Parenting

I cannot be bothered to listen to his Tonyness at his monthly briefing this morning. Having listened to the Today interview last week which was full of complete b*****ks I cannot be bothered to waste my time again today. Congratulations to Despatches last night at least they asked Patty H some uncomfortable questions on where all our money has gone in the NHS. I cannot remember the BBC showing anything which even questions the governments policy/view on anything in years.

No doubt Tone will be asked about the whole family thing today. Cameron is right that 2 parents are better at bringing kids up than one - however I know of plenty of brilliant single parents who do their best and whose kids are a credit to them. What the politicans should be concentrating on is the young girls who seem to thing that single parenthood is a career choice. I have an aquaintance whose 16 year old got pregnant last year. She had been in a relationship with the baby's father for all of 3 weeks before she got pregnant but she decided she wanted to keep the baby without consultation with him. It was a career choice for her and more attractive than going to college or getting a job (she is not stupid and had a place at college already). A year down the line she has her own house, a latest state of the art £500 brand new pram (paid for by a grant) and her and the boyfriend are no longer together. The girl in question has suggested (if not bragged) that she can sit on her bum, looking after her child and still has more money coming in than her ex boyfriend who has 2 jobs- one full time and another one in the evenings. The fact that some of our teenagers think that it is ok to have a child/children and for the rest of us to pick up the bill has got to be addressed.

London 2012

Another sunday another series of stories about the 2012 overspend in the papers yesterday. It seems to me however that most of the budget seems to have little to do with the actual costs of the 20 odd days of sport for the olympics and para olympics. Shouldn't the regeneration costs come under the remit of Ruth Kelly? it is a community thing. The transport into Stratford was well underway before the inspection visit by the IOC in Feb 2005 so that money was being spent before we knew we had even won the bid. It really is about time the 2012 organisers stopped getting blamed for everything. I really hope that the Olympics are a huge success I just wish that this government had managed to stop trying to micro manage the games - look at the examples of Twickenham and the Enirates stadium - both wonderful stadia built without tax payers money on time and more inportantly on budget. We should be getting the people who have project managed these to run the construction of the olympic facilities. Too mch interference by government does not work Wembley is a prime example of this. We still have five years five months to go before the opening ceremony , if Tony Blair really wants a legacy how about making sure that they are the best games ever!

PS I would still rather that the government spent 9 billion on the olympics, a much better use of our money than the estimated 20 billion A YEAR on a national road pricing scheme

Croke Park this evening

Now don't get me wrong...I am an out and out English Rugby Fan. There is nothing like being at Twickenham and hearing the National Anthem. I love the game and particularly all that it stands for (which is the opposite of everything in English Football).. but I have to say that, despite SF trying to stir up anti English feeling all over again, the Rugby fans at Croke park were magnificent tonight. Their respect for the National Anthem and the English Team was exemplary. It was however a great shame that we were stuffed by what was a superior performance, man for man, from every single Irish player(Oh why didn't they stuff the french in the same way!) Congratulations to the Irish - A fine example of sportsmanship both by their spectators and their Players.

pendolino trains

I use the Virgin West coast service a few times a year, always off peak and I always know in advance when I am going. This means I can always pick up cheap 1st class returns and I think the service is excellent just the same as their excellent airline service. It always runs on time and there are some services that go direct from Preston straight to Euston which takes a mere 2hours 11 mins. I can take that long to get into manchester by car! Having looked at the pictures of the crash this morning I will be more than happy using the Virgin pendolino service in the future, the carriages must be well engineered to have withstood a derailment at that speed and I am sure alot of people have survived that would not have done in older rolling stock.

Favourite blogs

My daily blogs include:

Iain Dale http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
Guido Fawkes http://5thnovember.blogspot.com/
Blairwatch http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/
Dizzy http://dizzythinks.blogspot.com
The choosen man http://www.the-chosen-man.blogspot.com/

I also read loads of others and will add them in due course.

This Week

Did anyone watch This Week last night? - a most interesting interview with Lily Allen who was asked about why she thought that some of our youth turn to crime, guns,pregnancy etc. The first reason she gave was because mothers are not at home anymore they are all working and the kids are being brought up in day care - this comment was completely ignored by Andrew et al. It is a real shame that the powers that be don't listen properly to young people they do talk alot of sense. We should be bringing back a married/partners tax allowances which encourages couples to stay together to bring up their children together & not leaving them to their own devices.

Welcome

Hi I am southerner up north.

Welcome to my blog and my life.

I hope that unlike the Blogger in Egypt I will live the blogging experience without going to jail! although getting put in jail is obviously harder than it should be bearing in mind that that Lizzie woman from wife swap avoided jail today (having been previously convicted of benefit fraud and failed to do her sentence for that misdemeanour, and now had a conviction for child cruelty) Perhaps it is time the government and our esteemed (not) leader stopped looking for a legacy and spent more time worrying about how to stop this country going down the pan and how to look after the decent law abiding, tax paying citizens of this country that pay their wages and the benefits of the poeple like Lizzie whatever her name is.