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Alfred the OK

Listed below are comments made by Alfred the OK between Monday, 19th January 2009 and Wednesday, 15th July 2009.

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Green shoots and wind turbines 1:05pm on 15 Jul 2009 Why didn't the PM read out the names of all those young soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since the last PMQs a week previously?

And usually, after reading out the names he then pays tribute to them saying that they have done a great service to the country etc, etc..... But today, absolutely nothing!

He's done it for every other death in that theatre - so why not now?
Is Italy better than Britain? 6:27pm on 14 Jul 2009 Isn't the headline actually talking about (Inglesi) 'England' rather than 'Britain'?

Mind you, doesn't the BBC always get England and Britain mixed up? Mustn't upset your new Labour masters, eh Mark?

I think the greatest abuse of BBC Brit-speak was when supposed super brain Stephen Fry was on Breakfast TV to tell us just what being British actually meant. He waxed lyrical about this and that to Bill Turnball - then finished off his little piece by quoting Cecil Rhodes. Fry said "And wasn't it Cecil Rhodes who said 'To be born British is to have won the lottery of life"..... Bill agreed.

Except that it wasn't was it? The actual quote is 'To be born English is to have won the lottery of life'. I can only assume Fry just couldn't utter the word 'England' - or else, he isn't as smart as he thinks!

When is the BBC going to stop trying to wipe out my country. We are a nation, not a collection of Euro-regions.
Will anyone ever cull the quangos? 11:29am on 06 Jul 2009 Quangos will stay, and grow - especially after this next general election. Because without Quangos, where on earth will all those now disgraced and soon-to-be out-of-work Westminster MPs be able to claim their next tranche of expenses?

What's the betting that Cameron will set up a multi-billion pound Quango to research which Quangos will get the chop?
Devolution poll 6:34pm on 01 Jul 2009 Regarding your comment about the nationality of Tony Blair on your Panorama programme - you described him as 'an Englishman born in Scotland' - Hmmmmmmm, how does that work then?

Blair was born in Scotland. His father Leo is Scottish and his mother, Irish - so where does the 'English' bit come from then?

Blair is a Scot, end of. And what's more, he's a posh Scot - you only need to look at where he was educated to realise that.
Devolution, evolution...revolution? 2:33pm on 30 Jun 2009 Can someone please tell me when Panorama is going to be uploaded onto the iPlayer site. It is very frustrating as I missed the scheduled 'Will the Scots ever be happy' episode which screened last night. I have been trying to view it on iPlayer all through today without success. There is just a static photo where oyu would normally click to play. Can someone please upload it to the iPlayer facility so I can view the programme please...
Taxing questions 12:10pm on 15 Jun 2009 Oh I do so look forward to 'The English Parliament being on course to have sweeping/far-reaching/dramatic changes to its powers'..... or any powers at all for that matter....

But then again, who is thinking of national devolution for the English? Certainly not Gordon Brown, Call me Dave or Nick Clegg....

It all makes their recent bleatings for constitutional reform within the UK to be nothing more than yet another rearrangement of the deck chairs... If this power-mad triumphvirate had any democratic beliefs in their rotten body-politic then there would be EQUAL devolution for EVERYONE in the UK right now. That means our own national parliament in England - it's called democracy, folks!!!
Do you want fox hunting back? 10:46am on 07 Apr 2009 Oh Gawd, the 'foxes kill for pleasure' and 'we townies don't understand' gambits from the bloke in the green wellies...

The ONLY species that kills for pleasure is..... US!!!! And just because we don't have mushrooms growing between our toes doesn't mean that we don't understand the countryside... Honestly, do you think we could make a worse job of it than the current incumbents?

How many hundreds of thousands of hedgerows have been ripped up? How many ancient woods have been fired? How many wetlands have been drained and the peat been cut out and flogged off? How many SSSIs have been mysteriously ploughed under during the night? How many ancient orchards have been grubbed up?...

