Category - News

The Kitten in Britain

27/02/2018
DOAADI
News, Weather

Giant KittenOr, what the media insists on referring to as “The Beast from the East”.

It’s a bit nippy, though not dramatically so, and there are frequent light snow flurries. Every hour or three there is a heavy flurry, which settles – then melts almost completely as soon as the sun comes out. And this is speaking from an “Amber Warning” area of the UK.

The BBC has reporters standing in bright sunshine with no visible lying snow, trying desperately to explain why a form of transport from Victorian times – and one which the government is trying to invest in “for the future” – has to cancel trains en masse.

Needless aerial footage of the “chaos” from “disaster areas” shows snow depths barely covering the grass. Weather maps are all being carefully crafted to make sure it looks like London is in one of the “disaster areas”. Evidence for the “disaster” amounts to a drone shot of some bloke walking quite easily across a snowy field.

Some prats have crashed during rush hour because they were driving too fast. Roads are being described as “treacherous” by Police, as if they have never been so before following previous (and much heavier) snowfalls.

Schools are closing when there isn’t enough snow to build even a passable British Snowman. And KFC is still operating a “restricted menu”, so the little darlings will have to go somewhere else.

What a bunch of wusses we have become in this country.

For me, the biggest annoyance is the rapid build up of 1cm of crap on my windows and headlights every time I start driving. Closely followed by irritation at the twats who are overtaking me and cutting in.

High School Shootings in USA

22/02/2018
DOAADI
News, World

AR-15 Assault RifleAfter the recent tragedy in Florida, and yet another mass shooting spree in a school, with multiple fatalities, it seemed like the time had finally come for America to realise that virtually unrestricted gun ownership had to be curtailed.

Donald Trump looked like he was about to make a decision that would finally make him come across as a proper POTUS. No, he really did.

It would appear that the solution he is now suggesting involves allowing teachers to carry guns so they can get into shootouts with lunatics like Nikolas Cruz.

Cruz, you might recall, was carrying an AR-15 – a semi-automatic version of the M16 used by the US Military – which he used to kill 17 people. He had a total of 10 weapons, though the identity of these is being kept secret for some reason (no need to guess why, since American gun laws wouldn’t put ownership of a small thermonuclear device outside the reach of the average citizen, purely on “constitutional” grounds). It is known that he purchased a shotgun and an AK-47, and the owner of the shop which sold them to him appears to have done so willingly and with no fuss whatsoever.

This is made so much worse by the fact that Cruz appears to have been a certified head case (if anyone had bothered to check) – certainly enough of one for any sensible person not to sell him a blunt stick, let alone military-grade weaponry (and lots of it).

Trump’s idea is that teachers would carry “concealed” weapons. You don’t need to be an expert to realise that it would be extremely difficult to conceal an AR-15 unless you had very long legs, since it is almost a metre long and weighs about 3.5kg. Therefore, a teacher would have something much smaller and much less accurate except at close range. In short, a hand gun. So Trump’s idea is for teachers to put their lives in guaranteed danger by confronting people like Cruz who, it must be said, could also be carrying grenades (I believe that these can be obtained legally, though with difficulty), explosives (more easily obtained or manufactured), or any number of noxious substances. Of course, where control is so lax to start with, obtaining such materials illegally is even simpler.

I don’t want to make light of a very serious issue, but if this is what Donald Trump thinks will solve the problem, there is every likelihood that his next idea will be for helicopters to drop gasoline on wildfires in order to extinguish them.

Men’s Winter Olympics

11/02/2018
DOAADI
News, Sport

Feminist OlympicsAnyone tell me when it starts?

I mean, I know all about the GB women (well, I would if I’d bothered to read it), the South Korean women, the North Korean women, the synchronised North Korean cheerleaders (women), the joint North and South Korean women’s ice hockey team, a bronze medal a British woman won in Sochi in 2014 in something that’s nearly a sport, and women from a few other countries who have already won medals this year. Oh, and a woman from Britain who won’t be taking part because she broke her foot. And a pointless vlog by some woman competing in something else that’s also nearly a sport (look, winter sport is caning it downhill as fast as you can on TWO skis – long ones – and maybe weaving in and out of some poles stuck in the snow, perhaps even ending up in intensive care – not poncing about on short skis (or even just one fat one), doing somersaults, or doing it to music).

But I was, like, wondering when the proper sport begins.

Graduated Licences (Again)

09/02/2018
DOAADI
ADI, DVSA, News, Training

A SquirrelThe media is having a hissy-fit over the possibility that new drivers could face restrictions after they pass their tests.

