Cemented head stunt worthy of the Darwin Award

A man believes his rescue by emergency service for the act of cementing his own head in a microwave was a worthy and justifiable use of those services. Of course this hit national TV and was shown by none other than the BBC as well.

Perhaps this is a new pastime for idiots of the world, maybe a new craze a little like the cold water challenge, where eagerness to take part was met by millions of videos of individuals having buckets with cold water and ice pored over them. Except no one needed to call out the fire brigade and get rescued for such a harmless even. So what did this man gain from it? Quite simply he gained the best publicity he could ever get and it was absolutely free. So it is Jay Swingler 22 years old of Wolverhampton should be nominated as the UKs best candidate to the Darwin award for 2017. If we are lucky he may even commit himself to a second try out and next time throw his entire body into it. He could then be put to some nominal use in supporting a motorway structure in perpetuity. A graffiti plaque would be perfect to commemorate him.

It doesn't take much to ask whether those fire fighters could of been put to better use. In fact, it may well be worth asking was there any other emergency at the time they might have been attending. Such as a pile up on a motorway where a family would have appreciated their skills in cutting them free from the tangled mess of metal cars. Indeed, this inspirational act of cretinism cost the tax payer thousands of pounds. It's not free having a fire service and lets say this probably took at an hour from their day if not more to rescue him. Swingler argued it was not a waste of time because they had saved his life. Yet should a Darwin candidate such as Swingler be allowed to prevent non-Darwin candidates from having their lives saved. It wasn't just reckless, this act of self publicity of looking for national attention and coverage should be worth of a crime and prosecution by the Crown Prosecution Service. Swingler had a choice whether to be stupid and put his head in poly filler in a microwave. He didn't have to, he could of had mates on standby with cutting tools ready to rescue him. He didn't. He wanted to look like a twat and he does. Yet in doing so it can be argued any person with an iota of a brain would see there to be a consequence and to do something without good cause which puts your own life at risk goes beyond stupidity. It goes beyond the requirement of a brain. It is scandalous and malevolent against those who needed the help of emergency services at the same time he was encased.

Swingler has to justify what he has done, he has to justify it to every tax payer and as it is so apparent his act cannot be justified he needs to be punished. His YouTube account closed down, every image of his face deleted from the internet and then made to pay the full costs of all public services involved in his rescue. The reality however is, the emergency services should of advised him to attend a hospital, where he could of waited in excess of 4 hours before being seen. Then the doctors could of asked a hospital porter to set about freeing the idiot with a microwave on his head, the idiot who is guilty of a crime. Not because it was a stupid act but because his very stupidity and conscious knowledge of it may have resulting in the subsequent death of real people in a real emergency situation.

I can't listen to a Trump

I count myself very lucky not to be American, because in my entire life there has not been a worse leader than the Trump. Who likes to vent a lot of hot air, who is a cretin and I would not follow him or give him the time of day for any reason at all. So now when he is on TV I'll mute the volume or I'll change channel. When he reads from a script he desperately has had prepared by individuals with higher verbal reasoning it is painful to watch, because he clearly can not read coherently. Further being president is for him a ticket to ever greater self publication, self advertisement and self appraisal, because lets face it there are very few people who would appraise him.

Yesterday a terrorist drove his van along a cycle path killing a number of people and injuring more. When the video was shown of a man who was in the process of running, it was evident he hadn't planned where he was about to run, he had the look of a confused person and the look of someone who may have a mental health problem. In the meantime I hear a senator wants this individual to be treated as an enemy combatant so he can be questioned without a lawyer and no doubt can be legally tortured. There was no talk of lets examine the individual, find out his intentions, his mental well being and what went wrong, then lets say whether it was terrorist related. The man we know had got his green card in 2010 was married and had a family. Knowing this, it becomes more reasonable to ask what was his motivation? To any sane individual going on a murder spree will mean it's unlikely you'll see your own children grow up and they may well suffer as a result of your actions. For what's now to stop the Trump administration removing the citizenship of him, his partner and his children and making them effectively stateless.

Given this 29 year old, Uzbekistan man by birth and American by of state lottery had done this dastardly deed I can't help wonder whether he really adopted his new country at all. For how could such a man be a citizen and have taken these actions. He had self radicalised and why would this be? Perhaps because there is no adoptive Americanisation program for immigrants. What is sure, is Trump will do anything to stop all immigrants but particularly those of Islamic persuasion from entering America. Yet in this scape goating paranoia of immigrants we don't see the same for indigenous nationals. What comes to mind is the mass murder by a man in Las Vegas, who was white, christian and American right through his DNA. His murder of many more persons snows that Trump thinks it's fine to own guns but it's not fine to be Muslim.

It is a tragic event in every way, but Trump should not be the person talking on behalf of America, someone the world has respect and acceptance for should be up front. So yes, I'll read about the event but will not hear a word spoken by a moron who sadly is president.

