I had the car MOT’d today. Now, I don’t drive that much. I rarely go long distances by road and furthermore I’m a reasonably careful driver, at least inasmuch as I try to miss the massive potholes that have opened up on Scotland’s roads. In fact one of these days I’m expecting the police to pull me over and breathalyse me because I wind my way around the worst of them.
Despite this dodgem driving, I had to have two new front springs fitted to the car earlier this year, and when I got to the garage this afternoon, I found that yet again a spring had gone, this time on the rear.
Co-incidentally I got my notification for renewal of road tax which I note has jumped another tenner this year, just like it did last year.
I can understand that the City Council has a big job on, particularly in light of the terrible winter of snow that has just passed, and that additionally they are not getting as much money from Edinburgh as they need to repair roads... and I understand that that is because the Westminster government hasn’t given the Scottish government as much money as it needs to run the country effectively.
But what hacks me off is that, as the roads worsen, Westminster is coining another tenner from millions of motorists and not spending it on the roads.
Britain’s roads are a laughing stock. They are totally inadequate for the needs of the country, and getting worse, and of course because the train network is lamentable, the roads are used even more by the haulage industry, rendering them even more laughable.
In the meantime Westminster keeps the money rolling in from increased taxes on motorists.
(Increases which, it seems, they keep quiet about.)
I wonder what they do with the extra money...
...Oh yeah, silly me, there are MPs’ expenses to be paid, and 80% of the lords are on the fiddle too, according to one of their number, then there’s Chunky and Goofie York to be kept safe and secure when they fall out of nightclubs drunk or on Caribbean beaches. OK. As long as I know what they do with it.
Best brace ourselves for another rise next year too then.
Pictured: The Ugly Sisters. A beached whale and a drunk slapper... but expensive ones!
It’s a disgrace...our roads currently have more akin to the surface of the moon. No doubt there will now be less small change from England returned to Scotland as the Tories mad policy of cutting police will doubtless have to be quietly ditched in light of the English riots and with the Olympics coming.
ReplyDeleteAren’t Chunky and Goofy truly dreadful, they’re not even eye candy just two hideous, stupid frumps!
Aye, Munguin, old Tessy's cutting police numbers policy looks like it's going to be U-turn number...ohhhhh 127 maybe?
ReplyDeleteAnd Hugh Ord made her look incredibly stupid and self important yesterday in his reply to her assertion that SHE had ordered police leave to be cancelled.
The police had done that themselves, he said. She didn't have the authority to do it.
Likewise, Ord, who was on the Cobra committee, has said that it was an irrelevance that one by one the politico's were dragged home from their expensive foreign holidays to "take charge".*
It changed nothing, he said. Well...seriously, waht would Cameron know about policing riots?
And now Humpty Dumpty, the Pickled Egg, has got involved. The Secretary of State covering English Communities (giggle, cough) said that there was no doubt who was in charge, and that it was his beloved prime minister.
However, as the Telegraph reports today, Cameron's efforts to interfere with sentencing have come unstuck. Many people have walked free with little or no punishment.
* When they told us all that we should support the British Tourist Industry by holidaying in the cold and rain, in the UK, it was disingenuous of Cameron not to point out at the time that that didn't apply to cabinet members who were entitled to a bit of sunshine (and on their salaries and expenses, why not).
What was it Old Etonian Waldergrave said (yes, he's still alive and still the incompetent foot-in-mouth drongo he was all these years ago, just fatter and greyer)? Something about not wanting more of the poor to be able to fly away on holiday from northern airports...
Oh, and yes, the Ugly Sisters are neither functional nor decorative...just expensive... outrageously expensive.
Actually Munguin - the surface of the Moon is quite smooth to drive on. A lot better than our roads - Up there just now towing a red London double decker bus that was found up here back to London. See you when we get back.
ReplyDeleteBilly
What's wrong with you guys? I would - after a few pints and if their mummy was busy!
ReplyDeleteNice work if you can get it, Billy... At least you're away from our weather.
ReplyDeleteYes maybe you would Brownlie, but some of us have taste.
ReplyDeleteWish I was Tris - Even my cats are cheesed off with the weather as they can't get out and are just lying about bored.
ReplyDeleteAt least I can do things to keep busy unlike them.
