Letting off steam...

Gentle readers, forgive what is about to follow. Normally, and contrary to what you might think of me if you read this blog often, I am a sunny little soul. But there are a number of things making me splutter my morning coffee across the table at the moment, so I'm going to give vent to them here, rather than run the risk of going nuclear in public. Were this to happen, it is quite possible I would be banged up in the nearest looney bin... so just regard what follows as a bit of damage limitation hehe

I'm getting fed up with the building hysteria in the aftermath of the London riots. First off, we had the lentil-knitting PC brigade laying into magistrates for dishing out prison sentences or other punishments perceived as 'tough' to the convicted rioters. You can imagine how happy that made me... don't these people realise that it's now well beyond the point where we can be 'understanding' about people scampering around setting fire to things, looting etc?. Personally I think it's also the 'be nice to felons' camp's policies which have got us here in the first place, but that's a whole other topic for another time! In the meantime I just wish they'd shut up and leave the magistrates, most of whom have a lot more experience with criminals than they do, alone and let the poor overworked beggars get on with their job.

Secondly we suddenly have all these horrified comments about the age of some of the culprits? What planet are these people on? Take a walk around any town centre and you can see gangs of kids, who I for one think are quite little, walking around generally behaving in a questionable manner. Go to the same place at about 10pm (or even later) and they are STILL THERE, merrily depredating away. My only surprise about all this is that we haven't, to my knowledge anyway, had a 7 year old in the dock...

And now, which is what has set me off this morning, we have Nice Dave Cameron saying what these people are going to get is 'tough love'. WHO does he think is going to believe that nonsense? Especially when, as above, magistrates are already copping the flak for trying to get tough? We've heard it all before from politicians - the trouble is the lentil-knitters have embedded their PC, tree-hugging attitudes so firmly into the legislative and cognitive life of the nation that anybody trying to sort out this mess is doomed from the word go. Not least because the naughty criminals are not stupid and know how to play the system: in an environment when the government can be forced to give felons the vote because some muppet has had the savvy to take his 'case' to the European Court of Human Rights, does Dave seriously imagine he's going to be able to do ANYTHING which might just be effective without somebody following that lead? The sad fact is that Dave may talk the talk, but he'll be prevented from walking the walk. Sort THAT out first and we might stand a chance of getting to grips with this mess.

Another thing getting my goat recently is what I perceive as the growing number of (to use the lentil-knitting phrase) 'age-challenged' drivers driving really quite highly powered cars around at irritatingly low speeds. First observation: if you don't feel safe driving at more than 35 on a 60mph-limited road you probably shouldn't be driving in the first place. Second observation: if you really MUST come out and annoy everybody by driving at 35 on a 60mph-limited road do it in a car which can only command pity, not an S-type Jaguar or similar, because that's just an insult to the rest of us and comes under the heading of Royally Taking The Mick.

Lastly, for the moment anyway, we're about at the time where the kids go back to school and we see an increasing number of moans about having to negotiate the 'school run' etc etc appearing in the social media. Speaking as a home-educating parent, I don't have to deal with that sort of thing, but I would comment that the same people are moaning their heads off at the START of the holidays about 'the kids being home all the time'. Make your minds up, guys - either you wanted children, with all the disruption to your neat little lives that they entail, in which case accept the disruption and STOP MOANING about it. Or you didn't want children, but somehow ended up with them: in which case, tough. There are a lot worse things in life to deal with than the school run or school holidays, presumably you made the decision, despite not wanting children, to live with them, so just live with the choices you've made and STOP MOANING about it. There are plenty of couples out there who would live to have children but can't - count your blessings instead of making them into a problem.

On a more positive note... it's good to see that my observations on caravan names (April 2009) still hold true, even with a few new ones appearing in recent months. 'Spotting the Caravan Category' has turned into an Angevin Family game now, when we're out and about, and you can often hear us merrily debating this point - 'Oh look it's a 2!' 'No, it isn't, it's a 3a' etc etc . Caravan manufacturers take note!!