Snoring

I snore.
Like a wounded hippo gasping its last strangulated bellow, I snore.
This happens as soon as I am asleep; often just before (which wakes me up).
I have tried sprays and little sticky clips on my nose. Useless.
I have also tried a thingy that goes in my nose and makes me look like Va'aiga Tuigamala. I sleep better (more air) but just as noisily.
I now have a gumshield thingy that brings my lower teeth forward about 10mm and stops my flobbly airways thingies resonating when I breath. I combine this with the thingy in my nose.
This works, but I have a tendency for it to drop out. I think I need some sort of over-the-head device to keep my mouth closed at the same time.
I am, in summary, turning into Darth Vader.

Here come the girls...(not)

Please don't take this as a tirade against womankind.

I am seized by a sense of profound disappointment here.

In 1988 we changed from overtly boy-friendly O-Levels to equally overtly girl-friendly GCSEs. Out with terminal exams, in with coursework and modularity. As expected (oh come on!) girls have done really well in education since then and have outstripped boys on results day for many years now. The gap is ever-widening and will never close whilst the system is so repeatedly and unfairly skewed towards girls. I know, I know; boys had it their own way for ages. That's not my point.

Our universities are extraordinarily girl-heavy. Girl:Boy ratios of 60:40 or worse are quite common. I think there is something of an embargo on giving the true figures much air time. It would shock the Y-chromosome bearing part of the population, I'm sure.

So, since 1988, we've had a girl-friendly system and those 16 year-olds who took their GCSEs then are now 38. They got their degrees (the bulk of them) in 1993 and have been in employment since then. They should have made their mark by now. They haven't. What's happened? What have these girls* done with all this educational supremacy?

There are women now at every level of government, commerce, the professions, the law and industry; far more than there used to be, all riding the GCSE/GCE wave. What do we - society - see from this dramatic shift towards female-dominated intellectualism.

In my view, nothing.

Nothing is better. Government isn't better (there were plenty of female snouts in the trough labelled MP's Expenses. Hazel Blears for one.). It is almost certainly worse. Commerce isn't better (unless banks crashing and deep recessions count as "better"). Society is not a kinder, more considerate entity. Women as lawmakers have been a significant part of the Blair/Brown kakistocracy that gave use nearly 4000 new "offences" in ten years. Idiots!

After 22 years it seems a little facile to yet again bleat that it is "mens' fault". It can't be. There are more women with influence, education and an inside track on the infrastructures of power than ever before.

When is all this influence going to count?

* I use "girls" here with no offence whatsoever intended. It saves me writing "girls/women" each time. I don't like using "females"; I find that quite derogatory. If you are still offended, go read another blog.

Football

Germany 4 England 1

The dashed hopes of a nation are encapsulated in that line.

These hopes were ALWAYS going to be unrealised. We are, let's face it, shite at football.

The results speak volumes. USA 1-1 England, Algeria 0-0 England. We should have massacred both of these teams. With Bozo the Keeper and a toothless strikeforce the USA result is easily explained. Algeria? OMG. What a dull game. Duller than old lead.

Then - rejoice in the streets - we beat Slovenia 1-0. Slovenia? Those two million nice people just t'other side of Austria. Since when did Slovenia become a footballing nation that we were proud to beat? Again; we should have taken them apart.

So - second in the group behind USA - we limp to the second round.

Germany. The first decent team we've met after being in the easiest of groups.

0-1 (aargh) 0-2 (more aargh) 1-2 (oh. hope) 2-2 (rejoice!) 1-2 (again) 1-3 (gloom) 1-4 (despair)

I just hope the "Lampard-goal-that-wasn't" makes up a little bit for 1966.

It won't, I suspect.

Cut or Tax?

So, HM Govt is faced with the biggie. Cut or tax?

Every year of my life I have watched wasters getting away with it.

Every second of the Labour Government I watched special interest groups and uber-Quangos soaking up my money. I watched an economy become dependant upon taxes.

Cut, Dave; CUT!

Becoming Old and Confused

Things beginning with i- are starting to puzzle me. I was happy enough with my i-Pod although the advantages it holds over the old minidisk system are, in my view, vastly overrated. I can scrape by with the i-Player, especially when linked to Auntie through my Wii. How cool is that?

Now, i-Phone. Don't have one. Probably never will. Daughter number 1 has such kit and loves it. Presumably she bought the "Make me love this phone" app (or is it ap?).

Now we have the i-Pad.

No.

I think not.

A piece of hardware looking for a niche, I think.

What next? Let's use up those vowels...

i-Pod, i-Pad, i-Ped, i-Pid, i-Pud

We have the first two. The i-Ped, I'm guessing, would be something to do with walking. A small device to send electric current down one's legs (a la Galvani and the frog) to help one walk. The i-Pid (pronounced eye-peed) would be good for my generation as our sphincters fail. Keep those urges to urinate under control with an i-Pid.

The i-Pud?

Apple crumble.

Stable Government

So. Here we are on Tuesday. We had the election last...when was it now...Thursday. So that's Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon without any discernable government whatsoever. Hang on! I thought we needed a stable government. I'm looking around my beloved UK and I'm not seeing troops tear-gassing rioters in the streets. A latter day Kristallnacht has not happened. The FTSE had a good day yesterday, I believe. I need to look harder to find the terror and panic.

Found it!

Etched into the faces of every self-serving stuffed-shirt MP are the same lines of anguish. They are all mouthing the same mantra of "strong stable government" and they are all terrified that we find out the "thing" that must not - ever - be revealed.

We don't actually need them.

The Election

As a lifelong Liberal (the Democrat bit was added later and I've never been that fussed) I confess to being cheered and saddened by the election. Cheered by the Parliament being hung; saddened that the Lib Dems didn't make bigger inroads into the Commons.

The only really obvious thing to come out of the election is that some sort of proportional representation is long overdue. The number of voters it takes to secure a seat is quite illuminating.

The DUP come out best. Although we had the fun of watching Robinson lose his seat (...and here's to you Mrs Robinson) they do best of all. Every seat "cost" only 21027 voters. The Labour Party come in second. Every one of their 258 MPs cost 33350 voters. Compare this to the 34989 voters it took to elect each Conservative MP and you can see why Cameron was so cheesed off. If he had had to pay (in voters) what Labour paid for their seats he would have has 321 - very close to the magical 326.

Plaid Cymru and the SNP deserve a mention here. Each Plaid seat cost 55131 voters; each SNP seat 81898. Using Labour as a "voters per seat" benchmark, Plaid should have had 5 seats, the SNP a whopping 15.

Then we come to the Lib Dems. My favourite bridesmaids. Every Lib Dem seat cost 119788 voters. If they had been Labour voters they could have expected 204 seats with that many voters.

A lot of voters don't vote Lib Dem because they don't like wasting their vote. You can see why.

I also feel really sorry for the Greens. They would have had 9 seats under the same "voters per seat" as Labour.

If we went for simple proportional representation, with every vote contributing to a big "pot" from where MPs would be drawn we would have ended up with a parliament that looked like this:

Con 252
Lab 203
Lib 161
Oth 34

The supposed massive downside that sticks to this type of vote is that it ignores "local interest". Not so, as it turns out. The parties from norn'ir'n would stull have approximately the same nomber of seats (do you like my Ulster accent?). Similarly, Plaid and the SNP do pretty well out of this method.

MPs then get assigned to constituencies. That would be fun - to see who we would get. Of course, what we would always get is a hung parliament. Good. Let's see a bit of concensus and compromise rather than the antagonistic, hostile way that things are done now.

Dream on.