Spring has sprung!
Ker-ching!
Ker-chung!

... right that's enough of that rubbish.

The scrap over the abolition of the 10p tax rate continues, with Frank Field describing Gordy as tragically unhappy in his job and predicting his departure before the next election, while Ed Balls - the bloke with the best name for politics since Richard Face - has accused Field of acting dishonorably - as if taking money off low income earners isn't dishonorable. Even the former Guacamole Commissar has described the abolition of the 10p tax rate a 'very big mistake'.

Then again, there were early indications of pear-shaped potential:

For anyone with kids who has been driven half mad by the Wiggles - in their previous incarnation they were even more annoying:

Having endured months of unpleasantly cold weather and wind, the minute it starts warming up, people complain that they're 'boiling' - which they are manifestly not doing, the temperature remaining firmly stuck in the twenties, the point where the rest of us begin to thaw out and feel a bit cheerful (the question remains how a nation so unsuited to decent weather ever managed to acquire such a massive empire).

A wasp flew in the window this morning and there was even a completely limp thunderstorm this afternoon - a total of three lightning flashes and attendant thunder followed by a suggestion of precipitation - pathetic. That's undoubtedly our lot then - snow again next week.

I'm awake again.

Contrary to the assertion on the advertisement, we - humans - are not '99% monkey', but we are 100% ape. Of course if you are feeling like a baboon, you might be interested in Paulville - a cursory scan of the website forums turns up yet more 'libertarians' in favour of the free movement of capital without corresponding free movement of labour - or in fact free movement of pedestrians ... shut that gate! Do they really enjoy it when their waking hours are spent staked out on the porch with a loaded shotgun trained down the street? Perhaps someone should build Paulieville next door - just to piss them off.

Remaining on the topic of feudalist filth, according to the Times, 'help is at hand for organisations that fear disruption if their workforces are unionised' - those bastards, refusing to send their children up chimneys!

Burke Group [...] is a new sort of HR consultancy that arrived in Britain eight years ago. [I]t describes itself as the largest American management consultancy that specialises “in union avoidance and preventative industrial labour relations”. It employs more than 60 consultants, including a representative in Britain.

Most of the companies seeking Burke Group’s help want to swing an employee ballot against union recognition. If 40% vote in favour of recognition, their union gains legal rights, including the right to negotiate on pay, hours and holidays.

The next time you ask what trade unions have ever done for you, think about the 40 hour week, award wages, holiday and sick leave, the fact that your employer is supposed to provide a safe and secure working environment and that your kids aren't working 16 hours a day in a factory - rights which were won after years of hard class struggle by working men and women, for which some laid down their lives. Anyone who takes these rights for granted is deluded - they are not guaranteed.

Fight the power!

End slavery!

Posting pictures of other people's kittens before it's made illegal...