Ceridwenscauldron

Isn't this business about Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross getting a bit out of hand.

Yes they were cruel and I'm not condoning what they did but for the Prime Minister to take it up, c'mon Boredom Grown surely the pitiful state of the economy after those greedy bastards in the banks had finished lining their pockets or the war in Congo are just a bit more important than a pair of overgrown schoolboys.

And as for Call Me Dave, we know the Tory game here, they still havn't forgive the BBC for impartial reporting throughout the Thatcher/Major years.

I see that Muslim artist Sarah Maple has upset certain sections of the Muslem community with some of her artworks that are presently on display at the SaLon Gallery (their poncy use of upper case) in Notting Hill.

The Muslim Association of Britain has demanded that SaLon remove Maple’s paintings.

Vice-president Mokhtar Badri, said “Although we condemn violence, Muslims have a right to express their disgust at this work,an artist has the right to free speech and to express him or herself, but people also have the right to protest.”

Yes Mr Badri that is right, you have the right to protest, but not the right to prevent people from seeing Maple's work, that is the artist's right to free speech. If you are offended by the work just keep out of the gallery and don't look at it, its that simple.

Saw a picture of Sarah Palin spoting a pair of jeans in the paper this morning and I thought she looked a bit of alright. I guess this is after the revelation about how much dosh has been spent on her wardrobe and hair. Blimey how much is a red suit at Primark and a visit to Specsavers?

I also thought she must be quite a good sport to go head to head with her impersonator on Saturday Night Live.

Of course this new look and sense of humour does not stop her from being a mad, pro gun, anti evolution, anti choice nutter who hates polar bears who has given her kids stupid names. I mean has she any idea what a living hell growing up imn Britain with the name Bristol would have been for a girl.

What was even more scary was seeing some Americans give reasons for supporting McCain over Obama on Channel 4 News. It seems Obama's views on a woman's right to choose and guns control don't appeal to some voters. How come having a gun is OK, but not a woman's right to decide what she does with her own body?

I really don't understand why people in the world's leading economy can't get the idea that if guns were harder to come by then perhaps less of them would end up getting shot. OK I can live with people who want a rifle for hunting or protection from bears in the wilds of Alaska, but it seems you can buy anything from a pistol to a heavy machine gun in an armorers, why?

In case you are wondering I'd like Obama to win, but I have a creepping suspicion that its not all over yet. Obama's biggest liability is voter apathy, people who think he has it in the bag and don't bother, McCain and Palin will motivate the gun totin, bible bashing nutters. Don't let them win.

Lots of stories in the news about how the government and local authorities are going to spend lots of cash on capital projects in an effort to stimulate the economy. Things like the much needed Crossrail and the Thames Tideway Tunnel are getting part of a £400 million cake from Boris for example.

Now why is it that it's only when we are in recession that cash gets pumped into things like improving our public transport infrastructure, when during the the time that the economy was actually growing it was left to decay? Could there be any votes in it per chance.

Call me cynical but I wonder if the overspend from the 2012 Olympics will find itself swallowed up in this kind of project. Well if it does maybe its not a bad price to pay for a 21st century public transport system.

Mind you I couln't help notice another news story today stating that spending the way out of the present problems with a public works programme won't work.

This is from a group of senior economists that include Trevor Williams of Lloyds TSB! I guess he must be of the opinion that government money is better spent on bailing out the banks who got their fingers burnt handing out dodgy loans. Wonder who I could be thinking of?

"What would you like for breakfast?" I ask Mab

"I'd like some tuna, mixed with onion and salad cream grilled under cheese"

OK says I and down to the galley I wiz.

One can of tuna drained and scooped into a bowl with half of a finely chopped onion and a good dollop of salad cream all mixed together. (Ideally I'd have used a red onion, but made do with a white one)

One onion bagel sawn in half goes into the toaster. When it pops out pile a load of the fishy mixture onto the lower half and give it a good twist of black pepper. Then pile some grated cheddar on top and bung under the grill til it melts.

And there was enough filling for three people.

If there is one thing that gets me mad it's companies who tell you something is one price then add extras to the bill like booking fees and credit card charges when you get to the check out.

This particular nasty takes the bloody biscuit.

Booked four tickets on Ryanair's website and sfter carefully picking my way through all the little traps that you have to deselect to get back to the original quoted price get to the checkout and its £6 to use a credit or debit card, but not for the transaction, oh no its on each ticket, but not just each ticket its each leg of the journey, so a whacking great extra £32 to pay for four return tickets using a card, like how else can you pay for them?

