Peter Hain stood down to clear his name in January. With today's news that the CPS are not going to bring charges over the donations to his deputy leadership campaign, he now says he has done that.
But will Gordon Brown give him a job?
Hain was Work and Pensions Secretary. There is no vacancy there.
But what about the other job he held, Welsh Secretary?
Word from Whitehall is that Paul Murphy, his replacement, is not running the Welsh Office particularly efficiently. He was asked back to fill the vacancy having previously been dumped from the Cabinet by the Prime Minister.
When I asked someone recently about Murphy's position they said he was "very secure." That is slightly mystifying.
Still, if Brown is planning another reshuffle I would be tempted to punt on Hain, the Neath MP, being put back into the lesser of his two old jobs.
I would be highly suspicious of friend Cowper if I were you. People who keep hares and dogs to my mind go coursing at the weekend. But then if he has got a church window to himself, perhaps he is the patron saint? If lunatics and lawyers can have patron saints, why not coursers? Dereham competes for his favours, by the way with Catfield, Happisburgh, Little Dunham, Mattishall and Mundesly. And the book I got at Worstead is a good deal more detailed than the Sheepcentre site. For instance, it is commonly said that the Flemish weavers came over in 1331 but the point is that they were probably coming in small numbers since Norman times. It also says that the technique of worsted is actually much older than even the Romans.
Anyway, what have I been doing with myself apart from catching old monia in pursuit of worsteds and woollens? On a Sunday in November I found myself in Brinton. This is a tiny village with some handsome Georgian cottages opposite the hall and a church dedicated, like many around here, to St Andrew, which I entered. I had no sooner got my camera out when the door crashed shut... there was no one around, and it gave me a start. Then there were a couple of knocks on the door. I went to investigate - but there was no one there. I would love to pretend this was my first encounter with a ghost, but when I examined the doorknocker - a funny thing to find on a church door, now I think of it - it was so flimsy that it must have been lifted by the strong wind.
This is an interesting little church with a well preserved and huge Elizabethan tract, a modest angel roof, some late glass which Knott admires and some very interesting 16th century pews with carvings, unfortunately mostly destroyed but one particularly amusing barrel on fire - a burnt tun, a rebus of the village name, (photo) which must also have reminded the parishioners that the pub was only a few yards from the church door when divine service was over! This was called the Thatched House, or at least in 1883, The Thatched Tavern, although in a photo from that date, was not then thatched. The building is now a private house and is still called Thatched House and still un-thatched. It was trading apparently from the mid 1700s but closed in 1960.
Its only a couple of miles from there to Briningham, which shares the origin of its name with Brinton, both being home to Bryni's people and nothing to do with burnt barrels. You will recall that we last met there at Peter Whitbread's funeral and you might like to know he has got himself a prime plot outside the church door between two 18th century headstones. Inscribed on his, is All the word's a stage, appropriate for an actor but I am not sure exactly what is meant. The idea of writing something thespian may have come from a play that he wrote in 1978 called Exit Burbage. This, in turn, was written on Burbage's grave. It was a reflection on Peters's standing in the county that Norfolk's premier folklorist Keith Skipper gave the oration that day but I only recall his crack that Briningham was the dyslexic's Birmingham.
I was thinking about Peter that week because of an article in the paper. You may know, Senex, that the library in Holt was once a livery stable run by a man who had taken part in the Charge of the Light Brigade. His name was James Olley. Well, his account of the charge was recently auctioned and it makes pretty hairy reading, especially as he was only 16. His horse was shot under him before he reached the Russian guns, but he found a rider-less horse and, he says, "I mounted it and rode down to the guns, where I was attacked by a Russian gunner who I cut down with my sword. I received a severe wound on my forehead which went through to the skull bone." Now Peter said he knew him. According to my calculations Olley would have died in 1918. Peter admitted he was very young, but he definitely said he remembered him.
