18 December

Kids, who’d have ‘em eh? Well, they are great aren’t they; I love ‘em when they’re tucked up fast asleep in bed, or perhaps playing on the fast lane of the nearest motorway between 10pm and 2am with all other lanes closed to traffic. Last night I found another way we can all enjoy having kids around. In GoT5 a knight says that kids should be wrapped in swaddling clothes and from hooks on the wall until the girls start to grow teats and boys need to shave. I like that one, as long as it’s not my wall they hang from that is.

When our TIVO box up playing and we had a new one installed, we lost all our recorded shows, Jan went through the listings and set a load of things to record. Since then we have been watching a lot of shows that we didn’t have before – now then … one of them is UK Border Force and that one isn’t so bad at all, even if they are around seven or eight years old. One episode we watched yesterday showed 16 Afghanis in the back of a lorry, and not the most that has been caught in just one truck either. Those 16 young men though, they all looked well fed and reasonably clean, their teeth were all brilliant white, and they were all so happy, smiling and laughing in front of the cameras.

Why was that I wonder? Think about it a wee bit, they had no papers but claimed to Afghanis, so why were they so happy to be found? The French police were called and they took all of them away outside the port area, which they claimed was as much as they could do with them. OK, this show was filmed in 2008/9 so the Jungle camp at Calais was in full swing and we all know that it has now been flatten. From memory of the crisis in Greece and Italy over illegals, a lot of those young men filmed were fit, well fed and happy too. I thought at the time that it was an easy way to get ISIS fighters into Europe, you may remember me mentioning at the time. But what about all those across the channel?

A lorry is stopped with a load of illegals in the back. It takes some time for them all to be processed and while that is happening how many more will get past while the staff is so caught up. Perhaps at the time they might have been ISIS fighters, perhaps they were just trying it on. Those 16 though looked more than a little dodgy to me, yes, I know, of course they are trying to get into the UK by the back door. However, I began to think that might have been some sort of system on the go where a number of guys were allowed to be found so that even more can get through without being checked. Perhaps the ones found were top of the list for the next group to slip through undetected? Yes, I know, I’m a cynic!          

Bloody hips … My left hip began kicking up again yesterday just after I posted the blog. They both kick up and seem to take turns on who will hurt the most on a daily basis. Whatever, it’s a walk into the kitchen for some pain killers, which I had hopped I wouldn’t need any more … some hope eh?

Today’s photo …

Coventry city centre precinct, part of it anyway. Do you see that smallish blue stripe in the centre? It’s a circular café that Grade 2 listed and that had to be protected when the all the upgrade work was done. It was claimed to be either the only one, or one of very few such building in the UK. I’ve heard that one before …

Today’s funny …

"Surely you're not going to drive that car," said the policeman, advancing on the motorist who had just staggered out of a bar.
"Well, offisher, do you think I'm in any condition to walk?"