If Star Wars was set in West London

A long time ago in a Galaxy just off the Chiswick roundabout...


INTERIOR OF REBEL BLOCKADE RUNNER - CORRIDOR

The evil Darth Vader stands amid the broken and twisted bodies of his foes. He grabs a wounded Rebel Officer by the neck as an Imperial Officer rushes up to the Dark Lord.

IMPERIAL OFFICER : "The Death Star plans are not in the main computer."

Vader squeezes the neck of the Rebel Officer, who struggles in vain.

VADER : "Where are those transmissions you intercepted? "

Vader lifts the Rebel off his feet by his throat.

VADER : "What have you done with those plans? "

REBEL OFFICER : "We intercepted no transmissions. Aaah....This is a consular ship. We're on a diplomatic mission. "

VADER : " If this is a consular ship...where is the Ambassador? "

The Rebel refuses to speak but eventually cries out as the Dark Lord begins to squeeze the officer's throat, creating a gruesome snapping and choking, until the soldier goes limp. Vader tosses the dead soldier against the wall and turns to his troops.

VADER : "Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans and bring me the Ambassador. I want her alive! "

The stormtroopers scurry into the subhallways.

VADER : "And when you've found them, I know a really good Polish bloke you can call - get him in to re-plaster and re-decorate. He's very cheap and does a great job, much quicker and better than those decorators from the Alderbran System we used on the Death Star. Actually, while you are at it, ask him if his mate Stanislaw - Stan they call him - is free to do a bit of plumbing too. This ship is in a great location, but I really think the resale value would go up significantly if there was another toilet, and if that bathroom on Deck Three had a walk-in shower unit instead of a sunken bath - they are sooo 1980's now"

The commander nods, opens his mobile phone and starts to dial a Hammersmith number..

Welsh Hotel Plumbing

Welsh Hotel Plumbing leaves a little to be desired.

Unless the toilet overflow emptying straight into the bath is normal.....?

Citibank Branch in Delhi

I can't quite put my finger on why, but this is still just plain wrong. And in so many ways...

"Save The Planet" signs in Hotels

Everyone who travels for business or pleasure will be familiar with the gratingly insincere "we want to save the planet so please don't ask us to spend money on washing your towels every day" signs in hotel bathrooms.

However this one from a Las Vegas Hotel I found particularly crass.

Maybe someone should point out to them that the reason Nevada and the South West United States are experiencing extreme drought conditions is because the region where these hotels have been built is actually a f--king desert, and has been for the last several thousand years.

So to experience "extreme drought conditions" should hardly be a great surprise, should it...

BBC Reporter misses a trick

Listing the prospective candidates for the vacant England manager's job, the BBC reporters say this about Italian Marcello Lippi

Lippi masterminded Italy's World Cup win in 2006 and has been a towering presence in Italian club football with Juventus.

But unlike Capello, the 59-year-old says that the language barrier would be a problem.

He says: "I love the Premier League but I don't speak English.

"Considering the way I see and experience football this is a big handicap, because a coach above all guides players and my primary concern is the squad."

Sounds like his English is pretty good to me.....

British Culture

Yet again an international trip brings me a free newspaper, which bangs on about the tidal wave of immigrants flooding the country.

This time its the dilution of British cuture they are concerned about.

Yes, all those old fashioned values such as not being afraid of hard work, having respect for ones family, being a regular church goer, being polite, well spoken and using good grammar, and having a couple too many beers and then driving home - are all being exhibited by immigrants all over the UK right now in a way not seen in England since the halcyon days of the 1950's. In fact many towns and villages have all the appearance of an episode of "Heartbeat" with Slavic cheekbones and a large amount of freshly-plastered walls in every scene...

Good job the native Brits have adopted loutish, slovenley alcopop-fuelled, drunken swearword-laden ranting whilst sitting comatose in front of banal reality TV game shows so enthusiastically - or there's be no counterbalance to keep British Culture firmly where it belongs...

Rising Obseity levels in Britain

Alongside Global Warming giving us all longer drier summers (and floods) and a tidal wave of hard-working, good looking contentious religious-observing East European immigrants, Britain is also "suffering" from a real problem - rising obesity.

However the general conclusion seems not to be that people are getting fatter because they are eating more (how crazy an idea is that????), but that our 20th Century Western lifestyle is fundamentally inimical to maintaining healthy fitness and body-weight levels. And for the health of the nation, things need to change and we all need to live a different lifestyle.

Or, put simply, people aren't working in fields or factories all day, so they need to go to the gym regularly instead.

Now, I'm a member of my local gym, and its very nice. Modern machines, lots of personal trainers on hand to advise, it has a nice bar and restaurant attached, lots of flat-screen TVs that you can watch whilst cycling or jogging on a treadmill. But looking around, it seems to be failing in its mission to help Britain not become a nation of fatties - because everyone in it looks to be slim, fit and healthy !

So, despite all the ingredients being there, something seems to be not working, as fat people aren't going to the gym. I've been giving it some thought, and as coercion and threats don't seem to work, a more customer-centric approach might be worth trying.

How about for starters, moving the bar and restaurant INSIDE the gym itself? Clearly fat people like food and drink, so making it a lot more convenient for them to get hold of whilst they are there would make spending time the gym more appealing.

And the exercise bikes and treadmills could be moved aside and replaced by the front seats of cars, as again obese people are more likely to take a car to the shops rather than cycle or walk - its all about making it more appealing to the fatties.

Immigration in the UK and its effect on schools

Two apparently contradictory facts:

1. Most of the immigrants to the UK are harder working, more contientous and more motivated by success than the indigenous population.

2. Standards in UK schools are slipping under the weight of a landslide of immigrants.

OK - so partly this could just be me reading the Guardian one day, and the Mail the next. But it does seem inconsistent that the type of people who would up sticks and relocate their entire family half way across Europe - or the world - and be prepared to work all the hours in the day, all for the chance of a better life would then sit idly by as their kids throw away this potential life-changing advantage by skiving off lessons and not doing their homework.

So, whats causing the decline in school standards?

Maybe its just that there are increasing numbers of children with foreign names that don't translate and simply sound so funny in English that today's teachers never actually get to the end of each reading of the register without the entire class dissolving into fits of hysterical sniggering and outright laughter?

England vs Australia, Rugby World Cup

As someone who has absolutely no interest in rugby, I was surprised to even find out the England were playing Australia this weekend.

But disappointed to see that England won.

Don;t get me wrong, I usually support my national team in all sports.

However England losing at rugby* means loads of posh blokes who went to public schools all get very upset and disappointed, and so on balance I feel whenever England lose at rugby - especially to Australia - it is usually "A Good Thing".


(* Union)

Crap Weather in Britain

Tornadoes have caused widespread damage to homes and businesses across the UK as the country experiences a spate of freak weather.

They struck Hampshire, Bedfordshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.

A tree came down near the Bucksford pub in Bucks Hill while in Trafford Drive, around 20 homes were damaged, a Warwickshire Police spokeswoman said.

Beryl Warburton, 79, a lollipop lady who lives on Trafford Drive, said the storm was "frightening" when it struck at about 6.15am.

She said: "Some of the houses have had their roofs taken off completely, some have lost parts of their roofs. One of them has got holes up there and water in their bedroom.

"One of my neighbours, their trampoline was blown over the garden fence and in to the council garages opposite."

I know its the job of news reporters to hype things up a little....

But frankly, it can;t have been all that bad if the best they could drag up was a 79 year old lollipop lady who was prepared to go on record as saying that it was "frightening".....?