It’s curtains for Brown

Sorry for the light blogging but I seem to be spending rather a lot of my time walking around in circles as I practice my gait and try to acclimatise to life with a one leg permanently shorter than the other. In the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal and just makes walking barefoot a bit of a pain.

However, it is nothing compared to the suffering that British soldiers have experienced in Afghanistan recently. I simply can’t comprehend how the young men who return here with limbs blown off and serious bomb blast injuries manage to keep so cheerful and recover so well. Of course they’re pissed off with what’s happened but they just get on with things. That doesn’t mean to say they’ve forgotten what happened and why.

To show how they felt, a number of injured soldiers being treated at Selley Oak Hospital, near Birmingham, took the sensible decision to close the curtains around their beds when the prime minister Gordon Brown popped in for a brief pre-Christmas photo opportunity... er... I mean goodwill visit.

The soldiers described the Labour leader’s visit as ‘opportunistic’ and ‘a waste of time’. The men were forewarned that the clunking fist was on his way and were given the opportunity of declining a personal bedside photo.

Sapper Matthew Weston, 20, who lost both legs and his right arm when a bomb exploded on a dirt track outside Sangin, said: “I didn’t want to speak to him, I didn’t want to waste my time talking to someone who was just trying to make themselves look good. I spent the day with my family instead. Half the lads didn’t want to speak to him and those that did pretty much blamed him for everything. Many of the lads just closed their curtains and hid themselves away. I met Prince Charles and Sir Richard Dannatt [when they visited Selly Oak]. I have respect for them. Prince Charles spoke to me for two hours. I really didn’t want to speak to Gordon Brown.”

I think if I’d been so badly injured and was about to receive a visit from a man hellbent on cutting my compensation, I’d have closed more than my curtains. Another soldier, who’d lost his right leg after being caught in a mine blast in Afghanistan, said that more than two-thirds of the 25 soldiers on the ward closed their curtains. He, however, decided to speak to Brown.

“I wanted to find out how the guy’s head worked,” he said. “I was interested in what he had made of his trip to Afghanistan and what he had learnt from it. I feel that even if someone is a moron, he should have the opportunity to defend his moronity. [His response] all seemed rather textbook and not from the heart. The straight fact is this: we don’t like the man, he has done nothing for us and continues to kick us in the teeth over equipment and compensation.”

There’s not much you can add to that, is there?

A bunch of yankers!

The senior plaster technician made an odd remark yesterday while I was having my Meggitt Brace replaced at the hospital. She told her colleague that I was 'a bit of a yanker' and that was why my brace was all skew-whiff. I thought for a moment that the term 'yanker' was cockney rhyming slang for the incredibly abusive term 'banker', which as we all know is about the worst thing you can call anyone these days. It turns out she merely meant I yanked up my adjustable brace a little too enthusiastically and that's why it needed replacing.

If 'yanker' had really meant 'banker' I would have been terribly upset. These creatures from the square mile of the City of London have done much to earn the opprobrium of just about everyone in the country. Not only have they hovered up around £850 billion of taxpayers' borrowed money to keep their clapped-out and overcharging businesses in the black (remember how much mercy they show most debtors?) they're also now insisting that they be allowed to dish out some tasty bonuses using our money. The cheek of it! I'm not normally someone who adopts the herd mentality and neither am I anti-business, but this really is the limit. These pompous and spoilt cads really haven't learned anything, have they? Bonuses indeed!

I was trying to think if I'd ever received a bonus in my working life. Hang on a minute while I consult my memory. No! Never! Zippo! Zilch! Nada! Never have I received anything other than my salary or payment of an invoice for simply doing what I was asked to do to the best of my ability. I believe the same is true in most jobs. Nurses, for example. Do they get big bonuses for really making an effort to do their job and take care of their patients? No, I didn't think so. If bankers need an incentive to get out of bed in the morning then how about the rest of us? It's preposterous when you think about it.

Actually, I must confess that this Christmas I will receive my first bonus ever. Now that I'm in receipt of a small Disability Living Allowance until I get back on my feet, I'm going to be awarded a £10 Christmas bonus in order to bring some small cheer to the festive season. Believe it or not, I'm actually very grateful for the gesture. It won't make a huge difference but it's nice to be recognised at last.

