It used to be ERIC Gill that outraged people, what with his wacky lifestyle involving incest, bestiality and stone-carving, but it seems that A. A. Gill, with his pathetic "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" sub-Hemingway piece about shooting a baboon just for a laugh, is intent on carrying on the tradition. Well, watch out A. A., one day, thanks to the magic of search and replace, you might find yourself sitting on a cloud, twanging a harp, and reading this:-
So I’m in Hampstead, in a hat, with dark intentions and a truck full of guns and other blokes in hats. Josh the Baboon said: “Why don’t we shoot A. A. Gill?” All nonchalant, looking out of the window at the amazing Tanzanian acacia scrub that drifts into the Serengeti plain. What about A. A. Gill?
And here’s the thing. If you tool around the beautiful and unruly bits of Africa long enough in the company of gangs of Baboons in purposeful hats, sooner or later you’re going to do A. A.Gill. You think you’re not, you think you’re the exception, you’re going to just say no, but pretty soon it’s the monkey on your back. I should have worn my Stella McCartney hat.
So, I said, why not? Just a little one. I can handle it; I’ll be a recreational primate killer. Now, despite all indications to the contrary, A. A. Gill isn’t stupid. Well, no stupider than Piers Morgan. They know that Baboons in hats, hanging around in trucks with guns, are up to no good. They see you, they sod off, going back to their Hampstead homes where they enjoy riding their mums like little jockeys. And then they stand around in bars and bark like alsatians and jump up and down, mooning with their big meaty arses, like a lot of Millwall supporters down West Ham. Ha!
But neither A. A. Gill nor Piers Morgan are smart enough to have invented telescopic sights. So there was this little weedy bloke leaning against a menu, picking his fingernails, a nerdy geezer sitting in the restaurant with his tuxedo off. I took him just below the armpit. He slumped and slid sideways. I’m told they can be tricky to shoot: they run into the kitchens, hang on for grim life. They die hard, restaurant critics. But not this one. A soft-nosed .357 blew his lungs out. We paced the ground. The air was filled with a furious keening of his fellow diners. Two hundred and fifty yards. Not a bad shot. I know perfectly well there is absolutely no excuse for this.
There is no mitigation. A. A. Gill isn’t good to eat, unless you’re a leopard. The feeble argument of culling and control is much the same as for foxes: a veil for naughty fun. They might, at some unspecified theoretical future date, eat birds’ eggs, young impalas and dik-diks — they are opportunist omnivores, but that very much depends on “Today’s Special”. You wouldn’t trust A. A. Gill to baby-sit. But then everything has to eat. I noticed that, when he was alive, I thought about A. A. Gill as a thing. Now he’s dead, I’m posthumously anthropomorphising him, and that was one of the reasons I killed him. It was strangely satisfying.
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Thursday, 22 October 2009
The Resounding Clang of the Stable Door, Vol 97
The Financial Services Authority, God bless them, have decided at long last, that irresponsible lending should be disallowed. Fine. Stop the banks lending to people, let them just KEEP all of the money we've lent them to get them out of the shit. They can spend the long winter evenings gloating over it.
Meanwhile, perhaps we could ALSO consider that we PERHAPS should be asking for our bonuses back. Because, to be honest, punishing poor people for wanting to borrow money is not REALLY the way forward. Perhaps you SHOULD, MAYBE, have been stopping the banks in the first place, from spending OUR money on imaginary fucking derivatives, you bunch of stripey-suited WANKERS.
Bunch.
Of.
Arse.
Meanwhile, perhaps we could ALSO consider that we PERHAPS should be asking for our bonuses back. Because, to be honest, punishing poor people for wanting to borrow money is not REALLY the way forward. Perhaps you SHOULD, MAYBE, have been stopping the banks in the first place, from spending OUR money on imaginary fucking derivatives, you bunch of stripey-suited WANKERS.
Bunch.
Of.
Arse.
