ARCHIVES OF THE BITCH.

Well Darlings,

When one writes an often controversial weekly column, one that is purposefully designed to make people think, and one that has grown to be popular (sometimes attracting numbers that many well-known publications only dream about - remember the Flamingo article published almost exactly a year ago which more than 800 news providers around the world picked up and ran with, including, quite incredibly, Al Jazeera where it was labelled 'article of the week'?), one can feel very humbled.

It is something I've never fully come to terms with - li'l ol' me banging away at the keyboard, usually on a Friday evening, and there being so many people out there all around the world who are interested in what it is I have to say - or rather what the Bitch has to say. Of course, it's not really me people are interested in - I know that much, for if it were then my books would sell in millions instead of a few thousand - it is the Bitch, for she is a part of us all. She, and possibly only she, can often say or hint at things that so many of us believe, or may truly know in our innermost selves, but would never dare to betray.

So, although the Bitch does not exist in flesh and blood (and that's the part we're told isn't really us anyway; that is not what we are), she does exist as a person. One who is not frightened to say what she believes (subject to the legal clearance [toning down - but you'll still get the gist] I occasionally need to get for her - thanks, Ken!) She tells it as it is, and says what a lot of people already know or believe, but like to hear confirmed by another source. Therefore those that fall foul to the Bitch's tongue, often fall foul in many, many other minds too - and maybe some people would be wise to take that much on board.

Sorry if that was all a bit long-winded - a bit? Phew! - it was in response to an email received this past week objecting to me questioning whether God had spoken to Tony Blair again, and which asked: "Who the hell does this Bitch think she is?" Well, the answer is quite simply: Darling, she is a hell of a lot of people, and at times possibly she is even you! 'Nuff said?

I guess this would be a good place to thank you for all your emails - supporters and opposers of the various points raised. This week again there were far too many for me to reply to, but nevertheless they were all welcomed and read, and they all help to paint the canvas. I think I need to own up here: the closing joke last week wasn't my creation - it was told to me - but I'm pleased so many of you liked it, and found it somewhat fitting. No, I haven't got a clue who the fat woman could be either! But then it was a joke, wasn't it? Er . . . Wasn't it? Oh, God! That other Bitch will be writing to me again! Tremble, tremble.

Now, what can we get our teeth into from the past week? How about our Home Secretary, John Reid? On Thursday the Sun was on a crusade to find this man's "missing brain", as they put it. They ran a front-page picture of him with the vital organ cut away. But has he really lost his brain? Could it be he is only a victim, or more accurately: another victim, of a department so demoralised and so fed up that he has no hope of turning it around? Maybe nobody has any hope of doing that now, not after so many years of government interference; of almost weekly changes of policy, targets, and initiatives rained down on it.

Why do I hold these reservations about our John? Well, I have difficulty in believing any man who could, despite being of the Catholic faith himself, stand up at a Westminster luncheon party and state: "If you bring in a law which says all people will be treated equally, then all people will be treated equally. I don't believe you, in this country, have the right to overrule some of the fundamental values on which the country is based because you have a conscientious objection," could possibly be a man without a brain. He made a clear, concise, and applaudable statement - something difficult to do without a brain.

Whilst John Reid exercises some common sense here (how can you possibly have an equality policy with exemptions - with inbuilt inequalities?) Tony Blair is still seeking "a way out"; a way to appease the Catholic Church. And, should he be successful, that could easily open a floodgate for many others: those who through their religion or strongly held beliefs hate the Jews, or black people, or countless others who are not of the same ilk as themselves. You can be sure such people's convictions will be just as strongly held, so how could we justify denying them their exemptions as well?

If exceptions to the law are made on the grounds of a religious or strongly held belief, then how do we deal with those who believe their God instructs them to kill their fellow man? For these people to do such a thing I suggest their convictions are far, far stronger than those of any Catholic - so do they not deserve to be exempt too? Perhaps, with their stronger held beliefs, even more so?

We need to be extremely careful, for it is plainly obvious that for us to follow this route of exemptions we will eventually find we have to legalise terrorism - as a human right! Never forget: those who wreak havoc on us today do so in the name of their God. No, exemption is a path we must not tread. We dare not. There can be no exceptions to the law based on a belief. Laws are for people - all people - beliefs are for the mind. The religious objectors should obey the law, even if they resent it. Many laws are resented by many people, but we all still have to observe them, or suffer the consequences.

Equality is a simple word. Let's keep it simple.

So if I've convinced you our Home Secretary may still have his brain, how then do I account for his failure to build more prisons? That, I think, is easily answered. With so much of our money being poured into black holes and wasted on worthless projects, there has not been the cash available to build them. We can blame Gordon Brown for that one. And when the government has been living on the spin that crime has been dramatically falling for the past ten years, how could it feasibly spend vast sums of money on a prison building programme? Less crime equals less criminals equals less room needed to house them.

As few people are sentenced to anything like ten years, and far fewer actually do the full term, then were there to be any truth to the falling crime story our prisons would, within ten years, be far from full. I do not believe crime has fallen one iota, but I will concede that it has changed. The government has fallen victim to its own spin, and the sacrificial lamb - the one holding the poison chalice at this time - is John Reid. Poor John, whose only real crime may have been being so outspoken at the time of taking office.

But never mind the cause or who is at fault, we have a serious problem when we hear our judiciary are being "reminded" that there are alternatives to sending all but the dangerous to prison. We're told plans are hurriedly being put together to acquire two prison ships and an RAF barracks in which to house some of our convicted criminals. Excuse me! Haven't we recently heard of an understaffed and disgruntled prison service being on the brink of collapse because we have too many prisoners and too few wardens? Prison ships have been tried before and found to be a disaster, and I'm guessing a defunct RAF barracks will not be exactly oozing with all the modern day security requirements.

A lot of prison officers will be needed to man both the ships and the barracks to keep them secure. How will we find and train all these extra people in such a short time? The answer is simple: I don't think we will. I'm beginning to suspect these new places will be little more than hotels for our law-breakers. Establishments like some of the open prisons we already have. Places where nobody knows who is at home and who is not at home for most of the time, and the inmates are free to do as they please with the only attraction for them to stay inside being all the mod cons and luxuries provided for them at the taxpayer's expense!

Thankfully old Dave (that's not his real name), the little elderly man at the end of my road (and that's not where he really lives), doesn't understand a lot these days. He's getting on in years. A proud man, he fought for his king and country during the second world war. He's never intentionally done anything wrong in his life. Never breaking the law, he's struggled along and now he lives quite simply. He's not rich, so it's the only way he can live. But I'm glad that he doesn't understand much now. I wouldn't know how to explain to him that today a convicted thug can be housed comfortably in a centrally heated building and may often come and go as he pleases. A building that may be equipped with a gym, a games room, and colour televisions - and now we are even hearing of play stations and game boys! - all freely provided by the state because it is his human right to be treated so.

Of course not all prisons are like this yet, there are many that are still quite horrendous, but this is the quality of life that some do-gooders are striving to achieve for our convicted felons as their human right - and I say that is wrong. Old Dave has human rights too, and whilst nobody may have denied him any of them, strangely his human rights don't entail the state freely supplying him with a place full of luxuries.

Old Dave didn't have a television for a while until someone charitably gave him their old one, his own had broken down and he couldn't afford to have it repaired, and for his heating he has a one bar electric fire that he's fearful of turning on because of the cost. He lives, mostly, in one room because it's cheaper that way. Never married, so there is no family, it took him a lifetime of hard work to pay off his mortgage on the modest house he owns. A lifetime of honestly paying his rates and taxes - high taxes too, at a single man's rate. Should he really have to give up the little he has acquired over the years to the state for a few basic comforts in his old age? If he were younger he could simply become a thug and have them all for nothing!

Why are we rewarding our criminals before adequately looking after our needy law abiding?

We live in a crazy, crazy mixed up world! It's time someone shouted: STOP! And we all got real!

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 26/01/07.

Well Darlings,

It's been an eventful week. The recommendation for the siting of the UK's first (and one and only for the foreseeable future) Super Casino was announced on the Tuesday. In the beginning Blackpool was the favourite to be winning this blessing - or curse, depending on your viewpoint - but after the John Prescott farce the odds varied considerably. First it was Blackpool thought to be in the lead and then it was Greenwich, then Blackpool, then Greenwich, and finally it looked like Blackpool again - and then we all woke up! And how!

The 180-page report by the Casino Advisory Panel pulled no punches when it came to explaining why Manchester was awarded the prize, and not Blackpool. However in essence it said no more than what many of the local inhabitants had been saying for years. The council's policy of the future depending almost solely on the Masterplan, so tightly locked in and dependent upon the Casino, was a recipe for a disaster. All serious attempts to do something else too, and all complaints about the lack of things actually being done earlier to make Blackpool the place where people would want to come, have seemingly been met by the council with an attitude of: it'll all be alright in the future - we just have to wait for the casino and all the investment that will come along with it. But now all that appears only to have been a dream. No more than wishful thinking. Of course the biggest disaster is: there was no Plan B. And whilst the public could see the danger of that, it seems the council could not.

