War on a Bloody Shoestring

At the end of a week in which two coroners have criticised the UK Government for failures of the supply of adequate equipment to our troops in Afghanistan, the media have made a big thing of exposing the inadequacies of the politicians and bureaucrats whose competence (or lack of it) can make the difference between life and death on the front line.
Down on our little allotment plots, my best mate Nosher and I remain perplexed at how some people are apparently without shame when it comes to taking responsibility for their failures when those failures cost human lives.
We were, as usual, sitting on our old deckchairs outside our little allotment huts after a hard day's digging. As we watched the sun dip towards the willow trees, we pondered on the tragic consequences of the failure of vision and conscience in those who lead us.
Now, Nosher and me, well, we were opposed to both the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but that does not stop us from being whole-hearted in our support for the brave men and women consigned by political cynicism to fight and die for a cause that is at best questionable, and, at worst, a tragic waste of human life.
We also believe that if people are prepared to fight and die for their country, even if led by cynical and incompetent politicians, they should at least be given the best equipment, training, and back-up to do the job with. And yet our fighting forces in Afghanistan have around one sixth of the money spent on them per capita than the American forces, and less even than those Nato countries whose forces are not in the front line.
Our fighting forces went into battle with insufficient body armour, weapons that jammed, unsuitable clothing (necessitating borrowing from the Americans), communications equipment that sucked, and with armoured vehicles that were already obsolete and completely unprotected against roadside bombs and grenade launchers (they were, in fact, battered old Land-Rovers left over from the conflict in Northern Ireland).
In allotment gardening terms, it would be like sending someone out onto their vegetable plot with a broken shovel. Except that vegetables do not open up with AK47s or leave bombs inbetween the rows of cabbages, or fire rocket-propelled grenades at you.
The decision to send our troops into battle with inadequate equipment lies with the politicians - those very people, lest we forget, who put themselves forward for election whilst claiming they are fit and responsible people to hold the reins of power. Their lackeys - the officials in the MOD who do their bidding - must do as they are told and say the 'right' things or they won't get their long-service medals for sitting behind their comfortable desks. The people at the sharp end, our troops, have no say in the process at all, but suffer all the bloody consequences.
It's easy to discover where the greatest responsibility lies, amongst all the slimy politicians who are now claiming that they're spending more than ever on the armed services and that any failures have been rectified. No wise person believes such assurances. These are, after all, politicians, whose main claim to competence lies in making empty promises and giving assurances that things will improve (which, in political code, means protecting their reputations at all costs - so long as it's someone else who pays).
The person who is most to blame for the predicament our armed forces now find themselves in is none other than our Prime Minister Gordon Brown (or 'Gordon the Moron' if you are any judge of intellectual and moral adequacy). But you won't find Gordon the Moron being interviewed on this issue - he pushes a hapless junior minister in front of the cameras to take the heat. And yet it is Gordon the Moron who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten long years, during those very years when the crucial financial decisions were taken that resulted in the shambolic military supply situation we now see in operation today.
True, Gordon the Moron can claim that spending on the UK's armed services rose during this period, but, like all pronouncements from unscrupulous politicians, this claim disguises the real truth. In fact military expenditure has not kept pace with the ever-rising inflationary rate in the cost of the increasingly high-tech equipment now needed to win wars. Which means that in real terms the actual value of military spending has gone down. And the demand to replace hugely expensive items like aircraft carriers and fighting planes has meant that the ordinary foot-soldier has fared worst of all.
The infantry, the poor bloody infantry! These are the guys who actually go in on foot and face the enemy. And they do get bloody, very bloody. So they deserve the best. But they're not getting it. And it's not just on the front line that they're suffering.
Gordon the Moron, when he was Chancellor, was responsible for swingeing cuts in the budget for military hospitals and rehabilitation centres, so that many wounded and disabled soldiers now have to queue up alongside civilian patients in NHS hospitals to be treated by staff who have little or no experience dealing with the casualties of war.
Don't be fooled by the few (arguably) lucky ones who've got nice new prostheses and who are treated in the few specialist military rehabilitation centres that now remain. Most of our military casualties will be in NHS facilities, isolated from their comrades, and, once they're discharged from the services (which happens with disgraceful rapidity for those who have little hope of improvement) will be cast adrift in a civilian world that struggles to comprehend the unfathomable suffering of people damaged by war.
Is this how politicians show their appreciation and respect for our brave fighting men and women who are prepared to lay their lives on the line for their country?
If so, Gordon the Moron has scant respect for anyone.
So, as Nosher and I put our deckchairs away in the hastening gloom of nightfall, we asked ourselves whether we could, with a clear conscience, actually recommend a career in the armed services to any young person.
In all honesty, the answer has to be 'No'. Do media studies and become a journalist, or train to be a hairdresser. Or, if you have no conscience at all, how about a career in politics?
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
You can read more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/

Multiculturalism Under Fire in the Dis-United Kingdom

It is at long last becoming permissible to criticise the negative aspects of multiculturalism, that harbinger of pseudo-liberal loony-Left cultural correctness that presaged the nonsense of 'Political Correctness' by a decade or more.
Down on our little allotment, my best mate Nosher welcomes this new trend.
'Multiculturalism may have been an invention of the Wilson Government in the 60s, but once it took hold amongst all the political parties it has been political suicide to say anything negative about it for forty years' he said, taking another sip of his excellent parsnip wine.
'Well, at last it is possible to expose the ludicrous aspects of this policy without being called a racist by by all but the loony-Left Guardian and its readers' I observed, as a blue-tit sang its melodious song in the willows nearby.
We were sat on our deckchairs outside our little allotment sheds after a hard day's toiling, watching the late afternoon sun slowly dip towards the willows. Although it was cold, the heat of our labours was enough to enable us to relax and enjoy the winter sunshine.
And relax we did. The climate of pseudo-liberal cultural fascism is at last on the decline (or so it seems), and people as varied as Trevor Philips, our race-relations commissar, and the boffins at the Royal United Services Institute are at long last expressing doubts about a policy that has, far from inducing minorities to integrate, simply encouraged them to see themselves 'special cases' deserving of more consideration than is accorded to the rest of the population.
An example of the socially-divisive effects of this ideology of cultural exclusiveness is that recently the UK Government announced that Muslim men would henceforth be allowed to claim social security benefits for all their wives on an equal basis, although polygamy is supposed to be illegal in the Dis-United Kingdom. Non-Muslim men, of course, are not to be accorded this privilege. So much for equality under the law.
What better way is there of sending a message to the majority of the population of the Dis-United Kingdom that the values and cultural traditions of a once-great Christian country now count for nothing? And that is precisely what they count for: nothing. Zero. Zilch. We have become a nation culturally neutered by our own home-grown breed of pseudo-liberals and their fellow-travelling allies in other political parties and the media.
One example stands out of the tragic consequences of allowing minorities to think of themselves as having special privileges immune to scrutiny and regulation by the host community.
Last year (2007) the Metropolitan Police offered a substantial reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of people practising female circumcision, an illegal procedure carried out without anaesthetic, by forcibly holding the victim down whilst the operation is carried out with a rusty razor blade. It is barbaric but is nonetheless still popular amongst some Muslims of North African descent. Tens of thousands of very young girls are believed to be genitally mutilated every year in the Dis-United Kingdom.
It is a practice that has been carried out for decades in the Dis-United Kingdom, with barely a murmur of outrage from the loony-Left, or from any liberal social reformers, come to that. The prevailing attitude appears to be that we must not risk offending the 'cultural sensitivities' of the perpetrators - that is treated by the media, and by politicians, as being a much more important issue that the suffering inflicted on the victims. For female circumcision leaves the victims mutilated, scarred, and in pain for life, subject to recurrent infections and bearing their private deformity with them as an indelible mark of their 'caring' tribe where-ever life may subsequently take them.
And yet if only one white middle-class girl was known to have been subjected to such an horrific practice in the Dis-United Kingdom, the loony-Left Guardian and its allies would rise up in outrage and the pseudo-liberal cohorts would be out in strength mounting a crusade to stamp the practice out. But the doctrine of multiculturalism means that no such crusade has ever been mounted to save young girls from ethnic minorities suffering this dreadful fate, and so tens of thousands continue to fall victim to it every year.
When the Metropolitican Police announced their initiative to encourage people to report this crime last year the Guardian reported it as a minor news item, tucked away in the middle pages, with no editorial opinion or comment from its columnists (I still have the newspaper cutting in my files). Thus are even the mightiest campaigners for liberal reform silenced by even the remotest possibility that they might upset the most hallowed doctrine of multiculturalism - that one should not risk offending the 'cultural sensitivities' of ethnic minorities.
Now, at long last, these attitudes may be changing, and not before time. Those of us who believe that multiculturalism has in fact discouraged integration and assimilation, and has divided communities by encouraging ethnic communities to see themselves as 'special cases' who should be allowed extra privileges, can at last speak out without incurring hysterical accusations of 'racist!' from the pseudo-liberal fascists who think they can intimidate all dissenting opinions into extinction simply by reciting the imbecilic dogmas of multiculturalism and spouting that particular brand of ideological stupidity we know as 'Political Correctness'.
The wind of change is here, just a light breeze at the moment, but let us hope it grows and sweeps away the blinkered outlook of the past forty years and lets some light be shed on an issue that is long overdue for public, informed debate.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Read more on http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/

