Misanthrope Girl

Born at the fag-end of Callaghan’s Premiership I, unlike some who have recently been emoting vehemently, lived through the Winter of Discontent and all of Baroness Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister. Not being a child prodigy, I cannot though claim to have memories of seeing and experiencing much of the events of the time first hand. As for those born after she left office who apparently know so much of what life was like under her, I can only say that I am in awe.

My knowledge of her time – and the events leading up to her 1979 election victory – is the result of what my parents have said and what I have read over the last 20 or so years. I do however know that there is a lot of difference between words on the page and first hand experience.

She was not perfect – no person, especially a politician, ever will be and anyone who seriously claims that they are should be referred to the nearest loony bin ASAP – but so far as my interpretation of her time goes, she left this country in a far better shape economically than it was when she started.

My memories of events in the world around me go back to the mid/late 1980s. I recall my mum watching the wedding of Prince Andrew, I saw Challenger explode on the news and I loved some of the privatisation adverts but I have little memory of almost all of the politics of the day.

Politically the first thing I remember is the Poll Tax and the brouhaha which surrounded it. Although a political disaster for the Conservatives and the policy which triggered Lady Thatcher’s downfall, it is perhaps ironic that my contempt for the hypocrisy of socialism can probably be dated to this time.

Whilst my dislike (and eventual hatred) of tax didn’t begin until I had to start paying it in its most obvious forms (Income, NI, Council) I became aware of its existence as a result of the Community Charge. A flat rate tax with every adult paying the same, my young mind couldn’t, initially, work out why socialists, with their commitment to everyone being treated equally, would object to being taxed equally. It was the eventual realisation that people don’t always mean what they say which allowed me to understand that perhaps socialists don’t like the idea equality in practice – let alone when it applies to them.

RIP Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher, 1925 – 2013.

Dear Mr Burbridge and Mrs Guthrie,

I am sorry to hear about the fate of your father, Wing Commander Bransome Burbridge. Alzheimer’s is a cruel thing to suffer and I hope his last days, however long they may be, are as comfortable as you can make them.

Your efforts to cover his care costs are commendable and the decision to turn down offers of help must have been a difficult one. However I do have one question for you both.

Assuming you are quoted accurately across the two articles in the Telegraph, we have the following quotes from the 26th:

Mr Burbridge said it is a shame they had to sell the medals but feel they had no option in terms of financing their father’s care.

“After his working life he doesn’t have that much [in savings] and it isn’t enough to cover the costs.

“We thought, as he is the person who won these decorations, it is only right he should benefit from them in some way while he is still alive.

“Our family wouldn’t want to sell them if he wasn’t going to benefit. We’re reluctant to do it but we believe it is the right thing.

“It’s a shame but we are quite philosophical about it.

“I don’t think there is some sort of huge debt he is owed. He was happy to do the remarkable things he did and he survived. We value him more than we do his medals.”

and this from the 27th:

He said other families were not lucky enough to have such memorabilia to help fund their relative’s care, with some forced to even sell their homes.

My apologies if I have got my facts wrong but it seems to me after reading these quotes that the one thing you value more highly than your father and his medals is the house he and his wife lived in before she died and he went into care. Could this be because it will be worth more to you once he dies than the sentimental value of his medals?

Yours,
Misanthrope Girl

Scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the US Fish and Wildlife Service compiled nationwide data from a number of local surveys and pilot studies, to conclude that cats are responsible for the deaths of up to 3.7bn birds and 20.7bn small mammals every 12 months, including mice, voles, rabbits and shrews.

Predators kill. Red in tooth and claw n’ all that.

The website Seeking Arrangement, which boasts of being ‘The Elite Sugar Daddy Dating Site for those Seeking Mutually Beneficial Relationships® & Mutually Beneficial Arrangements™’, has come under fire from that august body of men and women otherwise known as MSPs.

The site’s premise is simple enough: bringing together wealthy, usually older benefactors and cash-strapped younger adults on whom they can show their money. Think any aging celebrity with a young, attractive woman on their arm and you are there.

Why are the MSPs so interested?

The website revealed yesterday that the University of Edinburgh is the latest Scottish university to make it on to their annual “Top 20 Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools” in the UK.

