The French said No. The Dutch said No. Having rendered further progress on the Treaty of Lisbon illegal, the power brokers behind it then asked the Irish. The Irish said No. So the power brokers behind it are now telling us we must find a way around the obstacle.
Pardon?
Whats the point of a vote if its going to be ignored if the sponsors don't like it? The people of three countries have stated their wish to halt further european integration under the terms given.
It hasn't gone unn
The huge storm in Burma has left as many as ten thousand people dead. Its hard to understand the scale of disasters like this. Even the secretive burmese government has felt it has no choice but to ask for foreign assistance. No doubt many people are pointing fingers and blaming Global Warming etc etc. Its as well to point that terrible storms have happened before, its just that the modern media make us so much more aware of what happens around the world now and that given we only live for a sho
WW2 revisited as I take the helm of Bulgaria in a computer simulation. Not many options, staying out of fascist control seemed a good idea. I decided Greece would fall to my mighty legions of which I had none, just seventeen various divisions of infantry, cavalry, and light armour. By March 1940 I was able to declare war, somewhat desperate to stay ahead of Italy.
Fighting on the frontier was fierce but those Greeks gave no ground. Worse still, I lost air superiority! How did that happen? N
You're the worst kind of propagandist who thinks he knows better than everyone else
Guest private messge (some-1-better-than-u)
Wow! Praise indeed. But Im not entirely sure what I'm propagandising.
However, lets for the moment ask a serious question - Do I think I know better than everyone else? Of course I do - just like everyone else does, including my crtitic quoted above - it's a fundamental part of human self worth to believe your opinion is as good as anyone elses. Even when it is
The colour of light through my bedroom curtains this morning was unmistakeable. Definitely snow. Not a great deal of it, but the yard and car park beyond had been given a white sheen. As I wearily glanced outside, the snow was still falling - it's tailed off right now and the sun is breaking through.
Winter has a bit of a problem right now. It doesn't seem to know what sort of weather to throw at us. Wind, rain, snow, bitter cold sunshine, it changes on the hour every hour. Yesterday it star
In some ways, my computers health crisis has proven to be something of a break from my usual routine. Its been a while since I last did any serious work with music but already the temptation is growing. Unfortunately it has been a while since I last practised, and to my chagrin I've realised how lame a player I've become. No matter. The guitar, bass, and keyboard have colonised my front room and my fingers are very, very sore!
You know what? I think its time I explored some of the musical fo
Just the other day I wandered through town in that aimless state of uncontrolled free time that sometimes happens between shifts at the car factory. Ooh look, a book store, let's have a browse and see if there's anything worth reading or better yet purchasing with my new found affluence. So I wandered in and headed for the 'scifi/fantasy' section as it was the nearest section I had any interest in reading. Almost immediately I spotted it. the Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set.
Good grief, I r
What is art? that's a very philosophical question at first sight but a very important one if you intend earning your living from it. For most people, art is either pretty, pretty horrendous, or pretty well mystifying how someone got paid megabucks for a pile of oversized kiddies building blocks.
There have been some incredible attempts at labelling mundane objects as art. There was that display in the Tate Gallery of a cube of unmortared bricks that earned the creator two million pounds. Mos
There I was, sat at a computer in my local library happily webbing and internetting, when some bloke stolled past, leaned over, and whispered to me as he passed by. "Turn to christianity and all your problems will go away" He said.
Well, problems are just part of life, which means his offer has an unintended fatal aspect. The thing is though, what he just offered can be considered at best unsavoury opportunism, or at worst, a form of blackmail. If he can stop my problems, then his morality i
I saw a report on BBC News recently about how the western nations are going to have to set aside their usual taste for meat dinners and instead gorge themselves on insect protein, because the insects are cheaper and require far less land to produce in quantity. The problem is that the worlds population is growing. And that is why eating insects instead of meat isn't a solution to the problem of starvation - it's merely feeding the problem.
You see, the natural limit of human population has a
Shopping? Done. Interview at the job agency? Done. Gas account cancellation? Done. On my daily checklist I had only the obligatory online job search to do, so off to the library for another struggle with Microsoft's worst.
Balloons? What's going on here? It's usually excessively warm in our local library but there seemed to be a much livelier atmosphere, and evidence of small scale partying. Worse still, as I ascended the stairs a jazz band started up, creating a very genteel background nois
There it was again - Another flicker of light. What on earth is going on? Curiosity got the better of me and I opened the back window last night to try and see what was causing that phenomenon.
It was a pretty ordinary evening. Not too cold, perhaps a bit damp, and apart from the odd swish of a passing car, or the flitter of a bat to and fro, nothing stirred. The local cat was making its way home across the yard, a sign that the foxes were coming out to play.
Then I realised what those s
The agency had booked me for a very early start at a warehouse an hours walk away. At that time of night the streets of Swindon are usually empty, perhaps just an occaisional drunken bellow from some unseen club-goer bumping into pavements, or more usually, a passing car taking less inebriated club-goers home.