Having no Plan B was the biggest criticism to come from the Casino Advisory Panel. Everybody comes up with a Plan B - except, it seems, Blackpool. The panel, like many of us, saw this as being nothing short of stupidity and showing a complete lack of any expertise. It smacks of our council not wishing to do much at all to help the resort themselves, but being content to simply allow it to decline further and further whilst they waited for the big boys to turn up, dragging along on the coat-tails of the casino operators and pleading to invest their money in various projects for the resort. That might have been alright were the casino to have been a certainty, but it was never that - it was always a gamble.

Projects like Storm City, there have been other ideas put forward too, have all been trying to get the council's ear and backing for years, but it seems the council has always "put them on hold" whilst it waited for the casino and those pleading investors. The irony of all this is that by now we could easily have had Storm City (or something like it) built and up and running. It would have been an important attraction for the resort - one that would already have been reflecting increased visitor numbers - and had that been the case we would probably have been awarded the casino on the grounds that we had shown a little initiative and were actually trying to do something positive about our plight, we had a plan in operation and were not simply just sitting back waiting for someone else to come along and provide us with a magic cure. There is no magic cure; there never has been one on offer - and the panel felt the need to advise the council on that point too.

The work on the sea wall, a pretty road in, the new tram lines, and even the updated shopping centre (now with much of its expansion in jeopardy) can almost be described as routine maintenance - the kind of things that all towns and cities have to undertake from time to time to keep the rot at bay. They will be appreciated by the visitor, of course, but in themselves they offer very little to entice that visitor to come here. Much more is needed. And it needs to be understood that no matter what it is that is built, and no matter how grand it is intended to be, how the visitor perceives it will to a considerable extent always depend on how they perceive the rest of the resort. That is: how clean and tidy the place is, and how safe they feel whilst wandering the streets. A diamond on a dog turd does little to enhance it.

So what now for Blackpool? Well, instead of taking the criticism on the chin, and learning from it, there are those that wish to challenge the panel's decision. Like supporters at a football match they are shouting wildly at the referee, who they are convinced needs glasses, and they are searching the small print for the slightest smell of a morsel to pursue. The general consensus is that this will be an expensive but nevertheless futile ploy. But who knows for sure? I guess it is worth pursuing in the short term, but such a pursuit should not be allowed to hinder the council looking for another way out of their troubles. No more time must be wasted on just waiting and seeing.

Could there be any worse news to come for Blackpool? Yes, I'm afraid there could be! And it looks like the "wait and see" syndrome already referred to. Our local newspaper, the Gazette, reports on: a "gutted" Steve Weaver, chief executive of Blackpool Council, saying: "We are still trying to take in the detail of the report, but one thing is for sure, we will not lie down and we will continue to fight on to bring casinos to Blackpool. We will not take no for an answer. Even if it means waiting three or four years for the next round of super casino bidding, we will be at the front of the queue again."

That statement can only suggest the council is still living in cloud-cuckoo-land, instead of buckling down to tackle the problems surrounding them! The absolute and final decision on who does actually get the casino should be made by the government within the next few weeks. If it is still Manchester then this town needs to dismiss any ideas it holds of its future depending on a casino. It will need to find something else.

We are told by the government that there will be no thoughts of other super casino licenses being granted until after they have evaluated the impact of the first one - and that has yet to be built. It could be several years before such a report is realised, and should it prove to be favourable, and there are to be more licenses issued, it may then be years after that before we arrive at the point we are today - the naming of the successful towns and cities that bid for them - and even longer before a casino of such magnitude could be built and opened. Can Blackpool afford to follow a dangling carrot for so long again? The same carrot? And still always with the prospect of yet another disappointment? I think not.

Unless the government disregard the findings of the expensive and long awaited report from the Casino Advisory Panel and in the end do not award the casino to Manchester, a most unlikely event we're told, then it will be built there - and with Manchester council's proven track record on regeneration, it will undoubtedly be hailed a success. The odds then of another super casino license being awarded next time (if there is to be a next time) to any town or city within a one hour drive of that one are pretty darn remote - and that's a fact that Blackpool needs to face up to and accept.

It's time for Blackpool to start looking for some other way to solve its problems - and this time for something which is not a dream or any easy way out that involves hope or waiting around for lengthy periods, only to be disappointed again! The council have been offered several projects to consider over the years. Instead of refuting the Casino Advisory Panel's criticisms and dismissing them as if they didn't matter, they would be wise to learn from them and to immediately start exploring in earnest the possibilities of some of those projects that might prove to be beneficial to the resort. It's time to take the brakes off and get into gear. The people have told the council what is needed. To listen to them might prove to be far more important to Blackpool, and to them, than any casino.

It is extremely harsh criticism that both I and the Casino Advisory Panel have made of the council, I know, but I suspect we are only the forerunners. Once the dust settles, and the realisation sets in of exactly where the resort stands now and that there is no easy solution to its severe problems, there will be many in Blackpool who, of the council will be thinking, if not saying: "Idiots! We told you so!" It is becoming plainly obvious that we needed a plan that didn't include the casino almost as a prerequisite. A plan that by now we would be well into pursuing, with some of the stages already completed. The casino, if it ever came along, should only have been a welcomed icing on the cake, one that would allow a few prime cherries to be picked for the top.

Very soon there will be many unhappy people, both residents and business people alike, who will be asking: "What now?" But they need to remember their council has had little recent experience of solving the "What now?" Lately I believe its expertise has, for the most part, been in the field of hoping, dreaming, and telling of better times to come - and it may still need to learn: that butters no parsnips.

No matter what colour your politics, it has to be said that Blackpool Council is made up of many good people, all with their hearts in the right place, and all of them working hard, some extremely hard, to do the best that they possibly can for the town. That has never been in dispute. Ideas may differ, but the dedication doesn't. The sad thing about it all is: recently their best has plainly not been good enough. Yes, they have been responsible for a few memorable achievements, but these are outweighed by so much. There have been far too many unforgivable failings - ones that the type of tourists we yearn for simply will not tolerate. And why should they?

Someone once said that the trick to being successful is a bit like juggling: you have to be able to keep all your balls in the air at the same time. Well, balls have been dropped in Blackpool with quite some regularity, until of late we've had just the one remaining in the air - and now someone has come along to steal that away from us! It's time to get real! It's time for Blackpool council to buy themselves a decent juggler!

There could be nothing that would delight the people of Blackpool more than to see their council with all its balls in the air at the same time! We wish them well at this time!

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 2/02/07.

Well Darlings,

Regular readers will know how often I try to ridicule political correctness in this column. That and the Nanny State are possibly the two things I hate most about today. But my first topic this week has nothing at all to do with political correctness - it's all to do with good old-fashioned bad taste, and some faggots!

Dictionaries will tell you a faggot is, apart from the culinary delight, a bundle of sticks and branches bound together, or it is an offensive term for an openly homosexual man. For the purpose of this article, forget the sticks and concentrate on the homosexual man. Faggot is one of those words like "tart" which, although in general usage it is intended to be offensive, it can be used by some people when addressing another in an endearing and humorous manner. In other words, it is perfectly okay for me to call (say) a close gay friend eyeing up some talent at the local disco: "You faggot!" or even: "You tart!" No offense would be meant, or taken.

"Where is all this going?" I hear you ask. It is going as far as Mad O'Rourkes in Tipton, West Midlands. We're told this pub restaurant sports a menu which includes meals labelled: "Wham, Bam, Thank You Lamb", and: "Henpecked Chicken Pie". Amusing, perhaps? It certainly suggests something to you about the establishment, doesn't it? But when we hear that another dish there is called: "Barrymore Pie - Faggots swimming in gravy", maybe we have learned all we need to know about the place.

Naturally there have been complaints, but the landlord, Peter Towler, maintains he will not bow to pressure by anyone offended with the naming of the dish. He is reported as saying: "These people say this is not funny but their behaviour is turning it into a joke." So if it is they who are turning it into a joke, it wasn't originally intended as a joke, albeit in bad taste, then?

This man may not like gay people. He may not like Michael Barrymore. And that's okay by me. I doubt Michael is too bothered, either. My shoulders are, like most gay people's shoulders have grown to be, broad enough to suffer him with the contempt he deserves - but what the hell has this man got against the family and loved ones of Stuart Lubbock, the young guy who died so tragically in an incident obviously referred to by the name of the dish?