At least Easyjet only rip you for a one off £1.75 for the whole transaction, shame they don't operate the same route. Mind you you have to be very careful using Easyjet's website now as they have laid a couple of traps to ensnare you into buying travel insurance that as a canny traveller with an annual policy, you probably don't need.

Its a shame that the budget airlines choose to be so devious about this, some people might even suggest that the practice smacks of dishonesty.

I read with alarm that the Iranians have arrested a pair of pigeons for spying at the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz

Apparently the birds were wearing blue coated metal rings with invisible strings. this isn't the first time Iranian security has been infiltrated by agents from the animal kingdom, last year Iranian intelligence officers arrested 14 squirrels who were carrying the "spy gear of foreign agencies".

According to the Iranian State News agency the animals "were stopped before they could act"

Whether the pigeons were subjected to a security grilling is unknown but they are very tasty with a stuffing of dried apricot and pistaccio nuts.

Braving the blustery winds and raging storms after a hard day roaming the Seven Seas in search of plunder the Bosun and I put in at Mr Sainsbury's for some vitals.

"Avast behind Cook" says Gravy

"No need to be personal" I replied

"No lookie here there be three beef escalopes for a measly 90p"

"Argh the wonders of reducedtoclearman's magic pricing pistol are a wonder to behold. Quick stash that away in your ditty bag and lets be off"

So stocked up with cheap meat, veg and grog we scarpered into the jolly boat and were away before the excise men and the troopers could be on us.

This only took about ten minutes to cook and fed three of us.

Into a pan goes some oil followed, once the oil is nice and hot, by four chopped garlic cloves, four chopped finger chilis, about an inch of fresh ginger well chopped, one chopped onion and a punnet of mushrooms finely sliced.

Add two teaspoons of Chinese Five Spice, the two teaspoons of Sambal paste that were left in the fridge and a splash of light soy sauce to help draw the liquor out of the mushrooms. Give it a good stir and then add the finely sliced beef and a pack of okra also finely sliced. As it sizzles away add a slurp of Chinese black vinigar and serve up on a bed of rice while watching last week's episode of Heroes.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Bishop Thomas Muthee, a man who when praying with Sarah Palin promissed to protect her from witches, turned out to be a bit of a fibber.

Turns out the self syled Bishop's claim to have banished a witch called Mama Jane from his home town of Kiambu in Kenya was a bit of a porky. Far from being responsible for causing crime, traffic accidents and public drunkeness it turns out that Mama Jane is in fact Jane Njenga a pastor with a rival church in Kiambu and she is staying put.

Palin has credited praying with Muthee as helping her win the governership of Alaska.

Curiosity satisfied, but what a swizz, they taste just like regular bananas only smaller and more expensive, with red skins.

I don't often plug stuff here but as consummers we have a choice over which suppliers we buy stuff from and I'm fed up with companies that lump hidden extras on the final price like credit card charges or booking and postage fees.

So if you are planning a trip on a National Express train try their website, I was pretty pleased as not only were their fares cheaper than the Trainline's, but once you see the price on screen its fixed. They don't then rip you off for using cards, posting the tickets to you or printing them out at a station ticket machine (that dodge of the Trainline really does take the piss).

Lets see how long they keep it up.

I know I have posted something like this before, but thought it worth putting up again with a tasty new twist

Right we are now in the middle of game season so there is quite a bit of it about in the supermarkets at the moment and very tasty it is too. UMMMM pheasant, partridge, wild duck, wood pigeon and venison heaven.

Mab came back from the shops yesterday with a pair of pheasants, fully plucked and oven ready in lovely little bacon waistcoats. So I thought lets do them on a bed of root veg. Into the roasting pan went some chunks of carrot, parsnip and red onion and for a bit of sweetness and extra colour I chopped up some raw beetroot and chucked it in a random. Then some fresh rosemary and thyme and a drizzle of olive oil. birds on the top and in the oven they went at about 180 degrees for around an hour.

With the birds we had some roast spuds dressed with more fresh rosemary and thyme, red cabbage boiled with a hint of sherry vinegar and shamefully a shop bought Yorkshire pud, washed down with some Rose Cava and a good slug of Sloe Gin.

Musical accompaniment was provided by messrs Hawkwind, Motorhead, Alice Cooper, Iron Maiden, the Beatles, the Cramps, the Clash, the Doors, Black Sabbath, David Lee Roth, Dr Feelgood, Guns and Roses, Kate Bush, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Iggy and the Stooges, Janis Joplin, Wilie Nelson, Jimmy Hendrix, Jethro Tull and Link Wray

Saw in the paper that Royal Bank of Scotland flew 100 staff in from 11 countries for a party at the swanky Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. Apparently they had an all night bar and a scrummy looking menu (although being hotel food it was probably over ambitious as well as over priced).

