Belt up

Walking around I see more and more people driving without seat belts.

Technically this is illegal. However I wonder if there is any point in enforcing the law. People don't like being told what to do in thier cars after all.

Anyway, who suffers ? They do. Now if you are driving along sans belt and your journey ends ups with your head on the other side of the windscreen from your body, is it wrong to say, "serves you right" ?

I am not a number

ID cards - what a fab idea. Once we have them great things will happen:

• No more terrorism - except that they won't bother with them or will fake/steal cards.
• No more crime - cards won't be stolen, oh no.
• No more ID theft - combining all the ID in one document will stop that won't it. Except that lots of places won't use the biometric tests, they'll just accept them. After all, how many shops look at signatures when you pay on plastic ?
• No more people getting public services who don't deserve them - because Doctors in casualty will check the card before treatment won't they.

The reason we need them keeps changing. What I want to know, is what is the real plan ?

These cards will cost a lot for both cardholder and government, the project is going to go wrong (big IT projects always do) and everyone will be embarased.

So why ?

Wimbledon Hope

No, not that Britain might have produced someone new who can hit the ball although apparently this is the case. Actually, why do we think we have a god given right to win ? Lots of countries don't have great tennis stars but I bet their press don't think that it's a national disgrace when all their players go out in the second round.

Anyway, the real hope was to be seen beside the court. One short shot of an Indian woman and (as far as I could tell) her daughter. They were each waving a big Union Flag and getting behind "our boy".

I hope all the racist cretins at the BNP and Daily Mail saw this and realised, just because your great grandfather was born in another country doesn't mean you can't live in Britain and be proud to be British. That flag belongs to everyone in this country and not just the jackbooted scum who want to claim it for their own.

I don't believe it !

Davis Davies ? A lothario ?

I remember him from Midlands Today, when he was a newsreader. Apart from his weird hair, the most fascinating thing was his reading style. He always appeared to be shouting at you - not loudly but very assertively.

Can't imaging him trying to chat anyone up like that though.

Vote for me.

I would just like to put it on record that I will not be standing for Tory Party Leader.

I have had some duff jobs in the past but every man must have some standards and I won't sink that low.

I urge my supporter to vote for the current incumbant, Antony Blair.

Chairman Phil - Soon to be on Celebrity Love Good Life Brother.

Rubbish

Last night I collected some fish & chips from our local chippy. The person before me we a mid-teens girl. Once her order was sorted out she took a pile of money out of her pocket, looked at it and then handed it over saying, "Take it out of that.". The proprietor took the money, removed the appropriate amount and handed the remaining coins back.

If I were being charitable I would suggest that the girl was too stupid to work out how much she had to pay, despite having been told and the amount showing on the till.

But I'm not charitable. I think she did it as a power trip. What she was saying was, "I am too important to work this out. You are rubbish and should do this menial task for me.". Because she was paying for her meal she considered herself to have a rare moment of power over someone.

This is something you see all the time. In shops people treat the staff like dirt because they are the CUSTOMER and should be obeyed. Teenagers are the worst treating those they encounter with disdain and making it clear they enjoy the experience, but plenty of adults do the same.

It's almost as if the people in the shops are sub-human. They exist as a different race, perhaps there is a parallel with the Roman slave. What is strange is that a lot of the worst offenders look suspiciously as though they spend time on the other side of the fence and the server.

The bible is good (for a change) on this, "Treat others as you would have them treat you." it entreats. Someone else said that you can judge a person by the way they treat their servants.

Of course businesses have responded by sending everyone on customer care courses. They suggest tactics for keeping people happy. What this means is often the customers just get more demanding. There is a superb blog about this. Where does it stop ? If someone rings me at work and demands something not remotely related to my job, "Customer Care" insists that I should do it. But if we all did this, the business world would collapse.

Perhaps all we can hope for is a dawning realization that everyone is the same inside. Just because you have a person money, doesn't make you better than them.

What does Live8 have in common with Nazis ?

Well, you can't sell memorabilia from either on eBay.

Thanks to Saint Bobs rants, eBay have decided that no Live 8 tickets can be sold online. It's probably the best decision that could have come out of the round of rants. It still seems strange that the people who decided to seel thier tickets get off scot free and the method of selling them gets all the blame.

Still it doesn't matter any more. The Government has banned all forms of protest within a kilometre of Parliament. So for all the show they make of supporting this movement for change in Africa, if you dare to should about it while standing by the London Eye, the police can arrest you.

Free speach ? Only if you are a celebrity it seems.

Let's not chase the real culprits

OK, Sir Bob really has flipped. Now he's having a rant at eBay because Live 8 tickets are appearing for sale there.

Whether you agree with selling the tickets or not, eBay isn't actually putting them up for sale itself. The only money they make out of it is the listing fee at the end of the sale. They have offered this and been told to "stick it".

The real bad guys are the ones who bought the tickets and promptly put them up for sale. They will take thier profits and pocket it. No critisim for them from Saint Bob.

If I was being charitable, I would suggest he has been badly advised and doesn't understand how eBay works. His natural instinct is to go for the big bad company 'cos we all know they must be evil.

And the suggestion to bid stupid amounts to ruin the sales ? Well you agree to the deal if you win the auction. So bidding and then renaging on the sale is illegal. Someone's going to get sued and it's likely to be some impressionable kid who thinks they are doing thier bit for Africa.

Glug Glug

Is Bob Geldof mad ?

His suggestion that people should sail accross the channel to "collect thier French counsins" to take part in Live 8 is the sort of thing said by someone who has never been in a boat. The English channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world. What we have is the prospect of inexperienced sailors setting out on 25 miles of rough water in inadequate boats and drowning.

Yes, people will die.

Now you can argue that only people confident of thier abilities should try it. Fine but I bet there are several who will get caught up in the occasion and try thier luck anyway. Presumably the RNLI is happy to pick them up ?

And when they get to France will the beaches be full of "cousins" ? Nope. They will have the good sense to use a ferry or even the tunnel rather than trust thier lives to some idiot in a speedboat.

Even assuming they get this far, what happens next ? Does Bob realise how far it is to Edinburgh ? Of course not, he's going by car. He probably doesn't move far out of London much anyway except for gigs, charitable or otherwise. Lets face it. If you can't get over the channel, you aren't going to be able to make it several hundred miles north either.

What happens when you get to the Scotish capital ? You get to "party" in a park. Will the G8 leaders take any notice ? Of course not. Most of them, especially Mr G Bush (USA) don't care about starving people. Some probably think it would be better if more of them starved.

Saving Africa needs governments but more than that it needs lifestyle changes. Bet a lot of the students going to listen to thier favourite band drink non fair trade coffee because it is cheaper. Bet they love to buy those "ethnic" items made in sweatshops as well.

Perhaps a swim would do them good...

Doomed

Another scare story in the news, ready to be digested by a media incapable of understanding basic science to a public who don't understand why their car has a gearbox. For them, here is a summary:

Pylons a leukemia risk
We're all going to die. Horribly.

MMR Jabs
We're all going to go mad and then die horribly.

Terrorism
We're all going to get blown up/poisoned/irradiated and then die horribly.

EU Constitution
We're going to be made to eat frogs and snails and then die horribly.

Celebrity Love Island
We're all going to have our souls sucked into the television thanks to the groaning emptiness of our lives.

That's that then.