Mixed fortunes

I've had mixed fortunes over the holiday period. Unfortunately I got a call early yesterday morning from my mother to tell me that my father had died during the night. He had been sick a long time with lung cancer and another lung condition. The news therefore came as no surprise. He asked me over a year ago not to write about him here, and that is why I have never mentioned it. I cannot however let the event go by without some words.

In fact Christmas was not a sad occasion, at least not entirely so. Despite father being very frail, I think he had a good day. He has had very little appetite over the last month, but he managed some dinner with us, including a glass of wine, and he unwrapped his presents. The dragon made him a calendar with pictures of his grandson. He spent a long time looking through it. It was unbearably sad to watch, but I think it was a rather special gift. Of course a calendar could seem like a tactless present for a terminally ill man. Don't think we didn't wrestle with the concept. But strangely, I think it turned out to be a very good idea. And when we left on Boxing Day, he told us that he had had a good time.

We all knew that it would be the last Christmas with him, and saying goodbye that day was even harder than usual. We all felt it, but no one showed it. It was as successful as anyone could have hoped for under the circumstances. I went back to Devon yesterday to be with mother. She is coping well, as is my brother, who also returned. I came home again this evening, but my brother will be there a few more days to keep her company.

For me the shock has worn off a little now. I still feel that his passing has left a gaping hole in my life, but I also feel a certain relief. Things were becoming difficult. Now the hard part is over. I just have to learn how to put my own bicycle chain back on and solve my own crossword clues. It's not so hard. Got to stand on my own some time.

On a more positive note, the mail brought news this morning that the dragon's visa application has been successful. That will probably mean that I won't be ranting about the Home Office here in quite such vitriolic tones for the foreseeable future. That will please most people I'm sure, It won't last however. This is only the middle stage in the process. Next we apply for British citizenship. Actually the dragon has no interest in becoming British, but it seems to me that her right to remain here will only become irreversible when she has a British passport. For that reason I believe that it is the only option open to us.

Light-hearted

Firstly, thanks to all those who noted and apparently share my despair at the immigration crisis I'm currently facing. Actually, I have to say, the Dragon is dealing with it much better than I am. She takes the view that getting angry is only going to make the ride rougher. And of course she is right. It will all turn out OK in the end.

I'm going to try and write something more light-hearted to end the theme of doom and despondency that has recently taken control of this diary.

Here's a story I found in the news about vandalism of a statue in Cheltenham. Cheltenham is a refined place. In Swindon the thugs spray obscene words, usually spelt wrong, over anything that doesn't move. In Cheltenham they find a statue and paint its testicles green. I'm not saying I approve, but you have to admit, there is some humour there, it's not serious defacing of the artwork,and it's more imaginative than just spraying rude words in red paint.

The National Health Service "Choices" website has a dilemma concerning their new interactive body map page. The page is all set to include a male and female image that can be stripped away, layer by layer, to reveal the workings of the human machine. So what's the problem? I'll tell you - genitals. It seems the NHS are worried that people might be offended by genitals. It's astounding isn't it. I mean I could sort of understand it if we were talking about photos, but these are drawings.

Anyway, they have decided to put it to the vote here. If you want to see sex organs on the website, send a blank email to full-body-map@nhschoices.nhs.uk. If you want to see the PG-15 version only, send a blank email to partial-body-map@nhschoices.nhs.uk. You can add comments in your mail if you want.

What gets me about this is the fact that, on their voting page, they have included images with and without testicles. How worried can they be about offending people with genitals if they put them on the voting page?

Finally, I am going to mention immigration slightly because I want to bring to your attention a letter I have received from a local politician. I write to Anne Snelgrove recently because she represents my area. She is a labour politician, which essentially means she is morally bankrupt, but she's all I've got, so I wrote to her expressing my concerns about new immigration policy. In fairness, she wrote back promptly and did address most issues I'd raised, though I have since discovered more issues. The thing that really amused me was the hand written post script which appears to read, "pants will only be needed for new entrants to Britain". It took me some time to realise that in fact she was trying to say "points", not "pants". Which I suspect I should be relieved about.

