I'm going to turn a bit serious here. Over the past few weeks I have been reading about PC Daniel Coffill who, in July 2005, was kicked into a coma by what can only be described as lowlife chav scum .

The CPS successfully prosecuted and sentenced the scum only to have the sentences reduced on appeal. PC Coffill is now in a permanent vegetative state and requires 24 hour care. In six and seven years time, the scum who did this to PC Coffill will be back on the street. PC Coffill will never be back on the street.

This is due entirely to the fucking pencil pushers at the home office - dumbing down the police force to a police service effectively creating a bureaucratic agency who sole objective is meeting targets and compiling statistics. There is hope however. PC Johnno Hills has started a campaign for the police to be less service and more force - to return to the traditional methods of policing. That is a visible police presence on the streets preventing crime before it happens - not having to apolagise endlessly for acting after the fact or in some cases not at all because there are easier targets than can be achieved with minimum effort. Fair play to Johnno, who has put his career prospects in the bin and is standing up to the management consultants - for that is what they are, and let me just say that management techniques are for business and retail and manufacturing, they do not apply and have no place in the armed forces or the police. Yet this government persists in providing jobs and wonga for its management consultant buddies. Wouldn't surpirse me if the global warming crew were all fucking management consultants - wankers the lof of them, worse than the pony tails over in marketing.

I digress. PC Hills has set  up a website and online petition here: (www.realpolicing.co.uk) - if you do nothing else useful today, at least visit the site and sign the petition.

Also heard on the radio this morning that the Home Office is to be split into two with the establishment of a separate Minstry of Justice to be headed up by the mealy-mouthed Lord Falconer - Tony's old flat mate and crony-in-chief. It'll be as effective as the Swiss navy.

I travel a lot. It's part of my job. The company I'm currently contracted to has a large pan-European network (17 countries to be precise). Although home-based, I attend weekly meetings at company HQ in Surrey. This means a 380 mile round trip once a week - sometimes all on the same day, sometimes I stay overnight in a hotel - all at my own expense. Even though it is at my own expense, as a contracter with my own limited company, those expenses are tax deductible. European travel, however is reimbursed - fair enough.

My latest sojourn was to Hannover, Germnay for a client meeting. Flight out of Manchester on BA at a cost of £200 one way - same price as a Virgin rail ticket return Stockport to London Euston. On recent flights with other carriers (KLM and Helvetic) there has been a small in-flight snack consisting of a sandwich, fruit juice and tea/coffee. On BA, however, you are now presented with a menu and expected to PAY for the in-flight snack. Don't know about you, but having paid (alright, so the company paid for it but that's not the point) you would expect that the snackette and drink would be complimentary.

Is this the future of air travel - that more and more in-flight services are now added extras to be paid for? Seems to me like another scheme cooked up by the bean counters that have taken over British industry. Where every cost is accounted for to the nth degree and passed on to the consumer. Gone are the days of companies providing products and services for the good of their customers - everything is about bottom line, profit and cutting costs.

Are airlines and more specifically British Airways, now driven by ever increasing profit margin or customer service? It would appear that the attitude of senior management is one of "fuck the passenger make 'em pay" whilst sitting on huge salaries, bonuses, share options and a golden handshake when they inevitably get sacked for fucking things up. All credit to the cabin crew who were visibly embarrassed at having to ask the passengers to pay £3 for a cup of coffee.

Last night's Camberwick Green opening sequence was just a brilliant piece of television.

Sam Tyler popping up out of the music box Windy Miller style, waving at the viewer.

"Is it DI Hunt?" Nod. "Is he kicking a nonce?"

Then a wooden puppet Gene Hunt kicking a nonce and then waving at the viewer.

Genius.

Update 02/04. Here's the entire opening sequence as posted on YouTube.

A former colleague sent me this link - http://www.sexyandfunny.com/SecretBodyBooth.shtml.

