Eat a deer to save the planet

I made venison casserole on Saturday. It was indeed a thing of wonder. I slow cooked it for about 6 hours in a red wine and lamb stock. Oh it was most delicious. Sadly the dragon found it hard to get past the Bambi moment. She did eat it though, and claimed that it was really just a question of getting used to it. She found it easier to eat with mushrooms. The boy really seemed to like it, but he is of course not yet familiar with fury-faced Disney character.

I take the view that venison is a really eco-friendly choice of meat. Deer are not intensively farmed. They're not farmed at all in fact. They're free range, and about as organic as it's possible to get, no hormone injections or antibiotics, and they even graze on wild pasture, so no pesticides. They really need to be periodically culled because they are destructive to farm land, and they have no natural predators any more. So, there you have it, eat a deer to save the planet, and it has the bonus factor of upsetting vegetarians.

On an almost related point, it suddenly occurred to me last week that dairy cattle must eventually reach a point at which they can no longer produce milk. What happens then? I was guessing that they got made into dog food. It appears I was wrong though. Thanks to mad cow disease in the UK, no bovine over 36 months old are allowed to enter the food chain. So they just slaughter them and burn them. And, something I hadn't thought of, boy cows are almost worthless because they don't produce milk and they are not beef grade animals, so they pretty much get slaughtered as soon as they are born. The stuff you learn here.

We took the boy to Butterfly World yesterday. He likes it there. You can pet the animals. He particularly likes the goats. He's not so keen on the butterflies. But there are also ducks, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, guinea pigs, geese, and some reptiles. There were a few second hand books for sale there as well. I found a copy of an ex-library book with stamps from 1952. It is called "Steamboat Gothic" and it would seem to be a collection of short stories. So I picked it up for £1. What an absolute bargain.

I got a private note from TittyMcBoobs on the last entry. Sorry Ms McBoobs, I can't leave you a note on your diary as I am not on your favourites list. But it was a good note because it pointed me to an article in the NY Times about the US Purity movement. It talks about the same Purity Ball that appeared in the documentary I got so scared about last week.

Incidentally, Abby came up with something on that entry too. She obviously supports purity, and I have no problem with that. Abby is however a smart young woman of the 21st century, quite capable of making her own decisions. What bothers me about the purity movement is the repressive nature of the fathers that seem to sign their daughters up to it. All the fathers interviewed in the documentary I saw admitted that they were essentially promiscuous during their youth. It all seems rather hypocritical to me.

Bradford and Bingley bank has been partly nationalised and party sold. It was a big buy-to-let lender. Once again the tax payer is left with a huge bill. We inherit the toxic mortgage business. George Osbourne, at the Conservative conference, has attacked the Labour government and blamed them for the debt crisis. I'm betting the next polls will show a swing to Conservatives. Polls will appear after Cameron's speech, but I don't know what day that will be. News has also just broken that the Conservatives intent to freeze council tax for two years if elected at the next election. That will be popular. Council tax in my area doubled in the five years I was away.

Bailing out the banks is not entirely bad news in my view. The huge expense means that the treasury coffers are emptied, and that makes the government less powerful. This is a good thing. What kind of lunatic government is going to commit to huge and expensive projects like id cards in these conditions? I made a mistake in a recent entry by the way. I said that government spending in the last 10 years had doubled to £300 billion. Actually it has doubled to £600 billion. That is about £1,000 for every person in the country. No government should be that rich.

Virgin Daughters

Ah, the sun is shining and the weekend approaches. Why couldn't summer have been like this? Usually by this time of year I have begun to get depressed about the onset of winter. The trees have begun to shed their leaves and the feeling is there, but the sunshine is doing something to keep me happy. I'm sitting alone in my cubicle at work. All the others have gone off to "work from home". I could have done that today. I'm only proof reading.

The Dragon's friend had a baby. She popped out yesterday. I think we will go and visit at the weekend. Apart from that, we have no plans. Maybe we could go kite flying, or visit somewhere.

