Head of Legal earlier in the week deals with the Law Lords’ judgement in the case of R (Gentle) v Prime Minister and Others. It wasn’t the judgement which caught my eye, but one of the comments in which Peter Hargreaves observes:
If we had a true Parliament instead of a House of Muppets controlled by the executive then we would have the inquiry. Under our constitution it is supposed to be Parliament which holds the executive to account but as Lord Denning once said – “Legal theory does not march hand in hand with political reality” – [Attorney-General v Blackburn 1971]. The reality is that the executive controls Parliament.
As usual the late lamented Lord Denning hit the nail on the head so many years ago; he should be living yet!
The BBC reports today that Zimbabwe’s President (aka. dictator), Robert Mugabe, has described UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown as ‘a little tiny dot on this world’. Much as it pains me, for once I have to agree with Mugabe.
In the same report South African President Thabo Mbeki said there was “no crisis” in Zimbabwe. Hmmm. I think that makes it fairly clear which mast his colours are nailed to. I’ve been saying for years that South Africa will degenerate into a blood bath; I suspect the only reason it hasn’t yet done so is because Nelson Mandela still has a lot of influence behind the scenes. But once Mandela dies I have a horrid feeling South Africa will go much the same way as Zimbabwe, Uganda, and others. Let’s hope I’m wrong.
Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then while travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.
And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of all things foreign!
Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.
Only in Britain do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
Only in Britain do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.
Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.
Only in Britain do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk and cheap lawn mower in the garage.
Only in Britain do we use answering machines to screen calls – and then have call waiting so we won’t miss a call – from someone we didn’t want to talk to in the first place!
Only in Britain are there disabled parking places in front of a skating rink.
NOT TO MENTION…
3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.
58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.
31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in.
19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate.
British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after Christmas cracker pulling accidents.
18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.
A massive 543 Brits were admitted to A&E; in the last two years after trying to open bottles of beer with their teeth.
5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out-of-control Scalextric cars.
And finally …
In 2000 eight Brits were admitted to hospital with fractured skulls incurred whilst throwing up into the toilet.
One of a series taken at Alexisbad during RailTrail charter from Quedlinberg to Wernigerode, 13/02/2008. This was a special for our photoshoot; the train on the right is our charter train; the one on the left was a service train which had just terminated. And I must say it was a magnificent sight and not something you will see these days during normal service. It would have been even better if there had been the snow we should have rightly had in February. We spent well over half an hour here just standing around; it was a bit chilly even with warm layers, jackets, hats, gloves and scarves. But well worth the wait, I hope you’ll agree!
This completes the pictures from our Germany trip. For me this shot is the star of the whole set, but not by a lot!
This is my 1000th upload to Flickr in just 2 years and 2 days — so I thought I’d better make it a good one!
One of a series taken at Alexisbad during RailTrail charter from Quedlinberg to Wernigerode, 13/02/2008. This was specially set up for our photoshoot; the train on the right is our charter train; the one on the left was a service train which had just terminated. And I must say it was a magnificent sight and not something you will see these days during normal service. It would have been even better if there had been the snow we should have rightly had in February. This is the sort of thing which Railtrail do well: the tours are well researched with special shots like this set up where it can be done because they know that one of the big attractions of this type of tour is for the photographers, as well as those who just want to ride on “pretty” trains!
I have a feeling we might well do this one again sometime; perhaps in Spring (tho’ not this year).
I’ve just put up on Flickr the next batch of my photographs from the Harz Mountains trip last month (in fact we left exactly one month ago today). I’ve got probably three more batches of 8 or so to post, which I will hope to do by the weekend — and I’m keeping some of the better ones for the end; it’s called an incentive to come back again! Although that holiday was hard work, with lots of early starts, it was a great break and I would thoroughly recommend Railtrail as specialist tour company: everything was superbly organised and ran like clockwork; the two guides were friendly and knowledgeable and not always chivvying us to get to somewhere else; all very relaxed. I already feel the need to do it all over again.
I’ve just posted the latest series of pictures from our trip to Germany in February. This set are all of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn which runs above the streets and the Wupper river for about 8 miles (13km). Apart from one in a German theme park, this is the only public suspended monorail in the world. More information in the Schwebebahn Wuppertal item on Wikipedia. And the full set of photos is at www.flickr.com/photos/kcm76/sets/72157604071758017/ — they’re not brilliant pix, more for illustrative purposes than intended to be arty, but hopefully interesting for those who like curiosities or railways..
I’m still working through the photographs I took on holiday in German a few weeks ago. I’ve put the latest few online on Flickr. Some of the shots are pretty grainy (like this one) as they were taken in absolutely appalling light — in the case of this shot it was very grey and overcast and getting on towards dusk. Lots more to come which I intend to put up about 8-10 at a time over the next few weeks — and I’m keeping the best of the steam train shots ’til last (probably). I still have some 30% of the shots to look at in detail.
There’s an excellent short post over at Evolving Thoughts which succinctly addresses the need for open government. In fact it is so good I’m going to quote the key two paragraphs here:
Whenever a government […] wants to be free from oversight, the motivation, whether they are aware of it or not, is empire building and control. No government activity, not even those pertaining to that hold-all of rights denial, national security, should automatically be free from supervision. Democracy only works when government is done in the open. Otherwise it simply becomes a matter of who can rort the system most effectively, as we see with the Bush administration today.
No special powers are required to prevent terrorism, just good old fashioned police work. No special acts of parliament are needed to prosecute them, for insurgency and murder are already crimes. And no special politicians are needed to “lead us out of this mess”, because either every political authority can do this, or we have no hope. And a democratic government, legislature or judiciary knows this already, and will act to protect our rights in a time of stress.
Precisely what I’ve been saying for years.
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