Billy
tris,
ReplyDeleteMy taste is very refined and, as a bonus, their dad could take me round the world, all expenses paid, playing golf in his little helicopter!
PS: I did not mean playing golf in a helicopter. Ochone, ochone, this English language is so ambiguous!
ReplyDeleteAye Billy, the cat in the flat downstairs from me hasn't been out for days... Good for the local mouse and bird population though. Every cloud....
ReplyDeleteErm yeah, of course it is, John. I mean there's that blonde bimbo you fancy, what's her name Cathie Jamieson, and then there's the Sisters Grim!
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed with your taste.
As for playing gold with randy, bagging all the freebies and mixing with the erm...elite... hmmm, I'd rather go down the pub myself.
Oh, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the Duke of Pork (I actually typed the Puke of Dork there... Freudian?) has a practice putting hole in the back of his private helicopter.
These things come easy when the tax payer is forking out.
Oh, and yes, English is the very devil of a language. Lot's of rules, but all of them have so many exceptions, it's almost an impossibility to learn.
ReplyDeleteI'm not mistaken Gaelic is your first language (so we'll cut you some slack about helicopters...)
How lovely, though, to speak and understand Gaelic. I wish I could, but rather like English, it's a bit irregular for a book learner to pick up... I think, unless you are very clever, you'd have to live in an area, an ever greater area these days, where it is native.
How sad that you seek to use their physical appearances to score cheap political points.
ReplyDeleteAh that old myth. I volunteer for Cat Protection and can assure you that cats catch hardly any birds or mice. If stray cats do not get fed by some considerate people then they do not survive long. I have picked up cats to far gone to be saved and plenty that have had to be nursed back to health.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest killers of birds are other birds such as Crows and Magpies. Mice are easier for cats to catch but they are not everywhere, mostly in rural areas. Farms and places in Towns etc where there are infestations of mice are glad of cats.
Billy
Dean:P They're not cheap political points. The fact is that they are wastes of spaces. They do nothing for us, no royal duties at all, but must be clothed and housed at our expense.
ReplyDeleteIt may be ungallant to criticise their looks, but aren't these people only to happy to be complimented on the way they look. Don't they spend hundreds of thousands on clothes, getting all dolled up for weddings and social events? And doesn't cavorting about beaches in the Bahamas looking like a beached mountain, let the Queen down badly. Not to mention coming out of nightclubs looking as if they are on the outside of a bottle of gin!
No, they are ours bought and paid, and I'm not a believer in political correctness.
Well, I bow to your greater knowledge Billy, but I would ahve to say that since the people downstairs got a cat, I've piked up 4 or 5 young birds lying on the lawn, and given them a decent burial. He brought me a bird one day... and other time he was sick and brought one up.. and then a mouse that was living on in the garden, and for whom I'd built some shelter, appeared dead on the lawn.
ReplyDeleteI realise that there's an element of natural behaviour in it, but it really upsets me to see something killed for nothing. If he were hungry I wouldn't mind at all. But he gets the best of food.
I do know though that starlings seem to kill each other regularly, fighting over food.
Freddy my own cat, the other two are CP cats with me till they die, I have had for 4 years and in all that time she has brought in 6 birds. The last couple have been in the last month and they were young as well. The problem here, and maybe where you are, is that if all the space are taken up in the high places, buildings, trees etc some birds are left having to build their nests on the ground, in the long grass etc, and that is where she managed to get them.
ReplyDeleteI like birds as well and don't like seeing them killed, that is why my cats have bells on them to warn the birds but in the wild most of the young birds, like all animals don't survive and that includes cats.
A couple of our volunteers work in the recycling centre in Linwood and feed the feral cats there. The cats and their kittens live amongst the stuff in for recycling and the grabbers pick up the stuff, such as timber, and put it in the shredders and the guys get upset a lot of the time because they can hear the screams of cats and kittens going in as well.
There are thousands of cats and dogs getting put down every week because no one wants them anymore - That is people for you - supposed nation of animal lovers - what a laugh!
Billy
That's put a downer on the day.
ReplyDeleteI'm one of these guys who saves moths and bees and even wasps from drowning in our water butt, even risking getting stung (to which I have a terrible allergic reaction) by blowing on them to dry them off...
I remember one hot day a few years ago spending most of the afternoon moving tadpoles from a drying puddle to a much larger one while out walking in the country.
We're both animal fans then, Billy.