It said there had been a 222 per cent increase in female student sign-ups from the university since April 2012, putting it in 8th place with 148 new members in the UK league table.

The university is one of three north of the Border on the list. The others are Glasgow Caledonian which is ranked fifth and St Andrews ninth.

Students finding ways other than taxpayer backed loans to cover the cost of their tuition? Excellent. Initiative isn’t completely dead yet then.

But, as mentioned, the politicians – a group always suspicious of voluntary arrangements between consenting adults – are going for the scare tactic:

Liz Smith, MSP, Scottish Conservative education spokeswoman said that such sites could put female students at risk.

“I do not think I will be alone in having deep-seated concerns about this. I am sure there will be many parents, members of staff and indeed many students themselves who will rightly be very wary of the approach of this type of website,” she said.

“Sadly, there have been other circumstances where the police have been called in to investigate similar website activity and there is clearly a matter of concern about the reported growth-rate of female students wanting to make use of these social networking sites.”

Labour MSP Neil Findlay, a member of the education committee, said: “The company may like to spin this as students ‘being proactive in pursuing a higher education but I am very concerned that this may take are more sinister turn.

“Young people may be vulnerable to older men who may have less than altruistic motives behind their apparent generosity. The reality is Mr Wade’s company is making money out of a system that could be putting young students in danger.”

Yes, something might go wrong for a small percentage of the students – but that is how life works. Your job, you useless fools, isn’t to protect people every single waking second of the day – regardless of how much you may think otherwise. The only role of the state has to play in this (given its current monopoly on law and order) is to get involved when harm is done.

Besides, I suspect the people more likely to get fleeced out of these arrangements are those putting up the readies.

h/t @Jock_Bastard

I was going to write something about the deluded Malthusian fool otherwise known as David Attenborough and his latest piece of twaddle but others managed to eviscerate his drivel before I got a chance to:

• Counting Cats
• Longrider
• The View from Cullingworth
• Tim Worstall

For many of us the first working day of the year has arrived and, like the inevitability of rain following a drought order, rail fares have increased.

As a rail commuter myself I am well aware of how depressing it is to see the cost of getting to somewhere (London in my case) go up year after year for no discernible benefit in terms of better, less crowded trains, nicer stations and shorter journey times.*

When I next renew my annual season ticket the cost to me will be £3,136 – an increase of just under 4.2%. On the face of it this seems a lot of money for what is approximately an 80 mile round trip to London five days a week.

But when you take a closer look it starts to become more reasonable. Thanks to that annual season ticket I get:

• Unlimited travel between my home station and London 363** days a year
• The ability to use any station between those two points without worrying if my ticket will cover it (handy for Lakeside, should I wish)
• One third off of any other rail travel (except Transport for London – but I have my PAYG Oyster for that)

Not convinced? Then let us, as the colonials are want to say, ‘do the math’…

The daily cost to me of this ticket is £8.64. Narrow it down to 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year and the daily rate is £12.06. Take out my holiday allowance and the remaining bank holidays and you are up to £13.40 a day.

Now take a common small car, a Fiesta say. Apparently it does about 50 miles to the gallon of petrol so let us run with that figure even though I suspect it would do a lot less if sat in rush hour traffic for several hours a day.

At 80 miles a day, or 400 miles a week, that is 8 gallons (36.39 litres) of petrol a week. Assuming an unleaded car with petrol at 131.9p/litre (the lowest figure for my area according to PetrolPrices.com) I will be spending pretty much £48/week on petrol. Still, it’s less than 5 days on the train.

But wait, I haven’t thought about parking and (if I’m unlucky) the congestion charge. Like most London office blocks we don’t have acres of parking space but unlike most we do have a private side street which I could use if I arrived early enough. It would still however cost me £8/day as it is inside the congestion charge zone. If I didn’t fancy chancing it I could try the NCP on the edge of the zone at £18/day.

At a minimum I’m looking at £88/week or £4,576 a year. If I end up in the NCP every day it’s £7,176 and if I have to pay the congestion charge as well I’m up to £9,256 – almost 3 times my rail fare.

So whilst the taxpayer subsidised (boo, hiss), government regulated fare I have to pay on what we laughingly call our privatised rail network is hardly cheap, unless it triples in price I’ll stick to using it as the alternative is horrendously expensive.

