A Literate Cynic..

An example of truly dismal customer service..   Chris O’Shea Group Chief Executive Centrica plc Millstream Maidenhead Road Windsor SL4 5GD   13 th  February 2021     Dear Mr O’Shea   British Gas HomeCare – Agreement No. xxxxxxxxxx-xxxx   I am writing to you with regard to the service being provided by your British Gas HomeCare division.   We had a new boiler fitted by British Gas in 2001 and have paid for British Gas HomeCare to cover Central Heating, Plumbing and Drains and Home Electrical since then, without a break as far as I can recall. Currently we pay an annual subscription of £290.76 and an excess of £50 per visit for the security of knowing we will have a range of domestic breakdowns attended to promptly.   We have used the service a number of times and usually found response times, outcomes and the professionalism of your personnel to be satisfactory or better. We have recommended the service to friends and relatives.   On Janu...

Whilst making the most of forty-eight Twitter-free hours - actually, I (temporarily) deactivated my account on Sunday evening - I’ve realised there’s no outlet for intemperate rants about the endless succession of bloody irritating, if not infuriating, stories in the news, not least courtesy of the official state broadcaster, the (#DefundThe..) BBC. So, methinks, let’s update the blog! Delighted to see that ‘Sir’ – I do hope that boat has sailed! – Lewis Hamilton has decided to add being an ‘anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist’ to his portfolio of achievements, alongside race-baiting supporter of the anarcho-Marxist BLM organization. He may have deleted the message saying he hadn’t read the material, so he’s either a dolt or simply got caught being a pillock! And, regards ‘taking it up the ‘knee’’, our Lewis’ll be making damn sure that the half dozen F1 drivers who ARE standing up against compulsory breast-beating and the wearing of hair-shirts get as much negative exposure as he ...

Re the recent Newsnight/ Saint Emily bias story, BBC clearly #SorryNotSorry Definitely time to end the grossly unfair licence tax! "Thanks for registering a complaint. We would like to make absolutely clear that Emily Maitlis was not ‘removed’ or ‘suspended’ from the programme on 27 May, despite much speculation to the contrary. She herself has tweeted that she ‘asked for the night off’.  The BBC must uphold the highest standards of due impartiality in its news output. We reviewed the entirety of Newsnight on Tuesday May 26th, including the opening section, and while we believe the programme contained fair, reasonable and rigorous journalism, we feel that we should have done more to make clear the introduction was a summary of the questions we would examine, with all the accompanying evidence, in the rest of the programme. As it was, we believe the introduction we broadcast did not meet our standards of due impartiality. Our staff have been reminded of the guidelines....

And a rebuttal of comments by 'George the Poet.. [Mr Cameron's remarks about…]  the painful legacy of colonialism could not be further from the truth and they reveal a disappointing lack of historical judgment. The British Empire in India, known as the Raj, was the greatest experiment in paternalistic imperial government in history. By the time the British left India in 1947 they had given the subcontinent a number of priceless assets, including the English language, but also a structure of good government, local organisation and logistical infrastructure that still holds good today. Far from damaging India, British imperial rule gave it a head start. At the centre of this was the Indian Civil Service, the 1,000 strong "heaven-born" group of administrators that ran the country. Their role in laying the foundations for strong, efficient government in India has never been accorded the respect and admiration it deserves. While history has recorded that the ICS w...

Letter to my MP on the present #BrexitShambles.. " Dear Ms Whately I don’t write often to my MP, but in view of the complete shambles that has become of the UK’s departure from the EU, I have to put ‘finger to keyboard’! I believe very strongly that there now remains only one ‘Brexit’ option acceptable to the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU and that is for the UK to leave as soon as possible and deal on World Trade Organisation terms with the EU until new trade (and other) agreements can be made with it. Whilst the EU has never truly negotiated with us in good faith - and our negotiating stance has been at best feeble - Parliament has repeatedly failed to make firm decisions on - or move towards - our departure and it is clear to most people that a great many MPs, not least a number of Conservatives including the Speaker, are trying very hard to prevent any meaningful Brexit at all. Despite the protestations of the Remain camp, both sides and all voters kne...

