It has to be England for 2018

Whether you enjoy football, despise football or simply think it's a bunch of overpaid, whinging men who haven't grown up you have to know that hosting the World Cup would be an amazing opportunity for England and the UK in general.

2018 is the most likely date that the bid committee will be targetting, and coming 6 years after a London Olympiad, means two major sporting shots in the arms in a decade.

The billions of pounds of investment and tourist expenditure that events like the Olympics and World Cup will bring to the UK will benefit us all.

Lets all get behind it and make the tens a decade to remember .......

TV to expand the brain

If you're English you may not have seen the new Denis Leary ads for Hulu. They're memorable at least. They suggest that TV turns the brain to goo but the irony is not lost on the viewer (unless the watcher is a goo-brained moron who loves Jerry Springer because it's sooo realistic).

Anyway, for anyone who wants to make sure that they are using their 2 (or 4? or 6?) hours of TV viewing a day well I suggest the following diet:

• Flight of the Conchords (new series, BBC 4) - if you don't know any New Zealanders with their funny vowels this will educate you, and make you laugh very hard.
• Mad Men (iplayer, Season 2 finale) - the coolest TV programme since the makers last series The Sopranos. You'll want to wear 3 piece suits and drink and smoke at work but it's worth it. Season 1 can be bought on DVD now and 2 is out in July. That's 26 episodes to indulge you.
  
• The Wire (BBC2, DVD) - if you haven't started yet then top up on the DVDs and then spend every night watching BBC2. If you've not be told about The Wire, shame on your 367 facebook friends.
  
• The Apprentice (iplayer, BBC2) - ok, so it's not the Open University but it is compelling.
• The In-betweeners (4OD, E4 and probably C4 sometime soon) - if you are male and it's 10+ years since sixth form it's time to reminisce. You wish you were able to be a blunt as Jay but you were probably just as geeky as Will
  

If you've got more time on your hands post a comment.

Expenses furore

In the middle of blogsphere there a thousands of posts about the disgraceful use of taxpayer's money for porticoes, manure and swimming pools, but what I can't fathom are the rules and processes themselves?

When could tending to roses using cow dung ever be a necessity of public office? How could a helipad "gag" find it's way onto an expense form that could be submitted "in error"? Who set rules like this, and who thinks it's right to "play the rules" in this way.

Maybe my sense of morality and fairness is abnormal, but i bet it's not dissimilar to yours.

I know we've all put in the odd expense claim that was a bit wide - the handwritten taxi receipt - but at least you did it out of a sense of fairness (didn't you?). And it was only a few quid and probably offset the unclaimed Oyster journeys you forgot to claim for, or the coffees that you bought for your client contacts and thought was too tight to submit.

MPs probably do deserve to get paid more than they do given their important roles but that's no excuse for a lack of common sense or decency. I think that 99% of what MPs do are for the greater good and I know no-one can be perfect (I'm certianly not) but the expenses process is clearly rotten to the core and it's time to pay a fair wage and a total overhaul of how the governance system runs.

Welcome

After a wonderful chorizo and hummus ciabatta from Bellamy's I decided it was time to post a blog. Thanks for taking the time to read my (a)musings .....