What do you think? There was no reason for Peter to say he remembered him if he did not but he would be 90 now, even if he was born the year of Olley's death. You might well remark that if I had made a note of Peter's dates on his headstone, that would resolve the question but it wouldn't because we can't be sure about Olley's date of death. He is probably buried in Holt, so it might be a project for us. There are still some pubs in Holt while the last one in Briningham, The White Horse - previously the White Hart - closed in 1966. Prior to 1861 there had been another called the Coach and Horses. But I am wandering again. The whole point of this story is that it is a real time shrinker. If you can say you knew somebody who knew someone who had taken part in the Crimean War, it really puts history into perspective.
I then rode down to Hunnybell to contemplate the living, having decided to avoid St Maurice, which has got those nasty hard board divisions, but it is linked, should you wish to see what Simon Knott says. I found myself standing in exactly the spot Peter used to stand at the bar. I recalled another story which I have never seen confirmed but which I read when I first came to Norfolk. There is a large open tract of country between Thornage and Hunworth marked on the 1797 map and about that time a farmer was lost in a snow drift in it. He eventually worked out his position from hearing the church bells at Thornage and, having escaped, dedicated the income from the field to the maintenance of the Thornage bells, in perpetuity. I wonder how long that lasted. After a couple of pints with a Chelsea supporter of your acquaintance I set off for Thornage.
I had only looked at the outside of Thornage church and I have to admit I was looking for something quite un-ecclesiastical, Roman building materials, as a large villa had been located in the district and I wondered if anything had found its way into the local churches. I thought I spied some brick, but I might be wrong. The main feature to me inside is the chest tomb of William Butt whose father was Henry VIII's doctor, a post that Knott remarks must have been quite hazardous. If you go to his website of All Saints you will see that he disagrees with Pevsner and Mortlock about it, which seems unusual and I would back him, not being qualified to debate among such cognoscenti. It also seemed to me that the church once had aisles, which have been removed at some stage, although it was difficult to see well as one of the main windows had been boarded up.
There is only a record of one pub in Thornage, which seems unlikely when many smaller villages had more. It was called the Black Boys, and is now a private house of the same name. There are a plethora of explanations for this name; the most common that it was a reference to Charles II who was very swarthy. You mentioned some of them in your Aylsham post. I agree with you about the plural. You never find a Black Boy. But all these like named pubs seem to date from the seventeenth century so the period is right. Could it be a Royalist dig at dark suited Puritans? I await a convincing explanation.
When I got home I found my wife had also been at St Andrew's. She has a walk that goes past the church and it being Remembrance Sunday, and having got up too late to get to a service, she decided to go in. The two wars had cut a vast swathe through the ranks of her family. Happily for me, Senex, her parents, both RAF, survived, like James Olley, to come back to Norfolk, where, like him, they are buried.
Mr Hain - a labourite Minister is "pleased" not to be facing charges following a cash probe. Understandably he must have been worried or upset during an investigation .........wonder if he has ever suffered investigations like this before.
Friday, December 5, 2008, 11:30 AM GMT [My Telegraph]
James, I can't see your Roy Keane blog, and I suspect that many others can't see it either ... this seems to be a problem with formatting that some bloggers have experienced.
Good morning all you Minglers. :) I woke up at 4 am this morning and could NOT go back to sleep---been surfing about an hour and a half and I'm finally starting to fade. I'm going back to bed--hope everyone has a great and productive day!
So Roy Keane finally resigned as the Sunderland boss after several weeks of speculation that had seen much behind the scenes activity at the troubled club. It is believed that efforts were made to keep him but the manner in which he decided to resign by a text message tells its own story regarding Keane’s disillusionment.
The writing was clearly on the wall last week, following Sunderland’s dismal home display against Bolton in a match that they lost 4-1 and which also put them into the relegation zone. Keane had apparently been in talks with Chairman, Niall Quinn after Keane suggested publicly that the Bolton match was probably his last in charge and it appears that those talks failed to keep Keano at the club.
