Sunday February 22, 2009: A little ahead of myself here!

As usual, and according to various media reports ".....Millions of film fans around the world are eagerly awaiting the 81st Academy Awards....." scheduled for Sunday 22nd February 2009 in Hollywood.

For what? To see the latest group of "highly trained" , over-paid, over-pampered and egotistical luvvies stroke themselves even further for doing nothing more than pretending to be someone else (and in many cases very VERY badly). For re-iterating someone else's words all within a comfort zone provided by a veritable myriad of lackeys and sidekicks.

Don't get me (completely) wrong, there are a few very accomplished members of this profession, although they seldom reach Oscar nomination profile, unless they're about to die of course.

So to think outside the box for just a moment, for my money someone who should be up for an Oscar is a bogus forensic expert, Gene Morrison, jailed for five years in the UK in 2007 after conning courts for almost three decades by giving false evidence in cases.

Morrison left school with no qualifications and simply downloaded sham degrees from a bogus university in the US. The judge described him as an "inveterate and compulsive liar"; perfect Oscar material!! Leonardo di Caprio in "Catch Me If You Can" eat your heart out.

Now that's what I call real life theatre; not a bad achievement all on his lonesome for almost 30 years! The man has an obviously brilliant talent and was only somewhat misguided in his direction.

So, Gene Morrison is my nomination for Best Actor.

Unless you can you come up with any other similarly talented "worthy" contenders?

How To Make Crime Pay: The Somalian Way

So once again Somalia, or more specifically, Somali-based hi-jackers, have thrust themselves back into the international spotlight.

Apart from coming to terms with the sheer audacity of just exactly how a few Somali pirates managed to board and seize a supertanker the size of the Sirius Star (ok we are reliably informed that their usual modus operandi is to open fire on the bridge with an assortment of weapons at which point the captain, under standard merchant vessel instructions not to resist attack once arms are employed, will throw down a boarding ladder!) one has to question why on earth there appears to be little or no onus on the owners to protect such a vessel, it's cargo and crew.

We know there is a multi-national task force operating in the area, and has been for some years, but they aren't omni-present.

The ship itself is worth in the region of $150 million whilst the cargo of two million barrels of crude oil, equivalent to a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily ouput, is probably worth $100 million. As for the 23 crewmen, barely given a mention in the headlines screaming "OIL", what price on their heads?

Any other similarly valued cargo travelling by land or air would be given somewhat more closer protection and yet even now the ship's owners have entered into negotiations with the pirates on securing release of the crude, vessel and crew (no doubt in that order of importance) for a substantial amount estimated by some to reach in the region of $5 million. Insurers will have to pick up that tab and pass on the collateral to all of us.

Two things immediately spring to mind here.

Firstly, if I were a Somali hi-jacker I would be planning my next fun day out as soon as possible; what an easy way to make money. In fact I'm considering going over there and joining them. Where else in the world would this preposterous situation be allowed to prevail?

And secondly, why as a pre-condition of insurance for such vessels is it not mandatory for the owners to have their own sea marshals on board to act as sufficient deterrent? A dozen or so suitably armed individuals would do the trick. There are enough ex-forces personnel out there who would jump at the chance and cost a damn sight less than $5 million!

"Something Is Rotten In The State Of Jersey/West Yorkshire/Haringey!

Shakespeare's oft quoted text from Hamlet, Act I, Scene 4 referred to the State of Denmark and was a general indictment of corrupt goings on. It would now seem that we as humans should be pointing the same finger of shame whilst questionning just what on earth in the name of humanity certain individuals in Jersey, West Yorkshire and Haringey have been up to.

In Jersey apparently a £4.5 million police investigation (still supposed to be ongoing) which , supported by scores of people who came forward saying they had been abused at the Haut de la Garenne home between the early 1960s and 1986, has now been completely rubbished by the local authorities.


No surprise given that the original police investigator, Jersey's Deputy Chief Officer Harper, fought a running battle with the Jersey establishment over an alleged cover-up of decades of child abuse, and was ridiculed by several politicians, including a minister who nicknamed him "Lenny Henry".

According to other media reports, in Dewsbury the mother of missing schoolgirl Shannon Matthews "is a liar prepared to give police conflicting accounts in order to gain from a reward offer when in fact she was complicit in drugging and tethering her own daughter in the flat where she was found in March".

For 24 days the girl was tethered to a roofbeam, given ground-up temazepam and seasickness tablets, while her mother went on national television in the role of the stricken parent!

And just when you thought it couldn't get worse, in Haringey the mother of a 17 month old baby, her boyfriend and a lodger have all been convicted at the Old Bailey of causing the infant's death by inflicting more than 50 injuries including a broken back during months of abuse.

