Should I worry?

So I Googled "Wikileaks" this morning to see what the latest developments in this news story were...and look at the top paid result I got (left - you may need your glasses. Sorry).

"Join the Special Forces" from HM Armed Forces... Good to see that their PPC budgets have not been affected by the spending cuts. However, I suspect that they may not have researched their audience very well in this particular case.

According to Adwords, the military is paying 4p per click on that one as of right now. That's a bargain - get bidding.

Entropy and the takeaway menu

It has been quite cold lately. You might expect that I would follow on from that observation to bemoan the UK's risible state of unpreparedness for a phenomenon (winter) that happens once a year, frequently lasting for several months.

But no. My scale is considerably smaller and pettier than that.

Living, as I do, on a cliffside, snow and ice tend to render my road inaccessible to road traffic. In previous years, this has led to uncollected rubbish piling up in the street – the only thing keeping the giant Bradford rats from it being the fact that it has frozen solid.

Fortunately this year, the bin men got here just before the snow really set in, although the recycling lorry did not, meaning my house is rapidly piling up with empty bottles of Innis and Gunn.

It also means that the postman doesn't often deliver. No doubt because he's down at the Idle Working Men's Club debating what Lenin meant when he called the state an instrument for the exploitation of the oppressed class.

They are put to shame by one indefatigable group whose members will endure any hardship, any personal discomfort to make sure that their precious cargo gets through.

I am talking, of course, about the takeaway menu distributors. Come rain, shine, flood, ice, tsunami or hail of frogs, I can rest assured in the knowledge that I will get upwards of 15 menus for practically identical Chinese, Indian and the peculiarly Bradford pizza/kebab/curry/chip outlet every week.

Worried that there's been a change to the menu and you might not know about it? Maybe the price of the mysterious "OK sauce" has gone fractionally down? Don't panic! As soon as there's a change, you'll be the first to know. And if there isn't, they'll put your mind at ease by posting you a new menu every week, so that you can compare it to the last one and be sure that you're 100% on top of what's going on at Wok Wok.

However, I come not to praise the takeaway menu delivery men, but to bury them.

It's cold. I have the heating on to try and warm my house. If you're going to stick these damn things through my letterbox, PUSH THEM ALL THE WAY IN SO THE LETTERBOX FLAP CLOSES.

I don't leave my windows open in this weather. I don't leave the doors open. That's because I am only trying to warm the interior of my house, not the whole street and (indeed) the yawning void of space beyond it. I don't know a lot about physics, entropy and the eventual inevitable heat-death awaiting the universe, but I do know that when you shove a menu into my letterbox and leave it in there, the house gets bloody cold and my gas bill goes up.

In these times of selfish individualism, it's hard to put oneself into the position of another to appreciate their point of view. It's something we're no longer used to. So, I propose a little demonstration. Menu people – next time you're about to jam some spam into my letterbox and leave it open, why not try shoving up your own arse instead? Not all the way, mind. See how uncomfortable it is? Then there you are.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is called empathy.

Postscript:

Thanks to my mum - the only person in the world who (I think) has read everything on this blog - for the picture of the snowman she and Roger Jr built last week. Should my mum need to be referred to again in the course of future writings, she will be known as Adelaide del Vasto.

The People's Republic of Post Office

I had to go to the Post Office earlier this week. That's a depressing experience, enlivened only by the screens playing their laughable adverts proclaiming them to be "The People's Post Office" on an endless loop. Well, it belongs to "the people" only in the sense that Ceauşescu's Romania was "The Romanian People's Republic".

Having said that, it can be enjoyable every once in a while to take a step back in time to the 1970s - when the UK was run for the benefit of public sector workers and the notion of "customer service" was some crazy American fad, like jogging or gun crime.

But after about 15 minutes of queuing, the nostalgia – or rather "Ostalgie" – wears a bit thin. Particularly when there are Post Office employees wandering around trying to collar anyone who looks remotely affluent and trying to flog them insurance. Get behind the counter and serve the people in front of me so I can get out of here quicker, fool!