Some things can never be funny. If the patrons of this eating place have any decency, I'm hoping they will boycott it until the landlord has a change of heart. How would any of them feel were it to be the death of one of their loved ones referred to so callously? And who is to say it will not be, one day? We would not tolerate a barbecued grill being referred to as the Twin Towers, a double-decker sandwich as anything to do with the terrorist bus bomb, or a meat and vegetable soup called Tsunami Surprise. So we must not tolerate this!

Mr Towler works in the hospitality trade. Maybe he needs to buy a dictionary in order to learn what the word "hospitality" actually means!

That was bad taste in the extreme, this is political correctness gone mad: Johnstown Primary School in Carmarthen, Dyfed, has banned pupils from making Mother's Day cards in case it should upset any classmates without a mother. The school head, Helen Starkey, tries to defend her actions by telling us 5% of her pupils had little or no contact with their natural mother.

Really? Well, I never knew my real mother either. She died when I was eight-months-old. But making Mother's Day cards at school was never an issue for me - I simply made them for my "Auntie". Very happily, too. Why does this woman look for problems, and seemingly wish to make them, when they don't really exist? Should someone with such an outlook on life actually be allowed to teach children? It must be debateable. Perhaps she would be better employed demonstrating outside of Marks & Spencer. I swear they were selling men's trousers with two legs the last time I was in there. Can you imagine how upset that must make all the one-legged guys?

Get a life, Helen! And when you do you will discover it is unique; there is nobody else quite like you - so don't expect everyone else, each of them with a unique life of their own too - some better off; some worse off - to adapt in order to fit in nicely with your life. We have what we are given, and we should be helpful to all those who are less fortunate than we are - but we should not be expected to dramatically change our lives or the rest of the world for them. Although we must always cater generously for the paraplegic, deaf in one ear, blind in one eye, mentally retarded, illegitimately born and orphaned son of an immigrant one parent family, a heroin addict who had AIDS, we cannot - and we must not - all try to adapt our lives to be like such a person "in case they should be offended". To be told we should, offends me!

With so much of the traditional British way of life having been flushed down the pan this past decade, perhaps those of us who are rich enough might like to import a "Pimped Out John". The creation of a US plumbing firm, Roto-Rooter, this is a luxury bathroom that comes equipped with a laptop computer, a flat-screen TV, an iPod with speakers, an Xbox, a refrigerator for drinks and snacks, and even an exercise cycle. Seemingly only lacking a musical loo-roll holder that plays "Colonel Bogey", it is the ideal place to hide for all of us who wish to escape this crazy politically correct world. A world where, to be politically correct, none of us should possess a bathroom - in case such affluence might be seen as offensive by anyone less fortunate who has to do it behind a bush!

Political Correctness, the Nanny State, and let's not forget that other little gem: Health & Safety, must surely be responsible to some degree for the nation of brain-dead zombies we are fast becoming. That, and Big Brother! I can think of no other reason to account for the 47,000 people who have visited a webcam website so they could stare at a block of cheese maturing. Watching paint dry used to be a joke, but today there are people for whom something very similar has become an attraction! For all the zombies: the address you require is http://www.cheddarvision.tv and if you go there at 10am you're in for a real treat - they turn the cheese around!

Whilst we're getting interactive on here, you may want to view the Snickers Super Bowl advertisement which was withdrawn after all the controversy it attracted threatened to turn it into a Marathon event. (Ouch!) If the link is maintained, you can visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHkoZ7ngAM0 to see if you find it politically incorrect, in bad taste, or merely humorous.

My initial reaction was that it was thoughtless of the company, but having discovered the background I've since changed my mind. The New York agency which produced the advertisement originally asked GLAAD to review it and to provide them with an analysis, but it then withdrew that request before they had a chance to see it. That being the case, I suspect they were fully aware it would be seen as provocative by some people, a homophobic element, therefore it was much more than just a little thoughtlessness, it was plain and simply wrong for them to go ahead and give it air time.

Yes, it has some humour - but humour more fitting to the age when Disney produced a similar scene between Lady and the Tramp. Times have moved on, and civilised people have come to accept that other lifestyles to the once accepted heterosexual norm do exist, and they have equal value. So today two men kissing should not be seen by the easily impressionable (children, and those following role models) as strange, or as anything that automatically demands a violent and macho reaction.

Snickers, a product of Masterfoods, itself a part of the Mars group, and the top selling chocolate bar of all time, one which we're told is primarily aimed at the 18-to-24-year-old male, and which enjoys annual global sales of around £1.1 billion, obviously had no need to court controversy in order to attract some trade. I feel it should have known, and behaved, far better! However, as it did withdraw the advertisement following complaints, I can't align myself with any of those who are calling for a complete boycott of Mars products. We are all prone to making errors of judgement. To err is human; to forgive is divine. Besides, I couldn't go through life without having my Snickers bar!

Finally, and it's not the 1st of April, did you see the story about the two scientists who have created a hi-tech material out of carrots which they claim is strong enough to be used for making warships in the future? Known as Curran, this wonder material has been developed by Dr David Hepworth and Dr Eric Whale, two inventors based in Fife who reckon it could be the green alternative to using glass and carbon fibre.

Hmm . . . I guess a warship might be safe enough, but if I lived in the countryside I wouldn't fancy having a car made out of it. What about all those rabbits?

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 10/02/07.

Well Darlings,

These days one only has to pick up a newspaper, or even catch sight of a television news bulletin, to have one's stomach churning. Three young lads, teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them - two 15-year-olds still at school and a 16-year-old - all shot dead within the same fortnight. James Andre Smartt-Ford, just sixteen, was shot and killed on February 3rd at a busy ice rink in Streatham. Then on February 6th, at his home, it was the turn of Michael Dosunmu in what is thought to be a case of mistaken identity after a lethal stabbing of a 21-year-old in a nearby street (yes, another death too!), and that was followed last Wednesday - Valentine's Day, of all days! - by the shooting of Billy Cox. That also happened at the victim's home.

Many people will be deeply hurting today. Each lad will have had a family, friends, and probably tenderly loved ones too, all of them now deprived forever of his life and his love. Three young lives taken, and impossible now for anyone else to ever come to know and to love. These boys, for they were little more than that, were the victims of a growing juvenile gang and gun culture; one that feeds off a currency of drugs and alcohol. But much more than that, they were all victims of a society we allowed to happen, or even worse - one we created!

It is a society where the young live in a different world to most of us, and where a misconstrued look, a word out of place, or as thought to be in Billy's case: a simple text argument over a mobile phone, can result in the severest of consequences. We've come a long way since the Marquis of Queensbury's rules and the blooded nose or the black eye. For some teenagers today it is more like the Wild West out there; a place where all too often it is a case of kill or be killed.

The three tragic deaths which have hit the national headlines so forcibly all occurred in London: Streatham, Peckham, and Clapham. But make no mistake about it, these tragedies are not of a culture limited only to London. It exists elsewhere too. There are many towns and cities throughout the country where a similar lifestyle may be found. It is only the three deaths happening by gunfire within such a short space of time, and the youthfulness of the victims, that has made this episode so notable. That really is its only claim to being unique.

Only recently, and local to where I write this, we had a case of youngster stabbed to death by the boyfriend of a girl who complained the lad had bad-mouthed her. Violence has become a way of life for many people lately, and not just for the young, but perhaps mostly. Those caught up in this culture put no value on another's life, and seemingly little on their own.

Over the years there have been numerous studies carried out on the youth of the day, with each one of them being ever more alarming, so we need to accept: all that we are experiencing now, we have seen coming. We were forewarned, so nobody should be surprised. Today we are suffering at the hands of the offspring of the first generation to grow up knowing no real discipline or to have learned anything about respect, values, or modes of accepted behaviour - and that offspring is even more clueless.

The police and authorities love to reassure us that not all juveniles are bad; it is only a small minority, so we should not be living in fear. And that, if taken overall, is perfectly true. The majority of youngsters, when taken as an average of the whole, are no more than mischievous at the most - kids being kids, as they always have been. There still are many families holding on to traditional values and disciplines (despite the law) and correctly raising their children, especially in rural areas where life can often be better, but that is little comfort to anyone living in an area, becoming so common now, where there is an element of young people, some not yet teenagers, who roam the streets in gangs, congregate to take, sell and buy, drugs and get drunk on cheap alcohol in an attempt to escape the reality of their pathetic lives, with the majority of them being armed with at least a knife, and with guns becoming more and more commonplace. Feral kids, I heard them called recently - it's an apt description.

It was several years ago on here that I discussed the then recent research which revealed the staggering number of children, some even of primary school age, who knew how to easily obtain a gun. The alarm bells were deafening, but what of any use was done? There were initiatives (that word again!), and pictures of people like politicians and policemen with sickly grins rearing out at us from the newspapers as we were told what a good job they were doing. An "armistice" (one of many) where people could hand firearms in without fear of reprisal was set up, and we banned the sport of shooting - much to the annoyance of our Olympic team who needed to practise. But has anything improved? Of course not!

