Save Our Estate Agents

Asda are planning on moving into the estate agency business.

Peter Bolton-King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, said he doubted whether Asda could offer a professional estate agency service.

A professional estate agency service? Hmmm.

Nick Goulding of the Forum of Private Business said: "Do they really expect to replace the service and expertise that your local estate agent supplies?"

Expertise like this?

Reverse pickpocketing?

David Copperfield pulls magic trick during mugging

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — David Copperfield has magically escaped getting robbed.
The 49-year-old illusionist was walking with two female assistants to their tour bus after his show Sunday at a performing arts center when four teens pulled up in a black car, a police report said.

Two armed robbers allegedly got out of the car and demanded the group's belongings. One woman handed over $400 from her pockets and the other gave up her purse with 200 euros, $100, her passport, plane tickets and a cell phone. Copperfield refused to empty his pockets, the report said.

Copperfield says he turned his pockets inside out to reveal nothing in them, even though he was carrying his passport, wallet and cell phone. "Call it reverse pickpocketing," Copperfield told The Palm Beach Post for Wednesday's editions.

Copperfield read the license plate number of the car to an assistant while she called 911, the report said. Four teenagers were arrested and charged with armed robbery. They were held without bond, police said. The women's property was recovered.

'Reverse pickpocketing'? Wouldn't 'reverse pickpocketing' mean putting something into a pocket that wasn't there in the first place? Shouldn't 'DC' have magically made rabbits appear from the assailants pockets rather than lamely hiding his own valuables?

In fact, DC comes across a bit badly here. Note how he allows his female assistants get robbed and then reserves the magic to save his own possessions. Paul Daniels would not have been so lacking in chivalry. Paul would have distracted the muggers with the 'sawing a woman in half' trick and then, while dialling 911 and waiting for the police to arrive, wowed the dastardly criminals with a flashy card trick. By the time the prospective felons had realised their card was indeed the 9 of Hearts the local police would have the perps safely in their clutches.

The Home Office could do with an eye-catching initiative right now though. Why not train community police officers to pass on to the public the skills of David Coppefield's 'reverse pickpocketing'? Of course, putting all those released prisoners back in a box might be a bit more difficult but, who knows, maybe David could help out with that too?

Laws are like sausages

Iran. Pensions. UK energy policy. Faster coffee services for MPs. All pressing issues needing firm and decisive action from our nation’s legislators. Credit is due then to the Mother of Parliaments for the enquiry into the House of Commons Refreshment Department.

Contrary to media perception, the daily Commons menu does not consist of foie gras, truffles and Chateau Lafite. This is only available on the first Monday of every month. The modest fare on show is not the end of the story, however, as the humble researcher, if not the MP, is required to not only queue for their food but, horror of horrors, pay for it as well. A most disgraceful state-of-affairs and worthy of a thorough investigation.

While not quite Watergate, the Select Committee on Administration’s report does unveil a few tasty titbits, most notably in the written evidence submitted by MPs.

For Ming Campbell, leadership of the Lib Dems and searing critiques of British misadventure in Iraq are not enough. Ming is driven by a higher calling. He longs for a day when we can sip our House of Commons coffee in peace and prosperity:

RT HON SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL
The coffee arrangements in the Debate in Portcullis House are inconvenient and dangerous.

Dangerous? Really? Najaf? Yes. The Debate cafeteria. Possibly not.

Nia Griffith, the MP for Llanelli, comes to Ming's aid, however, when she outlines the nature of the Debate cafe threat:

NIA GRIFFITH
One small point, please ask them to reconsider the layout of the take away hot drinks as this currently involves dancing around each other with hot water ie step to the left to pick up paper cup, step to the right to put in tea bag, step to the left to put in hot water, step to the right to add milk, step to the left to get cover to put on cup. This should flow in one straight sequence.

The Rt Hon John ‘Marie Antoinette’ Redwood then chips in with a nod to populist politics. In what may be the Cameroonian Tories first policy decision Redwood suggests:

I think it would also be popular to offer cake more often at tea time.

Perhaps the finest contribution, however, is reserved for Andrew Turner, MP for the Isle of Wight, who submitted the following comments to the Committee:

One member of my staff comments that there is too much emphasis on "ethnic" meals and not enough choice of traditional English dishes (very simple items like cheese on toast would be welcome).

