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Looks Like A Job For …… BICYCLE REPAIR MAN!


One of my favourite Monty Python sketches though it is remembered by few other people which may prove I am more of a Python geek than I thought, featured a Superhero called Bicycle Repair Man. A bike mechanic superhero? you might well ask incredulously. Yes, well the comic premise was that in a world populated by super humans with amazing powers that enabled them to run faster than a speeding train, leap tall buildings at a single bound...

Looks Like A Job For …… BICYCLE REPAIR MAN!
by Ian R Thorpe
2009-12-01
CREATIVE COMMONS: Attribute, non commercial, no derivs.
KEYWORDS: bike, bicycle, repairman, monty_python,mechanic,transport, education, children, career,comedy,humour,humor

One of my favourite Monty Python sketches though it is remembered by few other people which proves either I have an amazing memory or am more of a Python geek than I thought, featured a Superhero called Bicycle Repair Man.

A bike mechanic superhero? you might well ask incredulously. Yes, well the comic premise was that in a world populated by super humans with amazing powers that enabled them to run faster than a speeding train, leap tall buildings at a single bound , fly into space at many times the speed of light and stop the bi-weekly asteroid-on-a-collision-course-with-earth by will power alone; where supershapeshifters who could turn into a tropical rainstorm and douse forest fires, turn into a fiery furnace and evaporate flood waters, fart against the wind and stop a hurricane in it’s tracks (no, sorry – that’s Johnny Fartpants from Viz) or do any miraculous deed that was necessary to save the world averted catastrophe on a dally basis.

The only things these superheroes could not do apart from spotting that the shaven headed guy who sneaked around bursting into evil laughter (“MWHAHWAHWAHEARHURRRR”) and was always accompanied by an entourage of unfeasibly ugly henchmen and a Marilyn Monroe lookalike totty with unfeasibly large breasts was up to no good, were utterly mundane tasks like changing a light bulb or mending a fuse. In such a world an ordinary bloke who knows which end of a screwdriver does the business can be a superhero. And as it is possibly a post oil world too, enter BICYCLE REPAIRMAN. (view it on YouTube)

Apart from being funny at the time (as you will know if you followed the link) the sketch was eerily prescient, predicting the success, fame and celebrity world in which we now live, a world where superheroes are ten a penny and celebrities even cheaper; we even have celebrity house cleaners, celebrity tightwads and celebrity slappers but decent plumbers, electricians, joiners and blokes who can mend bikes are a impossible to find.

Back when the sketch was first broadcast at a time when the world seemed to be surfing towards a Utopian future on a tsunami of technological progress – stone me, that is such a brilliant phrase I almost had an orgasm as I typed it, I think I’ll do it again - a time when the world seemed to be surfing towards a Utopian future on a tsunami of technological progress… oooh! …; when we all looked forward to zooming around in our personal hovercraft or popping down to the offie on a rocket powered space hopper, bicycles were curious, anachronistic devices. Now they are increasingly essential transport.

As this story comes hot on the heels of yesterday’s post which reported the launch of a college course in growing cannabis you are expecting us to tell you it is now possible to take a University degree course in mending bikes. Ha! Of course we’re not, that would be silly. The highest academic qualification available for wannabe bike repairmen is a City and Guilds diploma. People are queueing to enrol on special Bicycle Repairman courses however, about 40 are graduating as qualified bike mechanics each month.

Now if you are of my generation you will remember the traditional ways to become a competent bike mechanic were : (a) Get a bike for passing your eleven plus, ride it for a bit, decide to make it go faster and dismantle it; (b) inherit a bike from an elder sibling or cousin in which case your bike was a family heirloom (a bit like cars in our family) and you dare not even look at it while holding any kind of bicycle repair tool OR; (c) having failed your eleven plus or been born into a family so poor you only got a Mars bar for passing the eleven plus you could head down to the dump with your Dad’s spanners and glean bits off discarded bikes to build your own.

In case (a) if you failed to reassemble the parts into a rideable bike your Dad beat the crap out of you: if you managed to put the bike back together successfully you were a qualified bike mechanic who could adjust the chain, oil the crank and tweak the brakes. You were now ready to move to advanced level, fitting your own Sturmey Archer three speed gear system. The great secret of all mechanicing was yours; if it doesn’t work how it should spray some WD40 on it, if that does not work, hit it with a hammer.

If you took path (c) to bike ownership and ended up with a rideable bike your Dad probably beat the crap out of you and sold your bike for beer money.

Those whose bikes came to them by route (b) tended to have unhappy childhoods as they dared not do skids, wheelies or ride through puddles. "That bike has to do somebody else so don’t go ruining it, now think on,” they were told whenever they looked to be in danger of having fun.

This training in mechanical engineering coupled with a few workshop manuals stood me in good stead through all my early driving career from the 1952 Morris Minor I bought for £5 in 1968 to the point where I became so affluent I only needed to get my hands dirty for fun. I rebuilt engines and transmissions, set hydraulic brakes, fitted shock absorbers, everything without so much as an hour of formal training. And I’m not dead.

The man who campaigned to persuade the City and Guilds vocational education group this course should be run is adamant that cycling is the future; he wants bike mechanicing to be made a proper profession like accountancy, electronics engineering, burger flipping and selling dodgy investment packages. It’s only a matter of time before there are demands that bike mechanic be a degree entry career. That would be so sad, is there no human endeavour left that enables people to experience the satisfaction of discovering without formal and strictly controlled training including a module in the health And Safety related aspects of the activity.

