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Used Clothes Collection has recently been cited as a scam in some instances. I myself have been suspicious that the envelopes with the plastic sacks were not always from the charity stated, especially when I saw some collected in a scruffy red van, assumed to be from a large charity. Charity shops are the sufferers, overall, losing anything up to £3m in revenue through the diversion of the wares.

The EBAY Syndrome in the charity industry. After writing the above comments I discovered articles donated to charity can be stolen and resold on Ebay. Clearly Ebay has no control over what is offered. This apparently is acknowledged as something which is growing, and also applies to purchases at car-boot sales. Whether this is as wide spread as was suggested to me would be a matter for the Charities to assess, but it is unpleasant if true and does seem a logical avenue for greed.

Living on flood plains, with the ice caps melting is prognosticated not only to be tricky currently, but totally impossible in the future. Writing as a one time marine engineer, while revetment is theoretically possible, in a high proportion of cases, practically, it is totally uneconomical because it would be on too big a scale. Why the government is proposing building on flood plains in the future is totally beyond me unless they are considering stilts; using boats for transport would be interesting, In fact I think their whole approach to providing more accommodation is more knee jerk than considered, responsible design.

The Libdems are progressing in popularity at the expense of Labour, and if Cameron continues with his aggressive manner, it just might be at the expense of the Tories also. They have always seemed a very reasonable, almost academic party, ever since the Gang of Four, and would be great in a coalition, but, unfortunately, with tactical voting, I can’t see them ever in power. If they did obtain a majority it would be so small, the country would virtually have a hung Parliament, which might be no bad thing for a few years, we might get back to sane, measured government

Medical Theories. I think they started showering us with theories in the 60s, concerning the pros and cons of what we eat and how it would affect us, when so many other half baked and often foolish theories abounded. We were told more than X eggs consumed in a week were bad for you. From child hood, until I stopped work, I ate at least six and generally eight eggs a week, and I still eat plenty at 85. Later the Lancet said eggs, butter and so many other things were not bad for one in normal quantities. The latest from Holland suggests that cooked foods, such as bread, cereals, coffee, meat, potatoes – ried, roasted, baked, grilled or barbecued, could be responsible for people suffering forms of cancer, especially women. The EU is even acting on it. The results were from a 120,000 sample. I assume they didn’t considered the effects of eating food which hasn’t been cooked, when it is raw or boiled, or if there are other additives in food contributing to the results. I believe eating homemade bread from pure flowers puts on less weight than bought bread, and bought bread adheres to the roof of my denture making eating sandwiches impossible to do with delicacy, when homemade bread does not. Today there are additives in everything, and unless one eats only home grown and home cooked food there is no guarantee what you are eating. I wonder if those tested were allowed to have meals out or were, like being battery hens, all fed the same diet in closed circumstances. Scientists generally enter their research into professional journals and the public only becomes aware when a journalist, in a slack period, wants something sensational to write about. I think a lot of people are worried about dying, instead of enjoying living. One is inevitable, the other is up to us.

OAPs over eighty are getting an extre rise, of 25 pence per week, With the problems the Government seems to have with computers, can you imagine what that is going to cost to implement, let alone how ridiculous it sounds.

EU interference and Imperial measure. Small traders were put out of business because the health and safety regulations were, and are still, based upon factory procedures not Cottage Industries. The over paid and over cosseted mandarins in the EU have a mountain of bad legislation they have produced, because it was policy in their country, but untried generally and without reference to local implementation. Now we will soon be having even more countries joining, with more looking for the soft option here, having endured mismanagement in their own lands for decades – we will be picking up the tab, yet again, like we are now.

I remember, not so long ago, when a trader was fined for putting his prices in imperial measure, Now they tell us, because they never managed to stamp it out in the UK, that either it or metric is now acceptable. The building trade finds imperial more logical to visualise and of course the Yanks never did change. In Heavy Engineering, marine, bridge and drainage design, where movement creates incredible thrusts as a result, design is quite complex and has to be correct for safety. We used to carry formulae in our heads, and then metric measure came along, with the result it was not just a matter of converting feet into metres, there were many more parameters to take into account and life became very difficult. If reason had been applied in the 70s, life would have been easier.

