In the news today it stated that a 70-year-old man who reportedly looted a Sainsbury’s is the oldest person to be arrested so far in connection with the riots that swept across London two weeks ago.

Police said that the pensioner was held in relation to the incident in Ealing, West London..

A spokesman said that the man was let off with a caution. The elderly man who is not being named by police is one of thousands of people to have been arrested in relation to the disorder and violence that spread through the capital a fortnight ago.

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman is quoted in The Mirror as saying: “This man was deeply ashamed of himself and it was decided it wasn’t in the public interest to lock him up.”

Damn! Damn! If I had known that before the riots I could have gone to Curry’s with my Visa Brick and got myself a washing machine, a cooker and a nice big flat screen telly (not for me you understand, but to be sold on eBay to help finance my drug addiction).

If the rozzers nicked me I could have pleaded that I was well over 75 and senile and didn’t know any better, and they would probably have said it was in the public interest to lock me up. Well, what’s it matter anyway, I about to be fined or locked up anyway for NOT watching television [see previous post].

The Daily Mail today states that the ‘Jamie Oliver health crusade leads to fewer pupils eating school meals’ and goes on to state:

Jamie Oliver’s campaign against the Turkey Twizzler has cost the taxpayer £500million and resulted in fewer pupils eating school lunches, it emerged yesterday.

More than half of primary pupils and around two-thirds of secondary school youngsters are still rejecting the TV chef’s healthier menus.

The meals – which must contain 14 nutrients, a vegetable and a piece of fruit – were introduced in 2006 after Oliver highlighted the poor state of many school lunches.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012340/Jamie-Oliver-health-crusade-leads-fewer-pupils-eating-school-meals.html#ixzz1RVAfMOb3

What a silly person. Doesn’t Mr Oliver realise that children know that a Whopper-burger, a packet of crisps, a chocolate bar and a Coke from McDonalds is tastier and more nourishing than a salad or a roast-beef dinner with cabbage, carrots, onions etc.?

It is a well established fact that children know everything, so who are we to try and change their ways?

Every day between 12noon and 2 you see hordes of uniformed kids in the local supermarket all buying junk food which they eat on the way back to school. There’s so many that they block up the checkouts causing tailbacks for about 20 minutes!

After my last post (10 April. Bloody hell! Has it been that long? I’ve had a birthday since then) I did a big think, and I’ve come to the conclusion that doing political stuff and generally ranting about the state of the country isn’t going to change anything, so why bother? We’ll all bloody doomed anyway.

When I shop in Leicester I don’t know whether I’m in India, Pakistan, or Poland now. The local rag stated that Leicester is now nearly “55% ethnic minority”, er. . . when I was at school, which was a very long time ago, we were taught that anything over 50% was a “majority”. Nowadays I do my shopping on t’internet.

Last night in the local sports club the discussion turned to microwave and combination cookers. Sid, the local dim-wit, stated that “They are no f***ing good. I tried to boil an egg in a bowl of water and the effing thing just exploded and coated the inside of the microwave with a sticky mess of yolk, eggshell and water!”

“You did it all wrong” I said in a loud voice, “It always works for me. Be sure to coat the egg with a layer of butter, or even yoghurt. This dissipates the energy waves evenly over the surface of the egg and heats it up evenly; and to prevent the water from slashing over the sides of the bowl just put a handful of oats in with the egg. Make sure that you switch to full-power and give it at least four minutes. Simpules! Can’t fail”.

Everybody at the bar who heard this confirmed that it was the right way to do it. Old Jim said “My wife always does it that way, same as my grandma did during the war when you couldn’t get eggs”. I think we all convinced him that was the right way to do it.

Poor Sid didn’t appear to realise that we were having him on. “OK, chaps I’ll give it a go like you said the next time I have an egg”.

I can’t wait until I see him again, although I probably won’t see much of anything for a few days afterwards on account of the swelling around my eyes!

Update: (22 May) If you read the post above this one you will realise why I added the last paragraph. It was to throw a certain pub landlord off the scent, because I know he reads my blog.

I’m a bit busy at the moment, so I thought I would show you a video of my cat until I get a bit of time to blog properly, but in the meantime I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas just in case I take a bit longer than expected.

Well, it’s that time of the year again when relations come over for a slap-up dinner, exchange pleasantries, bring some cheap shoddy late Christmas presents and then sod off until next year.

This really peeves me because they never invite me over to their place for a meal even when I drop large hints, like “It must be lovely in the dales (Derbyshire) this time of the year”, to which the reply is usually “Yes it is. Whats for pudding?”. Maybe I’m a soft touch, and I know I shouldn’t be, but I just can’t say no; and that’s not a hint for you lot to turn up for a meal either! You would be welcome of course, but give me some notice.

