July 2009 Archives

I have just been watching Lord Drayson on TV dodging questions about Afghanistan. He managed to avoid just about every one. His title tells you everything you need to know about modern British Government - he is the Minister of State for Strategic Defence Acquisition Reform.

Anyone who can come up with a translation of what that means in something approaching English please let us all know.

Have you noticed though how Gordon Brown is slowly turning Government and the Cabinet into a quango - filling it with unelected mates and useful contacts?

Top of the list is Lord Mandelson who has a bunch of titles that seem to come straight from either a 1950's Politburo guest list or a comic opera set in a small, European principality called Ruritania or Ruinitallia if New Labour is involved.

He is the First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council. Perhaps he should also have Secretary to the second Chancery added to his title, that being the one held by the original Mandy, Niccolò Machiavelli.

Also there under Gordon's patronage - non-elected and unaccountable to Parliament - are Secretary of State for Transport Lord Adonis and, doubling up, Lord Drayson again as Minister for Science and Innovation - nice to see Defence is not a full time job despite fighting two wars.

Among the other minsters we have Lord Davies of Abersoch, another two job man in both trade and foreign office', Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Energy, Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead and Lord Malloch-Brown KCMG both in the Foreign Office and soon to be added after being found a seat in the Upper House, Sir Alan, soon Lord Sugar.

At a quick count, including Sir Alan Sugar we have 29 Lords and Baronesses in Government. Some, admittedly, are traditional appointments in the upper house but the majority are there because No 10 picked them rather than MPs who were elected by the people and who are accountable both to the commons on a day-to-day basis and to their electorate come a General Election.

Just another little example of how democracy is slowly being airbrushed away by Government.

In a past life I was the gardening correspondent on The Birmingham Post for more than quarter of a century and still keep my trowel in, so to speak.

If any of my reader(s) - don't want to be too cocky so the plural is speculative - have block paving on their drives or patios then I have come across a tool which is brilliant for cleaning them up - the Burgon & Ball Miracle Block Paving Brush - which the company sell for £9.95. Shops and garden centres sem to put it out at a tenner or £9.99.

I would try and describe it but it is easier to nick a picture of the tool from Burgon and Ball's website

As you can see it is a wooden head with three lines of stiff, wire bristles which are angled to form a wedge shape. The head is on a long handle, like a broom and you just push and pull the wire wedge between pavers and it quickly removes weeds, moss and any build up of soil and dust.

It is much easier than going down on your hands and knees with one of those hooked knife affairs or, as someone once suggested, a tent peg, to scrape out the debris. The brush cleans out the joints beautifully in remarkably quick time.

At first you think that the brush is getting clogged with rubbish but because of the shape with the bristles widening out the head is pretty much self cleaning with each new batch of soil and debris pushing the old rubbish up the widening V shape where it drops out.

A most impressive tool - and before anyone asks, no, my tool was not a freeby for testing. I actually bought mine from a National Trust shop.

They also do a patio grout brush for the same price and a decking brush for £17.95. I didn't need those so didn't buy them so you are on your own with them.

Burgon & Ball are one of those traditional British companies which seem to manage to cling on in Sheffield - a place where they still manage to make things rather than just unpack boxes from China.

They have been going since 1730 and produce an amazing range of hand tools from sheep shears (they are the world's largest producer), bill hooks for hedge layering and hay knives to topiary shears and all the standard and no-so-standard gardening tools.

If you want a look at their website then click here.

I cannot believe that we let our insurance companies get away with the sleight of hand trickery to up our premiums.

I am about to renew my motor insurance and as my current insurer, the one for the old and wrinkled, seems to think I am good for boosting profits with a quote more than double that from anyone else I was having a search around for a new, considerably lower quote.

Sainsbury's came up with a decent quote but then checking through the details as there was a section on any accidents whether there was a claim or not I decided I perhaps ought to mention an incident a couple of years ago when a woman ran in the back of me as I waited to turn right.

There was no damage to my car, she admitted full responsibility and as I made no claim and she made no claim off me or my insurers, my insurance company were informed merely as a courtesy in case the other driver's insurers contacted them for any reason.

The result of adding this to my supermarket quote was a hike in premiums. When I phoned up to explain and ask why the premium had gone up when there had been no claim and the report of the accident had been merely for information I was told that statistically I was more likely to have an accident so had to pay a higher premium. Personally I call it being fined for something you did not do.

Statistically, or in this case, a certainty, I will not be insuring with Sainsbury's and statistically the chances of me ever informing an insurance company again of an accident where I am not going to be making a claim falls somewhere between zero and nil.

All it needed was Sir Elton John wheeling out his all purpose memorial anthem Candle in the Wind to make the day complete.

Michael Jackson's funeral-come-concert was Oscars meets Edgar Allen Poe meets Yardley Crem. There must be a word that combines naff and glitz but glaff and nitz don't quite do it.

It wasn't bad taste or good taste just no taste with just about every word saccharine coated hyperbole.

The problem with the celebritocracy we seem to now live in is that even minor celebrities - i.e. once seen in an episode of EastEnders - have to be lauded and praised to the heavens when they pop their clogs. So when a star like Jackson goes it now has to be a full Hollywood production number with the event bigger than the star.

The next development I suppose will be pre-recorded messages like we get at award ceremonies when the recipient "can't be with us tonight because they are filming a toothpaste ad in Albania".

So get ready for the first memorial concert with "I'm sorry I can't be with you tonight but I am dead but I am with you both in spirit . . . and in the shiny box at the front."

As a funeral it had just about everything but dignity.

Is it just me or does anyone else think that Ed Balls' dog's dinner of education proposals, or as this is New Labour, education, education education proposals, seems to beg the odd question here and there?

For instance where is the money going to come from for 100,000 private tutors, who seem to come in at around the £25 an hour mark, to deal with the 600,000 pupils the Government is admitting to who are falling behind in English and Maths?

Personally, it strikes me after 12 years in charge of an education system we keep being told is world class, for New Labour to be talking about having to bring in private tutors to bring pupils up to scratch is about the same as a restaurant offering free sandwiches to customers as they leave because the meals, despite all the hype, are poor value for money and leave a lot of people still hungry.

In Sutton Coldfield's Mere Green the new Off License I see has now become an Off Licence with a newly painted C to cover the offending S. Well done to whoever corrected it.