1. War Crimes Act 1991, which extended jurisdiction of UK courts to acts committed on behalf of Nazi Germany during the Second World War (the only time that the Parliament Acts have been used by a Conservative government).
2. European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, which changed the system of elections to the European Parliament from first past the post to a form of proportional representation.
3. Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, which equalised the age of consent for male homosexual sexual activities with that for heterosexual and female homosexual sexual activities at 16.
4. Hunting Act 2004, which prohibited hare coursing and (subject to some exceptions) all hunting of wild mammals (particularly foxes) with dogs after early 2005.

Note that none of those uses was to persecute, impoverish, render homeless and, directly or indirectly, kill or encompass the suicide of some of the most vulnerable members of society. This is because nobody as unconscionably evil as that dismal, lying, despicable, scumbag, David Cameron, consumed by an insane hatred for the chronically sick and disabled, had yet come to power.

Until now.

This is no longer a democracy – this is an elected dictatorship. Tomorrow, the democratic process will have been totally subsumed to the will of a deeply obsessive man who cannot for one moment countenance being gainsaid by the House of Lords, and that despite his loading it with his own placemen and women.

You know, last year, when I learned I was dying, I was, well, just a tad uptight about it. You might have noticed.

Tomorrow, though, when Cameron inevitably rolls out the Parliament Acts to over-rule the House of Lords, I think I might just have the best of the deal.

You must also tell us if you or your partner (among much else):-

My parentheses and italics.

go away from home, even if it is for a day

WTF?

Are these arsewipes serious? In what even approximately sane universe does being on benefit mean you are subjected to conditions normally imposed on convicted criminals? And not just the claimant, but their partner?

Are there actually sanctions imposed if someone in, say, the ESA Support Group, as it might be, a seriously disabled person, let’s call them Claimant A, whose life is in the crapper, if they have the temerity to seek a little light relief by going to the seaside for the day? Or to visit friends?

Or their partner is away all day for whatever reason (and WTF does it matter – their partner is not the claimant?).

And how, pray tell, can this obscenity of a condition be enforced? And what constitutes a day?  Dawn to dusk? Dawn to dawn, or any other 24 hour period? What?

Who the bloody hell would know if Claimant A went to stay with friends for a day, or a week, or even a month? And who, really, would be so fucking petty and vindictive as to care?

Are checks being kept on them? I see no other way this condition would work – is there an ESA Gestapo lurking in the wings, ready to swing into action when the IB migration is completed?

Are disabled people (and yes, I know this applies to other groups too), actually living in a virtual police state, where everything they do is monitored?

This condition is designed purely to intimidate, and persecute, and can have no other possible function.

That, by any measure, is completely and utterly unacceptable.

January 31 update: I’d just like to make one thing absolutely clear. It doesn’t matter if this rule isn’t currently enforced – and there’s only anecdotal evidence that it’s not – what matters is that it actually exists. THAT should be an affront to very right-thinking person.

And as long as it does exist, you can be sure some bugger will try to find a reliable way of enforcing it and, as I said in a reply to a comment, that could be as simple as following through on Labour’s execrable plan to reward those who inform on “benefit cheats” – watch the net curtains twitch then!

Click pic to view full size, Back to return.

The last thing to be done was to cut it into suitable lengths, pack and freeze, as I’m too knackered to bother with the wrestling-with-a-python nonsense that’s involved in making linked sausages, so they’re just cut into suitable lengths like Cumberland – not least because I like the crisp bits you get on the ends.

I fried off some surplus meat, formed into small patties, and it was very tasty, meaty and slightly peppery – I had feared I’d overdone the pepper. Could have used a bit more sage, but what the hell? Salt, too, but that’s a matter of personal taste – you can always add salt on the plate – you can’t take any excess out. The sausages will retain more moisture than the patties which, even so, were nicely moist.

Total meat cost was £9.57 which gave me 1.46kg (approx. 3¼ lb)**,  of finished sausages (everything else I had in stock). It might be more than I’d pay at Sainsbury’s, but at least I know everything that’s gone into them is the best it can be – and that the cooking sausages are NOT going to fill my frying pan with mysterious, urine-coloured liquid.

**For those of you scratching you heads and trying to relate that to the amount of meat I started out with, bear in mind that there were losses of both meat and breadcrumbs in the mincing process – not everything that goes into a mincer comes out, particularly the crumb – I’ll have to remember to compensate for that in future batches – and maybe 4 ounces of sausage meat left over from the stuffing process, which I fried and ate. Plus the addition, not mentioned previously, it was an afterthought,  of perhaps a quarter of a pint of cider – not measured, but added until it felt right.

Traditionally, Ed, as you’d know  if you knew anything at all, rates of pay for those living and working in London were higher than outside London, to compensate for the higher costs of living there than, say, in Manchester. This was called the “London Weighting”. It might still be for all I know.