And in case you were wondering just how much I was exaggerating, click here for a scan of the letter.

In case I don't get to write another entry before Christmas, Merry Christmas to everyone. Do something to make the world better place, and have a good holiday.

I lied

I know I said I wouldn't write any more about immigration for a while, but guess what - I lied apparently...

Check out this amazing article from The Times this week. In case you haven't got time to read it, it details the adventures of a journalist who posed as a failed asylum seeker, living illegally in Britain, wanting to return to India. He went to the IOM (international Organisation for Migration) and told them he had been an illegal immigrant in Britain for more than 10 years, and that he wanted to return to India to set up a travel agency business. They agreed to give him a package worth around £4,000. Including cash, air fares, a car, accommodation, office equipment, and more.

This is a criminal, albeit a fictional one, and they offered to give him money to leave a country that he's not even allowed to be in.

THEY OFFERED HIM MONEY, NO QUESTIONS ASKED, TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY!

THIS MONTH I'VE HAD TO PAY THE FUCKING HOME OFFICE ALMOST £1,000 JUST TO ASK THEIR PERMISSION FOR MY WIFE TO STAY WITH ME IN MY OWN COUNTRY. SHE'S NEVER HAD SO MUCH AS A SPEEDING TICKET IN HER LIFE. I'VE PAID TAX HERE FOR 25 YEARS. I HAVE FAMILY HERE. SHE HAS A SON HERE. AND THEY COULD STILL TURN HER DOWN WITHOUT RETURNING OUR MONEY!

You want to know what the really funny thing is? The journalist who wrote the story above asked the IOM if he could come back to Britain if he didn't like India, AND THEY SAID YES. They offered to pay an illegal immigrant for a £4,000 holiday to Goa, and then let him come back to Britain legally.

Can you imagine how heartbreaking that is to read for someone who just wants to keep his family together?

Stressed Stressed Stressed

I haven't written much here lately, and what I have written has been basically an ongoing rant about immigration. I'm stressed about it, and I'm fed up. I'm going to stop writing about it for a while and return to other things.

Harriet Harman, nutter and leader of the commons, is back bitching about prostitution. It's not illegal to take money for sex in this country, and it's apparently not illegal to pay for sex either. Harriet wants to make it illegal to buy sex. This she claims will reduce trafficking. I still don't think trafficking is a real issue. There are a lot of Eastern European women working here as prostitutes, but they aren't brought here in cages and chained up in dungeons as is suggested by the term "trafficking". They are lured here with the false promise of bar work and waitressing, and then told the only work available is in the sex industry. It's not trafficking.

Trafficking is already outlawed anyway. Making paying for sex illegal won't change anything. Harriet's problem is that she doesn't like men who pay for it and she wants to launch a personal attack.

It seems that prostitution is in fact much more legal here than I realised. In fact it is legal to buy, or sell sex. It's also legal to work as a prostitute in "off street" premises. It is illegal to keep a brothel though, so two women selling sex in the same "off street" premises is illegal. It's also illegal to solicit, or kerb crawl.

I think the law prohibiting kerb crawling is outrageous. In fact it seems to me that all the laws are completely arse-about-face. Apparently soliciting is illegal, so a woman in the pub is technically breaking the law if she goes up to a man she likes the look of and flirts. A man can however quite legally put £20 pounds in her hands and say, "that's for sex, how about it?", because it's not illegal to buy sex. She can quite legally take the money in exchange for sex. In fact she can even take him home to do it as long as her sister doesn't have a habit of doing the same thing, because then her home would be a brothel, and that's illegal.

Incidentally, what the hell constitutes prostitution? If this fictitious woman in the pub offers to take £20 in exchange for standard, missionary-position sex, that is clearly prostitution. But what if she offers to take the money in exchange for letting him take pictures of her naked, or for spanking his naked bottom? What if this man offers her the money to buy her knickers, or to partake in some non-penetrative sex act, and she agrees, has anyone broken a law? Seems rather difficut to pin down to me.

If you make paying for sex illegal, you seem to be left with the problem of proving that sex took place if you want to prosecute. If the prostitute and the client both tell the police that they just talked and no sex took place, how can a conviction happen?

