Even though it’s only January 4th, I’d like to make a nomination for Freudian slip of the year: Tony Blair, during his cringeworthy speech of lies to 600 of the 10,000 British troops in Iraq, said:
“[the evil baddies] are developing weapons that can cause distraction…destruction on a massive scale”.
Perhaps the Hutton report was playing on his mind? he also said:
“no democratic regime would spend billions of pounds on chemical and biological weapons when its own people were suffering”
Well, according to this report from the New Policy Institute, many people in the UK (a country that over the years has spent billions on developing chemical and nuclear weapons) are suffering from extreme poverty and are more likely to suffer from serious Health related problems. Does that mean Mr Blair no longer regards the UK as a democratic regime ?
Tone, our reprasentative, also told the incredulous troops that not a single person back home did not feel proud of the work they were doing. Well, there’s at least one Tone; me. These poor sods have been sent to fight on the basis of lies, and on behalf of the worlds richest men. They haven’t seen their families for months and have no idea when they might return. I’m surprised none of them took a pot-shot at our glorious leader.
Well, back to work tomorrow and the dread is now in full flow. The new year celebrations were pretty enjoyable for my part – Tony and Zap came round and we wandered to the offy, got 6 cans of wifebeater each and took them up to Alex’s where we drank them. Alex also cracked open the champers and single malt! At about 11:30 we left; Alex was meeting up with his partner and we went over to Toby’s place where he, Petra, Mark, Steffi and her sister were having a quiet night in. Unfortunately the Stella, champagne and whiskey we had imbibed prevented us from maintaining the quiet atmosphere. Loads of choccies, pizza and Mark had brought along a 20 quid firework which was ignighted at midnight. It went bang, very loudly, and fired these coloured balls of light into the air….for about 20 minutes. There was an air of danger in that it looked a lot like it was going to go wrong and start firing at us. This kept us awake. I’ve got a few photos, but they were all taken at about 3 am when everyone was falling asleep and so aren’t very exciting.
New year’s day was spent doing more vegging with Tony – a common, but very enjoyable theme of this holiday. In the afternoon we went down to Lewisham and had a pint each in the Watch House, the White Horse and, after a long walk, the Dacre Arms. I’d arranged to go over for dinner at my parents and so had to shoot off.
One of the ideas I’d had about the New Year, in embryo, was to do the Atkins Diet. Please don’t groan, shake your head or give a derisory laugh unless you’ve either read the book or looked at the website because you almost certainly have the wrong idea about what goes on. The most interesting part of the deal, from my point of view, is that the induction bans drinking. So I haven’t had a drink for a couple of days now and will try to hold out for a fortnight at least. That alone should help me in more ways than one. The ultimate test of will power was last night, saturday night, when I turned down two invitations to the pub. Not bad eh ? Another good thing is that I appear to be eating more healthily than I did before. Funny old world.
