Here we are at the two hundredth anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his seminal work ‘On The Origin of Species‘ and if, in the darkness of night, there are scrabbling and shuffling noises to be heard echoing around Westminster Abbey then that will be him, turning in his grave, struggling to get out so he can shout out something politically incorrect.

I recall Darwin did not much like the term ’survival of the fittest’ which is – let’s face it – a bit of a ‘News of the World‘ type spin on his preferred term ‘natural selection’ but if he did manage to claw his way out of his grave, clambering over Isaac Newton on his way out, then it might well be his term of choice.

What he should notice, after a little bit of research and good old fashioned observation, is that evolution – in terms of the homo sapien anyway – has quite possibly started to go backwards.

Call it what you like, evolution has rolled along nicely and undisturbed for many millions of years doing it’s thing. A little change here, a small improvement there. Wings for that one. Opposable thumbs for this one. Binocular vision over here. Improved sense of smell for the one with the long nose. And it will continue to roll along as well. We can’t actually stop it and nor should we. But we can make the huge mistake of messing with it. And when people discover they can do something there is always some bozo who goes ahead and does it.

And one of the bozos in this case is the one who came up with the idea of the Health and Safety Executive – a body whose sole aims are to remove all of the fun and the risk out of life. Natural Selection doesn’t mean people born with disease or disability are left to die before they can reproduce although let’s be totally honest here and recognise that this was once the case and still is outside of us humans. Natural Selection means that the idiot who doesn’t use a ladder properly, falls off and dies is removed from the gene pool to the betterment of us all. These days he probably can’t even buy the ladder in the first place without a three week training course and an NVQ in ladder usage. And should he borrow a ladder from someone else the H&S men will slap a fine on him and send him for corrective therapy.

Evolution basically works by promoting the good bits, the clever bits, the enhanced bits and letting the bad bits and the useless bits fall by the wayside. And the ones who have got those good bits get to pass them on like a family heirloom. And those with the bad bits fall off ladders. But other bozos, including those who came up with the life-stifling theory of Political Correctness, have decreed that we all have to be equal. Or all the same. As I have said many times before, this means we all have to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. So those with good bits that are really worthy of evolutions attention have to have those good bits repressed. It’s happening all around us. They get forced to go to Comprehensive Schools. They get turned down for jobs because one of the candidates was clearly more stupid than they were or comes from an ethnic minority and can’t speak the language buy hey – positive discrimination is on their side.

We are in the process of screwing evolution up big time. People survive disease and disability that would have once – and not so long ago – taken them out of the gene pool. Being clever, intelligent and inventive is almost frowned upon. Being competitive is OK as long as you restrict it to buying lottery tickets. And taking risks or having fun is outlawed.

And before we realise it, we’ll all be growing more body hair and starting to suffer from a strong urge to climb trees.

It’s a can of Sardines right? From Sainsbury’s as it happens. Little fish – related to the Sprat and Herring.

Printed on the back it says:

Allergy Advice:
Contains Fish

Can I kill someone now?

We were informed a couple of days ago that people who throw litter out of their car windows would face a fine of up to £80. Of course before that can happen they have to be spotted by, I assume, one of the thousands of cameras watching our every move. Or maybe an officer of the law in a police car that has strayed into a public area.

This ‘law’ is up there with all the other stupid and worthless ‘laws’ that are basically unenforceable, touch the merest tip of the iceberg, are nothing more than yet another attempt to raise revenue and do bugger all to actually deal with the problem of encouraging these people to be more socially responsible.

I have no idea what the ratio of fines to people using mobile phones while driving is but I’d bet my best hat that the majority of those prosecuted were only caught after they had caused or been involved in an accident.

Now don’t get me wrong. I walk on the outskirts of my village and each and every hedgerow is dotted with McDonalds cartons and boxes of half-chewed Kentucky Fried Plastic providing the local rats with a continuously changing parlour of delights. This is indeed a problem and since local authorities seem to have decided that the rats do a better job at garbage clearance than the road-sweepers of yesteryear, it is, of course, just left to build up and degrade slowly in the ditches that can no longer carry away the rain water.

