Britain's next Prime Minister speaks

It's not definite yet, indeed it won't be definite until the votes are cast on election day, but I certainly hope it turns out this way! Watch David Cameron speak and ask yourself - would you not rather have this man lead our country in place of the 'walking disaster', Gordon Brown, who is currently our Prime Minister, Heaven help us? For me the answer is clear and I am no blind supporter of all things 'Conservative', but I do recognise that today's Conservatives do have sensible, pragmatic policies on offer, not the fantasy 'make-believe' policies from Labour and its long-time Chancellow (now Prime Minister) that have brought economic and social disaster to the UK and will take decades of hard work to recover from. Watch David Cameron tell it like it is and know that there is a way forward and it is to VOTE CONSERVATIVE at the coming General Election:

What will not be Spain's Eurovision entry this year, I think

Rap-singer John Cobra's crotch-grabbing escapades didn't sit well with much of the audience or with the studio jury in this TVE selection contest to choose Spain's entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest. I cannot say I am in any way surprised, even if the man does have a certain 'animal charm' (ahem - Ed):

John Cobra la lía en televisión
by eljueves

(thru Graeme at South of Watford - the direct link to the relevant post is here.)

PS/ How long the embedded video (at DailyMotion) will stay online is anyone's guess; TVE have already had much of the coverage removed from YouTube for copyright violation (and/or on grounds of 'good taste').
PPS/ More from 'bad boy' John Cobra here - 'John Cobra vs Chuck Norris'; one of the captions in the linked video made me laugh out loud - 'indispensable el ketchupt en la cobradieta' - watch from about 4'08" onwards for this somewhat surreal section.

Über-"sky-fairy" enforcer Pope Benedict may be invited onto R4 'Thought for the day'

In terms of the 'logic' of the BBC this is probably not unexpected. It is a programme I usually listen to, because I have BBC Radio4 on in the morning when I'm still in bed, although the alarm clock is actually set to Radio3 when it 'goes off' in the morning and I switch to Radio4 a little later. It has always struck me as bizarre, however, that it seems to be implied by the BBC's resourcing policies that only persons who believe in 'sky-fairies' are considered eligible to take part. Don't people who are 'humanists' or 'atheists' have useful things to say? I hope we're not potentially going to be subjected to this horrible old bigot simply because the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, is an adherent of this particular brand of 'sky-fairyism'.

Why Should We Care About Scottish Independence?

The title above was the topic of this evening's programme 'Dinner with Portillo' on BBC4 - watch it on the BBC iPlayer here for the next week. Interesting in some ways, but mostly tedious. Maybe it's just the guests [who agreed to be] present tonight. Or something. The independence supporter (the 'chippy' plump one - Michael Fry) was especially weak.

Does anyone in England, or indeed Scotland, care very much about this issue? I tend to think not. Barring, of course, the relatively few wacky individuals who support in toto the aims of the Scottish National Party and the in many ways even wackier individuals who support the CEP.

Now, who have I [not] upset this evening? Quite a few no doubt, but probably not a huge number in any part of the UK, because frankly there simply aren't too many of the wacky individuals I referred to above. Now if the SNP actually do win 30+ seats in Westminster at the next General Election then one would have to take the whole issue of the break-up of the UK in the near future very seriously indeed, but almost nobody thinks this is even a remote possibility. As for the English, well the vast majority of them simply don't care either and are perfectly happy, as am I, to continue within the framework of the UK. Yawn ... I'm British, end of story. I'm sure both Scotland and England could each work quite well as completely separate political entities, but broadly-speaking we've rubbed along pretty well together for a very long time, too. Unless one has some deeper issue with the whole concept of 'unity' then I find it difficult to fathom exactly what is the problem.

The Pope tries to justify his support for inequality ...

Such false words from the holder of what is supposed to be one of the world's great religious organisarions in support of policies designed to marginalise whole sections of the community:

"Your country is well-known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. "Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. "In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

- the temerity of this odious creature in professing to be a 'Christian' appals me. I suspect strongly that 'the Son of God' (if you believe in this particular 'sky fairy' myth, which I don't) would have folks like the present Pontiff slung out of the temple if He came back amongst us.

As anyone who reads my blog knows I am not exactly a supporter of our present Government, but I acknowledge readily it is they who have brought more equality to the LGBT community than any other in our history.

The Pontiff tried the same kind of pretty crude pre-election progaganda in Spain early in 2008 prior to the last General Election there, to express his [tediously predictable] opposition to the marriage law brought in to allow gays and lesbians to marry by the present ruling Party a few years ago. Needless to say even a staunchly Catholic country such as Spain traditionally is, wisely chose to ignore the views of this dreadful old bigot when it came time to vote.

I certainly don't want my taxes used to pay for this visit!