As I drove to England and back to Spain, I passed many caravans and wondered if any marketing personel have ever thought of branding a new range of the motor borne homes after the famous 'Top Gear' presenter.
I envisage a range of three: the first, a basic model would be the 'Clarkson-May'. Slightly smaller but perhaps with a few more extras would be the 'Clarkson-Hammond' and top of the range would be the deluxe 'Clarkson-Jeremy', packed with extras for the more discerning caravanner.
To me it sounds an absolute winner, sure to receive top marks from the television show that already gives a high profile to this mode of transport.
Monday, 30 July 2012
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Why are there so few bankers in jail?
I thought I might share this video which asks the question: Why are there so few bankers in jail? To view click on the link below and be prepared to be outraged.
http://dailybail.com/home/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyBail+%28The+Daily+Bail%29
I notice in the press recently that fund managers are coming in for criticism over the high levels of fees charged for account management of pension funds. These fees, charged whether the stock market is high or low can reduce the value of the funds by hundreds of thousands of pounds rendering them inadequate for the use they were intended.
I once had an ISA, bought for the maximum allowable in one year, £7000. When I sold it for £1000 several years later I asked the fund manager why he was still charging me fees for so badly managing my asset. As I remember I was fobbed off with some response that he was acting in accordance with guidelines. It is high time the fat cat fund managers were brought down to earth. Remember they do no real work. They make money by manipulating wealth CREATED BY OTHERS.
http://dailybail.com/home/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyBail+%28The+Daily+Bail%29
I notice in the press recently that fund managers are coming in for criticism over the high levels of fees charged for account management of pension funds. These fees, charged whether the stock market is high or low can reduce the value of the funds by hundreds of thousands of pounds rendering them inadequate for the use they were intended.
I once had an ISA, bought for the maximum allowable in one year, £7000. When I sold it for £1000 several years later I asked the fund manager why he was still charging me fees for so badly managing my asset. As I remember I was fobbed off with some response that he was acting in accordance with guidelines. It is high time the fat cat fund managers were brought down to earth. Remember they do no real work. They make money by manipulating wealth CREATED BY OTHERS.
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Is Romney credible?
I don't know about you but I don't like the look or sound of the Republican candidate for the White House, Mitt Romney. There is something not quite right about him, a notion confirmed by his response to the Obama accusations, aired on TV, that he was the Chief Executive of a company that didn't favour American workers. Am I alone in thinking that he lacks credibility or is it just the fact that he was/is an investment banker that colours my judgement.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Aren't you just sick of the Olympic Games
Aren't you just sick of the Olympic Games?
The whole thing is a super extravagant farce from the start with the Sovereign Nation handing over powers to the Olympic Committee as bribes to attract the games to the country in the first place. The politicians justify all by insisting that the whole country will benefit but in reality it is the ordinary people who are squeezed out of the good ticket allocation and the politicians who predictably receive invites from favoured sponsors to the 100 m final. It makes you reach for the sick bag.
Now we hear that anti-competition rules will be waived to suit McDonalds who don't want anyone else supplying potato chips unless accompanied by fish. All this nonsense so we can have an extravaganza of Olympic officials flouting traffic and other regulations, travel chaos and disruption to the citizens to accommodate non- olympic sports such as beach volleyball or synchronised swimming for heaven's sake. I don't want to sound a party pooper but hasn't this all gone a bit far. I mean olympic football and tennis? What was wrong with the old amateur ideal? Oh! I understand-it was open to corruption. Really! And it isn't now?
I think it should all be scaled back to what the Olympics was originally all about. Field and track plus selected martial arts such as wrestling. Nothing else. I might like to add one new sport of pitting politicians against the lions but the RSPCA might protest that it would be too cruel on the cats. Mind you it would be one ticket I might actually try and obtain if I could fathom how the system worked. Perhaps I should ask Lord (Soon to be Saint) Coe how to go about it.
The whole thing is a super extravagant farce from the start with the Sovereign Nation handing over powers to the Olympic Committee as bribes to attract the games to the country in the first place. The politicians justify all by insisting that the whole country will benefit but in reality it is the ordinary people who are squeezed out of the good ticket allocation and the politicians who predictably receive invites from favoured sponsors to the 100 m final. It makes you reach for the sick bag.
Now we hear that anti-competition rules will be waived to suit McDonalds who don't want anyone else supplying potato chips unless accompanied by fish. All this nonsense so we can have an extravaganza of Olympic officials flouting traffic and other regulations, travel chaos and disruption to the citizens to accommodate non- olympic sports such as beach volleyball or synchronised swimming for heaven's sake. I don't want to sound a party pooper but hasn't this all gone a bit far. I mean olympic football and tennis? What was wrong with the old amateur ideal? Oh! I understand-it was open to corruption. Really! And it isn't now?
I think it should all be scaled back to what the Olympics was originally all about. Field and track plus selected martial arts such as wrestling. Nothing else. I might like to add one new sport of pitting politicians against the lions but the RSPCA might protest that it would be too cruel on the cats. Mind you it would be one ticket I might actually try and obtain if I could fathom how the system worked. Perhaps I should ask Lord (Soon to be Saint) Coe how to go about it.
Friday, 6 July 2012
Army under threat from Politicians
The British armed forces are once again under threat from their own politicians. At the desptach box politicians on all sides are quick to praise the devotion and courage of the men and women who fearlessly fight the Nation's battles but when the summer silly season beckons the knives are out and they are stabbing the troops in the back from all directions.
