How to really survive a Shark Attack!

 (Lifted wholesale from this web-site, because I reckoned it was not only funny, but also true)

With the holidays upon us, and lots of you going down to the coast, I feel it my duty to send the follow warning to you all. Please read it carefully and please obey the rules.

1: Don’t swim in the ocean.

Ninety-nine percent of all shark attacks take place in exceptionally large bodies of water also known as oceans.
The way to determine if you are currently in an ocean is to taste the water, which should be salty. (Exception: the Dead Sea.)

2: Listen out for the music.

In the event that you are foolish enough to recreate in an ocean, listen carefully for the music, as demonstrated in the marvellous documentary film Jaws. All shark attacks are preceded by the “daah-da, daah-da” chords, which will gradually become more rapid as the shark gets closer. This is due to the doppler effect.

3: Swim with fat people.

Try to surround yourself with more appetizing companions.
If you know them well, you might even try to switch their suntan lotion with A-1 Steak Sauce. This will definitely improve your odds.

4: Don’t panic.

In the event that a shark actually bites you, try to remain calm. This really won’t help you survive, but everyone else on the beach will appreciate you not shrieking madly, as this is quite unsettling for visiting tourists.

Property owners of London, Unite!

I’m gonna get the plasterers in when I get out!!!

Catch this bastard!

This is a photocamera image of the twisted bully who attacked an American lady while travelling on the London Underground!  He attacked her after verbally abusing her because she was apparently wearing revealing clothing, although how a long coat and a pair of jeans is ‘revealing’ is beyond me!

 The Lady’s name is Jackie Danicki, and she is very worthy of our help!

 

 

Watch out for this clown, and if you spot him, call the police and have him 

arrested!

Carefree…the little children play!

Found this acronym with regard to the European Union; it is OLAF, and it stands for Office Europeen de Lutte Anti-Fraude, or European Anti-Fraud Office. It was established in 1999 to combat fraud and corruption within the EU.

It is the only office never to have done anything, no-one knows who is employed within the Office itself, and as the very idea that there could be any Corruption or Fraud within the sacred confines of the Brussels cathedrals which house the various branches of the Union is ridiculous, no-one really knows why this little Office actually exists!!!

Unabbreviated!

Found this little (very little) Fiction contest on another blog, and thought I’d put it up on the waves, as it were.

 

Nice Idea, but very tricky to get it just right! 

Like waves, the memories come floating by!

As readers of this blog might recall, I have a Merchant Navy background, having served as an Engineer Officer for around seven /eight years when I was young. One of the ships I worked on was engaged in a Mediterranean run from Liverpool to Athens, then Istanbul and on into the Black Sea, to Romania, Bulgaria, and once to Odessa in Russia. During our stays in Romania, we saw the flat complexes which has been built to serve as Soviet Russia’s holiday paradise, built in serried, dull, uniformly awful styles of concrete hutches along the golden Black Sea beaches of Mamaia, just a little to the north of Constanta. These were rented, awarded, (as prizes in some strange, ritualistic pattern) to the lucky, or unlucky, workers and their families based in the worker’s paradises of the former Soviet Union. The standards of the hotels and apartments in Mamaia were, to Western eyes, uniformly awful, but you must remember that these facilities, although basic, rough and totally bland were so far above the disastrous places where the proletariat of the Soviet Empire actually lived and worked that they were regarded as being luxurious in the extreme! I suppose that, in living standards as in every other human experience, if you normally inhabit a dung-heap, a cleaner pig sty would be regarded as a great leap forward!

