Musings...

I was reading The Times newspaper today when several stories caught my attention and got me thinking enough to feel compelled to share them. Share the thoughts that is.

1. Michelle Obama is one big unit. Sure, the Duke of Edinburgh is 90 years old and looks the age with a complexion not too dissimilar to a freeze dried Cypriot date, but standing next to Mrs Obama he looks positively small.

2. The NHS (National Health Service) is creaking under the strain of demand. I've got an idea. Might it be because there are more users of it than there are contributors? Adopt the Australian model. You can't draw on the social services of a country until you have contributed via tax for a period of years. In Australia its 2 years. Just visiting the UK ? Then sure you get access. But if you emigrate to live here then perhaps a little contribution before you draw on this country's services might be a little fairer on us all.

3. A member of parliament asks his wife to take some points on her licence for him after he gets booked for speeding. Given the amount of coverage this has had in the papers this week you'd think he was doing something no one has ever done before. It happened 8 years ago. Move on !

4. Adele Adkins aka ''Adele'' is a pop star over here. She has diminished ability to add to her wealth through her talents because she has a phobia. A phobia of what I hear you ask? Crowds. Yes crowds. She can't perform in front of more than 400 people lest she has a panic attack. I liken it to a racing car driver not being able to drive his car faster than 150mph or a golfer having an allergy to grass (which some do in fact).

5. My old favourite. Libya. NATO bombers hit Gadaffi with the biggest blitz since the start of all this mess. Im looking forward to when NATO, under the same guise of ''protecting humanity'' moves on to Syria, Myanmar, China et.al

6. A Californian preacher who predicted that the world would end last weekend admits he misread Gods will and now claims the apocalypse will occur on October 21. Ooops. I wonder how all those followers who gave away their houses and cars and worldly goods on his prediction are feeling right now. Pissed off is my guess. Homeless and poor is another guess.

7. The Danish have banned Marmite because it has too many vitamins. Yes. TOO MANY vitamins. Errr Ok. That makes complete sense. Or b.

8. Mikhail Khodorkovsky a Russian billionaire is condemned to 5 more years in a Russian  ''penal colony'' after a court rejected his appeal against conviction for theft and money laundering. Russian penal colony. Why do I get the impression that wouldn't be a great place to spend the next day let alone the next 1,825 ? I know little about Russia but I know this. You don't want to fook with the people who hold the stick in that country.

9. An army of pensioners in Japan, 180 of them, have volunteered to clean up the nuclear plants alive with radiation as way of apology to the future Japanese generations. They feel as it was their generation that built and benefited from the plants they should wear the burden of responsibility. There isn't another country in the world whose citizens would do this. In fact I doubt there is another country in the world whose citizens would even think about doing it.

10. America's Supreme Court has ruled that California must release 30,000 prisoners due to overcrowding. I'm guessing a couple of things. Locksmiths and gun sellers are going to see a spike in business. Trying to hitchhike anywhere in California is going to become very difficult and if you are prisoner no. 30,001 you are going to be mightily pissed off.

and finally...

11. A Canadian couple have declined to announce the sex of their newly born because they believe that a child's sex should not determine his or her place in the world. They say it will be up to her/him to decide whether to live as a boy or a girl. Errrrr...OK. That makes complete sense. Or b.

        

                                                                 TSYLWYHTT