Aristotle said “What we have to do we learn by doing.” Boggart Blog says “There is nothing that cannot be learned by hitting things with a hammer.”

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Education news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
Updated : Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:17:38 GMT

Letters: Bric countries need more tertiary education

In the midst of continuing economic and political uncertainty among eurozone countries (Editorial, 30 January), the growth of emerging market economies, led by the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), is widely perceived as vital to global recovery. The world now needs emerging markets to succeed, but must neither ignore nor underestimate the challenges they face in producing a rapidly growing supply of entrepreneurial, administrative and professional skills. To meet these challenges, a keystone will undoubtedly be the development of human capital through tertiary education.

A recent meeting in Oxford of more than 20 emerging market and high-income countries concluded that game-changing reforms in tertiary education must be anchored in new approaches to funding, organisational structures and technology. Emerging markets must be willing to reinvent tertiary institutions, create new ones and transform structures, rules, systems and curricula, with the creative and constructive coexistence of private and public institutions – and to encompass these changes in strategies that include all forms of post-compulsory education. Emerging market countries are economically, culturally and socially diverse, but all of them must increase access to tertiary education to promote social mobility, reduce economic inequality, and tackle the unforgivable waste in human capital, if their promise is to be fulfilled.
Prof Lan Xue Dean, school of public policy and management, Tsinghua University, China
Simon Schwartzman President, Instituto de Trabalho e Sociedade, Brazil
Prof Michael Earl Former pro-vice-chancellor, Oxford University
Lady English Former principal, St Hilda's College, Oxford University
Prof Saul Estrin Head, management department, London School of Economics
Sir Emyr Jones Parry President, University of Aberystwyth
Prof Janice Reid Vice-chancellor and university president, University of Western Sydney, Australia


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Publ.Date : Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:00:11 GMT

Has our addiction to education created the wrong sort of jobseekers? | Ian Jack

In our pursuit of the luxury trades, many essential but less glamorous jobs have been overlooked or forgotten

Blood tests must be among the easiest procedures in a hospital, so routine that you can just turn up at the blood clinic, take a ticket from the dispenser and wait for your number to flash red on the screen. Absolutely no appointment necessary, and the wait isn't long, even though the crowd fills two or three rows of seats. My consultant's notes refer to the tests simply as "bloods", which sounds nicely cavalier ("Huzzah, sir, pick up your rapier!") compared to phlebotomy, which is this area of medicine's official name. Just out of sight, the phlebotomists are at work behind the curtains with their needles: pricking veins and turning tubes incarnadine. Your turn. "This arm please … just relax … a little scratch now … press with your finger on the cotton wool for a moment." And within a few minutes, you're rolling down your sleeve and saying thanks and goodbye to the person with the needle – grateful, though these details are never spoken, for their skill and their part, however small, in what you hope is the remedial process.

Sometimes you try to make a little human contact. Recently I asked my blood-taker where she was from. India, I guessed, but the answer was Ethiopia. Through the curtain I could hear an elderly lady ask the same thing of another blood-taker. "Are you from Nigeria?" "No, ma'am, Sierra Leone." Perhaps only an older generation asks questions about origin these days – my children's behaviour implies so – because it's come to be considered ignorant and possibly racist; asked mainly of people who aren't white by white people who have yet to adjust to the facts of the nation's demography. But my experience of the phlebotomy department in this London teaching hospital suggests Hackney or Wembley will be less frequent answers than Addis, Dhaka and Manila. Most of the staff here have migrated long distances to work.

What qualities and skills do a good phlebotomist need? From the patient's point of view, the list looks likely to include a clear head and a calm temperament, a working knowledge of antisepsis and the vascular system, a reasonably sympathetic manner and a steady hand. In a hospital, none of these would be unique to phlebotomists – all would be developed together with much more sophisticated knowledge in the long and expensive educations of junior doctors, for example. But do you want a junior doctor to draw your blood or insert a cannula? On balance, probably not. Sometimes junior doctors get sent on this prentice errand to the wards. Sometimes they fail to find a productive vein in either arm and withdraw in apology and confusion. You are better off with someone who draws blood for a living, day in, day out, for whom veins have lost all of their mystery.

The Royal College of Nursing lists blood-drawing as one of the "sample competences" of a healthcare assistant, which in the medical world may be a similar ranking to the vocational qualifications that the government announced this week would lose their equivalence with GCSEs and be omitted from the calculations of school league tables. Of course, blood-drawing is far more responsible work than fish husbandry, horse care and fingernail technology; done carelessly, it can damage, even end, a human life. But like many other skills that depend on touch as well as thought – fingernail technology, possibly – the more you work with the physical material, the better you become. Finding a full vein in living flesh can't be successfully substituted by anatomical studies in the classroom. That shouldn't lessen its value as an occupation, and yet our addiction to the idea that the only worthwhile jobs are those that can be somehow professionalised – with years of fulltime learning and degrees – probably means it does.