Now I can understand women wanting to rid themselves of pubic hair or at least keep it nice and trim, but to why would you (as a woman - I must point out that I'm not so therefore don't understand) then go on camera to justify keeping your quim nice and trim?

That aside though, the video is quite funny. When you watch it, listen to the dialogue very carefully and think Creature Comforts. I wonder what Nick Park would make of it? Beavers, probably.

Err no.

I watched Channel Four's The Great Global Warming Swindle on Thursday night. Even if you do believe that driving to the shops is destroying the planet you have to admit that this documentary must have sewn the seeds of doubt that the current media and political agenda of CO2 emissions = we are all going to die, just might not be true.

This may turn out to be a fairly lengthy post so please bear with it. If however, you have convinced yourself that you are an evil being and that your"carbon footprint" is so large and you can no longer live with the guilt of having murdered Mother Nature, don't connect the hosepipe to the exhaust and leave the engine running, you'll only speed up the inevitable. Instead take the train to Bristol. Go to the Severn Bridge and jump off. The planet no longer needs you.

I wish to point out several things here:

1. I do believe that the climate is changing.

2. I'm not now, nor ever have been a member of the Communist Party. Sorry I meant scientist.

3. I was crap at Physics in school. Forces on an inclined plane = yawn.

4. I liked Chemistry. Periodic table was ace. Letters and numbers = some sort of interesting code to unlocking the planet.

5. I do NOT believe that the climate is changing because of CO2 emissions. Let me tell you why.

According to wikipedia, the earths atmosphere is defined thus "

Earth's atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth and retained by the Earth's gravity. It contains roughly 78% nitrogen, (normally inert except upon electrolysis by lightning^[1] and in certain biochemical processes of nitrogen fixation), 21% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of other gases, in addition to about 3% water vapor. This mixture of gases is commonly known as air. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation and reducing temperature extremes between day and night.

Now read that carefully. 0.04% CO2. That's 4 parts per million by volume. So we are led to believe that such a small portion of air has a massive bearing on the earth's atmospheric temperature.

The core argument of the proponents of man made climate change (MMCC) want us to believe that human emissions of CO2 (which makes up just 0.04% of the earth's atmosphere) has a massive impact on climate. Their postulation is based on ice core sample records which show that when there is an increase in the earth's temperature, the amount of CO2 increases. However, the MMCC lot have turned CO2 into the causal link. That is, if CO2 increases, therefore the temperature of the earth's atmosphere increases. This is a cloth-eared syllogism akin to if you buy kippers it will not rain. It is, in fact the other way around. As the earth's temperature increases, so the amount of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere increases. And there's an 800 year time lag between the temperature rising and CO2 increasing. And it's only 0.04% of the earth's atmosphere.

So why is the earth's temperature increasing. I hope I'm not going all Stephen Hawking on you, but we have to look at the earth in the context of the solar system. At the centre of the solar system is the sun. For the hard of thinking, it's that big fuck off yellow thing in the sky we sometimes see during the Great British summer. When it's not raining. If climate change means better British summers, bring it on. I digress.

Again, according to wikipedia, the sun is defined as:

"The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter (including other planets, asteroids, meteoroids, comets and dust) orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.8% of the solar system's mass. Energy from the Sun—in the form of insolation from sunlight—supports almost all life on Earth via photosynthesis, and drives the Earth's climate and weather."

Read that paragraph again. Note the following - the Sun accounts for 99.8% of the solar system's mass. Energy from the Sun drives the earth's climate and weather.

This fact is ignored by the proponents of MMCC. They would have you believe that an organic chemical compound - CO2 which at 0.04% of the earth's atmosphere is far more powerful than the thing in the sky which constitutes 99.8% of the entire mass (that's not the same thing as weight - I did at least learn that difference in physics) of the solar system.

