The Royal wedding of the century, Wow what a day!

Find below the report from the Sandpit’s Royal Wedding Correspondent I hope that you all enjoy it

Cheers Comrades

The train ride into London was smooth we arrived at Paddington station at 7.45am and first point of call was a bowl of coffee to keep us going.

Walking down Baker st found Sherlock Holmes hotel but no 21b baker to be seen.

Saw lots of the monopoly board names, Oxford st, Marylebone station, chapel road, park lane, Mayfair,

I knew something was on when u see Bobbies on every street corner. They had Bobbies on motor bikes, there Bobbies at all the hotels, there Bobbies in the air,

Bobbies on horseback and Bobbies in the parks,

Wall to wall BOBBIES,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,lol

Tried to get near the palace you know where Queen Elizabeth lives, we could see she was at home as her flag was flying,
“ Sorry no room here move to Green park please“, said a Bobbie.

We got into Green Park.   After 40mins walking and a bowl of yummy coffee I had to find the loo.

Goodness gracious me I had to wait 40 more minutes just to use the port a loo.

 

 People every where .

Wonderful atmosphere  every one was so happy just watching the big screen, flags waving people dressed up, some in 3 piece suits, some just BRITISH  having a good time.

 Everyone cheered when Will and Harry turned up , everyone cheered and cheered when Charles turned up,

Every one CHEERED N CHEERED N CHEERED  when The Queen arrived.

Everyone went Bananas they cheered ,YELLED, AND CHEERED SOME MORE when

Kate got into here limo and then did it all again when she got out.

There was a standing of all when they played God Save the Queen, then we all cheered some more?

We walked down towards the palace and got some shots from the Green we were a fair distance, you could just make the couple.

 

So after a great time it was time to leave, this took us 25min just to get out of the park,
Do you  remember Blakey from on the buses well I’m sure it was his brother trying to organize the exit gates for us to leave,

I though he was going to have a coronary , “move back there” he kept on shouting.
No one moved, I mean no one; he was going to bust an eye ball.

 His eyes were getting bigger n bigger, still no one moved,

 Finally help arrived with two others moving people ever so politely
“please move there guys”
“yes you there sir please move back, Sorry you can not come in please move back”

 Amazingly every one moved.. Very English..
So continued our adventure back to Paddington station was our goal

  Which took us 45minutes walking around the monopoly board finally we made it.
I needed to pee. Had to find the loo .
Could not see any signs so I asked a Bobbie. They are every where I tell you. “Platform one sir”
Found it , just to find you had to pay 30 pee just to pee???????????????????????..

 I was in luck had some coin on me,  so you think about it costed me 50 cents just to go to pee.
That’s the BRITISH  way lads

Hour n half later we got back to Bath to have tea a Sally Lunns , the best meal so far, Steak n mushroom stew on a sally Lunns bun. Dr who ( Tom Baker) agrees the best buns in the world Just to think we will be back on the 15 may  to explore London more, got to do the Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes  rooms

Another great day

Mr Squiggle

Jo Chandler: “Feeling the Heat”, is the book doomed to the bargain bin before it is even published??

Hands up those who remember that Jo Chandler  was writing a  biography of Victoria’s former police commissioner Christine Nixon? Because as far as I can tell that book has  been published and  despite a lot of pre-publicity stuff having been pumped into it, now the book is doomed to obscurity, just like its subject, it has quietly sunk with that woman’s reputation after her disastrous failure to give effective leadership during the Bushfire crisis of two years ago. Heck the fact that Nixon  was chatting with her biographer rather than doing  her duty can’t be helping sales either.  Talk about the watcher’s watching influencing  the outcome in an unpredictable manner! Anyway what does a journalist/author  do when her first go at writing a book ends up being, well a bit of a non-starter? Well she tries another subject that she hopes will be topical enough to make herself a quid or two. Thus it seems to be with Chandler’s upcoming tome about climate change. Well in today’s Age we are treated to an extract of said book and reading it does not inspire confidence that it is going to be worth paying your hard earned dosh for what looks likely to be a whole series of emotional arguments and exercises in misanthropy.

click for source

Warming is conjuring some formidable new obstacles to survival. For the early decades of their life, the turtles are pelagic fossickers, working the sea surface, so as with so many species of seabirds there are questions about what changing water temperatures might mean for them. Shifts in circulation and oceanographic behaviour might also influence them, especially hatchling distribution. On land, more frequent and stronger cyclones and rising sea levels would damage and erode rookery sites, although against these odds the patient and resilient turtles might have a fighting chance-if they wash up on new beaches, and deliver a new generation back there 30 or 40 years hence. But what conditions will await them?