They can't close them quick enough as far as I'm concerned. Just get Special Delivery and passport renewal online, and you'll never see me there again.

Why the coalition is important

I for one am looking forward to next May. Not just because the Royal Wedding will be over and the public's attention will drift back from the bread and circuses our masters have been kind enough to provide. No, I'm looking forward to the electoral reform referendum.

"Oh really Roger? I didn't have you down as a Liberal Democrat", I hear you say. Well, I'm not. I did vote for them in 2010, but that partly motivated by a desire to kick out the last government (no matter what succeeded them) and partly down to the fact that the local Lib Dem was the only candidate who seemed to give a toss whether he won Bradford East, on the basis of how visible he was before and during the campaign.

For me, the so-called benefits of first past the post are faults:

1. The "strong government" the winner-takes-all arrangement usually provides for eliminates any meaningful distinction between executive and legislative arms of the state.

2. The "local connection" discrete geographical constituencies provide for between MPs and the population is something that makes very little difference outside politics textbooks.

I suppose that the electoral system need not necessarily lead to these outcomes. It's the party system that makes this inevitable.

In the UK, we have a handful of highly centralised, highly disciplined parties. They are supposed to be broad churches – they need to be, if they are to command the mass support they aspire to. In fact, they are not in any meaningful sense. Witness Labour's ritual bloodletting at the sign of any disagreement between a minister and the leader on even the most trivial of matters in government.

The media treats "loyalty" and "disloyalty", "unity" and "disunity" within political parties as things that matter. They do, but only to the extent that politics in the UK is really a question of Kremlinology – who's up and who's down. When an MP can be kicked out of his party for saying that tax should go down, or a candidate disowned for saying Gordon Brown is the worst prime minister ever, you know there's something wrong with our democracy in practice.

First past the post and the party system combine to maintain a status quo – it is nearly impossible to win a seat in Parliament without the backing of one of the big parties; and it's impossible to get the backing of a big party without toeing the leadership's line. Independent minded people like Tony Benn are relics of a bygone age who would never get selected today.

The professionalisation of party political machines is something that has really accelerated in the past 20 years. Back in the 1990s, party political broadcasts had at least a bumbling, incompetent charm to suggest at least that human beings were responsible for them. Remember, for example, John Major being driven around Brixton saying "It's still there! It's still there!" of his childhood home.

As a brief digression, it's hard to believe – isn't it? – that John Major was prime minister for seven years, when Thatcher was only in power for ten. I think of his premiership like the ending of "Return of the King": all the action's over, you're waiting for it to end, but it just carries on and on and on.

Following from Clinton's Democrats in the US (at varying rates) our parties transformed themselves into election-winning and power-retaining machines. Labour did it first, and trounced everyone else for 10 years. But the professionalization that maintained a degree of direct democratic leverage in the decentralised USA has turned the centralised UK into an oligarchy.

Anyway, on to the point. A unique combination of factors has led to a coalition government in the UK. One member of that coalition has demanded a referendum on electoral reform as a condition.

The simple fact of the coalition is evidence that there is another way of running this country than elective dictatorship. The government consisting of members of two parties means that disagreement is inevitable, and that two views on a particular policy existing within the government need not inevitably lead to the human sacrifice of the weaker.

I think it's great that Vince Cable can survive disagreeing with his Tory partners over, say, immigration. By the same token, I think it's sickening that he can turn around and claim that the Lib Dems' pre-election pledge on university tuition was "not binding". It's true, but come on Vince! You're invoking the arrogance of past governments and the notion that election mandates a party to do what the hell it likes by putting it that way. Make the case that you had to compromise and that this is the price of doing business.

The second reason for which I hope the coalition continues is that it will drive the parties to split. No one voted for this government – Tories don't like it, and Lib Dems don't like it.

