SUMMER SURVEILLANCE FUN

AS SUMMER HOLIDAYS approach, many people will be aware of the new rules to prevent them all being blown to pieces mid-air as they jolly off to "enjoy" a short period of drinking too much and being burnt to a frazzle in a southern European seaside town in which construction has not yet been completed and plumbing has not yet been commenced.

 

THE DECISION BY THE UK AND THE USA to inspect passengers beyond the already absurd procedures carried out at most airports will only serve to annoy serious travellers who need to use the air as they go about their legitimate business; yet for most summer holidaymakers, the majority of whom find it amusing to have to remove their flip-flops and see a body search as just a little more "slap and tickle" in the holiday spirit, it is all part of the lager- and babycham-fuelled kiss-me-quick excitement of a couple of weeks away from the drizzle.

 

INSPECTING MOBILE PHONES and "electronic goods" to see whether they work is one more step towards the nightmare (but expectable) scenario of us one day having to board an airplane completely naked except for our credit card and passport, faced with the dilemma of how to use them to cover our private parts. For the moment this measure will be a source of worry as I ponder over the two computers, DVD player, tablet, two MP players and four mobile phones usually carried on board among other devices between my wife and me.

 

MY WIFE AND I, however, wonder why the searching has not yet been extended to the most obvious devices, known to anyone who is a keen James Bond viewer: surely digital wristwatches are the most common form of detonator for bombs, so why does no one check to see if they are showing the correct time? And fountain pens, in Bond movies at least, can easily be turned into guns, or can be used to stab pilots in the jugular vein, so why are they allowed?

 

(I WAS STOPPED over a fountain pen on one occasion, but that was at Liverpool John Lennon airport, where the security lady was not sure what a fountain pen was. "Ooh, it's one of them fancy ones," was her reaction when I explained the purpose of my Mont Blanc.)

 

YET ALL OF THIS MUST be set against the reality of airport security. On the 22nd of June this year American citizen William Joseph Richardson was allowed onto a flight from Phoenix Arizona to London carrying a Glock handgun in his carry-on luggage. The bag was screened by security services but the weapon was not detected. Nor was his criminal record.

 

OR THE "SURVEILLANCE FAILURE" at Marseille Airport last week during a training routine in which 100 grams of explosives were hidden in the cargo area of the airport for sniffer dogs to find. The dogs were unable to locate anything and then the gendarmes apparently forgot where they had hidden the block of explosive material. Thus it is "lost", either remaining in the airport or unwittingly in someone's freight.

 

ONE SHOULD NOT BE CONCERNED, however, as airport officials have stated that the explosive material is "harmless without a detonating device". So we have no need to worry.

 

(My photo shows a French policeman checking for bombs inside a glove.)

HE COMES NOT TO PLAY

MY ABSENCE FROM THIS BLOG over recent months has been due to a variety of factors, each one as painful as the next. Moving house, excess of work, consequent attacks of stress and an unfortunate mixture of (hopefully helpful) chemicals resulting in hospitalisation were the factors involved. But now I am fine and relaxed again, some events of late have again stimulated my desire to comment upon the more serious of the issues taking place in the wider world.

 

THE LESS SAID ABOUT THE Football World Cup the better as far as England is concerned, yet one is forced to have an opinion about the unfortunate case of the Liverpool footballer Luis Suárez. Uruguayan Suárez, who, besides being a racist is one of the few cannibals existing in the modern game, has once again caused controversy by managing to bite, dive to the ground, cheat an opponent and the referee, and lie to officials and the press, all in an impressively short period of time.

 

OF COURSE ONE DOES NOT become a vampire overnight, and the media is full of explanations for his strange behaviour, most of which focus on his "having been poor as a child" (an opinion from, among others, Maradona, and the President of Uruguay, José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Cordano).

 

MY OWN TOLERANT VIEW is simple, and was also voiced by one of the unwashed locals interviewed by Uruguayan TV in his home town of Salto (meaning, "leap" or "dive" in Spanish) in Uruguay, and which I translate: "He's just a guy who likes biting. Leave him alone."

 

I WISH THE SAME could be said of David "toothless" Cameron, who today went off to Europe to show some teeth to our European friends and prevent them from electing bibulous Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission. This mission was an abject failure.

 

YET I CANNOT HELP seeing a certain symmetry in the relative poverty of Suárez as a child and Cameron's wealth in his early days. No doubt it is the silver spoon in one's mouth as a baby that will lead to one having no bite as an adult. It would be wonderful if this convinced anyone that we would be better off in the UK if we elected a Prime Minister who knew something about the life of poor people, but nothing will ever do that.