Foxes are an integral part of our countryside - they are top predators, if they feel the need to attack farmed chickens then that is our fault because we have turned vast areas of countryside into monocultured green deserts - and eridacted their natural food sources. That is why they are moving into the cities and a scavenging lifestyle.

I used to know a Gamekeeper, he used to take enormous pride in residing over his diverse-poor moorland. It was nothing short of a killing zone - even before the grouse were shot. Anything that may have been even the vaguest threat to grouse chicks was blasted to kingdom come. Foxes, stoats, weasels, crows, magpies, the odd owl and bird of prey.... all fell victim to his trusty 12 bore and illegal gin traps...

I am against the ritualistic putting to death of any animal - that includes bear baiting, bull baiting, cock fighting.... and fox hunting.
Is Jade Goody's life one to aspire to? 11:25am on 23 Mar 2009 The celebration of ignorance is today's must have and must be. Jade knew nuffin' about anyfin' - and became a millionairess because of it.

So shallow and craven has our society become that our kids no longer want to become doctors or teachers, they want to be famous, rich, or to marry a footballer.... And if they also manage to get their faces onto Heat mag' or OK! - then all the better.

The real tragedy is the fact that cervical cancer screening for women only starts in England at the age of 25. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, screening starts at 20.

The unedifying fact is that if Jade Goody had been living in any of those 3 other countries, she'd have had the screening earlier and be alive and well today.

So when Gordon Brown offered his vacous tribute to her yesterday morning, I wonder if he was thinking about HIS female constituents in Scotland - every single one of them qualify for cervical screening at age 20 - as of right.

So much for Brown's much heralded 'Union of Equals' - for as with so many really important facets of our domestic lives (Health, Education, Transport, etc) those of us living in England continue to pick up the tab - and get none of the goodies...
Deal or No Deal..? 10:22am on 26 Feb 2009 I have had the dubious pleasure of meeting Sir Shred for several business meetings when he was head honcho at Clydesdale Bank. I was an outside contractor - but the guy who I worked for - and who was directly reporting to Goodwin was absolutely terrified of him. So much so, that my contact ended up a gibbering wreck of a man. He was off sick for months - and in the end resigned his position rather than go back to work for the Shred.

In my opinion, Goodwin is nothing more than a blagger and a bully - it's so nice to see him get his just desserts..... I refer of course to his several million pounds pay-off to leave RBS. And as if that wasn't kick-in-the-groin enough, we stick the boot in further by insisting he takes his 650 grand a year pension - for as long as he lives!!!!.....

In this country we really do know how to humiliate a man, don't we?
Your money - OUR banks? 10:40am on 19 Jan 2009 In November of 2007 our family small business went bust. It was after many, many months of 18 hour days and tens of thousands of pounds of investment by my wife and I, the bank finally said 'enough' and withdrew our OD facility.

Being a family concern, our business was established, trusted and stable. Then a few large companies went bust - owing us thousands. In an effort to try and dig ourselves out of the hole we were in, we didn't pay ourselves for over 6 months - but it was hopeless. We just never recovered, the bank wouldn't expand our very small OD facility - instead, we got telephoned lectures from our bank 'Business Banking Manager' about the need act with prudence and to make sure that we didn't spend money we didn't have...

On the day we went under, I missed the call from the Chancellor of the Exchequer offering to give us a few million quid with the words 'We must protect small family businesses at all costs'.

What I did get was our not so friendly lecturing 'Business Banking Manager' with her 'Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' accent telling us that our almighty debt to them (of £6,500) just would not be tolerated any longer. We'd gone over our agreed overdraft by some £500 - and what was I going to do about it? With that, I went round to our Accountant and said 'Enough!'...

Over a year later and they are still sending me statements - which apparently they cannot stop as it is a computer thing.

What makes it really galling is that our really no-understanding non-tolerant bank was non other than The Royal Bank of Scotland...

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Alfred the OK