If a change in the electoral system breaks the local monopolies of the parties, why should the antagonistic wings of parties stick together? Why should right-wingers not have a Conservative Party they agree with completely? Why should left-wingers have to vote for a Lib Dem or Labour Party that supports policies they oppose? Why should people whose views are libertarian (like me) have to vote for one of three social authoritarians – or effectively spoil their ballot by voting for a no-hoper? Why should a government that has run out of steam and that can't command any loyalty be able to stay in power until the next election?

The options on offer for this electoral reform referendum are indeed a bit rubbish, and don't go far enough for my liking. Hopefully, the uncomfortable experience of coalition living will encourage everyone that – once that referendum is won – they should go further still.

The coalition is important because it shows that the rule of centralised parties that exclude the public, eliminate diversity of opinion and reduce democratic involvement to a choice between three unsatisfactory options is not inevitable. The 2010 election produced a freak result that provides an almost unique opportunity to break that oligarchy – and the referendum is the first step.

I just hope that the coalition can be recognised as having a significance that is separate from the significance of "The Cuts". I'm worried that's all it will be remembered for.

The commemorative mug pictured is available here for you to treasure.

One law for them...

Thailand is extraditing Viktor Bout to the USA. Bit of a change of pace from the usual tales of stolen pumpkins and corvine paranoia, Roger? That's right. Today, we're talking international injustice.

I read all about Viktor Bout in Misha Glenny's excellent "McMafia". Allegedly, he ran a fleet of former Soviet transport aircraft, in which he was prepared to transport anything, anywhere. And usually, this meant weapons into war zones – generally for people who would struggle to get hold of them on legitimate markets.

The Nicolas Cage movie "Lord of War" is supposedly based on Bout's life. I haven't seen it, but I suspect that to be successful in his chosen profession, Bout is a little more low key than the reliably scenery-chewing Coppola nephew.

So, Bout was arrested in Thailand in a US-led sting, after offering to supply weapons to Colombia's FARC. Earlier this week, he was extradited and faces life in prison in the USA on charges of:

"Conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to kill US officers or employees and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile".

Bout is a Russian citizen, and the Russian government is understandably a little put out at the whole situation. Set aside the likelihood that Bout is a former Soviet officer and so probably knows rather more than the Kremlin would like to see revealed in open court. Set aside any possibility that figures in the Russian establishment ever helped or benefited from anything Bout got up to. My point is not that Russia may or may not have turned a blind eye to "Sanctions Buster" (aka "Merchant of Death") and/or obtained any benefit from doing so.

Indeed, Bout insists he's innocent and – rather optimistically – believes that the trial will exonerate him. Good luck, Viktor – but I think you may need a very good lawyer.

No, my point is the naked hypocrisy of the USA in pressurising Thailand to extradite Bout – a Russian citizen – for crimes allegedly committed nowhere near the USA, when the USA outright refuses to have anything to do with the International Criminal Court (and historically, has refused to have anything to do with any international arrangement that could see its operatives indicted by foreign courts).

That the USA (and the UN) have used Bout's services to ship equipment and personnel into trouble spots themselves is beside the point here. If a Russian can be extradited from Thailand to the USA for offences committed in Africa because American citizens were affected or because he aided organisations listed as "foreign terrorists" in the USA – the implication is that American law has global reach and application. So how would the USA respond to an extradition request from the Iraqi government to hand over the Abu Ghraib jailers, for torturing Iraqi citizens in Iraq?

Apparently, some countries' laws matter more than others. Hardly a stunningly novel conclusion, but it's not every day you see blatant Realpolitik dressed up as international justice. Or maybe it is.

Vegetable theft is no laughing matter

For two years' running now, someone has stolen the pumpkin I put out on my doorstep on Halloween. This year's effort is pictured, about two hours before it was nicked. As you can see, it's not exactly a work of art.

No trace of it has been found, apart from the lid which I discovered at the end of my pathway in the morning.

Loads of other pumpkins were out on doorsteps down my road, but only mine has been taken. Is it the crows? Is it my reptilian nemesis from Northern Rail? Or do I have more enemies I don't even know about?

