Christmas Adverts

If Sainsbury's are to belittle the slaughter of WW1 by using it to sell more Christmas tat, then we might as well have a parody of it.

Blue Badge Holders And Minty Chocolate Biscuits

Barry from Watford does seem to like his biscuits

Glass Half Full

My only response to this is...why?

Let's admit it; no one likes to order a half. The tiny glass it comes in seems unimpressive and it feels like it's gone within seconds. However, understandably, some of us do not hold the capacity to drink such large quantities at once so we must give in to the faux pas that is the pint glass's less impressive sibling.

But wait, it doesn't have to be like this! This amazing new invention changes the stigma that surrounds the pint glass's inferior sibling and transforms its look completely...

Introducing the Half A Pint glass. How does it differ? I hear you ask. Simply put, the glass is the usual half pint size, but is split length ways instead, so from an angle it will look as if you are drinking from a normal pint glass!

Say goodbye to the dissatisfying feeling that clutching a half  brings and feel like one-of-the-gang every time you sip a frosty one.

A great gift idea for the dad who is struggling to keep up these days or your pint-sized drinking buddy.

Do Betfair Know Something We Don't?

This might be me but there seems to be a name missing from this list (click UK politics/ Next UK Prime Minister)...

Wailing?

The Telegraph reports:

Motorists were left shocked at the sight of a rotting giant whale being driven along a busy dual carriageway.

The huge corpse was covered by a tarpaulin and strapped onto the rear of a flat-bed truck with part of it overhanging the back.

But the sight and smell of it travelling along the A2 towards Canterbury on a weekday afternoon left some drivers choking at the wheel.

 Interestingly it is revealed:

Mark Stephens, 41, took these photographs of the whale as he drove home from work.

Yep...a motorist was so shocked by a "rotting whale" he took photos while still driving - which looking by the angle and perspective of the photo confirms his assertions.

Thus essentially he is admitting - publically - he drove without due care and attention. 

Robbing Reding

It most probably wasn't of course but I like to think this was done as a political statement.

Interesting Headline

I say no more...

It's Not About Statistics, It's About People.

So caring "Dave" informs us today via the subject heading in the Conservatives’ latest email announcement. The email begins:

A month ago I emailed you about the launch of the Conservative Help to Buy scheme. Since Labour’s financial crisis, hardworking people have been priced off the property ladder because of the large deposits you have to put down. That’s why we introduced Help to Buy - to make it easier to get a mortgage by cutting the deposits you need.

Four weeks on and it is delivering.

And how does Dave assure us that it is delivering? Well obviously by using statistics facts:

1. Over 2,000 people have already been accepted in principle for a Help to Buy mortgage - 75 families every day getting closer to owning their dream home

2. £365 million worth of mortgages are being processed - home sales that may never have happened otherwise

3. There are a third more houses being built now than this time last year.

But as the email concludes, as if to reinforce the point, "this isn’t really about statistics. This is about people".

Someone Hates TBF

Rummaging around the internet (occasionally) I searched for the term Boiling Frog - as you do - this meant I stumbled upon this site.

The author, Tod Kelly, is really really angry about the Boiling Frog metaphor. No really he is...

I really, really hate this metaphor

He continues...

Can we collectively, as a society, take its amphibious body, throw it in a pot, and crank up the fire until it explodes?

Charming, I'm sure...

It’s constantly thrown into political discussions and presented as either a reasoned argument for action or evidence that proves a supposition, despite the fact that it is clearly neither.  Rather, the boiling frog is just a lazy excuse not to have to bother thinking critically about whatever ludicrously hyperbolic comment one can dream up.

But...but even worse he asserts the analogy is not even true...

And if that’s not enough reason to retire the metaphor, there’s also this: it isn’t actually true.  In fact, it’s literally the opposite of true.  As Professor Douglas Melton of Harvard Biology points out, “If you put a frog in boiling water, it won’t jump out. It will die. If you put it in cold water, it will jump before it gets hot—they don’t sit still for you.”

As a rather warm frog myself it’s tempting to get angry at his lack of understanding and compassion for my current predicament, but one must consider that he doesn't live in the European Union so his experience is somewhat lacking. One must never get angry at a chap's lack of awareness, even if one is sitting in a saucepan of water being gently warmed up.

Instead I merely chuckled at his article, like EU Commissioner Barroso did when asked if Cameron could repatriate powers back for the UK.

Not that any of this bothers me of course; my blog title is not a reference to the metaphor it merely reflects the fact I'm an angry Frenchman who lives in the Sahara Desert.

Spameron

Apparently on Monday Cameron waffled on about protecting "our" children on the internet, a policy that not unsurprisingly started to unravel rather quickly. Anyway I know this because Mr Cameron kindly sent me an email on Monday:

Today I gave a speech about how we protect our children on the internet. I want for your children what I want for mine: that they’re safe and that their innocence is protected.

