It's health and safety gone mad

No, no; hear me out because it really is! And unlike ones like the Army not being able to call assault courses 'assault courses' as 'assault' implies violence, it's not just a silly cosmetic word change.

On one of Trixy's travels she stumbled across a lovely Italian run cafe which did breakfast rolls for almost nothing and are exceedingly yummy. Had an issue with soft eggs, though, as the first one I was given was cooked through.

'Hmmm' thought I, for I'm a woman of many words.

Eggs should be runny and squidge all over the bread in a really good egg roll, a matter which I took up with the establishment.

Turns out that the local council Health and Hygiene wonks have rules stating that cafes are not allowed to serve soft eggs as there's a risk people will get ill from them.

25 years this guy has been working in the food industry for, I think he knows how to keep and cook a fucking egg. It's also the reason why it's only Michelin starred restaurants who make their own mayonnaise. Health and fucking Safety. For eggs.

I know you can get ill from eggs but you can from anything and if I wish to go mad and take a real risk by eating eggs then I will, thanks. And I might have a lovely smoke afterwards.

Mmm mmmmmmm

It's an egg, not some rocket propelled grenade or IED laid hidden in a dish of sandwich filling, ready to burst forth fdrom between two slices of bread with the aim of killing and maiming as many as possible.

An egg.

From a chicken.

Cluck.

Fuck.

Leave us the cluck alone, southwark council and whichever other knobs tell cafes the same thing.

Go teach your gran to suck them or even better, let her teach you how to cook them.

I hereby pledge I will not eat my horse

From The Sun today:

HORSE owners must sign a pledge not to eat their pets — or face up to two years in jail, a barmy new EU rule says.
Brits will be saddled with the legislation even though it is aimed at continentals who munch two million of the creatures every year.

Critics blasted the law yesterday. UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “I’d like to be a fly on the wall when the Queen and Princess Anne are asked to sign a form saying they’re not going to eat their horses.

This was debated in Strasbourg a couple of weeks ago when UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom made this speech:

Ill cat: the update

After a tense night, tears and me accusing my mother of trying to kill the cat, himself has been taken to the vet and the abcess has been lanced.

I'm very proud of poor little scabby fat face. It was on his throat so he stood up and defended himself and his territory in the fight. And at the vets he was as good as gold, realising that we were helping him.

So that's all good and now he's frolicking around the garden, back to chasing balls of wool and butterflies.

Staying with stinking puss filled cavities which need draining and cleansing, it's the secret ballot for speaker.

I'm going with Ann Widdecombe for this one as I do think she's one of the rare ones who puts principles before position and party. Just what we need at the moment after the last one, albeit I think he was made a scapegoat for the rotten institution.

How Beckett and Bercow are favourites I don't know. For a start we've had two Labour speakers so following it up with a former Labour Foreign Secretary and a man who is more left wing than Tony Blair is hardly a step in the right direction.

But how much difference will it actually make? It's cosmetic in its symbolism: you caught us out, we got rid of one of them, now we'll carry on as we were. For the publication of the 'expense files' the other day with their black lines to cover up scandal, were a demonstration in how it's one rule for them and another thousand for us, the pay masters.

Hiding addresses so we can't see the tax avoidance of the people who vote for tax increases in the name of protection when these are the people who regularly loose our data on trains and want us chipped and bar coded to fulfill their EU obligation stinks like the pool of bloodstained pus which showered from the neck of poor wee puss.
The police might investigate, the parties might wag fingers and a few might stand down after another year of being fed, sheltered and watered courtsey of the public tit but it doesn't change the fact that for years they thought it was okay and many still do.

They are ill in their attitude towards what they deserve. This culture of entitlement we criticise chavs and people who sue the council for tripping over the pavement is the same mentality currently governing the country.

If I had to commute to work I pay for it out of my salary. I knew that when I took the job, I like it or lump it.

If I have to live somewhere else during the week then that's something I knew when I found out about the job. Competition means that the salary should reflect certain features about the job, such as desirability and the number of people going for it. If they don't want to travel for work then I'm sure there are other people who would do the job for much less money.

How can we expect them to do something about the terminally unemployed Jeremy Kyle watchers when they're of the same mentality?

So whilst SFF may feel much better and be way on the road to recovery after a lancing and a dose of antibiotics, I feel that what has developed in our political system is more malignant and needs a course of radiotherapy to cure. Preferably in the form of a General Election with decent debate on policies.

Britblog roundup 227: the ill cat edition

It's roundup time again on a blog which I have been treating like a wife of a few years who has grown fat and boring.

I'm sorry, blog. I love you dearly but not having a computer at home anymore makes it difficult to pay you enough attention. And so my mind and eye wanders.