I watched a documentary on Channel 4 last night called, "The Virgin Daughters". It ranks as one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. It was right up there with "I spit on your grave" and that John Carpenter film that takes place at an Arctic survey station. I think I only caught the last 30 minutes, but I still had nightmares. It was about deeply religious American families with obsessive fathers that teach their children to remain "pure" until marriage. They interviewed a 21 year old guy that had never kissed a girl. I mean seriously, that's just one step away from being locked in the cupboard under the stairs for the first 20 years of your life.

There appears to be a purity movement in some part of US (Colorado Springs?) where all this goes on. There were girls there who weren't allowed to be alone with boys until they were in their twenties. And the number of girls who had to end relationships with boys before they even started because their fathers didn't approve, it was weird. By far the weirdest thing was the father that lined his children up once a week to receive his "blessing". He went along the line like Billy Graham or something - shudder. I'm going to see if I can watch the part I missed tonight.

I'm not against purity. I'm intensely embarrassed by people that have to advertise it. You do need to teach children about the pros and cons of physical relationships of course. They interviewed one girl on there that began a physical relationship behind her father's back when she was 19. She and her boyfriend had never been taught about contraception and she wound up pregnant. She now seems to have no relationship with her family at all and lives with a new boyfriend. Her family tried to make her marry the father of her child, but she miscarried and he marriage never happened. I don't want to think about it.

Pres Bush is having all sorts of problems with his bank bailout plan isn't he. And I notice Calamity Brown is itching to get in on the act.

It's all doom and gloom in the news today. House prices are falling, banks are going bust, businesses are going out of business. I'm in the process of composing another letter to my local MP about id cards.

Marxist Nutter

The Arch Bishop of Canterbury and the Arch Bishop of York have both decided to make comments on the behaviour of city traders in recent weeks. Dear Old Rowan Williams, surely becoming more of an advert for atheism every day, even goes as far as to defend Marxist philosophy in his Spectator piece. See, this is one area where the Americans have it right. They don't mix church and state. Well they do, but they're not supposed to. How can anyone come to objective conclusions when they are blinded by their faith? Outrageous, I bet they didn't even know what short selling was until they saw it explained on the BBC News.

Today that cow from the Home Office has announced that biometric ID cards are to be rolled out to foreign nationals (my wife) from November. As usual the rules are unbelievably vague and I have no idea whether the Dragon will be affected. It seems that foreigners will be told that they are required to have a card when they apply to extend their stay. The Dragon already has "permanent leave to remain" or something, which means she doesn't need to apply to extend her stay. She will however be able to apply for a British passport in December. I have no idea whether that means she will need a card or not. Oh how I hate the Home Office.

The Labour party have bounced up in the latest YouGov poll and they now trail the Conservatives by only 10 points. That's a big jump from the 20 points of last week, but even the Pinko Commy Subversive Guardian rag seems to suggest that it's only a temporary blip. In fact the Conservatives have dropped only three points, and the the Lib Dems four. Some 1,500 people were polled immediately after Brown's speech at the Manchester conference. Since then the Ruth Kelly resignation has been threatening to restart the internal fighting. I still can't help thinking there is something very odd about that. I wonder if something is due to climb out of the woodwork.

And on to answering a couple of notes:

Yes, Mr Punk, J K Rowling is clearly mad as a shit house rat. This often happens to people with more money than they can possibly ever spend. I think you can generally split Britain down left/right, socialist/capitalist lines. The left vote for the Labour party and the right vote for the Conservatives, but Tony Blair screwed it all up by leading the Labour party with a right-wing philosophy. At least that's what it seemed like until it became obvious he was your standard Labour tax and spend monkey in a dress. Public spending has doubled to £300 billion since the Labour party came to power. And of course tax burdens have increased to pay for it. Are public services better? Nope!

I don't align myself with any party. I always vote for the party most likely to beat the Labour party. That is almost always the conservatives.

Lambeth said something I didn't understand about pokers. I'll contact you privately on that one.