Off to hospital

Today's my monthly check at hospital. This is the first one since I came home. It's a two-hour drive this morning to the hospital so no blogging until I get back.

The lunatics are in charge

No wonder NHS psychiatric services are stretched to the limit. All this stress brought about by the credit crunch, global warming and endless surveys telling us how dangerous everything is has driven swathes of people into the arms of their local psychiatrist.

Of course, it would help ease pressure on mental health services if there weren't so many lunatics already knocking around the system. Fortunately, some of them have been released into a special 'Care in the Community' project housed in a large gothic building in Westminster, right on the edge of the Thames. The inmates of this facility have a nice big clock tower so they know when their appointment with the doctor is due. They also get endless pocket money and a series of subsidised bars and restaurants to cater to their every whim.

Unfortunately, some of these nutbars have been listening to 'experts' when it comes to matters of climate change. I should declare at this point that I am a global warming 'denier' - a term of abuse is applied to anyone with a heightened ability for sniffing out bullshit and humbug. Chief amongst those having a go at the 'deniers' while feeding the residents of the Westminster care project with heaps of nonsense is one Lord Stern. This former career civil servant and economist is now an expert and is telling the loonies that anyone not swallowing the whole global warming story is 'muddled'!

To be fair, Lord Stern condescendingly agrees that sceptics deserve to be heard (there, there... pat on head) but that their views should not be seen as 'searing insight'. On the other hand, lying and cheating academics keen to create a new religion out of climate change by manipulating data and covering up facts, apparently do have searing insight.

The shrill clamour for us to do something about global warming grows ever louder while I sit here writing this, shivering under a blanket with the heating turned up. In the meantime, the noble old goat is urging higher taxes on everything that helps fight the good fight. He even wants us to borrow lots of money and then give it to poorer countries so they can join in his fantasy too. No doubt his Lordship will be well insulated from the financial effects of his climate change medicine with the help of his index-linked, gold-plated, final salary pension.

Perhaps it's time we tried reducing our carbon footprint and improving our mental health statistics at the same time by burning politicians and their advisors instead of using fossil fuels. It may not make much difference but we all have to make sacrifices, don't we?

Throw another MP on the fire, will you?

They're taking the piss!

Forgive me but I've just about had enough. Long-term followers will already know that I suffer from a terrible affliction that I've battled with on a daily basis for some time now, but I simply can't go on like this any more. My nanny allergy has blown up with the Government's latest intrusion into my private life. The Nanny State has finally managed to out-nanny itself by releasing an iPhone application to keep track of alcohol units.

That's right! Over the Christmas festivities, Nu Labour is urging owners of flash mobile phones to download a free 'app' that enables drinkers to tap in the number of alcoholic units they're consuming as they tip them down the hatch. Brilliant!

Government public health minister Gillian Merron said: “It is all too easy to lose track of how much you drink. So as the festive parties start to build up, this innovative tool will help people keep tabs on their drinking – wherever they are. It’s one of many ways the Government is helping people to understand how much they are drinking. Sticking within the NHS recommended limits means you reduce the risk of serious conditions such as mouth cancer and strokes.”

God they're good to us. They steal huge amounts of our money, squander it on illegal wars, failing schools and hospitals and then spend the loose change left over on developing a computer program so we can start spying on ourselves. And who knows... there may even be a little routine in the program that relays your drinking record back to NHS computer servers in real time so it can keep a tally there too. Should you stray over the conservative and totally arbitrary Government guideline, klaxons and sirens will go off at NHS Central where an Alcohol Rehabilitation and Support Education officer (ARSE) will be scrambled to your boozer to hand out sensible drinking advice leaflets and Alka Seltzers.

I never imagined that Nu Labour would go so far as to try to take the spirit out of Christmas, but with this miserable little 'app' I think it's come close. I wonder if any of the geniuses that came up with this topping idea ever wondered how drunks are going to be able to accurately input their alcoholic units when they're totally wasted. I can't use my iPhone with any great accuracy when I'm sober so I dare not get drunk as I wouldn't be able to use it at all.

Oh well... with all my pain killers I doubt I'll be in need of Gordon Brown's iPiss application as I'm three sheets to the wind on Oramorph most of the time anyway.