Roundup this week will not be very long and poetic as my cat is ill and I need to find him. The neighbours have now grown used to seeing me on all fours, peering under their cars and in bushes looking for the silly animal. Poor dears: no one deserves to turn the corner and see me on all fours with my arse sticking up in the air making stupid noises.

And so to the blogs. This week the number one story was that of Nightjack, the blogger exposed by The Times after Justice Eady ruled that bloggers have no right to anonymity. Shame on them say I and many, many other people. My particular favourite came from Jackart and Heresy Corner.

Permit me to quote the ever relevant Blackadder:

Beau Brummel in purple pants probe." "King talks to tree. Phew what a loony!"

God, the Times has really gone downhill recently hasn't it!

On the subject of the rozzers, Senator Stuart is going to take up climbing rather than me harassed by our friends with the talking broaches. Unmitigated England can't even get a chance to look at a nice building, so zealous are Market Harborough's 'Council Wehrmacht' and parked cars.

Sticking with that town, Liberal England has been doing some research into a training establishment for ladies to learn how to be domestic servants prior to emigration. Could do with starting that one up again, I suspect.

Backwatersman has a wonderful piece on these Colonel Blimp (Retd) types from Cheltenham. You know, the ones who talk to their wives across the table about only the weather and can hear a youth with an iPod from 200 yards away.

Moving away from the lighthearted, His Grace has a thing or two to say about advertising abortion services. Each to their own, I say, but I would like to point out to his holiness that these organisations aren't 'pro-abortion' but 'pro choice'. I don't think anyone goes out to have a deep and meaningful overnight relationship with the hope of an unwanted pregnancy and an unpleasant procedure. Just a point.

The F word have taken umbrage with Master Worstall's piece that there's no gender pay gap. Quite a squabble and no prizes for guessing which side of the argument this particular Doris is on.

Swiss Toni says you commuters can keep London, with your smelly underground trains.

Jackart has a point to make on immigrants and the Jeremy Kyle gang who choose not to work.

And spare a thought for Craig Murray who has discovered that he doesn't exist.

But not only my virtual existence is tenuous. I have been surprised to discover that it seems that I was mistaken about my physical existence too. Today The Guardian leads with the story that Tony Blair knew of a secret UK policy of receiving intelligence from torture...

The strange thing is, I could have sworn that I had been a British Ambassador and had been smeared in a campaign orchestrated by No 10, and then sacked, for opposing this torture policy. I thought I had blown the whistle on this policy five years ago and published a number of government documents which proved the existence of this policy. I even thought I had written a book about it which became a bestseller.

Staying with Tony Blair and his dodgy policies, I would love to have read Dave Cole's piece on why the Iraq war inquiry should have been conducted in secret, but the link currently doesn't work.

So instead readers will have to make do with my little rant on the subject, reaching the conclusion that of course it should be conducted in public. It's out money and they're our Armed Forces and you work for us, chaps.

I'll finish on the excellent post by the poor little Greek boy on how the protests in Iran can unite the left and right. It's my favourite post of the week so Mr Eugenides gets a special prize of his own choosing.

That's that, then. Next week we're off to visit Natalie and you can nominate lovely posts by writing to the usual address: britblog [at] gmail dot com

But don't do what Mrs Eleazar Cruz did and not include the link.

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Secret Inquiry: hands up who is surprised

Well, well well. Our Prime Minister has announced that the inquiry which needs to be held on why we went into an illegal war in Iraq is to be held in private.

An independent inquiry into the Iraq war will be held in private Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told MPs.

Opposition parties - and many Labour MPs - have been calling for the probe since shortly after the 2003 invasion.

The inquiry will cover July 2001 to July 2009 and be chaired by Sir John Chilcot, Mr Brown told MPs.

The reason for this is because they must have sat in Cabinet saying something along the lines of: 'now look, chaps. Hans Blix has said the Iraqis are cooperating and with more time they can complete a proper search for these alleged WMDs. Mr Negropontes has admitted in the Security Council that UNSCR 1441 'is not a loaded gun' and that we will need another resolution for our invasion to comply with the Charter of the United Nations but that's all a real fag, so we're going in anyway.'

All this nonsense currently being spouted by Ainsworth that it's being held in private so witnesses can 'speak candidly' is fucking arsejuice. Anyone can go on the UN website and read the minutes of the security council meetings, or have a look at the press cuttings and see that they didn't find any WMDs because there weren't any.

It's an insult to those people who died fighting in Iraq, to their families and those who served and risked their lives that they know for what reason they did it.

It's also a basic right that the tax payer know for what reason their money was spent on this war and who took the decision to lie to them.