UK is America's Poodle Now For Sure

Ever since Tony Blair was elected as Prime Minister of the good old Dis-United Kingdom in 1997 his uncontrollable attraction to those with money and power has meant that the UK has become ever more subservient to the US.
When the Algerian-born Muslim pilot Lotfi Raissi won his appeal at the High Court on 14th Feb 2008, and effectively received legal backing for his campaign to obtain compensation from the UK Government for illegal imprisonment, the extent to which we in the UK are now no better than a subservient client state of America was finally revealed.
'We would do well to remember' said Nosher, as we relaxed on our old deckchairs outside our allotment sheds (this time in a chilly overcast day - but, hey, we allotment gardeners are tough!) 'that Raissi was detained under the old extradition act.'
'Yep! Things are even worse now' I replied 'for if the same thing happened again our leaders have signed over all our rights to justice to the Americans under the Extradition Act 2003, which means you or I or anyone else for that matter, can now be picked up off the streets, or taken from our beds in the dark of night, merely on the hint of suspicion, and taken in chains to the good ole USA, where our own country will wash its hands of us. For good. That's what being a British citizen amounts to these days'.
'Even worse' commented Nosher 'the US doesn't extend reciprocal rights to the UK, so if we want to extradite anyone from the US, we have to go through a complex process of presenting a case to their courts, and even then it is unlikely we'll succeed'.
As we watched the gloom of evening close in around us a feeling of numbness descended. For we had been here before. We knew the feeling of powerlessness so well, for a very similar thing had happened a few years ago on our little allotment.
Things started to go wrong when the chairman of the allotment committee of the United States of Allotments, just over the Great Piddle from our own little allotment, announced his grandiose 'War on Terror' against all anti-American vegetables. George W (for that's what we nick-named him) was full of bluster and bullying, and insisted that the chairman of our little allotment committee, nick-named Tony Blair, should back him to the hilt. Tony Blair, a slimy ex-lawyer who toadied up to anyone with money and power, and expecially George W, instantly started arresting vegetables on our side of the Great Piddle in response to the merest hint of suspicion from George W. As a result many carrots, turnips and spinaches were rounded up and incarcerated.
'Your spinaches have been spying on me!' called out George W from across the other side of the Great Piddle 'I want you to fix them, and do it good!'
On our side of the Great Piddle Tony Blair looked even more obsequious than ever, bowing and scraping before George W.
'Of course, Massa! Anything you say Massa!' he grovelled, but then, when he turned to face us allotment-holders his countenance was quite different. Now it was the stern face of a great statesman, a war politician, urging his country on to ever bigger sacrifices.
'We are all in this together' he intoned, looking even more fakely sincere than ever 'If we do not detain all suspicious-looking vegetables on the slightest of pretexts we will upset America, and then George W won't invite me to his country retreat at Camp David. Never before have I faced such humiliation...I repeat, never before has the UK been under greater threat. I say to you now, you must all vote to make our terror laws tougher and do anything the US might require of us, even if it means illegally detaining vegetables without just cause indefinitely, and extraditing them to the United States just because they tell us to.'
Nosher and I were flabbergasted. How could this be happening? Ever since the Magna Carrot of 1216 free vegetables had been guaranteed the protection of the law against false imprisonment. And now this protection was being swept away. But despite our protests, our little allotment committee voted to do as Tony Blair wanted, and soon a succession of vegetables of all types were being arrested and shipped over the Great Piddle where they were held without charge for years, interrogated, tortured and sometimes killed, all without our own allotment committee doing a thing to help them.
It was a calamitous situation.
But instead of becoming more friendly towards us, the United States of Allotments became even more bullying, treating us little better than servants or slaves.
When the repellent Tony Blair resigned from his chairmanship of our little allotment committee in 2007 his equally repulsive successor, nick-named Gordon the Moron, was no better, pretending to like George W less but in reality being just as subservient.
And now, as Nosher and I packed our deckchairs into our little allotment sheds as dusk fell, and prepared to go home, it was all happening in real life, here in the Dis-United Kingdom.
The fact that the Appeal Court has backed Lotfi Raissi means that he may yet win compensation from the UK Government (although, to their shame, the Home Office is already thinking about appealing against the Appeal Court's decision - don't they understand what the words 'decency' and 'compassion' mean?).
But for all those detained since the passing of the Extradition Act 2003 there is no redress against false imprisonment. As the machinery of the police state closes in around us, we would do well to enjoy our few remaining freedoms while they last. We will not have them for much longer unless we campaign to retain and protect them.
The moral of the story is that it suits unscrupulous and ruthless politicians to maintain their country in a constant state of alert and terror against real or imagined threats because this enables them to justify more and more repressive laws and impositions upon the general population. In short, the War on Terror is being used to destroy democracy and freedom, which is, of course, exactly what the real terrorists actually want. So who are the real terrorists? I'll leave it to your imagination.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot/ soon.
For more also see http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/

What Should we Teach Children About The Ideologies of Terrorism?

