Just for the record...

Ah when you're busy enough in your life trying to set up new businesses, doing pro bono work for little charities who are trying to make a difference rather than use beneficiaries to promote themselves and endlessly waiting for people to get back to you so you can finish jobs, you get another little lump of dog turd in the post.

Care of my previous employers an accusation of defamation (Yes, even though they're an organisation.) amongst other little gems.

Initial response once picked self back off chair is Arkell v Pressdram but it would be nice if people realised that the 1996 Defamation Act doesn't exist for people who take offence at truthful remarks to have their egos stroked better through the medium of a civil case. If it were then, let alone be on a Prime Time TV show, Craig Revel-Horwood would be in the debtors prison.

Recalling the times in Brussels when friend and I played volley ball with writs written by MEPs who had taken umbridge at being featured in a less than attractive light. Ah, such happy days.

Sadly for these folk, I'm not going to withdraw my complaint against them. I'm made of sterner stuff than that.

nudge nudge, pass the salt

So Christmas is upon us and frankly all I can say is

YIPPEE!

My tree is up, I have crept out under the cover of darkness and pinched holly, Ivy and some other stuff with berries on to adorn my mantlepiece, mirrors and the fireplace because some dick blocked up the chimney.

Even the presents are beautifully wrapped under the tree and the cards are in the post. With stamps on this time.

All it is left now, following the purchase of my Christmas Party Dress, is for mama and I to finalise the recipes for the festive season. A time of tradition and indulgence. But not if this rather earnest and irritating group get their way.

High salt levels in ready made Sunday lunch warning

Including too many ready-made items in a Sunday roast could lead to excessive salt intake, says research from a health charity.

In a survey of 600 supermarket products, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) found that unnecessary amounts of salt are being hidden in certain items of pre-prepared food.

I always wonder about the phrase 'hidden in food'. It makes the company making them, no doubt some unscrupulous multi national which uses child labour and burns kittens to keep the generator running, sound like it's being malicious. It's quite hard not to hide ingredients in food to the extent that they tend to be incorporated in a finished item. I, for example, would not like to buy a cake which, instead of creaming the butter with the sugar, left it dolloped on top to ensure that I knew there were fat products in there.

That aside, it's this continuing push towards having our entire life regulated by busybody do gooders which makes me want to reach for the salt cellar. It's up to me what I eat. End of. If you want people to take more care of their diet I suggest you get rid of the NHS and have some insurance scheme.

But why are you all so bothered? Why are people still putting up with a government who continually uses our money to tell us what to do? In PR week the other week there was a survey on 'nudging' which I, as something of an expert, was asked to fill in. Did I think the government should get involved with 'nudging' which is, for those of you who don't know such terms, a strategy to coerce people into doing the *right* thing rather than telling them to do so. It's things like putting apples on the eye level shelf rather than the fried slice.

I seem to recall that my reply was something along the lines that the government should not be concerning itself with such matters and should, in fact, fuck right off.

But of course this charity is determined that something must be done, and as usual it's not the concept of individual responsibility.

Sarah Cordey from the British Retail Consortium said the survey disregarded the large amount of fresh food customers use when preparing a Sunday meal.

She said the big supermarkets are doing "all they can" to reduce salt content...

However Professor Graham MacGregor from the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, and chairman of CASH, said they should do more.

"Unnecessary amounts of salt are still being hidden in our food," he said...

"It is the food industry's responsibility to take the salt out."

I actually think it's the food industry's responsibility to satisfy their customers. Call me radical, I know. I want to decide what food I eat and what food I don't. Packaged food doesn't taste half so good but still, it's up to me and you and everyone else if we want to consume yummy additives and salt or if we want to make our own.

Personally I can't understand people who don't add salt to their vegetables when they are cooking them. Salt brings out the flavour of beautiful food and I don't want some over zealous scientist who enjoys eating flavourless mung beans to take away my option of that.

A glance at their list of supporters shows an impressive number of supermarkets and well as top chefs. I'm sceptical about this; they probably, like the green lobby fanaticism, feel obliged to sign up to this as some corporate social responsibility and PR strategy.

Looking over the rest of the website we see that they are really utterly sanctimonious when it comes to salt. Salt Awareness Week comes bounding into our lives in the form of patronising posters aimed at all ages including, of course, children who can in turn go home and nag their parents not to have salt and vinegar on their chips. Or edamame beans. I wonder if these people dare to take a risk to the seaside incase they inadvertently swallow some sea water. The dead sea is probably going to be the victim of the next campaign and I fully expect to see adverts taken out in Cosmopolitan and FHM warning that should we get a little too frisky with our partners, a true sign of love would be to ensure that oral sex did not damage my health and that 6g of salt a day was quite enough. Spit For Health could be their next catch phrase, perhaps? Watch out for the campaign next valentines day.

