How do you solve a problem like...a law that works?

Now, here's a dilemma...in the UK we have the Criminal Records Bureau check, or the CRB. Now, this CRB is intended to catch those nasty people who want to work with children for very wrong reasons.

It does, after all, make a degree of sense to keep convicted sex offenders away from children - the easiest way to fail the CRB check is to be on the sex offenders register.

So far, so good,

But it turns out that Harriet Harman has found a group she believes is discriminated against by this. Have a look here...

The Government Equalities Office, which is overseen by Labour’s deputy leader, is promoting claims that devotees of skinny dipping and nudist campsites suffer prejudice equivalent to that experienced by gays, ethnic minorities and the elderly.

A submission written by British Naturism has been included in a review into discrimination. “Naturists encounter prejudice in employment,” it reads.

“This is a particular problem for people in the caring professions and education. Any occupation requiring an enhanced Criminal Record Bureau check is potentially a serious problem.”

So the problem really is differentiating between those who expose themselves to others...and those who expose themselves to others in some way that is (somewhat?) socially acceptable.

But the law is working exactly as intended.

By going the whole anti-discrimination route you cause a whole heap of problems. You can just imagine - court cases claiming that some poor unfortunate was discriminated against because s/he is a naturist. Completely impossible to prove of course...

Or there's always Plan B - change the CRB rules to allow you to appeal the result and defend certain charges, by pointing out that it was at a registered naturist site, for example...

But this is Harriet - why be sensible in the face of discrimination?

That's all folks

I'm feeling ill and grumpy. And people keep dying around me - so only a short post.

More a task, if you will. Office 2003 (and I'm assuming other versions) capitalise the word "halfing". Your task is to find other odd words it capitalises.

I've tried Ilithid, ogre, elf, dwarf....

Badly spent money

I'm a grouch, I admit this.

But have a look at this article here...

During the past 12 months, 40 councils have hired more than 140 experts, including healthy lifestyle tutors, wellbeing officers and community walks co-ordinators, at an annual cost to the taxpayer of almost £3m.

Public bodies hiring people for the public isn't a bad thing - if they're hired for the right reason...for the right role.

Now, to me (from the limited amount of data here) these job titles would appear to indicate non-jobs. All doing things that (to be honest) should not be done by the state.

Community walks co-ordinator? Who are you co-ordinating? How much co-ordination does it take to follow a map??

And the cost - 3 million, 140 people...tell you what I'd do. Fire the lot. Hire 140 youth workers.

What was that? You're shocked that I'd spend the money, not cut taxes?

Well, look at it like this. If each youth worker persuades or influences one teenager who's going off the rails. Just one... how much crime can one such young person cause and do?

A year in prison costs far, far more then the cost of hiring the youth worker for a year. Imagine... the youth worker helps 2 trouble makers to get a job, finish their education...

They pay for themselves, in the long term. I could argue they'd make us a long term, real world saving.

What's the pay back on a well-being officer?

Zombies!

Now I - like most sane people - have a zombie survival plan.

It's not that complicated and can be summed up quite simply. Go to the closest place with automatic weapons ans secure it.

Given there's only one such place in 20 miles, everyone who knows where I am can see the slight difficulty with that plan. Still, come the Zombie Apocalypse a rifle is the way to go.

Shoot them all with extreme prejudice.

But - surprising to say - people doing research agree.

Kill them all.

Character flaw?

Today, this morning I ran into a bit of Bad News.

Well, probably only bad news. The capitalisation is probably unnecessary. However, when I saw it my first thought was "That's inconvenient". Not "Oh my god" or anything along the lines.

That's inconvenient. Closely followed by an analysis of costs that probably deserved it's own spreadsheet.

All this with the emotional involvement of spilling milk. Actually - I'd have been more upset if I had spilt milk.

So the question....is this a flaw in my character?

Or should I just get out more?

Well, I won't be going to Alton Towers now....

And why wouldn't I go to Alton Towers, one of the biggest (and some would say best) of Sunny England's amusement parks?

And why would I suggest you don't go either?

I'm glad you asked...

It's this. Quoting the important bit, without the paragraphs of blather relating this to semi-famous people....

The company said today that a number of men had been sporting tight trunks in its waterpark during the recent hot weather.

It went on: “To prevent embarrassment among fellow members of the public and to maintain the family friendly atmosphere at the resort, bosses have taken the extreme measure of banning these tight trunks from their popular waterpark located within the Splash Landings Hotel.

“While women may hail the return of the skimpy bathers, the style itself is not deemed public or family friendly, and therefore we are requesting that male swimmers wear more appropriate styles such as boardshorts.

"The resort is also considering introducing mandatory bikini waxing for men, in a bid to prevent unsightly hair from being on display.”