On a completely different note...

Today the govenment is announcing that drivers caught using a mobile phone while driving are to face up to 2 years in jail. Amazing isn't it, they are letting out sex offenders and violent criminals early to ease jail overcrowding, but they are threatening to put people using phones while driving in jail. It's an April Fools joke isn't it? No, that can't be right, it's December.

It was snowing when I walked to the train station this morning. I hate winter.

Stressed

In a frantic attempt to be seen to be doing something to halt the immigration crisis caused by Blair's government, the Home Office is to announce that tourist visas will in future allow only 3 months in the UK instead of 6. This measure will of course have no effect on illegal immigration since illegal immigrants don't care very much how long the visa is valid if they intend to violate it anyway.

The Home Office is also intending to charge families of visitors who overstay their visas £1,000. In other words, if my sister in law, who is Taiwanese, comes to visit, we get fined £1,000 if she overstays her visa. This measure seems yet more ludicrous. I assume people will be able to enter the country on a tourist visa if they don't have family in the country. In which case, my sister in law can still come in on a tourist visa without declaring that she has family in the country, and then overstay her visa, same as before. And there is no way the British government can check whether my sister in law is related to anyone in this country. And even if they could, they would surely have to prove that we had knowledge of her visit.

Seems to me that all this only affects those people currently not intending to violate the law. Like me for instance. The £1,000 bond and the fact that I have shelled out nearly £1,000 in expenses this month just to keep my family together, makes me feel as though I am effectively taxed on my marriage to a foreigner. And what really gets up my nose is the fact that the Home office is only doing this to make it look as though they are in fact doing something about the immigration crisis they caused.

I think I'm going to stop writing about immigration issues because it's stressing the hell out of me.

That'll Teach Them

Norwich Union Building Society has been fined £1.26m by the Financial Services Authority. This is because their inadequate security measures allowed identity theft of their customers. In fact, customers lost £3.3 million collectively, largely due to people calling the call centre and pretending to be customers. One wonders how much Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is likely to be fined, bearing in mind that their inadequate security measures led to the loss of 25 million public records.

The Financial Services Authority is a "non-governmental body". That is to say, it operates independently of the government, and it is not funded with public money. It is in fact funded by the bodies it regulates. How does that work? No idea. It does seem however that the FSA is "accountable to Treasury Ministers". Again, no idea what that means really, but that is what it says on their website. I note that it is a government website incidentally. Exactly how independent is this body? My point is this; how can the FSA come to an independent decision about HMRC transgressions if they are, "accountable to Treasury Ministers"? And, if the HMRC was to be fined, where would the money go? Back into government coffers? I doubt that the HMRC comes under the umbrella of the FSA. They are not a financial body as such. Interesting though that Norwich Union can be fined for poor security.

And, talking of losing data, guess what - the government have lost some more it seems. This time it's the personal details of 3 million learner drivers. The data went missing on a hard drive which vanished somewhere in the US. Ruth Kelly, poison dwarf transport secretary says the risk is low. Well, she would, wouldn't she. I say every time the government misplaces our data, they have to pick a cabinet member at random from a hat and publish that person's personal details on the internet. I'm talking bank account numbers, personal address, credit card details, phone numbers, medical record etc. That would teach the bastards the importance of data security.

The Dragon has been flying solo on the British rail network today and experienced all it has to offer in terms of overpriced seats, overly rude staff, late trains, cancelled trains etc. She feels a better person for doing it I think. She went all the way to Cardiff with Dumpy in a push chair and watched her friend graduate. Dumpy enjoyed it apparently.

I'll put up some pictures tomorrow of Dumpy in his Monsoon outfit. He looks cool as.

I'm bored with the damn canoeist

First a picture, just because I like it...



Today I am fed up with hearing about the bloody canoeist who allegedly faked his own death. I mean honestly, this has been headline news for the last week. He's just a prat who tried to cheat the insurance company as far as I can see. He didn't even do it very well. Seems he thought that coming back after five years with 'amnesia' would mean he could keep the money and come out of hiding. Apparently not however. Anyway, I'm fed up with hearing about the idiot. I don't care. I do want to know what is happening with the Labour party funding debacle. I also want to know what is happening with the missing child benefit data and what is being done to mitigate the effects if the data falls into the wrong hands.

