What's Eating Me Today?

(No, not a spelling mistake. It just came out that way when I typed it…)

There was a “piece” on BBC Breakfast this morning about how certain nurseries are letting children play with dolls that are modelled as having Down’s Syndrome. I don’t have a problem with educating children in diversity (although I do have a problem with the concept of a doll having a syndrome – it is just a toy).

But why do we need to employ “educational psychologits” to tell us what is good and bad play for children? When you start analysing play, as with analysing what is “funny”, it ceases to be fun anymore. Let kids get on with it and they will sort themselves out.

Yet another career to be added to the Room 101 of civil service savings when I become Prime Minister, along with traffic wardens and bin snoopers.
 

Just casting my eye through the headlines in the Daily Red Rag is enough to make anyone's blood pressure go nuclear:

"Petrol: Don't waste a drop" - yeah, like we sprinkle it on our chips.
"Parents leave 3-year old to starve to death" - no punishment in the UK justice system is right for these people.
"Is alcohol too cheap" - no.
"Boris Johnson scraps plans to fly 18 Gordon Ramsay chefs to China" - hoorah! Although it just reminds me what a cretin Livingstone was for planning this in the first place.
"Tories in Turmoil" - no change there, then?
"Father of four finds colony of 12 illegal immigrants in loft" - hilarious, if it wasn't so sad.
"10 million more immigrants and children in the next 25 years" - usual Red Rag statistical incorrectness.
"Murder at the checkout" - depressing beyond belief.
"£1,000 bedroom tax for home improvements" - is there no depth this government will not plumb to exhort money from taxpayers?
"Wife of Mugabe rival burned alive" - amazing that he is still in power. Then again, he doesn't have oil, so George Dubya won't be invading any time soon.
"Serial joyrider kills mother in crash" - see "Murder at the checkout"
"£355m telescope launched to look for black holes" - what an utter waste of natural, human and financial resources.
"Brown denies buying off rebels" - despite the fact that every one of the trough-hoggers exiting Westminster on Wednesday night was gloating over how they had got Gordon to support their pet projects.
"Doom and gloom talk of credit crunch" - apparently we are talking ourselves into a credit crunch, which doesn't actually exist. Aye, right.
"Bungling spy who left files on train faces sack" - good.
"Young women shamelessly pursue older men for money" - my number is available on request...
"Rooney's wedding of the year" - yawwwwn.
"Two more paratroopers killed in Afghanistan" ...
"Air Force One to cause delays at Heathrow" - like BAA needs another excuse to cock up Heathrow.

Normally any one of these would be enough to get my fingers hammering on the Thinkpad, but I'm busier than a bricklayer in Baghdad, so please accept this bloglet as a teaser for more to come.