I recently read that the EU emission rules will outlaw our army vehicles. There seems to be no rein on their illogical thinking. How much more CO2 will be given off from a few vehicles, than a row of shops burning in some distant town we are supposed to be protecting?

The EU is reported as proposing to scrap ‘Made in Britain’ labels on some foods They want to standardise nutritional information, in a world where nutrition seems to be the least important aspect to the average citizen. We depend on those labels, because we still think we produce high quality products, and if the truth were told many don’t yet trust foreigners. Next they will scrap labels on everything, and we won’t know who to trust.. There are strong lobbies in EU politics, fighting for isolated interests.

Did you know, or, indeed, do you care, that the 46 person team on the Cabinet of the president of the EU is costing £2,5m in salaries, expenses and entertaining What I can’t understand why it has to be 46, what are they all doing?. Of course that is not even the pin on the tip of the iceberg, The EU receives £12bn per year as our contribution, or £200 per head of our population. The corruption is so great, apparently, the auditors never sign out the annual accounts. I was always biased against the EU. When people talk about it helping trade, they are theorising, because we have never really been outside to be able to compare. I believe if services and products are top flight people will always buy them, if they are sensibly priced, irrespective of from whom or where.

I was not aware of the total dictatorship by Blair until I saw two of the three programs on his management of our affairs, on BBC TV – it was frightening. What has passed can’t really be corrected in most cases, but what frightens me is that when Gordon Brown and David Cameron are quoted in the press, and often speak on screen, they say ‘I’ when it should be ‘we’. Are all top politicians now in Blair’s mould? If they are, and the Cabinet is an apparition rather then a reality, then God help us!

Blair was a dictator in that he ignored advice, majority opinion, whether in his party, in the House, or the general public if he thought he was right, and everyone else couldn’t see what was obvious to him. The Dome is a glaring example. Whether he always thought he had a response on earth to divine help, I believe towards the end of his reign, the last 5 years, it would seem that he was convinced of his own accord with God. Since I was a small boy reading stories, I believed even the British Army, whom I, like everyone else, considered to be almost invincible, was told they couldn’t roust the rebels in the Afghanistan mountains, or the Hindu Cush as I knew it then. It seemed this was right, when Russia gave up, and we know what they are like as an aggressive force, Blair went ahead in spite of strong professional advice against it and overwhelming disapproval in the country.

I always thought that approval of the Lords was essential before action was put in hand, but that appears not to have been the case with the Blair administration. If this is so, then there is no way a dictatorship can be avoided, and if it does surface, controlled. This seriously worries me. There has been such massive waste of tax revenue over these years, from tiers of staffing which duplicated responsibilities and merely added to confusion, legislation, put into being and then rescinded and retraced again in yet another form, vast sums spent on retaining people in prison at huge sums per head per day, when a proportion could be dealt with more cheaply. The wars we didn’t want, as was the Dome, there is quite a list.

I would like to see a committee set up, made up of members of The Upper House, with all the parties equally represented, (say two from each) and not by the proportion of members in the House, to ensure the Punch and Judy ethic of the Commons is not replicated. They would only meet when some controversy, indiscretion or similar cause of serious importance, reported within the Commons or proposed by the public and vetted, required research, examination and reporting on to Parliament, such as the Iraq decision. The proposal of an even bigger data base as currently said to be a proposal by Brown, or the loss of the ‘discs’ are two more I would suggest. In the latter case I am not convinced there were only 2 disks. If an eight letter word is 20 Kb, how many bytes are needed for the information concerning one family, multiplied by 25 million? The mind boggles, and the word disc needs a bit of explaining to me at least, as does sending through the post.

When we had intelligent men of wealth who went into politics because it interested them and they had no need to toil, I suspect the Whip’s office had a harder time getting them to follow party lines on occasion. Now most are there as a job, and with some of the strong, hard-men we have seen as whips recently, it has seemed to me they troop through the lobby as instructed more than makes logical sense, especially when one reads or hears biographical snippets later, My proposition of a Watchdog Committee would ask awkward questions, and stop rubber stamping, or dictatorship – I think!

