Welcome to the Chaos

My legions of readers may have noticed that I've not posted anything here for a while. It's not that I've fallen out with you, or given up blogging, it's just minor changes in recent circumstances mean I'm not often sat in front of a keyboard with stuff to say

 

I'm still hangling around in the sidelines though, so the odd posts will continue to pop up

 

During two of the weeks I've recently been off blog, we were in Corfu again. It was your typical decent break away in the sun, and we didn't want to leave, but when we had to scoot for Corfu airport, we did what we always do; arrived very early

 

After security, Mrs Bucko went to check out the duty free, while I went to see how big the queue for passport control was. And it was a big one, twice round thwe waiting area. So I went to grab Mrs B and said we would have to queue up and do the duty free that they have after passport control, if we still had time

 

After queuing for just a short while, I heard a woman behind me blurt out, "This is RIDICULOUS!. You see, this is what you get for leaving the EU!"

 

We've been going to Corfu since way before Brexit and the queue for passport control is a feature of Corfu airport that has never changed*, regardless of Brexit. I found I could not let this one pass

 

I turned to the woman, put on a big beaming customer service smile, and said, "First time in Corfu airport then?"

 

The look on her face when she realised that the queue had nothing to do with Brexit and had always been that way, was a sight to behold

 

Brexit woman and her partner continued to mumble curses to each other about the queue, but we just ignored them from that point on. Mrs B did have a little giggle though when the woman said, 'You don't get this in Jamaica'. We were not aware Jamiaca was in the EU 

 

 

*It actually did change on this visit. There's usually two booths, each for two coppers, but they generally only have two or three coppers checking passports at any one time. This time they had increased the booths to seven, and all were full, so even though the queue was big, it went down quite fast, and we still had time to get some duty free fags and an over priced sandwich

A Red Card for Racism?

You may have noticed that I never mention football on this blog. I find it so sleep-inducingly boring, I'm just not interested, on any level

I am interested in politics though, and it's always been one of my bug bears (bares?), when people try to bring politics into sport. Any sport

 

You know where I'm going with this, don't you...

 

Since I was a child, there's always been a campaign doing the rounds, to 'Kick racism out of football'. It's usually only about certain people who think it's a good idea to make monkey noises at black players, or throw bananas on the pitch

 

That of course, is 'bad racism'. The idea that there can be good racism is a festering boil that's been on the arse of England for some time now. This morning, I woke up to a radio news broadcast that proved the campaign to get racism out of football, has spectacularly failed in the name of 'good racism'

 

The Muslims hate Jews kind of racism

 

Apparently Tel Aviv fans have been banned from attending a football match in Brimingham. Of course it's all been done under the guise of public safety, but the comments on social media this morning from the pople behind the ban prove it's nothing of the sort

 

'For your own safety' is bad enough in practice. It's been used to arrest counter protesters who've turned up to the many pro palestine terrorist marches that have plagued London for the last two years, but this has nothing to do with safety, it's just hatred of one group of people for political and religious reasons

 

The UK Home Office always has a list of countries that we're not advised to visit. They don't use the term Shithole, but it's always those countries

The idea that Britain would become a country that isn't safe to visit... Well, I don't have the words. The idea that the reason would be islamic fundamentalism, is even worse than the words I don't have

 

All the party leaders have rightly condemned this, but the only one who can actually do anything about it is Starmer

Will he? If he does, he'll have a big muslim problem to contend with. If he doesn't, he'll be admitting that he's handing the country over to them. Personally I doubt he has the courage to do anything more than release a harshly worded Tweet 

 

Our country has been circling the drain for some time now. This morning, I think it gave it's last gurgle 

Don't think I'll be doing that

I got an email from Microsoft asking me to verify my age in my X box account, in order to keep using all features

I'd forgotten I had an X box account

I only use an X box 360, which is quite old and there are really no online features left to use on it, that I'm aware of

 

I also have Playstations from 1 to 4, and don't bother with internet on those either. I wonder if I have a Playstation account?

So the Hated Online Safety Act covers gaming too? As I understand it (and my knowledge here could be sketchy), games have ratings on them like videos and DVDs, and the law already covers their physical purchase by underage players

You can access the regular internet through a games console, but if you try to access adult content, you're still covered by the websites own Hated Online Safety Act age restrictions 

 

So I don't see how verifying your age to Microsoft or Sony would do anything more

 

Anyway, I'm not about to tell Microsoft or anyone else, that I'm 49 years old and still spend hours playing Lemmings

 

Don't need the account anyway 

Giant Flying Rats

I was driving to work this morning when a seagull took off from the road and flew over my car carrying a dead rat in its gob

Ignore the time stamp

Due to the quality of my sixteen quid dashcam, this was the best picture I could get of it. I'm just hoping he didn't get tired and drop the thing on some unsuspecting bugger down below. He did seem to be struggling to gain height, carrying that load

 

Anyway... 