In the good old Dis-United Kindgom five young Asian men from Bradford have been released by the Court of Appeal after previously being convicted for possessing materials relating to terrorism. No link was ever found between them and recognised terrorist groups, nor did the prosecution establish that any of them had any intention to plan, assist, or commit acts of terrorism. One of the individuals concerned was only a schoolboy at the time of the original prosecutions.
In the same week, our Government has announced plans to expose schoolchildren to five hours' per week of cultural activities and education (a plan many teachers have complained is unrealisable without additional resources and teachers).
So, concluded Nosher and me down on our little allotment, the powers-that-be are worried that children are growing up unable to access the rich cultural heritage that should be theirs by right - but, at the same time, if these same children stray onto internet sites that display material of which the Government disapproves, they are likely to be locked up and convicted of terrorist offences, without a shred of evidence that they are linked to terrorism or have any intention of becoming involved.
Something is going badly wrong in our supposedly enlighted society. The idiots that drafted and voted in these laws should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
Innocent children are being sacrificed to the stupidity of Government lawyers who draft laws that oppress the innocent, and also to the self-serving hypocrisy of Government MPs who vote the laws onto the Statute Book.
So, as we sat on our venerable deckchairs (salvaged from the Titanic and passed down through Nosher's family as heirlooms) sipping parsnip wine in the glorious afternoon sun (what a wonderful February we've had so far!) we pondered upon the inevitable contradictions involved in trying to raise children to be wise, peaceable, citizens of a free and open society in which you are liable to be arrested and locked up for trying to find out why terrorists kill and maim.
As Nosher pointed out, children are, of course, beset by powerful irrational impulses, they have poor self-control, labile emotions, and are ignorant, credulous and gullible. In addition, they have limited or impaired moral awareness and judgement, and take the slightest hint of personal rejection as a deep, undeserved, wound likely to induce resentment and evoke a desire for revenge. Not so different from many adults, then.
Nonetheless, children are fundamentally different from adults: they are, in the main, more vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation by those seeking to control or abuse them.
All very good reasons, I remarked to Nosher, as to why no society on the planet accords children the same moral and political status as is given to adults.
But here's the rub: suddenly, at age 18 (or 21 if you're an American) these children, irrespective of their educational attainment, emotional maturity or moral development, suddenly become, in law, adults. In theory, they are now fully responsible for their conduct, even if they act in ignorance of the (incredibly complex and recondite) laws we now have imposed upon us by drafters of legislation (and their political masters) whose desire is to display their own mastery of archaic legal jargon, and exercise their own obsession with interfering in our lives, without letting the rest of us in on their little secrets.
But these same young people have almost certainly had access to the most widely-ranging of materials on the internet from a very early age, and have thus most likely been exposed to all sorts of material that might corrupt their sensitive young minds unless those minds are already prepared and motivated to combat such corrupting effects.
And so Nosher and I rapidly found ourselves in total agreement:
The issue that a society such as ours should be addressing, as a matter of public concern is:
How, and to what extent, should our educational system be helping children make sense of the values and messages contained in materials that propound the ideology of terrorism?
They will encounter this material at some point in their lives - surely the moral responsibility of the leaders of a free and open society is to ensure, as far as is humanly possible, that the children of such a society grow up fully aware of the implications of terrorism and its ideologies, but also capable of making the crucial moral distinction between legitimate means of opposing oppression (real or imagined) and methods that are indescriminate and not only break international law but also render the perpetrators violent criminals and thus enemies of civilised societies and outlaws to boot?
This is the debate our society should be conducting, in free and open discussion, and in public.
Yet this is a debate, which, if it is taking place, is not being held in the public eye. Government ministers and their civil servants may debate it, professional academics may debate it - but thus far there has been no public debate on the issue.
Both Nosher and I believe that there should be a public debate, involving all levels of society, and it should start very soon. For unless we, as a society, are able to show the young children of our country that we not only understand the motivation for terrorism, but also that we can show why and how it breaches every moral constraint that characterises a civil society of free and open people, then we cannot subsequently expect children to understand it either.
And, if, as a result, these confused and fascinated children then find themselves exploring the issues for themselves on the internet and we then label them as terrorists, we are compounding our own failure to educate them with our own folly in implementing laws drafted by well-meaning (or perhaps merely cynical) ignoramuses.
The disturbing fact is that, in the case of the Bradford Five, they were convicted under a law that was badly thought through, incompetently drafted, and voted onto the Statute Book by MPs who evidently had not properly considered the implications for the ordinary, free, innocent people of this country and their children.
And remember, folks, these very people that have done all this - our leaders - are the clever guys - or at least they think they are! After all, they're the ones that put themselves forward as being fit and capable to run the country on our behalf.
Perhaps the five hours of cultural education planned for schoolchildren in our society should be delivered initially to Government Ministers, MPs, Government lawyers, judges, barristers and criminal soliticitors, so that they might better understand the difference between a curious and fascinated child and a genuine perpetrator of terrorism.
Then, perhaps, we might see some genuine wisdom from our benighted leaders who, thus far in the 'War on Terror' (recently renamed to some PC nonsense that isn't memorable at all) have distinguished themselves only by shooting and locking up innocent people (on often the flimsiest of suspicions) whilst very few genuine terrorists have been apprehended or convicted.
And so, as Nosher and I watched the red orb of the setting sun slip behind the willow trees, we emptied our glasses of parsnip wine in a toast to all those who labour selflessly bring about genuine freedom and understanding in this benighted land we now call the Dis-United Kingdom.
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.

You can find more on issues such as these on my website

http://www.paulssturdee.co.uk/

Torture and Killing Is Legal - But Only When We Order It, Says US

The United States Government has announced that it will shortly try six of the terror suspects held illegally at Guantanamo Bay. The trials will be secret military tribunals, and the prosecution will demand the death penalty.
Meantime, the US Government continues to use torture methods such as 'waterboarding' on these suspects (a technique they condemned when the Vietcong used it on American POWs in Vietnam), claiming that it does not amount to torture.
What's changed since the Vietcong used waterboarding? Why, the US has decided it's a good idea after all, so it must be all right! (So long as it's not used by other countries on Americans who are not suspected by the US of being terrorists.)
The US has consistently violated international treaties on human rights in regard to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, whilst condemning out of hand any other country that uses the same methods but is not on their side in their imbecilic 'War on Terror'.
Down on our little allotment, Nosher and me are no strangers to the hypocrisy and self-serving nature of great power. Our little allotment is divided by a stream, called the Great Piddle, from a much larger allotment we call the United States of Allotments. The chairman of their allotment committee is nicknamed 'George W', and when, a few years ago, the USA succumbed to a dreadful attack of carrot root-fly, George W went into overdrive.
'This is terrorism!' George W announced. 'If you're not with us you're against us!' he called menacingly to Nosher and me across the Great Piddle. Since we thought the ills now being suffered by the USA were largely self-induced (they treated their carrots dreadfully badly) we were not keen on joining George W in what was bound to be a disaster given his prevous record at running a vegetable stall at the local market. But the then chairman of our little allotment committee, nicknamed 'Tony Blair' (a slimy ex-lawyer who would do almost anything to ingratiate himself to people with power and money) immediately leapt the Great Piddle and embraced George W warmly.
'Don't worry' oozed Blair with ingratiating slime 'the little allotment will be your biggest ally'.
'Yo! Blair' replied George W, a response only the very wise or the very stupid could make any sense of.
Thus fortified in the knowledge that he had our small allotment as his only ally of any worth, George W rushed headlong towards catastrophe. He immediately ordered all the carrots to be rounded up and confined in a damp dark corner of the allotment by the Great Piddle, where they were regularly drowned with great quantities of water from a hosepipe.
This interrogation technique, known to all wise allotment gardners to result only in tainted testimony, produced little by way of results, so George W resorted to brow-beating.
'I know you terrorists are very clever and resourceful in your attempts to destroy the USA' he thundered at them 'but I will do even better!' And he was true to his word.
Soon the entire United States of Allotments was oppressed with new allotment rules making it a crime for any vegetable to say anything bad about George W and his band of buffoons on the allotment committee, or to say anything remotely good about anyone suspected of being a terrorist, or who might be a terrorist one day, or who even looked slightly like a carrot.
The carrots, meanwhile, succumbed to the water treatment, and the rest of the USA did very badly that year, and ever since, because almost all the vegetables decided not to bother growing very well on account of how badly they were being treated.
George W learned nothing from this exercise in ineptitude, and now, as his second term as allotment committee chairman draws to an end and a replacement must be found, the vegetables are getting very keen on a black man (never before has the USA has a black allotment committee chairman!) who is promising them all sorts of nice things. Only time will tell whether Barrack (for that is what we've nicknamed him) will be able to deliver.
Thus does real life merely mimic life on the allotment, for all that can be said and done has already happened on some little plot somewhere.
As for Nosher and me, well, we must patiently await the passing of George W, in the hope that under a new leader the USA will return to sanity once more (or what passes for sanity on the other side of the Great Piddle).
More from overthegardenfence soon.

Is Population Control the Key to Going Green?