WINTER OLYMPICS

WHY WE HAVE WINTER OLYMPICS is something of a mystery to me, given the fact that the "Olympic spirit" was born out of an idea of keeping people healthy in mind and body. And how four men lying on top of each other in close-fitting latex suits on a piece of oiled plastic, hurtling down a thousand yards of packed ice can contribute to the health of either mind or body of any of these gentlemen remains something that I need explaining.

NOR WOULD ANY DECENT GENTLEMAN be seen wearing the outfits that these people put on to go about the scenarios of the "games". The gaudy colours are bad enough, but the tight-fitting spandex makes everyone look like a Durex condom in sunglasses. Which, I am forced to believe, is what some people want to be.

THE MAIN EVENT, of course, in the Sochi games, was the small bore shooting competition in which the electrician who ruined the opening ceremony when the lights did not come on properly was taken out into the woods at dawn and shot in the back of the head.

IN THE MEANTIME UKRAINE wants the right to some form of independence. Does it really matter to anyone? And even if Crimea becomes an independent state will it make any difference? And why does Vladimir "Ras" Putin want to maintain a union that has always been tense? My vote is that the future for the Ukraine, which will no doubt be governed by one of the boxing Klitschkos, could be solved by a good ice-hockey match, putting Putin helmet and stick-to-helmet and stick against Vitali. This could be shown live on TV. The revenue might even save the dire Ukrainian economy, given that they haven't been able to produce a marketable product without Russian help for the last six centuries.

NOT TONIGHT JULIE GAYET

THE RECENT SCANDAL INVOLVING the photogenic President of France, François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (above) and his possible bonking relationship with actress Julie Gayet (sic) and subsequent hospitalisation of his partner Valérie Trierveiler due to grief and stress, has once again served to show the Anglo-Saxon world the depths to which the European Union has plummeted.

ONCE UPON A TIME we in Britain considered that French gentlemen had a certain savoir-faire and panache, and that French girls had a je-ne-sais-quoi that we did not know what it was until these same girls did it to us, bringing us a joie-de-vivre that was unusual to find on our home shores.

EQUALLY, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ASSUMED in England that French men enjoyed the idea of dipping their wick in foreign vulva, never managed to get the job fully done but went about the ville bragging about the shagging. So the fact that socialist Monsieur le Président Hollande was caught with his pants down and then refuses to admit he did the dirty, then threatening the press with court action is revealing of what Europe has become.

WHEN DECENT BRITISH POLITICIANS, such as Labour's Robin Cook and John Prescott, and the Conservative Party's John Major, Boris Johnson and David Mellor can openly admit to having a bit of afternoon relaxation with their secretaries, yet the French refuse to admit that this goes on, we can see how the effect of the Euro currency has reduced that once proud nation to a state of wussiness. And once a French wife used to give her errant husband a good smacking, throwing suitcases into the street. Now they check into hospitals.

DOING THINGS THE EUROPEAN WAY

THE RECENT UNPLEASANT SPAT between PM David Cameron and António Guterres, former Portuguese Prime Minister, President of the Socialist International and current United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees proved interesting for more than the obvious reasons.

FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW, Mr Guterres criticised Cameron's plans for restricting immigration into Britain from the rest of the European Union. Cameron, of course, knows full well that nothing will come of these announcements, as unless Britain leaves the EU it will just have to put up with the vast numbers of people arriving in the UK every day, leaving the Republic of Ireland, Portugal and Greece virtually without any young people. The same will happen soon to Romania and Bulgaria.

THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY RESPONSE through its vice-president Bob Neill, was, “We are not going to accept lessons on how to manage our borders from a failed Portuguese Socialist transformed into an unelected UN bureaucrat”, and MP Douglas Carswell said Guterres’ remarks were “foolish” and should be “immediately filed in the waste paper basket”.

GUTERRES MAY BE A LITTLE UPSET by these remarks, despite the fact that they are completely correct, but what seems of more importance to me is the fact that British Conservatives do not seem to understand the European way of playing politics.

UNDER THE SO-CALLED D'HONDT METHOD, invented by the Belgian Victor D'Hondt in 1878, and widely used throughout Europe, rather than the "winner takes all system" we in Britain and our colonial cousins in Canada, the USA and India use, no one is truly "elected". In this system the grandees of the parties sit down at a table and draw up a list of their friends to be elected. The "people" have no choice in this matter, and simply vote for their favourite party without knowing who the candidates are. Those "elected" by the people have no responsibility to the voters, but only to the members of the party with political clout.

THIS IS NOT TOO FAR FROM TOTALITARIANISM, as Mr Cameron should understand, having criticised the system when Nick Clegg wished to introduce it to elections in Britain. But Europeans love it: it means they don't have to think; they don't have to remember anyone's names; all they have to do is tick a box next to a picture -- they don't even have to be able to read. (Which makes one wonder how they digested the party manifesto.)

