Post in Fleet Street

These things get hit regularly but I don't think a bus did this as the drivers all keep to the company speed limit of ten mph and this looks like it was hit by something going faster than 10 mph.

Nick Bye is a masochist.

Nick Bye, our elected Mayor here in Beautiful Torbay is obviously a masochist. Newspaper reports in today's Herald Express confirm a rumour that has been going round the Bay for years now.

After years of suffering the slings and arrows of high office he has decided to come out and admit that the abuse that some of the inhabitants of Torbay have been throwing at him virtually from day one of his kingship hasn't put him off trying to have an other four years of taking the nastiness that went with most of his first 4 years. He has announced that he intends to put his name forward to be the conservative party candidate in next May's election. Personally I think he is a very brave man, but then again there is a £65 000 salary at the end of each year. Not that I believe that would have influenced him one little bit.

One other piece of good news, the bomb in Plymouth has been removed and dropped in the sea and blown up. Good news for the people of Plymouth but not so good for any fish that happened to swim up to the bomb as it was sinking thinking, "Does that look like food. I'll just give it a quick nibble and see." One mistake they are not likely to repete in a hurry.

An other piece of news is that the weather forecasters appear to have got their predictions wrong last night, round here anyway. Storm force winds and heavy rain never turned up so the roof is still intact.

And finally I had a look on the job search web site a while ago. Three new jobs posted so far today. One was offering 4 hours work and an other 7 hours. That's a week not a day. Not worth getting up for. Woops. Does that count as one refusal of work, or two even. One more like that and I'm out. Benefits stopped; that's me done for, I'll soon be living in a church hall. Hope it has an internet connection.

Plymouth, Boom Town

There is an unexploded bomb turned up in Plymouth 65 years after the Second World War ended. There were over a hundred air raids on Plymouth due to there being a big navel dockyard there so it isn't surprising that at odd bomb turns up from time to time. When I heard the news I had visions of people spending the night on camp beds in some local church hall or school. A TV reporter would talk to elderly people who would mention the wartime spirit and children would run around in the back ground excited by the unusualness of the days events. A police or army spokes person would explain that, "A device has been found and for reasons of security we feel that moving people out of their houses while it is decided what action needs to be taken to make the area safe. Sorry no other comment." (Why don't they just say an unexploded bomb has turned up and we don't want anyone blown to pieces).

The next item was a bit more serious but it evoked a similar vision of people being put up in church halls on camp beds with children running round while mum or dad explained that the hadn't taken the third job that had been offered and their benefit had been stopped and the church hall was the only place left for them to sleep. Thank god for the Church of England having so many under used church halls. Hang on a minute; There are 2.5 million people unemployed in the UK, I have a feeling that the country is going to run out of church halls before we run out of unemployed people that just don't wont to work. No no, no. Hang on an other minute. That's not right either. I know that most unemployed people (I am one myself) would sooner work then live of the state. Shouldn't they get first crack at any jobs that are available. I mean picture the situation; Person A and person B don't have jobs. Person A wants a job but can't find one. Maybe he/she doesn't have any experience or is over 50 or maybe there just aren't any jobs going. Person B doesn't want a job even if there was one on offer 5 minutes walk from home. So who should the job centre send for any job that does turn up?

Well in truth the problem isn't that the government are spending too much on benefits for people who don't want to work but that they are doing nothing to increase the number of jobs available to those of us non workers who do want a job. Not only are they not spending money on creating new jobs, they are about to spend billions less on jobs that at present exist but wont this time next year. What clown voted in that nice Mr Cameron? It wasn't me. Text, Twitter or email this to Mr Cameron before it is too late; "Get a couple of million of us into work and the Tax revenue would easily pay the for the benefits of those who really don't care if the never work in their entire life."

PS I titled this post "Boom Town Plymouth". but a recent report stated that for every advertised job there are at least 7 people looking for work. Not exactly Boom Town and I would like to apologise for misleading you, my reader.

PPS Some one has added something to our Banksy. Vandal!

Get Rid of Cap Locks Key

A few days ago I heard an item on the radio about a web site that asks people to write a novel in a month, the month being November. The novel had to be over 50000 words long which means writing 50000 ÷ 30 = 16667 words per day. So why not make a start thought I. So far I have written 267 words in 5 days but I have plenty of time to catch up. Even if I don't make the 50000 word minimum I will still publish my effort. It's working title is "Aliens Land in Torquay and No One Notices."

One of my problems with this project is that I never learned to touch type, never really needed to. So it's two finger stuff and look at the keyboard whilest typing. One of the things that happens when I AM DOING THIS IS A LINE OF TYPE IN UPPER CASE WHICH i HAVE TO DELETE AND WRITE AGAIN > It happens because I press the caps locks key instead of the shift key and is a pain in the neck and a waste of time. So I thought of taking the keyboard apart and diconecting the caps locks key so this wouldn't happen. Then I looked on the web for an easier solution. And boy, was it easy.

Click on this shortcut and then click on Disable Caplocks Key . Then click OK a few times, switch the computer off and back on and now your caps lock key acts as a shift key. Bit of a problem if you do want to write in UPPER CASE LETTERS ALL THE TIME BUT THAT'S LIKE SHOUTING at someone and should be discouraged. This will not work on Windows 7 but it works fine on XP. For Windows Vista and 7 you might need to look a bit further. Try here

PS You might be wondering why the picture of a Rolls Royce engine from a Qantas A380 is up there at the top of the page. In Jan next I am going to Australia and I have the picture on my desktop to remind me to write my will before I go.

 

You Can Tell It's Been a Quiet Week.

There was a report a few days ago by an expert who stated that alcohol was more damaging to society than crack cocaine or heroin. This is an expert speaking so I guess we must all give up our beer and wine and the occasional nip of whiskey and learn how to recognise a drug dealer when we see one on the street and learn how to take cocaine and heroin. Should do wonders for the economy of certain South American and Far Eastern countries. Then when we are all hopelessly addicted the so called expert can have an other go at compiling a report that will almost certainly be as useless as this one.

It also seems, much to that nice Mr Cameron's obvious distress, that the European Human Rights people (note; they are not the same as the EU) have decided that prisoners should, correction must, be allowed to vote in elections. The problem is do they vote in the constituency where the prison the are currently staying in is situated, or where they were living when the midnight knock on the door announced their sad change of status from voter to non voter. A third alternative; considering how many prisoners there are at the moment maybe they should have an MP who's constituency is Her Majesties Prisons. If this alternative is adopted, and I don't think it will be, 99.9% of my brilliant ideas are ignored, then might I suggest the Nick Glegg gets his name down pretty damn quick because it the only chance he has of being an MP after the next election (sadly over 4 years off).

An finally after 700 years the war with France is finally over. No more fighting. Just squabbling over who's turn it is to play with the Aircraft Carrier. Oh, and the Nuclear Bombs. Should be fun.