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14th December 2007
Climate change is the biggest threat facing the human race
in the next 100 years. Unless you live in the USA, in which case there is no need
to panic at all. America is notorious for being, on the whole, a God loving country. Only last week,
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was forced to make a speech
regarding his Mormonism. Ironically, President Bush has never been forced to
make a speech regarding his moronism. Whilst it’s seemingly OK for your
president to struggle with the English language and sidestep global agreements,
he can’t be seen to be involved with one of these ‘crazy sideshow religions’.
Given this, you’d think that a nation that has such an affinity for God may
wonder why the Good Lord keeps ramming Hurricanes up their ass with monotonous
regularity. Global warming? That can’t be us. That must be the fault of the
dirty Chinese and Indians with their new-fangled industrialisation programmes.
What do you mean we’re the worst emitters of CO2? Bah, piss off or we’ll bomb
you.
You can see how Americans could be easily confused.
Historically, a problem for the USA has a foolproof solution: kill that problem.
Except for Vietnam.
Which doesn’t count. And anyhow, cinematic history (renowned for being more
accurate than actual history) has taught us that if Rambo had been real he’d
have killed all the Vietnamese baddies. Twice. Whilst looking troubled and
forlorn. Compare that with Schwarzenegger who could happily take down a
medium-sized village and come up trumps with a witty catchphrase. Directly
between those polar opposites is Segal: looking troubled but slipping the
occasional dry gag in for good measure. Segal is a complex being: he always has
the look of a guy struggling to take a dump, but still quite enjoying it. Erm,
where were we? Ah yes, global warming. The problem for the USA is that the
response requires something other than military action. If climate change could
countered by the following actions, the USA would be at the forefront:
a) Keeping various greenhouse gases without trial, all
chained together and in orange boiler suits.
b) Sending ‘peacekeeping’ envoys to the Arctic and telling
the polar bears to stop this melting malarkey or they’ll nuke ‘em back to the
ice age, and they don’t mean that kids cartoon with the mammoth and the sloth
and stuff.
c) Sending Bruce Willis into space with some sort of space
aged cling-film to repair the ozone-layer before dying heroically and
expensively.
But it would be unfair to tar all Americans with the same
dim witted, warmongering brush. Al Gore was quick to distance himself from
American failure on the environmental front. "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for
obstructing progress in Bali" said Mr
Gore, whilst rubbing his crotch and basking in the glow of self-righteousness.
He continued: “"Over the next two years the United States is going to be
somewhere it is not now. You must anticipate that" – the translation of
which appears to be along the lines of ‘Once numnuts is gone, we might get
someone a little less trigger happy who could actually outwit a rubber
chicken’. The real problem is that it
doesn’t matter what the little people like us do if the people with the power
would rather play Connect 4 than consider Carbon emissions per capita. You may well diligently rinse out your Fray
Bentos pie tins for recycling, lag you loft and risk death by cycling but it
seems somewhat insignificant when the USA is pumping out 2,530 million
tonnes of CO2 per year through power stations alone. So this week in Bali the
UN climate summit talks have stalled somewhat as the US and Canada don’t want to set targets for emission cuts. The EU is looking for a 25-40% cut
by 2020. The US is looking for a 0% cut and invading somewhere warm and oily. Canada is looking for the toilet, and whatever
the US wants. The reasoning behind the US stance of doing bot-all is rarely fully examined, but it seems to incorporate
the twin arguments of ‘la-la-la, its not happening, la-la-la’ and ‘oooooh,
costly. We’ve got tanks to build as well you know’. So for the moment it’s a
stalemate. Or to put it in language that the US president might understand, all
the balls for Hungry-Hungry Hippo are under the settee…
Elsewhere this week, Fabio Capello seems set to become England’s
newest footballing saviour. Interestingly, the word ‘saviour’ comes from the
Italian word saviorani, which means
overpaid buffoon. ‘But he should have been English’ was the cry from, amongst
others, Paul Ince and Tony Adams. Ah yes, because selecting a third-rate
manager from the dismal choice on offer last time worked so well. And which
Englishmen were in the running this time? Erm, none. The only name linked
casually with the vacancy was Harry Redknapp, and given his recent trip to the
cop shop his stock is about as low as Northern Rock’s. Also, it would be a bit
like having Del Boy in charge of the national team. ‘Rooney, you plonker…’
And finally, make a note BoF lovers, because next week is a
bumper one. With the imminent arrival of
issue 3 of The Bat O’ Fury (issues
1 and 2 still available for the uninitiated) we’ll be presenting the First
Annual BoF Awards. So log on every day next week for a look back on 2007 and to
find out who the winners (and more importantly the losers) are…
11th December 2007
NHS
managers get a bad press. The stereotype of the be-suited, target
obsessed, career whore who pointlessly sucks the life out of doctors and nurses
doing real work is one that is regularly perpetuated by our press and media.