Abby it appears to be a fiscal conservative. That must be American parlance for anti-tax-and-spend-monkey. So, we agree on something there Abby.

And jinxkytn, you appear to be reaching the same conclusion as me regarding David Blaine. What's he smoking?

Odd Timing

Ruth Kelly, the Poison Dwarf and Transport Secretary has resigned her cabinet post. It's most odd. The news "leaked" in the early hours of this morning. She's a hardcore catholic and word on the street is she was having trouble with her conscience over the embryology bill. Publicly she has said that she is stepping down to spend more time with the family. Timing is odd though. She has never been a Brown fan. At least she was always assumed to be one of those ministers that tolerated rather than supported him. No one seems to know where the leak came from, or at least, no one is saying. And it came just as Gordon was congratulating himself on his bacon-saving speech at yesterday's conference.

I can't say I thought that the speech was very effective. There was nothing very new in it. The surprise element of his wife coming on stage to introduce him won him a point or two, but none of the editorials this morning have dared to suggest that he is now safe.

Harriet Harman, foul woman, wound up the Labour conference with a speech in which she suggested there was something "not quite right" about David Cameron. Well that had substance. Care to tell us exactly what you mean by that Harriet, or was it just some desperate attempt at a witty put down? There have been a lot of personal attacks against the Conservatives during the course of the conference. I didn't notice much in the way of political fencing though. Lets wait and see what the polls have to say after the Conservative conference next week, and then make a judgement about who the public think is "not quite right" shall we.

There will have to be an election in the next 12-18 months, but it could be much sooner, and the government is trailing very badly in the polls. Thus, unless things change, there will be a lot of Labour MPs losing their jobs in the near future. I can hardly wait for the desperation and panic to begin.

I'm tired, very tired.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

I think I misled people yesterday. I was not suggesting that George Michael or other celebs were not charged with possession of drugs because they were famous. I don't think any drug laws are really being enforced in Britain now. That's why I have to walk my son through clouds of acrid smoke every time I take him through the town entre. Maybe it's time for another letter to my local MP.

I have moved to a new desk at work. I now sit opposite two maths PhDs. It's a bit intense. Today it was recommended that I read Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein was a contemporary of Hitler. They studied together in Austria. The afterlife was also discussed, and politics.

Gordon B is making his speech today amid speculation about what David Milliband actually meant when he made his speech yesterday, and what he may, or may not, have said afterwards.

Gordon is trying to be the nice guy currently. Yesterday he announced that he wanted to see free nursery places for all two-year-olds. Sounds nice doesn't it? No - actually I want a lower tax burdon and pay for a nursery place myself if I so chose.

I'm most surprised that J K Rowling decided to donate £1 million to the Labour party. I can't decide whether she is surprised at the criticism it has provoked, or whether she did it knowing that she would be criticised. Her argument is that the current government is going to help single mothers more than the Conservative party would. The question has to be asked however, why didn't she donate the money to a charity supporting single mothers, rather than a government that will use it to pay back part of the £20 million they have in debts? It doesn't appear to me to be a very bright move. She is very good friends with the wife of the PM however, which could well be a factor.

Why is David Blaine hanging upside down? His stunts are becoming less spectacular.

Red Handed

I've done hardly any writing lately. I start to feel ill if I go too many days without typing something. It doesn't have t be posted anywhere, but it does have to be typed.

Nothing of any real consequence has happened over the weekend. The Labour Party conference has opened. Gordon Brown has made an opening speech. He's not under quite so much fire now as he was last week, probably due to the fact that the assassins are not willing to fling mud during the conference week. Brown was interviewed by Andrew Marr on Saturday and he (Brown) came across as relaxed and ready to get on with things. I really don't like Andrew Marr, nasty, toady Blairite. I do like Nick Robinson, though I do wish he could bring himself to wear a tie. Anyway, Robinson wrote a piece on his politics blog pointing out that Brown appears to be getting more relaxed the worse the economy gets. The knives are still out anyway. Could be an interesting week.

