Shut up

I generally don't like the Labour Party. Whilst they have had some awful luck recently, they've bollocksed everything up and I will be pleased when they lose the next election. However, I'm glad to see that someone in there has a sense of humour. In response to a 50,000-strong petition to have Jeremy Clarkson as the Prime Minister, someone spent a little time making this video response. Well done to them, I say.

And then, with a disgraceful display of maturity, the Tories knocked it down. I like the Tories. Chances are, when the time comes, I shall be voting for Mr Cameron and his band of merry-men. But at this time, I want them to pull their heads out of their arses and joke along with the Labour chaps. It would make them look good and would stop me being angry. Stupid prats.

Everywhere

Myleene Klass seems to be presenting just about everything on the Beeb at the moment. I'm not complaining, she's not exactly hard on the eyes, but I wish she would be a little more selective. She's appears to have replaced Julian Clary as the de facto host for all Strictly Come Choiring on Ice type programmes. I got bored of him too.

Genetics

Evolution isn't all good. I happen to have, for exmaple, two weird little toes (not on the same foot), from my father's side. From my father himself (possibly, it could be just bad luck), I have a crappy knee.

And the most annoying ailment caused by genetics is not the painful knee (which can be ingnored), but rather the intermittent shakes that I got from my mother. She always shakes, whereas I am sometimes steady and sometimes not. Now is one of the not moments. It is so bad it is making it difficult to type. On Friday, it was difficult to eat. I like to eat. Stupid inherited features.

Hnad eye co-odrinatoin.

Scientists have discovered a link between clumsiness and obesity.

I can destroy that theory with one simple fact: it's bollocks.

I have awful hand-eye coordination. This is partly because my eyes don't work properly and partly because I just happen to have bad hand-eye coordination. Despite this, I cannot be compared to a whale. I am a suitable weight for my age and height, am fairly healthy and intend to stay this way. All of this has been achieved whilst stepping nowhere near a sports fiield, gym or swimming pool. Do you want to know my secret? If not, tough. The reason behind my health is something that I like to call 'walking.' What you do is you put one leg in front of the other and move. It's not hard. I learnt to do it when I was just over a year old.

I also happen to have a walk that conserves energy. I am told that myself, my brother and my father all walk in the same way, a sort of march that fully utilises our leg lengths. And looks a bit odd.

In fact, I can happen to think of reasons for clumsy children to be even more healthy. When Average "Rarely-Stubs-His-Toe" Joe eats dinner, he eats normally and quickly, no problems. When Mr Clumsy eats dinner, it takes him ages to get the peas onto his fork, then he hits them into his cheek, so he has to get up and wash his face. He sits down and repeats. Curiously, he hasn't heard of a napkin.

I have a suggestion. The scientists who conducted this study were looking at the wrong thing. When they were observing how hard it was for a child to pick up matches and comparing this to how much of a porker they were, they should have been looking at the person's plate. This would give a much more simple reason for why they had a waistband the size of Borneo.

Eek

I have discovered that Gordon Brown had an uncle with the surname Souter. Oh dear. I hope that 'Souter' is the scottish equivalent of 'Smith.'

Pathetic

For the past week, my step-father's grandson has been staying with us, in London to see the sights and in Cambridge to...do something else. It has been quite a good week, the little man in question is a nice little man, and there is something else. Something that has annoyed me. That is the fact that I have spent money, and therefore can't buy a games console.

I have been nagged about the fact that my trusty PS1 is not the most up-to-date piece of technology for quite some time, but having had a PSP with GTA Vice City in it to hand for most of the week, I want one. And I don't trust ebayers that much with anything above around £20.

There is only one down-side to playing with this PSP. I have injured myself. By playing to much, I have managed to get RSI in my right thumb. What a pathetic ailment that is. I am quite ashamed, to be honest. The time has come for me to take heed of my medical advice to anyone and everyone: amputate. Posts might take longer in the future.

Update: apparently, this isn't that uncommon. RSI in children is up 35% in the UK, with some children having to go to hospital. With that, I don't think I have to chop my hand off. Hooray!

Per ardua ad astra

In the 1970s, the IRA launched an attack on the city of London. Bombs were detonated all over the city, with innocent civilians as targets. During this onslaught, large numbers of police officers travelled on the London Underground system to reassure and defend the passengers.

In 2008, Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, announced that 30 teams of officers would patrol the tube once again. Is this not a step back? Britons have always gone about their business, whatever was going on elsewhere. After the bombings in the '70s, people got back on the tube as soon as they could. After the bombings on 7th July 2005, people resumed normality as soon as possible. Of course the police will have other positive roles, such as enforcing the drinking ban, but to form 30 specialist squads seems to me to be characteristic of a time of great fear and high terror alert. This is no such time.

Even if there was a critical alert level, Britons would continue. We have experience of muddling through. Consider this example:

After the attacks on America on September 11th 2001, America shut down. It's previously lax air security was tightened, and even babies weren't allowed milk on planes (I never understood the change of this rule to, "if you taste it, you can take it." Surely a suicide bomber is not going to mind drinking something that will kill him?).

After the attacks on London, the entire city transit system was shut down. Until 4 pm the same day, when it was re-opened. This hardiness in the face of adversity has featured throughout history, and was demonstrated most memorably during the Second World War (the Blitz Spirit). However, more recently, we have had assistance in our readiness for terrorism. This has come from the Americans, although not through their response to 9/11, or the 'War on Terror'. No, the reason that America helped us to prepare is that they, the Land of the Free, people against oppression, who went to war with Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from murdering innocent civilians, helped to fund the IRA, who murdered innocent civilians. The Land of the Free? What do you think?

Keep Right

Perhaps I have a superior level of brain power that had previously gone unnoticed. I doubt it, but otherwise, how is it that I can manage to stand to the right on an escalator, and others cannot? If there is no sign saying 'Keep Right' then perhaps the miscreant can be forgiven, but when on a tube escalator, where people could well be in a rush and the signs are clear and frequent, it's just rude. And before you pipe up with, "what if they can't read it," the man I'm thinking about was a yank. You could tell by the sandles with socks, the equator around his waste and the fact that he spoke very loudly in his very annoying accent about very dull things. America is supposed to have an adult literacy rate of 99%, so that man had no excuse, except for being an anti-social halfwit.

I don't intend to sound mean, but just recently I've been travelling through London a fair bit, and the monumental amount of stupid actions I have seen is starting to worry me. For example, there are suits clamouring their way up the escalator, which is being blocked by our good friend Joe from above, and yet next to them there is a completely clear escalator. Not a soul on it. The only down-side is that this escalator isn't working, but they'd still get to the top that little bit quicker.

Or there are the people (well, tourists) who decided suddenly, when walking down a crowded street, that they need to look at their map. So they stop. No moving to the side, out of the way, but instead just standing there like a tower in the middle. I know that not all tourists are like that - I, for example, am wonderfully civil and polite - but the ones that stand out are the ones who make me mutter under my breath and wish I had the power to banish people.

I now have a reason to become a knight. Previously, I just wanted to be Sir for laugh, but when I get my knighthood, I shall abuse it, and visitors to these lands shall behave themselves or feel my wrath.