The position should never have been political in the first place. Martins has not advertised the posts, he has given them to people who are in the Labour Party.
5/12/2012 - Don't Bother Saving To Help Students There are lots of reasons why people should not go bonkers over trying to save money to pay for students fees. But why should I bother repeating what is already explained by a renowned Money Saving Expert?
15/10/2012 - Richard Kemp: Why there will never again be a Tory Government This is a conversation Richard Kemp has had recently with a Tory councillor.
RK: Why is the Tory Party obsessed with gay marriage and Europe?
Tory: Yes no-one really cares about these things outside the Party
RK: So where do you stand on these issues?
Tory: I’m in favour of Europe and gay marriage!
RK: Aren’t you in the wrong Party?
Tory: MMMMM!!
7/11/2012 - Nadine Dorries - Good Luck to Her I have been asked what I think of Nadine Dorries going into the jungle, seeing as her constituency is adjacent to ours. Well, not a lot, frankly. I find her jibes at the Tory Party hierarchy amusing, her Tweets often witty, and you know what, I'm a single guy and she's an attractive lady. But I guess, since I've tweeted back to her a few times, and she hasn't responded, maybe she thought she'd better escape my attentions. Good luck to her in her next career, for surely as an MP, this is the end of the road.
7/11/2012 - Ketchup On Your Finger You know when you go for a meal and you get a sachet of sauce. Right. And you tear open the sachet, and squeeze the sauce out. Right. Well, don't you always end up licking your fingers to get the excess off? It's long been a problem for fast food outlets, and their customers. But now some smart idea has resolved that problem. Watch video.
5/11/2012 -Flaky Councillors Show True Colours I see Darth Costello has turned to the dark side. "In-fighting": I seem to recall Mr Costello did a bit of that himself. Getting rid of a fellow councillor. I haven't forgotten. Only then, he called it democracy. This is not a reason for joining Labour, it's an excuse. And a pretty poor one at that.
1/11/2012 - Nonsense of Job Seekers Travel Allowance to Interviews Apparently Job Seekers travelling to job interviews can claim travel-to-interview expenses provided they sign a bit of paper at the Job Centre BEFORE the interview. Very nice deal if you live next door to the Job Centre!
Now suppose you live in my neighbourhood, six and half miles from the Job Centre, or a 20 minute drive plus car parking fee away, plus walking time. Why would someone even bother, when they could simply just drive to the job interview and back in the same time?
And before you ask, no you can't do the claim online.
UPDATE: Following intervention by MP Andrew Selous, it was established that back-dated claims could be made, and this is now happening.
Continue Reading
27/10/2012 - How to Claim £10 a Minute From Cold Calling Time Wasters Man charged PPI cold calling firm £10 a minute for wasting his time, And Won! - Daily Mail story.
26/9/2012 - Dalek Relaxation
23 /9/12 - Cowering in the Corner - Son's homework was to produce a poem about trench warfare. Which prompted me to write one of my own.
Cowering in the Corner
The end is in sight, surely that is the score
I’m cowering in the corner, back to the wall
It may be the final hour, but I still doubt
That war was the answer to resolve it at all
Trench foot is disgusting, I’ve almost lost a limb
Rats run around, they're messing with my head
Lice in my hair, clothes reduced to rags,
Brothers-in-arms lie around me, they're all dead
Counting the cost of charges into no-mans land
It surely wasn't worth it, the madness of it all
One was my younger brother, just nineteen
Him by my side, when I saw him fall
I can’t take it any longer, I'm going to pull the trigger
Six weeks out of Blighty, it's been one big fright
"Hey soldier, Put that rifle down!"
"Medics coming, son, you're going to be all right"!
7/9/2012 - Petition for Changes in the Laws Governing Animals for Sale on Internet sites At one time I was secretary of the Liberal Animal Welfare Group, and still support causes for animal welfare. Here's a current petition worthy of your consideration."We call for changes in the Laws governing animals for sale on Internet sites. Responsible department: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs We urge the Government to review the current Laws governing animal welfare to include animals for sale on trading internet sites. Currently live animals can be advertised for sale on these internet sites and there are no laws, few rules, checks or protection for the animals. Some animals offered for sale or “free to good home” can end up in the ownership of unscrupulous people involved in criminal activity, or worse still, animal cruelty such as dog fighting. Some animals are being used as” live bait” for this so called entertainment. These internet sites are rapidly expanding and we call upon the Government to bring into effect new legislation or expand existing Animal welfare laws to cover the sales of live animals on Internet sites."
5/9/2012 - Keep Away From Houghton Regis! I emailed the Street Works Co-ordinator today about the road works in Houghton Regis.
The current work is needed for UK Power Networks low voltage cabling, and will continue until the end of the week, being done off peak until 3.30pm daily. Temporary lights are in operation as one lane is out of use. These are being operated on manual timings (when the guy is not on his lunch break), and on automatic settings the rest of the time.
Automatic or manual doesn't seem to make much difference, actually, since the operator can't see the lengths of queues in all three directions, so his decisions are at best, a guess. I don't eny him in his task. If he had CCTV of queues in each direction this might improve on the guess work. It would certainly make more sense.