Politicians and the media have been waxing lyrical about MMCC for a few years. A few buzz words have now crept into the lingua franca of the MMCC debate, words like carbon emissions, carbon footprint, carbon offset, and emissions trading. The core argument is Climate Change is Man Made. We must reduce CO2 emissions. This core argument is based on a report published by the IPCC - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The British Government would have us believe that this is the gospel truth of MMCC. However, the panel itself cannot agree on the effects of man made carbon emissions. One of the panelists, Dr. Kevin Trenberth asserted :

"The latest 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report reaffirms in much stronger language that the climate is changing in ways that cannot be accounted for by natural variability and that "global warming" is happening. Global mean temperatures have risen and the last decade is the warmest on record. The major cause of warming in the last three decades is from human effects changing the composition of the atmosphere primarily through use of fossil fuels. While changes in particulate pollution mostly causes cooling, increases in long-lived greenhouse gases dominate and cause warming. The long lifetime of several greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide lasts for over a century) suggests that we can not stop the changes, although we can slow them down. Moreover, the slow response of the oceans to warming, means that we have not yet seen all of the climate change we are already committed to. Major climate changes are projected under all likely scenarios of the future and the rates of change are much greater than occur naturally, and so are likely to be disruptive"

This was disputed by Dr Christopher Landsea.

In January, 2005, Landsea withdrew from his participation in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Landsea claimed the IPCC had become politicized and the leadership ignored his concerns.^[2] Landsea does not believe that global warming has a strong influence on hurricanes: "global warming might be enhancing hurricane winds, but only by 1 percent or 2 percent". He strongly questions the accuracy of the historical global hurricane database for comparisons with current observations, citing an uncounted, catastrophic 1970 storm as an example.^[3] After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Republican administrators preferred Landsea over other scientists in NOAA to speak to the media about the link between hurricanes and climate change.^[4]"

So we have scientists giving press conferences predicting all sorts of doomsday scenarios outside the field of their own expertise. And the press, being the press love a good scare story.

We also have to look at who the other proponents of MMCC are. The environmental or green lobby is made up of disparate groups of organisations such as Greenpeace. Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace appeared in the C4 programme.

"Moore calls global warming the "most difficult issue facing the scientific community today in terms of being able to actually predict with any kind of accuracy what's going to happen"^[6]. While acknowledging that the increase of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is caused by human consumption of fossil fuels, he claims that as of 2006 it cannot be fully proven that this is the reason the Earth has been warming since 1980. He stresses that it is scientific evidence, not consensus opinion, that would prove or disprove this relation.

Moore criticizes what he sees as scare tactics and disinformation employed by some within the environmental movement:

"By the mid-1980s, the environmental movement had abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism. I became aware of the emerging concept of sustainable development: balancing environmental, social and economic priorities. Converted to the idea that win-win solutions could be found by bringing all interests together, I made the move from confrontation to consensus."^[3] "

Note that Moore believes that the increase in CO2 results from human consuption of fossil fuels but it has not been proven to be the cause of global warming. Remember the number - 0.04%.

So, where is this going. Moore stated in the C4 programme that the environmental movement has been hijacked for political gain. Left-wing anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation activists, anti-car, Greenham Common lesbians are now campaigning on "green issues". Why? Its a non-confrontational, easy route to politicians. And politicians being the self aggrandising bunch of wankers that they are, pander to what they see as being the issue of the day. They have now adopted the MMCC argument as some kind of mantra that finds its way into each and every press conference, press release and photo opportunity.

We must cut carbon emissions...we must cut carbon emissions....we must cut carbon emissions....EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

How are we to cut carbon emissions. Here are some of the remedies:

1. Set unachievable targets for consumers and businesses to cut their carbon emissions. Then penalise them for not meeting targets.

2. Pay as you go motoring. Charge motorists for every mile they drive. This will make people drive less. If they drive less, carbon emissions are reduced. But people won't drive less while the public transport infrastructure is in tatters. The government know this and have a captive market through which revenue can be raised.