The biggest factor blighting the future of the marine turtle is how warming sands will affect the embryos of the next generation. Variations in the temperature of the sand where the eggs are laid determine whether the hatchling that emerges is male or female, as well as influencing its physical strength.

Destiny – in terms of gender and physical rigour – is determined by a tight thermal range. If the eggs incubate in conditions that are too warm, the ratio swings strongly to production of females. Too hot, and the hatchlings don’t emerge at all. Present sand temperatures have already reached the point where they strongly skew sex ratios towards females. It might be 30 years or more before the consequences become apparent, but the fear is that heating sands might doom the turtles within a generation or two.

Led by Mariana Fuentes, a James Cook University team working up in the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef has been evaluating the various climatic threats facing the green turtles.. Under the worst-case scenarios for climate change – which is pretty much the trajectory we are on – sea-level rise, and the consequent impact on nesting sites, shapes up as the biggest threat for the turtles from now until 2030. But by 2070, the models anticipate sands will have reached a temperature which would bring about a near-complete feminisation of hatchlings. A few male enclaves are likely to survive where conditions provide some respite from the heat. But the overall picture is grim.

Now I’m no scientist ( neither is Chandler) but the obvious question occurs to me here and that is just how many males do you need to continue the turtle species in question, because this is not a species that forms enduring or exclusive  pair bonds so one male can provide the necessary sperm to multiple females.    Further, given the fact that these animals are very long lived it should not matter that much is there is a gender imbalance even over several years. Of course this extract does not even consider these issues, preferring instead to imply that like human beings turtles need a roughly equal number of males and females. Chandler assumes that the temperature is going to be inexorably rising  and that the conditions now will not be reversed. This is precisely the sort of “polar bears are doomed by climate change”  argument that other alarmists have often made and carries precisely the same fault, namely that its authors assume that nature is far less resilient than it has proven to be time and again. After all the proxies that the warming alarmists  rely upon  tell us that in the thousands of years that the turtles have been on the planet that  the climate has been both hotter and colder than it is now and guess what, the turtles have survived…

Of course the other problem facing Chandler’s chances of the book being well received, or that it will earn back any advance paid by the publisher, is   quite simply the fact that  the Warminista dogma has peaked and  it is in serious decline both here and overseas. Prior to “Climategate” scandal or even the disastrous climate conference in Copenhagen a book like this might just have stood a chance of success but  in the current climate (pun intended) its my guess that this book will quickly be relegated to the remainder bins and  bargain tables of our bookshops, and rightly so. So with two strike outs expected from Jo Chandler we might just see that Melbourne University Press would not be giving her a third go at being published.
Cheers Comrades

Sentimental moments

click to enlarge

Well I was a good and Loyal Englishman and I watched the wedding last night and it was done well there were not hitches at all as far as I could see, The only , admittedly minor, quibble that I have is that the ensemble worn by our own PM was, well, hmm  rather cringe worthy and she looked decidedly uncomfortable wearing a frock rather than her more usual pant suit… Tim was not much better either… But the event was not about our PM in fact I doubt that they could have even see the wedding from their seats in the Abbey just as most of the other dignitaries would not have been able to see the  ceremony. It is perhaps the ultimate irony about such things that the ordinary people watching it  at home on the TV probably saw more of the event  than the official guests and dignitaries sitting in that ancient church did.  Those with pretensions  as  working class warriors who want to denounce the whole experience as an example of excess should take note of this little irony the next time they want to flash their red underpants at the monarchy and those in positions of power.

