More Alcohol Purchase Idiocy

A woman has been fined, because she asked her daughter to reach to the top shelf for some alcohol for her.

When she got to the till she was refused the 4 bottles her daughter got off the shelf. She then left the store, loadd up her car and returned on her own and got the alcohol, but staff still refused to let her purchase it, saying they thought she was supplying a minor. She took the bottles she had with her leaving the shop with the exact amount of money and walked out of the store. Later the Police called to her home and issued her with a fixed penalty notice.

Note in all of this there is no proof of her supplying a minor, only someone's suspicion of the the intent to supply. It'll be interesting when it goes to court. From the video accompanyning the report, I get the impression shes not a woman to be messed with!

Lisbon Treaty: A 15-year-old's Perspective.

My daughter came in from school yesterday and promptly declared "We've just handed Britain over to the EU haven't we? Thats disgusting!"

Quite how she came by this information I don't know (I make a point of letting my kids make their own minds up about such things), but if its clear to her as a fifteen-year-old with no interest in politics, it must be clear to the rest of the country.

We've been handed, lock, stock and barrel to the EU. There's no point in the disingenuous points the Tories are trying to make such as treaty revisions. There's no point. The Lisbon treaty has made promises of further referenda immaterial.

David Cameron knows that, as do the rest of the shadow cabinet. Its a bald lie that Britain can do any tweaking round the edges. The deal is done.

There is ONLY ONE choice available to us now. To STAY in THE EU, OR TO LEAVE.

Rise in the Green Economy? Not on Labours Watch.

A lovely, comical piece on the BBC website today. Well, its not supposed to be comical, its a serious piece about a new electric car, designed by F1 designer Gordon Murray.

Now I've blogged before about battery-powered electric cars being a technological cul-de-sac, but the comedy isn't about where the power comes from.

No, its the looks:



Just look at it. £4.5 million of taxpayers money has been sunk into this abomination. Thats half the cost of developing it. Thats 9 million quid to develop a buggy, when I've seen better built in 10 hours on scrapheap challenge.

I'm not even remotely impressed by the supposedly new iStream technology, where the body panels are made by welding flat panels together. Anyone can learn to weld flat panels together and why would you build a car built out of flat sheets of steel anyway? How many people love Stealth Fighter Chic?

This thing is so wrong for so many reasons. But indicative of government funded projects, where government fail to spot where the smart money is going. The smart money is investing in Hydrogen infrastructure and hydrogen fuel cells for cars. Its investing in that technology simply because its the least alien of the future technologies. People will fuel their cars just like they're fuelling them now. There won't be a range issue like there is with battery technology.

But government money has never been smart money.......

Fall of an Empire

Although its about Formula 1, this report shows in no uncertain terms what a tough time Japan and other established manufacturing economies are having against the emerging world.

India and China is where all the money is going at the moment, which begs the question, why the hell are we still giving foreign aid to India? Its a nation that has its own space programme FFS!

At some point in time, our economic model, based on financial transactions will go the same way. In this digital age financial transactions can be done anywhere and if manufacturing with all its associated infrastructure can be relocated, so can virtual industries. Just what does the UK have to replace it? Is there a plan B? The more I think about the detail of this global financial realignment, the more I'm convinced there won't be a happy outcome.

I'm glad that the blogosphere's condemnation of Gordon Brown's "The UK is best placed to weather the financial storm" remarks have so shown to be accurate. I'm sure that the other prognostications such as hyperinflation, massive job losses and a double-dip recession will come to pass as well. After all, the next government has an tricky task ahead, attempting to reverse the huge government overspend while keeping the economy from plummeting. Good luck to them, because I can't see a way of walking that tightrope successfully.

No Guarantees (Cast Iron or Otherwise)

So, now that the Czechs have ratified the Lisbon Treaty, David Cameron has said there will be no UK referendum on it. So now not only have Labour gone back on manifesto promises, but the Conservatives have gone back on a "cast-iron" guarantee.

You really do know where you are with our current Parliament: They'll promise the earth, punch you to the ground, shit in your face, piss on the rest of you, then nick your wallet, before giving you a good kick as they depart.

People actually think that things will be different with Cameron in charge. The Lisbon Treaty has shown that really, truthfully, it won't.

Not unless we the public change things.