He leaves the club in a much better shape than he found it but he also leaves them as a loser, something that really should not be associated with a player of his stature, Keano wasa winner as a player and one of the very best midfield players to have played in the Premier League.
Keane was the powerhouse in a Manchester United midfield which included David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes. During that time Beckham was voted third best player in the world and it was said at the time how could he be the third best player in the world when he was not even the third best player in the United midfield.
It was Keano who was the number one at that time and he bossed his team mates as well as he bullied the opposition and perhaps it was those qualities that let him down off the pitch as the Black Cats manager.
Rumours are rife suggesting that Keane was somewhat of a bully and his stick and carrot management style had too much stick and very little carrot. As a player he motivated his team mates by his sheer presence and with his verbal authority, as a manager he struggled to translate that presence into a winning management style.
His departure from the Premier League is a sad one; Keano seems to have been around forever, firstly as a swashbuckling midfielder, nurtured into a footballing superstar by the late, great Brian Clough. His arrival at United was seen as filling the void left by Brian Robson three years earlier and his impact once established in the team was profound. The cries of ‘KEANO KEANO KEANO’ that buzzed around Old Trafford for years had became part and parcel of the Premier League and Roy Keane will now be sorely missed. His name will no doubt top the Next Manager Betting Markets in any future management positions as and when they occur but for the time being Roy Keane is in the past tense.
I remember this story from a few years ago and with all the furore erupting about the mathews case I wondered how nulab are doing with the 'monitoring of the situation'.
Holland's rowdiest housing tenants are being moved into steel container homes in a government crackdown on nuisance neighbours.
The reinforced houses, which resemble shipping containers, are to be built at sites on the outskirts of cities for residents who cause problems with noise, violence, drug abuse or untidiness.
"Nuisance neighbours" can be evicted from rented homes under existing law, but Dutch MPs say that this just shifts the problem onto the streets.
Politicians were prompted to find the fresh solution after a "neighbours from hell" television documentary, which starred the notorious Tokkie family, from Amsterdam, caused nationwide uproar.
The family's 20-year feud with neighbours has been marked by fights with baseball bats, guns and Molotov cocktails. During the show, cameras followed individual family members who live in a filthy, rubbish-strewn home.
At one point the family patriarch, Gerrie, 51, a tattooed, pot-bellied sewage worker who was the family's sole bread-winner, took to the street with a samurai sword to attack his neighbours.
His twin daughters, Natalie and Natascha, 21, had their own children taken into care. His eldest son, Wesley, 20, constantly claimed to be too sick to work while another son, Wimpie, 15, whiled away his life loitering in the local shopping centre. The fly-on-the wall show provoked widespread debate in Dutch society. The programme-makers were accused of glamorising anti-social families, while politicians were criticised for not tackling the problem.
The government turned to the container homes proposal after the success of a pilot scheme of four dwellings outside the medieval town of Kampen, in eastern Holland.
Each home has three basic bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom, and is supplied with heating, gas, electricity and hot water. Tenants who cannot afford furniture are given financial help to buy items second-hand.
Members of the first family to move in were so dirty that local shopkeepers kept air fresheners to hand lest any wandered in.
Anette Schlueter, a city housing adviser, described the family as being of "low IQ". She said: "They defecated all over their house, even in their fridge. They had no idea how to use a toilet and kept lots of animals. You can imagine what the smell was like and what they smelt like when they walked around.
"They need constant help from social workers and they have to be told all the time what the rules are and to stick by them. That is why things didn't work out with them in the regular home but did in the container home.
"I don't think we will ever see them leaving, because as soon as they go anywhere else the problems resurface. We tried once and it didn't work."
The advantage of grouping socially dysfunctional people together, she says, is that they can be easily visited by the police, social workers, or staff from other agencies, such as the department of employment.
Rent on the homes, which are run by a housing association that specialises in looking after families on low incomes, is €250 (£170) a month. Other residents include cocaine addicts, alcoholics, former tramps and people suffering psychiatric problems.
