DYI gall bladder surgery complete with NHS aftercare nurses who make sure that Brian doesn't revert to his bad takeaway food habits.

RANT OF THE WEEK!

British Telecom, not content with being a monopoly (they own every phone line in the country and even independant phone companies have to rent the lines from them) and still managing to find themselves in debt to the tune of 60 million pounds, have decided to take their frustrations out on Yours Truly.

Last night I received an e-mail stating that "Unfortunately we have forgotten to include the cost of your web-site..." (You mean I actually have to pay for that 3 megs of crap?) "...on our monthly itemised bill. The cost is £6.99 a month for the last twelve months."

To further kickstart my weekend with a sense of great expectation they went on, "There is no need to do anything. For your convenience we have taken the full costs from your direct debit account."

My convenience? How exactly is that convenient for somebody who is drowning already in the high-cost of survival in Godd Old Aristocratic Britain? I've got a mortgage that's breaking my back, insurance that's five times as much as the crap it's meant to insure, and an overdraft that could have pulled the Sudan into the twenty-first century. And those bastards have taken my last hundred quid to add to their huge tax burden!

Not so much 'for my convenience' as '...we shall now use you as a convenience...'

Fortunately they also included in their e-mail the number of their 'Help Desk'.

Unfortunately, it's closed until Monday.

I have written a letter of complaint to British Telecom's managing director, Mr. S. Hussein.

Now I'm off to visit Mr Jack Daniels.

God Bless Britain. God Bless the free market. God Bless the Queen, the Conglomerates, the Mighty and the Faceless. God Bless this Nobelled Isle, this Sceptic Tank, this Skidmarked Throne! I am humbled by the greed of others, their totalitarian power and their popularity. May their colons never prollapse and their children refrain from bursting from boils.

Brian :o)

P.S. Kevin...I'm glad to see that your sausage roll turned up safely.

"This whole affair has nothing to do with a threat from Iraq - there isn't one. It has nothing to do with the war against terrorism or with morality. Saddam Hussein is obviously an evil man, but when we were selling arms to him to keep the Iranians in check he was the same evil man he is today.

He was a pawn then and is a pawn now. In the same way he served western interests then, he is now the distraction for the sleight of hand to protect the west's supply of oil.

And where does this leave the British government? Are they in on the plan or just part of the smokescreen? The government speaks of morality and the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, but can they really believe it?"

Unka Tony must be pleased this heretic is no longer in his cabinet.

And while I'm being marginally serious, "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." makes a good point ... mainly that Dubbya is a shit. (Not a world shattering observation, I know.) Also a timely reminder about another little bit of terrorism in September ... 1973.

Housekeeping note. The template is set up to divide posts. It won't be necessary to put hr tags in postings

Sadly I have to disagree with The Great Hughes' cankerous views on American TV. Whilst some offerings might err just a tiny bit on the side of vacuous, once in a while they serve up a program that pushes the envelope of conventional thinking, shifts the goal posts of innovation, and challenges our comfortable precepts and mores.

Terry, this is a very popular religion over here. There was a census in spring and the stupid politicians added a question about the religion of the people to the list. And a spontaneous resistance was risen by a popular radio: they called upon the people declare theirs religion to Jedi-related.
BTW, here is an another nice religion.