Evil Personified

I don't know if news of our latest native-born monsters has reached foreign shores. Here they are:

Michael "Mick" Philpott and his wife Mairead had six of his seventeen children living with them in a three bedroom house. His mistress, who had also shared the house with them along with the five children she had borne him, had left, and he wanted the children back.

He obviously thought he needed something big to help him along, as he was already facing a road rage charge, and he cooked up the idea of seting fire to the house and heroically rescuing the kids, blaming the fire on the mistress. He was helped by his wife and his best friend.

The fire got out of hand and the six children died.

The couple did the requisite crying on camera in an appeal for witnesses to come forward. But the police were not fooled, and this week the evil man and his wicked puppets were sent to jail for manslaughter. Sadly not murder, as there was no intent to kill.

Now I understand why man-slaughter can also be read as mans-laughter. In 15 years this monster may again see the light of day.

Unless some Good Samaritan regular murderer bumps him off in prison...

Men In Black

Edgar.

Great Oaks

We all know great oaks from little acorns grow. But not every oak is as great as it pretends to be - or as great as oganisations like Government, spending our money, would have us believe.

About 10 years ago I worked with someone who used to go out with a guy who sold his supply teaching agency for a million quid. That agency was called Capstan. The new owners reinvented it as Capita.

 

By the time I got my early teacher's retirement pension Capita had taken on the contract to run Teacher's Pensions. Their first attempt to assess the pension to which I was entitled was about half the amount they'd told me just a year or so earlier. No one knew how the cock-up occurred.

 

A couple of years later I ordered some Christmas cards fom the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I ordered them early, but they didn't arrive. I phoned up several times, and received a different excuse each time. Sometimes they were in the warehouse, some time later they were just about to arrive there. I had to buy other cards to send to my friends and relatives across the Pond, and the charity lost the money I tried to spend with them. The company they had chosen to perform the simple task of filling orders was...Capita.

 

When I was made redundant (the same time as receiving my early pension) I signed up with the nearest supply teaching agency - the former Capstan, renamed Capita. They contacted me once with one day's work. A couple of years on I was doing some work in a school where they phoned up about another supply teacher they had sent there (they made no effort to check they were talking to the right person) and that is when I discovered that this person was sent by them from the other side of London every day, while I, a local, never had a sniff of work from them.

 

The latest fiasco concerns, of all things, providing interpreters for court cases. Last time I was on jury service, we had an interpreter for the defendant. The judge watched her closely and decided she was not translating enough of what was going on to the accused, so next day she had been replaced. Last year the job of supplying interpreters went to Capita. News today says they consistently fail to provide people, to the extent that some cases cannot be heard.

 

I don't really know what it takes for a company to stop gaining contracts, and to start losing the ones they have. I think Capita should be the test case.

JFK

It may have been an atrocious thing to witness, but Bill Newman did have one bit of luck - being portrayed by Vincent.

It Don't Pay To Be An Honest Citizen

And it doesn't please me that I don't know this character's name.

Ashton

For those doubters who thought I might forget about him.

Guess how I spent my birthday?

Jae Jae was separated from Melati when I first arrived. He was where Melati had been last week.

 

 

He was spending the time chomping on a bone.

 

 

 

Melati was in the place that last week had been Jae Jae's domain. She was very relaxed.

 

 

 

Suddenly she became more alert.

 

 

 

They'd opened up the whole enclosure, and Jae Jae was looking for a chance to sneak up on his girl. But he had to content himself with waiting, wondering and dreaming.

 

Once a landmark birthday...

...now 60 is just another year older.

Time was I would have started to collect my old age pension today. I understand the need for fairness by equalising men's and women's retirement ages - but I'd always assumed they'd bring the men's age down as well as raising the women's.

I was in my 50s when they decided to raise the women's. We were assured that women already in their 50s would not be affected. They lied.

They recently changed it again so that my friend, whose birthday is not till July, instead of retiring in September, has to wait till next March.

On the plus side for her, she will receive the new higher flat rate pension, while I will miss it by days. My male school friends will be similarly recompensed.

Meanwhile, the retirement age for all will eventually rise to 67. And there are mutterings that it will one day in the not too distant future rise to 70.

