Me? just a NIMBY, me

Apparently, I’m a southern NIMBY

Michael Fallon is the minister for energy at the department for energy and climate change. To this post he brings everything you’d expect from someone with a MA in classics and ancient history. Clearly, he’s the very man for the job.

If you oppose fracking, then, according to Fallon, you’re a NIMBY.

In the south at least.

Elsewhere, according to ‘Lord’ Howell, the chancellor’s dad-in-law, the northern monkeys may not embrace fracking as they don’t realise how desolate a wasteland they live in.

To summarise: the pair of them support any form of energy extraction that isn’t sustainable and sensible, because they’re gits, and because their mates stand to cop large amounts of wonga.

The water utilities…

…that weren’t Thatcher’s to sell off to her mates, that she sold off to her mates nevertheless (what’s that about democracy, voting, politics being worth bothering with? WWYT?) are bunging their filth into watercourses and the seas, and receiving pitiful fines.

There’s an idea (if your BSc is in environmental science, you may have heard of it – I doubt it crops up in an arts degree in the ancient history of ancient stuff and carrying the baggage of history without learning from it) called the polluter pays principle.

This is that if your for-profit factory, organisation, commercial enterprise, whatever, causes a polluting event, then you pay the costs of the clean-up. This does not apply to the water companies, who have received fines that don’t amount to a Chinese burn or clip round the ear for wiping out large amounts of marine life.

The ten biggest polluters of the sea? The ten biggest water companies.

This is worth a look:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/03/water-industry-exploitation-pollution

Nick Cohn on the greed, incompetence and fleecing the public, The Water Companies and the Foul Stench of Exploitation.

Ian Dury: There ‘aint half been some clever bastards…

…oh, Segovia.

I’ve been listening to the Concerto del Sur. Seriously beautiful, genius.

We’re far too soft

All our commentators and pundits are saying what a shame it is that the third test may fall foul to the weather and end in a rain-affected draw. Particularly as the Aussies were finally playing well.

I might be too competitive, but:

• It’s a five test series.

• We hold the Ashes.

• We’re two-nil up.

• If this game’s a draw, we keep the Ashes.

• Tough cheddar, convicts.

• Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.

• When you have your foot on an opponent’s throat, get the other foot on there and push down harder.

• What do you expect playing in Manchester?