So today we’ve announced big, new steps forward. In a nutshell, the internet providers have agreed to do much more to filter inappropriate images out – they are going to install family friendly filters automatically unless you, as a parent, say otherwise.

So why am I blogging about this on a Friday? Well put simply I've only just discovered the email 5 days later...because, with some irony, it ended up in my spam folder...

Paper Is Obsolete?

This courtesy of Nourishing Obscurity
 

Quote Of The Day

From Tim Worstall, a comment from the Guardian:

The Greek protest vote goes to neo-nazis, the Italian protest vote to an anarchist comedian, the British protest vote goes to an ex-stockbroker called Nigel.

What an extraordinarily sensible country we really are.

Daylight Robbery

The Cyprus Bank Heist...

Life Imitates Art...

Last Week Matt from the Telegraph had this...

Then from the Mail today we have this:

Obviously we should always treat newspaper reports with caution but it comes to something when a cartoonist is effectively reporting the news rather than making a joke of it...

Comforting Words From Cameron

I'm on the email distribution list of the Tory party, as I am on other parties', and this afternoon I have received a reassuring email from Mr Cameron, titled "we're sticking to our plan". In other words; "Meh! Voters?" The email begins:

This Government's driving mission is to help Britain succeed in the tough global race we're in. 

What's a driving mission? Is that a Top Gear Challenge?  A global race eh? One is tempted to think of this. So why are we shackled to a dying customs union, consisting of a minority of countries in the world, designed to restrict trade with the majority of other countries who are not members?

It continues:

That means reversing years of decline under Labour. 

I'm sure someone somewhere thought using driving puns was an "excellent" idea but really, is using the terms "driving" and "reversing" in the same paragraph ideal? Perhaps it's a Freudian slip. Nevermind...

Building a buoyant economy that invents, makes and sells things again.

Does that mean our economy is no longer making, inventing or selling at the moment...what a damning indictment of the current government....

Creating the good, decent jobs that young people need. 

Is that opposed to creating non-good and crap jobs for everyone else? Perhaps that's another Freudian slip given Cameron is Prime Minister.

That's why I gave a speech yesterday making clear that there can be no turning back from the course we are on.

In other words, despite a message from the voters, especially recently in Eastleigh, "I will ignore them"...

Yes, times are tough, 

Of course as a millionaire you would know this...

and yes, there are calls for us to turn back, give up, give in. 

Where are these calls? Coming to the conclusion that other methods maybe better and thus to consider other options of fixing our broken country is markedly different to advocating giving up...but thanks for doing down the British people.

But as Conservatives know, nothing worthwhile is easily won. 

Oh yes you are fully aware of that given you didn't win the 2010 election

We need to hold our nerve and stick to our economic plan:

Again ignore the voters...

It really is a poor excuse for government policy and the rest of it can be found here. We deserve better than this.

Quote Of The Day

Just seen this from a Guardian report on Friday about recreating football matches played during the Christmas truce of World War I as part of next year's centenary celebrations. Andrew Murrison, Minister for International Security Strategy, in the Ministry of Defence said (my emphasis):

...that staging a football match in Belgium on the battlefields where soldiers had briefly put down their weapons was "a no-brainer in terms of an event that is going to reach part of the community that perhaps might not get terribly entrenched into this".

One wonders if he could have worded that better...

Huhne Guilty

One shouldn't mock...in a restrained way. Let it all out, after all it's Monday. After what appears to be trying to use every legal trick in the book to get off, he faced no choice but to change his plea at the last minute. He has to be facing a jail sentence.

One has to say that with 'hell have no fury...' Huhne's ex wife has set the bar somewhat higher...

Pro-EU

Your humble Frog has been accused of many things but writing pro-EU propaganda has never been one of them...until now:

I regret to say that the article to which I am here responding, although very well researched, reads like nothing more than EU propaganda. Who wrote it?

So I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to my readers who may be labouring under the impression that this blog is Eurosceptic. A small number of readers would have already been aware of the deception of course, donning special 'truth sunglasses' akin to those in the film They Live, which reveal the pro-EU subliminal messages that permeate this blog.

So in the style of Scooby Doo, it looks as if I have finally been unmasked. I beg forgiviness for the lie

Yours ever
TBF

Met Office Advice

Quote Of The Day

"If parliament is formed from one party as a result of its winning an election, it becomes a parliament of the winning party and not of the people. It represents the party and not the people, and the executive power of the parliament becomes that of the victorious party and not of the people."

I'm currently waiting to be picked up to attend a Christmas bash - one I'm not particularly looking forward to - but hey I'm looking on the bright side it's free food. So I thought I would pose a quick quiz for a Saturday night...guessing who wrote the above quote (and no cheating)