When are you on strike?

So the public sector workers had their day, but was it a success? The strikers claim it was – but they would say that wouldn’t they. The Prime Minister says it was a damp squid – but then he would say that wouldn’t he. So who was right and does it matter?

I don’t think it was damp squib David (sorry PM), thousands of strikers managed to find their way to the nation’s shopping centres along with their offspring. Another factor overlooked was the ease with which travellers got through our airports and ports where the friendly PSWs alienate, aggravate, delay, annoy and antagonise every UK citizen they can filter out of the passport queue. Oh to be in the Non EU line.

For all you PSWs, well I’m sure you think it was a success. I was impressed with the lady on TV who decided to strike because she cared about education. Actually you don’t. What you care about is you, money and your pension – you don’t care a jot about your students. While thousands of you went on strike, I don’t think the rest of us noticed, let alone cared. Other than blocking roads and bus routes, crowding shopping centres and making us private sector workers feel guilty at having to make do with far less than you, we didn’t miss you.

Now what else are you PSWs going to strike about? Working hours, coffee quality, lack of chocolate biscuits maybe or the influx of more self-adhesive postage stamps? We await your decision with total indifference.

Don't be funny - that's an order

It’s refreshing to see that the lunatics, lightly disguised as the EU regulators, have at last come up with yet another ingenious if not completely barmy idea for ruining the enjoyment of millions of children across Europe – balloons.

Boy, this is a great addition to the Health & Safety Executive’s collection of stupid and unnecessary rules and regulations. There is to be no unsupervised balloon blowing by under 8s, so the seafront balloon-seller, who currently employs an army of 5 year olds to inflate his souvenir offerings each morning, has got problems.

But don’t be complacent. They are also banning party games including whistles and magnetic fishing games because the small parts or chemicals used in making them are decreed to be too risky. I’m sure many people will wonder why members of the EU regulators have been using their small parts to dream up such crass ideas.

Surely a much simpler way than lumbering us with all these rules to keep themselves in work, along with the zealots who can only say ‘it’s health and safety’ whenever you ask why you have to have a cold plate on which to put your lukewarm food. Why not ban fun and enjoyment altogether?

OK, so Oliver Cromwell has already tried this and he ended up on a spike outside Westminster Hall. Strangely enough he didn’t find that remotely funny either.

In one stroke it would prevent people poking themselves in the eye with the straw while drinking from a carton in a darkened theatre, stop all this irritating laughter we hear from young children at parties, stop anyone from smiling to prevent tooth decay caused by the weather and put an end to Christmas, Halloween, holidays and other festive occasions.

So, never lend your Nintendo to a small child, it’ll have the back off and gulped down the electronics before you can say Super Mario!

Mail delivered on time. Postman arrested.

I see that consumers are complaining that the Royal Mail is delivering a second-class service. Really, I wasn’t aware they were providing any service, much less a second one. In what appears to have been a response to 15 years of fast, efficient, early deliveries, the local management moved my postman to another area, presumably so he could exercise new skills - failing to provide even the basic service.

When various bodies started chipping away at the Royal Mail’s empire I was appalled. Even though it was like eating a portion of whale (with chips) every Friday until it’s gone, I still felt this was an attack on a British institution. Now I think it should have been harpooned at the start and offered to the diners en masse.

Every since then the service has deteriorated. There has been a succession of individuals. Most seem to be permanently plugged into ipods, oblivious to the world around them, or talking endlessly on mobiles. One assumes they are getting direct instructions from a Royal Mail dispatcher who monitors their walking speed, bag weight and reading ability. I now give my mail to a private, barefoot runner with a forked stick - avoiding glossy postcards as they tend to keep falling out and slowing him down.

Salad Days

Not bad for 10p chef

If you really want to generate as much, bad, local PR as you can why not hold an event in an hotel where the staff couldn’t care less. It’s as simple as that. 

I’ll refrain from mentioning the Hilton by name, but they were hosting a business event with lots of exhibitors and visitors. Once it came to the lunch buffet they excelled themselves by producing trays of sandwiches that would have made the old British Rail Catering proud. It is notoriously difficult, I am told, to make grated cheese and two pieces of dried brown bread look worse than grated cheese and two pieces of brown bread – but, all credit to their culinary expertise, they succeeded. However, it would be unfair not to mention the bowls of crispy things - so I won't. 

To wash down, (or should it be away) this delicious fare, there was no tea, coffee, orange or coke, no wine (red, white or rose) but large jugs of ice cold Chateau Anglian Water 2011! Mmm, these people know how to make the party go - which they did immediately after sampling these delights. So, well done to the caterers, you succeeded in disappointing and alienating a huge number of local business people at very little cost. Anyone want the last ham and cardboard?

Keep your fingers off my bird

So somebody’s got their finger into Kentucky Fried Chicken by rebranding their current slogan ‘finger-lickin’ good’, presumably because licking your fingers after eating is seen as socially unacceptable, hygienically unsafe or politically incorrect. No doubt the latter is because some child is likely stick their fingers in their mouth and eat them (with barbecue sauce, of course) before turning to their neighbour for a second helping.

If the intention is to stumble down the healthy-eating road to obesity by using life enhancing oils instead of chip fat, perhaps we could change it to Colonel Sanders Kentucky Grilled Country Raised Corn Fed Low Calorie Domestic Birds – ‘Don’t finger the chicken ‘till it’s disinfected’.

Sadly, it seems the new slogan is ‘so good’, hardly memorable but no doubt worth lots of cash to the people who spent seconds destroying a perfectly good 50 year old idea, and countless expensive hours dreaming up a 10 second wonder. Bet the relatives of the deceased chickens are really thrilled with that as an epitaph.