I’m worried, I’m sad, that things seem so bad
For the child today, with nowhere to play.
They’ve taken the commons, the playing fields
For cash, other ploys, which only reveals
How thoughtless they are, how narrow of mind,
When money means more than a mind refined.
By childish pursuits, not jointly with friends,
Before a screen. No! As nature intends.
Play is a prelude, a forerun of life,
A chance for experience, to sample strife.
How many I wonder come home alone
To an empty house, as none would condone
As the best idea, the good of the boy.
Economics it is, that force this ploy,
When aspirations are advert driven
And they hope one day they’ll be forgiven
For criminal lack of care and concern,
Not replicated in future, in turn.
Gone are the days when we walked everywhere.
With traffic so sparse we could cycle there,
Play games on the common, row on the lake,
Be friends with the cops, and all the time take
Our simple pleasures without fear for life,
Not hurry and stress and crime that is rife.
It isn’t fair, we must stop the rot now,
The system must change, the question is how?
Before houses take up all vacant land,
Making recovery impossible, and
Rubber stamping all the mistakes again.
Leaving the children without a domain.
To play in safety – we need a campaign,
That is sensible, with energy and cash,
That’s not all talk, and not something rash,
That is here to day and well designed
For a future, the sort we all have in mind.

The worry of excess immigration. With a probable world recession staring us in the face, we cannot continue allowing immigrants to swarm in here, which they will if not stopped, the figures coming out, at last justify that prognostication. There must be pre-vetting and skill assessment, and a sure knowledge of the needs and positions vacant to be filled. Anything else is sheer lunacy, a prescription for unemployment queues, the problems of deportation, racial friction, stress on the infrastructure, and crime generated through frustration on both sides.

No sensible company would allow a horde through its gates on the possibility there might be a vacancy – if not a factory, why a whole country? Ask the people in East Anglia how they like it. We should work out a system whereby at each Continental port and Airport, there is a government sponsored office with a job-recruitment agent, who acts for those looking for workers for the available vacancies, on the understanding they can’t be filled in the UK. The agent would vet the lower grades, or all, depending on the wishes of the employers, and only then, after a check on validity would the recruit be given a temporary government pass to board a ship or plane. One aspect would have to be included and might be the stumbling block; the job must carry the same salary for a national, to avoid importing cheap labour. In other words, bring back the old immigration system, close our borders and to Hell with EU directives. Open borders are a magnet for criminals to escape, smuggle goods and humans, and make it easier for the terrorists.

Respect seems to be a thing of the past. I was reading last week’s back copies of newspapers, and I remembered the newspapers of my youth, around 1932. There was a lot about a mass murderer. Later there was the Jubilee, the death of KG5, the abdication of Edward VIII, and the crowning of KG6, all treated, almost unctuously by the press, but with love by the country. There was censorship, political and voluntary, and while there was disapproval of Edward, it was nothing like as virulent nor as repetitive in the pages of a single newspaper, as the press were about Brown last week. We more than respected the Royals, they were too far above us and discreet enough for us to even think of being critical, and it was not until 30 or 40 years later, that we began to see the feeding frenzies we have today, politically, socially, and in the realms of entertainment. Television hasn’t helped. We respected politicians because there was a chasm between us, the press and radio were respectful, and if he made a serious gaff the politician resigned. There was respect all round, we were treated with respect in most circumstances, and we reciprocated. Now there is so much less respect, for the truth, for politicians, between politicians, for honour, for teachers by parents and pupils, for property, for the worker by management, by the press and TV, indeed everything. Today there is only one God, Mammon, and the service of it seems to justify disrespect in any form. If the politicians are seen to be disrespectful to one another, how can they expect to demand respect from the public, which takes them at the value they pretend to have when on camera, and are portrayed in the press? Without respect, and more importantly, trust, government will suffer and society will disintegrate.