Happy as a Sandbag
It is not often that a story where the Government is involved has a happy ending, still less so when that story involves Iraq. However, I can report on one such occurrence, albeit one in which no credit at all is due to the Government in the matter.
I am referring of course to the rescue of three dogs and one cat from Baghdad and Umm Qasr, and their safe return to the UK. The animals in question were Sandbag, a dog, and his puppy, Christened “Dirtbag”, another dog called Royal, and a cat known as Hesco. All of these creatures had previously become attached to various UK units serving in Iraq, in each case becoming unofficial “mascots”.
When the units concerned had to withdraw, in each case, the question was asked, could they bring their mascots back to the UK with them, and in each case, the answer from the MOD was “no”.
Sandbag, in particular, became something of a cause celebre as a result of this. At one point, he even had his own Facebook page, and a petition was drawn up on the 10 Downing Street web site, asking for him to be repatriated. Needless to say, the answer was again, “no”.
This is actually a classic illustration of how badly Gordon Brown is being advised, and why he is going to go down at the next election to a crashing defeat that will make Balaclava and the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a peaceful canter in the park. Just pause to think for a moment what would have happened if BLAIR had still been Prime Minister. He would have had that dog crated up for air freight before you could say “Pedigree Chum” and he would have then invited the world’s assembled press onto the tarmac at Brize Norton to watch him give it a medal and hand it a bonio.
Anyway, be that as it may, thanks to a coalition of the willing (where have we heard that before) involving a South Wales Animal Welfare charity, Baghdad Cat Rescue (surely the single most thankless task in cat welfare, at least from its title) and The Blue Cross, funds have now been raised to bring Sandbag, Dirtbag, Royal and Hesco back to the UK, and they are now currently in quarantine for six months, but at least that is better than being turned out to wander the streets of Iraq's war-torn capital, which was the alternative.
So, Gordon, if you are reading this, which I very much doubt, you, or rather your advisors, might like to ponder on the fact that the British are a nation of animal lovers, and your opponent, Mr Cameron, has already said that he will allow a free vote on repealing fox-hunting if he gets in next year. Why not start asking him some awkward questions on his record regarding animal welfare, instead of continuing to miss this endless procession of open goals?
I am referring of course to the rescue of three dogs and one cat from Baghdad and Umm Qasr, and their safe return to the UK. The animals in question were Sandbag, a dog, and his puppy, Christened “Dirtbag”, another dog called Royal, and a cat known as Hesco. All of these creatures had previously become attached to various UK units serving in Iraq, in each case becoming unofficial “mascots”.
When the units concerned had to withdraw, in each case, the question was asked, could they bring their mascots back to the UK with them, and in each case, the answer from the MOD was “no”.
Sandbag, in particular, became something of a cause celebre as a result of this. At one point, he even had his own Facebook page, and a petition was drawn up on the 10 Downing Street web site, asking for him to be repatriated. Needless to say, the answer was again, “no”.
This is actually a classic illustration of how badly Gordon Brown is being advised, and why he is going to go down at the next election to a crashing defeat that will make Balaclava and the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a peaceful canter in the park. Just pause to think for a moment what would have happened if BLAIR had still been Prime Minister. He would have had that dog crated up for air freight before you could say “Pedigree Chum” and he would have then invited the world’s assembled press onto the tarmac at Brize Norton to watch him give it a medal and hand it a bonio.
Anyway, be that as it may, thanks to a coalition of the willing (where have we heard that before) involving a South Wales Animal Welfare charity, Baghdad Cat Rescue (surely the single most thankless task in cat welfare, at least from its title) and The Blue Cross, funds have now been raised to bring Sandbag, Dirtbag, Royal and Hesco back to the UK, and they are now currently in quarantine for six months, but at least that is better than being turned out to wander the streets of Iraq's war-torn capital, which was the alternative.
So, Gordon, if you are reading this, which I very much doubt, you, or rather your advisors, might like to ponder on the fact that the British are a nation of animal lovers, and your opponent, Mr Cameron, has already said that he will allow a free vote on repealing fox-hunting if he gets in next year. Why not start asking him some awkward questions on his record regarding animal welfare, instead of continuing to miss this endless procession of open goals?