RBS spin doctors said "This was an entirely appropriate working event" little wonder they are going down the pan then is it?

Mind you this kind of corporate jolly, that often goes under the banner of team building, is not restricted to the banking sector.

The sad thing is that, despite the totally mad amounts of money wasted on these events, a large proportion of the people who go don't even want to be there.

The average person actually resents being made to spend time on pointless team building exercises, just how practical is to build rafts out of office furniture or to roleplay completely bogus situations with some company stooge? Or being bored shitless by presentations where no one remambers anything other than being told they have all done really well but will have to work harder and smarter in the future.

Then there is the horror that is the social side, being forced to spend time with people you often hold in utter contempt while having to be polite to the bastards. If you are really unlucky you may even get a motivational talk from a micro celeb who rows a boat a bit fast, runs around a bit or something else that the management think will motivate you.

Frequently people are lent on to attend these pointless piles of corporate wank, have to give up their own free time to be there and the company expects them to be grateful. Listen up folks save yourselves the cash we won't fucking miss any of it!

The only people laughing are the management consultants who con companies into thinking this nonsense is a good idea and the corporate travel parasites who line their pockets at the shareholders or, in the case of the public sector, you and me, the poor old taxpayer's expense.

Well to be fair up till 5.15pm the meat belonged to Mr Sainsbury, but I was well happy to discover a bloody great big lump of brisket (almost a kilogram!) marked down from £5.80 to £1.50 while we were pillaging his emporium yesterday.

Needless to say Bosun Gravy had the jolly boat waiting by the quayside, so tucking the briskett under my arm I was down the gangplank and we were away before Mr Sainsbury's crew could train the harbour battery on us.

Back in the galley I dusted the joint in garlic powder, freshley milled black pepper and herbs before lovingly laying it in a heated roasting dish, spooning some hot oil over it and bunging it in the oven at170 degrees for about two and a bit hours.

It was delicious with some red cabbage, boiled with a touch of sherry vinigar and roast spuds. For the gravy I fried some mushrooms with two crushed cloves of garlic and four chopped chili peppers added a glass of red wine, two teaspoons of cornflour, some of the cabbage water, a beef stock cube and the juices from the roasting pan.

A bloody great meal for the three of us and pretty cheap too.

Wonder what we can find in the shops tonight?

Scene one shell damaged town mansion house, rain dashing against the windows occasion thumps as cannon go off, lots of background noise from vehicles and planes

Brigadier "Wee Jock" Gordy Broooon enters sits down at conference table flanked by senior British, Canadian, American and Free European commanders

"Good evening gentlemen as you can see the campaign is facing its greatest crisis so far, we've lost Bradford and Bingley to Santander, since the Northern Rock disaster and now Sterling has been taken hostage by a foreign power"

"hostage, who by? Lets go git them thar good for nuthin doggone towel headed terrorists" butted in Major Palin who was gung ho for action.

"They are not that kind of foreigner, though we have invoked our anti terrorist laws against them" rejoined Jock

"Doggone it you mean there's more than one kind of foreigner? well lordy lordy dip me in dogshit"

"Thank you for your enthusiasm Major Palin, but these terrorists are from Iceland"

"what the shop where I can feed my family for a fiver?"

"No Capt Katona the island"

"So what we gonna do?"

"How about we call them lots of rude things, then cut council services and jobs, then pay private account holders back with tax payers money"

"OK sounds like a plan"

Maybe I have got this wrong, but if local authorities have got all this cash tied up in Icelandic banks, why have they been charging us so much council tax?

Surely if they can afford to stash the cash in banks they have got too much of our money.

Well they are now gonna want a whole lot more after this little episode so here is some advice try putting it in the Post Office Savings Bank if you can find a branch that is open or failing that stuff it under the mattress or in your sock, it will be much safer there!

A Butterfly made of Salami

Got trod on and caused a Tsunami

I see in the paper that BAA have appointed Royal Bank of Scotland to advise on the sale of Gatwick Airport.

That will be the same bank that paid their CEO four million quid last year while their share price has dropped to 90p from a high of £4.79.

Mind you thet have spread the risk by also asking HSBC for advice. Their CEO only helped himself to a modest £3.54 million.

So how is this going to work how about a couple of posters up in the Redhill branch of Knight Frank and Rutly and a For Sale sign at the end of the runway while the CEOs trouser a couple of million and the pension funds gets Royally stuffed again.

Now don't scoff it could happen.