Despite cuts in educational budgets, increased student fees and the general implosion of the social fabric, the addiction persists. Every week a local Scottish newspaper is delivered to our house, and the day after my blood test I saw it included a photograph of a young man in an academic cap and gown, holding a scroll in his hand. It is a nice local newspaper tradition that dates from the Victorian age – to honour the youth who has gone up to the city and returned with a degree and a broader future. This particular youth had graduated with a BA (Hons) in sports journalism after a four-year course at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), whose website promises a programme that will provide students with "the professional abilities and practical skills" for this "exciting and growing field … "

There are degrees in sports journalism in the rest of the UK, too, and hundreds of academic courses in non-specialised journalism, churning out graduates for the shrinking labour market of newspapers and other media. They aren't pointless; apart from any craft they may teach, they can also offer connections and contacts – a "way in" – which is the modern essential of anyone trying to start a career. As UWS points out, all students can expect to meet national sports writers and broadcasters, and to take up work placements in news organisations, where their abilities may be noted and remembered for a later date. But how complicated, unnecessary and expensive it all sounds compared to the old method of being sent to report a minor league football match, reading the dispatches of senior reporters and learning week-by-week how it was done.

The success of the academic route has yet to be discovered, but it will be lucky to produce writers as good as the Guardian's Richard Williams, who joined the Nottingham Evening Post aged 18, or Hugh McIlvanney, often acknowledged as the finest sportswriter of his generation, who left Kilmarnock Academy for the Kilmarnock Standard when he was even younger. Perhaps nobody can do that now – leave school for a job on the local paper; intervention by a university is thought necessary to the meanest of trades. But it would be hard to detect any improvements in local newspapers that could be attributed to the massive expansion of tertiary education.

In a broader and far more serious way, something dysfunctional seems to have happened. Unemployment in the UK now stands at 2.69 million, with more than a million people aged between 16 and 24 looking for work – a rate of 22.3%, and a new record. But several British institutions continue to favour foreign workforces, or be favoured by them. At the sandwich chain Pret A Manger, only 19% of the staff are British, while, according to the Daily Mail, a third of the people who sell the Big Issue, the paper founded to help the homeless, are Romanian. I have no figures for foreign-born phlebotomists, but in London I would guess a majority. Good for them, and me too. But in our pursuit of the luxury trades – graduates in sports journalism, for example – many essential but less glamorous jobs were overlooked or forgotten. To paraphrase the railway apology for disruptions by snow, has Britain created the wrong sort of unemployed?


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Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:00:02 GMT

Live and learn with distance learning

Distance learning has come far since the days of late-night TV lectures. We speak to students who have turned their lives around from the comfort of their homes

Win your Future: Study for free at the Open University

Andrea Goldshaw gets up at 5am, studies for three hours and then goes to work. She is in the second year of a law conversion course with Nottingham Trent University studying under its distance learning programme, an option that allows her to get to grips with the subject in her own time at home. It's hard work combining study, paid work and motherhood, but Goldshaw* has a very personal reason for wanting to change career.

Until a few years ago she was a teaching assistant, living with her husband and children in Wales. "I was a victim of domestic violence, fled my home with my children and ended up in a refuge," she says. "I didn't qualify for legal aid so I self-litigated in the case against my husband but was given some crucial pro bono legal advice. Now I want to become a lawyer specialising in domestic violence and child contact – but my real desire is to give pro bono advice so that I can give back what was given to me."

Goldshaw completed her early childhood studies degree while in the refuge and then got a place on the Nottingham course. She now earns an income as a part-time Freedom Programme facilitator, working with women experiencing domestic violence as well as working as a debt counsellor. "Distance learning has been really hard in many ways, but because I'm passionate about what I want to do, that has kept me going," she says.

Goldshaw's circumstances might be an unusual motivation to study, but her drive and commitment to change her life are common among those heading back to university or college in their 30s, 40s, 50s and even older. The vast majority of those studying through distance learning have financial and personal commitments and cannot afford to give up paid work to study on campus.

The Open University is probably the best known name in distance learning, with 256,000 students worldwide, but it is not the only institution to offer degrees that can be completed at home. Most campus universities now offer at least some element of distance learning on a selection of courses, while others, such as the University of Liverpool, have developed postgraduate courses that involve no face-to-face interaction at all.

"We are at the stage now where we are a serious player in total online learning," says Alan Southern, director of e-learning at the University of Liverpool. "On some courses we have introduced some face-to-face contact, but our courses are predominantly built on the premise they are 100% online."

Further education opportunities are also available via distance learning, most notably from e-learning organisation Learn Direct but also from organisations such as Montessori, which has recently launched a distance learning website for those wanting to train to be a teacher.

"We wanted to make our teacher training accessible for more people," says Montessori's Amanda Gilchrist. "We get a lot of mums who discover Montessori through their own children but we also get quite a lot of people who want to change career from things such as the law or banking, because they want to give something back."

The idea of "giving something back" is a typical motivation for those returning to education. After the near collapse of the UK banking system and the subsequent economic downturn, newspapers and websites were rife with stories of redundant or soon-to-be-redundant bankers turning to teaching and other caring professions.

Christina Lloyd, director of teaching and learner support at the Open University, says that over the years there has been a noticeable trend towards people using the university's courses for a change in career or career progression, rather than studying for personal development or interest.

"The average age of Open University students has dropped," she says. "It used to be mid-40s to 50. Now students are typically in their mid-30s – which makes sense when you think that career change is a strong motivating factor for taking a course."

Michelle Virtue and Vincent Fernandez have very different stories to tell, but both were driven by a desire to move into more people-focused careers. Virtue, 42, had worked in banking for 16 years when she took redundancy and turned to the Open University to study health and social care. "I am more of a people person and decided that my place was helping people to make the most of their life," she says.