But more than that, I don't want them ruining my favourite time of year with their nagging 'nanny knows best' attitude, telling me that I can't have stuffing and do I really want a huge bucket of bread sauce with my roast potatoes when what I want to do is eat an entire box of quality street before breakfast and spend the rest of the day bloated, half pissed and farting.

Bugger off CASH, I say. Some things are sacred.

I'M BACK!

Ah, it's been a while but it was a well needed rest. It's also nice not to have employers reading my blog trying to find reasons to get rid of me for daring to have an opinion of my own. They're in the past (mostly) thank goodness so here I am! Yippee!!

An awful lot has happened in my life and the world since I have stopped tapping my thoughts onto my little pink blog and it's a combination of a really shit government, a fucking awful opposition and a series of ghastly reality TV programmes taking over the lives of people which has once again enraged me.

First stop as always for me will be the EU and that Irish bailout but there's also so much nonsense happening in Westminster that it should keep the fires burning for a while.

So watch out for some bile and vitriol heading this way!

Love

Trixy

Still ill...

But in the mean time enjoy this



And hopefully I'll be inspired soon enough to write something about politics or something. You never know.

My protest on Parliament Square

The other day I was in the vicinity of Parliament Square and there were lots of young men and women in military uniforms. Given their ages I presumed it was something to do with Cadet 150. It was great to see them wearing their uniforms with pride, and their families delighted to be with them on this day.

So I was horrified to hear that one serviceman had had abuse hurled at him from the squatters on Parliament Square in their so called 'peace village'. You may be able to guess from my turn of phrase that I am on the side of Boris Johnson and would like these people removed so we can have access to our public space again and not be bombarded with their nonsense.

Because they are taking up space and they are also stopping other people with their right to protest. I personally wish to protest about cuts to the defence budget because there's still a huge amount of work to be done in areas like Armed Forces accommodation and ensuring that troops are properly equipped and paid a decent salary. I also do not agree with cutting numbers of troops and think there should be an increase in infantry numbers.

But where would I pitch my tent on the square? There's no space to put up my poncho no matter how much para cord I might have. I could try, I suppose, and it would be interesting to see what the 'peace' protesters make of me.

But I think I'd like some company. Would anyone care to join me?!

Beyond satire

Being off work for a few weeks gave me the opportunity to undertake some reading beyond my usual Jilly Cooper-esque novels. One of the books I particularly enjoyed reading was about how Princess Victoria of Kent became Queen and indeed, came into existence. The Georgian era is one which one doesn't tend to study much which is a shame as it's rather interesting. And so I didn't know very much about the changes in Europe or indeed that King Leopold was in line to be Prince Consort of Great Britain having married Princess Charlotte, only child of George IV.

When Charlotte died after disastrous medical treatment and the brothers searched Europe looking for suitable princesses to marry, Leopold was invited to become King of Belgium.

Because Belgium is a constructed country and one which is also falling apart. That's why I found the speech by Nigel Farage rather fitting, given that they've just taken over the presidency of another constructed country, forcing people who don't wish to be together into union.



Following Timothy Kirphope's comment about Tory MEPs actually doing what's best for the country in the EU (which faction?) I thought I'd introduce those who weren't aware of this little creature to you. No, not Timothy Kirkhope, although it's fair to say most people haven't heard of him.

This little creature.


It's called a mudskipper and I decided it was a good name for Tory MEPs. Mudskippers can't decide which environment they want to live on, see. In the water or on moist land. I'm sure you can see where I make the link between them and eurosceptic/intergrationalist/federalist/withdrawalist Tory MEPs...

Vote for ME!

here at the Total Politics lovely blog list whatsit.

Pretty Please.

With sugar on the top

*flutters eyelashes*

Road Pricing. Again

The RAC has said that road pricing is "inevitable". I'm afraid that I disagree. It might be inevitable because of political pressures but it's certainly not needed if we actually take action and deal with the issues blighting our lives and this country.

A reader clearly feels the same way and has copied me into an email on the subject. As a cyclist you might wonder why I am so against road pricing when I just whizz past the queues of traffic in rush hour anyway. Simples; because I am sick of the amount of money being taken from people with the excuse that it's with our best interests that it is done.

It's not: road pricing, just like global warming is politically motivated. Lord Stern, formerly Sir Nicholas Stern, was knighted on the request of Gordon Brown. Stern had written his report which affects the way that our government policy, council policy and education of children is implemented and taught. It also allowed the Treasury to raise taxes in the name of saving us from ourselves. Well done, Nick. Have a gong.

Road Pricing will also be taught to us as helping protect against climate change or some similar tosh. I suspect very little will actually be said about the fact that it's a revenue stream for the EU across all EU countries which they are incredibly keen on, as well as allowing the central EU bureaucracy to continue with their push for control on cross border justice and home affairs. Road cross borders and so do cars, so who better than the EU to keep an eye on what we're all doing in our vehicles?