Politicians and politics generally have suffered a lack of respect in the last decade, which to those, who care and have lived through the guardianship of many famous Prime Ministers, regret and could never have foretold. There are still some in Parliament and Stormont who work hard and act with dignity, but the main scenario seems to be theatre. When an MLA, in an almost empty chamber, screams ‘Point of Order’ like some woman gutting fish in a Victorian drama, and then harangues in crescendo, only to be told it isn’t a point of order; when our leader, and the one in waiting, in Parliament shout at one another and tap the dispatch box ad nauseam, we know it is because they are on camera. We also can guess that their relationship in the corridors, in office and maybe the tearoom will be friendly and courteous. Usually there are few members present in Parliament, but on Wednesdays, it is unable to seat all wishing to be seen on camera waving order papers and snarling at the opposition, Do they think we are idiots? I suppose they should be allowed ‘playtime’ to let off steam, but is it wise to let the electorate see this charade? It is our fault, of course, the speed of living gives little time for speculation and what free time we have is probably spent in front of one screen or another. The constant changes in policy, u-turns, and lies, together with the repetitive harassment by the Media, have deadened the senses of the electorate. It is a sorry day they opened the chambers to the cameras.

(Further to 22.11.07, A Number of political Comments,) Identity Cards are still going the rounds and also another product of immigration. I propose to try to analyse the need for them more deeply, as I feel they are an expensive aberration.

The Government seems intent upon pushing ahead with universal ID, paid for by the individual – the cost, allegedly, about £60 each, or about £3.6bn. If you are making that number, in this day and age of sophisticated invention, it is reasonable to expect the outcome would cost a lot less, especially when the banks are scattering them like chaff, What is more, we know the day they are issued, a way of circumventing them will be in hand. Am I wrong in doubting what they tell me, and in fact this is all just another hidden tax? Logically, if these cards are sufficiently secure and efficient, as the government implies, the saving in man-hours, and overheads in checking for and dissuading the miscreants will be so large over time, that the original cost would have been absorbed and should never have been a charge on the individual

A number of types of information suggested to be placed on them is, name, address, date of birth, National Health number, bank and part bank number, Blood group, finger print, and possible eye recognition and DNA. Whether this is accurate isn’t important, all I want to look at is the principle. Who needs them, what is needed and what is dangerous? The police require an ID for ‘Stop and search’ to be simple and speedy, when they are looking for illegal immigrants, criminals, or dealing with the speechless. They would help with over-the-counter fraud only if secure, but that is the 64 dollar question. To use them instead of passports would devalue existing passports which would cause annoyance and confusion at docks and airports, to those holding passports they had paid for. The current system seems as adequate as we need. If my friend could be defrauded of £20,000, with only the information on a driving licence, need I say more?

Let us, just for ease of approximation, group the population by age, roughly guessing the numbers in each group. Those who need cards least, the 0-7s (5m) and the 76-86s (4m). Most of the former will be on their parents’ passport, and the latter will have driving licences and bus passes. Most immigrants will be below the age of 40, so we can take say 90% or 23m, out of the groups between 44-75s (25m), many also will have passports. We are then left with the 8-42’s, (26m), of whom a large percentage, say 50%, 13m, will, today, have passports.. Secondary school children and further education students could be provided with college passes, but I suspect this would be unacceptable to some. So, with this system of assessment, we could avoid having sophisticated ID cards with only a small risk of fraud in 45m cases out of 60m. Clearly this is not scientific, but even if it is only a ballpark figure, it means we have 60m cards when the risk warrants only 15m

Looking at it another way, makes it clear that ID is needed to check probably for about 500,000 possible illegal immigrants and criminals. This is arrived at by supposing we have 2m immigrants currently in this country, say the proportion crooked is 20% That is inordinately high in any society. Now add 100,000 criminals on the run, again excessive, giving a total of 500,000. So we would be having 60m ID cards, no matter who paid for them, to check for some 0.8% of the population, if indeed that number, without any guarantee that the system will be totally secure. One other question does cross my mind, just how many people are stopped and searched in a year, not counting repeat searches? I can’t remember when I last saw a policeman on a beat.