Moving on to the wedding itself, well I have to admit to being a total romantic about weddings in general and especially weddings where the couple are very obviously in love so I had no trouble enjoying the show Heck I even drank a glass of wine in honour of the event.

A fairytale moment

Questions about the virtue or vice of the institution of an hereditary monarchy can be argued endlessly and there are merits to both sides of the issue but the fact remains that, when it works, a constitutional monarchy can create a very good political system that has all of the necessary checks and balances against tyranny. That works well in the case of the house of Windsor because they have such a dedication to service. This is why the people love and respect them and why so many turned out to celebrate this wedding

Loved by the people

OK, enough of me getting sentimental about my homeland…

Cheers Comrades

Royal wedding update, Sandpit style

Mr Squiggle, the Sandpit’s intrepid correspondent in the UK has been soaking up the atmosphere in Bath and Bristol before setting out for the big smoke and a certain Royal Wedding…

our intrepid correspondent admires Brunel`s  SS Great Britain in Great Britain

That to me was the highlight of our day wow the first steamer build by the Brits

We started early with a cooked breakie, eggs on toast with a cup of tea.

Off to Cardiff we went, well I was a tad disappointed, no Dr who any where, what gives??

Needless to say we found a old castle to explore with a leaning tower,

It was a hoot looking around the old site

Naturally our correspondent wanted to help straighten things up while he is in the UK

We found that the traffic in the UK sucks.Our GPS has a mind of it own; turn rights means veer right,  needless to say we got lost several times and  got charged 5 pounds for parking, bloody Nora they charged for every thing!  Yesterday in Bath they wanted to charge 1 pound to look in the local park.

Anyway that enough complaining for one day

We are up at 5am local time tomorrow to catch the 6.13am train from Bath to London

Got to see Bill n Kate tie the knot..

Cheers Comrades

Compare and contrast

There is a certain irony that as our avowed republican prime minister prepares to enjoy the Royal knees up in London the leader of the opposition who supports the monarchy  has been hob knobbing with the elders of Alice springs’ indigenous people. The hope is that that a way forward may be found that can hopefully address the terrible social problems that are so evident in the red heart of our country.

click for source

The thing that our Latte sipping friends just can’t get their heads around is that there is a necessity for a continuing intervention and no amount of whining about a rights agenda is going to cut it when our most disadvantaged people continue to live a nihilistic life style. On another level this is just another example of how Tony Abbott is gaining ground from Labor’s  heartland. What with his recent beers with miners who once would not have given any Tory the time of day and now this, its not looking good for the lady in London even if she manges to find a notable frock for today’s nuptials.

Cheers Comrades

Mungo MacCallum’s muddled murmurings

Mungo's column appears to be based on a blissful ignorance of reality

I hope that all readers of the Sandpit had a lovely Easter. I spent Easter in Byron Bay with my in-laws, and enjoyed watching UFC DVDs, playing Call of Duty and eating out at restaurants. In between such a rigorous regime of leisure, I managed to read Byron’s local rag, The Echo. It was then that I stumbled upon a column by local resident Mungo MacCallum.

Commenting on AWU National Secretary Paul Howe’s recent warning to the government over the carbon tax, the article is replete is errors. A few examples:

Howes’s threats are significant, not because they should be taken seriously, but because they suggest that the union leadership has abandoned sensible argument on the carbon tax and has descended into irrational demagoguery.

No. One of the strongest arguments against the tax is that it will cost jobs. By standing for jobs, Howes is in fact being rational. The irrational side of the debate is that which insists that we should “take action” on carbon by imposing a tax on it, in spite of the fact that any action by Australia will make no difference to the climate, the rest of the world is not willing to do the same (as demonstrated at Copenhagen) and the world has not warmed since 1998.

The AWU used to represent blacksmiths; if Howes had his way the motor car would have been introduced only if the government could have guaranteed that no smithy would be displaced.

Not true. Replacing blacksmiths with robots and other capital is a step towards industrialisation, economic growth and prosperity. The carbon tax on the other hand marks a step away from industrialisation, economic growth and prosperity.

