George and Jeremy the rabbits are settling in fine at the moment and they are getting along like a house of fire. This morning however when I went in the garage to feed them and say hello before heading for work I was greeted by more than just two rabbits.

I opened the garage door and wandered over the where there food is kept and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. We have a sun lounger that has been led on the garage floor now for a while and all the foam from the centre of the chair was strewn all over the floor of the garage. The rabbits had chewed through the chair and then somehow got the foam neatly out of the centre and distributed it around under the bench at the back of the garage.

As they are rabbits then it was probably are own fault for leaving the lounger there as rabbis are renowned for chewing things. However what is so weird is that if you look at the chair they have chewed a beautiful neat un-stitching job where the seems of the chair come together. They have not just chewed randomly through the nearest available part of the fabric, they have found the weakest point along the seems and chewed through the stitching there. In fact it is so neat a job I could gather up the foam, push it back in to the chair and then restitch it together. Clever rabbits!

For a while now it has been the law that motorists caught using a handheld phone when driving are given a fixed penalty notice. Well today the government decided to get tougher. A new law introduced today means that if caught using a handheld mobile whilst driving you could be fined £60 and given 3 penalty points on your license.

I never use my phone whilst driving as I am a firm beleiver that it is wrong. I couldn’t bare it to think that I had injured or killed someone as a result of me using a phone. This is similar to the drink driving issue in my mind. However even though the law has been in place for a few years now, there are hundreds of people that still use their mobiles when they are driving. I bet if you stood at a busy junction in your local town or city you would catch at least 20 people in half an hour. People are not getting the message.

So will the governments new, tougher measures mean that less people will be on their phones? I think not. You ask anyone that does use their phone in the car and they will tell you it is wrong and also the dangers that it can cause yet they will carry on using their mobiles whilst driving. I think that making these penalties tougher will not do an awful lot to stop people doing this. How many users would have woken this morning to think “better not use my phone today when going to work, could get three points and £60 fine”. Not many I bet.

I am not suggesting that this law should not have been past as it is hardly going to increase the amount of people that are using mobiles whilst driving. That said I think there is more than can be done. Why don’t the government take positive steps towards working with car manufacturers to make sure that all vehicles are fit with universal ‘hands free’ options so that people have no excuse not to use mobiles in cars in a more safe way. Maybe it will be to increase revenue from the £60 fines in a similar way to what many of you suggested over the traffic congestion charges that were proposed?

In the Daily Mail today ran a headline on an 8 year old boy who was 14 stones in weight. As you are aware this is about 3 times the weight that average 8 year old should weigh. The issue here is that the local council want to take the boy into care due to abuse. Right or Wrong?

This has to be an extremely sensitive issue. I have wrote in the past about issues involving the nations weight and it has always triggered much debate. This is a unique case. When does the weight of a child become a case of neglect or abuse from the parents?

The boys parents have surely got to take much responsibility for the boys overall health. After all they are the ones that feed him at meal time. On the radio today the doctor in charge of the case said that his parents literally love him to death. With what they are feeding him and the way that they are treating th boy they are killing him. This is certainly true, but are they all to blame? After all we can’t keep our eye on what children eath all the time - can we? Well surely at the age of 8 we can. After all they at that age they will not be out on their own too much. They are either at school, which we would except them to be nutritionally balanced (it is getting better anyway!) or they are with friends and family.

The one thing that does worry me is this. Not only this weekend I was reading in the News of the World Sunday magazine a case of a young girl suffering from Anorexia. If the above case of obesity is going to be a social services case then why isn’t the case of Anorexia? Are they any different?

Last month I wrote about recycling in Britain and the amount of rubbish that we now throw away. Well I thought it was about time that I updated this story in the light of new information and events. So here goes…

There are a number of councils across the UK that have recycling collection schemes, which is an excellent step forward for a healthier environment. My council is one of them I am gald to say. They collect bottles, cans, paper, cardboard, garden waste and now they even collect plastic. I have to say that I am impressed.

At the time of writing the last article, I was recycling but not with any great commitment. However that has all changed. I am now managing to recycle more ‘rubbish’ than I am not recycling. We get collections every two weeks. They alternate from collecting the non-recyclable waste and paper to the next week collecting everything else. I am now at the stage were I need them to take the recycling every week and the non-recyclable bin every month. The contents in the picture below were collected in just over 3 weeks.

As you can see their is a massive amount of ‘waste’ that can be recycled. What isn’t in this picture is all the cardboard that I store ready for collection elsewhere, all the paper in a blue bag (just out of shot) and the brown bin for garden waste and the sweepings from the rabbits.

When you put your mind to it, it is truly remarkable what you can recycle. So come on everybody out there, lets put in a little more effort in order to recycle more! Let me know how you are all getting on!

