Rants ‘n’ Raves
Rant: 2012 Olympics Carnival Goes Critical
Insane!
That’s the only adjective to describe today’s news in the Evening Standard (and briefly on the Beeb before it seemed to mysteriously vanish!) that “The organisation in charge of keeping the costs of the 2012 Olympics down is to receive a £10 million bonus in recognition of its success”.
OK…let’s just rewind slightly…
Did I imagine it or isn’t the Olympic budget currently under scrutiny – largely because the estimated cost has exploded to a gobsmacking £9.3 billion – more than 4 times the original estimate (with 5 years still to run)?
+12Rave: NOT a stairLIFT to Heaven!
Well…last night’s Led Zep gig was a bummer to miss (even with all the anti-touting procedures) and on the whole the reviews are pretty good.
The video clip on the Beeb’s website looked awesome.
Gone of course is Robert Plant’s screaming vocal, and from all accounts the band’s more legendary excesses have been replaced with requests for cups of tea. But the band doesn’t seem to have lost any of it’s showmanship and raw, growling sound.
Jimmy Page’s recent finger injury seems to have recovered well and he certainly proved that his talent remains undiminished by time. Likewise, John Paul Jones’ amazing musical versatility has definitely improved with age and Jason Bonner did his dad proud.
*sigh* wish I was THERE.
+14Rant: Religious Sensibilities gone Mad
After the fiasco in Sudan where a teacher has been jailed for 15 days for calling a class teddy bear “Muhammad”, I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon too…by starting a new worldwide religion (after all, if L.Ron Hubbard can do it then so can I).
This new religion (which I shall call “Methylated Spiritualism”) will consider the following social groups, items and practices as sacrilegious:-
+21Rant: Big Brother lives
An interesting article on the Beeb’s website in which Ministers have played down reports that compulsory ID cards for all Britons are to be scrapped has filled me with hope.
In politics there is a kind of “reverse spin” that seems to be applied whenever MP’s are looking for a way to back out of bad legislation proposals without losing too much face. One of the ways they do this is to insist that plans are proceeding or (the real giveaway) start to “play down” reports of whatever. See the words “play down” and in most cases you can be assured that the legislation being proposed is doomed.
+20Rant: Bio Security Fiasco – Heads MUST roll!
The recent outbreaks of foot and mouth disease has left me thinking: is it just me or has the blinding incompetence of modern British government and big business reached new heights?
It seems that the private company (Merial Animal Health) and the government department (Institute for Animal Health) who shared the Pirbright facility, near Guildford were more interested in arguing about who should be responsible for bio-security (and more importantly – at least as far as they were concerned – who was going to PAY for it) than actually taking control of the issue.
+18BAE – Corruption on a giant scale
In a gobsmacking expose by the BBC’s Panorama programme last week, we glimpsed the extent of the payouts from BAE Systems plc to former Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultin.
BAE Systems was formed from the £7.7 billion merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems in November 1999.
Today, we laughingly learn that BAE Systems is setting up an ethics committee. 
+17