Like the Din-din Club I always cook a French menu, and I think that is the attraction. This year I planned to do Gordon Ramsays ‘pot au feu of pigeon de Bresse poached in a bouillon of cèpes served with choux farci‘ (That’s a mouthful in itself!) because pigeon meals are my favourite. Cold smoked pigeon breast on toast is my favourite snack.

Then an evil thought crossed my mind. I know how to stop them coming in the future without being impolite. When they arrive next weekend there wont be the lovely smell of cooking, no table laid out ready, the heating turned off and I shall hide the whisky, eau-de-vie (their favourite) and the wine and proclaim that I’m on the wagon, and stopped drinking booze as from Jan 1st, and the heating has broken down and I’m currently waiting for the engineer.

The pièce de résistance of the evening will be fish and chips, no ‘pudding’, just biscuits and cheapo cheese from the supermarket. Past it’s best by date of course.

When they arrive I will excuse myself saying that I will just nip to ‘Freds Cafe’ and get us some fish and chips using the excuse that the oven thermostat needs replacing and I didn’t dare try to cook with it.

Do you think I will get away with it? Or have I gone too far? Not enough? Perhaps I should just tell them to p**s off?

Don’t worry about them reading this because they aren’t on t’internet, or even got a computer. Not even slightly interested as far as I know. Well, they weren’t last year. . . . .

Afterthought: For the benefit of the non-french-speakers and others in the Colonies ‘pot au feu of pigeon de Bresse’ is just pigeon stew as made in Bresse, ‘bouillon of cèpes’ is mushroom broth, and ‘choux farci’ is simply stuffed cabbage.

Sounds better in French than just “Pigeon stew in mushroom broth with stuffed cabbage” dunnit?

One of my interests on t’Internet is to log onto a Blogger page, like John Gs for instance, and then keep clicking on the “Next Blog” icon.

I have found so very interesting blogs, some great, some sad, some very instructional ones and a lot of awful examples of how not to blog.

One particular site had so many smelling pistakes and bad grammar that it was almost unreadable. How that person ever got through school (if he ever went!) is beyond me. He was not just a teenager; from the photo he looked in the 25-35 year old range. I know I drop a few clangers in the spelling and grammar department occasionally, but my excuse is that I’m old and bent and suffer with demen . . . . . .What was I saying? Oh yes, about bad blogging techniques.

One site I came across had so many flashing colours, god-awful pictures and grotesque fonts that it was really unreadable. A bright red background with mauve text that hurt my eyes just to look at it. I think the owner was just trying to show off her somewhat dubious skills in HTML and JavaScript. Christ, what a mess!

No, I’m not going to put links to them; that would be unfair because no matter how bad a blog is the owner is invariably proud of it and it would be hurtful if people logged on and commented that it was a load of crap. I would certainly be offended if people told me mine was rubbish, when in actual fact I know that it is absolutely brilliant and well worth reading!

The one site that takes the cake, literally, was one that was all about knitting cakes and fruit. No just one post, but all the posts were on that subject. It gave knitting patterns for all types of cakes, apples, oranges etc.! How sad that someone finds it necessary to “knit” cakes and fruit. What a waste of time, wool and server space. What’s the point? If she put up patterns for clothes and baby toys etc I could understand it. Now if that person gave recipes for making real cakes and recipes for using various fruits that would be interesting.

I think I’ll start a new blog on the various ways of juggling soot, knitting paint and engraving frozen peas then perhaps it’ll be more popular than this one!

Now I’m off to do some more exploring in the bloggie-world. A tout à l’heure!

Sorry, no photo this week. Now that the weather is better, with warm sunny days (unbelievable!)  I have been out and about enjoying it.

I haven’t prepared a picture, or even posted this last week. The computer hasn’t been on except to check the news and my emails; which incidently seem to have hit an all time low. Nobody loves me any more!

I bought a new program yesterday. It’s called “Print Artist 23″ and looks quite good from the flashy box graphics. I have been using “Print Artist 8″ for a long time to create headers, banners and greeting cards (too tight-fisted to buy commercial ones), so I thought it was about time I upgraded.

Print Artist is a good program and it comes with thousands of copyright free graphics for all occasions. The only progam to beat it is Photoshop. When I’m working on webpages or processing photos I use a combination of Photoshop, Print Artist and the good old Windows ‘Paint’, transferring the artwork backwards and forwards between the three programs to do different things.

Welcome to my new and permanent weblog (hopefully!). I’ve laid out the table, turned the heating on and opened a few bottles of plonk but there doesn’t seem to be anybody here yet!

What do you think of my new home then? Be honest, but not too honest, or I will delete you and keep the blog-warming present you’ve brought with you.

I bags the blue chair. The rest of you can have the yellow chair.

UPDATE: I just had a call from a Mr Gordon Brown, he says he might come by later. I would like to give him a warm welcome; that is if I can find enough petrol . . . .