All over the front page of the papers today was the photogragh (below) of the ‘hoodie‘ who was pretending to shoot David Cameron. It was Mr Cameron who said that we should ‘hug a hoodie’. After this does he still want this?

First of all lets get the terminology straight here. The word hoodie has been branded for those individuals who choose to hand around street corners with hoods over the heads to obscure their person. The term does not include someone (often like me) who choose to wear a hooded top. I like them, they are warm and comfortable. I think that the term hoodie that the press have used is really referring to the behaviour of these people rather than the fact they are wearing a hooded top.

This incident hopefully will prove to the government and the conservatives just what type of problem we are facing at the moment with these individuals. North West Tonight ran a story on this tonight and they interviewed the ‘hoodie’ involved. His attitude was typical of that of many youngsters today and it is this that is causing fear in many societies.

I agree that the reason that many of these hoodies behaving in the way that they do is probably down to the way in which they were brought up, and it is this that needs dealing with. This is true but nobody seems to be dealing with it at the moment. These people hanging around on the streets are causing big problems which no-one is dealing with, not even the police. I know of incidents were police will not approach these youths for fear of what may happen. In a way I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to do it. Maybe the reasons is, once again, that the police are not given the power to deal with them. Locking them up probably wouldn’t stop them doing it again after they are realised, but hey, it would stop them ruining people’s lives and causing problems when they are in prison. Also it would stop them influencing others too.

I think that this is something that is high on the publics list of problems. There is nothing worse than living in area where these hoddies are operating. Very frightning really.

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The Problems of Gun Crime

I was watching the football last night - Barcelona vs Liverpool in the Nou Camp, Barcelona. I was very impressed with the way in which Liverpool handled the game and successfully came away with an excellent result, winning by 2 goals to 1. It was the tactics that need to be discussed!

Liverpool’s tactics were obvious and normal from the start. You are the away team so you sit tight, make it hard for the opposition to play and wait for chances to come your way. They did this OK until Barcelona scored. After that they weathered the storm and scored themselves.It was the changes that the Barcelona manager (Frank Rijkaard) made which were strange. In a two leg game surely it makes sense not to go out guns blazing to win the match in leg one, which is what he seemed to do. Doing this he left his team so exposed at the back that they conceded again and went 2-1 down. Barcelona looked poor at the back and surely Liverpool can score more goals against them at Anfield. which brings me to my next point.

Andy Gray the Sky commentator was suggesting that Liverpool were perfectly set for the second leg as they could just sit back and defend knowing that they didn’t have to score to win. I have to say that seem strange as with a defence as poor as Barcelona’s then surely attacking is better. If Liverpool were to score just one, with their away goal that would leave Barcelona needing 3 to win. Very difficult at Anfield.

The other point to make is the ridiculous antics (acting) of many of the Barcelona players. When I used to play football as a kid we were told to stand on your feet and - for the want of a better phrase ‘be hard’. Nowadays these foreign players just hit the deck at the first sign of trouble like wet pansies. Surely this must be ruled out. I was talking to a friend tonight and he said that England will not win anything unless they join in this. You know what I think he may be right. What is even sadder is that we will have to lower ourselves to cheating order to win what we deserve. Not good really is it!

Last night saw the meeting of Manchester United and Lille in the UEFA Champions league last 16 match in France. The game played about an hours drive away from Lille in Lens as the stadium was not satisfactory in Lille. Maybe not but was the organisation and securoty any better?

The reason I ask is that in Lens yesterday evening, many eye witnesses have suggested that only just was another Hillsborough averted. Witness to the event have suggested that it was clear that there were too many fans to fit into the allocated section of stadium for the away fans. This inevitably could lead to some supporters being crushed.Videos from the news have shown fans climbing over the security fences, in order to avoid being crushed from the people behind. The reaction of the police is surprising as they use their batons to beat supporters down the climbing the fence to get out of danger. In these situations the language barrier must cause a problem. Fans would be screaming at police of the problems in the stands. Where police willing to listen? Could they understand them? Who know’s but the people that were there.

How many disasters to we have to see before all these security fences are removed from football stadiums arouns the world? If those security fences are not put in place then these type of incidents would never happen. OK, you may get a few fans running onto the pitch from time to time because there is nothing to stop them but would you rather that or the death of supporters? To me the answers is simply. Remove these fences now.

As the game itself, that didn’t happen without incident either. Ryan Giggs scored a late goal from a quickly taken free kick to give united a precious lead. The reaction from the Lille players and staff, was the order their team off the field. When a team does something like this surely they should forfeit the game. They cannot take the laws into their own hands like this. The decision of the referee has to be respected. The time to argue the toss about a decision is after the game. UEFA should seriously punish them for this.

