SOME things are just meant to be. I know this because of the fortunate series of events which have landed me with the little beauty you see above for the next few months. Yes, I shall be slumming it in a brand new Range Rover Sport V8 Supercharged.

There – is - a - God.

Engine size – 4.2 litres. Max speed – 140 mph. Weight – tonnes! Combined mpg – ouch. Cost to fill’er up - I may as well buy Kuwait. But who cares when you own the road?

David Vance: your ATW Carbon Footprint Record is in my sights.

Can there be a country more pathetic when it comes to weather than Britain?  I have to ask because in other countries that have extremes of weather – be it hot or cold – the locals just get on with it.  As I’ve said previously here we have to dramatise everything and terminologically turn relatively mundane conditions into the ‘big heat’ or the ‘big freeze’.  When we’re not exaggerating the bit of ‘extreme’ weather we do get, we have to invoke stupid old wives tales-type predictions such as ‘swallow flying backwards equals the hottest summer for 3 million years’, or ‘showers in June means a heatwave in December’, or some such cobblers!

We had it earlier on this year.  A few days of reasonably warm weather in April and out came perma-tanned Dr Hilary Jones from under his rock of self-idolisation telling us all to slap on the factor 6,000,000 sunscreen or we’d all come down with malignant melanoma.  I was even waiting in eager anticipation for some tosser from the BBC to be pictured standing in a reservoir basin filled with 3 feet of water informing us how we’d all have to suffer from a hosepipe ban this winter.  Sadly, it hasn’t come to pass because the country is absolutely awash with rain in another disappointing summer.

They tell us this is ‘global warming’!  How about some bloody warming in the United Kingdom?  It all seems to be happening elsewhere.  I am not going to waste my time doubling the impression of my carbon footprint in order to have miserable summer after miserable summer.  As for water shortages – where are they?  I travelled the length and breadth of Malta and didn’t see one overground reservoir.  In a country where it rains less than 50 days in the year, how come they didn’t complain of water shortages?  Oh, how about an excellent ability to de-salinate sea water?  We in Britain couldn’t conceive anything as simplistically brilliant as that.  We just have to tolerate dead brains banging on drought after 5 days of continuous sunshine, or impending dust bowl conditions following ten consecutive days of the temperature topping 30 Celcius.

Let’s face it, we have diabolical weather in this country.  Rain, rain and more rain.  Twas ever thus.  Interesting that the weather forecasters have gone strangely silent about boiling hot summers and Mediterranean conditions a decade hence.  Perhaps they don’t want to annoy people too much as they sluice rainwater from their downstairs carpets!

Actress Cameron Diaz has had to apologise for swanning around Peru carrying a handbag daubed with a maoist slogan, which she’d picked up in China, apparently oblivious both to Mao Zedong’s status as one of the biggest murderers in History, and the reign of terror inflicted on Peru by the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement.

Somehow I don’t imagine she’d have made the same mistake with a swastika. 

Just when you thought the scum of Irish republicanism could have another day of hubristic celebration at the prospect of the last soldiers leaving the bloody-money arena of south Armagh, another story comes along to gladden the heart.  I read there will be no prosecutions brought against any member of HM Armed Forces or intelligence services over the 1989 killing of Ulster’s own Dr Provo and Solicitor Hyde, Pat Finucane.

Pat Finucane, who sometimes played the role of a defence solicitor for IRA scum – the profession of choice for several of his siblings (sheer coincidence of course, LOL!), was murdered by loyalist terrorists 18 years ago.  Since then, aided and abetted by elements of an Establishment ever keen to give credence to republican conspiracy theories designed to blacken the collective name of our brave Army and RUC personnel, those who cheer loudest for the group that killed more people than any other during the Troubles have convinced themselves every ‘spook’ and RUC high ranker had a hand in his demise.  As I said, elements of the Establishment were anxious to boost republican MOPEry.  Hence, the surmisation by John Stevens over ‘rogue’ elements within the security services and their alleged involvement with his killing.

Did you notice how the Stevens Inquiry never put any sustantive flesh on the bones of their accusations?  Were the original allegations a smokescreen, designed to give republicans solace as they prepared to tactically end their implementation of mass murder?  I could say there is a galaxy in the distant universe made entirely of mozzerella cheese.  It may enter the legend of the mind; doesn’t make it fact.  Had there been any proof in the context of a peace process tailored almost exclusively to the appeasement of IRA terrorists, there would have been some prosecutions brought forward – even if penal incarcertaion would have been off the agenda following the terrorist releases as part of the Belfast Agreement.  That there are none should tell all with more than half a brain (that’s republicans out, then!) that Finucane was nothing more than a part-time terrorist slain by those who had chosen to make terrorism and illegality a full-time way of earning a living.

A line should now be drawn.

‘The shining virtue of the sage must shut itself far from the filth of the world.’

(Jia Yi)

THIS is genuine:

Prisoners released early to ease overcrowding in jails will get up to £172 compensation for loss of bed and board, the government said. Some 25,500 inmates are expected to be released up to 18 days early and will receive payments totalling £4.5m.

