(no subject)

Right to left: Baroness Thatcher; rugby-playing oafish Young Conservative thug (at a non-prejudiced guess)

Further to Thatchwatch, for a while now she's had an intriguing condition: her short-term memory is entirely shot, but the long-term is working fine. This means that almost exactly four days elapse between something happening and her remembering it—including, apparently, the death of her husband earlier this year. So when the BBC says that "On Tuesday, Lady Thatcher sent her congratulations to David Cameron", she won't actually find out that she (or her secretary) did so until Friday...

Well, I say the long-term is fine. In fact the long-long-term is looking a little shaky as well. One story had her at her 80th birthday "celebrations" earlier this year seeing Cecil Parkinson and saying "Ah, dear Cecil. He made such a good Prime Minister after I retired".

I am the God of fire training, and I bring you... fire training

Fire: nature's hot thing

I had to go and do Fire Training this morning. I know what you’re thinking—“Surely he’s old enough to start a fire by himself”. Well, now they’re telling us that starting fires in the workplace is bad. I ask you. It’s political correctness gone mad.

My favourite bit was when the Deputy Fire Safety Manager, in the course of explaining why it is important that all plug socket extensions are fused, presented us with the following scenario:

“Mum’s got the kids at home, and the fuse in the video goes. ‘Mum, mum, we want to watch a video.’ So Mum gets her packet of Polos, takes the silver foil, bundles it up and puts it in the plug where the fuse should go, and plugs it in. Sure, the video’s working again, but all the wiring’s overheating and before you know it the whole place is on fire.”

The last fire training sessions are next week, and apparently, because they’re at the end of term, as a treat people will be able to bring in some fire.


EDIT: Contrary to what you might expect, the Deputy Fire Safety Manager is not Lord Lucas.