Britain - Home of the Loony's!

If it wasn't so sad it would be funny! For this post I have chosen five of the most ridiculous stories to come out of the UK this week. 
Firstly, in Southampton in southern England, a man turned up at the hospital's casualty department with his penis stuck in a length of steel tubing. The hospital staff could not release it because the situation had caused the man to become aroused thereby enlarging his penis and making it impossible. You really couldn't make this up!!!! Eventually his penis was freed from the pipe by a very delicate operation carried out by.....wait for it!.....Firemen with a metal grinder!!!!!! When I read this story I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Apparently the man left the hospital without any explanation as to how he got his penis stuck in a piece of pipe.
Ed Balls the Schools Secretary for Great Britain is quoted as saying that primary school pupils (aged 7 to 11) and secondary schools (ages 11 to 16) should learn Mandarin i.e Chinese! His reason for such a statement is that Britain has increasing business ties with China and the business sector needs Chinese speakers. Does this mean that it must become part of the national curriculum and a requirement for all children to learn Chinese? I may be stupid, but I can speak Chinese!

He is right in one thing, it should be compulsory for all children in English schools to learn a foreign language; but Chinese? It would be far more useful for them to learn French, German or perhaps Spanish. Britain has for decades fallen behind other European nations in the teaching of foreign languages in schools, leaving it up to the pupils to decide. When it comes to languages the British are notoriously lazy.

Britain's erstwhile Prime Minister Gordon Brown has decreed that poor homes should be given a free laptop and broadband access so the parents can communicate with their children's school. So Gordon is of the opinion that the tax payer should foot the bill for this, and of course poor parents will immediately get 'on line' and follow their offspring's progress at school. I think it more likely there will suddenly be a glut of laptops being offered at knock-down prices in the local pubs to finance a few more pints of best bitter.

On a more serious note, A family of five bought a house for £285,000 and decided to have it structurally altered and renovated. They moved into a rented apartment while the builders were working. After the Christmas break they went to the house and found a group of Romanian squatters occupying the house. They had changed all the locks which prevented the owner from entering. He went to the Police, and on enquiring as to the legal status of the squatters being in the country was told he was racist. Eventually it turned out that the Romanians had become victims of a black con man who had 'rented' them the property. They thought they were legal and had every right to be there, but the black guy was not the owner. It took two weeks for the legal situation to be sorted out, and now, much to the families relief, things are back to normal. The Squatters, they moved into a house further down the street. The con man? He disappeared into a richer puff of smoke.

It has been known for years that Britain needs more jails, and now finally the Labour Government has made plans for more to be built. Britain is way ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to the size of its prison population. For years, Judges have been given instructions not to send so many felons to jail, no matter how much they deserve it, because the jails are already overcrowded. Prisoners have been released after serving a fraction of their sentence to make room for the next influx of criminals. Many have been hardened criminals who go on to offend again and again after release. For the toe-rags inside for drug dealing, theft and rape etc. they do a fraction of their sentence and then its business as usual.

Strange though it may seem, this plan to build more jails has raised a storm of criticism. Groups, and even MP's, are decrying the move saying resources should be put into preventing crime, not punishing it. I suppose this means more Miss Goody Two-Shoes talking to hardened career criminals trying to convince them of the error of their ways??? I suppose this means that felons will get more non-custodial sentences while the 'Goody Brigade' go to work on them to convince them that it really isn't 'nice' to beat up old age pensioner ladies for the few shillings they have in their purses???? It really is too bizarre for words. These 'Goody Goody" idiots have done so much harm to the English way of life that they should be put against a wall and shot without the chance of parole. I have always been of the opinion that if a criminal is behind bars, he cannot commit more crimes. If the British Penal System were designed to make incarceration so hard that felons would never want to go back to prison after release (like the old days), that more than anything else would cut the crime rate.

Such a shame, but I think the whole country has gone to the dogs!

Woof Woof!

Roy.

Lost Treasures

It is indeed a sad indictment of our times that so much of England's beauty has been lost, perhaps for all time. I came across the above picture on the Internet and couldn't believe my eyes. That such a thing could still exist!

When I was a boy growing up in England, woods like the one above were everywhere, dotted across the countryside in their thousands. They provided a home for the wildlife across Britain, and a visit on a Sunday afternoon was a pleasant outing. In Springtime it was such a pleasure to walk through the local woods and see the carpets of wild flowers between the trees.