She is a single mother, but with the help and support of her mum, managed to juggle running a home and looking after her daughter, with sticking to a strict routine to complete her assignments. Now she manages a sheltered scheme for her local authority.

Fernandez went straight from school into his father's profession of mining, but had to leave after 28 years because of a spinal injury. "I had been involved in training people on site and I got a buzz from imparting information and seeing that used – and I knew I wanted to continue that somehow."

He saw an advert for Learn Direct, and went to one of its centres. "I was trembling like a kid when I went in, but they stuck with me and I did four certificates in maths and English." He is now a teaching assistant at his local school, working primarily with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties and is considering studying psychology online in his spare time.

The technological revolution has also made distance learning increasingly accessible and the materials more diverse. Gone are the days when most materials were printed and students tuned in to late-night lectures on television. Today, Open University students are still taught through printed materials but these are backed up by audio CDs, video DVDs, and online resources. The university even has its own channel on YouTube and students can download their materials from iTunes and listen to them on their MP3 players. Technology has also changed the nature of contact between students and their lecturers, as well as their peers.

"Students can now have realtime interaction with tutors via live online conferencing," says Lloyd. "It's quite a bit more sophisticated than Skype. Lots of people can log in at once and a tutor can see who wants to ask a question when a marker appears against that student's name."

This sort of technology has meant that courses such as those at Liverpool can dispense with human interaction altogether. However, most courses require, or at least strongly recommend, some sort of face-to-face contact.

"Most students want face-to-face contact and they are often surprised at how much difference a weekend of contact will make," says Shane Russell, programme leader for the graduate diploma in law distance learning course at Nottingham Trent. "Students do miss out on certain things that come with a campus-based degree, but you have to do what is practical and fits in with your circumstances."

In common with other higher education students in the UK, one of the hardest things to manage for those studying via distance learning is the cost, with undergraduate and postgraduate courses typically costing around £15,000. The vast majority of those going down this route are studying part-time and, up until this coming academic year, there have been no loans for fees for part-time students. From August this year, with tuition fees rising, part-time students will have access to loans that they will need to pay back only when they are earning a certain amount.

Many of those taking postgraduate, professionally focused degrees such as those offered online at the University of Liverpool are either working in professions where they are paid well and can afford to fund their study, or are part-funded by their employers. Others, such as Goldshaw, rely on a combination of bank loans and strict budgeting. "You have to be practical with money and very disciplined so that studying is affordable," she says.

It's not just money management that requires discipline for those studying from home. Distance learning requires real discipline in time management and, often, an understanding partner.

Kate Bressner, who studied for a life sciences degree with The Open University, and subsequently switched her career in business management to become a medical science researcher, says discipline was key. "You have to really plan your work. I studied from 8pm until 10pm or 11pm every evening at one point. Luckily my husband had also studied through Open University and so was very understanding and supportive."

While this sort of discipline, not to mention the loss of social life and family time, can be gruelling, The Open University's Lloyd says it really pays off. Employers do notice.

"In the past people were unsure about studying through The Open University because they weren't sure about the university's credibility," she says. "Now we are getting excellent feedback on the calibre of our students and our degrees. Students are particularly praised for possessing great time management and self-motivation. These qualities can really make someone stand out in a competitive employment market."

*Name has been changed


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Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:00:24 GMT

Pass notes Nos 3,118: Trots

Michael Gove referes to opponents of a London primary school becoming an academy as 'Trots'. What can he mean?

Age: 107.

Appearance: Revolting.

Something to do with horses? No.

Dodgy tummy? No.

Marxist theory? 'Fraid so.

Be gentle with me. Of course. But first I must introduce you to that leading Marxist theoretician, Michael Gove.

Isn't he a minister of some sort? He is indeed a former journalist of little consequence who has somehow landed the job of secretary of state for education.

Where he is rooting out the Marxists? That's how he sees it. Asked by the Commons education select committee this week about a campaign to stop Downhills primary school in north London becoming an academy, Gove labelled opponents of the move "Trots".

Who does he have in mind? The teachers, parents and governors who prefer to stay under the control of the borough of Haringey.

Aren't they all crazed lefties in Haringey? They are if you believe Gove. He calls his opponents "enemies of promise" and accuses them of being motivated by "a bigoted, backward, bankrupt ideology".

Where does the term Trots come from? I thought you'd never ask. Trots is short for Trotskyists (or sometimes Trotskyites), followers of the brand of Marxism favoured by Leon Trotsky, a key figure in the Russian revolution who preached permanent revolution, communism in all countries and worker control in opposition to bureaucratic Stalinism.

Where did he stand on academy schools? If governed by a workers' soviet, probably in favour.

How did Trots become a pejorative term? Trotsky was attacked as a splitter from 1905 on. Stalin, who believed in "socialism in one country", waged war on Trotskyists and had Trotsky bumped off. But Trotskyism was kept alive, and in the UK Trots became shorthand for leftwingers, notably those in the Socialist Workers party, who tried over a period of years to convert the Labour Party's membership to socialism.

I thought it was socialist. Where have you been for the past 80 years?

Seems odd for Gove to use the term. He was active in student politics in the 80s, when it was a common term of abuse, and doesn't seem to have moved on.

Do mention: The triumph of the proletariat, permanent revolution, the fourth international.

Don't mention: Ice-picks.