Who is doing this? Next year, I'm going to hide in a wheelie bin all night if that's what it takes to find out who is waging this secret vendetta against me.

Why mankind must be destroyed

Is there any sight that fills you with greater sadness and anger directed against your so-called "fellow" humans than this?

Sure, there are plenty of other things that might convince you that humanity is not fit to exist – but few things sum it all up more than a dog turd in a plastic bag discarded in a field.

To anyone who does this: if you're going to pick the turd up, put it in a bin or dispose of it at home. If you just dump it in a plastic bag somewhere, IT IS WORSE THAN JUST LEAVING IT.

Dog shit biodegrades after a week or so, and is gone, back into the circle of life, along with all the fox shit, hedgehog shit, bat shit and owl shit that's already in the field there for the little kiddies to pick up. Plastic bags don't degrade. They last forever. So the turd will be there forever too.

That's the best possible outcome. More likely, the bag will sooner or later get torn, so the turd will degrade, but more slowly than before. So it sits around in the field, attracting flies, spreading disease, getting stepped on etc etc for months. And then, there's still a plastic bag blowing around the field.

Who do you think is going to take away your little dog poo bag? I'm not. It's one thing to pick up your own dog's shit, but I draw the line at someone else's (photographing it, however, is a different matter...).

To anyone and everyone who has ever done this: You deserve to be sealed in a plastic bag, with a dog turd and left in a field.

A constructive use of time – learning German, pt 2

Michel Thomas and I have been getting along great. I think that I'd probably be his favourite pupil if (i) he were not dead, (ii) we'd ever met and (iii) I was being taught German by him along with the other muppets on his foundation course CDs. I'm way better at it than them.

I reckon he'd say "Right!" to me quite a lot. Which leads me to an early problem in writing about learning to speak German, as opposed to writing German. I can't find any satisfactory way of transposing how Michel says "Right!" due to his Franco-German accent. At best, it's kind of like:

Ggggcccchrrriiiiight!

His "r" is that sort of throat clearing sound that language learning books will (lazily) tell you time and again is like the "ch" in the Scottish "loch". Put aside the fact that they are referencing a different language in order to explain how it's said in English AND the fact that "how to learn Spanish" books use the same simile for pronouncing "j" – it's not ggggcccchrrriiiiight.

The closest I can get to it is the growl Tigger makes after he's finished singing his theme song in the Winnie the Pooh cartoons. Unfortunately I can't find a link which includes it, so you'll have to imagine it.

However, while searching for the above I got this AWESOME Swedish version of the song. And this version in Finnish is even better.

Anyway.

The Michel Thomas method is a very unusual way of learning.

I'm 4 CDs in to the course, and we're probably using no more than 200 different words – and yet building up long sentences like "I'm not going to give it to you today because I don't have it now." It's all about grammar and word order, with vocabulary almost being ignored.

Why don't they teach like that in schools? Why do they confuse kids with terms like "dative" instead of saying "to me is mir, me in any other sense is mich"? [Pardon me if it's not quite that simple]. Why did I bother learning the German for "pedestrianised area" (Fußgängerzone – I'll never forget it) at age 14 instead of a rather more useful word like "because" (weil) which I have no recollection of ever coming across before?

And why do we emphasise WRITING in foreign languages at the expense of SPEAKING and LISTENING? The way that Michel has it in his course seems ggggcccchrrriiiiight to me.

Postscript: Please excuse the irrelevant image. I am following the longstanding tradition of newspaper business editors and putting an exciting picture on a boring story.

Beware the crows

You can break down the UK into three kinds of environment, defined by the prevailing forms of bird life.

Number one, urban areas – pigeons overrun cities and town centres like a swarm of leprous medieval beggars.

Number two, songbirds definitive of nice suburban and rural areas, characteristic of places like "leafy Surrey" and villages full of holiday homes with names like Cricklewickle-on-the-Dinglywingly.