And in any case if he were to win, and Labor to drop its plans, it would blow Julia Gillard out of the leadership and Labor out of the race at the next election.

To the contrary. MacCallum’s wishful analysis fails to recognise that Labor’s only hope of saving the next election is to scrap Julia Gillard and her carbon tax. Whilst it’s true that that would mean the electorate will have seen Labor replace two sitting Prime Ministers in the space of less than two years and there is no obvious successor, this surely is better than the alternative of plodding on with a tax which is despised by a majority of Australians.

But surely this was the biggest howler in a very poor quality peice:

while some jobs will inevitably disappear in the transition to a lower carbon economy, many others will be created

What tosh. All the evidence shows that many more jobs will be destroyed than created. Take the following studies for example:

Green programs in Spain destroyed 2.2 jobs for every green job created, while the capital needed for one green job in Italy could create almost five jobs in the general economy

And this one:

The report’s key finding is that for every job created in the UK in renewable energy, 3.7 jobs are lost. In Scotland there is no net benefit from government support for the sector, and probably a small net loss of jobs.

As a result, its clear that Mungo’s comment should be as follows:

while many jobs will inevitably disappear in the transition to a lower carbon economy, some will be created

That would be much more factually accurate.

The Chaser boys chastened

There are times that I have found the Chaser boys very funny, but like all of those who do satire their shtick is just not always funny I am rather amused though by the developing outrage from the usual suspects that Clarence house should dare to say that they will not allow any footage of the wedding to be used by comedians or satirists.

click for source

Personally I think that its is in extremely poor taste to take the piss out of anyone’s wedding be they the most lowly street people  to the likes William and Kate everyone deserves to be treated with respect on the day that they make one of our most solemn commitments. If the Chaser boys want to take the piss then they are free to stage a re-enactment of the event but to expect the use of the official footage just so that they can mock the event is seriously misconceived. I would love to know if the chaser boys would be happy to have their own wedding video subjected to the sort of mocking commentary that they were planning for the Royal wedding? No? well if its good enough for ordinary people not to have their wedding mocked then it should be good enough not to mock a Royal wedding.

Cheers Comrades

England helps visitors who are a long way form home

A helpful sign

No exploration of Blighty would be complete without visiting Lands End and what a wonderful demonstration of just how inclusive the English are when it comes to helping out visitors who are a long way from home. This picture is courtesy of Mr Squiggle, the Sandpit’s Royal wedding correspondent who is discovering that English cuisine is actually better that many food snobs would have you believe .
Cheers Comrades

A cunning plan to meet our emission reduction target

Much to the chagrin of my mother in law (who believes that exercise is a universal panacea) I have never been into any activity that in anyway resembles exercise just for its own sake, I don’t mind taking a constitutional stroll or enjoying the practice of yoga I can see that there are benefits from both. However when it comes to the notion of sitting on an exercise bike or running on a treadmill I can think of nothing more tedious that running or peddling in one place. To my mind if you think that running or cycling is good for your health then get out there and pound the pavement or explore the roads around where you live. Better yet why not integrate your exercise into your everyday life by walking or cycling to work?

It seems to me that attending a gym has become a part of many of the lifestyles of our urban elites they will and this fact has always rather tickled my funny bone because there can be nothing less environmentally friendly than the energy intensive gymnasiums with their rows of energy sucking machines, heated swimming pools, and air-conditioned exercise rooms. That at least one gym is aware of the issue and that they have done something to harness all of that energy expended on exercise machines  should gladden the hearts of every Latte sipper out there.

click for source

If I can take a moment to channel the spirit of the blessed bananas in pajamas by saying “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” its obvious to me that if all of the Warministas were to be, er, “encouraged*” to each devote say ten hours a day peddling on exercise bikes like the ones in that Oregon gym and the resulting energy fed into the grid we can just imagine how that would help reduce  our GHG  emissions. The real upside of this scheme is that if This country were to fail to meet its GHG savings target then we could legitimately blame the Warministas for not peddling hard enough!  Of course some of them may complain that it should be the ordinary citizens who should be making the sacrifice for Gaia but that would be to impose their religious faith upon unbelievers and that is just, well, unAustralian.