There's also the subject of Galileo. For those who don't know, Galileo is the 'spy in the sky' system which was set up by Yankophobe Europeans set on rivaling the GPS system. It hasn't worked, it's a black hole for your cash and you need to stump up for it because it sure as hell won't be profitable or have private investors. You will pay for it by allowing it to monitor you and because you don't take enough interest in how your lives are run and where your money goes, you probably deserve it.

But how should we deal with the problems on our roads? Well, given that the problems particularly in London are man made, in the sense that they are politically altered in order to ensure there is a continual argument for more charges and thus more money and power to socialist politicians, here are a few options in that email.:


· Open up the many thousands of miles of roads that have been closed or made unusable by barriers, signage, humps and other means.

· Remove the road width restrictions that have been placed on many thousands of miles of roads.

· Remove Prescott imposed traffic lights and remove ALL traffic lights from roundabouts.

· Re-phase traffic lights to pre-Prescott timings.

· Remove dark/death phase pedestrian crossing lights and revert to sensible phase Pelican crossings. (when all lights are black - T)

· Revert to speed limits applicable in the pre-Prescott era.

· Remove bus lanes. They delay all traffic including buses.

· Remove cycle lanes on roads that have been imposed to satisfy Labour’s requirement that central funding for road ‘improvements’ would only be given if the work included anti-car measures.

· Have more cycle lanes off road and more shared pedestrian/cycle lanes where appropriate. Force cyclists to use cycle lanes where they are available.

· Permit left turn on red.

· Left filters on signalled junctions should be the norm.

· Provide more free parking areas to allow roads to be clear of parked vehicles and hence allow traffic to flow.

I'm sure that some of you are tutting and thinking that there aren't altered traffic light phases and the such. Well, there are and the reason for them were openly admitted at a members meeting for the Institute of London Transport. Traffic was flowing rather too well, you see, and there needed to be a reason for Ken to call for a £25 congestion charge and expansion to West London.

As for the report's author, well he's very involved in this whole road pricing scheme. I'm sure he'll be put on another committee or executive board to help bring this all into being which will no doubt help his own coffers...

Fantastic Mr Fox

I don't like foxes. I'm not one of these deluded people who think they're all cute and fluffy. I'd like to get on the back of a muscle packed stallion and chase one across the countryside and then know that it's been killed by some dogs.

But it's not that I dislike animals; quite the contrary. I'm a huge animal lover. I've been vegetarian for the past 18 years despite dreaming about steak (not one of those ghastly preaching ones, though), I actually communicate often like I'm a bloody cat and I do generally prefer animals to people. It's my love of animals, particularly the gorgeous ones I live with, that I want a bit of equilibrium to be restored and man to be the natural predator of foxes again.

For years in the suburbs there have been urban foxes causing a nuisance: ripping bins apart, screaching into the night and stinking and being infested with fleas. They don't run when they see a human; why should they? What can we actually do? They're the ones with sharp teeth and rabies. We should run from them.

And we know from news reports that foxes attack people and maul children. Those people who feed foxes and encourage them into urban areas think that sleeping children provoked a fox into scarring their faces and chewing their arms but this is bullshit.

My first pet, a rabbit called Christopher was killed by a fox who just took his head. Over the years we all came to know foxes as pet killers as a series of fluffy animals were taken as trophies despite our best efforts to keep them safe. Now we keep chickens and cats and it's another round of ensuring that people watch them even during the day and that all animals are locked up at night.

This morning I woke up to a text message from my friend who lives near saying that her kitten was killed last night by foxes.

Yes, you 'animal rights ban hunting stop pest control' people: a kitten was killed by a fox. You with all your 'save me' posters of foxes didn't have to clean up that one in your garden, did you.


So I had a look to see what can be done about dealing with the fucking pests. Here's the government website. Essentially, in much the same way as people have been told for the last decade about rape and burglary, it's your responsibility to stop it happening to you.

Blocking empty living spaces
If the space is occupied by foxes (or other animals) it’s illegal to trap them by blocking the entrance. Instead, wait until the foxes stop using the space and then block the entrance before the next breeding season, which lasts from December to May...

Legal protection for foxes
It’s against the law to treat foxes cruelly. Find out more information on foxes and the law on pages six and seven of 'The red fox in rural areas'.

And of course make sure there's no rubbish anywhere and don't fly tip. Of course, there's more rubbish around since we don't get it cleared up ever week (landfill directive) and more fly tipping (weee directive) so thanks EU.

In the mean time, if you've got a fox which is making your life unpleasant, remember that the last Labour government thought it more important than you. Perhaps we should get some changes included in this Great Repeal Bill?

How to be a tabloid journalist part 24638

Not that tabloids overreact in their coverage, often stringing a few comments into a double page feature, but this coverage of the pantomime wedding in the News of the World had me hooting with laughter:

Women and children were forced to FLEE the scrum - some in floods of TEARS

It's a church in Surrey, not the Rwandan fucking genocide.