First we learn that more battalians are to be lost from the army reducing the number of troops to the lowest level since before the Napoleonic wars. This, at a time when we are waging a major war and are being threatened in the South Atlantic and possibly the Middle east. The Government say they need to make more cuts but when the defence council legal-aid bill for Abu Hanza's never-ending appeals to deportation reach in excess of one million pounds one must wonder if the Government couldn't do better with the taxpayers money.
I accept that the role of infantry is changing and research into the development of robots might reduce battlefield casualties but there will always be a need for men on the ground and an army of just over eighty thousand is too small. The current levels of one hundred and ten thousand strikes me as being about right because at least it gives a structure that meets both the Nation's needs and leaves in place a vital and irreplaceable Regimental system that is vital for the morale and efficacy of the army's fighting force.
Secondly, the miserable bastards are re-opening the case of 'Bloody Sunday', forty years after the event with a view to bringing murder charges against members of presumably the parachute regiment. After forty years will they get a fair trial and hasn't enough British taxpayer's money been spent? While the British are going out of their way to bring peace and reconciliation to the troubled island, the Politicians are determined to discredit one of the worlds foremost armies; an army that didn't want to be there; whose soldiers had no free will because they were ordered to be there instead of with their loved ones fighting an enemy that indiscriminately bombed women and children.
Cameron is losing the membership of the Conservative Party in droves. He is all mouth and no action and needs to stand down in favour of a man or woman with more balls when standing up for the interests of the United Kingdom. Nigel Farage has challenged him to a debate on Europe. It would be a walkover but can I ask Mr Cameron when he goes to take that lightweight Chancellor, George Osborne, with him.
First we learn that more battalians are to be lost from the army reducing the number of troops to the lowest level since before the Napoleonic wars. This, at a time when we are waging a major war and are being threatened in the South Atlantic and possibly the Middle east. The Government say they need to make more cuts but when the defence council legal-aid bill for Abu Hanza's never-ending appeals to deportation reach in excess of one million pounds one must wonder if the Government couldn't do better with the taxpayers money.
I accept that the role of infantry is changing and research into the development of robots might reduce battlefield casualties but there will always be a need for men on the ground and an army of just over eighty thousand is too small. The current levels of one hundred and ten thousand strikes me as being about right because at least it gives a structure that meets both the Nation's needs and leaves in place a vital and irreplaceable Regimental system that is vital for the morale and efficacy of the army's fighting force.
Secondly, the miserable bastards are re-opening the case of 'Bloody Sunday', forty years after the event with a view to bringing murder charges against members of presumably the parachute regiment. After forty years will they get a fair trial and hasn't enough British taxpayer's money been spent? While the British are going out of their way to bring peace and reconciliation to the troubled island, the Politicians are determined to discredit one of the worlds foremost armies; an army that didn't want to be there; whose soldiers had no free will because they were ordered to be there instead of with their loved ones fighting an enemy that indiscriminately bombed women and children.
Cameron is losing the membership of the Conservative Party in droves. He is all mouth and no action and needs to stand down in favour of a man or woman with more balls when standing up for the interests of the United Kingdom. Nigel Farage has challenged him to a debate on Europe. It would be a walkover but can I ask Mr Cameron when he goes to take that lightweight Chancellor, George Osborne, with him.
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Vague Hague
On the Andrew Marr programme today, the Foreign Secretary was vague about the prospects for a UK referendum on the Country's relationship with the EU. Forgetting the problems that might be caused by the Scots exiting the Union, his talk of the Tories having a policy before the next General election demonstrated once again why our Democratic process is out of date. The next General Election will be in three years time. The EU could well be federal by then and it will be harder for the UK to negotiate withdrawal.
David Cameron has written in the Sunday Telegraph saying that contrary to previous indications he is not opposed to a referendum but I'm bound to wonder why he has spoken now if nothing will be done until after the next election. Surely it can't be because he doesn't want to be wrong footed by Ed Miliband who is already making referendum noises. That Cameron should be playing politics with such an important subject tells us all how corrupt the process is. Watch out for a referendum with unintelligible options and the prospect of successive votes until the people get it right. No wonder politicians are regarded in the same light as investment bankers and other snake oil merchants.
Now we hear that politicians are claiming that they need a four day week to save their social lives. It makes you sick when our armed forces are in Afghanistan putting their lives at risk every second of every hour of every day for six months at a time.The solution for unhappy politicians is simple: if you don't like the hours resign in shame. You should be in it to SERVE.
David Cameron has written in the Sunday Telegraph saying that contrary to previous indications he is not opposed to a referendum but I'm bound to wonder why he has spoken now if nothing will be done until after the next election. Surely it can't be because he doesn't want to be wrong footed by Ed Miliband who is already making referendum noises. That Cameron should be playing politics with such an important subject tells us all how corrupt the process is. Watch out for a referendum with unintelligible options and the prospect of successive votes until the people get it right. No wonder politicians are regarded in the same light as investment bankers and other snake oil merchants.
Now we hear that politicians are claiming that they need a four day week to save their social lives. It makes you sick when our armed forces are in Afghanistan putting their lives at risk every second of every hour of every day for six months at a time.The solution for unhappy politicians is simple: if you don't like the hours resign in shame. You should be in it to SERVE.
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