23.03.2009 - 2:11 p.m.

i'm just one of many people who feels like the government doesn't listen or care to us, mr brooker who should have a taller soapbox than he has summed it up nicely here, i can't do better than that so i'll not try. Lord Myner was on tele last week as they showed his grilling at the hands of a select committee over the RBS boss pension fuckup, it went sort of like this

Head of Committee (HC) - so you had absolutely no idea that he was getting an obscene pension
Lord Myner (LM) - i had no idea at all
HC - but you were present at the meetings
LM - no, this was decided by the board before i arrived
HC - you are, are you not, the governments representative for business
LM - i am
HC - and you have worked in the city all your life
LM - most of it, yes
HC - and yet you had no idea
LM - did you just call me a git
HC - i did not, but since you've brought it up, did it not appear to you that this pension was excessive
LM - as you've already said, i've worked in the city for a long time, no it was not excessive, however now that someone has told me it is excessive, i now believe it is excessive
HC - would it be fair to say that you were 'asleep at the wheel' in your role as business minister type lord person who oversees these things
LM - that would not be fair, i have a driver
HC - alright then, were you more interested in the lunches at these meetings than what was discussed
LM - the lunches were very nice
HC - would you say that there is a culture of big bonuses and large pensions in the City, just because they are given to board members by other board members, it all seems very cosy
LM - well we can't have little people deciding on the board's benefits can we, they wouldn't understand our needs
HC - you are just a slack old man aren't you, biding away your time until your own, large, largely taxpayer funded pension kicks in and you can spend the rest of your life at your club
LM - we all have a pension to look forward to
HC - not everyone you partially sighted fool, no doubt the stenographic type person writing these notes is barely able to save enough each month for a pension, and no-one outside of the civil service does final salary pensions any more
LM - do they not, i didn't know that
HC - of course you didn't know that, you choose not to know things, life is simpler when you only have be at a meeting on time rather than actually wield some responsibility at the meeting
LM - well i can't be expected to remember everything i hear, i'd have a head the size of bentley
HC - do you not get a government stipend for clerical staff
LM - i don't know, is that the extra sixteen thousand pounds a year that appears on my lords expenses statement
HC - that would be it
LM - i did not know that was for clerical staff, i've been using it to pay my golf membership
HC - this is hardly surprising
LM - i think this is most unfair, i work as hard as any other member of the lords
HC - this much is evident
LM - i think there are plenty of other people who are also responsible for the current financial state, why aren't you telling them off too
HC - we'll get round to that in time, however this committee has been set up to find out why you were so shit at your job that an equally shit director has not only crashed his bank but also walked off with a pension he can't carry without a low-loader and all because you were so secure in your board-of-director lordy bubble, impervious to the realities of the economic climate, that you didn't want to put your hand up in case a nasty man told you off for interrupting him, you should have voiced an objection to this pay-off when you knew, but you chose not to because god-forbid anyone in government should show some back-bone and do the right thing
LM - a nasty man is telling me off now, and i did do the right thing for the situation at the time, i said nothing, in the context of those meetings and those people, the right thing was for me not to say anything, who am i to rock the boat, i might been seem as some kind of trouble-maker and that might jeopardise any future directorships i might be offered.

Poor ol caitlin moron moran, in the wake of the myerson 'revelations' and the starting handle being firmly cranked on yet another 'horseless carriage' bandwagon, i fully expect more headlines on this topic and more journalists and freeloaders suddenly spill their My Skunk Hell stories in the media.

So she discovered a drug and overdid it, so fuggin what, is that the best you can come up with caitlin, how about you exercise some control over your life, there's nothing exceptional between you and any other poor sap who's spent a life pouring alcohol down their throats, but playing yourself up as a helpless victim of the evil herb, what you need is a damn good slapping. In fact i used to work with an alcoholic who never missed a days work, he may have rolled into work at 7am with pisshole eyes and reeking of the 2ltrs of cider he'd drank at 3am to help him get back to sleep but he wasn't a victim he just got on with it.

i've spent about eighteen years smoking herbage and certainly the last ten years has all been on skunk, not once have i lowered my standards of living to sleeping in a septic tank, i successfully passed an HND (with honours) having smoked at every available opportunity all through the final year, does this make me some kind of hero ? absolutely not, but it's very clear where the dividing line lies between doing something because it's nice and totally throwing all your standards down the drain. What this looks like to me is that caitlin would happily sleep in a septic tank anyway and is just looking for someone to blame because she did (alright a waspy attic but the analogy stands) if you can't tell the difference between a waspy attic and a comfy place, who needs to re-evaluate their life here ?

While this next bit might not be PC it's how it appears to me - i don't believe that women handle a drugs based lifestyle very well (there i've said it) in nearly every instance of my life i've met women who were unable to handle repeated or sustained consumption, as a qualifier there are also a great many men who can't handle it either, but i've never met any of them, ever (actually i saw a bloke on TV who couldn't handle it, but in the same section were several who could)

If you think that starting a drugs habit is a good idea, find one that you won't devote your whole existence to, if you think that any drug will cause you to be fleeced by your own low standards then don't take any of them, easy in words but probably harder in practice, if you do find yourself sleeping in a septic tank, don't go whining to anyone who'll listen about how big a victim you are, get out of the tank and get help, there's a surplus of agencies who'll be happy to help you.

I fucking hate 'victims' and the whole victim culture, J had a friend who was a confirmed 'victim', her life is an ongoing mess because she embraces her victimhood, although in her case it's more likely to support her munchausen syndrome, but to outsiders the picture is the same.

If you are a person who successfully mixes an ongoing substance relationship with a happy life then sign the guestbook with the words - I am not a victim, i'm just enjoying my life