Set up to fail in life

The UK has been a place where the classes knew where they stood. The poor, the workers, the middle and the upper classes. Even though some may argue there is no such thing as class and will require a definition, something they can put their finger on. Yet in doing so this is an excuse to detract away from the reality of poverty in Britian. A reality you could only know if you lived in this country and come from the poor, the working or even the middle classes. Anyone in the upper echelons of society would have no idea, would not know what it is like to want for something when the thing wanted is a basic requirement for living. So it is. Those who are born in the lower classes have less opportunity and chance to thrive than those in the upper. And by thrive I don't mean go out and procreate because the best thing for upper classes is to see the masses of poor get bigger for they then stand on an even larger step, and those little ones will be the future debtors upon the rich will stand and prosper from. The point here is, without really understanding it, but certainly feeling it I'd say at least 80 to 90 per cent of the British people have been set up to fail. Set up to stay where they are and not given the chance to become socially mobile, not given the chance to excellent education, to physical and mental care to the freedom of a life they should live.

Young kids know no better they are happy with what they are given because this is life and they don't question whether it should be any different, whether it should be better. In recalling tea time during my childhood, one of Mum's favourite teas was spaghetti.  She had a thing about Spaghetti in tomato sauce, I ate it but it wasn't my favourite by any shot. She'd heat it up on the stove and we'd have toast with the spaghetti ontop. That tin fed four. One adult and three children. This is the late 1960s and the 1970s now. I'd scoff it down as quickly as I could, now I realise I was always hungry always and on the lookout to get the first dibs on a plate of food. The inevitable words 'it's ready' were shouted then there would be a race to the table and at the sight of the plates a mental arithmatic, calculating  which plate was the biggest. I could guarantee the same thing happened with my sisters. It's funny but if I was late for tea because I'd been out playing or it had been cooked earlier than usual then there was nothing to judge. Just the single plate of food there and I'd be happy to eat it even though it would be cold. And it did get could quickly for my mother didn't understand and didn't care about warming up plates. One of the basics of food delivery, put hot food on a cold plate and the food will go cold quickly as well. You don't need to be a scientist to realise this. So to get something hot meant knowing lunch time and tea time and being there ready before it got dished out.

Kids grow up. As they always do, they also get a thirst, it's the want for new things as they compare themselves to other kids who have stuff. This in turn puts pressure on parents as their sons and daughters ask for things they cannot afford. Things which have to be saved up for and be kept in mind for a birthday or christmas. Which no doubt are always expensive. Those families who live in social accomodation, that is council housing or housing association properties would have more to spend than those whose parents were trying desperately to buy their own house. When it comes down to it, it is about available income after all the essentials had been paid for. Today with the drastic reduction in wages and an employers galore market place, employees have to take what they are given. Accept their wages, do their job and be expected to make ends meet. Yet again though like the era I recall it's possible to see the same poverty permeating society, dragging down those poor into the deepest poverty they have every been, making those working classes worker longer hours than they every have. It's acknowledged the UK is the least productive EU nation. It's true, it's the only come back workers have, though it may not be intentional, if you are going to make the poor work like slaves you might find they decide they are not going to be working like a slave and actually slow down their productivity, be creative in the sabotaging of work output. Whether consicous or unconsciously this will happen.

So it is the poor and working classes are not given opportunity, they are given little financial support and the financial support they are expected to claim is changed and re-evaluated by uncaring governments. Why is it under Universal Credit a claimant will actually be less well off than had they continued to claim the individual benefits they were previously entitled to? Why is it politicians think that simplificaiton of six benefits into one makes things easier? It doesn't. I can tell you every family is different, every family has different circumstances and the benefits they get relate to those circumstances. The roll out of UC has pushed more families to be evicted than every before, there are more in emergency short term accomodation than there ever has been, more people on the street begging than ever before and it is getting worse.

When I say some are set up to fail, it is through experience and knowledge of the system of social support of social education and of the social ladder. The ladder which has been covered by grease by some toff who happened to think it was a great idea. In the meantime same toff presses the button for a lift, here it comes. What's that in their hand? Oh yes one of those exclusive toff club key cards, just to ensure only they get access to it. After all they don't want any waif and strays entering their club on the higher floors. If they do, it's through the back entrance. Yep, amongst the shit and they better clear it up after them even tho it belongs to those ontop.

Politics of self-preservation

Both British and American politics is suffering an illness, it's called being a member of the Self-Preservation Society. An elite grouping of powerful people who band together to ensure and maintain their power at the benefit of only themselves even when their position of power has been determined by the voter. The Maybot Denier of Truth Teresa May and Duck Face Ginger Ball Bag Donald Trump are extreme examples of this. May like Trump has surrounded herself with far right win lunatics whose taste for power and ruling is so strong they don't care about harming the country they allegedly serve. The press is hot on the 25th Amendment where Trumps own cabinet can effectively take him out of power, perhaps because they think he might destroy the planet with the last world war. Similarly, May could face a crisis of confidence in her government were a vote of no confidence to take place. In the background a whisper sounds, it says 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' here and now the world is witnessing this. In North Korea it is Little Fat Faced Rocketman Kim Jong Un is the closest living thing to a god so it is alleged, like Trump he is not being recognised by the world for his sanity and reason or treatment of his own people. So like Trump he is having a tantrum and postures, threatening the world with his own nuclear weapons. Then there is the Nobel laureate Ang San suu Kyi, who once came across as a woman of peace, a woman seeking justice in the world and fought desperately for it. Now this wool pulling over the eyes' protagonist is being seeing in her true glory as a Muslim hating power-crazy loon who doesn't give a shit about the Rohingya Muslims and denies her military have tried out their very own ethnic cleansing. She is appearing nearly as bad as the power crazed oldies who run the biggest communist state in the world and who the business organizations of the Western world dare not say a single word of dissatisfaction just in case all those factories and slave labour camps which give us such high tech goods were to suddenly stop. They would still produce the goods, but everything would be stolen and resold with a different logo. Notice the lack of naming here, for you never know who reads a blog.