The guns handed in came from decent people, not from criminals or the young gangs, and whilst the number was substantial we need to remember these weapons were those that were in most cases safely and securely hidden away as keepsakes. They were not guns that were in circulation in the true sense of the word, and they accounted for only a small percentage of the illegal gun market. The cache collected was of little consequence to the criminal or the misguided youthful element, but it sure made good publicity for some people.

It was not the right time to be suffering those sickly grins, nor for any kind of self-congratulation. And neither has it been when similar truces have been called for knives to be handed over. Collecting weapons does little to improve anything, especially when it comes to knives. Every household will have several knives, and probably many, that in the wrong hands are easily capable of killing someone. No, it's not the weapons that need collecting, it's those who carry them and would use them we should be collecting!

From the early days of treating children like adults, of reasoning with them rather than disciplining them, and of giving them even more and more freedoms, society has progressively declined. We have come so far along this path that today there are many young people out there who have never experienced discipline to the slightest degree - they are, quite simply, unable to comprehend rules, regulations, or expected modes of behaviour. Such things bewilder them and they become angry - and yet never once have the self-elected and unchallengeable experts, those who promoted this way of raising children, looked back over their shoulders to question whether the continuing decline in our society could possibly be accounted for by their methods.

Spare the rod and spoil the child has never been up for debate. To hold such a view is seen by these people as old-fashioned, worthy of ridicule, and makes one the object of their contempt. They tell us the kids have rights, and that they should never be smacked or even humiliated. These people are unable to differentiate between a corrective smack being administered and physical child abuse - the result of this being we fail our children.

Yes, the kids do have rights - they have the right to be raised in a manner proven to be able to make fine young men and women out of them - but when a corrective smack can have a parent up in court on an assault charge, they have little hope of having those rights exercised correctly. And so we have been forced to follow this path these people have laid down, this alien to nature's way, until we have now reached a point where they tell us extra armed police are to be employed on our streets in an attempt to deal with our out of control gun-toting hooligan element - many of them our children.

Today we live in fear of our children, so much so that there are those who are prepared to see them gunned down if necessary. Unless we change our ways soon, I predict that tomorrow we shall be hiding away in sheer terror of them. Already we are hearing of areas the police dare not go, and although the police strenuously deny that, the stories keep coming back to haunt us - most recently on Question Time last week. If we're not careful, and we don't rapidly do something about this, we could yet come to think of Al Capone as having been nothing more than a pussy cat!

Whilst there is seemingly nothing at the present time able to control some of the youngsters, and they may do as they please, breaking rules and committing horrendous crimes, the adult population is burdened further by yet another "enforcement" that no doubt we shall do little to rid ourselves of, but will obey whilst persistently moaning about it. "Enforcement" is the new in-word being used by our authoritarian state. I don't think you will find one council anywhere in the UK that does not now use this word. Once upon a time laws and local by-laws were passed, and we were told to observe them. Being the good citizens we were, mostly they were observed. But now with the laws being passed so numerous, and with many of them seeming quite unnecessary and some just plainly stupid beyond belief, we find that officialdom has to provide a means of enforcement.

Nearly £30 million is being given to councils so that they may recruit and train people - an army of snoopers - to spy on us in our pubs, restaurants, shops, and public places, and all in case someone should light up a cigarette and have a crafty drag in a no smoking area. To give you some idea of the scale, Liverpool will start off with around 200 people spying on the public, based around a hardcore of 30(ish). We're told the snoopers do not have to identify themselves when they enter a premises, and they are perfectly entitled to secretly film or photograph people in order to gather their evidence. They are empowered to issue offenders with £50 on the spot fines, and their evidence will allow the council to take court action against the owner of the premises where the offence took place. Hmm . . . By another name isn't this persecution? Harassment? How much does it differ from being subjected to gangland rule? And what message does it send out to the young? Gangs rule - okay?

Ten years ago anyone predicting such a situation could exist in this country, a country that fought two world wars for people's freedoms and quality of life, would have been laughed at and considered an imbecile. Today this is Blair's Britain, and we are suffering it. No longer are we seen as a nation of shopkeepers; today we are nation of spied on and downtrodden sufferers of an authoritarian Nanny State. A state that taxes us more than at any other time on record, and yet is one that doesn't educate us correctly, doesn't provide the health care we desperately need, and doesn't help the aged, the poor, or the young sufficiently, so that now in all these things we lag behind countries that once appeared primitive to us.

How many lives could that close on £30 million allocated to recruit more gangs of people to spy on the most spied on nation in the world have saved were it to have been spent on medicines and some of the new wonder drugs, or on keeping a ward or two open in some of the failing hospitals, or on a decent sexual education for the young, or on improving a few of our dangerous roads, or on countless other equally important things that are so desperately in need of money? We shall never know the answer to that question, but we do know that where it is being spent it will not save even one person's life, but it will be a misery to millions of people's lives.

What price a person's life? What a message! And what a Hell this country has turned into!

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 17/02/07.

Update as this goes online: More shootings in London involving youths, and some in Manchester.

Well Darlings,

I'm sure by now everyone likely to be reading this will know what a blog is, but just in case: it's a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences, their work and their hobbies. Often it is a place where a person bares their innermost thoughts and feelings, and others may learn of them. So it is with shock that we hear of the arrest and imprisonment of an Egyptian blogger for his writings.

Twenty-two-year-old Abdel Kareem Nabil, a one-time student at Egypt's Islamic Al-Azhar University, has been sentenced to three years in prison for insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, and a further year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak, after revealing his criticisms of them on-line. His conviction has been condemned by Amnesty International and other human rights groups, and has put the fear of Whoever up the rest of the Egyptian blogging fraternity.

I mention this story because I have spent the past few hours reading many blogs, forums, and feedback columns on a whole variety of issues concerning us here in this country. Overwhelmingly the thing that has hit me the most is all the hate there is out there for our government, and the way in which it is being expressed at times quite vehemently. Some, like where the topic was congestion charging, can only be described as on-line rioting, with those participating coming from all corners of the kingdom. So with all the freedoms we have lost over the past few years, and with all the added surveillance and control we now suffer, it led me to wonder just how much longer we might enjoy this freedom of expression for ourselves on the Internet, and even in our newspapers.

When I read all those postings and learn how our people feel about certain issues - subjects like our health service; the war in Iraq; the (suspected) corruption in government, both national and local; and the plight of pensioners in light of all the recent stealth taxes; with the aforementioned congestion charging undoubtedly being the most boisterous at this time - I begin to despair. We are, as a nation, so controlled now that this is one of the few ways we have left in which to express our discontent - the right to demonstrate on-line, or by writing to a newspaper.

Whilst small representations may sometimes be permitted - like the ten or so families of war victims allowed to set up camp near the entrance to Downing Street this week - no longer may people of a common cause easily unite in great numbers and march on parliament, gathering more well wishers and supporters on the way. Today to do anything remotely like that it first has to be vetted and then, if found to be suitable, "arrangements" made with the police for the route to be taken and the destination - it won't be parliament - and it may only happen on a day on which the police are free to attend, which strangely may turn out to be a day when the person you wish to see won't be there. With such controls imposed, the government can in no way truly appreciate the voice of the people.

What do I mean by that? Quite simply: if you are Tony Blair - or any politician the target of complaints - and you catch sight of a crowd being herded along side-streets in some obscure part of the capital on a television news bulletin, it will have no impact on you whatsoever. Likewise, as the nearly two million strong petition against congestion charging has shown, on-line action means absolutely nothing to a politician. An email in reply possibly written by some junior official and passed off as being from the PM suffices for dealing with the public; people thought to understand nothing, so you can tell them anything.

It is only when a solid and peaceable march of people turn up at parliament, the politician's place of work, and a small delegation from them is allowed to go forward and apprehend that person, saying: "Now look here Sonny Jim, we don't want any of this so you had better find another way!" as they personally hand over their massive petition, that they are in reality ever going to grab a politician's full attention. And that, although it may still exist on paper, is one big freedom we have as good as lost. If that is not repression of the people by the State, then what is it?

The trouble with losing rights and freedoms is it may only take a seemingly fleeting moment for a government to remove them, but it can take many years of hard work and campaigning to have them reinstated, if at all they are ever. We are not the nation we used to be: proud, free, a bastion for what is right, and a frequent supporter of the underdog. Now, as a people, we are the underdog, our government knows not right from wrong, and we believe it blatantly lies to us. Worse than that: we now seem to have very few freedoms left we may employ in the hope of rectifying that situation.