• This article was amended on 2 February 2012. A line in the original referred to SWP efforts to "infiltrate" the Labour party. For the avoidance of confusion with Militant Tendency's effort to sway Labour from within, that reference has been clarified.


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Publ.Date : Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Seeing visions: Science's annual visual challenge – in pictures

Our pick of the most eye-catching and innovative entries to the 2011 International Science & Engineering Visual Challenge




Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:03:00 GMT

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Globalisation can work, but only with a unified international plan says Will Hutton. WRONG!
by John de Roe.

>We need global economic and social institutions working across national borders economist Will Hutton who now appears to have been re educated and started working for The New World Order argued recently. If only it were that simple. Unfortunately globalization is the enemy not the trigger of the kind of economic recovery we need ... [Money - Finance]

Egypt Football Riot kills dozens
Remember the hope and anticipation that followed the downfall of former Egyptian President Honsi Mubarack. Remember how American President Barack Hussein Obama strutted around the world stage as if he had personally led the protests in Tahir Square that led to the overthrow of the dictator's regime? Remember how The Daily Stirrer told you it would all end in tears? After the outbreak of violence at ... [Middle East]

No Jobs For The Masses In The New Economy Despite University Education
No matter how leaders like David Cameron and Barack Obama try to talk up their economies or assure voters the jobs market is improving, growth returning and unemployment will soon start falling, the truth is change does not equal progress and forcing the pace of social change has only masked the true depth of economic and social problems. One of these is unemployment and particularly joblessness among the young. Even a universdity education does not provide a guaranteed career path ... Education

First Libya. next Syrian then The World for The Emperor Obama?
Led by The All Conquering Emperor Obama, jingoistic calls for military invervention are gaining volume if not support. Well OK we know the great peacemaker hopes a middle east war will save his Presidency as Iraq saved Bush's but just as more than half of Libyans supported Gadaffi so, according to polls conducted by western firms, more than half of all Syrians support Assad. The only justification for war then is Obama's need to inflate his ego. ... [Middle East]

At Least Britain Has It's Own Currency Dukle Of York Tells EU Single Nations Proponents
The Daily Stirrer does not have much time for Royalty and so we seldom mention them. But when a Royal Prince (fat Andy) stands up for British sovereigny and by extension the national sovereignty of the EU's other member nations which is gradually being eroded by the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, fair play to him.
Addressing an audience of businessmen attending the Davos summit in Switzerland, the Duke urged. ... [
Europe ]

More Old People Are Falling Through Gaps In The Care System Old people are increasingly being let down by a lack of co-operation and communication between the NHS and council-run social care, MPs looking at the crisis in care will reporert this week.
Conclusuions drawn from a study by the all-party health select committee ... [
Age Problem]

Not Qualified To Press A Button
Janice Woodward spent 75 minutes trapped with her granddaughter in a lift at her local ASDA store at Portland, Dorset, after health and safety rules stopped staff pushing a button to rescue them according to ...

Drivers Cool About Electric Cars
Have you purchased your new, clean, green, politically correct, all electric car yet? No? I thought not. Neither have I. It is not so much that I hate the enviroment or that I do not want to support the fabulous clean, green, sustainable job creating indistries fabulous, clean, green Dave has promised us will ...

Gay Marriage Row Set To Erupt Again
Led by that evil little crypto - Nazi Peter Tachell they Gay lobby are turning up the whineometer to extra loud as they once again demand that gays be given the same right as the rest of us enjoy, the right to marry. You might think gays already have the right to marry, after all Hello Magazine is full of pictures of turd burglar and rug muncher coulpes getting hitched every week. Sadly civil ceremonies are not enough for some ...

Will Warmageddonists Tell Us Where The Missing Heat Is Or Shut The Fuck Up
After recent revelations from NASA and NOAA that the earth is not warming as quickly as climate scientists mathematical models predict, the Warmageddonist loobby came up with a ridiculous (even by their standards) respose that some of the heat has gone missing. Respected global warming sceptic ...

HMS Politically Correct - The New Navy
As tensions rise one again the the Persian Gulf and America prepares to use it's proxies, Israel, France and Britain to kick off a war with Iran the Royal Navy is preparing to deploy it's Type 45 Destroyers in the area to ...

Spare Us The Identity Politics
It is a characteristic of the era in which we live that the assaults of the collectivist, authoritarian left on the traditional value that hold nations buit on the Graeco Roman culture together has created identity politics, one of the most destructive trends of the past half century. The human rights movement having gasined roughly equal rights in most developed nations turned its attention to minority rights. They obsess about gay rights, Muslims rights, black rights, children'r rights and womens rights as if ...

Another French Hopeful With His Foot In His Mouth
To a delirious crowd of around 20,000, M. Hollande, the Socialist candidate cited The Bard of Stratford on Avon as he promised to cast off the ennui of the Nicolas Sarkozy era with a new wave of egalitarian idealism. In dismisssing Sarko as sans balls, sans brains and sans achievements Mr Hollande told the crowd, was best summed up by Shakespeare's great words: "They failed because they did not start with a dream." ...

Europe Does Not Just Have A Debt Crisis But A Crisis Of Democracy

Europe's debt crisis and the possible collapseb of the Euro zone are exercising many political commentators. But is the crisis just about debt and saving the single currency or is something more sinister going on. Are we witnessing an attempt to dump democracy and impose a totalitarian oligarchy?