This centres on a lawyer called Lord Falconer. He’s the Lord Chancellor and, since May, Secretary of State for Justice. He’s never been elected to any public office, but he’s an old mate of Blair’s. Falconer is in the process of releasing 25,500 prisoners early because this government doesn’t believe in punishment and hasn’t built enough prison places to accommodate Britain’s growing prison population.

The administration and governence of modern Britain is a daily example of human insanity. Rarely do public servants act in our name without offending simple decency and common sense. It’s not enough to take our money and waste it in as many ways as they can dream up. No, to work in government today demands insulting the people you are supposed to serve. 

Given then that releasing prisoners early is merely ludicrous, something else had to be done, something to really stick it to the millions who keep you in a job. So the Ministry of Justice, a recent government creation, has declared that those prisoners released early will now be given our money to compensate them for the loss of the ‘bed and board’ they would have had if they weren’t released early. As I said, this is genuine.

As I am a panel member, I received an e-mail from the ‘Today’ team asking if I wished to take part in a ‘Social Mobility’ survey. Now I don’t normally ‘click’ on these things, but since I had agreed to join, I thought I’d give it a whirl.

I foundered within the first few questions, mainly due to the selections available to my mouse for "Main Wage Earner". The selection possibilities seem varied and inclusive on first viewing, but when one looks further in to the window, the realisation occurs that this is a very strange selection indeed. From ‘carpenter’ through ‘captain’ to ‘curate’, from ‘foreman’ through ‘Field Marshall’ to ‘Fund Manager’ and on from ‘Park Keeper’ through ‘Parliamentarian’ to ‘plumber’.

The survey is supposed to illustrate the lack of ‘Social Mobility’ in Britain today, which was illustrated with John Humphries interviewing some young men outside a Port Talbot pub in the afternoon, presumably because they were unemployed, and asking them if they were content with their lot, and also if they were happy for their children’s future. Problem is, if the viewpoint in the eyes of the people who built the survey is already opaque, what does that say for the outcome of the survey. The lack of modern employment possibilities given within the survey, with no mention of the vast swing of electronics, of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering jobs, with a single mention of an "agricultural worker with extra responsibility as herdsman", but no mention of any of the divisions within farming, or indeed a farmer, gives the clue as to the thought process which drives these people.

They don’t know how water is cleansed or treated, they have no clue about how bridges are built or how roads are laid; they don’t want to know of the multi-faceted  tasks such as ship or yacht-building which make up our industrial heritage! I realise that all occupations cannot be included in such a survey, but they didn’t even make allowances for some of the basic tasks of life!

I recently had some building work done on my house, and I deliberately chose the guy who did not supply the cheapest quotation. I chose him because he knew to include for all the extras, allowed for all the possible pitfalls and thought the job through before he priced it! The people who built the survey, the LSE (who else?) and the Sutton Trust didn’t even look beyond the limits of their own blinkered imagination, and if we are served poorly by the ones who attempt to shape our children’s future, we seem to be poorly served by all!

I see that the depraved Palestinian kidnappers of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston have released a new video of him in which he is wearing what he says is an explosives vest. In the tape, Mr Johnston says his captors have said they will detonate the vest if force is used to try to free him. Charming people, these Palestinians.

I was also interested to hear that both the UK Government and the BBC are "working closely" with the relevant authorities in Gaza to obtain the release of Johnson, which means they are working closely with the Hamas Islamic warlords. In doing this, they only encourage more kidnappings. Johnson must have known the risks to his life in reporting from such a demented environment as Gaza, full of murderers and run by murderers. Oddly enough, I can’t recall Mr Johnson filing reports highlighting the savagery that typifies this area and I suggest that IF he is finally freed, I imagine we will still not hear such. Reporting on the true nature of Hamas is not an agenda issue.

In October 1962 Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the Labour Party delivered a speech to conference on the thorny matter of Britain’s proposed membership of the European Economic Community, which the Tory government under MacMillan was pursuing enthusiastically at the time. 

Gaitskell’s speech does not attempt to persuade one way or another, rather he tries to lay out what the real issues were.  There were economic arguments for and against, there were question marks as to what the ramifications to British sovereignty would be – would it mean "the end of a thousand years of History"?  Of great concern was the impact on the fledgling Commonwealth, an institution he was most proud of, and the damage that the EEC tariff wall would do to them – "It is not a matter of aid; it is a matter of trade they want" he declares.

Although this speech comes from a time that is lost to us now, there is still power in his words.  It is a historical document. It illustrates how much has changed, and how little.  The speech is long, but to those who take an interest in such matters, I highly recommend it (link).

As it turned out, de Gaulle blocked the membership bid, and Edward Heath, then Lord Privy Seal had to wait another decade to realise his dream.  As for Gaitskell, he was to die suddenly and mysteriously three months later in what may well have been a KGB assassination.