Much is made of "The Ballot Box", as if it is some Sangraal that as long as we have it everything is all right; we are a free and democratic nation. But that is not so clear-cut as it sounds. Yes, we may by a majority - and even that's not true by our present electoral methods - elect another set of politicians, but that will not necessarily mean any of the rights and freedoms we have lost will be reinstated. No power will automatically return to the people following an election. Did the election of Labour reinstate the powers lost by the unions under Margaret Thatcher? It did not, for rarely do new governments roll back to a previous time. They continue on and they use in their way what it is they inherit.

The next government, whatever colour it is, will inherit the self-given right and ability seized by the present one to govern as a democratically elected dictatorship of a near police state. With such power bestowed on you, and knowing how politicians work, if you were to become the next PM how eager would you be to relinquish all that power? It isn't likely to happen, is it? The damage has been done; the severity of it not yet fully appreciated. I fear there may be far darker times still to come, and where once we used to joke about: "come the revolution", we may one day in the distant future really need to see one if ever we are to return to being the type of nation we were once proud to be. Yes, they may be strong words, but the truth is hostage to nothing, least of all weak words.

We study all the proposals made by the political parties, and we elect our governments giving them a mandate to govern according to tradition and the proposals they put forth. It sounds foolproof, doesn't it? What could possibly go wrong? Well, when there are no penalties that can be applied to the elected politicians should a government fail to adhere to those simple rules, everything can go wrong!

I am making a pretty safe bet that there were very few electors who wanted our pension funds raided, or had the truth not been manipulated for the country to go to war on Iraq, or for vital documents concerning the information we had on that country to be "sexed up" in order to support one man's crusade and to bolster his ego, or for all the restrictions and losses of freedoms we now suffer as a result of that, or for all the spin that we are subjected to which conceals the truths we need to know, or for the government to ignore the findings of our High Courts in regard to the occupational pensions (and other cases), or for powers to be granted so that local authorities may charge us twice for providing the same service (refuse removal, and now our motorised use of the roads), or for the plans that we shall have to pay for some routine operations carried out under our National Health Service (it's already in the pipeline - don't abuse those hip joints, folks!), or for so many other unwanted things that have been, and still are being, imposed on us, no mention of which was made before the government was elected.

When I see a few things like that collected together in one paragraph, it brings home to me just how impotent we as a nation have become. You may now have paused to wonder: what on Earth can we do about it all? The answer is: very little now; we are a castrated people. Remembering an extremely crude joke from my childhood days, and I apologise for it, I feel we are no more than the bugs balancing precariously on a floating turd, and we are singing: "If the log rolls over we shall die, die, die! If the log rolls over we shall die!" Sing heartily, my friends, for it is truly our only hope!

As we have now sunk to such a level, we may as well stay with it. With all the troubles we are shouldering over here, it is refreshing to look across to Norway where the country is engrossed and in debate on something as serious as: should little boys stand up or sit down to pee.

No, it's true I promise you. I am not taking the proverbial. It all started with the boys of Dvergsnes School in Kristiansand being told by the school principal that they must sit on the toilet when they need to do what most men stand up to do. The principal claims little boys are not very good with their aim, and the ruling is only to ensure the toilet stays a pleasant place. Nevertheless, the Democrats Party is having none of it. They accuse the school of "fiddling with God's work," and their party leader is reported as saying: "It is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl."

Ah, yes! Those human rights again! Stand up for them, lads! One should never take the proverbial lying down - or in any other position!

And perhaps that is something we should all remember!

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 23/02/07.

Well Darlings,

Thank you to all those who pointed out the anti-war rally last week was a perfect example of the way in which we have almost lost our protest marches and demonstrations. Highly orchestrated, kept away from parliament, next to no coverage in the media despite having some notable speakers (and that IS worrying), and dismissed by the Metropolitan Police as consisting of only a few thousand people (at one point they claimed just 1,000 to 2,000) despite organisers putting the figure between 60,000 and 100,000. As a tool to end war, I suspect Lorenzo's butterfly flapping its wings somewhere has had more of an effect. It will be interesting to see just how the Met justify the enormous cost of all the policing based on their belittling count.

Changing the subject: Home Office figures recently obtained by the Daily Telegraph show that the number of teenagers murdered or unlawfully killed in England and Wales has all but doubled in the last 10 years, from 35 in 1997-8 to 69 in 2005-6. A large proportion of those deaths were at the hands of another young person. And all this comes after ten years of our government supposedly being tough on crime. Tough on the rest of us, more like! But then, if they can't teach our youngsters something as simple as the three "R"s, what hope have they in explaining how to cope with all the complexities of life?

I'm convinced a lot of our violent troubles stem from a poor education, which results in anger. Unable to fully understand the ways of life, unaccepted because of their ignorance, and with no hierarchy pre-formed by any real academic or sporting competition and achievement, the kids vent their anger and resort to physically trying to attain some position within the dregs of the society they are left to inhabit. It is only once we understand their needs and supply them - a decent education and some discipline - that they will fully understand our needs, and act accordingly. They are the trouble; we are the cause.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the Chief Constable of Merseyside Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, said that not only should the teenagers who are involved in gun crime be excluded from their communities, there would be times when the whole family should be removed as well. It makes sense to me. But what did not make sense in his article was where he said that he did not believe gun crime in Britain had reached crisis proportions. I have to wonder: what does this man call a crisis?

A survey by the Teacher Support Network shows that half of teachers have been physically abused by pupils. Of those: 53% had an object thrown at them, 26% were attacked with pieces of furniture or equipment, 2% with a knife, and 1% with a gun.

All figures are approximate, but near enough: we have 430,000 teachers, and when we add the teaching assistants, administrative staff, technicians and other support staff which amount to another 239,000 it makes a total of 669,000 that are open to this kind of attack. So half of those is 334,500 and working on those 2% and 1% figures, isn't that 6,190 threats with a knife and 3,345 with a gun? Around 10,000 serious cases in all - and with a third of them involving a firearm?

And that's not a crisis?

Let's not play things down by prettying-up the figures and talking in percentages here - 10,000 serious incidents where kids have threatened their teachers needs facing up to and dealing with! These kids will not just be threatening their teachers, will they? Their violence is likely to be manifesting itself throughout all areas of society, not just in the schools.

And what of our schools today? It's not good news there either. Latest figures reveal teenage boys fell further behind girls in reading and writing last year, and hundreds of schools once again failed to meet the minimum government targets. Well, whilst I appreciate boys have always had difficulty understanding even the simplest of words - like "No!" for an example - the news we hear gets far worse than that: sixteen out of twenty-one (that's three-quarters) of Tony Blair's privately sponsored flagship city academies failed to make the grade in English, maths and science - three essential subjects. The school league tables show that, four years on, these academies which were created to address the failing comprehensive schools are still lagging far behind them.

Teachers' leaders are demanding the government review the policy which they claim is simply not working. The general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Steve Sinnott, is reported as saying: "Once again, the government's claims for the success of its academies programme are not borne out by the facts. (I guess he's referring to all the government spin here. In layman's terms: porkies!) These schools sit in isolation and don't enjoy the support that could be provided by their local authority or other schools in the area. The government must rethink this extraordinarily expensive experiment."

At around £25 million each to build, these academies are without a doubt extraordinarily expensive - especially as they are not producing the expected results! But guess what? It appears our government ministers aren't daunted one bit, and they will be continuing to waste our money on them. They are determined to establish 200 academies by 2010 - at an estimated cost of some £5 billion - and already have plans to further expand that to 400 later on.

Now, I'm wondering just who needs to go to school here! When the solution to a problem cannot be found by adopting one method, it is customary to employ a different method to seek it out. So why don't they? Have they run out of ideas? Yes, I guess they have. And that at least may come as a relief for some in the teaching profession!

Education, education, education. It hasn't happened in the schools, so now the focus moves over to the motorist to see if the government may have more luck there. According to the Audit Commission in a report entitled: Changing Lanes, better education is required in order to reduce the 3,000 fatalities and the 267,000 injuries annually occurring on our roads. The report claims that the UK's roads are among the safest in the world, and then strangely it goes on to tell us a child pedestrian is three times more likely to die here than in France, and twice as likely to die here as in Italy.

Hmm . . . It's that "among" isn't it? If we were to be near the bottom of the league, by being in the same list we would still be among the safest. It's a spin-friendly word, is "among". It immediately gives the reader an impression that may be far removed from the actual truth. I would rather know the truth: whether we were fifth, twenty-fifth, or even ninety-ninth rather than to be fed such misinformation. Perhaps a little education, education, education wouldn't go amiss in some government departments when it comes to making out a report! But then we couldn't have that, could we? Us plebs must never be told the truth. Unlike politicians and civil servants, we are so stupid we would never understand it.