It follows logically, then – are you paying attention Ed? – that the benefits cap should be £26k outside London, and higher in London – a London Weighting.

How hard is that for an alleged Labour politician to understand? I don’t expect Cameron to, or to even give a shit, or most of his millionaire cabinet buddies, but you have no excuse.

And while we’re about it, you need to remember that you are not Cameron’s butt-buddy – hell, the Bullingdon wouldn’t even let you sweep up – you’re supposed to be the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Act like it.

Opposition, Ed. Do you have any idea what that means? Would you like to look it up?

I’ll give you a clue – it does not mean embracing the policies of the worst, most oppressive and divisive, Tory government this country has ever seen almost entirely uncritically.

Remember your place Ed – you’re not supposed to be a fucking Tory, you’re the leader of the Labour Party. If you can’t get your pointy head around that fact, get the hell out, go join your shiny role model, and make way for someone who can.

Then, today, for reasons which still elude me, I bought more of the bloody flabby, wet, stuff.

Among all the info on the label, there is no mention of a smokery or even smoking. It does, though, contain the colouring agents curcumin (gives turmeric its yellow colour), and paprika, neither are traditionally used in smoking, where the normal dye is annatto. Makes me wonder, though, if it’s soaked in a solution containing smoked paprika – it would explain the wetness.

So I ran a small experiment in the kitchen. A strong solution of blood-red smoked paprika and water, left to stand for 5 minutes then filtered, yielded an intensely smoky liquid that was yellow-brown in colour – a sheet of kitchen paper dipped into it was dyed a nice, if pale, yellow. Mix the smoked paprika solution with a solution of yellow curcumin, dunk your haddock fillets for as long as it takes to colour up – there’s your wet “smoked” fish.

One last point. I bought skinless fillets. When conventionally dyed and smoked haddock fillets are skinned, the fish beneath the skin is normal fish colour, fish skin being impermeable. Sainsbury’s fish, where the skin has been, is bright yellow, meaning that it was subjected to whatever process they used after it was skinned.

I don’t think the bloody stuff is smoked at all.

Got anything to say, Sainsbury’s? Can you show me I’m wrong? And if I am wrong, kindly explain what other process makes your smoked haddock unfeasibly wet – I’d love to know.

Sorry, I’m not buying that for one moment. Well, of course,  he is a snob, but he’s also an evil, scurrilous, lying, shitweasel of an apology for a human being, completely detached from normal life, and insulated from the consequences of his actions by money.

I’m afraid I can’t look at Cameron’s insane hatred and persecution of the chronically sick and disabled and conclude, as the article does, that it’s not his fault. If not his, whose?

The death of Cameron’s son (and father), were excluded from discussion as that would have been tasteless. No, that was short-sighted.

I’m convinced, as are others (hat tip to Rhydian Fôn James), that Cameron is using his late son as a benchmark against whom all chronically sick and disabled people, including me, are being judged – and mostly found wanting, as anyone with the will to do so can see. It’s quite possible, too, that Cameron also resents those of us who are sick and disabled, yet still alive, and fully intends to make us suffer for it. And please, don’t tell me that’s tasteless – it’s our totally unnecessary persecution that’s truly tasteless. Not to mention obscene, disgusting, and  despicable.

Add to that the lie factory engineered by Cameron, IDS and his SpAds, and Grayling, and you have an anti-disabled propaganda machine, dribbling poison into the ever-willing ears of the right-wing press, that would have had Goebbels creaming his jackboots with envy.

None of that happened because Cameron is a snob – it is pure, unadulterated, vindictiveness.

Thanks mainly to Cameron, but also in no small way to IDS, the sick and disabled people of this country now occupy the position of the Jews in mid-thirties Nazi German – state approved hate figures, allegedly responsible for all the ills of the country. That’s not snobbery either.

Will it be snobbery when the workhouses go up to house the many thousands of people reduced to penury and made homeless by Cameron’s policies?

Will it be snobbery when the sick and disabled find themselves excluded from the NHS as the beds have gone to private patients? And anyway, we’re too expensive . . .

Will it be snobbery when the camps appear, to accommodate the sick and disabled, as the state is no longer willing to support them via benefits, as befits our status as human beings, with all the rights that attach thereto?

Will it be snobbery, when all this comes to pass, and more, if Cameron is returned with a majority in 2015?

How long – whisper it quietly – before a snobbishly final solution occurs to him

I spent a large part of yesterday, online, looking at chairs that (a) fit my budget (under 2 grand) and (b) had a decent claimed range and batteries to match – too many manufacturers blithely claim absurd ranges from relatively small batteries – look for batteries of at least 70Ah for outdoor use. Early in the search I came across this chair, the Shoprider Lugano, with a 25 mile claimed range and 75Ah batteries, and a whisker over £1,800.

