I've just watched an advert on tv. Its sponsored by the government, and tells us that if we don't act now our world will become hotter with dire results to our comfortable lives. It ends with a a view of the world wrapped in a red hot atmosphere. Thats a chilling message isn't it? It is of course designed to frighten us out of our complacency. It is, without doubt, propaganda.

Our government is socialist and whilst it has politicans in the public eye who proclaim their wish to further the prosperity of their voters, it harbours many in the background who have no such wish. A fundamental feature of human society is that there will always be people who seek status, to have more than anyone else, to leave the Joneses in poverty while they revel in their relative wealth. Socialism in theory exists to prevent that by redistributing wealth. Its who receives that wealth that defines an ideal socialist government from a bunch of self-serving fat cats.

Idealism is all very well, but as George Orwell observed, human beings will not change their spots.

Paradise Lost

On your local high street you come across travel agents selling foreign holidays. The list of possible destinations varies from the mundane to the exotic, and these little tastes of paradise are almost considered as socially mandatory. Yet the appeal of these locales hides a reality of the world which we tend to ignore in the quest for sun, sea, and sand. A newly wed couple shot in Antigua. A young woman is found on a beach in Thailand. Another left in a japanese bathtub. Still another left in a suitcase in Brazil. Backpackers thrown from a bridge or buried in the outback in Australia. Others left for dead in a chinese ditch. Paradise or not, you have no choice but to remember that the world can be a dangerous place.

Dogs of the Week

This weeks accolade goes to a pair of rottweilers on the sands of Whitly Bay, Northumberland. I