That BNP Manifesto in Full
On immigration: Britain is full, go home, unless you are able to prove in writing your ancestors were present at Ye Greate Moot of King Eggbound the Unready in 1085. We’re also looking for British volunteers to leave, especially those who might, er, withstand the sunny climates of foreign shores better than, say, those with, er, fair skin. And while we’re at it, we don’t want none of them mixed marriages. Stay within your own village and look for a marriage partner. Or better still, your own family.
On health: owing to acute staff shortages in the NHS caused by repatriation, see above, there may be some interruptions to normal service for the next 20 years until a new generation of indigenous British doctors and nurses can be trained up. In the meantime, call our self-appendectomy helpline on XXXXX
{Your call is important to us. Please ensure you have plenty of Dettol and hot water close at hand}
On defence: yes, we’re quite happy sitting here, thank you.
On climate change: Ooooh, that’s a toughie. Let’s see. Carbon, hang on, carbon is black, right? So it’s a BAD thing. Oh, wait, though, Carbon EMISSIONS, right, that’s pushing out the Carbon, isn’t it? OK, pushing out the black stuff? Yes! we’re all in favour of that. Put us down as a “yes” to Carbon Emissions!
On postal services reform: white envelopes good, BROWN envelopes bad. Next?
On foreign policy: it starts at Calais.
On Europe: see above.
On agriculture: in future, cows can only be black, or white. And kept in separate fields. Not black AND white, and certainly not Swiss Brown. And if you have a dangerous dog, you’ll have to “muzzle-im” Ha ha! Muslim! geddit?!?! Especially Afghans.
On crime and justice: fiery torches and pitchforks will be provided.
On industry: Er… oh.
That’s all, Volks!
On health: owing to acute staff shortages in the NHS caused by repatriation, see above, there may be some interruptions to normal service for the next 20 years until a new generation of indigenous British doctors and nurses can be trained up. In the meantime, call our self-appendectomy helpline on XXXXX
{Your call is important to us. Please ensure you have plenty of Dettol and hot water close at hand}
On defence: yes, we’re quite happy sitting here, thank you.
On climate change: Ooooh, that’s a toughie. Let’s see. Carbon, hang on, carbon is black, right? So it’s a BAD thing. Oh, wait, though, Carbon EMISSIONS, right, that’s pushing out the Carbon, isn’t it? OK, pushing out the black stuff? Yes! we’re all in favour of that. Put us down as a “yes” to Carbon Emissions!
On postal services reform: white envelopes good, BROWN envelopes bad. Next?
On foreign policy: it starts at Calais.
On Europe: see above.
On agriculture: in future, cows can only be black, or white. And kept in separate fields. Not black AND white, and certainly not Swiss Brown. And if you have a dangerous dog, you’ll have to “muzzle-im” Ha ha! Muslim! geddit?!?! Especially Afghans.
On crime and justice: fiery torches and pitchforks will be provided.
On industry: Er… oh.
That’s all, Volks!
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Geert back to where you once belonged
I dunno, these bleedin right wing Dutch bigots, comin' over 'ere, takin' jobs and doin' work that could be done by ethnic white British bigots, it's a bleedin' scandal, Guv, and no mistake.
I 'ad that Nick Griffin in the back o' my cab once.
I 'ad that Nick Griffin in the back o' my cab once.
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Everything Must Go!
I despair of Gordon Brown.
We are £175 billion in debt and he announces the sell-off of public assets to the approx value of £16 billion.
What's the point? All you are doing is replacing assets with cash. OK, you may be £16 bn less in debt but the other side of the ledger is £16 bn down in assets. Go figure.
We are £175 billion in debt and he announces the sell-off of public assets to the approx value of £16 billion.
What's the point? All you are doing is replacing assets with cash. OK, you may be £16 bn less in debt but the other side of the ledger is £16 bn down in assets. Go figure.