And this negative image needs redressing. By the Journal of NHS Management Whoring and not us. We’re with the
tabloids. Being managers they are by definition a nasty haemorrhoid on
the anus of Beelzebub. Being NHS managers they are a nasty haemorrhoid on
the anus of Beelzebub that annoys a doctor. And their latest efficiency,
patient focused change positive initiative has been annoying not just the
medical professionals. The decision to reduce many two-person ambulance
crews to a more target friendly one person system has angered writers at BBC
1's Casualty. The medical soap
opera now has to face the prospect no more burgeoning paramedic buddy
partnerships to pad out series 207. The ‘will they won't they’ intrigue
and emotional end of series knifings are now a distant and inefficient memory.
Along with scenes of one paramedic driving a patient to hospital while another
saves his life.
It’s this ‘dead patient’ aspect of the new initiative that worries ambulance
unions and doctors. From 10th April next year three quarters of serious
emergencies will have to be reached within 8 minutes. Or the first born
of ambulance crews will be shot. No doubt this 8 minute figure will have
been expertly decided upon with months of dedicated research. And not doodled
on a flip chart by a biscuit stuffing, coffee guzzling manager eager to prove
his/her importance. And as with all targets, achieving it is at the
probable expense of competency and effectiveness. Fleets of
‘solo-response’ cars are being ordered by NHS trusts, because single staffed
vehicles can reach the scenes of accidents more quickly. Aside from “solo
response" sounding like a euphemism for masturbation, paramedics face the
additional indignity of their commandeered solo responder being replaced by an
Emergency Care Assistant. Hoorah! It’s everybody’s favourite
professional replacer, the cut price assistant! No need to pay a teacher,
we’ve got 400 Classroom Assistants for the same price! Police? Pah,
give me a Community Support Officer any time. Except drowning time, as
they won’t jump in to save me, but never mind. Just look that those
efficiency stats.
Regarding the criticism, Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said the new system would
“save lives and improve patient experience”. Yeah, gimme some of that NHS
experience. Should I find myself mangled in a car wreak I’ll certainly be
disappointed if the paramedic first on the scene fails to provide a puppet
show, some fire eating and a little juggling along with the morphine and leg
splints. Bradshaw went on to say that “fast-response vehicles can often
get to the scene faster than traditional ambulances, and can provide assessment
and care until a further response arrives to take the corpses away.” More
cynical, and accurate, ambulance men and woman have commented that a 7 minute
arrival plus dead patient is counted as a success, while an 8 and a half minute
arrival plus a live human is a failure. It seems speed is of the essence,
regardless of superficial concerns like life or death. And if that is the
case, why not dispense with the façade of life saving altogether? Let’s
have all our paramedics on bikes, nipping though congested town centres giving
a croggy to a lifeless corpse. High fiving crews, jubilant at hitting
that response target, can forget about the inconvenience of ferrying the
wounded and seriously injured to hospital and just tip them into a nearby
hedge. In fact, the BoF suggests replacing ambulances with rapid response
hearses that mow down the sick and ailing and then take them straight down to
the morgue.