Mohamed. I find the story of the teacher, the little Islamic boy and the teddy, totally incongruous, by being made highly political. The boy is probably a 1st or 2nd generation immigrant. The teacher is clearly a political innocent, dedicated to teaching and wants to interest her class in her experiences in the Middle East. It is a story of love, the love of a young woman for her profession and her charges, the love of the children for their teacher and their affection for their friend by naming the bear after him. Ironically, if we had no immigration the opportunity of making an international incident, and seriously stressing a kind woman would never have arisen. As to blasphemy, probably one of the most religious countries, Ireland, hears profanity in all quarters, from multi-conditional exclamations like, ‘Jesus Mary and Joseph,’ or perhaps to ‘kick the bejasus out of them, to the common English phrase, ‘Jesus Christ.’or just ‘Jesus!’. I do not seriously believe the Islamic international representatives have no knowledge of just how rife blasphemy is in the Christian world. They must realise that to us it is just a Christian name like any other in an everyday context. Not a heinous crime with a strong possibility of being punished by lashing.

Nationalism. I know it’s laughable, but I have only just realised that for 65 years I have been a government sponsored immigrant, sent here to Ulster in the Navy and staying here. Now I do, things fall into place, my English accent, although modified, is still remarked upon. You may know you are with them, but don’t kid yourself you’ll ever be one of them. This doesn’t stop me feeling an overall nationalistic adherence to the United Kingdom. In my mind it is Britain, which, technically it ain’t, but should be for the British, run by the British. Those who come here should abide by our culture, meld with it, not try to reform it in their likeness, or in their specific interests, or indeed underline their own nationalism and beliefs demonstrably. Many of us resent the loss or the dilution of our own culture, even to the point where legislation is introduced to stress the differential between us. In making comment a crime, in some circumstances, racialism becomes rife, even if not acted upon. When we are told immigrants are here to provide much needed labour, which we interpret as cheap labour, an excuse for paying low wages to enrich a few – short term – at the expense of the majority in the long term, we find streets peppered with beggars from abroad, people who are either here illegally, or here to fill a job but are unemployed. Why are they still here? There presence is an incitement to some for resentment if not racialism. We are told our social services and our housing are under threat by this influx, if so, why is it not stopped and to Hell with the EU. Other countries manage to slither round or ignore the EU Directives, why can’t we? Indeed, why do so many, especially politicians, want us to lead the world, when we seem unable to keep our domestic affairs in order?

I only come across immigrants in the DHSS, shops, on the telephone, and even of course the beggars in this outpost of Europe! My problem is I can’t understand what they say. The number of times I have had to put down the phone, ask for several repetitions or walk away to seek another cashier is growing exponentially, and I am beginning to feel like a stranger in my adopted corner of my own land.

Who would be idiot enough to be a teacher today? With everyone jumping on the Educational bandwagon, with ideas, theories speculation, and shortages, is it surprising that those who know, and have no vested interest believe standards have dropped? There have been 13 articles on education in the Daily Telegraph inside 4 days, not including the chaos in N. Ireland, by changing the system to accommodate the reduction in pupil numbers in an education, segregated on religious lines. This is our last year for the eleven plus. Lower standards seem predictable.

From the 20s to the late 40s, we heard little but praise for the British educational system. Daily, people with academic qualifications, or in government, none old enough to have experienced education prior to 1939, or even 1950, are theorising, criticising a system which parents were proud of and never considered excessively stressful. We had the eleven plus, and there was tearful frustration with homework, but no apparent traumatic and mental injury as portrayed. They stopped teaching by rote, in the 60s, now they want to put it back. They have not taught grammar properly since the system was modified decades ago, and a modern language teacher has to make up the English deficit of grammar, to be able to teach German.