No Expenses Spared
I can’t believe some MPs are still thinking of contesting and quibbling over the amount of their expenses they are being asked to pay back.
Welcome to the real world, the world the rest of us are forced to inhabit, where the goalposts are moved daily, with no redress.
For instance, if you were someone who had been unfortunately overpaid by the CSA owing to their ineptitude, you would have already been in receipt of threatening letters from the DWP telling you to repay those benefits or risk prosecution. This is the sort of shit your constituents have to put up with, day in, day out.
It’s not even about the money. You can bloody well afford it. Most of you have got two or three other lucrative jobs alongside being an MP.
Look. How can I put this nicely?
Just deal with it, and move on. You have got off lightly. Stop whinging, shut up, pay up, and get on with running the country. You haven’t got a Legg to stand on.
Welcome to the real world, the world the rest of us are forced to inhabit, where the goalposts are moved daily, with no redress.
For instance, if you were someone who had been unfortunately overpaid by the CSA owing to their ineptitude, you would have already been in receipt of threatening letters from the DWP telling you to repay those benefits or risk prosecution. This is the sort of shit your constituents have to put up with, day in, day out.
It’s not even about the money. You can bloody well afford it. Most of you have got two or three other lucrative jobs alongside being an MP.
Look. How can I put this nicely?
Just deal with it, and move on. You have got off lightly. Stop whinging, shut up, pay up, and get on with running the country. You haven’t got a Legg to stand on.
Oh Say Does That Star Spangled Banner Still Rave
I have to admit, I may have been a chump for giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. I ought to have known that history teaches us that the appearance of a charismatic, young, new broom who promises to sweep clean and transmogrify everything for the better, is inevitably followed by disappointment. God knows, if we wanted an example of the syndrome in this country in recent years, we have only to look at Blair.
But I didn’t expect him to go quite so wrong, quite so early. I refer of course to the totally hypocritical hissy-fit which the US administration has thrown over the release of the Lockerbie suspect.
Personally, I think it’s very decent of the Libyans to let us have an innocent guy to lock up and save people having to ask awkward questions about who really dunnit, but then no doubt all sorts of side deals went down at the time and they were richly recompensed, one way or another.
Anyway, Obama knows much better than I do, because presumably he can toddle along to the CIA and look at the files any time it takes his fancy to do so, that Al-Megrahi is innocent. Just for the avoidance of any doubt though, here’s an interesting point from a chap called Robbie the Pict, from the Lockerbie justice group based on the Isle of Skye, examining the key point on which the Crown’s case against Megrahi rests.
A Sensible Person’s Guide to Semtex
(and why it was not present on Pan Am 103) Semtex is the trade name of a composite high explosive which combines two chemical substances, PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate) and RDX (Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine). The American and English equivalents are ‘C4’ and ‘PE-4’ respectively.High Explosive is a substance which explodes at more than 1000 meters per second (mps). Semtex explodes at about 8000 mps, over 5 miles per second.Heat of Explosion is the amount of chemical explosive energy contained within the explosive mixture, measured in joules per gram(J/g).
The term is more from chemistry than physics.Temperature of Explosion is the maximum temperature possible if no heat is lost to the surroundings. It can be thought of as the starting temperature on detonation. The exploding temperature of Semtex is given by the manufacturer as 3,800 degrees Centigrade. This is physics.Detonation is a chemical process involving spontaneous decomposition of explosives molecules, the breaking and forming of trillions of bonds. It is supersonic combustion in which a shockwave through the explosive material compresses, heats and ignites it.
The ignited material further propagates the shock.Deflagration is subsonic combustion (i.e. burning) that propagates through the explosive material by thermal conduction. Semtex burns at approximately 3,800 degrees centigrade or 6,832 degrees Fahrenheit. That is the estimated temperature of a sunspot. Carbon itself melts at 3,720 degrees Centigrade. This is roughly ten times the auto-ignition or self-kindling point of paper. Plastics, solder, shellac (circuit board material) and cloth shirts have auto-ignition points much closer to paper than to carbon.