Number three – the crows. Denizens of places most simply defined as "bleak". Stick up a housing estate on some moorland, the crows don't go away. Because it's still bleak. They remain, eye witnesses of ancient human sacrifice and the horrifying rites of our ancestors. Today, they hunch sneering down at council estates and wind-battered farm houses, miserable dog walkers and the crap-strewn gardens of residential A-roads.

Crows don't just look creepy. They are creepy, as this article I read in a local paper about a "crow court" makes clear. A group of crows is called a "murder" for god's sake.

Wherever I go (outside areas 1 and 2 above) I can be sure that if I look around, I'll spot a crow, watching me. At least, it looks like it's watching me. Against the sky – even the fart-grey skies of the Yorkshire autumn – the silhouette of a crow is like a black hole, sucking the light from around itself to achieve an almost reflecting darkness.

And this is why I believe crows are not birds at all, but rather extra-dimensional entities. That's not a bird watching you from on top of that lamppost while you wait at a lonely bus-stop as the last of the sun's rays fade away. It's a window straight to hell, and something's peering out at you from in there. Read anything on here and you'll know what I mean.

Imperialism begins at home

If I had huge amounts of debt in personal loans, which I was struggling to repay, and yet every time I saw a charity collector I gave them whatever was in my pocket, you'd think I was an idiot. Not only an idiot – as a husband to Elvira of Castille and father to Roger Jr and Tancred – you'd think I was irresponsible.

So why is it that at a time when the UK has the biggest peace-time deficit in history, the decision to ring-fence international development budgets is not being treated with the scorn it deserves? People in this country are about to have their benefits cut (whether they contributed to them via National Insurance or not), services cut, lose their jobs etc etc – but it's a question of "morality" that the UK continues to hand money over, more often than not, to corrupt, incompetent and barely democratic regimes in the developing world.

Doesn't charity begin at home? For the religious moralists, isn't there something in the Bible about removing stuff from your own eye before worrying about other people's? For the liberal universalists, if the principle of equality demands the relief of absolute poverty wherever it occurs, (i) shouldn't we give vastly more and (ii) why are we so selective in who we give to?

In my humble opinion (which, while you are here is what you will be subjected to, like it or not), the idea that the government can make a "moral" decision to dole out taxpayers' money overseas while taking away services from people in this country, is just more evidence of the fundamental misconception of the role of the state that pervades our political class.

By which I mean, they think it's their money, not our money, that they're spending. They think the state has a status as something more just a means to the end of facilitating our living together in harmony and comfort.

Which brings me onto defence spending. And if you thought from the above that I'm a right-wing maniac, you may begin to realise that my general position does not quite fit onto the simple left-right spectrum.

The UK is currently engaged in one foreign war in central Asia, which has been going on for nine years. Until its recent glorious, spectacular withdrawal – reminiscent of Dunkirk in its heroism - it was involved in another one in the Middle East. British forces were in that one for seven years.

For what?

I think even the most rabid supporter of The War Against Terrorism (hereafter, TWAT) acknowledges that two wars with a combined duration (so far) of 16 years have not made the UK safer. So, the state has failed in its primary function there.

Is there any other justification for the UK being involved in these foreign wars or laying off teachersandnurses (not a typo, simply a portmanteau concept for the "good" public sector) for the sake of having a new aircraft carrier in six years' time?

You know what it is? Let me tell you. Imperialism. The UK just can't let go of it.

We are a medium-sized country and economy with a colossal debt. Why on earth do we need to spend billions on nuclear weapons everyone knows we'll never use?

Forget about the past and any justification there might have been for them during the Cold War – that has NOTHING to do with upgrading Trident today. Are Germany, Japan, Canada, Brazil etc etc any less safe, any more vulnerable to invasion or foreign subversion or any threat that exists in the real world today than the UK because they don't have nuclear weapons? Is Britain taken any more seriously anywhere because we do have nuclear weapons? I don't think so.

Having armed forces that can (on paper) be projected around the world, like giving away charity, is at the grubby level of Realpolitik about nothing more than securing influence. Getting favours by bullying, protection racketeering or bribery.