In an earlier age the truly faithful would scourge themselves and reject all earthly pleasures for the sake of   humanity’s salvation this made sense to a world in the sway of the Christian theology so by the same logic  it makes sense  that in an age of the Green faith that we should expect nothing less than row upon row of the Warminista faithful peddling like crazy so that we sceptics can sit back and watch our 50 inch plasmas while or our electric car batteries are charged and our planet saved …

They would do it if their faith is as strong as they claim…

but then again I have always suspected that there is another agenda in play from those who claim to be acting in the name of Gaia…

Cheers Comrades

*Their priests would use some organic pointed sticks to gee up the slackers

The top contender

Those of us who are concerned about the issue of the endless stream of unauthorised arrivals of asylum seekers  illegal immigrants have long known that the most attractive carrot that draws them here is the easy route to getting permanent residency and the right to sponsor their family members once that get that desired migration outcome. I am not alone in being disgusted to discover that even those who have been convicted of the destruction of commonwealth property have thus far not been “bad enough” for the minister to refuse them a visa on “character grounds”.   The fact that the Labor government has finally decided to “Toughen up” and change the law so that any offence will be enough to refuse residency is a good start. But the obvious question that comes to mind is why the hell has it taken the partial  destruction of  not one but two detention centres for them to act?

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said that if the laws were passed they would come into force from today and cover any troublemakers convicted over acts of violence and riots at Broadmeadows, Villawood and Christmas Island.

As protests continued at four detention centres around the country yesterday, Mr Bowen said: “These changes send a clear message to anyone considering engaging in unacceptable behaviour in immigration detention that this will only increase their chances of not being granted a visa.

“The Government believes the powers under the Migration Act can be strengthened to create a more significant disincentive for this sort of destructive behaviour.

This will apply to all people in immigration detention: onshore and offshore arrivals, asylum seekers, or otherwise,” he said.

Under the Migration Act, Mr Bowen already has the power to refuse visas, but it is easy for him to do so only where a person has a substantial criminal record, or where someone has been sentenced to jail for a year or more.

The changes will mean that, if a convicted criminal faces persecution in their own country, they will most probably be granted only a provisional visa, which does not permit refugees to bring their families to Australia.

Once the threat in their home country is over, they can be sent back.

Along with the ridiculous reluctance to forcefully  deport those who have failed in their claim for asylum (they and their country of origin has to agree that they be deported   ) the lack of any meaningful sanction for unacceptable behaviour while their claims are being determined is the underlying cause of the unrest in the detention centres at present. Further I find the naivete of the protests from asylum seeker activists almost breathtaking. If ever there was an issue where a protest is beyond futile it is this one . They certainly will get a chorus of “right on ” from the Uber-left loopy Greens but Labor have no wriggle room to give even the tiniest part of a millimetre to their noisy demands lest they lose even more of their base vote. And the general public are just not prepared to believe the narrative that “asylum seekers” are the “worthy of our concern  victims of  oppression” narrative since both Christmas Island  and Villawood have burned.

So in true Labor party tradition what we can see here is an example of policy over reach followed by a  ridiculous denial of the negative consequences  of their changes and then finally a partial restoration of that which they changed.

Is it any wonder that the Gillard government is the top  contender for the “Worst Labor government of all time?

Cheers Comrades

A year is good but more would be better

I must say that I am delighted to report that some of the most offensive behaviour on the internet has resulted in a conviction and more importantly jail time for the miscreant responsible:

This is the face of a convicted internet Troll Bradley Paul Hampson

The Brisbane District Court was told Bradley Paul Hampson, 29, posted offensive messages and photographs on Facebook “RIP tribute” pages for a 12-year-old boy stabbed at a Brisbane school and a nine-year-old Bundaberg girl abducted and murdered in February last year.

Hampson, of Tarragindi, on Brisbane’s southside, on Friday pleaded guilty to two counts using a carriage service, the internet, to cause offence and one each of distributing and possessing child exploitation material — meaning child pornography — between February 14 and June 4 last year.