All these items would be rendered into white hot gas at 3,800 degrees C.Zone of Uniform Velocity is the distance in all directions not obstructed through which the blast from an explosion continues without losing speed. This factor has been determined in laboratory conditions as being as high as a 4/25 ratio where 4 represents the diameter of the charge (explosive) and 25 the distance the blast reaches without losing momentum.
However, explosive engineers prefer the 2/5 ratio as a practical guide. Explosive Effect is therefore that a charge of Semtex the size of a pound packet of butter will render everything in a sphere the size of a basket-ball an invisible, white-hot gas measuring 6,800 degrees F expanding at over 5 miles per second in all available directions. That calculation is based upon approximately 300 grams, the figure first announced by ‘investigators’.Since then commentators with dubious agendas have more than doubled that figure to as much as 650 grams.
That would mean a charge the size of two and a half pounds of butter and, using only the 2/5 ratio, would result in a sphere of combustion the size of a child’s Space Hopper, expanding at about 20,000 miles per hour in all directions at the temperature of a sunspot, 6,800 degrees F.The Crown conspiracy theory asks the public to join the Judges in believing that a page from a Toshiba instruction manual made of paper, a shellac circuit board, soldering, a piece of shirt cloth and some other combustibles survived the explosion experience. Very funny, — and very stupid.
Well, Robbie the Pict puts it a lot better than I could. But given that Megrahi was almost certainly innocent, and given that all sorts of deals have probaly gone down once again, this time over his release, in a grotesque mirror image of those which went down over his conviction, it ill behoves the White House to be lecturing us on justice, and it ill behoves the American public to be boycotting Scotland, when the US is determined to exercise its rights under the criminally one-sided extradition treaty between the US and the USA, and prosecute Gary McKinnon in the US courts.
Gary McKinnon is the archetypal nerd. In fact, he is the nerd’s nerd. He hacked the computer system at the Pentagon, looking for evidence of UFOs. I don’t know if he found any, but he certainly pissed off the pointyheads who are in charge of security over there. Instead of congratulating him for showing up the loopholes in their pathetic firewall and offering him a job, they want to extradite him to the US and prosecute him to make an example of him. Sadly, our government doesn’t seem to have the balls to tell them that – since he committed the crime on UK soil – Gary McKinnon should stand trial in the UK. And they should go suck a zube.
It’s all part of a depressing pattern, which follows on from the previous instance of the US forces refusing to allow the evidence of their gun cameras to be played to the jury in the inquest on the sad death of Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, in a friendly fire incident. But then, the Americans probably think that Her Majesty’s Coroner for the County of Oxford is an extra in a chorus by Gilbert and Sullivan.
I didn’t expect much of George W Bush, a man whose concepts of justice probably involved nooses, white hoods and fiery crosses. But I did expect much, much better of Barack Obama.
But I didn’t expect him to go quite so wrong, quite so early. I refer of course to the totally hypocritical hissy-fit which the US administration has thrown over the release of the Lockerbie suspect.
Personally, I think it’s very decent of the Libyans to let us have an innocent guy to lock up and save people having to ask awkward questions about who really dunnit, but then no doubt all sorts of side deals went down at the time and they were richly recompensed, one way or another.
Anyway, Obama knows much better than I do, because presumably he can toddle along to the CIA and look at the files any time it takes his fancy to do so, that Al-Megrahi is innocent. Just for the avoidance of any doubt though, here’s an interesting point from a chap called Robbie the Pict, from the Lockerbie justice group based on the Isle of Skye, examining the key point on which the Crown’s case against Megrahi rests.
A Sensible Person’s Guide to Semtex
(and why it was not present on Pan Am 103) Semtex is the trade name of a composite high explosive which combines two chemical substances, PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate) and RDX (Cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine). The American and English equivalents are ‘C4’ and ‘PE-4’ respectively.High Explosive is a substance which explodes at more than 1000 meters per second (mps). Semtex explodes at about 8000 mps, over 5 miles per second.Heat of Explosion is the amount of chemical explosive energy contained within the explosive mixture, measured in joules per gram(J/g).