It can only be because I am so stupid that I believe, come hell or high water, the government is determined to fleece the motorist in the name of "congestion", very loosely linked to a "green" policy. We can expect more restrictions, more cameras, and a great deal more taxation.

In a pretence to be "listening" to the objections of the 1.8 million people recently signing an "e-petition" on the proposed congestion charging, the government have moved the goal posts - and it's likely to cost the motorist even more money. The latest idea from the stink tank - sorry, the think tank - is to divide the whole of Britain up into "zones", rather than just charge for our congested town and city centres. A town or city centre would become zone 1, the area just outside that would be known as zone 2, the suburbs would be zone 3, and right outside the town or city, in all the rural areas, it would be zone 4. All the zones would be priced accordingly.

So putting it in a nutshell: rather than paying one fixed rate for a congested area, motorists would be charged by the mile - anywhere - and instead of a satellite positioning device placed in their cars, motorists would need to have a different gadget installed which would record how many miles the car had covered, whilst an army of cameras throughout the country would identify which zone the car was in at any given time.

Clever, isn't it? What the people don't want the sat-nav to do, the cameras will be doing anyway. The spies may not always know exactly where a car is - that is exactly which house it is parked outside - but when it comes to being in a town or city they will know within a few streets. And just think of all the extra information that Big Brother will be able to gather about us and our habits with all those cameras covering all those areas - they will quite literally have to be everywhere, street after street, to avoid "rat-runs" in, out, and around the different zones.

Just imagine what Khrushchev and the KGB could have done with the people who thought this one up!

Incidentally, you might appreciate this quotation attributed to Nikita Khrushchev: "When you are skinning your customers, you should leave some skin on to heal, so that you can skin them again." And there's an even more poignant one: "He who cannot eat horsemeat need not do so. Let him eat pork. But he who cannot eat pork, let him eat horsemeat. It's simply a question of taste."

Hmm . . . What do you want, folks? Congestion charging, or countywide zoning? It's simply a question of taste.

To finish on some better news, I have another one of my "Granny was right" stories - and when you consider the amount of life-threatening things you can catch in a hospital these days, it is very good news. An international team of researchers have "discovered" that preventing the spread of disease in a hospital may be as simple as opening the windows. Ah, the marvels of modern research! Where would we be without it?

Modern "negative pressure" rooms employing an expensive pumping system to change the air, like those found in hospitals and office blocks, do not change the air fast enough, not even in hospital high risk areas where they can only manage the recommended 12 air changes an hour. Opening windows and doors will provide at least 28 air changes an hour, more than twice that of a mechanical system - and it's enough to prevent diseases easily spreading. The old-fashioned type of rooms with high ceilings and large windows provide the safest environment.

Up there, Granny will be so pleased. Telling us it was healthy, she would frequently open all the windows to "air the house" - not that she needed to with the amount of draughts entering under the doors and around the windows being sufficient enough to wind-tunnel test an aircraft. But yes, once again we find history has taught us a lesson - we just needed the modern researchers to "discover" it!

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 2/03/07.

Well Darlings,

The biggest news for me this week was the passing of one of Britain's greatest comedians, John Inman, aged 71 years. John died of a hepatitis A related illness at 4 am on Thursday 4th March at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. A Lancashire lad, born local to here - above his father's barber shop in Preston - his first steps onto the boards were in the play "Freda" on Blackpool's South Pier a year after the family relocated to the resort. It was a performance for which, at the tender age of thirteen, he earned the princely sum of £5. It was also the beginning of a life-long romance with the town. John loved Blackpool, and it loved him too.

Always a treasured member of our "Kings of Camp" section of this AstaBGay website, John Inman is irreplaceable. And they are not only the feelings of this gay website for a fellow gay man, they are the feelings of the whole world. By not long after tea-time on the day of his death nineteen pages of tributes, coming from all over the world, were appearing on the BBC website, and the number continued to grow. It was just one of many websites carrying condolences, memories, and tributes to the man whose "I'm free!" has been voted the greatest catchphrase of all time. All that love, all that affection, was heartening to see - with so many of the people sending their condolences to his devastated life-partner, Ron Lynch.

Like Larry Grayson, John suffered for a while at the hands of a few misguided gay people, mostly in the eighties. They objected to his stereotypical performance of a gay man, and they complained it was detrimental to their fight for equality. But how wrong they were! And on all counts! Mr Wilberforce Clayborne Humphries was so near to the real John Inman, it mattered not - and the public absolutely adored him. He, like Larry Grayson, did more to further the gay cause than these people will ever know - and it was all done without protest or demonstration. It was done by the love for the man, and with that love came the acceptance of what he was in sexual terms.

John Inman 1935 - 2007. A good man, a great comic, one of clean humour that came with just right amount of risqué - the double entendre - and also a charitable man who at his peak had 22 million of us eating out his hands and begging for more. A sad and great loss, and yet another bit of Britain that has gone but for the recordings which we shall cherish for countless decades to come. At this time our thoughts too are with Ron.

Moving on, I have found a story that perhaps deserves more publicity than it has received. As it involves the Tesco supermarket chain, I shall relate it here - for "every little helps", doesn't it?

It all started in November 2003 when a certain Mr Bond from Swindon visited a Tesco filling station and filled his Mercedes van with diesel. Shortly afterwards the van's engine started playing up, and he returned there to ask them if there was a fault with their fuel. They assured him there was nothing at all wrong with their diesel, but on his journey north to Scotland Mr Bond passed several pumps covered over because of "a technical problem". Fearing the worst, Mr Bond took his van to a Mercedes garage where they discovered water in the engine.

Subsequently Tesco admitted liability, but said it was only prepared to pay 25% of the cost of the repair to the engine. Mr Bond was not at all happy with this and, after several unsuccessful attempts to resolve the matter, he asked Withy King Solicitors to sue Tesco for the remaining 75% of the repair bill.

The court case that resulted on December 6th last year found in Mr Bond's favour, and Tesco were ordered to pay the man £2,690 by December 12th. This, we're told, they failed to do, but instead they did set a revised payment deadline - one which passed without any payment forthcoming. Fed up with being messed around with, Mr Bond complained to the High Court enforcement officers who duly proceeded to the nearest Tesco store (in Gloucester) and seized £60,000 of alcohol which, unless Tesco pay up, will be auctioned off to recoup the amount owing.

It's a heart-warming David and Goliath story, and one which may yet produce a windfall of cheap booze for some people in the Gloucester area. We are constantly hearing stories of how the supermarkets ride roughshod over their suppliers, and at times even over the general public, so anything that goes towards putting these giants in their place is to be applauded. Some of them appear to have grown far too big for their boots - boots that we have bought for them.

£2,690 can be of little relevance to the supermarket chain, but it is probably quite a substantial sum to Mr Bond, so why did Tesco not immediately do the honourable thing and pay up once it was ordered to do so by the court? Does Tesco believe it is a law unto itself?

Tesco may be fast falling out of favour. Trading standards officers are said to be currently investigating Tesco. The company stands accused of confusing shoppers with its half-price promotion on fruit. On top of that it has just been forced to take out pages of advertising in several major newspapers to apologise to its customers for the more recent fault with its fuel, one which has affected many hundreds of motorists. It seems Tesco MAY be promising to pay repair costs for any cars damaged by its petrol, but in the light of Mr Bond's story I have to wonder if it actually will? And if it does so will that be all of the cost, or just a small percentage?

The statement issued by Tesco is reported as being: "We'd like to say how sorry we are. More to the point, we'd like to promise to pay for the repairs." Er . . . "We'd LIKE to . . ."? That's a bit ambiguous, isn't it? They would LIKE to say how sorry they were, and they would LIKE to promise to pay for repairs? Well then, why don't they ACTUALLY apologise and promise to pay, if they'd like to? After all: every little helps!

As some of us moan whilst trying to find the money to pay our council tax, a tax which on average is expected to rise by 4.2% this year and although that may be the second lowest hike since 1994-5 it is still way above the consumer price index inflation rate of just 2.7%, perhaps we should stop to consider where some of this money is going. The Taxpayers' Alliance claim it is being used to pay "fat cat" officials earning in excess of £100,000, and courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act the pressure group seem to have the figures to back them up.

Last year the number of local authority officials whose pay packets topped £100,000 rose by a staggering 35%. The top ten earners, with some of them being paid well over £200,000, received more money than we paid our Prime Minister. His salary was £186,429. We're told the total wage bill for the 230 councils across the UK that were checked in order to produce this data increased from £53 million in 2004-5 to £72 million in 2005-6.

Now, when you actually stop and digest those facts, do you, like me, begin to feel positively sick? Can you name one person on your council, or on any council, who is worth paying more than the Prime Minister? I can't, and my heart goes out to all the poor pensioners, the many thousands of them, who at the same time have had to decide whether to sacrifice keeping warm or to go without eating so that they could pay their council tax. Proud to be British? Not any more!

