BBC television used to be a treasury of creative program making. The quality of its output used to justify 'the unique way the BBC is funded'. But not any more.

These days, they come up with crass titles and desparately try to make a show around them. 'Only Fools on Horses' and 'How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria' are recent examples. The grotesque Alan Partridge character appears to have been brought to life and been given the role of Head of Light Entertainments. Or is it Roger Mellie?

I could do that. How about a show where burnt out sports personalities earn a pile of license fees by trying to trap marsupials in The Outback. Call it "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport". I know; it's not funny; but then again neither is 'Only Fools on Horses'.

Who needs this rubbish? Not the horse lovers that I've spoken to. So who? Is it really public service broadcasting?

As I mentioned in an earlier blog (5th June), the television license fee is the most unfair tax since the poll tax. Correction: Including the poll tax; at least the poll tax had reductions for the poor.

Why not do your bit to protest about this unfair tax by writing to your MP, or cancelling your direct debit to the BBC.

http://www.tvlicensing.biz/

A few years ago I was made redundant from my job and decided to take some time out chilling and playing Scrabble. After a few months I got a bit bored and decided to get a job, any job. So I signed on with an employment agency and found myself working at Christian Salvesson.

I shall now reveal what they actually do.

Do you know those trays of fruit and vegetables you see in supermarkets? The big plastic ones that come in different colours and sizes? Well they need to be cleaned in between usages and it is CS who do that.

Not much money in that, I hear you say. Well I suppose not, but CS are experts at squeazing work out of minimum wage employees. Basically, they employ the almost unemployable and terrorise them into working their bolox, or female equivalent, off.

I was told that my shift started at 6am and finished at 2. When I turned up at 5:50 I was told off for being late. The reason for that is that at the begining of each shift they held a safety breifing. Everyone was expected to be there but no one got paid for it. The safety briefing was of course mind numbingly trite.

Not being used to hard physical work, I did my best to work as hard as I could during my shift. All around me were doing likewise. There was no stopping for chats and I don't think I even found out where the toilets were. I'm proud to say that halfway through my shift, the supervisor took the trouble to come over to me and say how well I was doing for a first day and he pointed out that at the rate the shift was going, we'd get our quota out by 1pm and we could take it easy after that.

That seemed to invigorate everyone and true enough, with the quota achieved, the cleaning machine was shut down. However, the easy last hour was not what it seemed. I was told that whatever I do make sure I look busy. Now I don't know how to look busy without actually being busy so I spent the hour helping unload lorries and sweeping a pile of dust from one end of the warehouse to the other.

I didn't go back the next day but even now, when I see those CS lorries out and about I think about my colleagues for one day, who didn't have a degree and an alternative career, grafting away for a pittance.

..Sorry, I haven't got time to tell you right now but i worked for them for one day. Will reveal all later, I'm about to have my internet access over lunchtime pulled.......

As terrorists go, animal rights terrorists must be the most useless. Sure they look pretty evil with their pierced faces, scraggly hair and scrawny bodies. And it can't be fun having smelly oiks like that protesting outside your office or home. But what have they achieved?

Occassionally they sneak into some low security breeding farm and 'release' some rats or something. What happens to the releasees after that is unclear but I bet they don't have a nice comfortable, well fed and watered home that they could expect in a nice warm lab. I suspect that they're more likely to end their days being chewed to death by a bird of prey or maybe the activist's smelly dog.

And in the meantime, the breeders just produce a few more to cover the loss and the process of developing drugs, providing cures and making life a little more comfortable for normal people continues.

I have to admit though, that I am often reminded of the one real difference that animal rights activists have made to all our lives. This happens every time I try to open a new bottle of milk with slightly wet hands; because these days we take it for granted that all food products are quite difficult to open. Milk more so than other products with its tiny pull tabs conected to a foil that is secured using megaglue. But there was a time when we didn't have to worry about nutters putting stuff in our food.

