In the news ...

So a Quantas Airbus A380 has had something of an engine drama. This might have been expected. Airbus Industrie has a strong French element with final assembly being carried out in Toulouse.


One could imagine that the plane made its dramatic protest when air traffic controllers requested that its working altitude be raised from 60 to 62 thousand feet (in spite of the fact that the British made Rolls Royce engine is expected to work up to 67 thousand feet). Expect all the other Airbuses to stop working soon.



It seems we’re jumping into bed with the French Navy in order to save some money. Now, since we won’t have any aircraft on the carriers anyway, this opens up a whole new raft of possibilities (although please note that new rafts for the Navy have been scrapped to save money).

The key to successful military operations is relentless training. In order to achieve this, it will be necessary to practice repeatedly the loading and unloading of personnel and vehicles quickly and efficiently from the vessel. The shorter the sailing time between practice runs, the better.

Clearly, the most mutually beneficial place for the joint navy to operate would be in the waters that separate the two countries i.e. the English Channel, thus providing a degree of coastal protection for each. So perhaps our new aircraft carriers could operate between say, Dover and Calais where they would load and unload people and vehicles at each end, many times per day.

In order not to tie up military resources, they could use civilians and their vehicles for these practice missions and, who know, maybe they would even pay a few quid for the privilege.

Such operations would be known as “Payloading and Offloading” (P&O).



The Coalition would like to make students cough up ever more for the benefits of a university education. The students will, they argue, have better earning potential and opportunities than their peers. From this we can deduce that footballers, pop stars, TV presenters and the like must have had some of the most glittering academic careers to launch their success stories.
But, if we think that having the potential to earn (arguably) more money and get better opportunities is something that we should charge for, then consider this:

How much ought we to charge someone with the following job description?

Salary: £65,738 minimum (more for certain post holders)

£19,900 towards the cost of running another home

£10,394 yearly for “General Administrative Expenses”

£109,548 yearly to employ staff, at least one of which may be a member of your family. Note that they need do no actual work. If you manage their earnings carefully, this may leave you with enough to employ a secretary for you to roger at will

Qualifications required: None

Working hours: Whatever you fancy

Fixed term contract for five years with TV and book writing opportunities and several non-executive directorships thrown in

Location: Westminster

On the subject of the Coalition – some anagrams of “David Cameron and Nick Clegg” include:

“Demonic crack devil and gang”

“Damn coercive gangland dick”

“Rival cock can demand gig end”

“Conceive gang, add mild crank”