Sign of the Times

I gave up reading the tabloid newspapers last week after finally deciding that I did not want to be brainwashed into thinking that England was a bad country. Apparently the newspapers have been trying to tell me over the years that we have critical illegal immigration problem, a highly fraudulent benefit system that is costing the tax payer millions, a police service that could not catch a cold let alone a criminal and a state pensions system that will mean we will have to live of twenty pounds a week when we retire. Okay, this maybe true, but don’t tell me about it everyday. I just want to live in ignorant bliss.

Just as my switch in newspaper was making me feel a lot better about my life in this country, I turned on the radio. I listened to a caller say that he felt safer in Rio de Janeiro than here in my home town of Bournemouth. Now lets examine the evidence. In the Bournemouth news today local residents are ‘angry’ over council plans to create a new sewage plant in town. Very dangerous I agree. In Rio twenty people were held at gunpoint in a raid whilst three tourists were killed in robberies. I have to admit old people with sticks can be scary, especially after half a pint at the bingo. Then there are the old people that drive slowly causing accidents. But feeling more unsafe than Rio? So I banned the tabloids and started reading more serious newspapers, and this is what I learnt from my new best friend.


Whilst reading the ‘Times’ today I noticed that in Tokyo a survey has revealed that women want ‘female only’ trains in an attempt to eliminate the act of ‘bottom pinching’. Apparently they trialled women only train carriages after a survey had revealed that two thirds of women had been the victim of such a crime. Now whilst being highly sympathetic to this crime, I cannot imagine for a minute it would work on the London Underground. I can just imagine it now, looking up at the sign, great a train is approaching, I can’t wait to get home,…oh no….it’s a pink train, another ten minutes to wait then. But in all seriousness London Underground deserve special praise for their tough measures against bottom pinching. They have devised an intelligent system where if you pack as many people as possible onto a train, physically your hands cannot move anywhere, one is being jammed against the wall by Aunt Sally’s suitcase, whilst the other is holding onto the rail for dear life as the train bumps around the pre-war train track.

Apparently our good friends from across the English Channel are not too happy either. An employees union is taking a French company to court for forcing them to speak English. Despite a 1994 law saying that foreign expressions should be translated into French in the workplace, the growing trend amongst companies has seen ‘International English’ being used as standard in management. I do have some sympathy for the French employees. To show my respect I will translate this into French. Errrr….. maybe I should have not copied John Watson so much in my GCSE French class every week. I actually blame it on my parents for not sending me on the one week exchange trip with Robert from Calais when I was fourteen. Maybe I should blame it on the laissez faire (wow, I’ve just remembered French) attitude of English people when it comes to learning foreign languages. They have a good argument over there in Le France, why don’t le Anglais speaking managers make more of an effort to learn le French than making le rest of la company (is it feminine?) have to parle le Anglais?

Chocolates or flowers? No I’m not going out on a date, yet, but that’s often the dilemma when choosing a present for the opposite sex. Well it’s got to be chocolates. Is it more romantic? Will she enjoy them more? I don't really care, they cost less, involve less effort and last longer and I can have one. Apart from that there is another reason. Apparently researchers at the University college of London have found that obromine, found in cocoa, was nearly a third more effective in stopping persistent coughs than codeine, currently considered the best cough medicine. It must therefore explain the guilty looking women I have seen recently whilst on the Tokyo underground, they were coughing whilst downing large segments of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. I would not be surprised if women deliberately went out to catch a cold so they could deliberately stay at home and take what the doctor has ordered.