It is disastrous the UK has like the US freely elected in power persons who are so self-serving they'd sell their own mother to continue sitting in the same high chair they have now. Individuals with such power should not of been voted into office in the first place. Maybe we've been lied to as we always are as voters. Mays maiden speech as she just about won the last election did for five minutes make every voter sit up and consider here is someone who will try and help us all. But they were just noble words and likely words she did not write herself. Words have no meaning unless the actions congruent with those words take place. In May's case they haven't and they never will because there is no will. Now it is a depressive political situation, British politics stinks so much even the journalists at Westminster have to carry their own vomit bags. Even the right win press is beginning to doubt their own party's capability. Much like the Americans.

It feels like we are on a precipice, but this precipice is the most disastrous one ever. The continued painful struggle with BREXIT makes the Tories look ever more incompetent. The worst part of this is their incompetency will bring about the fall of the entire UK business and finance sector. They are in complete denial. We've been in a recession since 2008, near a full ten years and there is no sight of recovery for each day the national debt increases now it is 1.7 trillion pounds. May tells us at the dispatch box the deficit is down but never utters a word about the debt, then in predictable fashion like a yellow streaked sibling she throws insults at Labour. May must go, Trump must go for all our sakes. It would be so good of they both fell on their own swords but people with dubious mental faculty wouldn't do such a thing. Their motto is self, self, self otherwise it's way too crowded in this phone box.

Viewpoints filled with hate

It seems like the world is going insane. Turn left, turn right, open a news media website and there will be one or more likely several items which have hate filled agendas. If it is not one section of a community it is another, viewpoints abound which could be considered extremist. They are hate filled and the warriors behind these views have no insight into what this does. I see it, I recognise it and I've felt it myself, then, I changed my mind. It is part of the growing up process. Further this process is not physical it's mental, it is understanding the world has many people in it, and let others live how they want to live, for why get bothered?

Of course there are always reasons to get bothered about stuff. To get bothered about the Nazi who walks through your door and no matter how hard you want to say feck off, you can't because they are a member of your family. And if they just didn't have this particular view on life then they'd actually a very OK person. I might want to change this person and have tried to combat their views but as they are still a teenager they have to make their own way in life, their own mistakes, and they get upset if they're told nazism is wrong and toxic. The choice then boils down to whether I want this member of my family in my life or to disown them. Then I think back to being their uncle and having lots of fun playing with them and do nothing. I want to believe behind this extremist aspect of their personality is just a vulnerable human being, an ordinary person who's had a life of bad cards. One hand after the other has just been unfortunate. Unfortunate to have an alcoholic father, a depressive mother who only thinks about herself and to attend a school to find they are in the ethnic minority in their own country. There is no accounting for the experiences other people have, choices are made out of those experiences and taking a step back helps understand this.

We are all human beings. What makes us intolerant is poverty, poor education and lack of exposure to others. When I was a kid there were many taboos. Sexuality being one of them. It wasn't until my twenties I witnessed homosexuality. It was on a holiday to Germany. Two men dressed in complimentary leather trousers and jackets walked down the street holding hands. I was taken aback, I'd never seen this kind of behaviour in the UK and I'd lived just outside of London. I knew of homosexuality of both gays and lesbians but to see this simple behaviour in real life was my first experience of it. To tell the truth I have never been bothered about it, but I have felt the opinions of others encroach on my own self and wondered if I should agree with them and their views. At the time I just simply didn't have any view at all. So perhaps this is why I just simply accepted people were different but they were still just humans. It was my contact with the religiously minded which I found to be intolerant of sexuality. Intolerant of the behaviours of others. Yet the constant question is why on earth should the observer be bothered? If these behaviours are not harming them why should they mentally think they are? Maybe it is better to feel good knowing they are part of the in-group and those there gays, are without doubt in the out-group, in more ways than one. So fecking what. I will state though on record, my encounters with lesbians, which isn't something I go out of my way to do in any sense has also been implicitly hostile. It seems to me they just don't like to converse or have anything to do with men, or certainly heterosexual men. They are standoffish and will not engage in conversation at social gatherings, will not even acknowledge my presence, I might smile but will not get a smile back. No doubt they have their own hang ups and probably meeting a normal hetererosexual who just wants to have an ordinary chat about the weather or some other banality is a no no. It's probably written in the 'How to be a Lesbian Handbook' which I just would not be allowed to get my hands on. Due to the sign on the book shelf saying 'not for men'.

