Tuesday, 31 March 2009

A Very Special Offer...

There's been a considerable amount of sniggering going on around here today, both school-boyish and otherwise, along with much gleeful reading aloud of excerpts from various newspapers and online articles. We especially liked Playboy TV's offer to supply all MPs with a special VIP subscription called the "Jacq off special" which they will even bill under the traditional titles of ‘entertainment’ or ‘personal trainer.’

And to cap it all, the icing on the cake was Gordo being overheard saying he wasn't going to sack Waccy-Baccy just because her idiot husband couldn't be trusted not to play with himself while she was away.

If anyone thinks we're being unfair to Ms Waccy-Baccy then let me remind you that she has done more damage to the party since being appointed Home Secretary than Peter Mandelson and the Four Lords of the Graft put together. Furthermore, like any playground bully she has taken a considerable amount of spiteful pleasure not only in dictating to other people what they can and cannot do in the privacy of their own homes, but also in rubbing their faces in the fact that she can.

And finally, let us not forget that she brought all this on herself because she couldn't resist the urge to falsify her expenses.

Monday, 30 March 2009

Of all the stupid...

On a list of the ten most stupid things the Home Secretary could have done getting caught falsifying her expenses for the second time has to rank fairly high. That the expense item concerned includes two pornographic films at a time when she and the Prime Minister are conducting a witch-hunt against ordinary citizens because of their sexual preferences is simply despicable.

If this party is to stand any chance of retaining more than a minority presence after the general election then she must demonstrate unequivocally that she is willing to be held to the same standards laid down by her office for everyone else by resigning her seat in the commons.

One of our activists recently asked me how he was supposed to persuade people to vote Labour in the wake of the four greedy twerps scandal. I told him that I didn't know but that he should do his best anyway. Perhaps I should have told him not to waste his time.

Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Follow A1 (M) to Junction...

If a spate of recent news reports are to be believed, in car satellite navigation systems are the biggest threat to road safety since the mobile phone.

This is not entirely true of course. It's the idiots who switch their brain into neutral and slavishly follow the machine's instructions regardless of where they lead, be it a narrow footpath leading to a cliff, the track of the main Doncaster to Hull railway line or Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire instead of Chelsea Football Club's ground in West London.

There's a book on display in the window of a local bookshop entitled "GPS for Dummies". I think the title says it all really...

Monday, 23 March 2009

Some things never change...

I've never been much of a cinema-goer, not even as a kid in the days before home video. One of the main reasons for this was the vast majority of cinemas were real 'flea-pits' and my local cinema - the only one for miles and now long since demolished - was a particularly nasty example of this. Expensive, uncomfortable and downright filthy.

The staff were rude, unhelpful and on one occasion, frighteningly aggressive after my friend got stuck in the toilet when the door bolt jammed. Naturally we got the blame for this instead of the lack of cleaning and maintenance which was almost certainly the real cause. We were frog-marched across the foyer to the front doors and physically pushed out onto the street.

As you would expect my parents were horrified and immediately complained first to the manager, then to the head office and on both occasions were simply told not to come back if they didn't like it.

Cinemas could get away with this sort of behaviour then because there were no alternatives, it was - as the saying goes - "The Only Game in Town".

As you would expect, this was the last time I visited a cinema until I started dating many years later and I never visited that particular one ever again.

Fast-forward mumble-mumble years and despite the alleged competition from 'home video' little if anything seems to have changed. The majority of cinemas are still expensive, uncomfortable and downright filthy. The staff are still treating their customers like something a dairy farmer might have stepped in as the following story from the BBC clearly shows - Police threat in cinema sweet row.

This is not the first time staff employed by this particular cinema chain have been accused 'heavy-handedness'. A brief trawl through an online newspaper archive turned up a catalogue of complaints ranging from bullying and threatening behaviour to assault and theft of a mobile phone belonging to a 12 year old girl which was apparently "mislaid" after being "confiscated" by cinema staff.

By comparison our little Silver Screen down by the Market Square is in a class of it's own. The seats may be no more comfortable than anywhere else but they are certainly no worse, it's reasonably priced and it is clean. You don't need to have a bath afterwards or even wipe your feet on the way out. But far, far more important is the attitude of the staff. Friendly, helpful and polite - even when they have to deal with what could be described as 'youthful exuberance'.

Perhaps it is time large cinema chains like Cineworld went the same way as travelling circuses. It's certainly time local councils took a closer look at how these premises are being run before granting and/or renewing their licenses.

Saturday, 14 March 2009

Don't I have enough to do already?

It's been an extremely busy few weeks with little time left over for things like DoverWatch, not least of which because of certain deranged idiots at party headquarters who have convinced themselves that we can win the next general election "if we work hard enough".

I have no idea what this conviction is based upon but I'm fairly certain it's not our own research which clearly shows we haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Either now or in the foreseeable future.

As things stand we would probably end up with around 150 seats having lost most of the marginals and several previously safe seats. Naturally this could change at the drop of a hat - after all, a week can be a long time in politics - and if things go badly enough we could end up as a minority party for the first time since the end of the Second World War. All it would take is another scandal or two.

Dover in particular is a lost cause despite everything Gwen Prosser has done simply because the cowards who currently make up the Cabinet are too scared to 'grasp the nettle' for fear that the tabloids might call them nasty names and/or criticise their decisions. Something which they are going to do anyway.