An inquest into the death of John Charles DeMenezes is to open in London today and Met police chief Sir Ian Blair is likely to come under fire - good. Nasty scum bag should have been kicked out as soon as the incident happened. The only good thing about Ian Blair is that he's not Sir John Stevens, scum bag an liar.

For the first time ever we left the boy alone at a crèche and went off shopping yesterday. Now I thought there would be tears and demonstrations, but there was none. He was very happy playing with the cars and the other toys. In fact, when we came to collect him, he tried to climb back in through the bars in the security gate. Quite hurtful really.

I get really annoyed when I read about celebrities who get caught red-handed with drugs, and then never seem to get prosecuted. Have I done this rant already? Today it is reported that George Michael was found in a public lavatory in possession of class A and Class C drugs. It's not the first time. He's been picked up before, bombed out behind the wheel of his car if I remember correctly. But he has never been charged with anything as far as I remember.

Why is the law not being enforced? It's not an isolated case. Kate Moss has been videoed taking cocaine, Peaches Geldof has been caught buying drugs, the Tetra Pak guy and his wife were found in possession of crack. What do you have to do to get charged with drug possession?

Spongy Brain

I went to bed with a headache on Saturday night, then woke up with the same headache on Sunday morning. I think that makes it a migraine. It persisted until yesterday (Tuesday) lunchtime - definitely a migraine. By then it was also backache. How did that happen? I took a couple of sick days anyway. I hate doing that, so embarrassing to have to tell one's manager. I always think they are wondering whether I'm lying. Back at work today anyway. I feel better, but my head is full of cotton wool.

Look, I know not everyone is a politics junky like me, but I just have to do an analysis of the Gordon Brown situation. There are now a bunch of about a dozen labour MPs calling for a leadership contest. It's not a big enough number to force a contest, but it's a significant number, and they simply won't go away. Gordon has now sacked four ministers I think because they have publicly supported a leadership debate. One minister has resigned.

Leadership challenges are common of course, and not in themselves very interesting, but this is fascinating because of the timing. Brown was not elected as PM, and if he was replaced there would be calls for an election. Most pundits are saying there would have to be an election within months of any new leader being appointed. But the Labour party is doing so consistently badly in the polls that they would almost certainly lose. They could even come in third. Consequently, no one is willing to put themself forward as a challenger because, win or lose the contest, they would almost certainly ruin their career. The best they could hope for would be a couple of months as PM. Also, the Labour party is desperately short of funds right now. They are in no shape to fight an election, even if they were doing better in the polls.

We're also in conference season. Usually party conferences boost the popularity of a party. It seems very odd to me that the Labour party has embarked upon this civil war just before the conference. The only explanation is surely that the people behind this rebellion have come to the conclusion that there is no way the party can regain popularity unless they change leader. It's a hell of a gamble.

Opposition parties are laughing their collective arses off. THE Tory party is keeping quiet. The Lib Dems seem to have come out fighting. Nick Clegg has been using his conference speech to make joke after joke at the expense of the Labour party and Gordon Brown. David Cameron may of course do the same when the Tory conference begins in a couple of weeks. I can hardly wait.

The interesting thing is the fact that the government is currently spending so much time putting out internal fires, that it is beginning to look very much like they are neglecting the rather more important task of governing the country. It has been a truly horrifying couple of days on the financial markets. Huge banking organisations are collapsing on both sides of the Atlantic, and one has to wonder, did anyone in the government notice the Lehman Bros collapse, or the AIG crisis, or were they too busy biting chunks out of each other?

I can't see that there can be a leadership contest now simply because there is no one willing to stand against Brown. Brown should have done what John Major did when the same thing happened to him. He stood up in front of parliament and told them to "Put up or shut up". It was the most famous thing Major ever said, and the problem went away overnight. But I think Brown has already burnt that boat by refusing to hand out nomination papers at the conference. So he has to stick by his decision to not allow a challenge. And as a result, the infighting will continue.