Possibilities include:

  • night-time curfews
  • speed limit restrictions
  • restrictions on number and age of passengers
  • lower drink-drive limits
  • restrictions on engine sizes

No one should worry just yet. With such organisations as the RAC and Brake poking their oars in, each with its own preferred set of restrictions, any changes are unlikely to happen at all – let alone quickly. Add to that the fact that this was raised in Prime Minister’s Questions, and all that Theresa May has said is she’ll “look into it”, and the likely date of implementation is well over the horizon.

If it happens, Theresa May won’t still be PM. That you can be certain of.

I don’t have an issue with some form of graduated licence. If it were up to me, no one would be allowed to drive an Audi or BMW (ever), any car with any sort of modification, or when wearing a baseball cap or hoodie until they’re at least 30 and have taken an IQ test to show that they’re smarter than, say, a squirrel.

Anyone who is learning to drive now can forget about it affecting them. Remember that some time this year, learners are supposedly going to be allowed on motorways with ADIs (driving instructors). This was announced officially in August 2017, following “government proposals” in January 2017. There was a consultation circulated in December 2016. But this was the fulfilment of something that started back in 2011, which announced that learners were going to be allowed on motorways in 2012. A total of well over 7 years.

And we still don’t know when in 2018 it will happen. It requires an Act of Parliament to implement, and there is no sign of this happening. The government managed to get itself voted into a minority at the last election, Brexit is causing more and more headaches for an increasingly aged-looking May (the worst of these being Boris Johnson), and autonomous electric vehicles will apparently be the norm from sometime next summer (if you believe some of the crap that gets written).

Graduated licences are probably way off.

Lewis Hamilton May Just Have Destroyed His Career

26/12/2017
DOAADI
Assholes, News, Sport

Lewis HamiltonOr, he will have if some people get their way.

He told his (young) nephew, who was wearing a pink princess dress and holding a magic wand on an Instagram post, that “boys don’t wear dresses”. He’s since apologised, etc., etc., etc. But as you can imagine, that’s not enough, and more blood needs to be extracted before he can still not be forgiven.

The world gets madder by the day, and there are calls for Hamilton to be stripped of his MBE.

What’s funny is that if he’d have said boys must wear dresses, no one would have batted an eyelid. Or, if they had dared, they’d have quickly been slapped down.

And This Is What Brexit Was (And Is) All About

25/12/2017
DOAADI
Assholes, Brexit, News

No Polish Fishermen signIt’s funny when you look around various discussion forums, and see how the attitudes of Brexiters have developed since June 2016.

Brexit, of course, was the stupidest decision this country has ever made – marginally ahead of the decision to hold a referendum in the first place, and so allow morons with serious problems in their heads to decide on something that is so far above their understanding, it’d be more likely that someone could throw a stone into the sun than these people make a rational choice.

As any objective person will already know, the voting demographics show clearly that (and these are general conclusions):

  • older voters voted to leave
  • younger voters voted to remain
  • people from deprived area voted to leave
  • people with no qualifications voted to leave
  • people with higher education voted to remain
  • at least twice as many older voters voted than did younger ones

I know this will upset Brexiters, but no matter where you look the demographics throw up the same general conclusions. Like it or not, the result was, overall, strongly associated with educational achievement, age, ethnicity, and position on the social ladder.

The narrow victory by “leave” emboldened people overnight, and the underlying reasons why many voted as they did became clear. A primary reason was effectively racism, and Brexit Neanderthals became active immediately. Although the media may have played things down since then – and they have – it hasn’t gone away, and this latest story just shows what bigots we have in this country, and how Brexit has made them all big and brave.

A sign was put up at a fishery in Oxfordshire by the owner, Billy Evans. It said:

NO VEHICLE ACCESS

NO POLISH OR EASTERN BLOC

FISHERMEN ALLOWED

NO CHILDREN OR DOGS

I’d bet any money that Evans wouldn’t have dared put that up prior to June 2016, and that the Brexit result gave him the wings to do it now. However, his use of the term “Eastern Bloc” – which ceased to have anything much other than offensive overtones in the early 90s – belies his age and educational background.

Evans appears to have put the sign up based on second-hand information from like-minded people, and has been forced to take it down. He could still face legal action, since the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said it was “unlawful”. What’s really frightening is that there are actually people in this country allowed to go about unsupervised who couldn’t see that right from the start.

Evans is quoted:

I do not tolerate thieves, wherever they come from.

I will stand up for what I believe in. If they want to call me a racist for stopping thieves coming on to my property then that’s what they’ll do.

He is obviously too stupid to realise that he has declared ALL Polish and “Eastern Bloc” people to be thieves with his sign.

His solution now appears to be to threaten to close down the fishery completely so that no one can use it.

Wagamama Upsets Union (What Doesn’t?)

24/12/2017
DOAADI
ADI, Food, News

Wagamama noodle dishEvery year now, I make a concerted effort to fill my diary up to the rafters in the weeks running up to and during Christmas. I do this because I know from past experience that – without fail – as soon as Christmas starts to bite, people are going to start cancelling due to “illness”.