NB: The pic was clipped from their brochure. As this post amounts to a plug for the machine, only a churl would complain and, anyway, I’m sure it comes under the definition of “fair use”.

Shoprider, it has to be said, make some seriously horrible chairs, but this is a nice piece of kit in the same six-wheel, mid-wheel drive, manner as the Pride Jazzy and Quantum series – but at a fraction of the price. (I was pleased to see  that the illegal-in-the-UK Pride Quantum 6000 has now been discontinued, though some dealers are still selling old stock – see my I bought a lemon… series of blog posts on the subject.)

Mid-wheel drive chairs are superbly manoeuvrable, and will spin about their own vertical axis, making them a dream indoors where space is limited, while still being a capable outdoor chair.

It’s a year since I got out of hospital with what turned out to be a death sentence, albeit a slow one, as it’s turned out (not that I’m complaining). In the event, I made it to Christmas, which I seriously didn’t expect to do, and I’m still here, so fingers crossed there might be another year (50-50 chance – the 2-year survival rate is 50% and this is my second year – presumably, beyond this year, the odds shorten), now I’ve got a decent cardiologist – only took 50 weeks! Mainly because my GP is a cretin, though to be fair I missed a September appointment because I was too ill to go – perhaps that worked out for the best?

Which is why I’m making some investments (new 64-bit PC, and now a new powerchair), predicated on the fact that I might actually have some sort of future (though to be honest, things are still very iffy).

However, things will be less iffy, psychologically, at least, if I’m able to get out of here more – or, even, at all – being housebound is very destructive mentally.

On getting out of hospital (and I still don’t understand how, the day before I was hauled away, I was better than I’ve been in years, yet when I emerged 4 days later, I was a basket case – something happened during that period that no bugger is telling me about – I’m increasingly sure of that), I bought a very basic powerchair. Too basic as it turned out, but money, while not tight, wasn’t unlimited, so it had to do.

It’s OK for trundling round the building, and taking rubbish out to the bins, but anything more ambitious is beyond its puny motors and small batteries. The Lugano, on the other hand, should have power to spare.

It’s a Class 2 chair (4mph), but I had a  Class 3 (8mph), and it was remarkably uncomfortable, even painful, at that speed. It does mean that the Lugano is a pavement machine (yeah, right!), but on a nice summer morning, I can be at Sainsbury’s or Tesco in an hour, or to the woods in a bit less, or put it in a taxi, or even on the train, to go further afield – things I can’t do with a scooter.

It’ll also make hospital trips easier, too.

The only downside is the frustrating wait for my rebate check to clear!

If you’re shopping for a powerchair, bear in mind that range claims are absurd, the method of testing having no connection at all with reality, as you can see from this post.

Powerchairs use the battery not just for forward motion, but for steering, too, and on a road with even a moderate camber (same with many pavements), you’re constantly, and subconsciously, steering up the camber to avoid rolling down it, as well as any changes of direction, so look to get around 60% of the clamed figure and you won’t be disappointed, unless you’re very heavy, then all bets are off.

I’ve complained before, here, about the wetness of Sainsbury’s meat, but the squishiness of it does make it very easy to run through the mincer. Steadman’s meat, in contrast, once some superficial bloodiness had been washed off, was excellent – firm muscle, without a trace of wetness. In fact, cutting it up I started by slicing it into steaks, and they were so beautifully marbled with fat it seemed a shame to make sausage meat with them, but that’s what they were for. Next time, though, it’s destined for steaks.

The first job, though, is checking the bone socket for fragments. In my experience, when meat is boned commercially, there are always some, and this was no exception. Then the shoulder has to be skinned, while retaining as much fat as possible, and for that you need an extremely sharp chefs’ knife – do not piddle about with a small paring knife if you want to finish with the same number of fingers as you started with.

After that, it’s just a matter of slicing and dicing, removing as much sinew and connective tissue as you can, the mincer will catch the rest – when I’ve finished mincing pork there is always a large amount of sinew spooled on the worm shaft, just behind the knife. I have no idea by what mechanism this happens, but it always does.

Note: boned shoulder comes in two parts, which are easily separated. One is thin and only fit for dicing and stewing or sausage meat (tip: don’t freeze for future use in sausages, if the sausages will also be frozen), the other is thick and will slice into maybe half a dozen thick steaks with – Sainsbury’s please note – the grain sliced neatly across – you don’t cut steak with the grain, numpties.

So, there I was, with this perfect meat fighting back as I was cranking the mincer handle – it was remarkably hard work, partly because I’m getting weaker, but mainly, I’m quite sure, because the meat is just so much better than Sainsbury’s, from well-muscled free-range pigs, with no added water.