3. Reduced car tax/PAYG rates for electric cars because they are regarded as environmentally friendly. How is an electric car environmentally friendly? You have to plug it in to the electric socket every night using electricity from a gas or coal-fired power station which generates more CO2 in a week than your car could ever do in its entire lifetime.

4. Renewable energy targets. Probably the only good thing to come from the entire farago. I'm all for sutainable renewable energy. Fossil based fuels are a finite resource and need to be conserved whilst researching and developing alternatives.

5. Carbon offset trading. Reducing your "carbon footprint" by donating money to a carbon offset scheme in the vain hope that they may plant a tree.

5. Carbon emissions trading. This is the sickest solution of the lot. Here's how it works. Developed nation pays third world nation not to emit CO2 so that developed nation can emit as much CO2 as it likes. How will this work in practice? First of all you will need carbon emission brokers. That is people who will trade carbon emissions on a world market very much like currency and share traders. There will be a premium levied by these brokers on each trade. So developed countries will carry on producing as much CO2 as before, not that it makes a blind bit of difference (0.04% remember) whilst the developing nation is at a standstill, unable to develop new energy sources or make use of existing resources to benefit its own people. How does that square with Sir Bob Geldoff, I wonder?

6. Spend billions of pounds on GW research. A whole new industry worth billions of pounds each year is growing out of the so-called Global Warming crisis. Money being poured down the pan researching and developing new and exciting ways for politicians to raise tax revenues.

So, back to CO2. What is it? One carbon molecule and two oxygen molecules. When we breathe, the oxygen in the air is absorbed by our lung to oxygenate our blood. The by-product of that process is CO2 which is exhaled. Plants on the other hand do it the other way round. They absorb CO2 and O2 is produced as the by-product.

I think I have been banging on long enough so I come back to the initial point which is whether man made carbon emissions are responsible for climate change. The answer has to be a resounding no.

The Sun has far more effect on our weather than the ecoMENTALISTS give credit for. It exerts a huge magnetic and gravitational force on the earth plus the effect of the Milankovitch cycles (you look it up, I had enough explaining for one post) - oh alright. The earth doesn't travel in a constant elliptical orbit around the sun. That orbit is cyclical and the gravity of the sun pulls the earth round it in a decreasing elliptical cyle until it is in an almost circular orbit and then it is thrown back out in an increasing elliptical cycle - this all takes about 10000 years to complete a single cycle. We are currently in the close phase of the cycle. Plus it affects the earth's tilt (and the magnetic poles) and the earth's spin on it's own axis etc. Oh look it up yourself.

So there you have it. Yes the earth's climate is changing, it is getting warmer. Just not due to a single factor, ie., CO2.

You and I may exhale CO2 but I can't help feeling that the CO2 exhaled by the Global Warming lot has more than just a faint whiff of bullshit about it.

£60 and 3 points seems to be an early deterrent. In my usual weekly foray from Derbyshire to Surrey down the M1/M25 I didn't see a single driver using a handheld today. Just as well. There is, more often than not, some knob in a large German saloon or a 4X4 bombing down the outside lane with his/her mobile phone wedged between shoulder and chin, or a truck driver texting some mucky 0900 service completely oblivious of the Mini wedged between the double wheels of his trailer. But not today.

How long this will last, who knows. But for now at least we're that little bit less likely to meet an untimely demise due to some sales wanker berating his secretary or a trucker having phone sex with Honeylips who is really a fat, ugly biffer from the West Midlands.

I have noticed something that is much more worrying than some tit on his/her mobile - more and more I see drivers with iPod/MP3 headphones on whilst driving. If talking on the phone is a distraction, listening to an iPod must be even more dangerous. There's no way you would hear car horns or even sirens over the 50dB of whatever it is you are listening to. Don't know if this is illegal but if it isn't, it should carry the same penatly as using a mobile whilst driving.