We are stark raving mad

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

Completely bloody bananas we are. Let me walk you through the first few pages of today's Sunday Times:

Page 1. Chris Hoy who cycled to 3 gold medals in this year's Olympics has been nominated for a knighthood in the New Year. Now I am not fond of Honours at the best of times but I let them pass in most cases because many of the recipients have done something of public good. Last week Mr. Hoy was voted as 'BBC Sports Personality of the Year', plainly by people who cannot distinguish charisma from a brick. Nice lad and I am glad he was successful but as for the rest, well, tosh.

Page 2. This is far more serious. Our silly Government is now proposing to give bailiffs the right to break into people's homes if they are in debt. It gets worse: they will be given permission to 'restrain or pin down householders' and seize property to pay off debts. The comforting thing in all this is that the bailiffs will not be allowed to search your pockets nor take jewellery off your person. Presumably you could do them for sexual assault over that. (I think it was Rodney Dangerfield who said, 'If it wasn't for pickpockets and airport security, I'd have no sex life at all.) Oh and they are not allowed to enter empty property BUT they are given the right to enter if, inter alia, they see the 'movement of a curtain' or other hints of occupancy.

I'd like to meet the bastards with a samurai.

Page 4. We now find that a homeless family has been rehoused, free of charge, in a £2m + property in Kensington & Chelsea (swanky part of London for those who don't know it) where the rent alone would be £1,755/week. Couldn't find anything cheaper is the local council's excuse.

Page 4. Not content with poking their noses into pretty much everything, the EU is now planning to set quotas on sea anglers. As per bloody usual, the research has been rolled out to show just what a danger they pose. Florida State Uni has said that sea anglers pose the largest human threat for many species in America. Yeah well, I am sure they do; it's all that tuna, you know.

Meanwhile, commercial fisherman dump their catches for fear of going over their limits.

Page 6. Royal Bank of Scotland who recently got a mere £20 billion of state aid, are now telling clients who have made the slightest error in their repayments (like one month overdue) to pay off their entire mortgage in 30 days or get evicted.

Page 6. The Duke of Sutherland has flogged us Titian's painting, Diana and Acteon for the trifling sum of £100m. Yes it may be a great work of art but in this day and age, we could have done a decent reproduction of it at a fraction of the price. Who would have bought it anyaway except us poor mugs? America is broke so maybe Dubai. Oh, woops, they are broke too.

I could go on but you'll think I am going over the top. The one little piece of sanity I observed in this whole comic, related to what you and I have known all along - most academic research comes up with the bleeding obvious. Just a few examples before you fall asleep:

- University of Alberta reports that students who watch junk food adverts are more likely to eat snacks and put on weight.

- Cambridge University reports that impulsive, risk-taking and thrill seeking drug takers are more likely to become addicts

- Oxford University found that we get irritated when call centre people use our name and try to be friendly

And finally, and this has to be Ph.D material, Penn State Uni noted that parents whose kids will not eat vegetables could succeed by disguising them in other dishes by mushing them up.

I despair.