TV's potty science pundit Adam Hart-Davis is a direct descendent of Lady Elizabeth Fitzclarence the daughter of King William IV (Silly Billy) and his mistress Dorothea Bland AKA Mrs Jordan.

Now Silly Billy didn't have any kids on the right side of the blanket which is why his niece became Queen Victoria, but wouldn't it have been more fun if he'd made an honest woman of Mrs Jordan? C'mon a man who wears odd socks can't be any worse than one who talks to trees!

Hart-Davis is also related to Call me Dave, well you can't have everything can you?

Read in Metro today Johnny Depp is to get $32 million to star in fourh Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Even by todays exchange rate that's more than six quid, does the Black Pearl need a cook?

Just been listening to Van der Graaf Generator's recent live album Real Time, more nostalgia for an old git like me. Now since they recorded that sax player Dave Jackson left and they made a new album without him which is quite good, but it left me Wondering (anyone spot the pun) what the old numbers like Sleepwalkers sounded like without Jaxonsax.

Oddly enough despite my misgivings it works, dodgy camera work nice lights though

and here is Dave giving it a bit on sax when they all had a bit more hair, this time without Peter Hammil,

Or does every woman in TV ads for opticians look like gun lovin, polar bear hating mother of stoopid named children Sarah Palin.

In other news I have got Warrior on the Edge of Time on CD at last, old hippy that I am, and have drunked some Martinis

I see Willie Walsh of BA has challenged Call Me Dave on the Tory's High Speed Rail scam. Not surprising as he has a vested interest and of course got him guarenteed airtime on the BBC News.

However what I found interesting was the proposed route London - Birmingham - Manchester- Leeds. All very well but what we need to put a dent in internal flights is high speed routes to Edinburgh and Glasgow. Not to mention fare structures that actually do compete with the airlines.

I see that a teacher training conference in Marbella, for staff at Edensor Technical College in Stoke-on-Trent has just been cancelled as a knee jerk reaction to the deserved bad publicity. Unfortunately the tax payer has been stung with the cost for cancelling at such a late date and the conference will now take place at the school.

It was claimed that it would have been much cheaper to hold the conference in Spain than somewhere locally, but pardon me for stating the bloody obvious, if the conference is now being held at the school why couldn't it have been held there in the first place?

I just can't fathom why it was ever imagined that staff who work in a big building with assembly rooms, class rooms and audio visual equipment etc. on site would need to hire a venue off site when they already have all the facilities they need where they alraedy work.

This is our money these jokers are chucking away, money that should be spent on books or computers or sports equipment for the kids not on - when we come down to it - a few nights away from the family in a hotel and a chance to sleep off a hangover in some boring lecture that will be forgotten about later that afternoon.

This is precisely the sort of daft nonsense that has cost British industry dear in the past and I don't see why taxpayers should cough up for the same sort of nonsense in education

Funny the things that turn up when your lookling for something else.

Just found this story that gives another insight into the woman who could end up as the "Leader of the Free World" should the Republicans be elected and the old fella croak

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3987891.ece

A bit late with my comment on Call me Dave's conference rhetoric, but I have to take issue with him over this high speed rail network that is going to take away Heathrow's need for a a third runway, by taking out 66,000 domestic flights a year. I make that 181 domestic flights a day which seems a bit high for one airport!

I think this is a bit of a smokescreen to woo London's surburban voters as when you look into it unless you are travelling between say London and Inverness there really isn't a lot of difference in the total time spent travelling when you factor in check in and security and getting to and from an airport. And as the high speed rail links can't possibly be built within the next ten years I can't see Heathrow waiting that long.

Yes a high speed rail network is something that the UK should have, but the real problem with the train v plane arguement is down to the cost of buying a ticket on the railways.

To use London Edinburgh as an example as far as my own experiences go the rail journey is much more pleasant than the flight, no need for a photo ID, can take what I want on the train with no messing about with security and stupid bags for liquid, no hanging around for baggage or the faffing around and expense of getting to and from the airport, plus I can read or enjoy the scenery rather than spend hours in expensive purgatory of the departure lounge and several often unessessay queus.

But with the plane I can book a cheap flight six months in advance for £25. With the railways you have to gamble on getting a reasonably priced ticket with only weeks to spare, otherwise its over £100 for a journey that takes about the same time once all the airport faffing is taken into consideration. Fine if you don't need to plan your time off work, but a real jhaedache if you do.

So the answer is actually here now, Call me Dave and if you are reading Mr Boredom Grown, give the traveller a real choice make the railways operate the same pricing regime as the budget airlines so the cheap tickets can compete for customers