STICK IT!

My regular reader will know that the one thing that gets right up Prespero's nose is people telling him what's good for him. And by extension, that means those who's vocation is to tell people in general what to do or think. So as well as politicians, Health & Safety 'Professionals' and Woman's Hour there's the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). They've just had a go at Mattesons, the meat people about an advertising campaign that asks the punters where they'd like to stick their sausage. And the problem is... what? Well, apparently children who's parents have neglected to tell them they weren't found under a cabbage leaf, might not understand that hide the sausage and stick the sausage are two different things. And thanks to the quango-ASA, they never will. It's like resistance to bacteria - if you disinfect everything, children don't build immunity. If Cameron gets in he says he'll burn the quangos. Don't hold your breath, Prospero predicts that these donkeys are going to be disinfecting us for a few years to come.

GET A GRIP, JAMES

They're getting shot at from every direction including from behind. The front line has come under fire because their radios weren't signed out before they went on patrol. Who is it that's telling the Army to 'get a grip?' None other than James Arbuthnot MP, chairman of the Defence Select Committee. James who? Yes, that' the one, the MP who had such a poor grip on his own finances that he didn't realise that he was claiming for cleaning the swimming pool in his second home Just remember James, that most of the people you're having a go at in the MoD are so poorly paid they can't even afford a first home. How about you give your second home with its swimming pool over to the Army Benevolent Fund for the remainder of the war to use as a rest home for soldiers suffering from battle fatigue? Wouldn't that be a much better use of public money than, say, a new television?

Stornaway Bus Fuss

They claimed that when a ferry broke down it was the hand of God. Well God's obviously missed the bit about British Engineering. When a ferry breaks down in this country it's because we build things to the BG Standard - that's British Gash. Anyway, all these Ministers of Religion protesting about CalMac running a ferry service to Stornaway on the Sabbath (that'll be the Christian Sabbath, not the real one) seem a little like the kettles calling the pots balck. They object to having their religious observances and rituals interrupted by people who ought to be at home reading a good book. But as a Jedi, my religion demands that I travel to islands on a day that falls between a Saturday and a Monday - so where's my freedom to worship in all this? Strikes me that the thing about being a Wee Free is that it's all Me Me Me.