The term is more from chemistry than physics.Temperature of Explosion is the maximum temperature possible if no heat is lost to the surroundings. It can be thought of as the starting temperature on detonation. The exploding temperature of Semtex is given by the manufacturer as 3,800 degrees Centigrade. This is physics.Detonation is a chemical process involving spontaneous decomposition of explosives molecules, the breaking and forming of trillions of bonds. It is supersonic combustion in which a shockwave through the explosive material compresses, heats and ignites it.
The ignited material further propagates the shock.Deflagration is subsonic combustion (i.e. burning) that propagates through the explosive material by thermal conduction. Semtex burns at approximately 3,800 degrees centigrade or 6,832 degrees Fahrenheit. That is the estimated temperature of a sunspot. Carbon itself melts at 3,720 degrees Centigrade. This is roughly ten times the auto-ignition or self-kindling point of paper. Plastics, solder, shellac (circuit board material) and cloth shirts have auto-ignition points much closer to paper than to carbon.
All these items would be rendered into white hot gas at 3,800 degrees C.Zone of Uniform Velocity is the distance in all directions not obstructed through which the blast from an explosion continues without losing speed. This factor has been determined in laboratory conditions as being as high as a 4/25 ratio where 4 represents the diameter of the charge (explosive) and 25 the distance the blast reaches without losing momentum.
However, explosive engineers prefer the 2/5 ratio as a practical guide. Explosive Effect is therefore that a charge of Semtex the size of a pound packet of butter will render everything in a sphere the size of a basket-ball an invisible, white-hot gas measuring 6,800 degrees F expanding at over 5 miles per second in all available directions. That calculation is based upon approximately 300 grams, the figure first announced by ‘investigators’.Since then commentators with dubious agendas have more than doubled that figure to as much as 650 grams.
That would mean a charge the size of two and a half pounds of butter and, using only the 2/5 ratio, would result in a sphere of combustion the size of a child’s Space Hopper, expanding at about 20,000 miles per hour in all directions at the temperature of a sunspot, 6,800 degrees F.The Crown conspiracy theory asks the public to join the Judges in believing that a page from a Toshiba instruction manual made of paper, a shellac circuit board, soldering, a piece of shirt cloth and some other combustibles survived the explosion experience. Very funny, — and very stupid.
Well, Robbie the Pict puts it a lot better than I could. But given that Megrahi was almost certainly innocent, and given that all sorts of deals have probaly gone down once again, this time over his release, in a grotesque mirror image of those which went down over his conviction, it ill behoves the White House to be lecturing us on justice, and it ill behoves the American public to be boycotting Scotland, when the US is determined to exercise its rights under the criminally one-sided extradition treaty between the US and the USA, and prosecute Gary McKinnon in the US courts.
Gary McKinnon is the archetypal nerd. In fact, he is the nerd’s nerd. He hacked the computer system at the Pentagon, looking for evidence of UFOs. I don’t know if he found any, but he certainly pissed off the pointyheads who are in charge of security over there. Instead of congratulating him for showing up the loopholes in their pathetic firewall and offering him a job, they want to extradite him to the US and prosecute him to make an example of him. Sadly, our government doesn’t seem to have the balls to tell them that – since he committed the crime on UK soil – Gary McKinnon should stand trial in the UK. And they should go suck a zube.
It’s all part of a depressing pattern, which follows on from the previous instance of the US forces refusing to allow the evidence of their gun cameras to be played to the jury in the inquest on the sad death of Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, in a friendly fire incident. But then, the Americans probably think that Her Majesty’s Coroner for the County of Oxford is an extra in a chorus by Gilbert and Sullivan.
I didn’t expect much of George W Bush, a man whose concepts of justice probably involved nooses, white hoods and fiery crosses. But I did expect much, much better of Barack Obama.
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