I would like to tell you about a small occurrence in Constanta, during my last trip there in 1963, to demonstrate what it was actually like living in a Socialist paradise! The whole port area was cordoned off, with barbed wire everywhere, uniformed gun-carrying guards everywhere, and access was strictly controlled. The harbour itself was protected by a harbour wall, upon which fishermen used to sit or stand for hours, hoping to increase their meagre rations by the free bounty of the sea. Access and egress was controlled by heavily-guarded gates, through which the fishermen had to pass when leaving the dockside. The rule was that every fisherman was allowed three fish free through, but any caught over that number had to be offered to the gate guards. If they didn’t want the excess, or they had already confiscated enough, the fishermen were allowed through with their extra fish, but; I stress, the fish had to be declared! We, as filthy capitalists, were allowed into the city, but only after being issued with special passes which were suspiciously scrutinised by the gate guards, and as you can imagine, in a labour-intensive place like a port, there were massive queues come knocking-off time! We headed out into town round about six in the evening, but there was still a substantial queue in the locals’ queue, which we were able to by-pass, being filthy-rich capitalists, you understand; so it was from an an almost empty gate lane that we saw the true face of Communism in action!

A fisherman had caught seven fish, and had shown the required three, and had declared a further two, but had slung the other two fish from twine down his back, under his coat. Because of the long queues, the slime and blood from the fish had started to leak, and had run down his back onto his trousers. He had in fact passed through the gate, and has started walking up the rise towards the main road, when the ‘spotter’, a guard who, presumably posted to watch for just this occasion, called out to his machine-gun toting buddies, three of whom raced out and surrounded the ‘criminal’. They pulled his coat off, took the fish and threw them on the ground; then knocked the fisherman down and commenced kicking him until he lay silent, broken and bloody on the pavement! This in full view of maybe five hundred men standing silently in the queues! As the string of workers was passed through the gates, they one by one passed the broken body by, as though he had been infected with some dread contagious disease, never stopping, never looking! In the end, after maybe fifteen had walked by, we went forward, lifted him onto our arms and carried him the hundred yards to a café. Here we paid the owner to phone for an ambulance, which arrived about twenty minutes later, and the silent but still breathing body of a man who had committed the heinous crime of trying to feed his family was slid into the rear of the vehicle, which slowly rolled away! We never were able to find out what happened, whether the man lived or died, the people who spoke English in the Port clammed up like stones when we attempted to find out his fate!

On the beaches of Mamaia the accents of the holidaymakers now come from Burnley, Glasgow and Leipzig, the beaches are still fronted by the concrete blocks, and the blood still seeps through the foundations into the soil!

“Guilty as Charged; M’Lud!”

Royal Marine Gary Wright died so that you might do whatever you are doing to fill your day, whether it be work, or leisure.

He died because his superior officers allowed him  to drive in an virtually-unarmoured Land-Rover, without Thermal Imaging gear to warn him against the odd suicide- or roadside bomb, he died because of criminal political neglect of the very equipment which is supposed to allow the finest soldiers in the wortld to do their jobs correctly! He died so that this clown might prate on in Parliament, he died so that this foolish liar might pose in front of the very troops he sent out there in the first place!

 Happy?

“Deja Vu?”

Remember this?

Well, here it comes again!!!

Only this time, we  have the dubious pleasure of saying, loudly, “We Told You So!”

“….A slow boat to China!”

Saw pictures of this giant container ship named the ‘Emma Maersk’, docked in Teesside Harbour, along with such cringingly awful headlines as ‘Santa’s presents are all from China’, and ‘50,000 tons of Christmas gifts arrive from Shanghai’ and was reminded of a post which I made on a previous blog of mine! Had a look at that old file, named ‘A Slow Boat to China‘ and decided that it was still a timely piece of writing, so here we are, brought slightly up-to-date!

 

 

 

 

I watched a documentary on Channel Five some months back, the title of the series was ‘SuperShips’, and it described in amazing detail the construction and running techniques of this giant container ship, ‘Shanghai Express’, which runs at a speed of 23.5 knots, equivalent to twenty-seven miles an hour. Now most of us, looking at this speed will say, ‘that’s not very fast’ but think again, that is very fast in terms of something which is carrying one hundred thousand and six metric tonnes, and travels at the same speed all twenty four hours of the day! The engineering spaces are akin to something out of ‘Star Trek’, the views of this monster pushing through an flat ocean with a ‘bone in her teeth’ (generating a huge bow wave, for the uninitiated) gave an impact of a superb ship doing the job it was created to do.