Despite 60 visits to the youngster nobody from Haringey Council thought that the injuries were severe enough for him to be removed from the family.

This is more than ROTTEN. What is the matter with these sub-humans? Where is the shame? Where is the culpability?

All In The Best Possible Taste.......NOT!

According to weekend newspaper articles, less than a month since Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was given a £20 billion bailout from the British taxpayers they have blown £300,000 on a lavish secret champagne party for executives.

RBS are said to have gone to enormous lengths to try to keep the party secret (I wonder why?) amid the financial meltdown, one step was to cancel the original venue and then moving the executives with partners 350 miles away north to Edinburgh.

It wasn’t only RBS who enjoyed a lavish evening at the expense of the taxpayer, the previous night HBOS who were also given £11.5 billion of public cash enjoyed a party at an Edinburgh hotel costing £330,000.

So the pigs are still in the trough!!

I Am A Mole And I Live In A Hole

Seven million people watched the show out of which up to 500 complained about an off the cuff remark made by Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson in which he joked about lorry drivers killing sex workers.

According to Chris Mole MP, the fact that Mr Clarkson made light of murder in any circumstance must be a dismissible offence and, even more amazingly, Mr Mole claimed in a subsequent radio interview that "he knew what his constituents thought" with reference to friends and relatives of five women murdered in Suffolk and that they had been offended by Clarkson's comments. This despite the fact that none of them had complained to the MP nor had he heard anything either positive or negative about the tv show from them.

Whilst I don't condone Clarkson's remarks, the arrogance displayed by Mr Mole throughout the radio interview was beyond belief.

Oh and for the record, apparently Chris Mole MP voted moderately for introducing a smoking ban, voted strongly for introducing ID cards, voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals, voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees, voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws, voted strongly for the Iraq war, voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war, voted very strongly for replacing Trident, voted very strongly for the hunting ban, voted very strongly for equal gay rights and not insignificantly claimed £143,003 worth of expenses in 2006/7.

Has anyone (outside of Suffolk) ever heard of him before now? Self-serving? Judge for yourselves.

Politics Politics Politics

So do we trust them? Politicians I mean. Doesn't it always seem the case that they say one thing and then do another? That they never REALLY listen to the voters? That they're all out of touch in their "ivory castles"?

The jury's out until 2009 in the USA on that one at least; so what of over here?

By a way of a few examples, (and this would equally apply to the opposition parties if they had been able to get elected!) in the last ten years and against all promises: NHS waiting lists have increased, Carbon dioxide emissions have not declined, we still recycle less household waste below than the 25% target, only 3% of energy comes from renewable sources and so on and so forth. The icing on the cake is that boy are we all paying more tax one way or another???!!! Remember? Things were gonna get better. Remember?!

So, if the recent US election campaigns have been able to galvanise huge tranches of voters, previously unstirred or untapped, into making it to the polling booths then why not here? Can the fever and fervour, almost seen after the Blair evangelism of 1997, be recreated in the UK? Can the apathy and cynicism be overcome? The so-called party spindoctors are desperately carrying out post-mortems on the "Obama phenomenom" to see what little if any they can apply this side of the pond.

Well, maybe if we really had a few more home-truths both entering into and coming out of Westminster we'd have stepped onto the first rung of the ladder to political salvation.

But much much more than that, whilst we can accept the fallibilities of politicians we still can't stomach their duplicities. And why should we? Why should we care for someone who has both hands in the expenses trough or is perceived as abusing their position to better their own life whilst espousing seemingly contradictory political views? Why would even begin to contemplate voting for such people?

Where is the humility? The empathy? The reality?

By way of a start, take away the sound bites, get rid of the voice and gesture coaching, strip away the phoney corporate identities and answer a few straight question without evading the issues. Not everybody loves the Paxman or Humphries techniques, but we can all understand the need for a simple answer occasionally.

If THEY can't provide one then they will never be worth our vote!

So We're Gonna Get a New Face In The White House

"The first black president" seems to be the focus of the media right now; how boringly predictable. How about a little imagination, maybe "the first Hawaiian born president", or "the 47 year old to become the 44th president".

Hopefully, and very shortly, the attention will move away from the superficial man to deal with the man of substance, because he sure has some. Given one or two previous incumbents of the position of POTUS, come January 2009 Barack Hussein Obama should be one of the most intelligent breaths of fresh air to blow into Washington for a long time and, given use of the right resources (and he will have access to the best!), he may indeed produce "the change" that he predicted during his campaign; a change for the good and the better of, not just the USA but, the rest of the world too!

Watch this space.