Most appear happy with their surroundings. Hank van der Kolk, 50, a crack cocaine addict, alcoholic and the longest-serving container tenant, has erected a wall to screen him from the rest of the compound. He has also built a patio and carried out other home improvements.
"I can't remember being a bad neighbour. I was evicted after they complained about my drug taking," he said, inhaling his second pipe of crack of the day. "I get by on benefits, and to be honest it's not so bad here."
Jan Jrootjen, a 66-year-old former tramp and alcoholic, said his only complaint was about the two heroin addicts living next door. "They make too much noise, they are always playing their music really loud and get on everyone's nerves," he said. "But other than that it's great here. They tried to move me, but I refused. I want to stay here until I die."
Ms Schlueter said that the Kampen authorities gave the land to the housing association at a time when there were no other houses near the site.
Since then normal houses had been built nearby, but because buyers knew that the container home residents were there already, there had been relatively little friction between the two neighbourhoods. Residents in adjacent streets did not wish to be named, but one said: "My family and I were pretty apprehensive when we moved in here but the container residents are really no bother.
"They keep themselves to themselves and don't trouble anyone. Of course they are social misfits, but they get on with their lives and don't bother us."
Andrew Smith, the former Work and Pensions Secretary, said last night that the Dutch plans sounded like an interesting experiment, which should be monitored by the British Government. "We do need to take tough action against anti-social tenants," he said. "This Dutch idea sounds well worth having a look at to see how it works in practice."
Okay, so I've been trying to avoid what's been going, though it's absolutely impossible.
I've tried writing, drawing and basically yanking the muse or any kind of inspirational creativity out of the air in order to block out what surrounds me.
It all feels so strange, so unreal, like something off the T.V.
But, though I do not want to face the reality of it all, I must.
Though my family has always, always driven me to the brink of insanity and I have always wanted to separate myself from them, I cannot do that now or in the near future.
I must stand beside my mother and siblings, watching as my father continues on with this slow torturous death. I have never, in my life, been surrounded by more Cancer than I am right now. The general talk, the discussions, the appearance, the smell, everything is all consumed with Cancer and death and all the optimism in the world is losing out to this ugly, horrendously mean disease.
In the past week there have been a few updates....
As you already know my father had kidney failure to begin with, previous to that he had, had 3 heart attacks and was dealing with emphysema. So, yeah... kidney failure. He has been wearing bags on either side of him for the past two months now. They had to go in and rearrange things, otherwise, with the kidneys alone, he would've been dead in a week.
Along with the kidney failure, they diagnosed Stage 4 Bladder Cancer, which had moved to the rectum area. That was a given, as I had looked it all up and knew it would spread there first, thus the kidney failure.
Once they opened him up to deal with the kidneys, the Cancer spread. That, too, was already in the forefront of the mind, because what is it??? Once the air hits Cancer it spreads faster??? Or something like that. In any case, it did. Still optimistic at this point.
It then decided to jump to his colon. Okay, optimism took a huge blow, but it's still there and we believe in miracles, right?
Last week we were told that it is in his spine and I'll bet you can guess where it decided to go from there, since the spine is connected to his hips, legs, etc. Either way, still optimistic, but Cancer is winning at this point. I want to believe in miracles. I try my hardest to believe that he'll be able to get up and walk, go into rehab and be able to come home for a bit.
Two days ago we were informed that the Cancer is in his bones. Optimism and miracles - 0, Cancer - 1.
There is no, absolutely no possibility that the doctors will be able to do anything for him, to give him more time than what we were initially told (6 months to a year). Now, it could be anywhere from a couple weeks to a month.
He is currently losing a pound a day. Trying to eat, but still losing a pound a day.
His weight, in two months, has gone from 163, down to 137, down to 132, down to 132, down to 114, and as we stand as of last night, 113.
We were also told that because of the Cancer his bones are degenerated, brittle and getting worse. Which means, a slight misstep, fall or what have you will cause him to break like glass.