Down on our little allotment, it occured to my best mate Nosher and me that being conventionally Green is on its own not going to save that planet unless there are also some effective measures to control the population growth.
Despite our favourite fantasy (that everyone should have an allotment) being very attractive, neither is that the answer - for although allotment-keeping has become more fashionable amongst the Green middle-classes in the Dis-United Kindgom, there are fewer allotments to be had, since allotment land is the least protected, and therefore most likely to be redeveloped into housing.
Even if we ignore the possibility that the world population level may already have passed the stage that can be sustained for long by an increasingly degraded global environment, global population growth shows no sign of declining, which means that there is a very high probability that the total number of people on the planet will, very soon, become so high that competition for ever more scarce resources precipitates us into global conflict.
And yet, as Nosher pointed out to me only the other day, the only country (of any significance) in the world that has effectively brought its population growth under control is China.
Throught the West population growth is continuing unchecked, propelled by the desire of some groups of people to breed faster than their neighbours, either for religious or economic reasons, or simply because they can't be bothered with birth control and they know the State will give them ever more benefits the more children they produce.
There will come a point, inevitably, when the political, economic, and social infrastructure required to support the ever-growing and increasingly dependent population simply fails under the burden of overwhelming demands and expectations.
The signs of growing strain on existing service provision are already visible in the Dis-United Kingdom: hospitals failing to keep pace with the rising birthrate, schools beseiged by applications for places, and not enough houses suitable for the needs of a growing population.
But the ideology of conventional growth-economics dictates that economic prosperity is propelled by increasing demand and cheap labour, and the best way of ensuring both is simply to keep on breeding more consumers and workers as fast as possible.
This pattern is being repeated all over the planet. Eventually, we will reach the point when it doesn't matter how much we all recycle, the planet's capacity to support human life at a tolerable standard of living will simply collapse.
The results are entirely predictable: famine, pestilence, plague, war. The Biblical scenario is immediately recognisable. Millions will die horrible deaths, billions more will lead truncated and utterly miserable lives waiting for the inevitable to overtake them.
On the allotment, Nosher and I know that good husbandry is essential to prevent the soil becoming overloaded with plants, so careful regulation of numbers and the effective and appropriate distribution of resources is the key to growing healthy and wholesome vegetables.
So why haven't our political and religious leaders grasped the nettle and put the issue of population control on their agenda?
They are, after all, supposed to be the clever ones (or at least they think they are), attributing to themselves the insight and abilities to make the world a better place.
Surely they must know that simply building ever more roads and houses, more schools, more hospitals, giving out ever more benefits to couples that breed irresponsibly, is taking us towards an inevitable disaster?
Are they cowards?
Or simply deluded?
Or merely stupid?
Or perhaps it's the knowledge that they won't be in power when the proverbial eventually hits the fan, so they can afford to take the expedient route and ignore the unpopular reality that continued population growth will present our descendents with a dreadful future in which there are simply too many people fighting to obtain too few resources, and society implodes.
Down on the allotment, Nosher and I will continue our Green practices of planting vegetables responsibly.
Perhaps one day - the sooner the better - Gordon the Moron, Dave 'The People's Toff' and religous leaders like Archbishop Rowan Williams and others who thus far have been remarkably silent on the issue of population growth, will find the courage to follow our example.

Should 'Right' be 'Whatever We Can Get Away With'?

A friend of mine booked her summer holiday with Thomas Cook way back before Christmas ('07), paid £40 extra per head for a daytime flight, paid her deposit, and thought nothing more of it (if you're an American reader, simply double the £ figure to make it the $ equivalent).
Then, a couple of days ago, she received a missive from said Thomas Cook informing her that they had rebooked her on a later flight, travelling over- night. No explanation, no apology, no return of daytime flight surcharge.
When she phoned them and demanded the return of the surcharge for booking a daytime flight she was told this was non-refundable; then, when she said she'd cancel and book with another operator, she was told she'd forfeit her deposit. That too was non-refundable.
Eventually, after much wrangling, Thomas Cook offered her a paltry £50 compensation for a party of 5 - when she had originally paid £40 per head for a daytime flight.
Given that she was now already £150 down on the deal, and had lost almost a day of her precious and very expensive holiday due to the decision of the tour operator (or airline), this kind of business practice hardly inspires confidence that the operators have their customers' best interests at heart.
Down on our little allotment Nosher and I have certain questions about this kind of business practice. It appears to be legal - or at least permitted by the powers that be - but does that make it right?
My friend thought she was entering into a mutually binding contract with Thomas Cook, only to find out later that it was binding on her but not on them. How can this be considered fair? Why should this be allowed in the first place?
Of course it's easy to surmise what had actually happened, even to a couple of stay-at-home allotment gardeners.
The routine practice in the airline and tour industries is to over-book aircraft seats on the basis that some passengers will not turn up. If too many turn up on the day, some have to be 'bumped' onto a later flight, usually with no hint of compensation for their holiday being deliberately shortened by the airline.
But, since my friend's holiday was booked for the summer, still many weeks away, the issue of too many passengers turning up does not apply.
Clearly too many seats had been booked - but someone, somewhere in the chain of commercial contracts involved decided that, even this early on, my friend and her party should forfeit her daytime flight in favour of another passenger group, who had presumably paid the same £40 per head surcharge for a daytime flight.
So, the same contract was made with each group, but was honoured in the case of only one. If one factors in the practice of over-booking, it means the operators are taking people's money knowing that, in some cases at least, some of these people have no chance at all of getting a daytime flight, but will nonetheless be charged a non-refundable surcharge for one. In almost any other industry this would be called fraud, or at least highly questionable business practice. So why are airline and tour operators allowed to get away with it?
Well, the straightforward answer is that under international treaties airlines and tour operators are allowed to do this kind of thing - but the treaties themselves are decades old and were negotiated in the days when national governments believed the airline business needed a boost in order to stimulate economic growth, and overbooking and surcharges were then unheard of. In fact, the extent of any financial or legal liability, or moral commitment, of airline and tour operators to their customers is so strictly limited in law as to be laughable.
Many years ago - the last time I flew, in fact - I was on a Sabena Airbus on the tarmac at Boston, Mass., when the pilot announced that the airline had not yet faxed through the cargo manifest from their European HQ, and therefore the airport authorities were holding up the flight. We sat on the tarmac for over two hours, and the pilot even announced over the PA system that he thought this was inexcusable on the part of his own airline! We arrived in Brussels four hours late, missed our connection to Bristol, and eventually arrived at Bristol Airport 8 hours later than scheduled, with all our homeward travel arrangements in chaos. The delay was entirely the airline's fault, but their only legal liability was to provide us with a meal voucher whilst we waited for four hours at Brussels Airport.
After much correspondence with the senior management of Sabena I eventually received some financial compensation for their failure, but they were obstructive every step of the way. A couple of years later Sabena went bust. I did not shed a tear - they deserved to go bust.
So now I don't fly anywhere - I detest being treated little better than cattle, I object to being compelled to enter into legal agreements that are binding upon only one party - the more powerful already - and I have moral objections at being forced to live under a system of law that decides on our behalf that 'right' is what ever the rich and powerful can get away with. No wonder so many ordinary people now take the view the 'right' is 'whatever we can get away with'.
The roots of this issue lie far back in history. Legal systems are not, and have never been, about securing justice for the little people, but about ensuring that the rich and powerful get their own way and can justify it on legal and (usually spurious) moral grounds - even if that sometimes means making small concessions to the little people to get their co-operation and compliance.
To see the truth of this you only have to look back through history to learn that all the concessions made to the little people have been obtained after much sacrifice and pain on their part, and only because they had managed to secure a negotiating position in which expedience was the least worst option for their opponents.
These days, getting justice for your cause usually depends upon how clever (and expensive) your lawyers are. The little people - the ordinary people who cannot afford clever, expensive lawyers - have little chance of obtaining justice through the courts. That might sound cynical, but it's what many people believe - and is how the legal system actually operates in the majority of cases. And when it's not about that, it rests on the subjective whims of judge and jury (although the former will obviously rely on reams of case-law to back up any decision - obscured by legal jargon and precedents that stretch far back into the mists of time and do not necessarily reflect the realities under which us ordinary people have to live nowadays).
And at the root of all legal determinations lies the interpretation of the law, which, being framed in words, is itself subject to judgements as to what those words mean or imply. And, as no one should be surprised, it's those with power and money who usually hold the key influence when it comes to deciding what their words should mean for the rest of us, and, if they've got clever and expensive lawyers, the chances are they'll get judges and juries to agree with them.
So, my best mate Nosher and me now restrict our exposure to such sharp practices as much as we can - and that means we don't fly anywhere. We
toil on our little allotment plots happy in the knowledge that we are not going to be ripped off by tour operators or airlines - although the taxes that we pay are already higher than they need be due to airlines not paying any fuel duty on the kerosene they use in their jet engines.
And, of course, we're being fashionably green.
More from overthegardenfence soon.