But the most serious issue for ambulance men and women here is if crews are
going to be single staffed who on earth is going to get the tea and doughnuts
in while the other is sat behind the wheel reading The Daily Mirror? Yes, solo-responders will save time and
yes, those all important targets may be met, but how many lives will these
short sighted managers be putting at risk as the new soloists try to drive
around while reading Dear Miriam and
doing the quick crossword? As long as it’s done in under 8 minutes, of
course, everything will be just fine.
7th December 2007
Boris Johnson once made some very ill-advised comments about
the city of Liverpool and its residents. He claimed that the city wallowed in victim status and there
was disproportionate grief for certain events. Whilst it does sometimes appear
that Liverpool has an unfortunate monopoly on
tragedy, it has been another area of the country that’s bagged all the top
stories recently. Usually the North-East news bulletin is headlined with
stories about pensioners driving mobility scooters inconsiderately, some kind
of pigeon fancying tragedy or, if you’re very lucky, some investigative
reporting on the standard of local public conveniences. However, over the
course of the last month the North-East news has gone national baby, and they love
it. First of all it was the North-East institution* Northern Rock going pear
shaped, then 25 million personal records being ‘misplaced’ by HMRC numpties in
Washington, then a Tyneside businessman giving money to the government via
dodgy means, and now a dead man from Hartlepool turns up alive and well in
London. Via South America. There must be
North-East newsroom managers walking round with permanent erections (or the
female equivalent)…
This latest case is an intriguing one. Whilst one can
empathise with anyone wanting to escape Seaton Carew by any means necessary,
faking one’s own death seems to be taking it to the extreme. Missing for 5
years before surfacing in a London police station, it’s easy to see where John Darwin made his fatal mistake. His
canoe was found shortly after his disappearance as it was fitted with one of
those special microchips that make inanimate objects head for Hartlepool.
Had Mr Darwin kept his wits about him, he would have hung onto his canoe and
simply claimed that 5 years was good going when paddling the challenging
Hartlepool-to-London-via-Panama route.
The fact that Mrs Darwin headed off to Panama some
time after his death does add a little romance to the story. Sure, it’s
commonplace for residents of the Teesside to head off to Panama in their
retirement years. In fact you can hardly move out there for them, so much so
that Panama has become
affectionately known as ‘The Hartlepool of the Americas’. Hence, no suspicion was raised when Mrs
Darwin headed off to a non-extradition country with her ‘dead’ husband’s
insurance money.
But something still doesn’t make sense. If Mr and Mrs Darwin
really had pulled of a scam that made the makers of Weekend At Bernie’s look like mere amateurs, why would they give up
their sandy beaches, umbrella drinks and dirty, naked freaks? Surely Mr Darwin
didn’t wake up one day and think ‘Hmm, Panama is OK, but I remember Seaton
Carew with its miles of broad golden sands and safe sheltered bathing is still
the perfect venue for a traditional family day out at the seaside. I could enjoy good flat beaches to fly kites
and build castles, rock pools to hunt shrimps and the amusement arcades that
flicker and sing…’ Perhaps, during a drunken game of double-dare with Mrs
Darwin, she’d jokingly suggested he fake his own death ‘for a laugh’. Or maybe
he was just in Seaton Carew the whole time and nobody noticed - who knows?
Elsewhere this week we’ve got the hype before ‘Undefeated:
Hatton vs. Mayweather’. It is amusing to see them assign monikers to specific
matches. I like to think the trend continues in backstreet boxing clubs where
they present events like ‘Crippled’, ‘Crestfallen’ and ‘Washed-up’. All credit
to Hatton though; the man is a legitimate phenomenon. And he gets to live the
dream. C’mon, how many of us would love to repeatedly punch an arrogant
American in the face and call it sport.
And let’s take a moment to reflect on a Christopher Biggins’
victory on the TV show I’m a Celebrity.
It is heart-warming to see that as a nation we’ve come a long way in a few
decades. On outwardly gay man capturing the nation’s heart in the way that the
charming and funny Biggins did would have been unthinkable 50 years ago.
