The Pin Factory Blog

Charles Kennedy, former leader of the UK's Liberal Democrat Party, on hearing of the election of Nick Clegg as the new leader:

"The Knife has been passed on to the next generation."

And a very Merry Christmas to all and a wave of the big fat capitalist cigar from the battlements of Netsmith Towers to you for the New Year!

Assuming that The Palace has mastered the technology the Queen's Speech should be on the Royal Channel on You Tube. 

A Christmas update to The Tale of Two Cities. 

And of course Mencken's Christmas tale. 

More up to date: Gordon Brown's letter to Santa. 

Hillary stars as Santa. 

There is, of course, more than one form of religious experience at this time of year. 

A rather different way one might help others in the coming year. The only person who will be upset is your barber.

And finally, what would the festive season be without some Polly kicking? Good will to all men and so on but really, there are limits. 

A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover.
'What's the matter - haven't you ever seen a little boy before?'

My true love sent to me: a partridge in a pear tree. In the original song it seems that 'my true love' is God, that the partridge symbolizes Christ, and the pear tree represents the Cross. Well, maybe.

But in Britain, until this year, if you wanted to deal in game - not just partridges but pheasants, hares, grouse, moor game, woodcock, deer, or rabbits, you needed a licence from the local authority under section 18 of the 1831 Game Act (plus an excise licence from the Post Office under section 14 of the 1860 Game Licences Act). The 1831 legislation laid down strict rules on when game could be sold - an attempt to ensure that breeding cycles were not disrupted. Freezing and refrigeration of course make a nonsense out of this, but our politicians seem to have overlooked this for the last half century. That is how laws are made.

The requirement for a licence to shoot game has been scrapped, but shooting on Sundays and Christmas Day is still banned, thanks to a campaign by the League Against Cruel Sports. (I guess it's not so cruel to shoot things Monday-Saturday.) Critics also argued that Sunday shooting would disrupt people's lie-in, and could prove dangerous as people went for a Sunday stroll. Still, they told us that nobody wanted to shop on a Sunday too, and now (even though our rulers allow the shops to open only a few hours) Sunday is a hugely popular shopping day. We really should scrap all this regulation.

One big question is what will happen to living standards with $500 a barrel oil? We're going to get there eventually, after all. Well, the answer appears to be not a lot .

Why is it that people complain that the US is doing nothing about curbing emissions when in fact they are curbing emissions better than those who have made more extravagant promises ?

Counter-intuitive but true : you reduce emissions more by moving from a 15 mpg to 18 mpg vehicle than you do from a 50 mpg to a 100 mpg one. The implication of this is that instead of trying to improve the emissions of the new cars sold, the effort would be better rewarded by subsidising the removal of old clunkers from the road.

Those ID cards might be an even worse idea than we already think. One American system costs $2,800 per card ! 

Yes, exactly, we should be delighted when politicians debate such subjects : it'll stop them coming up with ideas like ID cards, at least. 

Imagine Ron Paul is in fact elected: what exactly could he do? Not a lot, actually .

And finally , who knows the difference between a Hackney Cab and a pedicab? Not Transport for London, that's for sure. 

As Santa Claus sets off to drop presents down the chimneys of innumerable households on Monday night, let's hope that he has got the right paperwork. 

Little Johnny and his dad went to the supermarket and were in line for the checkout counter when Johnny said to his dad, 'Look at that Lady in front of us, Daddy, she's fat.'
The man notices the lady but politely tells Little Johnny, 'That's not a nice thing to say'.
Little Johnny continued to stare and point and then said, 'No Daddy, she's really fat.;
The man said, 'Please son, we're almost done here, behave and stop saying those things'.
Just then the lady's phone went off and Little Johnny said, 'Watch out dad, she's backing up!'

It's time to make the Olympics not only profit making but also interesting. Every four years the Olympics rolls into some poor naïve city and proceeds to prove to all and sundry that it wasn't worth the time, the effort, or the money that was spent on it.

With London 2012 expected to be enormously over-budget, I would suggest implementing the following plan - not just to save money, but to also put some life back into the Olympics. Post 2008, regional qualifying should take place over three years, reducing the field of competing athletes to a cream of the region. Then, when the Olympics come around, the events are simply a series of finals with no one but champions competing in them. Perhaps the Olympics could be reduced to a three-day event. Infrastructure would then be dispersed around the World and costs shared, and the event itself would be short and sweet.

The amount of taxpayer's money that is going to be wasted upon on the upcoming London Olympics is not even known by the current administration. The honesty of their continual claims that it will not be over budget is hard to believe, but they could insure themselves against dramatic loses by seeking to have the cost of the games shared across the globe! The Olympic Committee will continue to seek others to pay for their games and, unfortunately, many cities/governments will continue to force their taxpayers to pay.

It has to be remembered that governments are vain, and there is nothing better than an Olympics to rub the egos of those in power.

[Ed - I also like Sir Simon Jenkins' rather more modest proposal: that we deliver the Olympic games at the originally agreed cost and not a penny more. If that means we have to use existing stadiums and venues, well, so much the better!]

Alain Roberts climbed Portland House the other day - a tall building (mainly full of quangos) near London's Victoria Station. He did it all with his hands and feet - he used no ropes, pitons or other kit. At the top he was promptly arrested.

The charge? Wasting police time.

Now I don't know what makes the police think their time is so valuable that the antics of this harmless eccentric amount to a waste of it. Presumably they reckon that while they were taking tea on the roof and waiting for 'Spiderman' Roberts to arrive, they could have been out booking motorists for doing 36mph, or harrassing middle class citizens for trying to stop thugs breaking into their homes.

The police didn't have to be there. Their action reminds me of the supposed lawyer's bill: To crossing the road to update you on your case, £100. To crossing back after realizing it wasn't you £100.

We seem to live in a society where we invent crimes for no good reason. Why punish people for smoking weed (or tobacco for that matter) when the only person caused any harm is themselves? I'd really prefer it if the police sat at home rather than having to think up new reasons to arrest folk.