It's news to me

Bang on 5am is a little too early to be hit with a bulletin from a chirpy newsreader, but my clock radio hates me. I normally snooze the first half hour or two, but I was sleeping a little too far from the snooze button this morning, so had no alternative but to listen

 

There was some whiney woman complaining that x percentage of children have viewed porn on the internet, by the age of six. Shocker!

 

But even worse, apparently 70 percent of kids aged 17 have seen porn on the web. So what are the other 30 percent playing at? 

 

Kids aged 17 have seen porn since porn was invented. It's what kids aged 17 do. Not so long ago, in the grand scheme of things, kids aged 17 or younger, were routinely getting married and making their own babies (Yes I know, it's different when mummies and daddies love each other, etc), and it's still legal to do so, although these days they don't seem to bother with the married bit, and move straight on to the babies 

 

So my first reaction on hearing this revelation was to panic and wonder how we're ever going to survive as a race. But still being sleepy, it took me a few seconds to remember that we now have the Hated Online Safety Act, which prevents all children (and adults) who don't know what a VPN is (30 percent of them, maybe) from accessing porn online due to the age verification laws

 

And relax! The Hated Online Safety Act will save us all, correct? So I fully expected the whiney woman to tell us that these figures will now start to rapidly decline and we've nothing to worry about.

 

Imagine my surprise when she said,

"Online porn needs to be regulated in the same way as physical porn. We have the opportunity to do this with the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now" 

Eh?

 

Firstly, why hasn't the Hated Online Safety Act solved this problem, like it was specifically designed to do?

And secondly, what fresh hell is the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now? Why is this the first I'm hearing of it, and what new pointless and restrictive laws are going to be thrown at us this time?

 

It never ends

 

Other than kids seeing boobs, there was also a bit on the news about Trump and Putins conflab regarding the war in Ukraine. A English politician (some berk who's name I didn't catch) was saying there's no point trying to get guarantees from Putin, as he won't stick to them

 

Now I'm no Chief negotiator, but my first thought would have been that if that's your opinion, you keep it to yourself until you are sat round the negotiating table. You don't go on Sky news and call the principal party in the talks, a right bulshitter

 

I've really no idea why Two Tier and his useless hangers on are involved in this. They're irrelevant. They're like the kid who wants to be popular, trying to hang out with the bigger boys in the schoolyard 

 

I'd say that the upside is, the longer Starmer is out of the country trying to play statesman, the less harm he can do here, but 'the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now'... 

 

The taxman commeth for Ebay

I've been using Ebay pretty much since it started. I buy a lot of stuff on there that I need, but I also do a lot of buying and selling of entertainment stuff

 

For example, I buy a lot of  VHS tapes and computer games for various consoles. After I'm done with them and not going to watch / play them again, I re-sell them on Ebay

 

I've always worked under the assumtion that if you're just offloading unwanted items, you don't need to pay tax. Correct or incorrect, and I think it's correct, that's why when I've made the occasional profit, I've not bothered telling HMRC

 

(That and other reasons, obviously)

 

Well now they want my national Insurance number

 

Now to be honest, I don't think HMRC are going to bother themselves with finding out how much people like me sell on Ebay, and trying to take a few pence tax here and there. It would likely cost them more than they gain

 

However, our new Government are financially illiterate enough that they might even try it

 

It's not about the tax though. I never make a profit on Ebay. If I buy a game for a fiver and sell it for a fiver in six months time, I've actually lost a couple of quid in the postage I paid to get it

 

The problems would arise if I have to prove to HMRC that I'm not making a profit. If it's not worth their while to find out who owes them a couple of pence here and there, it may be worth their while to make us prove to them that we don't owe a couple of pence here and there

 

There's a link in the email imaged above: If you're unclear about whether you need to report income

 

 

 

I don't know enough about tax to be sure, but I think you still need to report sales if you're a business, even if you're not making a profit. If that applies to folk selling tat on Ebay, I'd have to start keeping records of everything I buy and sell to prove I'm not fleecing HM Government

 

I tell you, filling in a tax return would not be worth it just to pass some used media on to the next person who wants to enjoy it

 

In the unlikely event that I do have to start fannying about with tax returns, our local Help the Aged may see an upturn in donations of games and films I've bought on Ebay

 

I say unlikely. Who knows what Labour are capable of...