This is because we are all living much longer. For now.

Bad luck for those who don't. Bad luck for those in hard physical jobs who just can't do them any more. Bad luck for those with problems that restrict their ability to continue to work, or cause them to collapse in exhaustion at the end of a challenging day. (Try teaching 30 of other people's recalcitrant children in your late 60s. There will be a lot of teachers - the group I know most about - dying before they even draw their pensions.)

And bad luck for any young person who thought the very high unemployment rate among under-25s was likely to reduce any time soon. Sorry. The oldies are going to be stuck ahead of you for years to come. Whether they want to, or are capable of it, or not.

Well at least I can get free prescriptions now, and travel around London for free.

Whitney

By special request.

Sadly, Botophucket, that amazingly incompetent photo site, has decided to rearrange my pictures in an order which is only non-random to them ie. 1, 10, 100; 18, 180 etc. The option to see the whole album has disappeared, with no alternative. And they also fail completely to answer any contacts.

Arseholes.

Final Olee for now

Love that shoulder.

Tiger Territory

At last! Today was the big day - the preview day for London Zoo members to see the new tigers in their new territory. It didn't disappoint.

Unlike Photobucket, which has repeatedly failed to upload my pictures so I can make a slideshow. They don't answer queries any more, either, now they've imposed their new system on those who did not want it.

So here are some pictures direct from my computer, smaller than I would like, but lovely nonetheless.

There's a tiger-sized climbing frame.

 

   And a nice new pond.

 

Jae Jae seems to be master of all he surveys

Inside and out

 

But Melati has other ideas.

 

Fed up with sleeping...

 

...she remembers seeing Jae Jae off earlier.

 

And now she's arrived he's made a total retreat

and is nowhere to be seen.

 

Olee Again

I just can't resist him. But you might have to do without him for a few days while I get my breath back. I just did a couple of concerts as well as going to work, not to mention failing completely to find time to do any shopping, so it's catching up on sleep and chores now for a few days.

Two's not enough either

I could go on like this forever.

Jaspa's 19th

Today is my pretty Jaspa cat's 19th birthday.

She got her name because I wanted to call her "sister" (who died just after Christmas) Amber. And I thought she was a he. So she started out as Jasper, even through her vaccinations, till the vet had to newter her, and got a surprise. As did I.

Apart from a couple of wasp stings when she was a kitten, and a dental or two, Jaspa has been the model of health. She is very slightly built, she's not fond of cuddles, but is mellowing into snugglabilty with me and one or two of the other cats.

I think of Jaspa as a relative of the aliens UFO lovers call "Greys, because she has a tiny face with great big eyes. Not much room for brains, I guess, but LOTS of beauty.

Because...

...One picture of Olee was never going to be enough.

Good Luck?

The best! Best luck, favourite VDO film, fave character. OLEE!!

Impostor

Major Hathaway - a rare example Of a good baddie, or a bad goodie?

Quick Quiz

What do the Pope, Muslim fundamentalists and the Christian right have in common?

They all want to control women's rights to control their own bodies.

I am SICK of the constant barrage of news about this new pope business. I do not care. Britain is barely a Christian country any more, and disestablished the Catholic church centuries ago.

I do not want to listen to people prattling on about their imaginary friends. Jesus was a real live character from history. He might have been good. That's it.

Religion has caused more deaths in the history of the world than just about anything else other than disease and old age. People, grow up. You don't need a supernatural being to explain the world.

The end.

Imaginary Crimes

And real dimension difficulties! Sorry, Mr Webster. Can I have my physical chastisement now?

Snow over Britain

No, not that sort of snow. Though we have had plenty of that in the last few days.

I'm talking about the Snow family.

There's broadcaster and newsreader Jon Snow, who seems to have been a fixture on our screens forever.

Then there's his cousin Peter Snow, renowned for leaping about on out TV screens, especially at election times.

But Peter's son Dan is making quite an impression these days. He looks just like his father, wounds like him too. He's a history man, and was most recently on our screens from Syria in a documentary about the phenomenal history of the place. Brave man.

Quite a hunk too (though a bit young), a big gangly man like his father, at a mere 6'6".

The family legacy is assured.