I'm voiting Republican because...

Love this video. Strange that I came across via the Telegraph's re-designed website, not known for its support for the Democrats. See the website.

Oh Schizophrenia*

Before I start, I must make clear that I have nothing against GPs. For the most part they are dedicated professionals who provide a much valued service and have their patients interests at heart. (I have to say this as there is at least one GP who drops by hear now and then.)

No doubt you can that there is a big *BUT* coming up and here it is -- they do have schizophrenic tendencies. Many people assume that they are just part of the NHS, but this isn't so. Quick history lesson, when the NHS was created 60 years ago next week, GPs and their union, the BMA, wouldn't play ball and Nye Bevan had to compromise and let them stay independent contractors paid by the NHS to provide family health services.

What this means as we approach the diamond jubilee of our jewel in the crown is that the vast majority of GP practices are small businesses and this is where the schizophrenia kicks in -- the BMA will opt to be independent contractors or part of the NHS family depending on the circumstances.

And sometimes both at the same time. Take this example from Redcar and Cleveland. GPs there have joined in the disengenuous Save Our Surgeries campaign by issuing their own leaflets with the NHS logo at the top. BMA policy at odds with that of the NHS.

It may seem petty that the local health bosses stopped them doing it until they snipped off the logo, but imagine if you got a branded letter from your building society saying you could have a mortgage and another saying you couldn't. You'd be confused.

That is what the NHS risks becoming -- a family at war with itself as the Masterson Inheritance would have it. For an amusing and oddly accurate description of BMA and GP schizophrenia, see the HSJ's Your Humble Servant column this week:

I still get confused about how you can claim to privatise a privatised service. GP surgeries are built with taxpayers' money - which passes straight into the hands of private entrepreneurs. It is the most glorious pension scheme you could ever get your hands on. And what the numskulls still haven't worked out is that if you take more work out of hospitals and give it to primary care, then that's even more geld they'll be able to trouser.

* Oh schizophrenia, I know you, I been yer, So subtle....la la la ( Cockney Rebel - Muriel The Actor)

A Dire Warning

If you're having trouble reading the above, push your chair back a few feet.

Old Tom

Bad day to choose to drive to Bolton. The bikers added their weight to the fuel protests by bringing the westbound M62 to a grinding halt at rush hour. To be honest, I'm not quite sure why. The message seemed to be: "Don't put the 2p tax levy on petrol, put it on general taxation instead." Given that motorbikes tend to use less fuel than cars you'd think that the fuel tax versus PAYE question would be a no-brainer for bikers. Or is the clue in the question.

That is by the by, there was me en route to Bolton along the M60 but as I approached the junction with the M62 (see map above) there was at least half a mile of cars trailing back on to the motorway. Normally I wouldn't have any other choice but to join the queue as it is the only way I knew to get the place I'd been to lots of times. Fortunately I had a smart companion.

His name was Tom, so clever they named him twice. Without SatNav I wouldn't have dreamed of by-passing the queue and headed up the M66, but I had, so I did. He wanted me to pull off at Bury, but I could see from the screen that his plan was to go round the roundabout and back into the traffic. Bad plan and I ploughed on up the hill.

The next junction was Ramsbottom (no sniggering at the back please). Tom wanted me exit, but it was hard to see what he had in mind. This junction doesn't lead to a roundabout, but to the A56. You turn right and half a mile later Tom asked me to do a right to join the stymied southward M60. So I ignored him again.

I appreciate that as my posts go this is on the sadder end of boring, so I'll cut it short. Without SatNav I would never have done this, I would never have seen the sights of Bury and Bolton previously denied me. And I would never have reached a popular (for me) destination from entirely the opposite direction.

Good Old Tom. (That's the other one, best drunk in halves and definitely no driving afterwards.)

The Great British Phone-in

We Brits are really good at stereotypes, from "all immigrants are illegal and only here to milk the NHS and the benefits system" to " all ManU fans live in the home counties and Asia". The former is bigoted and reactionary and especially so the latter. Yes there are plenty of Cockney Reds and the foreign following is is massive, but in my experience of trips to OT the accents are local

One of the posts I've often planned and never done is an analysis of 606 as the Liverpool fan from Swindon calls in, or someone with a West Country burr waxes about Arsenal. It isn't scientific (yet) but the only accents I recall talking about their local team in the Premiership were those from the North East, the Midlands and the lesser London clubs.

But that is by the by. The purpose of this post, pre-rant, was stereotyping. Don't you just love it? So here is one of my occasional posts on clasic comedy, this time from the Million Pound Radio Show in which Andy Hamilton hosts a phone-in with Harry Enfield as George from Hendon and Felicity Montagu as Jean. You can almost hear the pages of the Daily Mail rustling in the background. Here it is. A bit dated, hence the reference to Bernie Grant, but enjoy enjoy.

We 'appy Few

A lot has been made about the history and destiny behind Wednesday. Fifty years since the Munich disaster, forty years since ManU first won the title (and I was there) and Giggs coming on to break Bobby Charlton's club appearance record. Pity that 1999 didn't quite fit the decimal pattern.

The thing is, footie fans are ridiculously superstitious. Even me, rational and logical in most things, but come a ManU match and that goes out the window. As an example, when me and Mrs P sat down to watch the match. The question was whether to watch it on ITV or Sky. I plumped for the former on the basis that the Reds 'don't lose on ITV'. Even when we went 1 - 0 up the irrational in me said: "Don't turn over to Sky. We'll be losing 1 - 0 there."