The Skeleton That Spoke

There are few families without a skeleton or two in their cupboards (or 'closets' to you American readers). Family skeletons are things most families keep quiet about, but here in the good old Dis-United Kingdom there is at least one case of a family skeleton that spoke, although the case was made even more strange by the fact that it was not their family skeleton and they couldn't understand a word it was trying to say to them. But down on the little allotment, Nosher and me knew exactly what was going on.
We were reminded of these events by a macabre story that appeared last week on the news: an eccentric man had been discovered living with a decayed skeleton, still fully clothed, lying in his living room on the sofa, the police estimating it must have lain there for at least ten years.
'That's nothing new!' remarked Nosher 'we've seen it all before, and stranger than that, I'll wager!'
And so we got to retelling the tale of Burly Basher and his strange companion on the little plot the other side of Nosher's from mine. This plot was occupied for a time by a very nice middle-class family composed of two parents and two children. This family were not the usual sort of middle-class 'let's pretend to be green' allotment-holders who insist on going home every evening, and who spend only the occasional hour or two at the weekend tending their plants. No, this little family lived and breathed their allotment and spent every minute they could on it.
In short, they were the kind of allotment holders we hard-bitten allotment veterans approve of. But the one thing that marked them out as slightly strange was the fact that, whereas the parents spoke impeccable middle-class English, the two children, a boy and a girl, would occasionaly, as if involuntarily, utter a word or two of strong Scottich brogue, a 'cannae' or 'you ken' amidst the polite middle-class English diction their parents were trying to instil in them.
The little plot they occupied had, many years before, been occupied by a big burly Scotsman nick-named 'Burly Basher' on account of his rough habits with a spade. Burly Basher was a mountain of a man, six foot six in his wellingtons, his tattered trousers held up by a piece of bailer twine, his broad shoulders covered by a threadbare jacket, topped by a large, rounded, ruddy face and a mess of tousled brown hair that gave him the appearance of a summer storm about to happen. This impression was assisted by his wild, active eyes that said 'leave me alone!' and enormous fisticuff hands covered in callouses and scars, which meant few people were tempted to engage him in conversation.
Still, Nosher and I tried to befriend Burly Basher, giving him left-over seed and passing on tips to better growing, to which he invariably replied 'I thank ye' before apruptly turning his back and striding away. He provided for himself by doing odd jobs in the village, and appeared to sleep in his little allotment shed.
One day a van appeared from the local Sofa Recycling Project and delivered a sofa to the door of Basher's shed, and the following day another van arrived, out of which two workmen climbed and proceeded to install solar panels on the roof of Basher's shed, followed by a TV aerial, and then a TV was handed to him at the shed door (no one had ever seen inside Basher's shed). From that night on the ghostly flicker of the TV shone through the cracks in the wood panelling of Basher's shed as the dusk fell every evening.
A few weeks later Nosher remarked to me that we hadn't seen Basher for some time, so that evening, in the gathering gloom, I crept up to Basher's shed. Not wishing to alarm him, I peered through a crack in the door. In the ghostly flickering light cast by the TV I could see not one figure sat at the sofa but two. I carefully retraced my steps and gave Nosher the news.
Reassured by the fact that Basher had a companion, we left well alone, and as weeks became months and the months turned into years we saw only occasional glimpses of Basher tending his vegetables. He was more taciturn than ever, his Scottish brogue being restricted to a few short phrases, uttered hurriedly as if he couldn't wait to end the conversation.
Then, one hot summer's afternoon, as brooding black storm clouds gathered overhead, the atmosphere so thick and heavy that normal conversation was almost impossible, I crept up to Basher's shed to see if he was all right. Through the crack in the door I could see the two figures sat on the sofa, illuminated by the flickering light of the TV. One of these figures was unmistakably Basher's, the other one looked strangely shrunken.
Feeling a mixture of curiosity and alarm, I crept around to the other side of the shed and found a crack in the wood to look through. From this vantage-point I could see Basher clearly, sat with one arm around his companion and holding hands with him or her. From the ragged appearance of this companion it was impossible to ascertain if it was male or female. Then, as my eyes tried to make out more detail, the scene was suddenly illuminated for an instant by a bright flash of lightning, and all was made horribly clear.
The hand Basher clasped was composed not of flesh and blood but merely bones held together by dried, twisted sinews. Even more macabre, the figure that he so intimately embraced had no head. What had been its head lay on the floor at its feet, and consisted of a grinning skull topped by a mass of red hair.
As I took in the full horror of this spectacle the first crash of thunder shook the air and rain began to fall. I retreated hurriedly to my own shed, making it just in time as the downpour began. Through my open shed door I continued to stare in horror at Basher's shed, wondering what strange malady of mind would induce a man to spend his life sat on a sofa embracing a corpse watching daytime television.
As the storm grew more intense the wind got up, the rain lashing the ground, the bright flashes of lightning being accompanied almost instantaneously by great, rolling, peals of thunder that made the ground shake. Then, as if by Act of God, a great lightning bolt struck Basher's shed, which distintegrated in a great explosion of flame and smoke. As the lashing rain dampened the flames and swept away the smoke I could just make out a great charred figure staggering around in the smouldering wreckage of Basher's shed. Nosher and I rushed over and led a bemused and rambling Basher away to the safety of Nosher's shed. When the police arrived they took him away, and a forensic team searched through the blackened remains of his shed.
Later we heard on the radio news that Basher was an escaped convict from up north, and his companion had been his cellmate, also a Scot, who had escaped with him. The impediments to their relationship in prison had induced them to break out and set up life in our little allotment. How Basher's companion came to die was never discovered, but Basher remained true to him in death as in life.
Shortly afterwards the Allotment Committee bulldozed Basher's old plot of land, and erected a new shed on it, on slightly higher ground. A year or two later, when the story was completely forgotten, a nice young middle-class family took over the little plot, their two young children helping out whenever they were not in school. By then no one on the allotment spoke of Burly Basher and the macabre events surrounding him, so the children happily played over that same ground in blissful ignorance of the horrors that had once unfolded on that very spot. They particularly enjoyed eating the cabbages that they grew on the site where Basher's shed once stood, and where his companion's body had slowly decayed, leaking its contents into the ground beneath.
As the children grew older the perfect middle-class English their parents instilled in them became punctuated by little, abrupt, phrases of broad Scottish brogue 'ye dinnae ken' or 'I cannae that', their faces grimacing as if having to fight back the urge to say more. Still, to our great shame, Nosher and I divulged nothing. When, after a couple of years, the parents decided that the amount of time they were spending at the speech therapist with their children made continuing cultivation at the allotment impractical, we ere all relieved to see them leave for the last time. We later heard that their children had made a complete recovery.
Thus ended one of the strangest things ever to happen on our little allotment, and to this day both Nosher and myself wished we had told the parents not to take over Basher's little plot, which even now stands empty and uncultivated, a wild and unruly monument to a wild and unruly man whose love and loyalty hid a dark secret that took him beyond the grave.
More from overthegardenfence soon.

Sharia Law and Christianity 'Incompatible'

The furore over the remarks made by the Archbishop of Canterbury that Sharia Law is now 'inevitible' in the UK continues, with the Bishop of Rochester proclaiming the Sharia Law and Christianity are 'incompatible'.

That may well be the case, but down on our little allotment Nosher and me avoid being bombarded by too much media exposure through the simple expedient of having one old radio tuned permanently to BBC Radio 4, and then it is used only sparingly.