Although, there is always the possibility that some people didn’t realise he
was homosexual. ‘But how?’ we hear you cry. ‘He’s so obviously gay!’ Ah yes,
but people are blinkered and ignorant. As a triumphant Biggins emerged from the
jungle last week to embrace his partner there could well have been some 5
million people all exclaiming in unison ‘Fookin’ hell he’s kissing a man!’
* The term ‘North-East
institution’ is the property of Mr R. Branson
4th
December 2007
When animals are in the news these days it's generally stories of a
"terrapin firework launch anger" or "squashed badger
horror" variety. So it was heartening this week to see some good
news for the animal kingdom. Chimpanzees, apparently, can kick some
serious human ass when it comes to memory. In an experiment at Kyoto University researchers found young chimps outperformed university students in a variety of
memory tests. "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn
you all to hell!" said one disgruntled participant as Cheeta the Chimp
again aced the ‘guess the number game’ and demanded another cup of Tetley Tea.
But let’s not start heralding the arrival of Dr. Zaius and his all conquering
simian minions just yet. Those students might have been from the Universityof Teesside. An earlier study
revealed alumni of the Athens of the North were outperformed by sheep, pigeons and a ham sandwich. Nevertheless,
it is timely to have a few arrogant assumptions about the human race shaken up
a little. As our insatiable need to watch Emmerdale on a TV the size of a
lorry, eat mangoes in December using a white rhino tusk as a fork and fly to
Magaluf twice a week devours the natural world, thousand of species are wiped
out. And some of these departed creatures, sacrificed on the alter of
pointless consumerist mulch, may just be cleverer than us, integral to
discovering the cure for cancer, (if it were particularly clever) or
revolutionizing transportation with a cactus powered car, for example. And
even if they couldn’t be mined for human gain like everything else on earth, is
the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat any less deserving of life than the population
of Netto’s booze section on a Saturday afternoon?
But most importantly this study shows working out number sequences isn't all
that impressive, thus denting the one-upmanship based tedium of those twats at
Mensa who revel in shite like that because they haven’t got any friends*.
Next time you’re at a celebrity cocktail party and Carol Vorderman, after one
gin too many, starts on about having an IQ of 4000 you can now reply “yeah,
well so does my monkey and he can throw shit at your head”. Unless, of
course, Carol can do that too.
*BoF – IQ of 60. The bastards
The study raises a further interesting prospect though. "During the
experiment, each subject was presented with various numerals from one to nine
on a touch screen monitor. The numbers were then replaced with blank squares
and the test subject had to remember which number appeared in which location,
then touch the appropriate square." I do what now? Sorry, I
was thinking about how I’d survive should I jump out of plane without a
parachute but with springs on my feet. Dull, tedious and pointless tasks
make little impression on the creative mind, but with a few bananas thrown in
our knuckle dragging cousins love staring at screens and aimlessly moving
numbers about for no reason. So get them into local government
immediately.
Or else put them in charge of speed cameras. Figures released this week
revealed those yellow babies raked in £115.2 million in 2005. That’s a
whole load of moolah to stare at and buy bananas with. Naturally,
displeasure was expressed by motoring groups, the Conservatives and fat men
driving white vans shaking their fist while speaking on a mobile phone and
eating a pasty. Motorists are just a cash cow! It’s not about road
safety! Get out my fucking way! they raged. Vince Yearley, spokesman for
the Institute of Advanced Motorists (surely a rival for
Mensa’s crown as ‘most smug institute for dullards’*), said: "We believe
it should be about compliance rather than capture. Help people drive at the
speed limit.” Yes, help those poor, confused people who see houses and
street lights and think ‘mmm 50’s about right’. Yep, cameras are a cash
cow, often deviously placed to catch people out. Yep, Traffic Police
would be more useful in preventing dangerous driving. But there is one way to
stop the cameras making so much money, you know. Have a think what it
could be. The monkey’s already worked it out.
*Driving test failed 3 times. The
bastards
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