However, basic is too much for this shower. They really are beyond the pale and expecting any level of decency from them is like expecting the French not to surrender.

sleepwalking towards the next election

So, after all that excitement it looks like we're back to where we were before, minus a few Labour MPs and less headlines about people you didn't like anyway.

How, after the worst possible national election for Brown since records began, or sliced bread was invented, is he still in power? After days of Cabinet ministers leaving to spend times in their beautifully redecorated second homes with Brown having to rely on Mandelson - Mandelson - to keep it all together, the conclusion of that meeting is to press on as if nothing happened?

The meeting yesterday resulted in David Miliband, the previous leadership contender apparently pushed out by the evil whisperings of that ugly git McBride, trying to lay down the law on this:

In his first intervention since the Cabinet reshuffle and the departure of 11 ministers that brought Mr Brown's Government close to collapse, Mr Miliband claimed that the leadership issue was now "settled."

He said: "The Parliamentary Labour Party has reached a settled view about the leadership. The Labour Party does not want a new leader, there is no vacancy, there is no challenger.

"The leading contender, Alan Johnson, is backing the Prime Minister to the hilt. So that is that."

Yes, the 'leading contender' comment does indeed highlight that there is someone else who could take the job, but what the fuck does everyone expect? Quite frankly, rather than jump up and down about the fact that almost everyone in the country has been debating who will take the number one job, the bigger story should be that no one is going to.

It looks like another year of Brown. Another year of his bumbling, of his irrational behaviour, of his travelling to the middle of nowhere to open a supermarket if he thinks it'll make him popular. Of ignoring the concept of 'doing the right thing' and instead 'doing the right thing for Brown short term'. Of a country freefalling into misery with no leadership, a government out of ideas and a cabinet filled with people whose only brush with politics should be loading the newspapers into their little sections at Tescos.

And there's a fucking tube strike. Surprise surbloodyprise, Crow and his bunch of pirates want more money at a time when there are fewer people catching the tube because there are fewer people with jobs. They already seem to me to be overpaid for sitting in a tunnel with their joystick, the only people in the entire public transport network guaranteed to get a seat.

Don't like it, get a new fucking job and let one of the thousands of people now unemployed who would like to work, would like to be useful to our economy, would like to actually do they job they were paid for take their seat whilst Crow and his fucktards prance around outside closed tube stations blaming everyone else for the fact they are idle bastards who should be beaten up with their own limbs.

Regular commuters of London Underground may, however, be surprised that there is a strike on today: a shit service with half the lines disrupted is normal, isn't it?

the happiest story of all

Mary Ellen Synon writes about the happiest story to come from the European Election results across every single of the 27 countries.

Somewhere in all the hoo-hah about the extraordinary showing by UKIP in the elections for the European parliament there may be getting lost the best and happiest story of the whole election: I mean the triumph of the new UKIP MEP for the south east, Marta Andreasen...
The smears and threats made against Andreasen could have broken any other person. But they didn't break her. That is why, when I saw the picture of UKIP leader Nigel Farage raising Andreasen's arm in victory, it was the happy ending that almost never comes in politics. She will go back to Brussels in triumph -- and as an honest voice for Britain.

It was obvious that Marta was an amazing asset to UKIP which was why so few people in the media covered it, despite the entire campaign being based around expenses. Hello? Anyone? The former chief accountant of the EU was standing for UKIP, she was fired by Kinnock for doing her job, the man whose hideous wife is Minister for Europe, and you ignore it?

She'll take her seat in the budgetary control committee and I hope the monsters in the Commission are shaking and shitting their pants.

And I hope the press take note of the fact that this is a woman who knows what she is talking about and can hold people to account on where our money is going.

But I doubt they will, because there's probably some MP putting a washer on expenses and in Westminster, that's all that seems to matter.

The new Europe Minister

I don't think Gordon Brown couldn't have found a more suitable person than Glenys Kinnock to be our Europe Minster.

She's fanatical about the EU, her voting record shows she doesn't care about the wishes of the electorate, she's lived for years at the expense of the tax payer, swilling around in the trough along with the rest of her ghastly family and I'm sure she'll continue to do so.

Yes, yes. For this hateful government which shits on democracy on high, she'll be perfect.

Poor Brenda, having to bestow a title on it, though. You'd bleach yourself afterwards.

It's a shame that she won't be in the European Parliament with Marta Andreasen who looks likely to take a seat in the South East. After the way her husband sacked her for doing her job, I would have loved that show down.

Jeez, but what society are we in when the Kinnocks are rewarded for their shocking, bullying thuggish and all round anti democratic behaviour.

I'll let you know if I get a letter from their tax payer funded lawyers. They like bullying with lawyers.

PMQs - that front bench

All in black with faces like thunder...reminds me of a front page back in 1992:

*tumbleweed*

She's gone.

Who is left?