And whilst some of our councils' wage bills are spiralling out of control, are they becoming any better for it? Perhaps more compassionate? Listening more to people's needs? Well, I can tell you they don't appear to be doing so in Fylde!

A story today tells us council officials have threatened to prosecute a Blackpool pensioner, Arthur Bulmer aged 79 years, should he return the sand that blew into his garden during a recent storm to the beach from which it originated. Some of the roads and footpaths in St Anne's became covered in tons of sand, in places up to 20ft deep, following the storm, and Arthur who lives opposite the beach in St Anne's, Lancashire, received his share of it. However if he is found guilty of returning the sand to whence it came, he faces a fine of up to £50,000 or he could even go to jail.

Fylde borough council are reported as saying: "The council has no responsibility to clear sand from private land, the owner must do this. However, dumping anything from your garden on to the beach constitutes fly-tipping."

Tell me, please, and quite honestly, what worth would you put on the council person who came up with this in these circumstances? What would you pay them? To my mind we don't have a coin of a low enough denomination! They should be kicked out of office, put in stocks, and have that sand thrown in their face. It is time that we who pay these people demanded some common sense from them. To threaten a pensioner, a man of 79 years, with all that force of officialdom is despicable. The council stands ashamed!

It seems to be an unfortunate fact that common sense is only ever employed by common people. Once a person becomes elevated to office they tend to leave common sense behind them. For some it is a time for them to attempt to take on the role of Draco.

Perhaps they should read up on how Draco met his end!

Plato had a lot to say about politics:
“No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.”;
"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.";
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.”;
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

And I wouldn't argue against any of them!

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 9/03/07.

Well Darlings,

For all its faults, its hackers, porn merchants, and spam targeting, there is an inner beauty to the Internet. It is that whatever anybody tells you, it is now so easy to check it out for yourself in a matter of moments. Of course, this has put an end to any hope of doing one's dirty washing in private - but is that such a bad thing?

"Where's the old biddy taking us this week?" I hear you say. "Firstly we are going to Stanley Park, my nature lovers," I tell you, "but do stay with me, we will move on eventually. I have my soapbox under my arm, and we are about to undertake quite a journey. You are permitted to make a coffee. There! Aren't I kind?"

Described as the Jewel in Blackpool's crown, Stanley Park is an area of outstanding beauty. It covers some 256 acres which boast such charms as bowling greens, crazy golf, pitch and putt, a children’s playground, a boating lake, tennis courts, and a whole lot more, along with enough snack bars and cafés to keep the visitor happy. A simple Google search will take you to many websites where an abundance of pictures promote this wonderful parkland, and where too a full history may be gathered in order to familiarise you with the subject at hand. But for the purpose of this article, it is not necessary for you to do all that; it is suffice for you to just believe me: Stanley Park is a remarkably beautiful place.

It is a place that, along with the rest of Blackpool, has not received the care and upkeep that it deserved. "Neglect" is a word often bandied around when talking about Blackpool, so when the park was recently awarded a multi-million pound sum for rejuvenation by the Heritage Lottery Fund there were a lot of happy people. We're told the money is to be used to restore the park to its former glory, and - within reason for we don't want to lose any of the more modern additions - that sounds a laudable proposition. Friends of Stanley Park, a commendable group of caring and enthusiastic volunteers, tell us: "By promoting its features, encouraging greater use of its facilities and restoring its buildings, pathways, walls and gardens, the problems of security and vandalism should be brought under control. Plans also include a clean-up of the lake involving a complete drainage program, and refurbishment of the park's entire drainage system. Other projects aim to attract and encourage all sectors of the community and promote a general overall awareness of and concern for the park."

And you would think, with all that going on, everything would be hunky-dory in Bunnysville, wouldn't you? Er . . . You would, wouldn't you? Well, apparently it is not, according to some people. Over the past months there have been complaints by local people, and regular visitors, concerning the way in which the work is being carried out. These are people who already have that sought after: "general overall awareness of and concern for the park." They tell us that projects are started, some work is done, and then they are left unfinished. The result being that many parts of the park look an utter disgrace. It is a strange complaint, coming mostly from local people: I've usually found that way of working to be quite normal for anything undertaken by our local authority, so what were these people expecting here? A miracle?

No, I have every faith that at some point it will all come together, and it will once again look splendid enough - or is that just my wishful thinking coming to the forefront? Personally, I find any mess incurred when undertaking a restoration project to be an inevitable evil. It is something we just have to live with and accept. It is forgivable. But what I do find totally unacceptable here amongst all this park renovation, and it is something that is the subject of many other people's complaints too, is the felling of six healthy, mature trees. That is unforgivable.

The local paper here, the Gazette, reports on Mark Scrivens, head of park and green environment, saying: "This restoration project is designed to protect the long term sustainability of the park which has meant some trees have had to be removed to allow others to flourish. Originally this area was designed to have fantastic views across the entire lake but due to conifers being planted in the 1950s these views have gone which is great shame. In the coming weeks we are planting over 200 trees."

It is not an excuse. There can never be any excuse to fell a non-commercially grown tree unless it should be diseased, or is likely to be a danger to people or property. It is not a subject that is even open for debate - and certainly not for purely cosmetic reasons. Whatever the criteria, these trees should have stayed and been worked around. They were as much the heritage of this park, a part and parcel of it, as the flower borders that once preceded them. If anyone was unable to see the view across the lake, they simply needed to adjust their position and it was there. It was no big deal.

Mark Scrivens has trotted out some easily recognisable local authority spiel in an attempt to excuse this deplorable act of vandalism, and I see that too as being deplorable. An apology would have served far better. Whenever I see the words: "long term sustainability", I know it is time to shield my eyes from all the wool that is about to be pulled over them!

Whilst it is commendable that there will be 200 new trees planted, whatever number is planted in the end we will always know there should have been six trees more in Stanley Park; six magnificent ones. Nature has never needed man's intervention to sustain an area of outstanding beauty - it has always managed well enough on its own. The scenery may change somewhat over a period of time, that is inevitable, but it will always remain beautiful. The only task required of man is to keep it tidy and to maintain the necessary facilities.

This is a sad story, you may be thinking, but does it really warrant all this coverage? Sweethearts, if you bought a house and nearby, or even in your own garden, stood a tree which you would like to have cut down simply in order to cosmetically enhance the view according to your taste - you just try and obtain the necessary planning permission to fell it! Not a hope! Not unless you are somebody of importance. You will be told trees are precious to the planet, and they may not be felled on a whim. This is another case of one law for the people; another for those in authority. And that increasingly is the state of the nation we live in today! It is also, in this particular case, yet another own goal scored by a council which, by no stretch of anyone's imagination, could ever be described as being flavour of the month. Lately, this month or of any other month!

For the life of me I cannot see why, but time after time the local authority here in Blackpool appears to do the diametrically opposite to what the responsible people of the town require of it. It has become their forte. There is hardly a day that passes without at least someone, and often it is many people, writing in to our local paper with some complaint or another about the council's actions. I have to say, for I swear it is the truth, I have never known a council so apparently or wilfully - which one I know not - out of touch with its people and their needs than this one - and, believe me, being quite long in the tooth I've been around the block more than a few times!

I suspect it can only be because of our "transient" population (and sadly for many of these people that is another way of putting: those who have come here to claim benefits and to doss around because it is so easy for them to do that here) that the council feel their positions remain reasonably secure come an election. Such people won't vote out those that suffer them. Were that not so, the council would undoubtedly be committing political suicide with so many of its policies. It is not totally inconceivable that by now the town may have reached the point, through the sheer numbers of such people combined with the council's own hard and fast no-matter-what stalwarts, where a major change to local government here may no longer be a simple task. It might easily require something like a massive turnout by the electorate in order to achieve it, and unfortunately few local elections enjoy anything like a big turnout these days. Those who fear for Blackpool's future may find no salvation in the coming elections.

Many of you reading this may be wondering why there should be such a fear for Blackpool's future - and that will only be through another beauty of the Internet: the worldwide audience one can attract employing this media, often measured in incredible numbers the likes for which many an owner of paper media would sacrifice their right arm. So for those not au fait with the resort's problems, you will need to know that Blackpool, along with all other UK seaside resorts, began to suffer from falling numbers of visitors as the public's choice of holiday changed with the advent of the now extremely popular foreign package holiday.

