A period of deep gloom and bottomless dubitation

An opening address from our soon-to-be-former premier ministre. For those of you who don’t speak French, Monsieur Blair is announcing that as a last ditch attempt to stop Gordon Brown from taking over, the UK is to be incorporated into the French state forthwith, and that speaking French with a terrible, terrible accent will be mandatory from 28 June. I’m sure at one point he says ‘France and England are the same height.’

Here's a good bit of small print, in case you were in any doubt about copying their advert and racing your car once you've bought M&S insurance:


Next time your train home’s delayed after a long day of run-rate analysis, why not simply let the red mist descend and run riot? Alternatively, you could buy a bottle of Diet Coke and a small bottle of rum at the station, mix them together as you run to catch the train, then drink the lot by the time the train leaves the station, as I saw one of my fellow straphangers do at Waterloo the other night.

Dull property related item – the UK government has fallen out with the entire property industry about something called a ‘Home Information Pack’, which becomes compulsory shortly (after the customary 10 minute public consultation period), despite the fact that they are demonstrably pointless. Despite the endless drivel spouted by government agencies about how great they are, HIPs will really only achieve 3 things:

• It will make moving house £300 more expensive, without actually doing anything useful


• It will result in the seller receiving a patronising report about spending £30,000 on better insulation in order to make savings of £50 per year on fuel bills, and


• It will earn 6,000 freshly-minted, government-mandated (and therefore Labour-voting) Home Inspectors, £48,000 a year (or more than twice the UK average salary) for coming into your house and taking a cursory glance at your windows

For an excellent, surgical destruction of the pointless Yvette Cooper’s windy posturing, take a look at the profession’s view. But then what would the mere property professionals know, eh?

Our Paramount Leader Ken’s pointless posters are back, this time patronisingly telling us to walk for all journeys of 2km or less. Check out the hilarious transcript of the radio ad.

Strange how it doesn’t mention walking in dog turds and chewing gum, getting elbowed by joggers, yelled at by pavement cyclists, knocked down by Chelsea tractor drivers SMSing their nannies whilst shouting at their loathsome children, being intimidated by 12 year old children playing crap tinny rap music on their mobile phones, torrential rain (no umbrella, hole in shoe, all over splashing from heartless bus driver ploughing through a puddle), abused by drunks, hassled by petition wielders, charity direct debiters, Big Issue vendors and free paper distributors, oh, and the fact that on average, Londoners travel more than 10km to work each day, making the entire campaign a waste of time. Still, unsolicited advice from an organ of the state is always welcome.

Burning question of the day – are you a dispositionalist or a situationalist?

With more than 70 million competitors, here are five ways not to describe your blog if you ever want anyone to read it:
1. “General ramblings about stuff”
2. “Musings about my life”
3. “A series of rants about anything”
4. “Writing and stuff”
5. “Random thoughts, posted when I feel like it”

Finally, will you ever get rich? I am apparently heading (glacially slowly) towards ‘High Net Worth’. Apparently I’m missing the ‘X’ factor, though.

Enough random musings about my life and stuff. See you tomorrow.