Corporal Punishment. I was caned more often for less than most. I took it as part of growing up. Some caning, and or hitting with instruments, like the right angle corner of a setsquare, was totally uncalled for and in some cases administered by a sadistic instinct, this applied especially to the caning by the prefects. When I look back to about 1935, I was caned often in Primary School, but only twice in Grammar School by the teachers. It would seem I had learned my lesson by then. .My relationship with the prefects was on an entirely different level. I was caned at home, and don’t remember resenting it, it was probably deserved. The other day I came across that wonderful programme related by David Attenborough, about the life of elephants being recorded by dung-trolley cameras. The adults chastised a newly born baby from day two. All creatures in the wild chastise. Why was reasonably corrective, corporal punishment, especially in the home, made a serious crime because a few abused the system? It has made teaching and classroom discipline so much harder, especially in districts where for various obvious reasons home discipline is absent. If toughies want to show off in class, and they have an inexperienced teacher, they can even assault the teacher because they are too young to be given a custodial sentence, and this then becomes the breeding ground for the lawlessness that appears to be the problem in most of our towns and cities. In this and other statements, I am not postulating an untried theory. I am comparing one good regime with another, from my own experience.

According to a USA professor, ‘Formal teaching at 5 can hinder child development, it is too academic and puts them off reading.’ Has she not seen the effects of TV and the PC and taken this into account? The home is where reading is sponsored today, and adults now read far less than they used to. Exams and testing in school have become a political football. Private Schools are about to opt out of the national curriculum because the heads believe government interference has introduced ‘fashionable causes’ such as parenting and racial equality at the expense of more pertinent education. Excluded and disaffected pupils, aged between 14 and 19 will be sent by the government, to new schools for high quality practical learning. If the teaching system at these schools is expected to be so successful, why does it need new schools, surely the new system would benefit all at much less expense and there would ultimately be no excluded and disaffected pupils. The Tories want to adopt the Swedish school system, by which multifarious organisations will have a hand in running the government-funded schools. Can you imagine the bureaucracy that will engender? The other day a school was evacuated for fear of a gas explosion, but the register was on the computer so, presumably, checking if all were out of the school was difficult if possible.

I haven’t included all I read, it is very repetitious, and also, at times amazingly quirky. Like the article about robots being developed for work in nursery schools because the toddlers treat them like humans! The researchers seemed surprised that the children’s reaction improved with time. Someone should introduce these researchers to the ‘Learning Curve’. I can just imagine, with the kids sleeping hours on end at home, and playing with their robot buddy a lot during the day, it could be they would sooner stay with their buddy than go home. I thought education was based upon action and reaction in an intellectual environment. Would robots not be a little stultifying?

The computer age has been a bane, for my generation, the over sixties, vulgarly referred to as ‘The Wrinklies’. We use it, some badly; it is used against us, it is unreliable and open to a level of crime in £bns per year, when we only think in thousands. We were brought up, and brought our children up with the adage ‘Look after the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.’ So when a young person deprecatingly says, ‘Sure, you can get nothing for a fiver, these days!’, it is unsurprising that those of us who, in the 40s to 50s were paid £5 a week, have the ‘vapours’ and faint on the spot.

For starters, we, who toed the line, were politically correct and, indeed uncritical, now, from bitter experience, believe nothing our politicians tell us, there is always an underlying agenda we know nothing about until later, and a lot is rhetoric to gain political advantage rather than to improve the future. Just watch PM’s Question Time on Wednesdays. Unfortunately, these proposals can also be rescinded at any time. This is how some of my generation are now viewing the promises Brown made concerning the security of savings since the Northern Rock debacle. I have related the case of a friend who lost her driving licence, only to discover the information it carried had been used to open an account and purchase in her name £20,000 worth of goods. Our savings are therefore no longer secure for many reasons, and my generation is still entrenched in frugality, and saving for a rainy day.

Because I have not the energy to do the research, I cannot give book and verse on the cost to the tax payer of honouring Brown’s promise of securing the top £30,000 in any savings account, if the wheels really do come off. The Northern Rock support will give some idea. Don’t go away with the idea it is in £Bns, it’s an unimaginably Hell of a lot more, I imagine! (That garbled statement shows how confused and worried we wrinklies really are.) As a result there are those considering reverting to the tin box under the bed, but they have forgotten the computer hacker. He will have been checking the accounts in the Inland Revenue records, banks and building societies, of people randomly closing accounts, and then passing the information on to those interested in looking under beds, when the oldies are asleep. When I was young there was a phrase that covers this, it was the name of a novel, ‘Catch 22’.