I could, of course, always sell up, move closer to London and cycle in thus saving myself my transport costs – and I will admit to considering the idea – but this is offset by a more expensive property, a higher council tax bill and the depressing thought of having a socialist (of the Labour variety) MP and council.

In end it is, like everything, a choice so whilst I might (and indeed do) grumble about the cost I know that the grass on the other side of the fence isn’t necessarily greener.

The latest organisation to apparently succumb to the march of the bansturbators was the high street newsagent WH Smith (SMWH) when it announced a change of policy with regards to shooting magazines:

“As part of our commitment to operate our business responsibly, we have a till prompt on shooting titles.

“It asks our store teams to check that the customer is 14 years old or over, based on this being the legal age at which someone can possess a firearms certificate.”

Being a private company they are, of course, entitled to do such barmy things – as is so often demonstrated when it comes to supermarkets and alcohol – and customers are perfectly entitled to take their custom elsewhere.

Strictly speaking the spokesdroid was correct when they said a firearms licence is restricted to those over 14. What they failed however to mention was that it is perfectly legal for under-14s to be in possession of a shotgun licence and to use firearms whilst supervised.

Whilst that should amply demonstrate the stupidity of this rule change, the obvious problem which springs to mind is that what proof of age can a 14 year-old produce? The only ones I can think of are a birth certificate and a passport (children now having to have their own for international travel whereas back in the day they could travel on a parents’ passport pre-16). National Insurance cards aren’t issued until your 16th year, 17th for driving licences and proof of age cards are only for those over 18.

So what then prompted this silliness?

The answer is not government but the animal rights organisation Animal Aid. A poll conducted on their behalf of 1,000 members of the public (less than 1 in 60,000) found that 74% wanted such magazines moved to the ‘top-shelf’ and that 84% thought that they should only be sold to over-18s.

Whilst the sample size is certainly small, those asked demonstrate a worrying level of hoplophobia and illiberalism. Retailers should be allowed to organise their magazine shelves as they like and sell publications to whoever wants them. If you don’t like something then don’t buy it. What someone else buys is none of your business.

Animal Aid appears to be claiming that the glossy covers of these magazines, which allegedly feature pictures of shooters (yes, including children) with the creatures that they have shot, will attract children to shooting. That sounds remarkably like the argument that the tobacco control lobby are using over plain packaging to me…

Why target SMWH for their campaign though?

A major focus of Animal Aid’s ‘top shelf’ campaign will be high street newsagent WHSmith, which has so far rejected the national campaign group’s written request for a ban on gun magazine sales to under-18s. The company claims it operates an ‘age prompt of 14 years or over on our tills for shooting titles’. After receiving that assurance on July 30, Animal Aid sent five young researchers – aged 11 and 12 – into WHSmith branches in different parts of the country. Each bought a copy of Shooting Times without difficulty.

So it appears that SMWH may have already had this policy in place, albeit rather ineffectually. Is their announcement then just a reaffirmation of existing foolishness or statement that they intent to take the matter more seriously?

Says Animal Aid Director Andrew Tyler: ‘Since launching our call for a ban on the sale of gun magazines to children, shooting lobbyists have characterised us as “crazy” and “extremists”. They can see now that the vast majority of the public back our call, and that it is they who are out of touch with rational mainstream opinion.’

Sorry Andy but I think you are a bunch of crazy extremists as well and yet I’ve only once in my life fired a gun and have never been a member of the Countryside Alliance or the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. I’m also not keen on the tyranny of the majority and see nothing wrong with gun ownership, let alone the purchasing of magazines about the subject by people of any age. A bit less hoplophobia is a good thing as the sooner more people realise that a gun is just a tool the better we will all be as a society.

A minor bout of swearing erupted on Sunday after seeing reports in the MSM that the Isambard Community School in Swindon had insisted that all parents must obtain a CRB check before watching sporting events at the school:

A spokesman said: “It is with regret that from now on we will be unable to accommodate parents wishing to spectate at our sports fixtures unless they are in possession of an up-to-date Swindon Council CRB check.

“At Isambard we take safeguarding very seriously and because of this we are unable to leave gates open for access to sporting venues at anytime during the school day.