I've written to my local MP over my concerns for the new immigration rules. It's difficult to know what is going to happen. It would appear that the Home Secretary is to introduce a points system. That's a great idea. It's not as if I haven't been saying it for decades. As usual however, it looks like it's going to be an almighty cock-up. Seems the only things you get points for are university qualifications and huge salaries. My wife has neither. She does however have a British husband and a British son. How many points does she get for that - none. Thanks then.

A man released from prison early under a government scheme to reduce prison crowding has murdered his girlfriend. It's worth noting here that he was only in prison in the first place because he beat her up. Nice chap. Jack Straw, Justice Secretary, says that he would have murdered her whenever he was released, so it's obviously OK then.

The amusing story of the day concerns a woman who has been jailed for trying to claim tax credit for seven children that didn't exist. The authorities realised something was wrong when they realised she would have had to have given birth seven times in 18 months it her claim was genuine.

The new train timetable started this week. So far I don't think any train I have wanted to catch has been on time, but there are more of them, so I guess we are better off than we were. Today I went to the quiet carriage on the journey to the office, but it was crowded and an ignorant git next to me spent the whole journey making phone calls. On the way back I headed for the quiet carriage again, but this time there was a family with three children under five shouting and screaming, and a group of eastern European girls playing the videos they had recorded on their phones - Sigh.

Oh, and news just in; as if it wasn't enough that the HMRC lost the personal details of 25 million, it now appears that the Northern Ireland Driver and Vehicle licensing authority has lost thousands more, yet another example of a government department with no understanding of the importance of personal data.

pursed lips and clenchy buttocks

We're not hearing much in the news now about Labour Party funding irregularities, and the fact that HMRC lost ID details for 25 million people two weeks ago, appears to have been all but forgotten. The funding row won't go away because the police have now been involved. They have to follow it up and I don't think there is any question about the law having been broken. I was hoping the missing data issue might run for longer, but people are bored with it I suppose.

There was one small piece in the Telegraph today that mentioned the fact that, within the 25 million records that went missing, are records for people on witness protection programmes, and that both their real and original identities are included. That's a bummer for those people isn't it.

The government does not realise how important data protection is. I hope with every fibre of my living being that people will remember this fiasco when the id card scheme lurches forward next year. Some time in 2008 all overseas residents will be required to register for the id database. That means my wife. There is little I can do about it. She is a visitor, she can be deported for non-compliance. I on the other hand, am seriously considering refusing to register or pay when the time comes.

On a completely different note, the Jerry Springer Musical is in the news again. The musical was shown by the BBC a while back and managed to generate a record 63,000 complaints from christians claiming that it was blasphemous. I never saw it, and I don't care, but I'm always amused when Christians get all pursed lips and clenchy buttocks about stuff like this. Why on earth do you let it bother you? The show got far more publicity after your ranting than it ever would have otherwise. Anyway, I digress.

The Christian Voice, a most odious group of self righteous head cases, who hate just about everything except church (It's true, just visit their website), decided to launch a legal case against the BBC and the producer of the stage show. The district court ruled that neither the BBC, nor the producer of the stage show could be prosecuted for blasphemy. So Christian Voice appealed to the high court, and lost again. And I can't tell you how pleased I am about that. It will be a sad day indeed when these nutters start calling the shots.

We're going to get lovely shiny new prisons built. Currently there are over 81,000 people in prison in England and Wales. The three shiny new prisons will each hold 2,500 scumbags. I make that 7,500 new places. Actually the new prisons and a programme of improving existing prisons are expected to result in 10,500 new places. Here's the thing; my understanding is that 5% of prisoners currently held in British prisons aren't British. I make that about 4,000 scumbags. Why not simply send these scumbags back to wherever the hell they came from, and don't give me any BS about asylum, then we get 4,000 new places for British scumbags. It's not hard maths is it? What's the problem?