Tag ArchivesFor the word: money
The Vimes theory of boots
I am not one of nature’s shoppers. True, I tend to pop into town around once a week, but it’s mostly to pick up some single essential item, do some banking, get something repaired or swing by a bakery.
I’ve had the same watch for fifteen years and the same mobile phone for five. I don’t own an iPlod, Blackberry or any other similar hand-held gadget. I drive a 14-year old Ford and my TV is still a clanky old tube-job with a roughly square screen. I do confess a weakness for cheap second-hand books, CDs and DVDs in good condition (which makes me popular in the charity shops) and sometimes, I’ll pop into Waterstones to see what’s on offer, but that’s about it.
+24Rant: 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)?
+12Rant: Trident (What a bloody waste!)
OK – just give me a moment to get this straight…
- The Cold War is now over and we’re on reasonable terms with the Russians and most of their eastern bloc colleagues. What’s more we have been for over a DECADE and the odds of previous hostilities resuming are longer than the odds of winning any state lottery (even ours!).
- Unilateral disarmament speeches (including from the current Labour cabinet and our “Prime Minister” himself) are a regular feature in the long-running farce that is UK politics for well over TWO decades.
+23Rant: Valentine’s Day Sucks!
Of all the naff annual events on a typical western-civilisation calendar, Valentine’s day has gotta be top of the list of all but the most stupid and gullible.
It’s a day when men (and women but mostly men) all over the world are compelled out of some kind of misguided sense of obligation to make largely empty gestures and spend a small fortune on overpriced crappy flowers, sickly chocolates and naffly sentimental cards.
+20