All of which leads me to conclude that there can be only two possible outcomes:

The PM will be replaced. The Labour infighting will stop, but there will be a general election (which they will lose) because the new leader will be the second unelected PM in 18 months.

or

The PM will remain. The Labour infighting will continue, and there will be a general election (which they will lose) because the electorate will perceive the government as unable to govern.

Love Bombs

I want to mention something before I start rambling. I predicted 13 weeks ago that Mikey would win the current series of Big Brother. That was the day the series started. I can't claim I was bang on the money this time, but he did come second, and the vote between the final two contestants was very close. I think there was only 2% in it. So I think I do better than Sylvia Browne. This last series of BB has had the lowest ever viewing figures for the British version. I didn't watch any. It's time to dump it.

I think I have an eye infection. My eyes are dry and sore. Oh well, maybe I can get a day off work.

Here are some pictures:


Throwing stones into Lake Windermere.


Beautiful isn't it?


That's us waiting for our Jazz boat.


Ah, there it is.

I see we are still here after the Large Hadon Collider was switched on in Switzerland this morning. That's good. I hope they make some world changing discoveries about the origin of the universe and I don't have to go to work any more. Prof Hawkins says that they are unlikely to find a Higgs Boson particle. I don't know why that is important. I also read this morning that some scientists agree that micro black holes will be created, but that Hawking radiation will evaporate them. This bothers me slightly because Hawking radiation is a disputed theory. I did notice that yesterday a lot of the academic physicists from my office were "working from home". I was slightly worried that they all knew something I didn't and were holed up in some bunker somewhere under a Welsh mountain. There seems to be a few of them around this morning though. I think that's a good sign.

As far as I can tell, this machine accelerates two streams of protons around a ring 17 miles in circumference until they are close to the speed of light, and then crashes them into each other to see what happens. I have a couple of questions. Why does this replicate conditions immediately after the big bang? How do you generate a stream of protons? I asked one of the PhD dudes in the office how to create a stream of photons. I didn't understand the answer, but it had something to do with throwing red and blue marbles on the floor.

So, is Kim Jong Il ill, or dead? He wasn't at North Korea's birthday party. He hasn't been seen in public for a month. No one seems to be able to get any information. Speculation is rife. There is no obvious nutter-in-waiting to take over from Kim if he has snuffed it. The Telegraph is speculating that he may have been imprisoned by the military or even assassinated. It's even possible apparently that Kim was never the real leader, only a puppet of the military. If he's vanished the military could take over the country. I bet the suspended nuclear programme would start agian if that happened, the military love bombs.

I have more pictures, tomorrow if you're lucky.

I'm Back

OK I'm back from my holiday. Actually, I can't remember if I even mentioned that I was going on holiday, but I have been. Today I am back at work - boo!

My sister in law arrived last Friday. She was due two days earlier, but was delayed in the south of Spain. We had to adjust our plans a little, but we still managed to get a lot in. We drove up to the Lake District for a couple of days where we took a cruise on a boat with a jazz band, went to the Beartrix Potter museum, Wordsworth's house, and even found time for a little hiking.

Then we drove to York, went round the Minster, did some shopping, and spent a day at Castle Howard, where Brideshead Revisited was filmed. Then back to Swindon for one night before jetting off again to Devon to stay with Mother for a couple of days. Then yesterday we drove Mei back to Heathrow airport (south West London) so that she could catch her flight home to Taiwan. That was a total of 1250 miles, plus a trip to Luton and back to pick her up.

It was hard work, but it was fun. We had a good time.

While I've been away the Labour Party has lurched from one crisis to the next in alarming fashion. Another shed load of personal data has gone missing, this time a removable hard drive with personal details of prison workers has vanished. The justice department is quick to tell us that the data has not fallen into the wrong hands, but they certainly can't put their fingers on it.

Alistair Darling, the chancellor, has dropped a huge clanger, well several actually, and is beginning to look like he is simply crumbling under the pressure of the job. His interview with Brian Taylor last week, in which he denies saying that his colleague Wendy Alexander was "unlikeable" is a fine example of his current state of mind. The man's loosing it.

I will post some pictures tomorrow if I get time.