At the psychological level, both are about willy-waving. About being seen as the big man. The USA can do it because they are the big man. China can do it because they are the big man. Everyone else – including Russia – mistakenly believes that the 20^th century never happened.

Let's finally drop the 19^th century imperialist notion of the "nation state" as something with any justification or mission outside its borders. Look where that got us in the last 200 years. States exist to serve their own citizens and nothing else.

Postscript:

I readily acknowledge that there are counterarguments to the various things I've said here, and that my position simplifies things. Who knows, maybe something I said sounds a bit like something someone else who I wouldn't agree with once said. But if wars can be started because one man thinks "it's the right thing to do", I don't see why I should have to give all viewpoints an equal airing. This is my bloody blog.

A constructive use of time – historical guesswork

There's a war memorial near where I live, in a place called Greengates. Whenever I drive past it, I see the bit relating to the First World War which says:

In grateful memory of the men of Greengates and district who gave their lives in the Great War 1914-1919

I find this very odd. I've never seen a war memorial that claims the First World War ended in 1919, apart from this one. This memorial was put up in 1921.

This has been puzzling me for a while. I doubt that it's a typo and that I'm the first person to notice it in 89 years. I thought maybe it was talking about soldiers who died of their injuries after the end of the war, which seems rather modern and a bit of a dig at all the other war memorials if it were true.

So, it struck me (while I was writing this, in fact - I started off thinking this post was going to be funny) that in 1921, the idea of "the First World War" we have today – with clear beginnings and ends – probably didn't exist then.

Turns out from my extensive historical research – that is googling "greengates war memorial" and reading the end of the Wikipedia entry on the First World War - that a lot of memorials put up right after the war said 1919, because that's when the Treaty of Versailles was signed. I suppose that even in 1921, one couldn't have been sure it wasn't all going to kick off again, what with fighting going on in Turkey until 1923.

Seeing the Battle of Britain 70^th anniversary commemorations this weekend, and seeing how few people who fought in that are left, it's shocking and strange to think how living history turns into book history.

In 1921, they weren't sure when the First World War ended. Now there is pretty much no one left alive who experienced it and people like me can't work out why they got the dates wrong.

That 1919 in Greengates might be a typo, but if it's not then it's quite a vivid little historical detail.

[The picture above is (c) David Spencer, from here. That pub in the background is up for sale, by the way, if anyone's interested]

It's ALWAYS inconvenient to be late

I believe that everyone has a nemesis, and I think I have pinpointed my own.

My nemesis is someone who works in some kind of policy/public relations role at Northern Rail – specifically, whoever is responsible for the wording of announcements.

I caught the train to work today, which is always a bad start, insofar as paying cash up front for the privilege of going to sell my labour empties me of whatever joy may have been present earlier.

I used to do this every day, when I caught the 7.20 train to Leeds. Please note, I have changed the name of the train to protect its reputation. Anyway, this train was delayed by approximately three minutes every single day. Without fail, I would reach the platform only to hear the announcement.

I made me wonder why - if it was genuinely impossible to keep a train that only runs a route of about 30 miles to schedule – they didn't just change the timetable and make it the 7.23 train. Then they could boast about it being on time every single day.

It may seem petty to complain about three minutes. In reply let me point out:

• It rains here every single day, so three minutes seems like a hell of a long time.
• Three minutes, times 250 working days per year, for around two years, is 25 hours I was waiting that three minutes.
• Four posts in and you still think "it's petty" is a reason why I'm NOT going to write about something?

Anyway, getting to the point...

Let me say this clearly: a recorded apology that you play on endless repeat, only editing the details of exactly which train is late and how late it is does not come across as at all sincere. It's not an apology.

I don't believe for one second that you are "sorry" that the 7.20 train for Leeds is delayed by approximately three minutes, and it demeans both you and me that you (Northern Rail) even pretend to believe that your announcement is anything other than irritating. Just tell us how late the train is going to be. Don't tack on an insincere apology.