And so it was quiet. All of a sudden a white BMW blasted past me, almost out of nowhere. I have no idea what speed the driver was doing but it was seriously over the top. It was so fas
A few nights ago I took a moment to take in the view overlooking the valley below my home. In Roman times it was verdant countryside with a farmyard at the bottom of the hill. Even in victorian times it was a green belt between the old market town on the hill and the new industrial village built for Brunel's new railway. Now it's urban sprawl, with an abandoned college building dominating the view.
I'm used to seeing movement in the back yard and the alleys leading from it. People use the ar
Yesterday I heard news that an illegal rave had been stopped by police at disused farm buildings near where I live. For those unacquainted with the term, a 'rave' is an impromptu 'night club' style party lasting until people fall over or get arrested. These people use any empty building they deem suitable, in this case the farm buildings left on the site of a new housing development. They do this to avoid noise, fire, public performance, and health & safety regulations. Some might think that
In the good old days I used to turn up at workplaces for interviews safe in the knowledge that I would be greeted by a receptionist who would tell me to sign a book and sit over there until called for interview. More and more that doesn't happen. Instead I arrive at the employers premises to find a foyer devoid of human presence, barely decorated, looking uninviting and unfriendly. A computerised touchscreen blinks a message that I should register my presence.
You would think that a computer
Employment agencies are the bane of the jobseeker. Love them or loathe them, anyone on Jobseekers Allowance sooner or later must do business with them during their search for work.The problem is that these agencies aren't interested in finding you work - you're just not that important - but instead need to shove you into the first convenient role to fulfill their contractual obligations and profit margins.
Unlike employers, agencies always do things at the last minute. There's always a sense
Life is full of coincidences. last night, whilst busy working on some computer stuff, I brought up the television on one side of the screen. To my horror, Channel One is no longer broadcasting. Oh no! Life without Star Trek? Repeats of the various series have been shown by Channel One and its previous owner, Virgin, for two decades almost continuously. The world will never be the same.
So what else is there? I flicked through the various channels and eventually gave up, dropping the remote o
What a difference a letter makes. There I was, jobsearching in a mad desperate attempt to keep the authorities happy, when everything went horribly wrong. They have quotas for finding dole cheats and unfortunately my number came up, even though I was exceeding their demands by an order of magnitude. So innocent or not - I was declared guitly by any pretext and the money stopped. Luckily for me an employment agency eventually found me ongoing work - though I have to say, for two months it looked
Was it something I said? Apparently, yes, it was. You might want to sit comfortably at this point because I want to begin this sorry tale of miscommunication.
Too late, I've started.
It was a dark and stormy night when I fired up the computer to search for employment. No, I'm lying, the weather's been quite reasonable lately and it was mid morning at the local library, so the only risk was a librarian moaning about my military surplus trousers and an ugly stare from the security guard wh
Yes its mid-July, and the rainy season is upon us. It seems global climate change has given us a monsoon in summer. Here in Rushey Platt there's great concern about where all this rainwater is going to go. The Swindon area isn't too badly off where flooding is concerned, seeing as its built on a hill. Given last years floods and the media attention it received, people are obviously worried.
Funny thing is, I had a dream last night on this subject. Nothing apocalyptic I'm afraid, so I can't w
Starting the day in a good mood I went about my business. Everyone seems to be in a good mood too. Happy smiling shop assistants, and warm if cloudy weather. It just feels like it's going to be a good day. Or at least, it would be if I hadn't cracked a rib during my collision with the supermarket car park. It only hurts when I laugh.
"Step into a recruitment office if you want to play soldiers" Growled a voice as I bounded joyfully up the stairs at the library. Oh great. Another clown. That'
Yep, thats me. Mr Cranky Pants
My new neighbours keep locking the outside door and leave me struggling to get in and out of my own home. They keep starting to play loud music and I've got a sore foot banging on the floor. I keep applying for jobs but Swindon employers have recently had lobotomies so they can't understand their own recruitment procedures. The Saturday night Town Cryer Association is still in business and vocal in the early hours. My car is starting to look a little weather wo
Woo hoo! 2015! Yeah. 2015. Who would have thought we'd make it this far? What with the Nostrodamus prophecies of global apocalyptic disaster, global warming, outbreaks of Ebola, christians preaching the return of Jesus and mysterious disappearances, the relentless advance of the electric car, my unemployment benefit payments cancelled, no heating in my home, and finally discovering that being more than fifty years of age really does mean you have to resort to a bus pass.
The other day I had
Sex, violence, and financial wobbles - In no particular order. That's pretty much the news every night and yesterday was no different. With Greece failing to please the rest of the world share prices have tumbled. What? Again? People have been dealing in shares since big curly wigs were a fashion statement. You would think by now we'd have learned that shares were a risky investment. Much like cheating at cricket for instance.
However, the wobbles of the Eurozone are not the last word in fin