However, as we sat on our old deckchairs this past afternoon, in front of our little allotment sheds, basking in a gloriously warm February sun (global warming or not, it was lovely!), a few slurps of Nosher's excellent parsnip wine was enough to set the debate off.

'I heard some Islamic expert claim that Sharia Law was perfect and had kept peace and harmony in the world for 1,400 years' announced Nosher. He looked approvingly at the piece of ground he had double-dug that morning.

'Some people appear to have a desparate need to garnish reality with wishful thinking' I observed, taking another sip of parsnip wine.

'Well, if it was so perfect, why did violence and brutality break out between different groups of Muslims immediately following the death of the Prophet Mohammed?' Nosher muttered 'and they've been at it on and off ever since' this an aside uttered in an almost conspiratorial voice.

'It seems to me that the greater the claims of perfection, the greater the ardour of the believers, the greater is the likelihood they will fall out with everyone else when others don't appear to be taking them seriously enough' I said. 'After all, if you believe your god is the one true god and all others are the inventions of evil infidels, it's bound to colour your attitude towards other people.'

'Mind you' said Nosher 'the Christians have been just as bad - look at the Crusades, the Wars of Religion, and the Inquisition. Why are some people so easily persuaded to become brutal oppressors - and why do millions more follow them and make excuses for them? It's bizarre.'

Now Nosher and I are not unique in having no religious beliefs at all - but then neither do we think it's worth the bother denying the possibility of God's Existence. We take the view that if there is a God, whatever we choose to believe will make not the slightest difference. We are what we are - we try to lead good lives tending our vegetables, we're nice to other people, and we abhor violence and intolerance and all sorts of nastiness.

But what we both object to is religous bigots telling us what we should believe, and casting aspersions upon our moral probity simply on the grounds that we won't join them in their bigotry. In our view these are misguided, disturbing people who are best treated as such. Why any decent person would wish to associate with such people or their views is a mystery to both Nosher and me.

Nonetheless, if the hard-liners took over in either Christianity or Islam and then exerted their influence over the good old Dis-United Kingdom we'd be classified as unbelievers and treated as the spawn of the Devil's loins. And then it would not take much for the persecution, torture and executions to begin again. We're only ever a generation away (at most) from returning to the most appalling systematic brutality carried out in God's Name.

So whilst Nosher and I are very happy to share the world with peaceful and tolerant Christians and Muslims (which most of them are, incidentally - for the time being, anyway) we're not too impressed by the fact that they both retain in their respective Holy Scriptures all sorts of injuctions against unbelievers as 'evil' and deserving of God's Wrath. This is just a convenient facility awaiting the emergence of some charismatic but psychopathic leader to come along and inspire in the faithful a return to the old ways of intolerant supremacist religion. Organised religion is all about fear, and greed, and power, and violence, however cleverly it is disguised. Personal faith may be about love (that's the best sort, anyway) but that too can be distorted into something twisted and barbaric.

Despite all the religious injunctions against us, Nosher and I don't consider ourselves to be 'evil', and we're content to await God's Judgement at the Pearly Gates when the time comes - if either exist. In the meantime, we think that whoever takes upon themselves the role of condemning us for our stance down here on Earth is playing God and should know better.

As for Sharia Law being 'incompatible' with Christianity, as the Bishop of Rochester claims - well, neither Nosher nor I wish to see a system of law in the UK that chops of the hands of thieves, stones women to death, and executes blasphemers. It's utterly barbaric and repulsive. How any decent person can possibly condone such practices is beyond both of us.

But it's worth reminding ourselves that not too long ago Christians were doing much the same sort of thing, and we should not delude ourselves that there are not some hard-line Christians who would like to return to that level of brutality. Believe me, they're out there somewhere, drooling with feverish anticipation into their Bibles whilst they chop up the kindling for burning heretics at the stake.

Apparently some people have yet to learn that using fear and brutality as instruments of religious government solve nothing - but that appears to be a piece of wisdom that is beyond many who champion the cause of extremism in any religion, whether it be Christianity or Islam. And there are millions more who consider themselves peaceful devout believers who turn a blind eye to the undercurrent of extremism in their own religion, be it Christianity or Islam.

That's an issue that any religion claiming to be peaceful should take very seriously, and be prepared to enter into open debate about what could be done to expose and disarm the extremists. Until organised religions, however perfect they may think themselves to be, are prepared to give up the moral narcissism they so love to indulge in, and take a very good look at their own failings, we will never see the end of religious extremism.

Meanwhile, down on our little allotment, Nosher and me will continue to till the soil peacefully, and drink parsnip wine, and watch the proceedings from afar.

More from overthegardenfence soon.

Sharia Law Will Come To UK - Archbishop

Here in the good old Dis-United Kingdom, the Church of England's top cleric, Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams, has announced that he believes some form of Islamic Sharia Law is now inevitable in Britain, thus demonstrating that bushy eyebrows are no guarantor of wisdom or prescience.

Down on our little allotment, my best mate Nosher assured me that nothing under the sun was new.

'We've been through all this before' he said 'do you remember the time Bushy decided to give all the plants the right to make their own laws?'

Now, Bushy (so-called on account of his bushy eyebrows) used to have the plot the other side of mine from Nosher's. Bushy was a fervent, excitable man, whose main characteristic (in addition to his bushy eyebrows) was a tendency for his bright eyes to dart back and forth as he spoke in feverish terms of his Great Plan.

Bushy started off as a good allotment holder - he spoke to his plants, and listened to what they said to him. But he always seemed a little other-worldly, as if his main attention was focused elsewhere. As indeed it was. His first act upon taking over his little plot was to grant all his vegetables the right to make their own laws, provided they made an effort to integrate with one another. And so they did, vegetables being inherently peaceful plants.

'This will end in tears' said Nosher, as Bushy danced from one foot to the other in uncontrollable excitement, his hands clasped as if in prayer. 'You're giving yourself a lot of extra work keeping things manageable' Nosher continued 'and soon the weeds will be demanding equal rights to make their own laws. Then anarchy will break out, you mark my words!'

And thus is came to pass, yeah verily. The thistles and nettles did indeed move into Bushy's little plot, with vociferous demands that they should make their own laws. And these laws included the right to smother all vegetables that didn't co-operate with them and submit to Thistle Law or Nettle Law. Soon Bushy's plot was the scene of a vicious war between the nettles and the thistles. Caught in the middle were the peaceful vegetables who were either beaten into submission or smothered to death.

The final collapse came suddenly. Late one night, after an evening on Nosher's excellent parsnip wine, we heard a strange moaning sound coming from Bushy's little plot. In the moonlight we could just make out the silhouette of Bushy, down on his knees among the encircling thistles and nettles, hugging his one last remaining, vegetable, a scraggy Brussels sprout plant. His moans grew more plaintiff as the thistles and nettles closed in around him.

After he had been taken off to the asylum, Nosher and I sat for a while on our old deckchairs by our little allotment sheds in the moonlight, sipping parsnip wine.

'It just goes to show' Nosher remarked 'that you should treat all vegetables as being equal under the sun - and not allow any special pleading of any sort, otherwise the bullies are bound to move in and make everyone's life a misery. Vegetable law on its own is not good enough - there has to be someone or something in charge to keep the bullies under control'.

On hearing this the thistles and nettles now rampaging on Bushy's little plot nearby rustled their leaves alarmingly and advanced towards us. We retreated into Nosher's little shed to await daylight and rescue.

The next day the Allotment Committee wisely bulldozed Bushy's little plot and brought the situation under control.

More from overthegardenfence soon.