My perceptions of the world and of people have changed, I wouldn't say enormously, but rather subtly to the principle of let live. Hate and bigotry upsets me, but my recognition of it is because I know what it is like to be a bigot and to hate as well. I hate extemism and I'm bigotted in my view about this. I also very much dislike the right wing political agenda in any form it takes because for some reason it is a self serviing agenda and poses as anything but self serviing to hijack the vote of the unsuspecting gullible types. Effectively the right has encouraged bigotry and hate by poor education and the constant allowance of poverty. For the right a divided society makes the right strong, the right needs hate and ignorance to survive. And it's the highest levels of right wing politics who reap the benefits and riches of society. I know hate, for I have hated my upbringing by my own mother and her failure to be a mother a support. I began reducing my emotional reliance and bond with her at the age of five. It wasn't a great childhood and so I cry when I hear of children who also have bad upbringings or experiences. The reality is some people in this world are unlucky, like the nazi relative, they just get dealth duff cards and then don't know how to make the best of them.

Hate and prejudice stems from an inability to look inward and an inability to engage with those contrary thoughts to your own, or those people the hate is directed at. The sum of our experiences and the sum of how we perceive those experiences is what makes us who we are. I can continue to confirm my mental attitude by reading biased literature or I can challenge it and expose it to alternative reasoning. Then I may well find I am wrong at which point a lesson has been learnt.

No longer safe to attend a Trump press conference

So another day passes and yet more fuel is put on the fire to keep it ablaze. No wonder this carrot topped scrotum dick head is so popular. The White House must have an entire basketball room full of hate mail, and the secret service are in full overtime mode.

Trump has failed America and the western world in his take on the Charlottesville murder of a liberal by a far right white neo Nazi. He has failed to out rightly condemn racism and spouted off his own fake news saying it was liberals who attacked Nazis. The odd thing about this allegation is evident from the videos of Nazis in Charlottesville. They are the ones wearing black ex military Nazi helmets and carrying shields. They were the ones prepared, if you go to a riot dressed in riot gear you're going to expect a riot. So how come Trump didn't open his eyes when he watched the videos, or did he only open them as the liberals retaliated for the violence from right wing Nazis. How come the police did not engage and just let the Nazis carry on the way they did? Unless they to have some right wing sympathizers amongst them. A question should be asked about this.

How can this man be allowed to continue as president? This is such a demeaning assault on the American image, each day he is allowed to stand up and deliver his vitriolic hate and ignorance the more this great country becomes divided. Not just on racial grounds, but with this continuing stance Trump is driving a wedge in the Republicans. As we've seen now Senator John McCain seems to be the only man with Republican integrity, the only man who is standing up and being counted. And the admiration for McCain goes deep as he fights brain cancer and is taking hospital treatment. A man who perhaps would have been a much better choice as Republican president. One thing for sure is all those supporters who thought a change from the political elite would be for best will now be burdened with guilt. If they aren't then they should be ashamed, deeply ashamed.

Watching Trump is like having a bad dream, waking up and finding the dream is carrying on. I am British and I hate the fact I speak the same language as a man like this who disgusts me. British attitudes towards Trump are as strong as his racism. If Trump comes to the UK I will be out there demonstrating against him, I will make my own placard, I will shout, boo and berate this ginger slime bag at every opportunity. This is from a mild-mannered individual. Providing that is we are all still alive and kicking and this despot hasn't begun world war three and Armageddon against North Korea.
America, do the right thing kick this man out of office NOW!

Trump's Disasterous presidency strides on

The world used to look for leadership, humanity and integrity when it cast an eye on America. However, now look to America we don't. The reason is because America had the most liked, most respected man in the world in ex-president Barak Obama. Now has in power the least liked, least competent and most clown like idiot president in history. He has also proved himself to be racist, infantile and self obsessed.

Currently we hear this dictator has banned transgender persons from the millitary, he trudges on trying to remove Obama care which will remove medical care for millions of people. A new employee to the Trump board of directors is Anthony Scaramucci (communications) has sworn profusely on the record and said he will ensure staff are sacked for leaking who it was had dinner with Trump. He called one individual a paranoid schizophrenic, funny because Scaramucci's behaviour sounds like something a schizophrenic might actually do. Except Scaramucci went further saying he was going to fire all of the communication team. This is someone truly unhinged. Trump's approval rating has dropped lower than any rating any president has held, like an 11 year old pubescent kid he tweets new riddiculous part sentences. For he can't write, read or talk English correctly so it is no wonder he is unable to tweet it either.In defence of the transgender community one article describes Trump as a war dodger who comes from a life of privilege. This seems so true it is something which can not be counter argued. He has never served in the millitary and considering his age he would of been prime meat for a number of wars America has been in. This effectively marks Trump out as a coward as well.

The real question which still hasn't been answered is when will all this end? He is now well beyond embarrasment, when will his own supporters stop supporting him and the light switch on?

The supply and demand monopoly of Tomtom

I'm in the market for a satnav and have an eye on the Tomtom Go 5200, it has it's own SIM and automatically updates the maps, current the universal lowest price is £239.99, in fact this price is so universal it is evidence of a supplier and seller monopoly. There is not one everyday advertiser who is selling it lower. It's like they have all got in a room and decided the price for this product will be X and in our decision nobody is to undercut any other supplier. There are no special deals, no discount vouchers and there apparently is no scruples. All of this seems somewhat counter to freemarket economics, counter to capitalism, counter to democracy. So the question is why would every seller of this product be so compliant, why would they stick to one price? Now in my internet searches it doesn't seem to matter how many times I put the search on google, it comes up with the same results. This is the cost of a new product. Stupidly even on ebay where there are the odd private seller but also many commercial sellers the price for this Tomtom is even higher. The trail is therefore a purposeful red herring to make the very niave amongst us believe there is price variation. The reality is there isn't.

