Ravish a Dim Panda

I didn’t write this, but it did resonate.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1970’s.

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin and ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a van - loose - was always exciting and great fun.

We drank water from the garden hose or tap and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and
drank cordial with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because……

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, No video games at all, No 99 channels, No Pay TV, No cable, No DVD movies or surround sound.

It’s crazy! We even had No mobile phones, No text messaging, No personal computers, No Internet or Internet chat rooms……….

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We played with worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we didn’t poke out anyone’s eye.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

We had freedom, failure, success and
responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all!

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with your eyes shut holding a pair of scissors, doesn’t it?!

http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1937&Itemid=206

What more could you want?

My daughter’s school has recently announced that The Health and Safety ‘powers that be’ have banned children from taking food into school for parties. Brilliant - spoil what fun they can have at school in their early years in preparation for a lifetime of interfering bollocks why don’t you? Presumably this will also apply to harvest festival donations as well, so local pensioners will also starve. Perhaps it’s a plan to cut pension costs?

I really fail to see how much harm a child can come to with a packet of Jammy Dodgers in their bag, but I’m not surprised. Whilst I generally like to think of myself as being liberal, the more I read things like this, the more my inevitable (so I am told) middle-aged slide towards the right seems to be starting. I have less and less time for the idiots who come up with this sort of thing, I find myself agreeing at times with Jeremy Clarkson, getting annoyed with Ken Livingstone whilst also not exactly enamoured with our current leaders at the moment.

If this goes on, surely it’s only a matter of time before I find myself reading the Daily Mail and nodding sagely in agreement. God help me. God help us all.

It’s often occurred to me that biometric security information is a flawed concept.

Whilst I don’t have any diamonds or valuable artworks stashed away, this has to be a security risk. I mean keys can be locked away and kept safe a damn sight easier than a finger can. The owner of a finger has to move around at least a bit, and that’s a bit like waving your key around as you go about your business.

Surely, I have reasoned, it’s preferable that baddies have to look for, and at worst actually steal a key, than it is for them to stalk you and then gouge out your retina or remove a finger. Of course, this is something which will inevitably be reported in the mainstream press only when it’s far too late to go back. Then I saw this:

http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/make-your-own-id/

So actually there’s not even the need to go that far. It looks like all your budding superthief will need to bypass your fingerprint security is the glass you used in the pub, and a packet of jelly tots. This will not only makes publicans and sweet-shop owners a key part of the modern security process, but it also means that glove salesmen are going to have a field day unless we all start wearing fake fingerprints (but then that does rather defeat the point). I’m assuming at this point that fake retinas aren’t an option…

Given the fact that ID cards, passports and at some point domestic security (some daycare nurseries and library systems are ALREADY using fingerprint biometrics as a security system) then a significant portion of national security is actually going to be less safe than if we just stuck with keys, or pin numbers.

As it’s the government who are driving this, and as the recent loss of security information from HMRC has caused a number of people to rush out and change their bank account details and pin numbers, then I can only advise that you make sure that you keep at hand a packet of jelly tots, a glass, a bunsen burner, some copper, a sharp needle and some decent image scanning software.

It’s best to be prepared.

Yep, not Stig 1 - Perry McCarthy, but the new, white Stig.

Things I learned last weekend:

• One year old children, slightly wobbly caravan tables and hot cups of tea do NOT mix.
• Nor do a quick weekend break, and several 130 mile round trips to Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary.
• The words “Second Degree Burns” do not fill the average parent’s heart with much joy.

Fortunately, Junior Librarian #2 is recovering far better than we could have hoped, and Junior Librarian #1 was a star of a big sister.

She has also learned the very real meaning of the word ‘hot’ and we have learned that however careful we are, you still need to be paranoid.

Or that shit just happens.

Or both.