Daily Archive for January 18th, 2008

To be expected

Published
by
james
on January 18, 2008
in The everyday
. 2 Comments

Tedious news story.

I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again, if you live by a stream, brook, burn, river, canal, rivulet, spring, lake or indeed any other type of watercourse, you should expect flooding at some point.

I bring this up because, yet again, the news is awash with ‘flooding misery’ and sound bites from people bemoaning the fact that the government isn’t doing anything about it. Quite what they expect, I don’t know. Presumably they’d like their house moving to the top of a hill or massive flood defences building so it becomes a problem for people further downstream rather than themselves. Maybe they’d like an ark building or a biblical prophet to part the waters around their property next to a bloody river.

Anyone’d think we’d only just arrived on this planet and water was a new concept we were still struggling with. I’ve never seen such a group of gawking morons. Ok, so your house is underwater, that’s sad. But here’s a newsflash; you live next to a river, an entity renowned for being comprised of water. When it rains, that river collects lots of water from miles around and sometimes, astonishingly, does what full rivers do and overflows. This is not something new. Far from it in fact, it’s something that’s been happening since before human beings evolved from the primordial ooze, since before we stopped actually breathing water. Now I could be wrong, but I think it’s the reason why until recently no one built their houses on those big flat expanses known as ‘flood plains’ is because, guess what, they fucking flood!

Even if you’re not living on a flood plain, even if your property has never flooded before, if you live near water there’s a chance it’ll one day rise up and ruin your carpet. It’s done it before, it’ll do it again, don’t be so dense.

There are of course, exceptions to this tirade, people for whom I feel genuinely sorry. These are the poor buggers who genuinely have never had a problem with flooding before and live in locations that, previously, were blissfully unaffected. So, why do they have a problem now?

Well, it’s all down to incompetence and greed isn’t it? Developers pay whomever it is they need to pay to be allowed to build houses in stupid locations and, in doing so, change the nature of the ground flow, maybe they build some flood defences while they’re at it. But all that water has to go somewhere, right? Previously it spread out over the flats and marshes but now it can’t, so it’s channelled along its usual course and funnelled through flood defences, past the cities and towns, and back out into the countryside where there aren’t any because, well, they’ve never had a problem with flooding before.

Only, oh no, the river’s a lot higher than it usually is because of all the excess water it’s still carrying. Guess what happens next.

You’d think people would realise that, in changing the nature of a river and its surrounds, there’s going to be knock-on effects downstream. It’s hardly a difficult concept is it?

Unusually forgiving

Published
by
james
on January 18, 2008
in The everyday
. 0 Comments

Preamble: You’re going to need to do some reading here people, or this won’t make much sense. Never let it be said that I don’t attempt to inform as well as bitch and moan like someone who’s had their benefits cut.

Gary Weddell: A policeman who killed his wife and then his mother-in-law.Chalk outline

Mr Weddell was granted bail with a surety of £200,000, put up by his lawyer brother, on condition that he hand in his gun licence and stay away from his mother-in-law.

Justice at its very finest there, you’ll notice how Mr. Weddell did exactly as the judge told him to and in no way went on to kill his mother-in-law. Classic.

Shaved apes: Three chavs who kicked a man to death.

Defence of decision number one.
Defence of decision number two.
Defence of both decisions and, essentially, all other judicial fuck-ups which resulted in my rant.

It’s interesting to note that the story about the chavs has generated more coverage. Presumably this is because it better panders to what the audience wants to hear.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if a decision I made resulted in someone dying, I’d be in the shit up to my armpits. Mind you, I’m not a judge so I have to take some form of responsibility for my actions.

The decision as to whether to grant bail to a defendant is always a difficult one for judges and magistrates. These must be independent judicial decisions based on the law as it is, and they do so to a very high standard.

ChavI’d argue that if that were the case, two people wouldn’t be dead. But what’s the point? The copper who killed his wife and his mother-in-law was probably bailed because he’s a copper and the slack-jawed, fuckwit chav, because it’s easier than actually doing something about him, like locking the violent little tit in a six by six cell or forcing him into the army.

I realise that I’m probably some tub-thumping reactionary, but I’m sick of it. In the last fifteens years this country, so far as I can tell, has been sliding into a pit of its own feculence and now we’re stuck with a society where people suspected of murder are allowed on their way and we all seem more concerned with the human rights of criminals than with the wellbeing of everyone else. Is it just me? Am I being overly critical of the situation? Does anyone else feel that eventually we’re going to end up a nation comprised of slums, interspersed with ivory towers of people who while away their hours trying to convince the rest of us that everything’s just fine?

It’s a wonder people haven’t started taking matters into their own hands just to get a result.

And do you know what rankles most, what really rubs salt in the wound? It’s not the fact that communities no longer band together to provide mutual support, it’s not the anti-social masses of bastards that loiter on corners in the gloom and menace pensioners, it’s the fact that the government, the people who are supposed to provide and organise the infrastructure whereby stability and security are provided to the nation, are more interested in making the other parties look bad than actually resolving to do something, anything, about the situation that isn’t sitting on their arses, talking.

I get so fucked off with the empty rhetoric and tired old attempts to assuage our fears that I honestly wonder why we haven’t seen a rise in vigilante justice. Personally, I don’t care about government figures and I don’t think the rest of the populous does either, what I care about is the world I see around me, a world devoid of a police presence but filled with people who make me uneasy and concerned for my own safety.

Poor useless bastardsThere are places in my own city that I won’t go at night, which I think twice about visiting during the day, does that strike you as normal? Does that strike you as being, in some way, right? Granted, I live in Nottingham, crime capital or some other bollocks, but if that’s the case, then surely the place should be inundated with coppers. Wouldn’t an overwhelming police presence improve the situation, make the streets safer? Am I missing something?

Of course I am. I’m missing the fact the that police need a decent wage and our taxes need to be spent on more important things, like ministerial expenses, failed projects and illegal wars. But it’s ok, because the crime figures are down and the judiciary do an excellent job.

Ministers say so, it must be true.