CAMRA get it wrong... again

From the Swindon Advertiser

PLANS are in motion to convert four closed pubs for other uses – further proof of the harsh conditions facing the licensed trade in Swindon.

Planning applications have been submitted to Swindon Council for change of use for The Black Horse, in Hinton Road, Wanborough, and The Sandgate, in Oxford Road, Stratton, as well as 12 Bar and The Falcon Inn, both in Westcott Place.

Well, hardly surprising, really. All low-food, local, community pubs with no area outside to create a shelter. Places that rely on smokers.

New figures released this week by the Campaign for Real Ale indicate 26 pubs across the UK are closing every week. Campaigners say this is largely as a result of the recession, tax on beer and cheap supermarket alcohol.

Well, the tax on beer is the same, whether we're talking pub or supermarket. Supermarket booze has always been cheaper. A mate of mine at university used to buy vodka and put it in a hip flask. Recession? Thing is, Swindon isn't actually feeling the effects of recession very much. 

I don't know if CAMRA are being deliberately stupid, or are just ignorant.

Taking the Biscuit

3rd May 2013

"For the Conservatives I understand why some people who have supported us before didn't support us again. They want us to do even more to work for hard-working people to sort out the issues they care about," he said.
"More to help with the cost of living, more to turn the economy round, more to get immigration down, to sort out the welfare system. They will be our focus, they are our focus, but we have got to do more."

7th May 2013

But the proposals, which include reducing the availability of less healthy options in shops and restaurants, were denounced as “underhand interfering”.
Saturated fat in ready meals would be replaced by healthier ingredients while the size of sugary, fatty foods such biscuits and cakes could be reduced.
It is part of the Government’s pledge to cut obesity under the “Responsibility Deal” which currently requires food companies to reduce calories and salt.

I know, it's only biscuits, but it's a microcosm of a general problem about the government NOT sorting out the issues that hard-working people care about. When hard-working people go out to Starbucks and buy a gorgeous sugar-frosted blueberry muffin, it's because they want a gorgeous sugar-frosted blueberry muffin.

What ministers really do is to allow themselves to be driven by sockpuppet fake charities, funded by government, given oxygen by the elite press like The Times and The Guardian.

If you want my advice, stick a fiver on Labour to win at the next election.

Idiocy from Polly Toynbee

From the Graun:

But the purpose of CCGs is to bring in maximum competition. NHS services will find themselves bidding against the likes of Virgin Care or the American giant United Healthcare, which are likely to cherry-pick easy and profitable services – diagnostics, routine pre-planned surgery and simple treatments – leaving behind A&E, the frail, the old and anything that is unpredictably expensive.

If they're easy, they're not particularly profitable, because if they're easy, lots of people can compete for them. Really, supply and demand economics, do you speak it, Polly?

As it happens, this is exactly what we want. Plenty of people can remove ingrowing toenails, so let there be a market in them. For the tasks like building bionic arms that a couple of people are working on, and will form a monopoly, keep them in the NHS (and once we've got lots of people doing bionic arms, create a market).

The result of communism - your daughters become whores

I noticed that recently on Tim Worstall's website that there's lots of ads from pretty women from Vietnam looking for husbands. OK, it's not exactly whoring, but well, they're pretty girls looking for rich men in the west, so, well, it's whoring, and well, they are in a communist country.

The collapse of the Berlin wall led to the porn industry being filled with porn actresses from Eastern Europe.

I'll bet that when Cuba opens up, that within a few months, the porn industry will be filled with Cuban women.

Eastleigh Prediction

1. Lib Dems win
2. Cons 2nd, by not much
3. UKIP take enough votes that they split the vote on the "right"

Olympic Legacy Costs

From the BBC

Six months on from the London Games, the grand promise to inspire us to becoming a fitter, sportier nation seems to be on track.
According to Sport England's latest edition of the Active People survey, published just before Christmas, there's been a 750,000 increase in the number of people playing sport once a week in the last year.

Considering the survey is generally around 15m, that's around a 5% increase. Not much of a "grand" increase.

But let's consider the cost, shall we...

The Olympics cost £11bn. As a result, we got an extra 750,000 people playing sport. So, for each of those people playing sport, it cost us £16,000. Might have been cheaper just to build them each a swimming pool.

Follow the Money

From the Scotsman

MORE than 50 victims of ­Jimmy Savile’s decades of sexual abuse plan to bring compensation claims against the BBC, the NHS and the former DJ’s estate, their lawyer has said.

That's "alleged victims"

Liz Dux said the number of people coming forward is still growing. “All the victims that we are representing are wanting to pursue civil claims,” Dux said. “Compensation is the only thing we can really do for them but that is not their particular motivation for doing this.”

Oh, of course. By the way, Liz Dux is working for a legal firm that's bringing these cases.

“It is for getting their stories out there to get them believed and to prevent it from happening again. You don’t do it for the money. All of them have claims against Savile’s estate, and in addition the BBC and various hospitals and so on where the abuse took place.”

Well, that isn't going to happen, is it. If the BBC or ITV cough up, it'll have a gagging order so that the victim can't tell anyone, The last thing the BBC want is grubby stories coming out about them, and they'll pay for it because it's not their money. In the unlikely event of the BBC or ITV calling their bluff the cases will probably collapse as the evidence ain't going to be there.

The full scale of the late presenter’s abuse was revealed in a report published on Friday. His crimes spanned six decades, from 1955 to 2009, his entire career at the BBC, and included sexually touching a teenage girl at the final recording of Top of the Pops in 2006.

"alleged abuse", "alleged crimes."

Meanwhile, Mark Williams-Thomas, who presented the ITV documentary that first exposed Savile, has said the number of victims could yet double, with current figures “a mere drop in the ocean”.

Unlikely as Savile is dead.

Rail Fare Rises

From the Guardian

Rail fares have risen again above inflation, sparking protests nationwide. The government claims it's a 'complicated issue'

Really, it's not. It's a simple matter of maximising revenue. If you can fill a train with people paying £120, why would you fill it with people paying £110? Arguably, it would be better to allow the companies to remove the cap and just find the right price they want to charge.

Well, There's a Shocker

From the FT

Hotel occupancy rates suggest the Olympics also failed to act as an advertisement for London as a tourist destination after the games. Jeremy Hunt, the then culture secretary, said in August that the games would “turbocharge” the tourism industry on the back of “a globally enhanced reputation”.
Yet in both London and the regions, occupancy rates in September and November have been flat year-on-year, according to hotel consultants PKF.

So, are any of the supposed benefits still standing or is that it?