PUTTING THINGS RIGHT

DEMOCRACY UNDER THE VOTE

The best idea for the referendum on reform of the voting system would be for MPs to have a vote on what they would prefer to happen before the day, and then the public go out and vote exactly the opposite way. Then they get a taste of what the electorate have to put up with.

END OF PRIMATE DOMINANCE

The role of the species that dominates the land has changed at regular in the Earth's history (often seemingly prompted by massive natural disasters). See a story here that shows that crows and the relatives will inherit the Earth, possibly quite soon, because their young are actually more intelligent than human young story.

WORLD CUP ADS

A word of warning - if the voices in your head bear any resemblance to Chris Kamara and Ian Wright, you should not be allowed to bet, nor probably be in control of your own finances. Have you noticed how the faces that bookmakers have latched onto to front their ads are not considered, thoughtful pundits, but hysterical, screeching (or occasionally bellowing) idiots, that should not be taken seriously. Note to all football pundits - if a bookie wants you to appear in their ads, take it as an insult!

NEW WORLD ORDER, BUT ON A NATIONAL SCALE

Two very popular topics of late have been the integrity of MPs in general (re expenses in particular) and the competence of cabinet ministers (especially the PM). The solution to all this is quite obvious. Ban all political parties, and ban all political advertising via any media between parliament breaking up and a general election. The candidates in each constituency all stand on their own name alone, having acquired a set number of names by petition of in-constituency electors that would consider them a sound candidate. Only a small amount of expense, reimbursed from the constituency returning office can be spent on electioneering, although a scheme to reimburse loss of earnings may be necessary to allow the full time employed the opportunity to stand. The only literature sent to the electorate is from the constituency returning office, which details the voting record of the sitting MP in the most recent parliament (for/against/abstained/absent for vote) and the cost of that MP over the life of the parliament - with a comparison to the previous one and the national average. Challengers would be obliged to state how they would have voted on a shortlist of twenty or so key issues. Voters then, instead of being lured by unsustainable or willfully false promises for the future, have the choice to re-elect a sound sitting MP, who is not hamstrung by the demands of party allegiance, or ditch anyone incompetent or dodgy, in favour of someone who may or may not be an improvement. Additional options on the voting form would be for any MP having served at least one previous term to be considered for a cabinet post, and any MP that has three terms or more for Prime Minister. Once in parliament, the elected MPs would then elect a cabinet of, say, fourteen from all qualifying MPs that had more than 50% of the constituency voters, and then repeat the exercise for the MPs qualified for the post of Prime Minister. Thus everything is genuinely resourced from the weight of democracy, and when the country is run by a gang of crooks and halfwits, it is only the electorate, and not just cronyism and party politics, to blame.

SELECTION 2010

Readers will be amazed to know that UK-Jumping endorses no political party, in the belief that a) party politics is not compatible with democracy and b) any of the big three allow their smattering of good ideas to be drowned in a torrent of bad ones, dogma, cronyism and sucking up to idiots. For those who wish to vote, UK-Jumping recommends at least trying to find someone with a a chance that the ideas they could implement will do minimal harm. Alas, in our concealed hideout in Surrey East, it is such a safe seat that the no party outside the main three have even fielded a candidate at the last two bun fights, so we remain disenfranchised by democracy.

And now, a predictable link: Election

DO THEY NOT REALISE...

... that if a good advert helps sell more units of a product, then a bad advert must discourage purchasers. Before Christmas we had the Phillips ad that had the temerity to suggest that their new electric shaver was a design that matched the feats of manned flight and scaling Mt Everest. If there was a hint of irony involved, it did not come across. Now we have the re-renaming of Abbey, which implies that Alice Cooper would be an obscurity if he had stuck to the name Vincent Furnier -  yet when the Alice Cooper Band broke through in the US, that was the band name, not that of any member - and even more implausibly that The Beatles would not have succeeded had Ringo Starr not adopted a stage name. Boycott these idiots!

WORLD OF ENTERTAINMENT

On one single, tragic day, the world of entertainment was rocked by the deaths  of Ingmar Bergman, Phil Drabble and Mike Reid. To commemorate 'Black Monday' it is proposed by this very site to produce a short film. The plot synopsis is that in a world over run with bird flu and insane megalomaniac civil servants, a sheepdog is playing chess with Death, and on checkmate, someone cries "runaround." At this point, the loser is asked a general knowledge multiple choice question and runs off to stand on a podium representing the chosen answer. If the answer is correct, it is a draw.  The working title is 'One Mike And His Seventh Dog Seal.' For purely publicity gathering purposes, the director is planned to Terry Gilliam, and Death will be played by Tom Cruise (on some stilts). Offers of funding to the usual email address.

TOP COMEDIAN STEALS MY IDEA

Although it has to be admitted that I had not, at the time, committed it to print. On 'The Late Edition' it was observed by Marcus Brigstocke that, after the fuss of bugging the MP in conversation with a constituent, MPs are the only people in the country that it is illegal to bug. The people who made this law were, erm, MPs, and the list of MPs who seem congenitally unable to act within the parliamentary rules, or even the law, is as long as a blue whale's penis. Which is a very appropriate analogy.

ANOTHER LESSON IN SPORT

The bickering, gamesmanship, cheating and whining are fantastic fun, but in the America's Cup, it is the actual racing that is desperately dull. Perhaps they need to have 46 boats in a race on an area the size of a cricket pitch.

NIGERIAN ELECTION

One state governor gets over 100% of the vote at the first count. The ruling party wins a senate seat in a region where they fielded no candidates. Shame on you Nigeria, it is nearly as bad as Scotland. But at least the victors in Nigeria can claim a mandate from the people, rather than the UK parties, who claim it on the basis of 2/3 of the population not voting for them.

HEART OF DARKNESS

With it having been repeated on Channel 5 of late, I has moved to consider the reality of The Clangers. They are presented as peaceable, cuddly aliens, apparently not in need of any form of atmosphere. But are they really? Many episodes revolve around petty arguments, they wear military style boots and armoured waistcoats, plus the Iron Chicken lives in what looks like a wrecked tank, and dare not set foot on the planet. War has ravaged that planet in the not too distant past.

REMAINING POLITICAL

Regarding the EU declaring the handover at a discount of the Tote to racing to be illegal state aid, why do we not do what all the other EU members seem to in these instances - pretend we never got their letter/fax/email and do it anyway, apologising profusely when it is too late to undo. 

EXTREME ABUSE

The word ‘extreme’ seems to be the most abused in our language at the moment. One of the documentary satellite channels recently broadcast a series, “Extreme History” which seemed to have the same old reconstructions, but with Roger Daltrey in them. Thus is Roger Daltrey a definition of extreme? We have “Extreme Archaeology” in which extreme means to do something vaguely awkward in the most inconvenient and inexplicably hysterical manner possible. In sport, the range of options covered by the term is too great. Parachuting from the edge of space is extreme. Canoeing down Mt Everest is extreme. Tracking the yeti in Bhutan is extreme(ly pointless). Skateboarding up and down a ramp in Battersea is not by any stretch of the imagination, extreme. Eventually racing will be tarnished with the same brush of futility. The obvious candidates for extreme racing would be staying chases and hurdles, but my guess is that it will end up being all weather racing with gibbons replacing human jockeys. You heard it here first