He no longer looks like the father I knew, like any of us knew. What we see is the face of Cancer, a haunting, sunken, sallow appearance. He is on so many high powered drugs that at times when you look at him, he is staring at you, but not seeing you. He is looking through you. It is the creepiest stare I have ever seen. At times he does not even realize who is in the room, because of the drugs and because he is so exhausted and in so much pain.
I can feel it. I can almost see it. But I don't want to believe it. I some how want to make it stop, flip it, turn it around, but I know death is coming. It's coming to quickly. Before it was this light airy thought that entered the room, in which we gently pushed away. Now, it is heavy, thick and will not budge. It is stubborn, relentless and refuses to leave. It is there when we visit him, it is there when we are home, discussing him, always there and I so badly and very angrily, want to scream, tell it to go away, it's not time, please not yet. Please don't take him yet.
I am angry at my father because Cancer does not go from Stage 0 to Stage 4 just like that and at some point I knew that he knew something was wrong and he didn't say anything. This could have been dealt with sooner. All this pain and torture did not have to take place. I want to scream at him. Scream till I'm hoarse and can't scream anymore, but then I also want to beg and plead, please don't go. Please don't go.
You would think it's different, knowing what the outcome will be, compared to not knowing and having it happen out of the blue. It's not. It feels , almost, worse. Some part of you, deep inside, keeps saying, there's still a chance that he'll live longer because he's still here, he's still trying to eat, trying to move and being stubborn as hell. But you know. The knowing brings this tremendous pain unlike any other you've ever felt and if you feel this much pain, what can he possibly feeling knowing his life is coming to a quicker end than was first thought?
I believe wholeheartedly that somewhere out there, there is a cure for Cancer, that it has been around for quite some time, but you have to either be tremendously rich in order to get it or it's being kept secret. Because if such a cure were to be brought forth, the medical community would lose money and they don't want to do that.
You don't have to agree with me. I understand. But that is what I believe. It is almost 2009 and it's crazy to think that we don't have a cure or a better way to deal with Cancer.
A judgement passed in a recent Italian court case has ruled that Carlos Ruta is guilty of running a clandestine newspaper. His crime, running a blog page. With a fine of 250 Euro's or a prison sentence of 2 years and forced to take down his historical blog page.
Now the Register reports that Bellusconi states that he will use his presidency to regulate the internet.
What this means for you, Humans, is that once again, we will be subjected to one way information flow that limits our capability to make good decisions across the entire spectrum, and, will be used to control the ignorant masses as in times past, and reduce us all to slaves to pedagogics.
As Carl Jung said,
"Wherever justice is uncertain, and police spying and terror are at work, Human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim of the dictator state, since it is based on the greatest possible accumulation of depotentiated social units"
Taking into account the recent events in relation to our government and police actions, and realising that this quote was written at the rise of the third Reich, the realisation that freedom and love are the only counter to these coming dark forces.
I couldn't help chuckling when I spotted that supporters of Gallic first division club Paris-Saint-Germain - the most despised in French football - are being offered the ultimate chance to improve their image by wearing a perfume smelling of their favourite players.
It may not be as classy as Chanel Number 5. It's hardly the aphrodisiac of Patrick Suskind's Perfume, whose anti-hero boosted his sex appeal with the bottled scent of a red-headed beauty.
And it's unlikely to have any positive effect on the performance of a club that only just avoided relegation last season - threatening to turn Paris into the only major European capital without a top flight club.
But PSG's official fragrance, just launched, claims to enable supporters to "share the intimacy of their favourite club."
Creator Brume de Rêve (literally Dream Mist) even claims the perfume - which comes in a football shirt-shaped bottle in the club's red, white and blue - will work miracles on its fans.
According to the mediocre English translation on its website, the fragrance is nothing less than a "magic" elixir that "transforms the Parisian evenings in festival with the prettiest girls of the capital."
Have you seen the average PSG fan?