David Cameron Blames Madness Of Bussels Red Tape For Euro Crisis

Speaking at the EU economic forum in Davos, Switzerland The Prime Minister said Europe is still in a perilous time (up shit creek to you and me) because of its debts and the financial burden of over - generous statutory welfare systems. He told the gathering the EU Central Bureaucracy must stop throttling growth with pointless rules and regulations. Mr. Cameron urged his fellow leaders not to impose ...

Alien Life? Who Needs Lizard Men There Is A Universe Of Ideas Out There.
What If We Are Alone? Scientist insit we must spend $£€ mega on trying to contact alien life forms. But putting aside the thought that such aliens may be hostile and hungry, why do we need to. There is a uinverse of ideas we can explore right here in our minds. Sady scientists lack the imagination to understand that.

Solar Storm Armageddon: Will This Be What Makes Warmageddonists Shut T F UP
An eruption on the surface of the sun, aka solar storn will send a flood of highly charged particles towards earth. Satellite communications and other technology might suffer sone disruption but the best thing about it is from here in the north of England we will be able to see the Aurora.

Massive Solar Radiation Storm Set To Hit Earth
The Daily Stirrere has told you all along that the climate change doom and gloom merchants and the climate science tax eaters were a bunch of con men whose aim was to divert our attention from the real threats facing humanity, some of which are man made (but not related to carbon emissions) and some which are natural and completely beyond the control of smart arse scientists, the pompous politicians who fund them or ...

Iran: Britain could send military reinforcements to Gulf
Britain could send military reinforcements back to the Persian Gulf region if the dispute with betwen Obamaland and Iran's theocratioc regime escalates, according to Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary. He said the decision to send ...

While Socialist Occupy Protestors Call Punitive Tax On Weath, Socialist Tony Blair Pays 5% Tax

With Harriet Harman's Inequsalitries Bill having for the first time enshrined the superiority of minorities over the mainstream you might think at last there was some chance of making the elite live by the same rules as the rest of us. No chance as Tony Blair's use of offshotre tax havens and shell companies to blatantly dodge tax shows.
Nick Clegg: housing benefit reform will not cause 'mass homelessness'
Lib Dem leader has been defending the government's plan to cap the amount of state benefits that can be paid to a houehold. About time too. When claimants can make more than the average household income by playing the system what incentive does anyone have to work. There are strong opinions here, you've been warned.
Indian Minister Accused Of Abusing A Young Man With A Shoelace
Gauri Shankar Bisen, a minister in the government of the Indian State Madhya Pradesh, has eaten elephan dung, publicly disembowelled himself and offered to resign after admitting that he was guilty of shoelace related ...

Take your Ugg boots and stick them so far up your ...
The smammers are still busy in spite of all Google's inept and ineffectual attempts to stop them. In one way it is satisfying to know everything that bunch of incompetent semi autistic idiots do to try to stomp on comment spam actually rewards ...

GCSE Skydiving? And They Call It Education?
It's good to see the education system have decided to stop making exams as easy as falling off a wall. At least is the conclusion one might draw from the fact that a new exam introduced by the WJEC exam board will require candidate to jump out of a plane ...

Obama Prepares To Kick Off War With Iran.
We Old Gits who write The Daily Strrer love to say, with the obligatory show of false modesty, we told you so. And we get to indulge in this pleasure quite often as we are always right. So as we have predicted the US was preparing foir war with Iran several times of the thre years since we started The Daily Stirrer you might wel ask "Will they admit they were wrong on this one? Well we would be happy to admit we were wrong had we been wrong. Things are never what they seem to be however

Has The Fanaticism Of Militant Athreists Stigmatized Atheism Again
Not long ago, even though the nation had largely abandoned churchgoing, to describe oneself as an atheist carried a certain stigma. In the nineteen eighties and nineties that receded however as regular worshippers in Britain comprised just 6% of the population. Now however, thanks to militant atheism, the stigma is on the way back.

New Toilet Computer Game Will Really Piss People Off
Digital games colsole and game maker Sega is hoping to make a spash by nstalling video games in men's toilets. It could only happen in Japan of course: the firm is planning to install game consoles called "Toylets" at urinals for men in bars around ...

Immigrants Who Have Never Paid UK Tax Or National Insurance Claiming Billions A Year In Benefits

While the bleeding hearts of the "progressive left" wail and gnash their teeth over the plight of the world's poor a new report reveals hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came to this country on the pretext of studying or visiting relatives are living in fine style thanks to our lax approach to illegals and the incomptence of those who run the benefit system.

Are Feminists More Evil Than Nazis
A campaign by feiminists and lefties to get t shirts will slightly sexist slogans withdrawn from sale shows how authoritarian the progressive left are prepared to be in imposing their warped moral values on everybody.

The Decline And Fall Of The Bureaucratic Empire
The societies we live in, the companies we work for and by extension our lives are run by people who tell us they are much cleverer than we are. This is why we need elites and why, we are told, we must tolerate their high living, their jollies off to luxury resorts where they may focus their minds fully on how better to exploit us, use our money filched from tax revenues that should be spent to our benefit, on high class hookers. The point is we the ordinary punters are, according to these people, simply too stupid to ...

Hungary Faces Bankruptcy and Default as EU loses patience
The European Commission has launched legal action against Hungary's Fidesz government for violations of European Union treaty law and erosion of democracy, marking a dramatic escalation in the war of words with the EU's enfant terrible. "We'll use all our powers to make sure that Hungary complies with the rules of ..."