Politicians Lose Privileges Scandal

Here at overthegardenfence few issues offer more pleasure than witnessing politicians squabbling over the protection of their privileges, which extend from fleecing the taxpayer to immunity from many of the laws they impose upon the rest of us.
The other afternoon, down at the allotment, Nosher and me were enjoying a glass of his excellent parsnip wine whilst sitting in our deckchairs (salvaged from the Titanic) outside our little allotment sheds. It had been an uncharacteristically warm, sunny February day, and as the sun drifted towards the horizon our conversation drifted onto politics.
'Well' murmured Nosher, between slurps of parsnip wine 'this past fortnight has seen one MP expelled from the House for giving his son taxpayers' money for doing nothing, and another complaining that the security services have been bugging him illegally. Where will it all end?'
'Perhaps one day all politicians will come to understand that "serving the people" is not a euphemism for "let's have a good time at the country's expense" I replied, the parsnip wine giving me a dash of bravado usually reserved for Special Forces parsnips.
As is so often the case, human history appears to mimic events that happen down on our little allotment. Not long ago, one of our fellow allotment holders, Grubby, had been hauled before the Allotment Committee after word got around that he had conspired to knobble the entry for the annual Flower and Produce Show submitted by members of nearby Easter Compton Allotment Association. He had apparently been overheard talking to one of his marrows on the subject. At the same time, another allotment holder, Dodger, had been discovered distributing the proceeds of his allotment to his family without requiring any work from them. When that scourge of allotment holders, the Daily Snail, made a big fuss about it, a special meeting of the Allotment Committee was called.
Our Allotment Committee meets on a piece of land adjacent to our plots called the Commons, and, wishing to do things properly, we even have our own Speaker, nicknamed Micheal Martin, famous only for sending his wife by taxi to Harrods Food Hall every afternoon for his favourite snack, Savoury Pot Noodle, a round trip of some 200 miles, and all at the taxpayers' expense.
Proceedings were opened by a savage attack upon the way that Gordon The Moron was running things, from Dave 'The People's Toff', who is frontrunner to replace Gordon at the next election.
'If the dignity and respect this House deserves is to be maintained, these abuses of privilege must be stamped out!' he fulminated, no one believing a word that he said.
'I didn't do anything wrong' protested Dodger 'It's an established privilege that an allotment holder can give the benefits of his position to members of his own family without any accountability whatsoever...' The end of his contribution was drowned out by loud cheering from everyone present. Then Grubby got up to speak.
'I cannot protest forcefully enough' he began 'what is the world coming to when an allotment holder cannot talk to his own vegetables without someone listening in?! In any case, my conversation was misinterpreted - I merely told my favourite marrow that we'd wipe out the competition from Easter Compton at this year's show. I never specifically mentioned the word "knobble"!'
Since Grubby inhabits a little plot down at the soggy end of the allotment, which gets less sunlight than the rest of us, any aspirations to winning any produce show without resort to nefarious tactics seemed highly improbable, but as the public reputation of our little allotment was at stake, and the only evidence against Grubby was an anonymous tip-off, the Committee voted unanimously to clear him. Dodger's predicament was an altogether different matter. Dave 'The People's Toff' got to his feet again.
'If we don't give a clear indication that honourable allotment holders are behaving honourably, we will lose the respect of the public!' he thundered. Again, not a single person believed him. We got no respect from the public as it was, any less would make no difference at all. Then Nosher got up to speak. The entire House fell silent. Nosher didn't address the House very often, but when he did it was usually because he'd been on his parsnip wine, so at least he gave entertaining performances.
'My honourable friends' he began, obviously knowing that a little flattery works wonders on such occasions 'We should not be cowed by anything Dave says - the fact is, it is an established tradition in this House for members to shower their families with benefits from their allotments, with no accountability to the vegetables whatever. If we, the honourable allotment holders, were not here to keep order, water the vegetables and tend to their every need, well, anarchy would reign unapposed! Weeds would take over our allotments, and before long some rapacious tyrant would move in and take control, fleecing all the vegetables purely for his own benefit. No, these vegetables need us to rule over them, and in return all we ask is that we fleece them only slightly less than the rapacious tyrant...I just mentioned. Every right-thinking vegetable should think this a good deal, so let's not have any more pandering to scaremongering in the gutter press, and continue to run our allotment with no sense of accountability whatever!' Blimey, Nosher's been on the parsnip wine again - he never talks like that normally.
As Nosher sat down, the assembly dissolved into uproar, all of us egging him on the write a missive to the Daily Snail, with only a few murmers of dissent from Dave 'The People's Toff' and his supporters in the blue corner.
Over in the red corner Gordon The Moron beamed with delight. For once he had chosen the winning side.
'Mr Speaker' he said, summoning every ounce of gravitas he could muster 'I suggest that we find both honourable members exonerated'. A chorus of cheers erupted from the House.
Mr Martin put down his Pot Noodle and wiped his lips clean. 'If that is the wish of the House, I will record the matter as now being closed' he said, before greedily resuming his Pot Noodle.
Now, many months later, as Nosher and I sipped our parsnip wine and watched the sun set slowly behind the willow trees, we compared these events with the current scandals concerning MPs expenses and privileges.
'Looks like this is an instance where real life does not exactly mirror life on the allotment' commented Nosher 'because we got away with it'.
'Yep, we only have to deal with vegetables and the Daily Snail' I replied, 'whereas Members of Parliament have to deal with real constituents and the Daily Mail.'
Still, as they say in allotment circles, it takes more than a dead badger to crush one's parsnips.
More from overthegardenfence soon.

Democracy in the USA

A big day in the Primaries, and as the campaigns grind on America tells the rest of the world this is how democracy works.
Here at overthegardenfence we keep a keen eye on politics, and Nosher and me are constantly amazed at how life in the big world mirrors what goes on in our little allotment world.
We have system of vegocracy, whereby the vegetables get to vote for the President of the Allotment Association. Well, they think they do, but in reality the outcome is decided by the manipulation of greed and fear, as in most democracies.
Our allotment is separeted from a much bigger one by a stream called the Great Piddle, and this distant allotment, the United States of Allotments, has a vegocratic system not unlike that of our transatlantic cousins. the US.
The present incumbent as President, whom we nickname George W. Bush, is famous for his comment 'Is our vegetables learning?', but he can't stand again as he's already served two terms as President. So the newcomers are queuing up to take his place. The hottest protential candidate so far, nicknamed Hillary, has a head start because her husband is a previous President, his fame and notoriety assured by being caught one day in the Great White Allotment Shed with his trousers down fondling his wedding vegetables.
On both sides of the Great Piddle vegocracy has one common characteristic: the politicians (that is, the allotment holders) promise their vegetables to be their servants, and then bury them in manure - to wit, bullshit. But whereas the vegetables in the United States of Allotments still retain some vestigial hope in this process, most of the vegetables on our little allotment on this side of the Great Piddle are beset with apathy and cynicism about vegocracy.
And that's just how Nosher and me like things to be. In our view, an apathetic vegetable is a compliant vegetable. The current President of our Allotment Association, nicknamed Gordon 'The Moron' Brown, has showered the vegetables with regulations about standardised growing rates and safety regulations (such as 'no vegetable shall steal another vegetable's water'), but, of course, none of these regulations apply to us allotment holders - we can do exactly as we please. But it's important to convince the vegetables that they are getting a good deal.
Nosher has painted on his shed the slogan: 'All vegetables are equally equal - but your allotment holder can do exactly as he pleases', whereas on my shed I've painted 'Your allotment holder is here to serve you - and you must obey him'. Our vegetables may look upon this as a cynical abuse of power, but we don't give a hoot so long as they keep growing.
Still, the similarities between the little world of allotments and politics in the real world throw up some interesting comparisons, and Nosher and I will be watching the Primaries with interest - we might even learn a trick or two we could use to good advantage when our allotment elections come around again.
More from overthegardenfence soon.

Scientology and Vegetables: the Facts

Vegetables are vegetables, whatever it may say on the seed-packet. At last least that's what my best mate Nosher and me thought when we saw his new packet of carrot seeds especially imported from the US. Down at the allotment we'll try anything once, so a packet of seeds claiming to give us the biggest carrots we'd ever seen seemed worth a try.

At first all went well. Being more cautious than Nosher, I refused his kind offer to share the seeds with me, and he sowed them all on his plot. Good move on my part, as it turned out. Soon the green carrot heads were veritably leaping out of the soil, shaking their tops around and proclaiming to all the other vegetables how special they were.