The point of this post is equally superstitious. One fact that seemed lost on the night that because of the demands of tv the penalty shoot-out took the game beyond midnight and into the morning of 22 May - the birthday of George Best.

I suppose on that basis John Terry has no chance of being remembered. Except for the wrong reasons.

How Cruel

Gloat, gloat

Bluebirds are go!

Love this Lego Road to Wembley by Cardiff City. Now the BBC have lost the rights to the FA Cup, why not Lego Match of the Day? I also think that Do the Ayatollah is a much better FA Cup song than the James Fox official title, at least I know which one the fans will be singing. Plus any song that has the line in its opening bars "we're ready for a new tale, at the helm is Peter Ridsdale" is deeply, deeply buttock-clenching.

For balance, I should link to the well shot, poor soundtracked Pompey till I Die and the unofficial What a Wonderful Team. Poor show Pompey!

Good Game, Good Game

Canyon Defense Build an ideal defense system and save the inhabitants.

Play this free game now!!

Great game this even if they do spell it 'defense'!

What Really Happened Last Night

Thanks to Manchester Confidential

Well it all ended in tears as some Jonahs were predicting beforehand and there have been plenty of recriminations and 20/20 hindsight as to why things went wrong. The main culprits appears to be the failing big screen and the city council which is a bit rich as:

a) the Rangers fans scared off the technicians sent to fix the screen by hurling bottles etc at them and,

b) there was a Plan B with a spare screen at the Velodrome.

Alcohol has been blamed of course, although with the amount being consumed I'm amazed that the fans could stand let alone riot. For me with 20/20 hindsight, the ultimate cause was having screens and fan zones at all.

Police 'intelligence' (marvellous oxymoron that) predicted that 70,000 fans would descend on Manchester and if the city council are at fault it is for taking this at face value. They set up the fans zones to cope with that number of ticketless fans.

A fine example of the unintended consequences when trying to do the right thing. The message from Manchester was: "We know you're going to come anyway so we will welcome you. We will give you big screens, and we will waive our no drinking on the street by-law. Oh and we will make shed loads of money in the process."

The unintended consequence was that tens of thousands of fans thought: "Hmm... Cost of a train ticket, a guarantee that I can watch the match with with my mates and drink as much lager as I want. Must be worth a punt."

And instead of 70,000 fans we got 200,000 plus and the whole thing went tits up. But the council won't make the same mistake again, oh no. They've cancelled plans to have big screens for the Chelsea/ManU set to next week. Thanks a bunch Rangers.

Not that I would have gone into town to watch the game -- I've got a perfectly telly at home -- but now I'm tempted to. To threaten to fall on the city centre on the day, get absolutely plastered and trash the place if I can't get to see the match. Worked for the Gers.

I Belong to Glasgow

I got home early tonight with vague headache. From the first thing this morning wave after wave Gers fans arrived in Manchester in their tens of thousands (last estimate 120,000 to 150,000). It wasn't too bad at first. They were noisy as in singing and shouting, but come the afternoon they were drunker and the air horns came out. It isn't easy having a work phone conversation when it sounds like you're in the middle of the Battle of the Somme.

It was all good natured mind, if you can describe sectarian songs as good natured. Personally I wouldn't recognise one if it came round and gave me a haircut, but colleagues who had grown up in Northern Ireland found it very uncomfortable.

By mid-afternoon public transport had ground to a halt as the buses and trams simply couldn't get into the city centre and I had to laugh when listening to Peter Allen interviewed a City fan on Five Live who said that they had to walk from Victoria because the trams were stopped by Scots on the line. You could tell from Peter's reaction that he thought it was a joke, but it was true.

As I said, I left early because the traffic was pretty heavy. My journey took me close to Eastlands where the main event takes place tonight and from there onward every pub I passed there was a blue shirted or Union Jack bedecked figure going in or out.

But if I had a headache when I got home, it will be as nought to how the Gers fans feel tomorrow. Alcohol fumes wafted though our open office windows and Tesco got a telling off for stacking 24-packs of lager outside their doors (as did every other brand of store from what I could tell) and in Albert Square there were two tanker lorries of Carlsberg. (You could imagine the marketing men looking at the crowd and scratching their heads wondering whether it would be enough.

Anyway, despite everything I belong to Glasgow tonight, even if Manchester is twinned with St Petersburg, so come on you Gers. You surely can't fear a team whose manager is named after an egg flip.

That Way Madness Lies

I read in the Mail that the law is to ban the traditional taking of photos of newlyweds signing the register. I've only got their word for it of course as the story only seems to appear on the web in their slightly more rabid sister paper the Evening Standard, but then you can't imagine them making it up. Can you? I mean, they don't have an agenda do they?

Anyway, if true, it's all to with data protection apparently. If we had that photo at really high-res, we could use Photoshop to zoom in and read the details and use them to steal an identity. Er.. right. The same details then that are posted in public view in the register office open to anyone with a notepad and pen and nefarious intent.

The second excuse is that the photographed couple might make a mistake or splodge the register with an ill-aimed fountain pen while concentrating on the snapper. Yeah, right. How often has this happened?

By far and away the worst excuse though:

"Taking a photograph could be construed as a copy of the entry and a breach of the Crown Copyright. There are four entries to a double page so the details of another marriage could also be photographed."

Of a public record? One I could buy for £7 by filling in a simple form? Give me strength. If any story typifies our 'can't do' society, this one does.