Prosecutor’s said Hampson “posted” photographs of one victim with a penis drawn near their mouth and highly offensive messages, including “Woot I’m Dead”, “Had It Coming” and others too offensive to publish.

Isn’t it good to see that the courts are taking very seriously the more disgusting behaviour form the fringe dwellers on the internet? Speaking as someone who has had to put up with some similar treatment and vilification through obscenity posted on the net it is most heartening to see people like this enjoying a stretch in one of her Majesty’s fine hotels for at least  the next year. Sadly from the looks of this photo the scrote has not learned any humility of felt any shame for his crimes. Then again  my experience with his ilk suggests that they are incapable of understanding even the most simple ethical concepts, have no moral centre and they deserve everything that they get.

Cheers Comrades

Anzac Day and natural selection

You just can’t dispute the concept of natural selection when you read stories Like this one:

click for source

It serves as a rather stark reminder of just how fragile life is and on this Anzac day it also reminds us that young lives lost for something more important should be remembered with pride.

Cheers Comrades

The futility of blackmail, and the stupidity of some who try it

I like watching all kinds of crime  drama in film or on DVD’s and one of the mainstays of the genre is the  blackmail plot. Usually they concern the extraction of cash or another valued commodity  from someone who  has something to hide. The dramatic frisson usually comes form the competing imperatives of the victim of the attempted  coercion and of course the fact that if the victim pays up there is never any guarantee that there will not be escalating  demands for a further stipend. The lesson is  that if you give in once then they own you body and soul forever.

Understanding just how it works

Of course the revelations being threatened actually have to be something that the victim fears being made public, after all only a truly stupid blackmailer would try to leverage something that is already out there in the public domain. However there are a some  truly stupid criminals out there who may  try such blackmail. The target of this sort ineptitude would of course just laugh at any blackmailer who seriously thought that they have enough leverage to elicit anything from their victim. Imagine  if   the “revelations” had already been published on the internet but the closing of an odious website meant that it was not as easily accessible as it once was, Google’s cache and the likes of the “wayback machine” mean that nothing ever truly disappears from the internet, only a truly moronic blackmailer would think that threatening to republish what is already in Google’s cache is any real threat at all.

A possible  resolution of this sort of  blackmail plot-line  is of course the undoing of the evil merchants of coercion, where they find that rather than    their victim  just of ignoring them, as he has for quite some time, he may decide to make their vicious stupidity more widely known. They should of course just shut up shop and walk away with the certain  hope that the subject of their attempted coercion would not be a vengeful man and  after a period where he is not harassed or derided by them, will decide that the evidence of their mendacity,  stupidity and repeated deceptions  is probably   better kept private.

Then again perhaps such idiots don’t even understand that what they are attempting is actually blackmail and they need do some fundamental research of the definition of that crime, for example here on Wikipedia 

Cheers Comrades

I just love this clip

Cheers Comrades

The Sandpit will be there

Prince William and fiance Kate Middleton in the lead-up to their wedding day. Picture: AFP AFP

It seems that every man and his dog is going to have someone on the ground in the UK for what is going to be the wedding of the millennium and I am very glad to be able to tell  readers that the Sandpit is going to have its own correspondent over on Blighty ready to feel the excitement and report it to our readers.

Our intrepid correspondent has just arrived and as yet all he has to report is the paucity of the GPS and the delight of humble fish and chips in Hastings:

Is there anything nicer than a spring wedding?

Got our car then we proceeded to get lost, damn GPS doesn’t know anything, needless to say we saw some poor areas of outer London. All I wanted was a cuppa, chino of course was a bit worried at what I was told about  no good coffee in the UK, But I’m glad to tell you all that  we discovered a place that’s every where, a new chain. Man good coffee At last! After refilling the  belly we were off to Canterbury  talk about stepping back in time.

We kept going around the coast to Hastings we are staying in a bed and breakfast  built in the 1400s, love them beams!

Had fish n chips for tea , thanks grandpa for that, huge piece of fish, lots of chips and brown vinegar yum.

 So we off again today to discover more

Mr Squiggle*

Cheers Comrades

* a Nom de plume