"Mmm. That feels already good with the Park (Parc des Princes, the PSG stadium) or on the Champs Elysées," it goes on.
Given the behaviour of the club's recently disbanded Boulogne Boys - its most thuggish, racist supporters - their chances of luring Paris' most beautiful women would be nothing short of miraculous.
In April, the Boulogne Boys sparked national outrage by displaying a 30-metre banner at the League Cup final at the Stade de France against their opponents Lens, from the industrial north.
The Lensois' thick local dialect and culture - Ch'ti - is the subject of a film which became the most successful in French box office history this spring: Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis.
The Boulogne Boys' huge, welcome banner read: "Paedophiles, unemployed and inbred: Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis". President Nicolas Sarkozy, a PSG supporter who was in the stadium, threatened to storm out before police removed the banner.
The "Boys" - who had their own club room at the Parc des Princes - were dissolved under a previously unused clause in an anti-hooliganism law.
Perhaps "un peut de parfum dans un monde de brutes" might help them get a fresh new start.
A PSG deodorant is also on sale and a gel, which the website claims "carves your hair with the color of the PSG; quickly buy this fruity freezing full with strength and force for better resembling Jérôme ROTHEN!" (see photo of the star ex-Monaco winger who sports a bedraggled centre-parting).
Looking at today's Le Parisien, however, one man whose scent could provoke a stampede in Galeries Lafayette is Zinedine Zidane. After a spell out of the limelight, Zizou - France's favourite footballer - is back and on the front page. A panel of readers quizzed him on the financial crisis, his charity work, that famous head-butt. But the female members' thoughts, it seems, were elsewhere. "His green eyes are quite simply magnificent. Zidane is a bombshell!" swooned Marie-Christine, a medical secretary. "I was sitting right next to him and savoured every second."
I won't go on. But hang on a minute. Come to think of it, couldn't this perfume idea be extended to other sectors?
With the financial world crashing down around us, how about "Cold Sweat" for City traders clinging to their bonuses? I'm sure they would have enough of the stuff to bottle an entire factory. Still, not sure there would be many takers.
All of sudden "Odeur de PSG" doesn't seem such a bad option after all.
"Nas is cold as ice. Nas is the block of ice that sunk the Titanic. I think he's at one of those points to where his career's finished, to be honest. He's had some great moments and made good music in the past, but he no longer has the interest of the general public or myself." ~ 50 Cent
CLICK HERE to check out previous Quotes of the Day
I don't care about just the WWE, because I just love wrestling in general. I like how the TNA Knockouts have the oppurtunity for Hardcore matches, Ladder matches, and even a Queen of the Cage match a while back!! I wonder why the WWE Divas hardly do things like this? Nothing against them, but I'd love the oppurtunity to do various matches. Wouldn't you want to see more than just another costume contest during a PPV and see another insane match? I don't know about most guy fans, but there are more to women in this industry than that...I'd love to see Beth Pheonix in a cage match....against, like, Natalya. They seem along the same lines, physically...anyway, I just wonder why the TNA Knockouts have better match oppurtunities. I know they are a different wrestling federation, but I figured that Vince would have tried to one-up them or something by now. And another thing: I wonder when (If?) there will ever be another high-flier Diva like Lita was? I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, but I love high-fliers, and seeing a hot girl do it would be friggin' sweet! Does anyone ever wonder about the women in this industry or just the male champions? I mean, come on! An imitation "pop" star? And what's up with making Victoria look so ridiculous? She's a two-time Women's champion, and it seems like she's made to be too incompetent to win a costume contest-of all things-because she slips and falls! Ridiculous! Oh, and if that wasn't bad enough, one word, one name:Maryse. I don't care if she's French, blonde, and admittedly hot. She's a sloppy wrestler, and it's painful to watch. But not as painful as it would be for anyone she's defeated, I bet...wow...I want to ask the women, like, Trish, Lita, Jaqueline, Ivory, Tori (remember her when she was with the old DX?) Molly Holly...just what they think of the women's division since they've left. I don't mean that they have to agree with me, but I want to know. Not that it's completely bad, Mickie James is amazing...there are other things that need improvement, or change, in my opinion. I don't care if you disagree, because at least one will always do Playboy, so calm down and shut up! Actually, if you disagree and think that women in wrestling should always be arm candy or have nothing more than fantasy matches, I want to hear your opinion, but it better be for a better reason than "cuz they hawt". If that's the case, get a girlfreind and get over it, because you're obviously pathetic!