But if that was the sum total of my complaint, I'd hardly be justified in calling the announcer my nemesis, would I? There are thousands of irritating little things like that thrown in everyone's way every day. What's so special about the relationship between him (I think of my archenemy as a fat man with cold, dead, insect eyes) and me?

Here it is.

The announcement used to say "we apologise for THE inconvenience this may cause to your journey". Now, it says "we apologise for ANY inconvenience this may cause to your journey".

That's not a coincidence. At some level, a conversation took place which went broadly like this:

"You know, I don't think we should just assume that the train being late is inconvenient for passengers. It might not be. They might like it."

"Hmmm...you're right. We don't want to take on any more blame than we have to."

"Yes, so we shouldn't just presume that there is 'the inconvenience' – we should leave it open, and say 'any inconvenience'."

"Great idea. That way, we're only apologising to people who are actually inconvenienced, and not apologising to those who aren't. Nice one boss."

"I don't give a shit about apologising. It'll be a recorded message anyway. The point is, we take on as little blame as we possibly can."

"Ahhh...I see. Hang on, isn't that all already covered by the word 'may' when we say 'may cause to your journey'? We're not saying that it 'will' cause inconvenience. We're saying it 'may'. We're already disavowing responsibility, aren't we?"

"Maybe, but I think changing 'the' to 'any' is a business-critical step."

"Isn't this all a bit trivial?"

"You're fired."

What possible reason could there be for changing "the" to "any" other than something like the above? And how could it have happened without some thought process like that above taking place and a decision being made to change it?

Why do I care?

It's the sort of linguistic weaselry and low-level attempt at mind control that I can't bear – and as you can see, I can't help imagining that there's someone just as pedantic as me out there working for the forces of darkness.

A constructive use of time – learning German, pt 1

Having recently seen "Julie and Julia" I have decided to insert a theme to this blog over and above "whimsical misanthropy", with the hope of getting my work made into a book and major Hollywood film.

Naturally, I would like to be played by Leonardo Di Caprio in this movie, with whom I share certain irreparable facial creasings between the eyebrows, due to prolific frowning.

Anyway, I want to share with you the experience of learning the German language by way of the Michel Thomas foundation course. Eight CDs and £27 from Amazon, as opposed to the usual RRP of about £80. Not a bad start!

Just learning a foreign language would hardly be gripping enough for a major motion picture, unless of course I arbitrarily impose a deadline – probably of a year. That will undoubtedly give rise to all sorts of dramatic ebbs and flows which will allow compression into a gripping 90 or so minutes.

What I like about the Michel Thomas method is that he asks – nay, demands – that you don't try to learn or memorise anything. I can assure the late Mr Thomas that I will abide scrupulously by that injunction!

He sounds like a fairly interesting character and comes across as very funny on the CDs (he is extremely intolerant of the two students he uses as a teaching aid) ... I will elaborate on my (entirely fictional) relationship with him as we progress.

In the interests of full disclosure: I did three years of German at school, and I watch a lot of programmes on the History Channel, which seem to feature rather a lot of certain aspects of 20th century German history. I am also good at making German-sounding noises.

So I start from a reasonably strong position. In the wise words of Jimmy Nesbitt in an old Yellow Pages ad about yoga: "I see myself as more of an intermediate".

I'll fill you in with all sorts of detail about why I'm doing this and the hilarious and moving experiences I go through in the course of this over the coming weeks. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll give me a load of money and learn more about the medieval High German consonant shift than you ever thought possible.

Bis Morgen!

Think once. Think twice. Think don't be a prick on a bike.

As a motorcyclist, I am used to observing a fairly minimal set of rules on the road.

When you're on the move, pretty much anything goes, and provided you don't get in their way, cars don't seem to mind this. Hell, I was let loose on the roads legally with only a day's training – half of which was in a school playground – so the government can hardly complain about my generous interpretation of the rules.