Over the years some of the smaller but once popular resorts have declined into insignificance when one talks about them in relation to tourist numbers. Many of these have now accepted that change, cleared away their decaying venues, attractions, and abandoned streets, and taken on a whole new, but completely different, life. They can be pleasant places to visit, places still with a lot of history to enjoy, but with little else to entice anyone to go there. Then there are other resorts, places like Brighton which, although it too suffered dreadfully, refused to sit back and do nothing. Today, having reinvented itself, Brighton - I should really say: Brighton & Hove Actually! (it's a joke!) - continues to go from strength to strength. Even if you forget about everything else the resort has to offer these days, Brighton Marina alone (and it's not just about boats - it has everything to satisfy most people's needs whatever the weather) now attracts over 8 million visits annually.

Blackpool, once being by far the largest and most popular seaside resort in Britain with visitors in excess of 20 million annually, although noticing the decline in visitor numbers was not, initially, too adversely affected. To lose half-a-million visitors a year (or whatever number it was then) from such a vast amount made no great impact. But today, with visitor numbers said to have fallen as low as 7 million annually by some, and just a few million more by others (it all depends on who you choose to believe), to lose anything like that number of visitors each year is mighty serious - in fact it is life-threatening to this resort that has done nothing of any notable significance to reinvent itself during its long and slow period of decline.

But sadly Blackpool's troubles do not end there. In a desperate attempt to survive this continuing downturn in fortune, it is unfortunate that many of the resort's venues and accommodations turned towards attracting what some today call the Stag & Hen element, and others, sometimes more accurately: the yob factor - so much so that today we have become a mecca for them. They've always been coming here, of course, but once only in far fewer numbers and as a minority group hardly noticeable amongst the multitudes of families. However there is already a growing acceptance by the indigenous population that if Blackpool is ever to become anything more than the Booze & Sex seaside capital of Britain, at this late arrived at stage of looking for a way in which to reinvent itself, it will first need to find a way of addressing the problem these people have become for the resort. There is a growing feeling they come here to bury Caesar, not to Praise him.

One of the noticeable and beneficial things to happen to this resort over the past few decades has been the growth of the gay scene here. Today it is substantial, and just like it does everywhere else, it comes with little or no downside. With few commitments, most gay people have one hell of a lot of disposable income - and that can only be good for Blackpool. Left to themselves they rarely cause any trouble. They are a peaceable lot, and on those rare occasions when trouble does occur in a gay venue it can usually be traced to an infiltration of the straight yob culture. Unlike the yob culture that regularly trashes the town, gay people have never been a financial burden to the local taxpayer. So perhaps it is unfortunate that in the future, because of the changes to the laws on equality, it may be harder for their venues, and some of their accommodations, to exclude those who may be a threat to their gay fun-loving but peaceful lifestyle. Equality sometimes comes at a price. I hope in this case it is affordable.

However, no matter how large the gay scene may grow here, it quite obviously could never support a place the size of Blackpool. It will always be, by the very definition of gay, a minority. All the people know this: the residents, the hoteliers, and the business men and women of all callings imaginable who operate here. They know that for Blackpool to survive it has to attract the everyday Joe and Jill Blogs and their family to come here. Those whose parents, by their coming here in their millions, were once the very lifeblood of this resort. Everybody seems to appreciate this, and in an effort to entice these people here they have dropped their prices dramatically, whilst updating their shops, venues, and hotels considerably - with many of them going into debt in the process. These people know exactly what is needed, many have invested heavily in Blackpool, and they have even spoken out as a force in the local paper which thoughtfully provided a questionnaire so that those in authority should know what both the locals and the visitors alike required of the town - and it seems the council have all but totally ignored them, paying little more than lip service to their needs.

I shall not list everything that was called for - there was nothing unreasonable - but I will merely mention a few where it is thought the council are failing us miserably: properly cleaning and maintaining the streets - we also have blocked drains that stink and cause flooding, some of them needing attention for more than 5 years now, and that is disgraceful; maintaining a visible police presence, especially in tourist areas; providing law and order to an acceptable standard - and removing the beggars, alcoholics, the yob element, and druggies from the town - we need no more spin and photo shoots of "initiatives", the authorities should just get on and do this job; employing a parking policy that will attract visitors, not deter them - this means providing better car parks, much cheaper parking, and with far fewer restrictions and penalties; carrying out full and thorough investigations into the many proposals that might benefit the resort, but which fall outside the tunnel vision of the council that has staked so much of our future on winning the mega-casino licence - and this includes the people's choice: Storm City, the plan B the council never had, but the people wanted as soon as they saw it.

Storm City, a multi-levelled, multi-themed, monolithic, mostly all under glass venture, and any other similar proposals which offer the visitor undercover entertainment with facilities that don't have to include the constant jangling of slot machines likely to cost a family a small fortune, but will provide some pleasant respite from the elements at a reasonable cost should the tourist's holiday weather not be favourable - and perhaps cost nothing at all if only having a look-see - will do more to bring visitors to Blackpool than a dozen casinos ever could hope to do.

The mega-casino will do little for Blackpool other than bring some investment; some money for the council's coffers. Yes, the money is desperately needed - and quite frankly that is the only upside to the argument, one which has many accompanying downsides - but what then once the money has been spent and the casino fails, as many believe it is very likely to? One casino does not make a Las Vegas. The people it really requires to make it into a profitable venture will not come here for just one casino, nor will they tolerate a lot of what Blackpool suffers from - they don't have to - so it will need to find a way of surviving on what we have, and that may not be possible once the novelty has worn off if we don't have places like Storm City as an attraction.

The council have continuously put Storm City, and other projects, on "the back burner" as they have pursued their tunnel vision. Despite pressure from the locals they have refused to employ a "go get it" strategy and have consistently looked for reasons to avoid following through. A standard email back - only yesterday - to some hoteliers and business people following them writing to a councillor to stress how they felt in favour of Storm City and asking him what was progressing in that area, was pitiful to read. Containing very little relevant information, it was nothing more than political nonsense where the council looked for praise for what little was already being undertaken in Blackpool. They still have no "go get it" in them, and to me seem happy enough sitting around waiting for something "on a plate" to turn up. I doubt it will.

Even at this late stage the council have not grasped the fact that paid for by grants pretty sea walls, attractive roads in, disco lights in a night time yob-infested area, and replacement tramlines will do nothing to entice the visitor to come here - although doubtless if we can get them here they will appreciate the improvements - it will be what is to be expected of a resort, but that is all. It is not even in the slightest way at all an answer to our problem - getting the people to come here. I've not heard of one person saying they would not come here again simply because the road in was ugly, the seawall didn't jut out into the sea, they needed disco lighting in the streets, or that the tramlines were bumpy. But I have heard of them refusing to come again because of the many shortfalls mentioned above - the dirt, the yobs, and the draconian parking policy etc - and the fact that there is nowhere to go and little to do on a wet day other than sit in a hotel room. Try doing that with a young family!

Storm City would immediately solve this latter problem, and if the council got its finger out and looked into ways of making it feasible where they alone still have their doubts, then if they really meant business it could be up and running in little more than 2 years. We're told those behind Storm City have built similar, and successful, projects in other parts of the world - so I can see no reason why they should not be similarly successful in Blackpool. There is everything to gain by trying it, and very little left now to lose.

Blackpool needs Storm City far more than it needs a casino; the casino will need Storm City far more than it will need Blackpool; but perhaps more importantly: both of them will need and depend on Blackpool cleaning up its act - and that task is solely down to the council. I'm sorry to have to report that, judging by what I encountered on the streets Friday morning, they don't appear to have even made a start on it yet!

Blackpool's future lies in people, and in providing the right places for them to safely go; not in gambling palaces and pipe-dreams. It also lies in the council listening to the people of Blackpool and acting in accordance with their wishes.

For years now, successive councils have not been able to slow down, let alone halt, Blackpool's continuing and agonising decline. A decline that will one day soon take it to its final oblivion. The Pleasure Beach, the theatres, in fact most places are struggling to survive, desperately trying to hold on until something happens that will save them, but still there is nothing more than the faint hope of a change of heart by the government over the siting of the casino visible on the horizon. Nothing of any real value at all that might save them. And that is a fact that needs to be faced.

Consider Blackpool the year following the Pleasure Beach finding it was unable to continue operating. Unless something is done to stem the annual haemorrhaging being suffered here, that day will at some unknown future time arrive. It is inevitable. Only a matter of time. The council's tunnel vision must be discarded immediately and, casino or no casino, every avenue must be explored in an effort to save this resort - including listening to the people. Perhaps, after all, they really do know best!

Over the years many resorts have fallen by the wayside; but some have found a way to bounce back up, and they have achieved that without the help of a mega-casino, so it is not an impossible feat. It can be done!

Readers in Beijing still with me following this marathon may be excused because of the distance. All others who are somewhat closer, you will need to get your **** into gear and visit Blackpool before it has finally gone. Today it is still a marvellous place - there really is nowhere quite like it - and you wouldn't want to miss it! Tomorrow? Tomorrow is a big worry for us - so do come soon!

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 17/03/07.