Friday, December 5, 2008, 10:38 AM GMT [My Telegraph]
I've been looking back at the predictions I made for 2008 ... most seem to have come true (the one about That Darn Republican being an obvious exception, but he doesn't seem to be around anymore). They went like this:
Ferret will hug a bunny - then clean, cook and eat it.
Shanghai will be presented with the distinguished service award by the British Gym Federation, and will become a gay icon.
That Darn Republican will write a proper sentence.
In an emotional outburst, The Bulletin will tell his fellow bloggers that he loves us all, and 'You guys are the best!'
Metamagic Anti-EU Jedi will sue his parents, George and Gertrude Jedi of Uttoxeter, for the years of suffering and personality disorder caused by the stupid name they gave him.
Sipu, clutching a Kennel Club certificate, will attempt to enter himself in Cruft's, insisting that he's 'pedigree' and 'best of breed'. When turned away, he will attempt to enter himself in a golden retriever (a bitch, of course: he's not gay).
Christina O will attempt to go on a rampage in a Minnesota shopping mall; she will shoot at several suspected members of the underclass and miss, before putting the gun to her head and missing also.
The BNP bloggers will attempt a military coup, but will stand on the wrong side of the street and get the bus to Mill Hill instead of Westminster. Undaunted, they will picket a 'mosque', which will turn out to be the silo where the council keeps its winter salt.
Plum Tart will attend a fancy-dress party as Angela Merkel in full Nazi garb, with a Hitler moustache superglued to her upper lip. Ironically, this will necessitate the wearing of a burqa for the rest of her life.
I caught the tail end of the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 yesterday and it seems that consideration is now being given to freezing the interest on the mortgages of those who are struggling to keep up with payments, in particular, the example being given was that some people on fixed rate mortgages were now paying over the odds.
My wife and I had a 10.25% fixed rate in 1992 fixed for 10 years as the interest rate was 15%. Seemed like a good deal! However, after 3 or 4 years the interest rate dropped to about 6% and guess what? We cracked on because it was our decision to sign the agreement and we didn't expect any charity to help us out? We figured that it all evened out in the end!
It now seems that some folk in this country are so pathetic and weak minded that they can't get their head around the fact that when things happen which affect the amount they repay on the mortgage it is simply the case that you tighten your belts, stop bleating and crack on! Take on the chin the consequences of your actions. It's called 'Responsibility'.
Why, oh why, do we always have to find someone else to blame and therefore demand some form of compensation? I suggest that those people who mortgaged themsleves to the hilt also have wide screen tv's, Wii's, Computers, iPods, 2 or 3 cars etc? how about selling them off and being a bit more frugal? Oh no. In this country it pays to be skint because the vote hungry Labour succubus party will always pick up the bill from those who can't plead poverty!
OK, so the wife and I will go and buy a car each, get a new TV, maybe a holiday abroad and get into so much debt that the tax payer will bail me out........I wish I had the gall but my pride and common sense will not allow me to do it! (Maybe we should apply for a rebate from all those years ago because the nasty interest rate went down!)
Surely there must be like minded folk reading this who, like us are feeling the pinch, but deliberately and sensibly stayed within our limits and now feel like we are being taken for a ride, firstly by bailing out the banks, and now the idiots who are crying because they are struggling to sustain their erstwhile excessive and unsustainable lifestyle?
New PPV CARD 14.12.2008.
TB ... well, OK ... maybe I got that one wrong. ;-)
Brendano11:26 AM GMT