But let’s go a little further into the woodpile, and examine what exactly this ship is doing. She is carrying, as part of a fleet of four, one hundred thousand tonnes of goods every three weeks. Do the maths, and that works out to 6.92 million tonnes of manufactured goods imported from the Peoples Republic of China into the European Union every year. Now that is a lot of plastic toys, DVD players, rubbish bins, textiles and electronic bits and bobs! Some of it is crap, because the quality control methods in China are not the greatest, but a lot of it isn’t crap, it’s well-made, and equally well-designed, and worthy of your purchase; or is it?

Consider where this huge amount of cargo was made before the great industrial charge now present in China came on stream! This cargo, carried in the ‘Shanghai Express’ and her sister ships, managed by Hapag Lloyd, a German multi-national, is mirrored in the vessels of many other container ship companies running into the major container ports of Western Europe and America, so you now begin to get the picture of the huge inroads the Chinese have made in our marketplace. Now the marketplace for this huge amount of ‘everything’ existed before, because the Chinese haven’t invented new ‘everything’, no way! The old ‘everything’ used to be made by Thailand, and Japan, Korea and Brazil, and we made quite a bit of ‘everything’ in Europe, and more specifically in Britain. But over a period of about five to ten years ago, the Chinese got real clever, and allowed their workforce to initiate new ideas, expand their factories and modernise existing lines, build new cities and motorways to help carry and move the workforce and products which they are so good at selling to the West! All good and proper, opening up a country to modern manufacturing methods will surely enhance the Chinese, and make everyone richer? So the factories and offices in downtown Sao Paulo, or Bangkok, or Seoul, or Bolton were were forced to close because their markets had been grabbed by a cheaper, better organised manufacturing country! Well, not really, because this is still the same China which operates slave labour in the factories owned and operated by the PLA, (which, again for the uninitiated is short for The Peoples Liberation Army.) So now you begin to understand where the profits from your purchase of that really cheap refrigerator, or that shiny new DVD player from Curry’s or Dixon’s actually goes to! You are helping to fund a dictatorship, a Totalitarian Government ruling by decree, the same Government who sent the tanks and armoured carriers rolling into Tianmen Square in 1989, and killing over five thousand, while injuring seven to ten thousand more!

In retrospect, Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, was a disaster on wheels for America, his foreign policy strategies, among which was the removal of support for the Shah of Iran, thus helping place Khomeini and the mullahs in charge, and the signing away of the Panama Canal to a bunch of low-level criminals and drug-runners. But the one shining item in his portfolio was his acclaim of ‘Human Rights’, not the wishy-washy union- and liberal-friendly crap which is so loved by the European Union, but the real package, the freedom to worship, even if it’s a mish-mash of ideas like Falun Gong; the freedom to congregate, even in a place like Tianmen Square and talk about honest reform of government; the freedom to say “get stuffed” to a uniformed bully; the freedoms laid down by the United Nations in 1948, but have long since been either forgotten or misplaced.

He said in 1997, during a Foreign Policy speech, “The great democracies are not free because we are strong and prosperous. I believe we are strong and influential and prosperous because we are free. Throughout the world today, in free nations and in totalitarian countries as well, there is a preoccupation with the subject of human freedom, human rights. And I believe it is incumbent on us in this country to keep that discussion, that debate, that contention alive. No other country is as well-qualified as we to set an example. We have our own shortcomings and faults, and we should strive constantly and with courage to make sure that we are legitimately proud of what we have.”