I don’t mind so much if they’re honest with me, but in the vast majority of cases any “illness” is simply a front for wanting to go Christmas shopping, do overtime, get pissed, recover from being pissed the night before, or to save money at this expensive time of year. Over-filling my diary means I still have a relatively decent amount of work remaining. This year has been better than most so far, but in the last two weeks I’ve had at least half a dozen last-minute cancellations and two no-shows (followed by profuse apologies, and claims of mortal illness).

Unfortunately, it is a sign of the times. With every year that passes, the trend is for people to get lazier and more dishonest. Which is probably why companies like Wagamama have strict working policies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally against zero-hours contracts (they cost me a small fortune over a typical year if I have teenage pupils who work at McDonalds), and Wagamama’s apparent rule that you have to get someone to cover for you if you can’t get in stinks to high heaven. But I guess it is one way of managing lazy, lying scumbags you’re unfortunate enough to have working for you.

But it is this message to staff at one London branch which has upset the union. The Christmas week rota has the following attached:

No calling in sick! may I remind you that if you are unable to come for your shift it is your responsibility to find somebody to cover your shift (as per contract and handbook). Calling in sick during the next 2 weeks will result in disciplinary action being
taken

Naturally. Wagamama’s head office as distanced itself from the message. The Unite Hospitality union, of course, has more to say:

To threaten workers with disciplinary action for being sick is not just morally reprehensible, it may be unlawful under the Health and Safety Act and Equality Act as it discriminates against those with long-term physical or mental health conditions.

The irony in the fact that the message targets lazy liars, whereas the union supports them, is lost on Unite Hospitality.

Cannabis Plants Dumped

12/11/2017
DOAADI
News

Cannabis plantsI just saw this on the BBC website (unusually for the BBC, that link is now dead – they usually archive old stories) Apparently, someone dumped some bin bags full of cannabis plants at the side of the road near Harrogate in Yorkshire. Police are asking anyone with information to come forward.

It made me smile. You see, about 3 years ago, I’d stopped on a quiet road between lessons to grab a sandwich and do some emails, and I was aware of some dumped vegetation in the gateway I’d parked in. I did a double-take, and realised it was three large bales of cannabis plants – probably several kilos.

I phoned the police and they weren’t interested, citing something about only being interested if the plants had buds on them. They said if I was concerned I should call the council, though they didn’t have a number. I looked one up and called. After about 50 phone options – none of which came even close to covering such a find – I plumped for one which sounded as though they might be able to help. I tried to explain what I’d found, then the line went dead.

I thought: f**k them. I didn’t try again.

Over a period of about three months, the bales gradually decomposed and that was that.

Six of One, But Not Half a Dozen of the Other

07/10/2017
DOAADI
News

Reverse inequality where you least need itI saw a news item this week where a female teacher, Alice Mc Brearty, had had a sexual relationship (that link about a female teacher is now dead, even though the one later in this article about a male teacher is still live) with a 15-year old male pupil. The judge – another female, Sheelagh Canavan – said:

…[she had committed the] grossest breach of trust…

I accept he was consenting – what 15-year-old schoolboy would turn down such an attractive offer?

I accept you truly believed this was a great romance, you were in love with him and vice versa, and that age didn’t matter. But it did.

McBrearty was jailed for 16 months.

Now, cast your mind back. Not very far – just a few years. A male teacher, Jeremy Forrest, ran away to France with a 15-year old female pupil. The link I’ve given here deals with some of the aftermath, specifically that the girl he ran away with still has feelings for him and is likely to enter a relationship with him when he comes out of prison. Although Forrest was accused of “grooming”, the girl has said:

If anything, I groomed him.

Forrest is in the middle of a five and a half year sentence for his crime, and will have to spend the rest of his life on the sex offenders’ register (no mention is made of that in McBrearty’s case).

I am not questioning the crime. Both committed them. Nor am I questioning the moral issues around consent.

What I am questioning is the “equality” on display. McBrearty should have been dealt with in accordance with the precedent set for Forrest and locked up for the same period. Or Forrest should be released, having already served more time than McBrearty will have to. And who decides whether judges like Canavan should be allowed to get away with overtly discriminatory and sexist comments about schoolboys.

Remind me again who gets discriminated against where it matters?

I just want to emphasise the earlier edits. Alice McBrearty (a female) seduced a male pupil and was jailed for 16 months. Her time in the newspapers has been deleted after less than 5 years. Jeremy Forrest was seduced by a female pupil, who is likely to enter a relationship with him when he gets out of jail, and was jailed for fine and a half years. His story is still completely live all over the internet.

Women get weaker sentences, and the more so when weak female ‘judges’ are involved. It is a corrupt system.