Too true :: 01:12 AM :: easyjetsetter

One of the shrewder things that the actor and (sometimes) wit Peter Ustinov used to say (he said everything he had to say many times over) was that the Americans were like Romans, and that he, the Brit, felt very Greek in their company. (I suspect he meant, in particular, Athenian.)

Via.

My country plainly needs help :: 06:57 PM :: easyjetsetter

Tesco, the supermarket giant that eats up one in every eight retail pound spent in Britain, is piloting musical sandwiches.

Let's just take a moment to think about that. Musical. Sandwiches.

In other news, David Cameron won the Conservative Party leadership. I have restrained myself somewhat on commenting on this whole malarky as 'a close relative' as 'Dave' would say, worked for the campaign. I got to see her trotting up and down the Royal Academy stairs in her red gap cape and red mulberry roxanne bag. Very thrilling.

No matter which candidate won, this has been the most tremendous advert for the Party. They've dominated the (relatively empty) news round for the last few months, taking centre stage in a way they haven't been able to since its Ministers started hanging themselves for kicks and lying in court and whatnot.

Contrast the open, respectful, substantive debates and the thoughtful long-term process with the (it seems) monthly TBGBs*. The Tory part debates and elects its leader: the Labour party will have a handover of power to a unilaterally chosen successor or a bloodless putsch. Either way, it ain't very democratic, what?

*To the uninitiated, this is a journalist-coined term, rhyming with "heebeejeebies" referring to the initials of the PM, Tony Blair and his Chancellor and crown prince Gordon Brown, who supposedly made a deal to hand over the premiership in return for Brown's support. Blair has not, of course, handed over power (yet) and they routinely try to humiliate each other through the "sources close to X" trick. Like my 'close relative' and I about a certain stuffed bunny rabbit that while it was hers first, is, in fact, by rights, mine.

Don't worry, the Herald newspaper only caught up with this parlance today...you're not too behind.

UPDATE: My parents are sad prats. The package on the ten o'clock news about Cameron showed him making coffee in his kitchen, and my Mum exclaimed "look! we have that coffee!" quickly followed by dad's "aaah, you can always trust a chap with a big jar of marmite." Losers.

Update 2: the honorable member for the northern dispora in Brighton and Hove has an extremely witty summary.

Punch and Judy politics :: 01:28 AM :: easyjetsetter

I was watching PMQ and noticed someone shouting between questions from the backbenches "that's the way to do it!" in a falsetto voice. Anyone know who it was?

Parents eh? :: 02:20 AM :: easyjetsetter

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are fighting away with their lightsabers.
Zooommmm, zooooommm, thrum, kstch!
They flay at each other wildly, in a fight to the death!
Thrum, bbbzzzt, ktsch, krrrrrccck, ktsch!
"Luke" says Darth "I am your father."
"NOOOOOOOOO!" says Luke.
"I bloody well am, I know what you're getting for christmas" counters Darth.
"How?" cries his son in anguish.
"I felt your presents"

My mum has rather the wrong end of the stick on gift-giving. Christmas and birthdays are an occasion to give people things that they would not otherwise buy for themselves. My mother is from a very Scottish family. This means she rarely buys anything at all, even doing without some fairly essential things. She therefore wants these practical, necessary items as gifts.

This year, she asked me for a whiteboard from ikea for the kitchen. I took one look at the billboard sized office panels and said I would try Crocketts, the specialty kitchen shop in town. "But that'll cost a fortune!" So, rather than buy a new whiteboard, mum is re-laminating the old one. (Mend and make do!)

While in ikea looking for the whiteboard, I had purchased a new plastic chopping board for the house, as the old one had meal preparation debris from 1998 in the grooves (waste not want not!) When I took it out of the shopping bag at home to put away in the cupboard she exclaimed "ooh, that can be my christmas present."

A chopping board. It cost £1.29. At least it was red. I topped up the gift with a little trip to John lewis today...

Because she must be taught. You see, she doesn't stop at herself. Our little cousins are victims of the crossed wires in the gift-giving parrallel universe of my mother.

The older boy, 13 years old, likes computer games and blowing things up with chemistry sets (he wants to be a forensic scientist) is getting an electric toothbrush. "Is it at least shaped like a lightsaber and makes whooshy noises?" I asked. "Oh no dear, he's had such trouble brushing his teeth since he broke his arm. I just thought he needed one."

His younger sister, a ten year old girl, who like riding, sailing and the colour pink was going to be getting books "because she doesn't read." Thankfully, mum saw sense and got her pink fluffy fairy lights instead.

My sister Caroline was going to get a mop that we saw at yoga class, but she's been talked out of it and is now getting her....a grey carpet.

I've been teasing her a lot about this lately, which isn't really fair, because I asked her for a practical, necessary present this year myself: a proper, grown up filofax. It was she that telephoned from the shop to say she thought the brown and black ones a bit dull and did I want a lizardskin fuschia pink one?

She's begun to get a bit prickly about my constant ribbing about her somewhat unexciting, though infinitely sensible, approach to gift-buying.

Even she saw the funny side today, however, when for their anniversary my dad got her a painting she had admired recently and she got him....nail clippers.

I can drive! I can drive I can drive! :: 03:41 PM :: easyjetsetter

I passed my driving test! At the test centre with the lowest pass rate in scotland. In the winter. On a rainy day. I was the only person to pass out of the group of eight who took the test at my time.

Of course, I am five years older than them all.

The Government wants to keep you poor :: 05:16 PM :: easyjetsetter

Self-invested personal pensions. Sipps. It sounds sorta sexy dunnit? The idea being, people could put exciting things into their pensions, as long as they appreciated in value, such as vintage cars, fine wines, a holiday home and so on.

The more astute (synonym: cynical) among us knew it would not stand. It was too....sensible, too free and fabby for the dour money counter from Fife.

The Chancellor knew it would cost a lot (a fair chunk of £5 billion). He knew there was no way to police that people weren't enjoying the assets (other than the wine) before retirement. But he went ahead, because it was supposed to make saving 'sexy' and anyway, the general election was around the corner.

So why the U-turn? Leaving thousands of middle earners overextended and if they sell things that were supposed to be tax exempt facing whopping capital gains tax? How is this good for the economy? Making the middle class poorer?

I think I have found the answer: "A senior Treasury official explained that abuses in the system had come to light. People were "enjoying the investments", he said. "

My friend Jim, graduate of LSE's social policy programme and current columbia law student, once asked me what I thought a Gordon Brown premiership would be like.

"Well," I said. "There'll be no dancing on Sundays for a start."

MTF pointed out to me that while he looks at a guy driving an aston martin and thinks "right, I'll work bloody hard so I can have one of those one day" the late lamented robin cook looks at one and thinks "right, I'll work bloody hard to make sure that that guy doesn't get to keep that."

Fuckers. Looters. Ayn Rand was an abject loon, but she had a bloody point.