THE EUROPEAN UNION EMBRACES this system and takes it one step further, through the "nomination" system by which the three most important people in the European Union were chosen. Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, was nominated the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission; Herman von Rumpoy is President of the European Council, and was elected by a secret ballot that is so secret that nobody knows who is allowed to vote; and the much-hated José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, was "invited" to take the position. None of them seems very worried about not having been elected.

 

THE TRUE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

ONE OF THE PROBLEMS ABOUT CHRISTMAS over recent years has been the delicate matter of trying to understand what it is all really about. When the modern idea of Christmas was expanded into its current form during the reign of Queen Victoria, who imported it from Germany and then exported it to many countries throughout Europe through her dozens of children and grandchildren who married into royal households, the spirit was simple, albeit a radical change from the past: the Christmas period was one for being with the family, eating well, exchanging modest gifts with those who came to visit and sharing in moments of peace.

THERE STILL REMAINED A MODICUM OF THE RELIGIOUS element, particularly for the poor, but it was soon cast into second place with the arrival of the Coca-Cola-Company-designed Santa Claus, a figure far more interesting than a little baby sleeping in a barn, particularly as hardly any urban young children had an idea of what a manger was.

SINCE THE NINETEEN-FIFTIES Christmas has morphed into a sort of shopping fever festival, in the early days mainly involving buying toys for children, but by the eighties this had boomed into buying at least one present for every member of the family, including close relatives whom we see every single day of the week. The notion of “peace” among men, however, has dwindled to the point that most Christmas meals involve a family row. This may be due to alcohol, the fact that we have to mix with relatives we hate or the fact that we didn’t get the present we wished for (as for some reason this has become a secretive business).

BUT THE LATEST TWIST IN CHRISTMAS is reflected in the joke made by the late American stand-up comedian George Carlin: “The main reason why Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.” Christmas has become a time for selling sex. In the old innocent days of TV perfume ads the selling point was a scene when a husband would say to his wife, “Honey, you smell so good”, and she would wink at the camera and a picture of a bottle of Chanel Nº 5 would appear at the bottom of the screen.

NOT SO TODAY. One brand shows us a semi-naked woman in a bath and then in bed with an answering-machine (do they still exist?) voice-off begging her for more sex “after yesterday afternoon” (sic); another shows a young couple stripping each other on the stairs on the way to an apartment and having sex before they even manage to open the door; one shows an elegant blonde walking through crowded halls and peeling off her clothes as she goes; a girl is pursued and (presumably) raped by a wolf in another, etc.

CHRISTMAS HAS BECOME LEATHER pencil skirts, black stockings with a line up the back, patent leather stilettos and desperate, violent, hurried sex sessions in any place or position except in a bed. And so, once again at this time of year, I would like to wish all my readers the very best for Christmas, hoping you enjoy it in the true spirit of Christmas 2013.

(Post Script. One chap has electronically mailed me asking whether this means that my desire is for everyone to get a good "shagging", as he put it, at Christmastide, and I suppose that is true. Happy holidays, except for students, who have to go home to their parents, and that is when the shagging stops.)

WHAT DOES THE EUROPEAN UNION SAY?

ONCE AGAIN THE UK is involved in a little spat over what the unelected European commissions and committees think they should be allowed to apply to a legal system that has been in some form "elected" or "chosen" by the people of England for over a thousand years.

 

NO ONE ELECTED DURÃO BARROSO, the much-hated leader of the European Commission (above). No one elected the putty-faced and brainless leader of the European Union, Herman von Pussy-Dumpty. And yet elected governments such as the UK, in this case in a country in which the representation by voter is the most simple and direct in Europe, have to put up with weird rules established by the European Court of Justice.

 

THE LATEST ISSUE WITH THE UK GOVERNMENT has to do with the right to vote by serving prisoners. Prime Minister David Cameron has said this will not happen, and I will personally protest if the idea is accepted by the British Government and the law in England and Wales.

 

IF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES WISH TO HAVE their laws made by criminals then that is their business. And I could, without any consultation, reel off a list of French, Spanish and Italian presidents, prime ministers and deputies who have all been found guilty of embezzlement, robbery, thuggery, corruption, pimping and sundry minor crimes of robbing the public purse.

 

SO PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON has asked for clarification on this matter of the voting system, something incompatible with our "first-past-the-post" system. The language used by the European Union documentation is always difficult for us to understand due to the double-talk and off-key translations used by the Brussels authorities. When Prime Minister David Cameron asked the European Parliament about the issue of voting for prisoners, the response was:

 

 

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