On one review of the tomtom go 5200 on Amazon, I read this was bought when it first hit the shelves at the knock down price of £185, which is bloody remarkable. A couple of weeks ago when I was checking out the price of this satnav it was uniformly £248, a somewhat odd amount, but I swear it was. It was a surprise then to find it had dropped. So now given time maybe it will reduce in price again. The question is how much time does it need before the sellers and the suplier get in a dank dark room, with cigarette if not cigar smoke suspended mid air like a blanket of thick for and agree the price will drop again. Alternatively given we are in the 21st century it might be an email sent out by Mr Big who dictates the next price fluctuation. Just perhaps the price will increase because of some comment about the valuation of precious metals used in making the product going up. Yes Zenon 321 used in the soldering and adherence of printed Tomtom circuitry has doubled, and although only a small amount is used it will mean the price has hiked by a tenner. I wouldn't put it past Mr Big, who actually might be a woman and of small stature and doesn't smoke but is addicted to the gym. In which case lets say Mrs Small. Unless she's unmarried and then she's Miss Small. She can say for sure although she countrols the price on a whim she has never gotten lost. Great, fine for Miss Small but it doesn't help me out at all.

Therefore this can only mean Tomtom are dictating the price and they have put an embargo on their suppliers to ensure nobody is undercut. Tomtom is just sitting there screwing their potential and actual customers over.Which gives us all good reason not to trust the seller and supplier, yet in doing so does this mean we can't trust the product either? Well there are other satnavs on the market so perhaps Tomtom wont be seeing my money as part of their next profits report.

The Tory disaster and Europes hole of debt

The Tories are on the edge of a fine precipice, but this disaster will not only hit the Tory party in a case of no confidence it will decimate the country. Teresa May is also on the edge of resigning, She has lost the respect of her MPs, the voters and Europe. If you stand still for one moment the sound of ticking can be heard, it is the inevitable tick of May's death clock getting closer and closer.

When Labour were kicked out in 2010 Liam Byrne the ex-Treasurey secretary left a message stating there was no money in the kitty. It was the beginning of a snowball effect on debt and deficit which are two different aspects meaning current borrowing and total oustanding. To tackle such a thing out of the box thinking would be needed, but of all political parties it could never be from the Tories. Greed is what they are known for, greed for rich people and increased poverty for the poor. So their 7 years of government has now seen the British debt increase from 500 billion to 1.4 trillion. However,  the recession has hit all of Europe there are only three countires which are not in a debt situation, Iceland, Litchenstein and Germany. Yet the Tories insisted on blaming Labour for a recession which went global, it wasn't Labour's fault this was another false fact. To consider this is disasterous would be to undermine the seriousness of how tragic it is.

What is the debt of other EU countries? This is a good question because it puts into perspective how we are dealing with our own debt. For example has austerity actually actually made things worse? I ask this because sometimes you have to spend a little in order to get something back, we all hate doing it but it is one of those facts. Overtime the benefit may actually be much larger than the initial spend, however this notion is something the Tories don't understand, unless it happens to relate to bung money.

Country                    Debt                % of GDP
United Kingdom     £1.8 trillion        89.1
Spain                      e 1.6 trillion        99.8
France                     e 2.2 trillion       96.2 (2015)
Greece                    e 3.3 trillion        177.4 (2015)
Italy                        e 2.2 trillion        132.3 (2015)
Portugal                  e 2.3 trillion        129 (2015)
Poland                    e 2.1 trillion        51.1 (2015)
Czech Rep              e 67 billion         40.3 (215)

Poland is the largest net gainer from the EU, receiving approximately e 8.5 billion, the UK loses out by being a member of the EU and this is about £8 billion. The Czech Republic gains e 2 billion a year from being a member of the EU but from this table is clearly one of the more stable countries financially, just as Poland is. The UK's contribution to the EU is significant and in the top grouping of EU countries. Maybe the Euro experiment is about to bust, there are no figures here for population numbers and employment which would be interesting to see. The perspective is debt though in whichever direction viewed. It also asks the question of when will there be a re-evaluation of the euro and the pound sterling? At this point the opinion of a couple dozen economists would be interesting, for just like politicians they are known not to agree on a great deal, however, surely looking at the debt hole we're all pretty well fecked for the future. Someone is going to have to pay the banker back at some point.

Why will May leave?  Perhaps it will be the continuous and unrelenting pressure from the results of a poor and weak government, one she inherited from the self interested, Osborne and Cameron to name but two. Maybe because there is no response when the facts come home to roost. Such as cutting police officers by 20,000, prison wardens by 7,000 and tax collectors by 10,000. The one thing Thatcher always did was ensure she had a strong police force on her side, mind she needed it. Where as T2 as she is known, is actually nothing of the likes of Thatcher. Thank feck to. Alternatively could it be the unscheduled calling of an election which moved the Tories from just about stable to weak and wobbly shored up by a racist, homophobic right wing DUP party. Put it this way, I'm sure May didn't invite any of her new 10 supporters to the gay pride parade, but she did give them a bung of at least 100 million each. As the saying goes, keep your friends close and your paid allies even closer. Another reason May could go is if there is a sufficient challenge to her leadership, however this is probably the least likely thing to happen. Being a Tory and being prime minister is a poison challice, and this is it, I've stumbled onto the most likely of all reasons. Each morning with her soldiers and boiled egg she takes a sip from the challice of deceit, failure and debt. It's pulling her down she just can't keep taking sips and she's got to give up the ghost. Fingers crossed.
 

