This "war" is no such thing
London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror'".
The sentiments above, expressed by Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions in
the Guardian are ones I wholeheartedly agree with.
Labels: politics
On the insanity of cosmetics marketing
There is a new "protect your skin from ageing" product from Clarins called expertise3p. Now in itself that's a daft name, but that's not what I really got annoyed about.
If you look at the
marketing blurb you'll see that it's described as containing (amongst many other wonder ingredients) "
Thermus Thermophillus" as part of a "Magnetic Defense Complex".
Now being charitable and assuming they're just illiterate and actually meant
Thermus Thermiphilus (one "l"), this has got to be utter nonsense.
T. thermophilus is one of the
heat-loving bacteria that are commonly found around the deep-sea "black smoker" vents. Quite how they can claim that this bacterium is contained within their product I don't know. And even worse is their claim that it contributes to some kind of magical magnetic anti-ageing system.
I wonder if I need to complain to
Trading Standards or the
Advertising Standards Authority? Maybe both ...
Labels: business
UK/France union
The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, ... and France?!Apparently, it nearly happened -- and I'm not talking about during the time of the Plantagenets, or even the Tudors. I'm talking about a mere 50 years ago.
According to
BBC News, in 1956 there was a serious proposal from the French Prime Minister, Guy Mollet, for France and the UK to form a political union. When Anthony Eden rejected this idea, he then proposed France could be admitted to the Commonwealth, and Eden was apparently far more willing to consider this, saying:
"We should give immediate consideration to France joining the Commonwealth ... [no] difficulty over France accepting the headship of Her Majesty".
Now
that's crazy talk!
Labels: oddities, politics
