Eat Your Carrots

Mingers

No, not the 3rd rate celebrities on Big Brother at the moment, but Sir Menzies Campbell. How can Menzies be pronounced as Mingers? It took some stretch of my imagination to accept that Dalziel (as in Tam Dalziel and maybe even Dalziel & Pascoe) is pronounced Dee-El, but I cannot see Menzies as Mingers. Is it always so? Is the Newspaper wholesaler John Menzies really John Mingers?
I feel so foolish at pronouncing it wrong for all these years.

Sunderland Win Again

Sunderland has once again won the race to be the first constituency to return results from the general election. It took them only 45 minutes from close of polls to declare Chris Mullin (Labour) as the winner. The operation involved the police escort of ballot boxes to the counting station and and army of well trained "expert" counters. The City has taken this very seriously since it first won the "race" in 1992 and they've been first at every election since then. Quite why they do this is beyond me, but I guess if there is a "race" then we might as well try and win it! ;-)

At the time I wrote this blog they had beaten the next constituency by 40 minutes and counting. Not just a win, a veritable route! And the second constituency was also Sunderland anyway - South won, North was second. Oh, and we won the league too, did I mention that? I think I forgot to, what with having been away when it happened, and having promised "no more football blogs".

Third result in was Houghton & Washington, which is another district of the City Of Sunderland. We reallly must have nowt better to do up here.

Who Should I Vote For?

I just did this test to see who I should vote for.  I got it from Mr Mcmuffin, who got it from Kirsty over at Boblog.  The results were a little bit surprising, and not only for me. So far it looks like the whole UK populance should actually be voting Lib Dem. I wonder if:

1. We all know that and
2. Any of us would actually do it.

Labour -6
Conservative -13
	Liberal Democrat 20
	UK Independence Party 8
	Green 11

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Election Fever

It can't have escaped the attention of anyone who watches the news that there's a very important election coming up shortly. In fact it's hard to escape it, as there seems to be blanket coverage of it right now. Hardly surprising given it's magnitude and importance. Yes, it's only two and a half weeks until polling take splace in the North East Referendum, a ballot to decide if the North East wants to have its very own Regional Assembly.
Various political bigwigs and local celebrities have been throwing their weight behind either the "yes" or the "no" campaign, trying to sway us one way or the other. I think myself I'll be voting "no". I see the assembly as just another level of bureaucracy, bleeding the taxpayer and having virtually no teeth (in any real sense). I think one of the things that swayed me most was having John Hall telling me to vote yes. Now he's a guy who only ever does anything if it is going to benefit his own pocket or his own ego, and I don't trust at all where his loyalties really lie. I despise him from his days as head of Newcastle United - not for that, but for trying to build from it "The Sporting Club Of Newcastle". This was some pie in the sky idea of his to build something that encompassed not just football but a whole number of sports. He said it would benefit "the North as a whole". Bollocks.
He stole (sorry, bought and moved) Durham's Ice Hockey team (the best in the land) and Sunderland's Basketball team (one of the sport's leaders). This meant two North-East cities lost in a blink of the eye something they had built over many years, and as a result Durham Ice Rink had to close, so the city lost a resource too. So when John Hall tells me that something is going to benefit the North, I believe that
A) It will benefit him and
B) It will benefit Newcastle
and I think a North-East assembly will just channel more and more money into heavily urbanised areas around Tyneside to the detriment of the rest of the region.
And anyway, an extra level of bureaucracy is the last thing we need - maybe it's OK for Scotland or Wales, to give them at least the illusion that they govern themselves. But we're part of the UK, of England, and I don't think we really need or want "self government". And I think we should have less layers of Goverment, not more. Here in Darlington we've even opted out of the County Council and gone for a unitary authority, and as a consequence we have the best services and the lowest council taxes in the region, and our taxes aren't wasted propping up the inefficiencies and inadequecies of the other district councils and the County. Not very community-minded of us, I'm sure, but they should get their own houses into order.
End of political blog.

Strange Choice

I read yesterday that John Kerry's campaign theme tune is "Let's Get It Started" by The Black Eyed Peas. I wonder if he knows that this is just the radio edit and that the real version is called "Let's Get Retarded".