But fines will do nothing to stem the flow. People who think it’s just dandy to throw their empty Big Mac box out of the car window will continue to do so – they will just be a little more circumspect about when they actually do it. The government may gather in a little extra revenue to help fund their expense accounts but the problem will remain. As with all the other worthless ‘laws’, it is a bankrupt idea from a government that has no idea. Having completely lost the plot about how a nation can encourage people to take part, to be proud and to have a social conscience they fall back on the old standby of fines and try to look as if they have actually done something useful while in reality doing nothing at all.

Bring back the stocks is what I say. Public humiliation works wonders. But first in, before the litterers and mobile phone users… well you know who don’t you.

Macedonian beekeeper Zoran Kiseloski, has successfully prosecuted a bear through the courts on the charge of theft and criminal damage to his hives.

The bear, a protected species and living wild – as it should be – was tried in absentia. Presumably it either couldn’t read the summons or couldn’t be buggered to turn up. Maybe it was smart enough to realise that while Mr. Kiseloski was busy in court it had his bee hives all to itself.

Unless this is April 1st or the BBC news service is getting even more out of touch with the truth, this is a factual story. I assume this case involved lawyers, at least one judge and a state prosecution service. Am I alone in thinking that this goes beyond stupid to whatever darkness lies beyond?

Anyway – I’m off to see my solicitor about that cat that keeps shitting on my lawn and the pesky pigeon that sits up in my neighbours tree directly above my car. Vindictive little sod it is.

One of the guiding principles and tasks of the ‘State’ or ‘Government’ is to protect its citizens against those that would do them harm. So, for example, in theory us law-abiding folk (the majority) are protected from the small band of criminals and thugs (the minority) by state controlled bodies such as the Police Force and Courts of Law. It’s an ancient tradition of any so-called democracy and is enshrined in our Laws and Parliamentary Acts.

Over the course of time, and this was perhaps, something that saw it’s roots in the early social reformation of Victorian times, the State added the responsibility of protecting the vulnerable and the weak and on the whole that has to be considered a laudatory aim. Across the spectrum of humanity there will always be those at the bottom of the ladder – that’s the way it is. They didn’t choose to be at the bottom and to offer them a little extra protection doesn’t sound too bad to me.

The problem that has it’s roots in more recent times lies in the definition of ‘vulnerable’. It was intended to refer to people born with, for example, low intelligence that might make it hard for them to hold down a job; to people with a physical handicap regardless of their IQ and to people unfortunate enough to suffer mental disorders. Again, these people didn’t make the choice to have these problems – it’s the unlucky throw of the dice. In any society that likes to think of itself as civilised, it is only right that these people should be helped. What ‘vulnerable’ should not include, are the feckless and the work-shy; the lazy and the fraudsters and, in particular, those that make the choice to pursue a lifestyle that is detrimental to other people.

In the course of my life I have known quite a few people who became seriously addicted to one drug or another or took refuge in alcoholism. The vast majority of these people were actually highly intelligent individuals. Who knows what the trigger was for them to inject that first syringe loaded with heroin or to always carry that bottle of vodka inside their coat pocket. I am not suggesting for one moment that these people are not ‘vulnerable’ in some way but the difference between them and the truly vulnerable is that at some point in their life they made a choice.

I tend to suffer from intermittent bouts of congestion. As medical science – despite all kinds of probing and scans – has failed to explain the reason for this, I am left to my own devices to deal with it. My medication of choice has been, for a very long time, Sudafed – the proper Sudafed containing Pseudoephedrine. It is one of a small group of medications that actually works and works effectively. So I am somewhat angered that at the moment I am unable to buy it. It is currently subject to an official ‘review‘ I was informed yesterday by a local pharmacist. They themselves are having problems getting a supply.

Why? Because some arseholes somewhere buy up large quantities and extract the pseudoephedrine to help make methamphetamine, crystal meth, a class A drug. And the State, in it’s wisdom, has stepped in to start the process of making it difficult, and maybe impossible, to buy the medication.

So, the activities of a very small group of people who are now considered ‘vulnerable’ are responsible for making life difficult for the vast majority of law-abiding and honest folk. Let’s just make this clear: the people who are actually being penalised here are the people who do NOT abuse this drug. And I very much doubt that there is one Sudafed user across the country who will understand and support this twisted logic.

And the picture at the top? A can of sea water (yes, truly – water drawn from an ocean somewhere) offered as an alternative! I can suggest a good use for sea water at the moment but it isn’t to spray up my nose!