For those of you too young to remember, it was animal rights activists who started the trend for tamper-proof packagaing in the eighties when for some bizzare reason known only to themselves, they started putting messages in Mars Bars saying that they were poisoned (they weren't actually poisoned which just emphasises the activists' uselessness). Thereafter, whenever there was a product recall or something didn't quite taste right, the unwashed vegans would claim responsibility.

Mind you, even if they had poisoned us, it wouldn't have 'saved' a single furry thing. In general, people like Mars Bars more than rats.

I'm dead excited today. My nephew Daniel (and his mam) are coming to visit.

So it's a few days of swingy parks, football and bedtime stories for me.

In the news this week was an idea which is too good for the bourgeoisie to let come to fruition.

Personal carbon allowances.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4645031.stm

In case you can't be bothered clicking the link, here is the concept in a nutshell: Every human being would be allowed a carbon emission quota. When you buy a product that causes carbon emission, like petrol, electricity or a plane flight, you use up your quota. If you've already used up your quota then you can use your personal wealth to buy someone else's quota. If you're too poor to own a car or go on holiday then you can sell part of your quota and buy, for example, eight cans of Ace lager, some food for the bairns or a big box of Pampers.

I've been a believer in socialism/communism/equal rights/egalitarianism, call it what you will, since I was a schoolboy with a grudge against those who had an easier life than me. But in recent decades I have come to recognise the importance of the market in creating prosperity. However, I always believed that technology would bring us the means of making the world better without all that messy killing of people.

To me, it seems that personal carbon allowances provides a big step on the road to a fairer world. Unfortunately though, I suspect that the ruling classes will not allow it to happen so easily and perhaps an armed insurrection may be necessary after all.

But mark my words: This is the begining of probably the most important political debate in our lifetime.

Just recently I've been thinking that it was about time I got something published to beef up my cv a bit. (I'm talking about publication in a professional journal). I've got one or two ideas floating about and have even written a few things down but I'm not really very near to submiting anything.

Then today, out of the blue, I found out that one of our customers wants to publish the results of a study that I had contibuted a report to. I think that means that I'll be mentioned as an author.

It was only a scabby little 2x2 factorial as well. I suppose my bit of genius was spotting the simple solution to what was, in terms of the work we do, a rather complex study design. I'm chuffed to bits; especially seeing as I've already done the work.

It was a bit hot here in the UK. I was sweating like a pregnant nun all day. British tv and radio have been reporting that it was the hottest July day 'in nearly a century'. That claim was based on a Surry village who recorded 36.3 degrees which is alledgedly more than the 36 recorded in 1911.

Nobody bothered to mention how many decimal places they were working to back then. Maybe the 1911 figure was really 36.4! They also fail to point out that in 1911 they probably had much better things to do with their time than have a weather monitoring unit in every village. So maybe we also have a multiplicity issue going on.

As I write, I am equally amused and disgusted by hearing the leader of the Liberal Democrats state on tv that the current heatwave is due to global warming. How does he know????

I wonder if politicians were flapping about climate change in 1911.

I need to get my page view count up in order to match last month's total and I've realised that writing any old rubbish will attract one or two extra hits.

I won't be so shameless again. Only quality posts from now on.

Sorry to waste your time.

Take one 2 litre bottle of sparkling water (17p from Tesco).

Position yourself at least 2 metres away from your computer or any other electrical equipment.

Gently shake the bottle.

Unscrew the top very slightly.

Enjoy the cool shower.

Disclamer: The author accepts no responsibility for damage to electrical or other equipment whilst carrying out this procedure. Please ensure that other occupants of the office are aware of what you are doing and accept the associated risks. It may be prudent not to carry out this procedure if your shirt is a little tight. (However, please feel free to send me the pics if you do).

With the emission of Nikki tonight, I finally have no more reason to watch BB. I feel like a great load has been lifted. But what were the voters thinking of??? She's solid gold entertainment!

When's the next series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! starting? Now that is quality.

Anyone see Horizon last night? It was a bit of an eye-opener. You can read the transcript here...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5173310.stm

I'm not a one to big up the BBC these days but this is exactly the kind of program that public sevice broadcasters should be making rather than flipping Eastenders.