Grenfell Towers a Mother's Escape

It was said Grenfell Towers fire began within the first hour after midnight, a fridge on the fourth floor exploded. It was not the fault of the person who owned the fridge though it does depend on the circumstances of this incident. It is the fault of the fire and safety regulations, one comment I heard was the fire had gone from the fourth floor to the 18th floor in eight minutes. Further there was no firealarm system in the building, considering the many millions which had been spent on refurbishment again this is mind boggling. Cosequently cospiracy theories have arrisen the local council of Kensington and Chelsea have been practicing social cleansing. There has to be no doubt such an abhorent thing was happening, though whether it was deliverate is another question, but rather it is a matter of unintended consequences when a local authority begins to attract the wealthy.

There is one story about a mother who escaped Grenfell Towers which is an active expression of how it is necessary to do something. At about 1 a.m. she phoned the police to say her Tower block was on fire, she was worried, the smoke was thick and she feared for the safety of her two sons, both young aabout 10 and 12 years of age. She asked what should she do as her flat was on the twelth floor. The reply was to keep the door closed and stay inside. She took their advice and waited. The fire got worse so she rang the Police again. She asked them if the firebrigade was coming, she said there was fire on her floor she needed firefighters on her floor. Over the next hour and a half she rang them up a total of five times, of which the first four times they advised she stay in her flat, don't move from there it was safest. Then she phoned again and now it was about 2 a.m. the voice on the phone said get out now, if you don't you will die. She was a little taken aback by the urgency of the voice as the Police had not phoned her back to tell her about the change in their advice after all had she known an hour ago it would of been better to have made the attempt then. Perhaps the firebrigade were giving advice to the Police and after a short period of fighting the blaze they recognised nothing could be done. The resident took towels and wet them, she took her boys and went to the front door opening it to thick acrid stinking black smoke. One of her boys said:

"Mummy I don't want to go," her response was,
"If we don't go we will die."

They left their home. There was no description from the mother of how they managed it down the stairs, how that single stairwell was most likely thick with smoke or how she may have passed bodies and firefighters on those stairs. It might of been crowded and awkward to drag her sons out with her. She did it though, she saved her own life and the lives of her sons. The emergency services didn't reach her floor and they failed to phone her back and inform her to get out. It was only her persistent phoning and pestering of the Police she took her own safety into her own hands. Now she says her sons are wary of Police advice, she says they feel like they don't trust them.  It is understandable, in this real incident the organization of the emergency services sounds like it was attrocious. They may have done what they could, but there was a lot they didn't do and I don't understand given they have breathing apparatus why there had not been a group which had climbed those stairs and told all the residents to get out of the tower. Perhaps the fire was an ongoing situation and they continued to take and evaluate information as it came in.

The blame is squarely on the shoulders of Kensington and Chelsea Council. They say all fire safety regulations were met. But as there has been no change to these regulations for at least ten years they were out of date. The tower housed working class and lower class people, the kind of people who are the salt of the earth, the kind who do their best just to make ends meet. Grenfell Tower is in an area full of multiple millionaires, we saw Lilly Allen stating she had never seen an incident where the media were downplaying the number of deaths. At the point of her interview they had 17 confirmed recognised deaths. Lilly said how she had walked up and down the area past firefighters and Police who were saying there will be at least 150 deaths. Why on earth could the media not use such phrases as "expected deaths to reach over 100 persons?" It was as though they were trivialising the extent of this tragedy. At the moment this figure has now gone up to 58.  Additionally the emergency services state it is likely it will take weeks if not months to recover all the bodies and some of them may not be identified. Given the inferno raged for hours some of those bodies turned to complete ash as it had effectively been an incinerator. The building will need to be made safe, the process will be painfully slow. As the days pass more information will come out more stories with sad endings.

The incompetent Teresa May

It seems like Theresa May is being hit by the most unfortunate of circumstances, the kind of events which determine an individual's personality, the kind which are a bare all to the world. So it is. First came the decision to have an election when her poll ratings were stratospheric, not a bad decision some might think however, this led on to the election campaign. During which May was shown to dislike the prospect of a face to face confrontation with the other party leaders, she preferred to say it was the electorate that mattered. Her case would be put to the voters and she would only take questions from the voters. Stating this was a little like dodging a bullet, unsucessfully. This bullet didn't hit her in the head but it did disengage her ear from her head instead. For May's performance on TV was disasterous, she came across as the Maybot, spouting of cliched comments and then there were some embarassing questions to which she physically shrinked in front of the cameras. Where as Corbyn had ascerbic questions and a pan full of flaming fried rice thrown at him, yet he stood his ground particularly on the issue of not wanting to kill millions of people with nuclear weapons. May however wouldn't mind pressing the button providing she also allowed her fellow wealthy people to get in a last fox hunt before the end of the world.