Now, as every gardener will tell you, it's important to talk to your plants. Nosher and me, well, we go further and listen to what they say in return. And not long after the first carrot produced a bright orange crown above ground we heard whisperings of a disturbing nature. Nosher's turnips told him that the carrots were claiming that they were not carrots at all, but special alien vegetables called 'Betans', who held the secret of success for all vegetables, which could be bought at a price from them. But when Nosher went over to his carrot corner all the carrots immediately went quiet and wouldn't tell him anything. Nonetheless, the disturbing rumours persisted. Then, one day, the proverbial hit the fan.

A particular carrot, later named as Tomc Ruse, who had recently appeared in a BBC TV Gardener's World programme and therefore thought himself a cut above the others, had given an interview to the Allotment Weekly newsletter, claiming that his religion, Pieontology, was a 'blast', and that it good cure all known ailments in vegetables, including misbehaving marrows and sugar-beet with addiction problems.

As soon as that particular issue of Allotment Weekly hit the news-stands all Hell broke loose. I could hear the vegetables on Noshers allotment patch murmuring amongst themselves even from fifty yards away. The Nosher came to me and spilled the beans. 'The carrots have become very obstreperous', he said, 'they claim the article sheds an unfavourable light on their religion, and unless the article is withdrawn and a disclaimer issued, they say that no carrots will appear at any produce shows or Harvest Festivals, in fact they're threatening to infect the parsnips with their ideas now. This is terrible! What shall I do?'

In the world of allotment gardening, retribution is swift for those vegetables who get ideas above their station. We immediately pulled all the carrots and dumped them on the compost heap, then, after a heavy evening on the grog, gave them the benefit of our combined urinary excretions one dark night as the local church bells struck midnight. The carrots got the message, and the remaining vegetables returned to their happy state of compliance that existed prior to the arrival of the Pieontologist carrots.

So, you see, we in the allotment world are no strangers to the sort of thing now happening in the human world. History repeats itself, but not always in the way that we humans night imagine.

The Church of Scientology, has, it appears, behaved true to form by threatening law-suits against anyone publishing an interview given by one Tom Cruise in which he is reported to have said that scientology was a 'blast', and that the Church had the expertise to cure crime and drug addiction and bring peace and harmony to the world.

Since the means of acheiving this outcome appears to involve intimidation and bullying in the form of lawsuits against anyone they don't like, with the obvious implications of a cavalier attitude towards freedom of speech, the ordinary public can perhaps be forgiven for thinking that these people are arrogant, conceited, and insecure, and adopt bullyboy tactics as soon as their conceits and self-deceits are threatened in any way.

Here at overthegardenfence we couldn't possibly comment on such views, but nonetheless we wish all campaigners against bullying and intimidation every success. It's bad enough having to put up with such things going on down at the allotment - why should we have to put up with them in the human world as well?

More from overthegardenfence soon.

Death-Threats for Bishop of Rochester after 'No-Go Areas' Remark

Here at overthegardenfence we like to keep our pulse on the tenor of public debate.
So down at the allotments yesterday afternoon my mate Nosher and me were discussing the latest spat between the Bishop of Rochester and, er, nobody, whilst dangling our turnips and mangel-wurzels respectively over one another's compost heaps.
A week ago, the Sunday Telegraph (a once highly-esteemed journal now reduced to publicising the cleavage and culinary feats of one Nigella Lawson, whose reported sayings include, in paraphrase, 'I will not allow my children to starve, but they must grow their own vegetables') announced that the Bishop of Rochester feared there were now no-go areas marked by ethnic divisions in the Dis-United Kingdom.
At the time the entire political and media class were united in apathy in response to this comment, apart from a few paltry denials from minor members of Gordon 'The Moron' Brown's government, and several cases of apoplexy amongst readers of the Observer and the following Monday's Guardian.
Then, yesterday, all Hell broke loose on the weed-strewn vegetable patch that is now the Dis-United Kingdom. The Sunday Telegraph had more to reveal - and not just about Nigella.
It transpired that the said Bishop had received several death-threats from some idiot members of some ethnic minority or other (as yet unidentified) thus confirming the truth of the Bishop's sentiments.
This affront to freedom of speech from ethnic extremists produced (predictably) a deafening silence from both Gordon 'The Moron' Brown and Dave 'The People's Toff' Cameron and their respective cohorts.
The said Bishop is now receiving round-the-clock police protection, but how long will it be before some fascist PC commissar at the Home Office decides that outspoken people who voice well-grounded fears about the progressive paring down of our freedoms by ethnic extremists do not merit any protection at all against said extremists? That day is not too far away, at least that's the consensus amongst Nosher and me and all our vegetables down at the allotments.
In our view, the wider world has a lot to learn from traditional allotment practices. Nosher and I grow turnips and mangel-wurzels respectively, each an expression of our diverse cultural practices. In order to keep these vegetables where they should be, we have placed a little wicker fence between our plots.
Nonetheless, during our daily chats over the fence, we are in the habit of dangling a turnip and a mangel-wurzel over each other's side of the fence, so that they can become accustomed to one-another's cultural beliefs and practices, and, upon their return to their own side, educate their fellows accordingly. As a result, there have been no known outbreaks of intolerance, hostility, or violence between turnips and mangel-wurzels for centuries.
Even when a stray turnip or mangel-wurzel appears on the wrong side of the little wicker fence, he (or she) is treated with courtesy and respect, and merely returned to the rightful cultivator at harvest-time. In principle, neither turnips nor mangel-wurzels have any objection to sharing their plots with other kinds of vegetable, and it is only through shared leisure interests that they tend to congregate on the same patch of ground. Thus it should be in the wider world. But, alas, this is not the case.
Nowadays, in the Dis-United Kingdom, anyone who is a member of an officially recognised ethnic minority is permitted to say almost anything they like about the host community (including broadcast messages denouncing them as infidels) whereas members of the host community are, in practice, inhibited from speaking out for fear of reprisals.
Thus is the truth smothered by the nonsense of 'multicultural' 'political correctness'.
In response, down at the allotments Nosher and me have decided to announce that we are, henceforth, to be recognised as official ethnic minorities, on account of our cultural preference for turnips and mangel-wurzels respectively, and anyone who says anything to offend our cultural sensitivities will receive an appropriate response. A turnip or mangel-wurzel (respectively) will be sent post-haste to the offender to remedy the situation.
More from overthegardenfence soon.

UK Govt. Announces Crime Rate Down - So Why Are Our Prisons More Overcrowded Than Ever?

Yes, it's official.
The latest Home Office crime figures show that overall crime is down, although they do have the honesty to admit that violent crime is still rising.
At the same time prison overcrowding has reached such extremes that more and more inmates are being released early, because otherwise there'd be standing room only (which would go against their human rights, of course).
Do our politicians think we're all cretins?
A rising prison population (against the backdrop of a rapidly increasing use of community sentences) cannot possibly be reconciled with claims that the crime rate is falling. Even allowing for the fact that those convicted of violent crimes are likely to get longer sentences than your average shoplifter, this does not account for the disparity.
The only possible rational conclusion is that the crime figures have been fiddled in some way.
In an age when democratic politicians and their henchmen have taken upon themselves the role of deciding what the 'truth' should be for the rest of us, this should come as no surprise.
After ten years of Blair and Campbell spinning themselves into the never-never land of made-up reality, it is entirely predictable that Blair's long-time sidekick Gordon Brown should be entirely at ease with running government in the same disreputable manner.
Are we fooled? Not a bit of it!
Would Dave 'The People's Toff' Cameron manage things any differently?
Somehow I doubt it, but we will have to wait until after the next general election to find out. If Brown wins we might as well all jump into the North Sea and be done with it.
Meanwhile, those of us who still retain any sense of dignity and self-respect try to ignore the precipitious decline into barbarity that now characterises our country, as we look in disbelief at the impaired mental abilities of those people who think they're running the place. Conceit and self-deceit have never sat more happily on the shoulders of self-interest.
More from overthegardenfence soon.