow are causing mayhem on Friday nights in their city centres we have to pay another 20p for our little indulgence. Note that the proposals aren't aimed at increasing the price of CHEAP booze, the alleged culprit, but ALL booze.

Of course the ultimate stupidity of all this is that our masters are so out of touch with reality that they truly believe adding another 70 pence to the cost of an evening's piss-up is going to curb drunkeness.  It's enough to drive you to drink.

Never mind the terrorist doctors...

Patients pay the ultimate price for NHS errors, says watchdog

Thousands of patients are feared to be dying needlessly every year because of poor communication between hospital staff, faulty equipment and a lack of skills. An analysis of errors has found that some staff failed to make basic checks and that others did not see that their patient’s condition was quickly deteriorating, with fatal results. The National Patient Safety Agency study, which investigated the circumstances in a sample of deaths, also found that there were problems with resuscitating some of the patients.

Latest score:

Terrorist Doctors: 0   NHS: 34,000

Shambolical

'Sacred' Shambo faces slaughter

Shambo the "sacred" bullock at the centre of a legal battle is due to be taken away for slaughter. Hindu monks at the Skanda Vale temple in Llanpumsaint, west Wales, have been told he will be collected at 0800 BST. On Monday, the multi-faith community lost a High Court bid to save Shambo, who has tested positive for bovine TB. The Welsh Assembly Government appealed for co-operation, but the monks have warned that officials will have to interrupt worship to remove the animal.

Officials will have to interrupt worship to remove the animal.
True. But only because the monks and their supporters have decided to hold an act of worship to coincide with the arrival of officials.

Removal of the bullock will involve desecration of a sacred space.
True. But only because the monks and their supporters will make no effort to remove the animal from its sanctuary in readiness for its collection.

And when Shambo is finally carted off this morning the assembled campaigners could make the most of their meet-up and set off for the nearest abattoire, where some of the 40,000 cattle due to be slaughtered today will start their journey to the dining tables of the nation.

Nuff said

MPs warn over air security checks

Heightened security checks at airports could create a potential new target for terrorists, MPs have warned. A report by the Commons transport select committee said queues of hundreds of passengers in cramped spaces could become a security hazard.

Amazing surgery

Breakthrough surgery for tumour victim

A young man in southern China has had a huge 15kg growth removed from his face.

31-year-old Huang Chuncai suffers from the world's most extreme, recorded case of neurofibroma. As Huang's tumour grew he lost his sight in his left eye. Eventually it became so big it damaged his hearing and made speaking very difficult.

Via Spluch

Monies

Fonejacker

Kayvan Novak is a British television actor of Pakistani origin. He has appeared in medical drama Holby City, spy series Spooks, and most recently as an Iranian intelligence officer Academy Award-winning film Syriana alongside Matt Damon and George Clooney.In 2005 he and Ed Tracy created Fonejacker, a prank call-based show as part of Comedy Lab for Channel 4. After the pilot, he was given a Christmas special. The new series is on E4.

I haven't seen much about Fonejacker, the spoof phonecall series by Kayvan Novak which my son and I both love, but I came across a reference at Neatorama which prompted me to post this favourite clip from the first series:

Listen to Tim Worstall (again?)

Tim Worstall: Don't Listen Again With the BBC

Tim Worstall appeared on this afternoon's You and Yours on BBC Radio 4. He seems to have had problems afterwards using the 'Listen Again' service, with Real Player.  Real Player was certainly a pain when it first came out some time ago but I use listen again all the time and haven't had any problems with RP for years. You can also listen again without launching the BBC's stand-alone player.

Anyway, you can listen to Tim Worstall at the You and Yours page, if you are prepared to brave the technology or you can sit back and listen to it here in wonderful streaming audio:

Lurch to the right

BBC NEWS | Nick Robinson's Newslog

Brown has moved to occupy ground left free by Cameron's efforts to prove that the Tories have changed. He's done it in a way that maximises destabilising pressure from Tory MPs and what we used to call the Tory press to, you've guessed it, "lurch to the right". And he's made each of his announcements on the one day of the week when the Tory leader used to be able to count on setting the agenda - PMQs day.

The left meanwhile have been given very little to celebrate save for a man they trust replacing a man they'd come to loathe.

Clever isn't it?

Dead in the water

Cameron losing Tory grassroots support, poll shows

David Cameron is losing his appeal to voters, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published tomorrow which suggests that many Conservative voters have come to dislike the Tory leader. It also shows that he is no longer attracting new support to the party.

The poll, giving Labour a six-point lead, has the Conservative party on its lowest share in any ICM poll since the last days of Michael Howard's leadership in 2005.

Cameron has about as much chance of getting to Number 10 as I have. He's finished before he has even started. The Tories chose a Blair clone just as Blairism went out of fashion. Cameron will never be PM while he's got a hole in his arse. Whatever you think of Labour at least they knew how to pick a winner.

If we get a late summer Brown should go to the country. He'll walk it.

The Battle for Walham

Jon Snow Channel 4 - News - Snowmail 5-22pm

I've been focusing on the extraordinary battle to save the switching station at Walham.

This is a much more sensitive plant than we had at first imagined. Channel 4 News has learned that in addition to the 600,000 people who depend upon it for their supply, it also happens to supply GCHQ - the intelligence monitoring centre at Cheltenham. Oh, and it is a major transit point for electricity direct to the atomic research establishment at Aldermaston.

One wonders whether this perhaps was one of the other reasons that triggered an emergency meeting of Cobra, the ministerial taskforce, last night?

My trip inside Walham today was incredible. The human endeavour to save the place is nothing short of heroic and so too is the forward planning that committed the authorities to buying 50 massive German pumps - each which does the work of 10 fire tenders. This was done just 12 weeks ago.

Without these pumps Walham would have been lost.

Dennis Does Debbuh

Dennis Presents the LMTM:




If you haven't been following Dennis the Peasant's Fox News Bimbo posts this will mean nothing to you.

Dennis is the sort of accountant I want! And he's the sort of Republican the US needs.