So that counts two events, calling an election and then barely turning up for the campaign. A third bite of this pretty vingery cake was when May decided to get in bed with the Democratic Unionist Party. Who could be termed as a strong if not far right wing faction of the Tories, a party which has endorsements from the such like as the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the Red Hand Commandos and the Ulster Defence Force. Lets also not forget to mention the DUP are creationists believing creationism should be taught in schools, abortion made illegal, there should be no such
thing as same sex marriage, capital punishment is acceptable, perhaps they'd use capital punishment against the LBGT community if it was considered an appropriate method of making them normal heterosexual again and so have become kingmakers for May. In an obvious quirk of fate where the media had previously chastised Corbyn of perceived terrorist sympathies we now have an actual prime minister who is actually supported by a part of right wing terrorists if not interlectually challenged. Further the agreement with the DUP is not a carte blanche support for every policy May's government will put forward, but rather a selective when they coincidentally agree with the Tories. So May's government have to ensure their policies are right wing enough to get that additional support only an extremist would consider reasonable. Of course by siding with the DUP May has now successfully thrown into the air a question of whether the Good Friday agreement will continue unharmed, for if the IRA start counting their bullets we are all in the shit.

And lets throw a fourth and highly sensitive event she has face planted her poor version of humanity, i.e. the towering inferno of death Glenfell Towers, where at least 30 people have died and with the actual numbers likely to exceed 100 and more. At Glenfell when May visited she did not talk to a single survivor for imagine if she had, the tabloids would of gotten her in an extremely embarressing situation because relatives would of wanted answers and compassion. May spoke to the fire services but could show no humanity to the survivors or residents of this area. When May left a church in the area, she ran out of a side door to shouts of "May's a coward." There is no compassion in May, not for poor or working class people, she comes from the same cloth as many Tories. The one which arrogantly has written through it, "I am better than you." So it is, May has thumped a nail in her own coffin the likes of which can not be removed. The other nails she put in varied from small to medium, the Glenfell Towers one is a big rusty nail and she has not only smashed it in the lid she cut her fingers on it and is now being poisoned. Probably not fast enough for the likes of many.

So after one very arrogant Cameron we now have an equally arrogant and disasterous May, Cameron was the worst PM for the working and poor classes but May has now outstripped him. When will she go? When will this woman be thrown out with the very dirty bath water?

May can't hear the death bells toll

It is an inevitable fact of life, you pays taxes, deal with change and have to die at some time. Hopefully later than sooner, but it doesn't matter because we'll all be eating daisies and those who have gone before us will shortly be met by the living. So it is with Teresa May, she will not be able to survive the next few months, she has now put her lot in with an extreme right wing party in order to stay in power. Her slogan phrase of safe and secure has now bought the most dangerous unstable government ever.  It is a disastrous result for the country.

May's controlling personality has popped out on the public arena like a topless titillating picture of a beautiful 22 year old smiling to horny young men. She was so narrow minded as not to even include her own cabinet on how to compile a manifesto and keep them clued up as to what is happening, the Tories or rather May produced the worst manifesto ever. This was quantified by of all people George Osborne not some raging lefty tea cosy wearing CND supporter. But maybe the worst part of her personality is the inability to actually understand she should step down and pass the buck to another candidate, and there is only one person for the job who also is a woman and who also very nearly lost her own seat, Amber Rudd. Perhaps Rudd would actually talk to her own colleagues. May is a woman who says one thing and then does another, her mind is as weak and changeable as play-doh. First she is not going to hold an election then while out on a walk she changes her mind and does hold one. Of course the hubris came about because at the time she decided the Tories had a 20 point public opinion lead. Except a mere four weeks later the incompetent looking chemistry teacher Corbyn had actually reduced it to such an level were there given perhaps one more week of campaigning he would of done it. Maybe it didn't help there had been terrorist attacks so it was temporarily suspended. There can be no doubt on the subject, this election was called only for the benefit of May not for anyone else. So it is the Tories have lost a number of their very own MPs and have made a pact with the devil DUP. A devil who will ensure every drop of support they give is paid for by May a hundred fold in the concessions she will have to give back.

Come to think of it Ireland may become the ultimate wobbly football in May's new chaotic coalition of support. For the peace accord between loyalists and Sinn Fein and rule of Ireland shows the very first microscopic fracture. The bowl may well be able to hold soup and keep everything together but in the back of the minds of every British person who remembers the days of old and IRA terrorism a chink of concern raises it's head. Were this government to impose a further peace arrangement they would now be a bias party. We shake our head and hope so desperately the IRA are not renewing talks with their fellow extremists and hope they to have got to like peace and relative freedom. And all for the sake of a 61 year old self centred woman, a woman who should not be allowed to hold any power, not even allowed to switch the dishwasher on because we all know she's the type who would throw your clothes in there as well.

At this time even atheists cry out, god fecking help us.

Three mobile network make it difficult to leave

I very much dislike phoning a company to find they have a service which comes out of a developing country. This says something to me.  Such as the pursuit of profits means the cheapest service they can provide. Service which is delivered by individuals who speak English with a distinct accent and clearly have never lived in the UK. Three is one such company to outsource its services.