Wild daffodils, primroses, and bluebells among others were everywhere, covering the ground with a carpet of vivid colour that seemed to stretch on forever. When walking, we were always careful to stay on the paths and not trample the flowers, because that was the way we were brought up.

These colourful displays were not restricted to the woodland either, you very often found them on the roadside verges as you travelled along. As a child I glorified in the diverse natural beauty that abounded throughout rural England. At that time, England was indeed a 'Green and Pleasant land'. Even so, as a Brit, I have to say it is still a beautiful country.

Away from the woods, walking along country lanes, you could see miles of hedgerows enclosing the farmers fields, each with it's own unique environment. Birds and small creatures like dormice, insects by the million, all contributing in their own way to Mother Nature's plan.

Farmers complained sometimes about certain species that lived in the hedgerows, but when all is said and done, we did not need hundreds of gallons of pesticide per acre to keep down the pests because the creatures of the hedgerows did it for us. Nature was in balance, and the farmers still got what they wanted, a good crop.

Then along came greed!

With the Sixties came the farming revolution that we know so well today. Most of the woodland and hedgerows were torn out to make way for fields that now stretch for half a mile as you drive along. Huge tracts of land had all the vegetation uprooted and removed to make way for the super-fields of the modern era.

Even then, it was obvious to anyone with a tiny amount of intelligence, that these super-fields would in time suffer from major problems.

First and foremost, such large open spaces gave the wind the opportunity it needed to remove the topsoil every time it blew. Secondly, the demise of the hedgerows removed vital, and natural, pest control.

With all that bio-diversity gone, we now see tractors spraying crops with what to us, must be poison. Daily we eat produce from these mega-farms with little thought to what has happened to it while it was growing. Even the fruit, we supposedly don't eat enough of, is contaminated with all sorts of chemicals that are good for the farmer, but not for us.

It's fine for the pesticide companies to shout that their product is safe, and for the farmers to say it is necessary, but is it? I wonder.

As with everything else these days, sad to say, its all about money. Farmers have been squeezed by the big supermarket chains since they become so popular, and it is firms like Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Asda and many more that are dictating the market prices for what we eat. This has led the farmers to get as much out of their land as they possibly can. Hence the relentless destruction of the countryside as I once knew it.

It is indeed a sad indictment of our times that we have destroyed this natural balance that has existed, and worked, since the birth of our planet.

It is a fact that some farmers have tried to reconstitute the hedgerow environment on their land, but it will take decades before we can get back to how it was.

When the hedgerows and woodland were destroyed, all the birds, small creatures and insects that inhabited them were destroyed also. This has had a knock-on effect by reducing the number of these creatures alive today.

Another of my favourite memories of summers gone by is the swarms of swallows and swifts that made their home in the UK each summer. In town or country they could be seen flitting around the buildings or trees in their search for insects. They would make an abrupt change in their flight path as they spotted an insect in the air, and you knew they had caught something, for they rarely missed. Now the numbers have fallen dramatically, which would indicate a significant drop in insect numbers.

We have had significant progress in the last thirty or so years in food production, but eventually the time will come when we have to pay the price, and I am afraid that day may not too far away.

Why do I say that? Well for a start, scientists have for the last twenty years been meddling with the very building blocks of our food source. By that I mean of course genetically modified (GM) foods.

I admit right away that I am not in favour of such manipulation, and wouldn't touch them knowingly with the proverbial barge pole. I know the scientists tell us they can make drought and bug resistant crops that will increase the yield of farms, but to me it sound dangerous.

Despite what they say, no-one knows the effects this DNA manipulation of our food crops will have over an extended period when it eventually gets into the established plant-life, as it is bound to do sooner or later. No-one can say with certainty that it will not have a long term affect on our health and well-being. To me, we are playing a dangerous game with our future and that of our planet.

I just thank God that I am living my life now, and will not have to face the world in fifty years time.

Doom and gloom forecast? Not really, but I am happy I saw England's beauty as it once was, and knew the time when english girls were known for their beauty and slim figures. I'm also glad I can still get fresh vegetables that do not as yet have the possibility to turn my offspring into something inhuman.

As time goes by I am sure we, the human race, will continue on this planet, because eventually all the bad things we have done to our home world will come back to haunt us, and those that are left will be able to start again knowing where we went wrong. Let us hope our descendants are more intelligent than we appear to be.

Live your life to the full, it's a one-shot deal!

Roy.