Think hard on who you want to give your hard earned money to in the months and years ahead, when your neighbour’s son comes home with the news that his clothing factory is closing because the management are relocating to Chengdu or Wuhu, Think even harder when you buy a pair of gloves, for example, costing say, £16.50, and the alternate offering is from a company based in Aberdeen which are priced at £30.00; when you see an item on the television news that a factory is closing it’s production line because it cannot compete with the Chinese opposition, don’t remember the cheap coat which you bought without examining the label which said, proudly:-

‘Made in China’ “

Sign here please!

Read about, and actually signed-up for two of the petitions listed on the Downing Street website.

 

 Then I remembered who we were actually addressing when we send in our electronic signatures, to the most illiberal, and undemocratic bunch of thugs which has ever sat in those pleasant rooms off Whitehall. The bunch who brought us “The war in Iraq”, and ‘council men with the power to enter your home without a warrant’, and ‘Identity cards’ and……..the list is too long!

 

Sooner we get this bunch out, the better, even if it’s replacing them with the lily-livered lot masquerading as the Tory Party!!!

(Not) The Queen’s Speech!!

  “I do hope no-one believes I actually wrote any of this crap!!”

Excerpts from Her  Majesty’s speech included:-

“My Government will work with the United Nations and European Union partners to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including addressing international concerns over North Korea and Iran, and to promote good governance.
My government will continue to work to build an effective and globally competitive European Union and will also work to strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
My Government will contribute to a modern and inclusive United Nations and will work to take forward the World Trade Organisation Doha talks.”

“We shall not mention the debacle of terror and misery in 

Zimbabwe, mainly because my Prime Minister refuses to appear 

in public with his boot firmly clenched in his teeth!” 

Pensions, cars, insurance, and next is…….?

If you wish to see the preparatory steps of Gordon Brown’s next confiscatory stealth tax, look no further!

According to the Telegraph, Nottingham City Council are planning to roll out the latest idea, a Car Parking Charge, whereby if your company gives or reseves a parking space near to work, they’re gonna’ slap around £180.00 tax on it for a year, and that’s just the first step!

We shall now pause for a quiet rendition of that old favourite:

“We’ll keep the red flag flying high!”

Madonna & Child

“That’s the last time she goes out to buy a ‘little black number’ with my credit card!”

Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!

Remember Rodney King? Remember the riots after his four police assailants were cleared of all charges? Well, things have moved on, just a bit!

Over in  Malaysia, a predominantly muslim country where women aren’t held in too high esteem, seems like the local fuzz used to humiliate women detainees by making them squat naked, ostensibly to help search for ‘concealed’ items. Unfortunately, one senior cop decided to film this little exercise on his mobile phone video-camera, and then someone shovelled it on to the Internet, and it went around the world with the speed of light! 

So a female politician saw it, and blew the whistle, the cop’s supposed to have been fired, the girl is suing for some two million dollars, and the politicians are pissed at once more being found out!

Dirty work at’ Crossroads!

Read that the South African website CESA has been suffering insider problems, hacks, anonymous e-mail messages, harmful tips to newspapers etc.

They must be doing something good, or else seriously pissing highly-placed people off, in order to get this type of activity generated against their site and pages.

More power to their collective elbows!!!

“Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin!”

Received a wonderful version of a scam e-mail which deserves a wider audience, if only to acknowledge how marvellous it all seems!I won’t go into the full Contact details, but the lines which really creased me up are the following:-

8.   Are you ready to start working with our company? (Must be Yes!)

9.   Are you ready to accept money transfers into your bank account? (Must be Yes)

It’s a bit like the modern version of that old ‘pop’ song, the one which goes:-

“Only the Greedy!”

The smallest cemetery!

June 1944.

The greatest armada the world has ever seen has landed, the British and Canadians have stormed ashore with minimum opposition, only the Americans have faced dug-in and stern resistance from well-supplied, -sited and -trained troops. The infantry, tanks and supporting artillery are commencing their initial runs inland. A battery of the Royal Artillery is setting-up just outside a tiny village in the Calvados district of Northern France. A second battery is already firing, while sited some way behind the first set of 25-pounder tube artillery. A call for a strike on a new position is taken by the radio operators of the second battery, but is mistakenly de-coded, and a set of incorrect co-ordinates are given to the gun-layers. The order is given, the gun commences firing, and my uncle Pete dies from ‘Friendly Fire’!