I did notice that traffic moving along East End and into High Street was leaving long gaps, and by the time the traffic arrived in the later period of the green lights at Bedford Road, these gaps were significant. If drivers didn't leave such long gaps, maybe a few more would get through in the green light period.
I also thought that traffic emerging from Bedford Road could be allowed to turn left at any time, with the proviso that a "CAUTION - LOOK RIGHT" sign was put up.
>With lots more weeks of road works ahead, the message needs to go out to everyone in the region, "Keep Away From Houghton Regis!"
added 6/9/2012
Path works start next week. The Street Works Co-ordinator has stated in a memo to me, "When works start next week there will be no [temporary] traffic lights. The first set of temporary traffic lights will be after approximately six weeks of the scheme towards the end of October when the permanent lights are removed."
4/9/2012 - Jumping Stilt What do you make of OSCAR PISTORIUS’S ‘outburst’ at the end of the T44 200 metre final when he was beaten by ALAN OLIVEIRA? Stands to reason, if you've got bionic legs you'll fare better than someone without. If yours are more bionic than another's then you'll have a bigger advantage. Bionic-bodied shouldn't be allowed to compete with able bodied. The stride length is clearly a factor and he was right to bring the subject up. What I want to know is, why aren't these jumping stilts in the Olympics yet, then we can all get bionic!
3/9/2012 - Traffic Snarled Up Again Email sent off this evening to the head of Highways Traffic. Today I observed traffic snarled up from the Bedford Road junction on the High Street, all the way down to the Sandringham Drive / Park Road North roundabout for the best part of the day. Temporary lights were in use at Bedford Rd/ High Street. I spoke with the temp light operator at 3.30pm while he was packing up, and he admitted himself that it took him half an hour to get back to the location this afternoon. I don't know the ins and outs of the timings of these temporary lights, but I would have hoped that something better could have been sorted out to give more priority to traffic on the route I have mentioned. I understand that they are to be used for the rest of the week.
1/9/2012 - Weedy Estate in Houghton Regis.
30/8/2012 - UKIP Are A Waste of Space Ed Walkington writes in the "easternAgenda" this Summer: "Rarely in the parliament, frequently missing committee meetings and even plenary sessions, and most frustratingly of all telling constituents they are working hard on an issue when they haven't attended the relevant committee for years, the UKIP MEPs are a complete waste of space in the Parliament. The speeches in plenary tend to be the same europhobic rants, regardless of the matter discussed. One UKIP MEP simply votes 'no' on everything, which I guess saves him the time of reading each report. The greatest shame is that the UK loses out on a potential 12 hard working MEPs."
29/8/2012 - Those Pesky Claw Machines Basically, most crane games are designed so the claw is randomly (and only once in many games) strong enough to let players win. Some even weaken in strength after a short time so players get close to victory only to see it slip from their grasp! This link tells us more, including a link to the manuals.
23/8/2012 - Money Saving Expert Latest Tip: Instead of spending all day reading the email from Money Saving Expert, and the outcomes of the email, why not earn some money working? Presupposes you have paid work to do, of course.
22/8/2012 - Down the Plughole One By One, or Brace Together?
19/8/2012 - Labour Embarrassed as Con-Man Poses with Police Chief The LutonOnSunday reports today that a Labour councillor, Asa Rathore, "regrets not telling Chief Superintendent Mike Colbourne, Bedfordshire's Divisional Commander, he was being filmed with Ahmed Siddique .. convicted in 2009 of obtaining more than £160,000 through fraudulent activities" Labour Party organiser Francis Steer said, 'In my opinion Cllr Rathore was very unwise to allow herself and Ahmed Siddique who has been convicted of fraud, to pose for a photo with Chief Superindendent Mike Colbourne". I suppose we're in for lots of stories like this from the press in the build up to the Police Commissioner elections. I agree that politics and police shouldn't be mixed.
19/8/2012 - Labour Celebrate - More Public Money Wasted The Manchester Evening News reports: "Members of Greater Manchester’s axed police authority are to toast their own demise – with a taxpayer-funded bash at the five-star Lowry Hotel. About 100 people are expected for a three-course meal at the swish city-centre venue to mark the scrapping of the authority." Well, that’s one way for the (Labour-run) body to spend tax payer's money…
8/8/2012 - What Are They Teaching Kids?
Quoted from http://michaelrosenblog, early years consultant.html
Edited quote: "We have the Year 1 Screening Check. Like you, I am at a loss to see what it tests, actually. Last year I was observing in a Reception Class and the teacher was ‘doing phonics’. Gold coins spun in front of the children’s eyes on the interactive whiteboard to form three letter words; some ‘real’ some ‘not real’, although how children are supposed to distinguish between real and not real is beyond me. Children had to give thumbs up if the word was real, thumbs down if it wasn’t. A little boy called Archie gave ‘thumbs up’ to a word that adults would know didn’t exist. The teacher asked him (very kindly) why he’d given the word the thumbs up. ‘Well, I thought it might be a word that I didn’t know yet,’ he replied. Where is the room in the test for answers like that? "
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