Drop in UK inflation Is Not Good News
The Office for National Statistics has reported a sharp fall in the Consumer Prices Index - down from 4.8 per cent in November to 4.2 per cent last month - was the sharpest drop in the annual rate since December 2008 when the UK was in recession and VAT was reduced. Government ministers and propagandists will try to talk this up as a sing that the economy is starting to recover. We should be wary however, in the current economic circumstances a drop in inflation, especially one this rapid in what is traditionally the best month of the year for retailers, is not good news ...

Google Has Comptely Forgotten 'Don't Be Evil' As The World Domination Agend Gathers Pace
At last Google has been caught stealing information from a business rival rather than private induviduals. Will people now wise up to these scumsucking pirates of the internet search engine world.

There Are Some Very Weird People Out There
A list of the strangest items left behind in bedrooms by guests at
hotels in the Travelodge budgret hotel chain is mind boggling. One has to wonder what sort of freaky things these people had been getting up to.

The Lard Hadron Collider
As excitements grows in the scientific community about the imminent announcement from the Large Hadron Collider team at CERN about how they have nearly found something interesting, Xavier Connolly explains why the whole thing is just a science a scam.

Euro Zone Gazes Into The Abyss As France Loses Its AAA Credit Rating
Stock markets fell sharply in late trading on Friday (13 January - oo-er) and the Euro zone single currency plunged against all other major currencies as Standard and Poor’s cut France’s AAA rating. Habitual debtor Italy saw its long-term rating dropped by two notches, along with Spain, Portugal and Cyprus. Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia had their ratings lowered by one notch. A surprise victim of ...

Statistics, Graphs and Hockey Sticks
A poem about the famous hocvkey stick graph and the science scam it was a frony for. Posted now as a valedictory celebration because US climate monitoring agncies NASA and NOAA have at last admitted the global average temperature has risen only marginally over the past few decades.

Osborne Says Cuts To Across The Board Child Benefit Will Go Ahead.

Chancellor George Osborne has said the Coalition government's plan to cut child benefit for higher rate taxpayers will go ahead but after ministers' hints the policy could be made "fairer" Mr Osborne has agreed to review the plans. While Lib Deems and Labour MPs, the unthinking droids of the politically correct left wail and gnash their teeth at the prospect of any benefit being cut ever and the idiot fringe lefties at ...

Euro Zone Crisis: The Decline And Fall Of The Bureaucratic Empire
Euro zone leaders continue to insist the single currency must be saved even though any fool would recognise a dead parrot when they see one. So why are they prepared to sacrifice the furture for the single currency project. And was it ever really about money?


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COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDED REA.DING AROUND THE WEB

In this section we do not necessarily support the views expressed in linked articles but try to give a coss section of interesting and well written articles that we think are likely to stir things up a bit.

COMMENT:
(A random and ecletic mix of what we thought was worth reading recently)

Unemployment at 8.3% Still Leaves A Vast And Destructive Jobs Deficit Robert Reich, The Guardian
The most significant aspect of January's jobs report is political. The fact that America's labor market continues to improve is good news for the White House. But as a practical matter, the improvement is less significant for the American workforce.
President Obama's only chance for rebutting Republican claims that he's responsible for a bad economy is to point to a positive trend. Voters respond to economic trends as much as ...

Much Media Ado About Nothing What connects seemingly disparate works such as The Silence of the Lambs, Cape Fear, Mad Men, and Seinfeld? It is the philosophy of nihilism, first popularized by Friedrich Nietzsche in the late 19th century. But in the last few decades, how did it become the dominant worldview of Hollywood? Dawn Of The Ice Age Signals The End Of The Global Warming Scam Back then, the media and activists trumpeted the arrival of a new ice age, with the specter of ice sheets and glaciers covering half the northern hemisphere, and brutal winters in the remaining ice-free zones. The fact that the media and popular culture and academia have veered from one panic-inducing disaster scenario to another one which completely contradicts the first one is funny enough in its own right. But reading The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age opened my eyes to an even more significant aspect ...

Hundreds of Independent Bookshops Face Closure
Hundreds of independent bookshops could be forced to close unless local authorities do more to support them, a leading retail group has warned. The Booksellers Association (BA), which represents 3,500 independent bookshops across the UK, has written to almost 400 council chiefs urging them to do more to support their local high streets or risk ...

Solar Panels Subsidy Was The Most Ridiculous Green Scheme Deramed Up
A plan to subsidise solar panels on homes was “one of the most ridiculous schemes ever dreamed up”, a Government minister has said.
Lord Marland, an Energy minister, hit out at the cost of so-called feed-in tariffs, which the Government has axed as part of the cuts programme. Last week Court of Appeal ruled that the sudden axing of the tariffs ...

Goodbye Great Britain
Recently, there have been two powerful challenges to the conventional wisdom about the United States. First, Robert Kagan published a lengthy essay in The New Republic, arguing that predictions of America's decline as a global power are woefully premature. .Is it possible, I found myself wondering, to do something similar for Britain? Robert Colvile has a go in this Daily Telegraph article ...