Now. Why didn't they tell us the true facts years ago?

Did I mention that my brother Brian had come down from Sunderland to help me with the decorating? Well he has.

Just to show that life is not all tickety-boo, I should relate that I spent about 3 hours in Gloucester hospital last night while Brian had 6 stitches in his lip. The story began on Monday night when my bro got a phone call telling him that one of his close friends from school had died. They hadn't been very close in recent years but had met up from time to time. Unfortunately the mate was an alcoholic so his death was no great surprise but although Brian attempted to take it in his stride, it can't be easy when the first of your contemporaries cash their chips in.

When I got home from work yesterday he was down the pub in the village dealing with the news in his own way (with our son helping him out). They were both very drunk when I joined them for a quick pint around 6:30 and a sensible brotherly thing to do would be to bring them back home. However, I felt he needed to get it out of his system so I went back home and told them both to take care of each other.

Dear reader, you must believe me that my brother is not the violent type; sure he gets a bit loud when he's drunk but I've never known him to be in a fight.

Long story short: He was told to leave the pub for being too loud and woke up in an ambulance with the injury I mentioned above and a big burmp on the back of his heid.

I know there's 2 sides to every story and when you're drunk you stop being a reliable witness but I believe my bro when he says he didn't start the trouble.

The thing is, Brian doesn't understand the mindset of the locals. They are ok with you so long as you keep your head down and don't answer back. If you are a bit extrovert and you drop your guard they will act like savages and protect each other in the aftermath.

The landlady told me there was no fight at all and his wounds were caused by a fall. Well that would explain the burmp on the heid but not the 30mm long gash in his lip. She lied to me to protect the thugs she has for customers.

I won't be going in that pub again. (Nor for that matter either of the other two pubs in the village because they seem to be run by the same family.) I think that fact has probably enriched my life.

In the UK, plumbers can demand anything up to £100 an hour just to pick the phone up and sharply inhale. However, I say big-up nuff respect to them. I've just spent most of the weekend with my head under my bath trying to repair a leak with a wonder product that is guaranteed to do all kinds of things for me.

The situation now is that I have a tiny little dewdrop coming from god knows where, tantalising me with it's drip, drip, drip every 3 hours. Not enough to be overly concerned at present but enough to make me know that as soon as I put the bath surround back together it will start gushing.

If I could afford the two thousand pounds it would no doubt cost, I would gladly call out a plumber and get it sorted properly. Then I would send him or her a card every anniversary of drip freeness.

I refer of course to Wimbledon, or tennis in general.

In what other sport would the participants have a nice sit down every 5 or 10 minutes? Tennis has to be the borinest sport in the world to watch. (It's a great game to play but then we just carry on till we're knackered - like real men).

Talking of real men, why was there no ladies tournament at Wimbledon this year?

Biffa Bacons the world over will be weeing themselves in anticipation of this weekend's late night drunken barnies. For this weekend they will have a brand new assault tool in their arsenal - the Zidane.

If you're going out this weekend and you're a bit tall, beware of slightly shorter thugs who will be aiming to cave in your ribcage a la Zinedine.

The last couple of days have been hectic as we got the keys for our new house on Friday. I hired a van yesyerday and moved nearly 2 decades of accumulation for what I expect to be the last time for several years. It was roasting hot and myself and Andrew (our son) we're totally knackered by the time the England game kicked off at 4pm and then still had another 3 hours of work to do in the evening.

We are over the moon with our new house even though there is work to do in every single room of it. Yesterday morning I was awoken by what sounded like seagulls (we're a good 40 miles from and serious water so I think they might be some other species impersonating seagulls) and noticed that I'd just missed watching the sun rise over the hills behind us. The seagulls(?) remind me of Sunderland.

I can't believe how friendly the neighbours are. The people next door had mowed our front lawn before we moved in. People walking past have taken the time to stop and say hello. A bloke over the road says that if I had anything heavy to shift I should help myself to his sack truck in the back of his van.

I think we're going to be ok here.