I completely hate Anne Snelgrove

So the weekend stayed nice then. We drove down to Devon. The car is driving much better since the service, and I think we used less fuel too. So that's a good thing. There was loads of traffic. I completely hate caravans. I cut most of mother's grass while I was down there. That's like an acre. It felt like I achieved something.

The boy decided to be difficult all weekend. I don't know what the problem was, but his best friend Johnny appears to have got chickenpox, so it is possible he has it too. I had it as a child, and the dragon managed to catch it a couple of years ago from the kids at the school where she was teaching. If he hasn't got it, the plan is to let him spend a day or two with Johnny and get it out of the way now. Though, we are sort of thinking about expanding the family, so that would mean having one immune child, and one not.

Openly gay US Anglican Bishop Gene Robinson has been speaking in London and was heckled by a large and scruffy looking gentleman from the congregation who advised him, in forceful and vociferous tones, to "Repent Sir". Terribly polite I thought. He (the scruffy gentleman) was removed during a hymn, and he left on a motorbike apparently. I mention this because I thought the headline should be, "Bishop heckled for being a Queen".

Most of my colleagues have gone off on an outing today to Oxford. It's 4.30 and the team has vanished, apart from me and a couple of other social lepers. I hate office outings. Apart from anything else, they always end up in Oxford and it's a pain in the arse getting back to Swindon. Most people live in or near Oxford, so getting home isn't an issue for them. So I just told them I'd rather not go. I actually feel guilty about it. I shouldn't really should I. I have a family. I'm not contracted to work evenings, and it's unpaid. I'd rather be with them than my work colleagues.

15 July

IT was Bastille day in France yesterday, so I hope everyone there had a jolly good time. It seems to me that just about every country in the world has a special National Day except Britain. We should have a Battle of Hastings Day or Fire of London Day or something.

It seems my home town has decided to take on the government and attempt to disable speed cameras in the town. This is actually quite amazing. The local council has said that it is not prepared to provide £400,000 a year to upkeep roadside cameras which catch drivers speeding, because the money raised from fines goes straight back to the government. I know the councillor behind this action. His name is Peter Greenhalgh. We worked together for years. Our kids play together.
Yesterday the local paper published a piece about how awful it was that the local council was sacrificing road safety for the sake of money. They reported that our local MP Anne Snelgrove, oh how I loath that woman, was up in arms about the fact that speed cameras were lying dormant. Today the paper is running a poll that would seem to indicate that 75% of readers are in favour of scrapping the cameras.

The government loves speed cameras because they see them as a free way to catch people doing something illegal. It's another example of how the government and the public think differently. The public would rather 10 rapists or murderers were caught each year, than 1,000 speeding motorists. The government on the other hand thinks the public will vote for them if they can say they caught 1,000 speeding motorists without raising taxes, as long as they don't mention the rapists and murderers that got away with it. But the people aren't stupid. They know full well that, although speed cameras pay for themselves, police are still tied up with speed camera administration when they could be out catching scum bags.

This sort of row pleases me no end anyway. Not only is the public finally getting a voice, Anne Snelgrove, nasty, toady, bandwagon jumping, Iraq war supporting cow, is getting negative publicity too. The scheming old witch will struggle to keep her deposit at the next election if she carries on like this. Oh Happy Happy Day. She had only a small majority last time. Go and have a look at her stats page. The vile woman supported just about every assault on human liberty that's been through parliament in the last 10 years.

Things the evil bag voted for:
Iraq war
ID cards
42 detention without charge
Biometric registration of immigrants

And things the old sow voted against:
Transparent Parliament
Investigation into the Iraq war
Implemtenting independent recommendations over MPs expenses.