Our rising debt levels are becoming unsustainable – soon we may be talking about wealth confiscation (By Daniel Knowles, Daily Telegraph)
Debt, debt, debt; we’re drowning in it. This morning, the Office for National Statistics published the latest estimates of public sector borrowing. Though borrowing is falling faster than anticipated, thanks to the fact that spending cuts are finally beginning to kick in, the national debt has risen to 64.2 per cent of GDP. More significantly,…

The Obama administration knifes Britain in the back again over the Falklands - By Nile Gardiner World
In yet another display of disdain for the Anglo-American Special Relationship, the Obama administration has weighed in on the mounting tensions between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Just two days after Prime Minister David Cameron issued a robust statement in the House of Commons vowing to defend the sovereignty of the Falklands,…

Drones In The Hands Of The Paparrazi - It's an ethical minefield
America's use of drones for targeted killings is serious enough. But commercial and law enforcement uses are on the horizon. Whether you view them as model aeroplanes for grown-ups or the handmaidens of the killer robot, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are taking off in earnest. ...

The Observer uncritically regurgitates Trotskyist smears against Katharine Birbalsingh- By Toby Young, Daily Telegraph
There’s a disgraceful attempt to smear Katharine Birbalsingh in this morning’s Observer. Under the headline “Katharine Birbalsingh criticised over ‘wasteful’ free school project“, the paper’s policy editor Daniel Boffey tries to create the impression that there’s growing local opposition to the Michaela Community School – Birbalsingh’s free school – which is due to open in…

We’re being sent the bill for the euro crisis again – this time by the IMF - By Daniel Hannan First it was individual banks; then whole industries; then entire countries; now it’s the world. Western leaders have reacted to the failure of each bailout by decreeing a bigger one. Unable to admit their mistake, slaves to the defunct economist whose thinking dominates our economics faculties and central banks, they act like so many Nick Leesons,…

The Three Parent Family More on the progressive left's war on the family and the scientific dictaorship's attempts to dehumanize us all. Babies with three biological parents could be born within three years. Scientists have come up with an IVF technique that uses the undamaged DNA of a third party when couples risk giving their children a genetic conditions such as muscular dystrophy or ataxia. The Wellcome Trust has funded the research (the figures vary between £4 million and six million …

As Obama Positions Himself For A War In Syria We Learn That Like Gadaffi, Assad Is Popular With His People
Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western mediaAssad's popularity, Arab League observers, US military involvement: all distorted in the west's propaganda war. Suppose a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favour of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president, would that not be major news? Well one did and we never heard a word of it in the Obama felching western media ...

Bullshit Sherlock
While other blogs are full of how great the cliff - faller ending of Sherlock Holmes was I felt a bit let down. The fake suicide was telegraphed all through the show. And the coda assured us Sherlock had survived. We should not forget of course it was the habit of ...

Will bringing back grammar schools boost social mobility? by Toby Young Daily Telegraph
The possibility that England may shortly see its first new grammar school in over 50 years has, predictably enough, re-opened the debate about selective education. Yesterday, for instance, Allison Pearson came down firmly in favour, while Fiona Millar shot back with an instant rebuttal. I’ll get into that argument in a moment, but first let’s be…

So Why Read Books Anymore
There is great “truth and beauty” in Homer’s Iliad, but I would not try to make his sale on such platitudes. Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire remains a classic. But I confess it can be hard to get through. Conrad’s Victory or Knut Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil, if authored by writer X this year, would be trashed on Amazon.So what are the reasons, in this age of ...

Eric Holder and the Chicago Way In America Obama's Brownshirts are getting hysterical as they try to make race the major issue in the election campaign.

Dystopian Prophecies Are Coming True - The Government Will Soon Choose Our Wives
Thinking of this entertaining new literary award – “the Hatchet Job of the Year” – it was natural to turn to Macaulay’s Essays, for few reviewers have ever been less reluctant to wound. I had in mind two long review-essays, one on Robert Montgomery’s Poems, the other on The State in its relations with ...
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BBC News - Home
Updated : Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:36:46 GMT

Two men held over shooting death
Two men are arrested in connection with the death of a man who was shot in an East Renfrewshire street last year.
Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:30:13 GMT

Snowfall still a risk for weekend
Forecasters say snow is likely to fall in parts of Wales over the weekend, but a change in temperatures should see it turn to rain later.
Publ.Date : Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:54:33 GMT

Cairo clashes over football anger
At least four people are killed in clashes between Egyptian protesters and police, amid ongoing anger over deaths after a football match.
Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:11:32 GMT

Apple overturns Motorola's ban
Apple is granted a suspension of a sales ban imposed on some of its iPads and iPhones in Germany.
Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:10:08 GMT

Husband on arson charge over fire
A man who allegedly set fire to his County Antrim home appears in court charged with arson.
Publ.Date : Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:36:52 GMT

King's Speech premieres on stage
Almost a year after the film reigned supreme at the Oscars, the stage version of The King's Speech has its world premiere.
Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:59:05 GMT

Universities warned over access
The incoming fair access watchdog says universities will be fined for failing to recruit more students from poorer backgrounds.
Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:25:57 GMT

Large fire closes capital streets
More than 100 firefighters and 20 fire engines tackle a large fire in central London.
Publ.Date : Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:52:10 GMT

The rush to the scooter
Scooters are becoming increasingly popular as people look to cut costs and stretch their budgets, but could the boom spark safety problems?
Publ.Date : Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:58:35 GMT

Prince optimistic for fisheries
Prince Charles says there is a reason to be optimistic about the state of the world's oceans, but it is "critically urgent" to tackle overfishing.
Publ.Date : Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:44:01 GMT

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