vlad the impaler

I just chucked a grenade into one of those Mumsnet threads. What a bunch of whining, self-centred, arrogant f*cking t*ssers, They represent so much that is wrong today: " I have read up on it with Dr Google, so I am not qualified to make medical judgements" " I don't care if my carrier child kills a child with cancer undergoing treatment - that ain't my problem." " You can't trust anyone nowadays - unless they are certifiable, or an evil quack trying to sell you their patent "alternative vax made out of koala bear gonads; only $1999 + tax!" I wish I could transport them back 50 years and put them through the powerlessness parents felt; will my kid get Polio this month? They type this mealy-mouthed lying b*llocks about how 'my beliefs are nothing to do with the knowledge that pretty much everyone else is vaccinated'. Yeah, right. Notwithstanding that their beliefs are based on nothing by flim-flam and VI alternative 'medicine' lies, it is the utter selfishness of relying on everyone else taking the 'risk' as they perceive it so they don't have to that makes my blood boil. Fat, spoiled, arrogant dick-heads need a dose of nature's reality. Let's see what they think of 'natural immunity through breast milk' and if they would really do put their trust in that during a Polio outbreak? Sorry about that rant in the middle of this thread that has nothing to do with anti-vaxxers; they are just my pet hate.

I saw her being torn to pieces by Andrew Neil yesterday on that Sunday politics show. - Absolutely clueless about where the money comes from to finance their ideas: "It's all in our manifesto". - Contradictory ideas and statements. "We will discourage imports, and stop making arms". So, how will you arm the defence force then? "well, there are plenty of arms in the world". Yes, but you can't import them can you? "Errr... it's all in our manifesto!" Absolutely frightening set of ideas - a clueless Trotskyite in a green jacket. Green party thinking is not alone in seeming to be the preserve of those who take great comfort and superiority in the absolute purity of their principles and morals. All of course without the uncomfortable difficulties that arise from actually having to apply their principled positions to any real decisions in the real world that affect real people. Who gets what from a pot that is never going to big enough. It is so easy to say "remove all immigration barriers!", "Tax the rich!", "£74 a week for everyone!". It is a lot harder to do it. I am glad for her (and for me) that her pure principles are unlikely to ever meet harsh reality. She can go through her life absolutely convinced of her own rightness, never to have her ideas or her abilities put to any meaningful test. I have never seen someone so comprehensively destroyed in an interview - God knows what she would do against the German Chancellor.....

Ah ha ha ha.... One stupid example...silk boxer shorts. I like silk boxers, very comfy. I discovered 'Thomas Nash' Debenhams silk boxers in 2009, almost exactly 4 years ago. The occasional visit we make to Debenhams allows me (for the want of anything better to do whilst waiting for the O/H) to go check up on the latest price of these very 'special' items. In 2010, they were £8 a pair. A lot of money for boxer shorts - I started buying them elsewhere when they got to £12 in 2011. 3 days ago they were £25. Debenhams put their prices up often, and in the process always seem to miss one item of clothing of the same type at the old price. Underneath a 'sale' sign advertising 20% off, I saw one pair of boxers at £20, and all the others with fresh new price labels stuck over the old ones reading £25. After laughing to myself I walked past a sale rack with men's jumpers on it - all price tagged at £90! They are all the same old Sri-Lankan sweatshop garbage, but the prices are a bad joke. You can't get 100% wool men's work trousers there anymore. They are all made in the same factory in India (you can tell by the washing lables), and these polyester trousers are in some cases marked up at £75! You can buy M+S 100% wool for £50. In short, Debenhams seem to be trying to well-worn path of massive price rises in the back of some perceived 'quality' brand placment - this strategy seems to be a good survival strategy against the internet and Primark. However, I think the Debenhams branding does not really support the kite-flying prices they seem to be going for.

I noticed that there is no mention of the fact we have privatised anything and everything we can. Nothing is sacred, nothing cannot be sold to the highest bidders, The French and German state owned utilities must think it wonderful that they can sit and milk us year after year to enrich their own governments. There is a reason why energy prices are dropping in the Eurozone, and rising by 10% here. We are paying into the rest of Europe through a totally disfunctional and bent 'market' and equally disfunctional and bent regulators. We pioneered nuclear energy. Now we have to pay the f*cking FRENCH to build our power stations at some lunatic rates which we consumers will be forced to pay? No-one cares? No-one mentions this and asks 'WHY'??? The British have had a cancerous tumour of self-serving greedy little b*stard s*itbags running us for too many years for it to be reversable, even if the majority (most of whom would happily do the same if they could) wanted to. How can I profit? What payoff can I expect when I sell another train line/power station/airport/road/prison to the highest bidder? The rest of the world just love our 'world leading' markets (aka we'll sell anything to anyone and then spunk the money down the toilet). Now, everything has been sold - there's nothing left. All the assets are gone, and we will be shafted more and more each year by the foreign govt investers whilst our govt looks on - laughing as they get backhanders to 'be nice'. The majority truly have the leaders we deserve.