“The current access arrangements are frustrating for both Isambard staff and parents and have recently resulted in reception staff and PE staff being on the receiving end of verbal abuse from parents who have become frustrated trying to get into or out of the school.”

Taken at face value this sounds like a very stupid idea. It is the preceding paragraph to this however which begins to shine some light on matters:

The school introduced the new measure at the start of the term to prevent strangers from accessing other parts of the school from the playing fields.

That the school is hardly keen on random people wandering the halls is fair enough. Can’t blame them for that but CRB checks are hardly the way to do it and parents don’t exactly count as strangers.

What I can’t work out though is whether the press release which the school issued on Monday morning is aimed at correcting what it sees as inaccurate media coverage or if it is a total climb-down on a massive over-reaction:

In light of the recent press coverage regarding CRB checks on parents wishing to watch their children play in sports fixtures we would like to issue the following statement:

“Parents are more than welcome to attend to watch sports fixtures at Isambard Community School. However, there is no access to the sports pitches through the main school building. Parents are requested to use the Tadpole Lane entrance where there is ample parking. There have previously been issues with parents and other visitors arriving at the Isambard Way entrance and being annoyed to be asked to drive to Tadpole Lane. However, we are unable to allow visitors access through the school during the normal school day, which includes the enrichment time between 3:15pm and 6pm. We hope this clarifies the school’s position.”

We apologise for the fact that the Advertiser were given out-dated information regarding this issue prior to the article going to press.

Given the state of the MSM in this country and the knee-jerk “Won’t somebody please think of the children” reaction of the unthinking section of the populace, it could be one, t’other or both!

As we know from that bit of the media which isn’t still raking over the Andrew Mitchell non-story and the waste of time which was the Liberal Democrat party conference, a 15-year-old girl has eloped to France with her maths teacher.

Cue much wailing as well as pleas for her to come home and him to give himself up.

As she is under 16 the word ‘paedophile’ as well as various slang terms have been used online, if not by the media. It is, of course, the wrong word to use as she is, in terms of sexual development anyway, mature. If the teacher really does prefer partners in this stage of life then the term is ‘ephebophile’.

A teenage girl being attracted to an older male is not a story. As a general rule they tend to prefer older boys and men simply because the boys of their own age are usually behind them on the maturity curve.

Given then that developing teenage girls in the UK (and the developed world) tend to spend a significant part of their lives in schools and that schools will likely have at any one time several young-ish male teachers, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that sometimes the object of a girl’s affections will be her teacher.

Most of the time it will remain just a crush, one that the teacher may well be unaware of, and will go nowhere. There are times though when it will go further and I’d be surprised if there is a secondary or upper school in the land in which a relationship between a pupil and a teacher hasn’t taken place at some point.

I can think of one definite example from my days in the sixth-form* attached to my secondary school and there were persistent rumours about one of our humanities teachers*** involving a number of female pupils. In neither case, to the best of my knowledge, was any action taken against the teachers concerned.

Some will rail about the age of consent and how, because the law has imposed a legal age of 16, sexual congress with anyone under this age is an issue whilst waiting until the day of their 16th birthday isn’t. What they forget is that they themselves were young once and that the idea of the law telling you on which day you were able to make the beast of two backs with your partner may well have been as meaningless to you as the laws about when you could drink and/or smoke. Or perhaps, depending on personal preference, even the laws surrounding narcotics today.

Indeed the Telegraph has reported that the French police aren’t actively looking for her because the age of consent on the other side of the Channel is 15 and thus there is no crime taking place.

(Across Europe the age of consent is generally between 14 and 17 years of age, with the outliers being Spain at 13 and Turkey at 18.)

The sin in such circumstances is not that girls involved are 14 or 15 but that the teachers, who are In loco parentis, breached the trust placed in them by the families of the pupils and their employer.

By involving himself so comprehensively with Megan Stammers, Jeremy Forrest has destroyed whatever life he might otherwise have hoped to build in the UK. Assuming he does come back to these shores he can look forward to a criminal record, an entry on the sex offenders register, potentially some gaol time and the inability to ever work or act as a volunteer in any position which requires a CRB check to be performed. And, I would suspect, speedy divorce from his jilted wife.

Megan, who is unlikely to be an entirely innocent party, will likely get away scot-free.