Ah, the old ‘member of my staff’ ruse. Just like the ‘friend with a personal problem’ one suspects. Come on Andrew. Have the courage of your convictions. Say it like it is. It's foreign muck and you don't like it.

(Hat-tip: MR)

This is a modern world...

Or maybe not.

See here, here and here.

14.00 Update

And this too...

Bullshit by any other name

Fed up with murder, terrorist atrocity and killer viruses? Well, it could be worse. You could read a 'lifestyle' piece in the Sunday newspapers. Feelings of revulsion, disgust and misery might be expected when reading of the genocide of a whole people but it's something of a shock to find these feelings replicated when you stumble across a seemingly trivial article in your Sunday paper.

Yesterday the Observer spread word of a revolutionary new social phenomenon. The article told us that Britons now spend a lot of time with their friends and that Britons may be closer to friends than some of their family.

Well, thank you Observer! What an amazing revelation. My whole world's been turned upside-down. I am going to quit my job and join a circus.

The article in question even told us that this radical social transformation had heralded the invention of a new social group - the 'framily'.

Oh, purleaze. FFS!

If you were at a pub when a mate embarked on this little discourse you'd rightly denounce the validity of their opinion, question their parentage, and order them to get the next couple of rounds in as penance. Instead, you have to resort to clubbing yourself about the head with the paper and telling yourself that you'll never buy it again. Until next week that is when that film you never wanted to see is given away free on DVD.

This outstanding work of social history is clearly written from a corporate press release ; Dolmio, the widely respected international think-tank, commissioned the 'research' for this one. It also panders to the assumption common in these pieces that all Britons are in their 20s/early 30s, and live in a flat-share in Clapham with Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston.

So, please, please, no more of this rubbish. Give me tales of Amazonian rain forests the size of Wales being destroyed by a cabal of flu-stricken swans and evil Western corporations and I'll be happy....


(Pic left: The Last Supper - the first recorded 'framily dinner')

Feng shui consultant confirms Blair-Brown rift

BBC News 24 today covered the launch of Labour's local election campaign in England with the serious tone befitting of a channel dedicated to in-depth reportage and informed comment.

With both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown taking the opportunity to speak at the same event, studio analysts played their part in connecting the watching public with their organs of local democracy. The news anchors discussed the role of local government, the relationship between local councils and central government, the worrying trends in low voter turnout, and then mused upon some of the issues which candidates at the upcoming election would be pledging to tackle.

Sorry, that was my belated April Fools item...what really happened was that the BBC News 24 hired a 'body language specialist' to commentate on the footage of Blair and Brown at the conference. In dark political times such as these there seems only one thing left for news programmes to do...call the body language specialist. The last thing, that is, if the tarot card reader is double-booked on the Today programme discussing the legal status of extraordinary rendition.

The body language specialist (from California...) studied the footage of Brown and Blair getting out of the ministerial car. He noted - with the seriousness of a man whose career relies on interpreting a man picking their nose as revolutionary act -that Blair walked over to Brown and placed 'two touches on the sleeve' of the Chancellor. From the tone of the body language specialist it was clear that this seemingly trivial gesture was, in fact, a momentous event akin to the signing of the Magna Carta and the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1832.

'Would they do that if they hated each other?' asked the news-anchor, breathlessly, indicating that as BBC News 24 was taking this charlatan seriously then we should all be obliged to do the same.

"Of course they would, they're duplicitous shits who'd sooner spit at each other than endure a moment in each other's company" the body language specialist didn't reply, before going on to say that Brown wearing a suit and tie gave an impression of 'gravy-toss'. Was this an insult or a term specific to the lexicon of the body language expert? No, it was apparently the word 'gravitas' spoken by a Californian.

Once Brown and Blair had exited stage left, Prescott arrived to rouse the party activists with a display of oratory not heard since Kelly Brook left the Big Breakfast. The sight of Prescott in full flow seem to hinder the body language expert's powers of analysis and he was put of his misery by the news anchor's 'okay...we'll leave that there for now...'. It was an ignominious end to a thoroughly enlightening piece of political commentary.

What's next then? A feng-shui consultant parading around No.10 suggesting the two vases facing each other across the mantelpiece represent Brown and Blair's ongoing struggle for power? We can only hope.