Why, oh why does the left seem so desperate to see North-Western Europe overrun by migrants from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, North Africa and the Horn of Africa and points South and East? By most measures and certainly in comparison to the regions whence the migrant streams originate, North-Western Europe is wealthy, prosperous, safe, socially, educationally, technologically and industrially advanced. It offers a fabulously high standard of living, with free healthcare, free schooling and damn near full employment. Minorities enjoy rights across Europe that they would not even dream of in most of the countries of origin of the migrants arriving today. Equality of gender, sexuality and race and freedoms of expression, assembly and religion are well established. The rule of law works pretty well. In contrast, the regions from where hundreds of thousands are setting off on often expensive and perilous journeys towards this perceived utopia are under-developed socially, industrially and ...

Mrs Ann Barnes Police and Crime Commissioner Kent Police Force Headquarters Sutton Road Maidstone Kent ME15 9BZ 15/ 8/ 2013 cc: Ian Learmonth – Chief Constable cc: Beverley Newman – Head of Legal Services Dear Mrs Barnes Information Sharing Agreements with RSPCA I understand from media reports that Kent is one of a number of UK police forces that has signed an information sharing agreement with the RSPCA. I should like to express my very serious concerns that an organisation, which is not an official prosecution authority and is only able to bring private prosecutions over instances of animal cruelty, should have access to a vast range of personal information about individuals. This, I understand, includes information about age, employment, home address and details of parents as well as details of a person’s vehicle(s), police history and details of any firearms licensing. I believe there is no legal basis whatsoever for providi...

Older, none the wiser and UKIP have given the Tories a fright. Good.

Am I still here? If so, back soon.... And **** me, nothing for a year!! I'll be back...

I had planned to describe December as 'white' but I suspect that this is no longer permitted under enlightened legislation to safeguard everyone from any kind of persecution on grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, etc, etc....... Where to start? There are so many things about which any right-thinking person should be experiencing frequent apoplectic fits, it is hard to pick out the most brightly shining stars in the firmament of utter bollocks. BA cabin crew being duped - allegedly - into voting to strike for 12 days solidly over Christmas by their union. How on earth does anyone still fail to realise that the trades unions - particularly the big Waffen-SS style super-unions..) are run by power-crazed fascists whose only real motivation is to fight the class war whilst lining their personal pockets? The Nu Labour government clearly thinks that climbing out of the trenches of the class war and lumbering across no mans land towards the playing fields...

Bile to follow!

The start of July sees GOM marginally more irritated than usual - if such a thing is possible - as summer tends to bring society's most aggravating merchant bankers out from under their decking... The short daily walk to and from school with the children provides the perfect opportunity to view an abundance of prats at close quarter. Leading the field are the cretins who cannot walk the three hundred meters to the school and have no option but to park their Freelander two hundred meters from school, doing their best to create a local mini-gridlock. This group is closely followed by the drivers who feel that the pavement, despite being used by schoolkids and parents, is a useful route to take when the inevitable daily traffic snarl-ups start. Of course the hot weather can wreak havoc on women who have had to spend all day drinking coffee and blathering, going to the gym to drink coffee and blather and otherwise doing bugger all. Sensible, therefore, that once they have bagged a prim...

Well, just six weeks or so on from my first whinge here and many of our politicians can now be seen to have had their snouts in the trough for years. How can somebody claim mortgage expenses for 18 months after they had, presumably, paid off the loan without realising it? Why should Mr Silly Sod the British Taxpayer stump up £2,600 so Shaid Malik can have a giant TV and home cinema system or McKay and McBride make twin claims? Hazel Drears claiming on three different properties in one year and trying to dodge CGT? 'Flipping', moat cleaning, private security, doing up your house on the taxpayer! It truly is mind-boggling.. I suspect that British pigs are feeling pretty fed up at the company we are accusing them of keeping.. Perhaps every MP should face a reselection meeting before the next (and very overdue..) general election.. And then there's the Labour peers on the take? The House of Lords that ZANU Labour is so keen to reform! Rant over - almost.. I look forward (with ...

Heavens above! What a week.. Brown strutting around the EU trying to persuade all and sundry that the calamitous state of affairs in the UK is all the fault of everyone else and that we should all spend ourselves stupid in a bizarre and doomed attempt to climb out of the abyss. In denial of the fact that the UK is likely to get screwed hardest of all by the current crisis because of his failure to monitor the situation, profligate spending and abject incompetence all round. And all this in the face of the comments by the Bank of England that the spendfest has to stop. A government report (Rose) is expected to suggest primary school kids learn more about blogging and using Wikipedia. How sad. Another example of New Labour's mantra that IT is the answer to all society's ills and the key to some brave new world of educated, employable, highly-skilled and rounded citizens. I'd suggest 'illiterate and inarticulate computer nerds'. Brown envelopes stuffed with used fivers...