A Messerschmitt Bf-109 flies along a patrol route, tasked with locating and confirming rumoured advances of the combined Allied invasion forces away from the beach-heads of Normandy. Lacking vital camera equipment, he has to concentrate his gaze upon the ground, and so misses the flight of Typhoons which drops down almost vertically until set up directly behind the German fighter; a gun button is pressed, and a hail of cannon shells end the lifespan of that ‘109′ pilot!

Obviously, the preceding paragraphs are from my imagination, as no-one knows who actually ordered or fired the shells which hit my uncle’s battery in Normandy that June morning, nor who downed the German fighter whose pilot lies by my uncle’s mortal remains. They are there as a tribute to the ordinary, brave Canadians, Tommies, Yankees who flooded ashore in their tens of thousands over those bitterly-contested fields to attack the equally-brave German defenders of the Atlantic Redoubt. Those who died, and those who lived, would scarcely recognise the world their children’s children inherit; but we do, and should continue to, recognise their sacrifice for this, our own, our way of life!

                                                                                 

Only the best join our company!

Stop (the) Press in China!

It’s really heartening to read that China plans to operate a completely open policy as regards foreign journalists reporting during the Olympics!

Gives you just a bit of a jump to realise that they don’t operate one already!

Could that be something to do with the forced abortion policy, the religious crack-down, the slamming of Falun Gong, the complete subjugation of Tibet?

The Olympic Ideal! Don’t make me laugh!

A tale of three families!

As most of us are blessed with good memories, but some are not, I would just like to remind you of the happenings and aftermaths of one of the most horrific crimes of our recent history. Most, if seeing the name ‘Jamie Bulger’ will remember immediately the history of that murder of an innocent little boy, a boy whose life was snuffed out before he had a chance to do little else besides capture the hearts of his parents and his nearest relatives! Here was a child, and he truly could be called a child, who was snatched from his push-chair, walked along by his abductors, who when questioned by a slightly-worried passer-by, was told that they were returning him to his mother! He was taken to a stretch of waste ground, and assaulted to such a degree that one hardened Policeman, who had actually viewed the pitiful small remains, was quoted as saying he had “never seen such ferocity” perpetrated on the body of a victim of crime!

The killers, and I call them killers because that is what they were; were tracked down, apprehended, charged, sentenced and committed to where and what? Not to prison, or a detention centre; but instead to a “secure youth facility”! There they were given only the best, protected by law against the truly desperate grieving relatives, who only wanted vengeance for the terrible deed done against that small body, and kept safe until the age of eighteen years. Then, after an intervention by the highest sector of the British judicial system, both were freed, given new identities and allegedly a great deal of money from taxpayers funds, and total anonymity in their new identities under pain of contempt of court proceedings against anyone who publishes anything leading to their new lives!

This as reward for the blinding of Jamie by pouring paint into his eyes, for jumping on his tiny genitals, for pushing batteries up his little anus, and then pulling the batteries out again by the use of twisted wire; before laying his tortured, still breathing body on a railway line and hoping that the train wheels would destroy their vicious, perverted assault on a defenceless two year-old boy!

So there you have it, The great British justice system demonstrated in all it’s glory! On one side, you have two young killers, given anonymity, new identities and residences, given an education and a chance to live in glory with the proceeds of their crime; and on the other, a grief-stricken mother, divorced and alone, a father so bitter that he was arrested while attempting to discover where the two killers were kept, a cold marble headstone and a few web-sites.

I ask very little, but this I do; read all the pages showing in the ‘link’, and then ask yourself if JUSTICE was indeed served?
Remember the blindfold figure on top of the Royal Courts building, with the balance held in her hand? The balance seems somewhat one-sided, does it not?