I've got a few issues with this.

But to start the balls rolling, lets do some homework. Go to google and do an image search on the terms "bikini" and "speedos". Study the images for a few seconds...

...that's long enough...

The first issue is very simple. A very basic thing in the UK is that, by and large, you are free to wear what you wish. Your employer probably has a dress code, but in most places you can wear what you like.

In swimming pools and water parks (and basically anywhere you're likely to get really wet) people wear...well...nothing really. But being a liberal democracy we accept if you get embarrassed by the fact other people aren't sexless automatons we give you a right - the right not to look.

We don't even tell them to grow up.

I have great objections to modern fashion - but I would never *dream* of enforcing my fashion views on others in a "you must wear this" fashion. The most coercive I'll get is that I'll only buy clothes for people that I think they'll look good in.

Which seems fair enough to me.

But the idea of banning men from wearing swimming trunks is madness. Would you prevent women wearing bikinis that consist of more then string? How about we enforce minimum standards. Women should be fully veiled at all times and- nope, sorry, wrong misogynistic fundamentalist religion.

The very concept of "fashion police" strikes a chilling chord. Which leads me to my second point.

Within certain VERY limited exceptions within a civilised society pain is pretty much an optional experience.

Ok, ok, fine, we haven't found any really good ways around childbirth, period pain and some medical conditions. But these are broadly speaking biologically unavoidable - and as such outside the scope of this rant.

If you don't want body piercings you don't have to have them. Don't want to wax? Fine - don't. Giving blood is a trivial amount of pain which saves lives - but we don't even have to say no. Pain is entirely voluntary.

Inflicting pain on another has names. Assault, battery, rape, murder - I'm sure you can see the theme. Do so accidentally (say, a car crash) and your insurance company pays out large sums to compensate for pain and injury.

Or to look at it another way, it pays off the victim so they won't sue you.

But then we have... "The resort is also considering introducing mandatory bikini waxing for men".

Inflicting pain so others live up to your standards of beauty. Have they noticed that body hair is a secondary sexual charactoristic of HALF the population?

Causing pain on half the population because they don't live up to your standards.

Stalin wants a word - something about copyright...?

Your tone of text

When reading things others have written I hear the tone of voice. I don't have to know them or their voices. It's in the text.

Normally this isn't a problem - until you get to something really funny.

An email, addressed "Dear Sirs... (complaint) ... signed "Chloe Smith. (Mrs)."

Can you imagine how that sounded??

What is the government definition of solving a problem?

What is the government definition of solving a problem?

It's not actually fixing the cause of the issue, clearly.

Lets take the current employment crisis for graduates - that many big employers have cut graduate schemes drastically. There are currently (if reports are to believed) 49 or so graduates applying for every place.

Combine this with the fact that the government wants 50% of all students to go to university - the problem is clearly that we have more graduates then we can support.

Let's ignore the implication that if 50% of the population then some of the people studying will have an IQ of LESS then 100. I could write a whole post on the implications and insanity of that.

Anyway, back to the point- we have a surplus of graduates this year. So what's the government going to do?

Why, obviously what the government needs to do is to pay for 500 odd graduates to go on a gap year - so next year, when they get back we'll have all the graduates that have just graduated and five hundred more from the year before.

Just putting the problem off.

Government problem solving.

Muppets.

(Edit to add)
The 49 figure was there, I'd swear, when I wrote this over lunchtime. That's what you get for not print-screening the page. Sorry.)

Why some people should be kept...quiet...

Some times you don't have to parody. You don't have to make jokes.

You only have to point at what they say and laugh.

Well, Harriet Harmon is at it again. This time she shows her true colours. In the midst of economic crisis, unemployment and fiscal chaos it's clear what her priorities are.

Not the country - when her party is in power.
Not the economy - when she's the deputy leader of the party in charge of repairing this.
Not the labour party - when she must have known how badly these comments would be received.

But with her minority group of interest - women.

She makes her point very clear. She doesn't trust men in power. To quote...
“I don’t agree with all-male leaderships,” she said. “Men cannot be left to run things on their own. I think it’s a thoroughly bad thing to have a men-only leadership.”

So nice to know that the Minister for Equality has such a high view of half the population she represents. Men can't be left to run things.

So what does she want? A quota system, so mummy can keep an eye on the naughty boys.

You do not - and never can - achieve equality through quotas and requirements. You can only ever reach it through merit. Choosing the best candidates, the best skilled and those with vision.

She's forgotten this because she was never the best, the most skilled or gifted with vision. Instead, she's become obsessed with her view of reality - and forgotten something important.

When you become obsessed with the enemy you become the enemy.

(Even if there isn't one)
(Kudos to the first to identify the quote)