I'm sure that my approach to driving could be construed in some way a form of "middle class anti social behaviour". However, there is one group of road users, far more middle class than motorcyclists, whose total lawlessness never ceases to shock me. I'm talking about pushbikes.

In south Lincolnshire, where I grew up in the late 80s, people who couldn't afford cars or who were banned from driving due to congenital idiocy of some form or another went around on bikes. Typically, these were ramshackle pre-war contraptions that must have weighed as much as a Smart Car. Most of these cyclists went around well below walking speed – in stark refutation of numerous laws of physics.

Today, however, cyclists seem to fall into two categories. Firstly, the larval phase – when they go around in hoodies on preposterously small BMXs, which are essentially a form of portable chair rather than a mode of transport. And as my dear wife, Elvira of Castille, regularly notes, when they are on the move they're generally doing a wheelie.

Some of these metamorphasise into boy racers, but around 16 or so the rest must pupate and emerge fully clad in sponsor-bedecked lycra, mirror shades and a look of smug superiority – the mature cyclist imago.

Look cyclists – there's really no need to dress like that. You're not on the Tour de France. You're going to work in an office, same as the rest of us. You have to wonder how many of them have had a ball chopped off to closer resemble Lance Armstrong.

But I'm not here to talk about aesthetics, although I'd be willing to forgive a lot more if they didn't look so absurd. I'm here to point out, for example, that red traffic lights don't mean "slow down slightly until you've gone past the light"; that ringing your bell does not give you permission to mount the pavement and proceed at 30 mph down it. Stuff like that.

If you're going to use the road, then act like a proper road user and spare a thought for everyone else trying to drive around you. If you're going to act like a pedestrian, then get off your bloody bike.

God, they annoy me.

It's jealousy, obviously. I wish I didn't have a numberplate so I could go past speed cameras as fast as I liked without getting caught. I wish I didn't have mirrors so that I could swerve all over the road without any regard to what's behind me. I wish that my preferred form of transport produced no emissions, so that no matter how selfish, dangerous and thoughtless my behaviour was, it was justified by my inherent moral superiority.

Maybe I hate cyclists because I'm a failed cyclist. I used to bike to the station and back every day. It's about a mile – downhill on the way there, uphill on the way back. I'd get home on the brink of a heart attack.

I gave it up and got a scooter.

So now, every day I dress up like a Serbian paramilitary and (occasionally) drive on the wrong side of the road to get to the front of queues at traffic lights.

But at least I stop and wait for a green light. You've got to have some standards.

Welcome to Bradford

Bradford, Bradford, Bradford - home of prostitute murderers, past and present; home of racial disharmony, past and present; all-round byword for post-industrial decay; and home to me. And now, apparently, giant rats.

Oh really? Some bloke from Wakefield was "ratting" in Eccleshill (because when Bradford's not on the front-line of the war on terror, it's in the Victorian era) and he shot a 30-inch long rat. The Sun ran it as true, but I'm not linking to them because you have to pay to read it. Then every other media outlet picked it up and ran it as true. Despite the fact that the rat-catcher claims that he threw the body away and it was eaten by other animals. Ignore the fact that scientists can reconstruct the precise life stories of dinosaurs dead for millions of years from a small piece petrified bone embedded in a rock. There was no trace of the giant rat left. Presumably because one of Bradford's other indigenous predators devoured it.

So, the story adds up to a bloke claims to have shot a giant rat on a countil estate, but he doesn't have any evidence. So how does it end up all over the media?

I'll tell you how. Bradford is a byword for "hell on earth", right? So giant rats fit right in. The media expects the public to believe that anything could happen in Bradford, provided it's dreadful - hence giant rats without evidence.

Oh, I see the Daily Mail is today claiming that similar beasts have been found in Lincoln. Yeah, I can well believe that about Lincolnshire (my ancestral home). But it declares as truth the rats are "of the kind terrorising an estate in Bradford". What, the MADE-UP, IMAGINARY kind?

Give Bradford a break, for god's sake!

I did, however, take the picture above on my way home last night.

But that was in Leeds.