Animal Farm

As a teenager I read Orwell's "Animal Farm" in one sitting one day. Easily done. I was quite happy with the tale as it stood or with the parallels drawn between the farm and the USSR. Jolly good read. I've just read it again, only this time with our beloved PM cast as Napoleon and the other members of the Puritan Kakistocracy cast in other pig-like roles. It works just as well. Sadly. When Blair (Orwell's real name, incidentally) took over from the famously corrupt Tories in 1997 we all looked towards the brightening skies of our collective future. Twelve increasingly corrupt years later we are in a frighteningly worse position. Pigs with noses in the trough. Begone! The lot of you!

Stephen Fry, a chap I admire enormously, was on the Beeb today claiming that all this expenses stuff was completely unimportant and we should let it drop. For once, he is talking total bollocks. The actions of virtually all our MPs have disgraced our democratic system. While the rest of us tighten our belts yet again, watch our savings wither away, see our pensions collapse, and watch the decay of our schools, roads, hospitals and much more besides, our "honourable members" are pigging themselves.
Stephen: it is important; dont be a prat.

Middlesbrough

My spelling mistake of a home town is just about to drop out of the Premier League. Being on the wrong end of a 3-1 scoreline at St James' Park last night just about did it. Having supported Boro (usually from afar) all my life, it does hurt to see them drop into the Championship but the fight to avoid relegation has been fascinating this year. It still isn't decided. Even Tony Mowbray (one of Boro's favourite sons) is still defiant with his WBA team on the brink. Newcastle aren't safe yet. Hull may scramble clear. Much more interesting than the top of the table where the "big four" are in their usual places and it is obvious again that Man Utd are home and dry.
What I like about the "wrong end" of the table is that the games mean something. There is still something to play for rather than just the money. Proper football.

Guilty-ish: The New Innocent

So here's the scenario. I do absolutely nothing wrong, but I get wrongly arrested for something. I get DNA tested. Then I am released. Can I now get on with my life as normal? No. My DNA data will be stored for 6 years (minimum).

So - let's get this right - being completely innocent gets your data stored alongside the bad guys and, subsequently, the Police have access to information about you that they have absolutely no right to have. In effect, we have had an alternative to innocent rammed down our throats. We are now, all of us, either guilty or potentially guilty. I am not sure that there is a word for "guilty-ish" but there needs to be. It is the new innocent.

The first sniff of "guilty-ish" came with re-trials. Once upon a time you were - at your one and only trial - declared innocent or guilty. Being guilty meant that your guilt was proven beyond reasonable doubt. Juries who now "can not reach a verdict" trigger a re-trial. Surely "can not reach a verdict" is exactly the same as "not proven beyond reasonable doubt"; viz. "innocent".

We are sleepwalking into a fascist state. Indefinite detention. Show trials. Political trials.

Coming soon to a Britain near you.

On Offer

If David Cameron or Nick Clegg are looking for someone to stand as an MP for the next election, tell them I'm interested. I don't know what contacts you people have out there but since all of us on the planet are connected via three people (i.e. your friend of a friend of a friend knows every person on earth), I'm sure you can get the message back.
I'm sure I could do a good job although I have none of the qualities we have come to demand from our Honourable Members.
I am, for example, honest.

On My Planet

MPs' expenses; you couldn't make it up.
I have to say, I would love simply to collect all my receipts for the week and drop them into the Fees Office to be reimbursed but it just doesn't happen like that in my world. The way it works on my planet is that I work (just one job incidentally) for an employer who pays for this work with something called a salary. From this salary I lose income tax, national insurance (another tax) and a chunk of money for a pension (because the government has so mis-managed things that my generation will all need private pensions). When I go out to buy things I sometimes pay a lot more tax (e.g. petrol, gin) or just more tax (e.g. 15% VAT). Either way, in any one year, I have to work from January 1st to mid-July to pay my taxes. From then on, the money is mine.
This money, ripped from my salary, my hand and my pocket, goes to fund spurious second homes, hubby's porn, most of what John Lewis sells in a year and a million sundry items that should actually be bought from MPs' salaries. And they wonder why we are disenchanted with politics.
I feel like a Dalek at the foot of a flight of stairs; murderous and frustrated.

Help! Is there a biochemist in the house?

After years and years of thinking I did, it turns out that I don't understand DNA. The bases in DNA come in pairs, A with T, C with G. So on one helix you might have AAGCGCTTAGC and this would be matched by TTCGCAATCG. Fine. Happy with that.
Then, I'm told, the DNA is used to make RNA. OK. Which helix? If I use my AAGCGCTTAGC bit I will get a totally different RNA to my TTCGCAATCG bit. I'm also a bit worried because making RNA looks like the DNA has to uncoil. I've tried doing this on models. It doesn't work. You try it with two pieces of wire braided together. It knots up.
Then there's mitochondrial DNA. This is in a circle. No chance of unwinding there. So how does it make RNA? Does it make RNA? How does it make enzymes?
If there are any biochemists out there reading this, I would appreciate an hour of your time. Coffee would be involved.
And perhaps a cheese scone.

Pandemics (again)

So here we are again. Swine flu. Initially, I thought that this was just the past tense of "Pigs might fly" but it appears to be MUCH more serious. This M1N1 virus is like ordinary flu but much, much...well...less potent. You feel crap for a day or two and then you feel OK. You might get a bit of diarrhoea (or "dire rear") as well.
I am so impressed that Max Clifford was brought in to do the PR for the first people to catch it. As soon as I heard about it I was looking for Mexicans to socialise with in a snot-sharing way but no luck.
Don't get me wrong, I'm really sorry if this "pandemic" has caused the deaths of 19 people across the world; I'm really impressed that we can mobilise millions of tons of drugs when threatened; I'm in awe of the speedy identification and analysis offered by the epidemiologists.
But - for God's sake - can we please stop crying "wolf" over these things.
And stop kissing pigs! All right?