In what can only be described as a deliberate bully tactics, Three mobile phone service this morning belligerently talked over me and obstructed supplying a PAC code. If there was any doubt about trying to leave Three to get a better telephone deal I am now 100 per cent committed to ensure
I do get a better deal and within three minutes of putting down the phone had already contacted another mobile phone provider and taken out a direct debit. Whereas the phone call to Three had taken a total of twenty-three minutes and repeated requests with the words "please give me a PAC code."  It didn't seem to matter to them though, the request I made was like water falling off a duck's back. As if it had meant nothing at all as if my words didn't matter to them. And the reality was my words didn't, because they were the words Three didn't want to hear, they didn't want to know this long term customer was about to leave their service. So like holding onto a cliff and about to fall into a crocodile infested water Three held on to my phone call for dear life.

I was polite all the time, and am sure if I'd had given them the opportunity to drop the call they would of, because this is the way such companies play it. Get the customer so irate they will say something which means the call is terminated.  This creates a catch 22 situation where the only way to resolve the situation is yet to phone up again.  Ringing up and then getting disengaged is a strategy in itself to ensure the customer continues with their contract and is unable to cease it. In this way Three can go on for days ensuring they'd eek out a further time where a customer must pay for a service no longer wanted.

Perhaps they didn't understand the character of the person they were talking to, for once I had vaguely made up my mind to leave Three but was then confronted with brick walls of Indian service clients wanting to stop the cancellation from taking place the more obstinate I got to be, the more necessary it became to ensure this contract would be ended. The only regret I have on this matter is not recording the phone conversation and also not advising the conversation was being recorded and would be submitted to Ofcom if the very reasonable request was not complied with. I got there in the end or hope so. For I'll not actually find out until I get to see my bank statement and check they have finished taking direct debits from my account. Fingers crossed another phone call will not be called for.

And so, time for another election

For the second time in two years, an election lays at our doorstep. The disaster of the 2015 election had meant yet another five years of Tory rule, but if this one is also won by the Tories it will guarantee their power tenure will stretch to 12 years in total. Given the outcome of the last election I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen and a deep seated dread hangs over my head. The dread is there are more Tory voters out there than any other party, the result possibly being another win and the utter and complete decimation of the UK. I do not say this lightly. With a deficit now at 1.7 Trillion pounds in total and the mantra of what is good for business and the economy is good for the UK actually being a oxymoron. It's true we need to make the UK a productive country, one which makes goods and in doing so also employs people. The two do go hand in hand. Yet the realities of a Tory government have been to improve unskilled employment pool by reducing wages and increasing the selection and devaluing those who do have skills.  It's been done by the deliberate run down of the welfare system under the guise of encouragement to work, when what it really is, is blackmail into work scenario. As job seekers are made to sign a commitment to look for work and are expected to collect evidence they are actively seeking work in order to continue getting benefits. As for the disabled, the gradual erosion of employment support allowance and adherence to work capability interviews. Which are interviews designed in such a way to remove claimants off disability benefits by a senseless point based system which checks whether they are able to do the most menial of actions and concludes the claimant is able to work. The future could be the entrenched continuation of this process which does nothing but keep politicians and bureaucrats in jobs.

Pensioners have been saved by the triple lock. It is the vote buyer, if pensioners are kept sweet they will vote, the funny thing is the pensioners do vote for Tories and have helped keep them in power. Just as have those who have been fed the lies of scape goating migrants as parasites to the welfare system. It's completely untrue. A more salient reason the UK has been kept in this prolonged depression is the failure to leash the big businesses. The businesses which make millions if not billions and yet don't pay taxes or contribute to the UK. For example Thames Water, which used to belong to us all and was then sold off has paid it's share holders £1.16 billion in dividends between 2006 and 2015. Yet the tax contributions from this company indicate multiple years where they pay no corporation tax. So the large refugee family living in two houses with no one working and getting state handouts are put on the front page of the tabloids, yet the monies paid to them are less than dandruff on the shoulders of fat cat executives at Thames Water. If histrionics come into it, were the tabloids to run a front page on how much lost tax from big corporations could pay towards schools, hospitals and welfare then perhaps the voters would understand more why Tory leadership is literally killing this nation. Whether pensioners or the misinformed working classes catch onto this and understand they have been hoodwkinked by a dead cat thrown on the table is another thing.

I once read a Greek philosopher considered the common people should not be given the right to vote in politics. His argument was they were not educated enough or understanding enough of the political systems. They were swayed far too easily by emotional argument. On the face of it this seems true, especially when I look around me at the political literacy of colleagues at work, some have near to no understanding of politics. And for the politicians this is wonderful, they love ignorance because they then don't have to face difficult and uncomfortable questions. Imagine what the country would be like if every single voter had at least a A'level in politics. Then were to yet again listen to politicians and repeatedly ask themselves why am I being fed bull shit, why is this politician avoiding giving a straight answer, what exactly are they saying? I necessary condition every listener should have is to firstly listen with scepticism, examine realities, question every statistic quoted by drilling into it and examine every denigrating remark against opposition politicians because this is usually a method of throwing the voter off the scent. Knowledge is and always will be the great leveller but it requires study and effort and our current government dislikes it very much when voters get a mind of their own.