The game at old trafford next week proves to be a heated affair, but lets hope that something good can come out of the game - a Manchester United win to put an English club in the quarter finals.

Once again this week we have heard several incidents on the news of some ‘gun crime’ shooting in London and in Manchester. It seems as though the UK is catching up to the USA in the problem of guns of Britain’s streets.

I have become more and more concerned at the number of incidents that are involving guns on the streets of the UK over the last couple of years. It seems as though every month or two there are incidents to report. The question that the public is asking the government is what are you [the government] going to do about this problem so that we do not end up like the USA?

It seems that the government have introduced a lot of ‘ideas’ but they haven’t really put forward any solid policies which are going to help in the short term. Earlier this week Mr Blair said that he wanted to lower the age of the compulsory 5 year jail sentence for carrying guns from 21 to 17. This seems OK, but why not increase the sentence to 10 years while we are at it. Surely that would be a large deterrent. 10 years out of your life in prison will have a big impact whereas 5 is clearly not the same. Maybe the reason the term is staying at 5 years is due to the lack of prison. Not long ago John Reid announced that only serious offenders would be going to jail. There certainly seems mixed messages here!

Of course it is not just the punishment that needs tackling. Treating the causes of why these youngsters feel the need to take the lives of others to solve their problems and disputes is something that also needs to be changed. Stop the problem at its source. How do we do that? Why are these youngsters growing up with this culture? Parents? Violence of TV? These are all questions that need to be investigated in order to try and implement a solution.

In my opinion the government should do what they said they would. This labour government announced 7 years ago that they would be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”. Well only locking up the really serious, is that carrying out this plea. Bill Bratton who was the former police chief of New York, suggested “zero tolerance”. I think it is time to take that stance.

You are probably asking who on earth are the Benidorm girls? Good question. Well the answer lies in this post.

Last evening was the birthday party of one of the Benidorm girls. They are in the photo above. The background behind this is that they all went to Benidorm on holiday about 4 years ago and had a cracking time (I will leave what cracking means to your imagination as I have had to do the same!). This was one of the rare occasions that they are managed to get back together.

Those of you reading the title of this post and expecting something a little more raunchy, then sorry (not that you aren’t all gorgeous of course!).

I don’t know about where you live (wherever you maybe) but in the north west of England over the last 5 - 6 years, an epidemic has been spreading fast. It is not a virus or a cold, and it probably won’t kill you (well not directly anyway!). Yes what I am talking about is the phenomenon of ‘chaving up’ your car. What do I mean, well lets take a look?

This seems to be a trend amongst the younger generation of out society - probably 17 -21 years of age on the whole. The idea is that you take a car (for some reason that I have yet to find out they are usually a Vauxhall Nova or Corsa) and then you spend about the entire value of the car adding ‘chavy things’ until the car looks so ridiculous that when you drive round in it everyone has no choice but to look at you and to hear you.

So what ‘chavy things’ are added then? Well the old favourite is the rear spoiler. If you are a first time ‘car chaver’ then this is probably what you will go for. It is the biggest impact for the least money and effort. The next must is the lower you car. This makes in impossible to go down those roads with the speed bumps on unless they want to rip the bottom off their cars. The third most important chav thing to do is then to add two great big exhaust pipes to the back of the car so that they look ‘mean and awesome’ (or not!). However the main purpose of these monstrosities is nose and not looks. They are no good unless they below out engine noise louder than a jet engine on the side of a 747.

My point is why on earth to these people do these things to perfectly good cars. At the ages that these guys are, they must be spending all their money on ‘chaving up’ their vehicle. In fact this is money that they probably don’t have. I know that I certainly could afford it. Look at the average ‘gear’ described above. A spoiler your looking at probably £100. Exhausts you are looking at £200 and then lowering the car could be another £200. Thats £500 already. Another than I forgot to mention is of course the alloys. As far as I know most Nova’s and Corsa do not come with alloy and therefore these need to be bought. Of course they need to be the ones that are 95% wheel and 5% tyre. A decent set of these are going to be at least £300. Therefore we are almost up to £1000 before we start on the inside. Do the parents of these folk not have anything to say. If one of my children were to tell me, at the age of 17, that they were spending £1000 of what is effectively my money, then I would not be happy. In fact it wouldn’t happen. I suppose that these folk think that it attracts the ladies to have a car that represents - well what exactly? It certainly doesn’t represent their responsible outlook on life! I don’t know any girls or woman that walk past these machines and say “wow what a fantastic motor, he must be great”. There usual reaction is something along the lines of “look at that hideous vehicle there, what an idiot”.

If there is anyone out there reading this that has ‘chaved up’ their car please don’t take it personally! It is just something that bugs me a little!