I have a pet theory about this sort of thing. Back in the day (whenever that was), most people were employees. Comparitively few employers, and most of them 'knew' the risks/rules/pitfalls of running a business. You are going to get stung sometimes, you have to be careful, and B2B deals have basically no consumer type protection from the law. Nowadays loads of us are 'business owners' of one type or another. We sell things on Ebay as a sideline (or not just as a sideline). If you were lucky (and dumb enough to not understand the massive, massive risks you were taking), you could build up a very big property portfolio, and congratulate yourself on how clever you were - rather like winning a million on a roulette wheel and thinking you are somehow a genius. BTL is a business - it is just that a great many BTL business owners don't have the first clue about the realities of running a business. This is why you get lunatic responses like the one this character had when things go wrong. This is also why so many BTL landlords don't declare earnings, or even prepare accounts. This is also why there is such a large percentile of total idiot sellers on Ebay. Now we are a nation of wheeler-dealers, trading houses and making big profits,* this sort of thing is only going to get worse, but at least it is a good antidote to the constant 'anyone can make a profit from BTL - you can't lose' poison being drip fed by VIs the rest of the time. *simply stealing the wealth from their children in the future.

Well, I thought that was funny anyway....

Zero hours are not quite the clear-cut case of 'evil employers' as you may believe. I work in Care - an industry where zero hours contracts are basically everywhere. The reason for this is that by far the largest purchaser of care (Local Authority aka LA) now operate a 'zero hours' contract to purchase from care providers. This migration from 'block' purchases which used to allow my employer to use 'block hours' employment contracts has happened over the last couple of years. In essense, if the LA decides for whatever reason to not buy so many hours this week, any provider that has to pay fixed hours contract pay is sunk. After a month or so they are bankrupt. Would you take that risk? You think that is bad - try the latest wheeze. LAs are starting to pay providers by the minute. Yes, that's right, they expect Carers to log in and out of visits and will pay by the minute. As they don't pay for fuel, or Carer travelling time or parking either, this basically means that many Carers spend more time studying their watch than they do actually doing their job. It also makes ensuring that all Carers get at least minimum wage horrendous as travel time must be paid as well. I sit with amusement listening to the outcry about zero hours and minium wage, and the 'evil' employers from the same bunch of public sector people who seem incapable of adding things togther. Screw the suppliers down with zero hours ordering, minute by minute invoicing, no payments for travel time. Then wonder why suppliers have to screw their employees with the same things? The LAs have it great - they get to make savings as required whist shifting the results neatly onto the 'evil' employers. Things are not as clear cut as they seem.

Yes indeed - and we are talking about it, so it worked.

A simple choice. If yopu don't like it, don't use them. Ryan will change his tune as quickly as Starbucks start paying more taxes if enough consumers show their displeasure. They won't however - we all love a bargain don't we! One other possibility that Ryan and anyone who loves to 'stick it to the man'. He had better hope he never has a fatal accident on his hands. Regardless of if it was Ryanair's fault or not, a great many people in the press and other places he has p*ssed off would tear him and his company to pieces, rightly or not. This is why I always believe being accomodating is far more productive - you get cut some slack if you screw up then.....

It has ever been thus. Alexis de Tocqueville observed back around 1800:

I have been following this bubble in the classic car market for a while. The same old tired 'its different this time' b*llocks being trotted out by VIs, but with modern twists such as about 25 'price indexes' for classic car model xxx etc. This is once again a gigantic game of musical chairs in which lucky early adopters will win big time, and the ones at the end when the music stops will lose their shirts. Everone with access to the internet and can read is suddenly a 'canny investor', and they all pile in expecting something for nothing like the spivs they are. It is thoroughly depressing, when will we ever learn?

Spot on. If it looks like a business, acts like a business, remunerates like a business and bids for work like a business, but evades 22% corporation tax then it is of course a charity. It was this that turned me against charities and me me realise what utter scum the vast majority of them had become. Scope closed the special schools it funded to save a bunch of money 'promote better integration' of those with physical disabilities. In other words, throw the poor kids to the dogs in state schools, and keep the loot to spend on trebles all round 'raising awareness of the challenges faced by those with physical disabilities'. I'll bet those challenges were much worse with the safe environment they had before gone! It did not stop there either. Since 2005, Scope have whittled their schools down even more to just three today, less than half those they had in 2004. A 'radical approach to changing perceptions was required' apparently. I have never given a brass farthing to any mainstream charity since reading that article 7 years ago. I went to that from actively giving time to the Children's Society when I a teen to help my Mum who was a local (unpaid) organiser. They told her that her services were no longer required for emptying those old wooden charity boxes they used to hand out to people. Chugging is much more profitable once the businessmen moved in. Read and weep: Here

Well of course with that money, I would buy myself a really BIG turnip in the country..... Excellent!

Hey, we got a new road to bypass the total b*llocks that was the only route into and out of Weymouth since the invention of the automobile. In fact, it was the only route in and out of Weymouth when George III used to come to town, and i'll bet his carriage got stuck and delayed even then. This total joke of an A road was finally bypassed only because of the Olympic win - so as it has affected me personally very well (I no longer chew the steering wheel when waiting the 40 minutes to travel 2.5 miles that I used to), then I think it was well worth the £10b it all cost!

Oh dear..... Having seen this 'festival' up close - I can see why it closed. It is a fenced off car park full of stalls selling overpriced crap. And they wanted £5 to get in!?!? That rapidly dropped to £1 by last Monday, but the damage was done. Will this be a lesson about greed? Maybe to the poor sucker stall keepers. LOCOG and the assorted corporate shills, hangers-on and piggies were never going to lose of course. The tax-payer, lottery fund and assorted corporate mugs will do them alright.