The belly strips needed to be skinned – no great hardship – and was thick bands of meat separated by thin bands of fat, and like the shoulder, firm and muscular – I must try to get some of this in the piece, and make my own bacon (Sainsbury’s is thick bands of fat separated by thin bands of meat – sorry to keep banging on about this but the contrast between this meat and the crap I’ve been saddled with until now is staggering).

In terms of weight I started with 0.516kg of belly and 1.126kg of shoulder, for a total of 1.642kg. I wound up with 1.343kg of prepped pork, a loss of just 299g, mostly skin. So while starting with less meat than when I used Sainsbury’s, I actually finished with about the same amount of prepped meat. Go figure. Actually, a lot of the loss with Sainsbury’s was a great deal of wet and fibrous fatty tissue, which I really didn’t want in my sausages. There was very little in Steadman’s pork – the difference between free-range and intensively reared, I guess.

Anyway, since I had such good meat, I decided to mince it coarsely, as it seemed sacrilege to reduce it to mush as the fine plate would have done, and for the first time, I had to add water to the mix – just a wine-glass full** (not the buckets that go into commercial sausages and even some domestic recipes) – to bind the breadcrumbs and moisten the meat a little, before adding white pepper, fine sea salt and a little sage (a little sage goes a long way).

**It might need a little more on Sunday – time will tell, but see below.

If you soak the mincer and all its parts in warm, soapy water immediately you’ve finished, it’ll be much easier to scrub clean, with a bottle-brush for the interior, and a washing-up bush for the rest. By far the easiest way, I’ve found. Rinse well to remove any detergent residue and leave to drain. My mincer is stainless steel, so pretty fuss-free, but if you have an iron one, sit it on a radiator to dry thoroughly.

Today,** then, I’ll be making the sausages – making the sausage meat took most of the day, with lots of rest breaks – making the sausages is the easy bit.

**Much to my surprise, despite the pain yesterday after the mincing, my shoulders haven’t seized up. Result!

The first task is to fry a blob of the meat, to test for seasoning (traditional pork sausages are peppery, but not excessively so), or see if it otherwise needs tweaking (the mix could so with a bit more fat – I have some home-rendered pork lard, but no easy way to add it to that it’s evenly distributed, so best not to). This is the recipe as of right now (note that seasonings and other dry flavourings are added before mincing, the mincing process distributing it through the finished meat:-

Pork Sausage Recipe

1.343kg prepared pork,  as above.

3 teaspoons fine sea salt

3 teaspoons white pepper

2 teaspoons sage

10% crumbs (from my own bread, using the last of the Swedish Spring Wheat flour**)

Small wine glass of cold water, plus a little more if required***

**A mystery there – there should be two bags of crumbs in the fridge – there was only one, 141g, so it all went in, an extra 6 grams or so being neither here nor there, as some is always lost to the mincer. There’s about half a kilo of the stuff missing, though.

***Had a quick look at the meat, and it will benefit from rather more moisture, which it’ll get in the form of Aspall Organic Suffolk Cyder, which is extremely good stuff. I’ll add that now (11.10), and give it a few hours to be absorbed.

Oh, and all that pork skin that could have been roasted to golden crispness, yielding a little lard in the process? I had a brainstorm and threw it away!

Pics will follow in due course.

There was an amazingly annoying, and initially elusive, problem though.

When typing, in Word, Twitter, or anywhere else, online or off, every few words the cursor would go skating up the page, and the insertion point would go too, leaving me typing blanks.

Simultaneously, my broadband connection would disconnect.

Failing to find a cause, or a fix – the problem would go away if I typed very slowly, but next day it’d be back – I wired the router to the Ethernet socket, disconnected wi-fi, and all was well. But was the cause the adapter or its software?

Anyway, what my life needed was fewer wires, not more, so the hunt for a fix went on. Then I noticed, when the wi-fi adapter’s software fired up (I turned it on to click through to the website) – back came the problem. So I deleted it, turned off the Ethernet connection, turned wi-fi back on, and all was well – I could type perfectly normally.

The wi-fi connection functions perfectly well without the software; better, in fact, as it now, as I said, connects automatically, whereas before I had to type in the damn network key every morning. Not a massive inconvenience, I’ll concede, but irritating when it shouldn’t have been necessary at all.

My wi-fi adapter is the TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter, No. TL-WN881ND. Other than for inputting the network key on first use, the software offers no other useful functions and can then be safely deleted, especially if you experience the same typing fubar.

However, resisting the temptation to take a swipe at whiny students, just consider how much poorer we’d be if people like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Shakespeare, Dean Swift, Pepys, to name half a dozen at random, had thrown down their pens, and cried, “Aaargh! My hand hurts! Bugger this for a lark, I’m off down the pub!” and never picked up a pen again?

Luckily they were made of sterner stuff than 21^st century pussies!

Personally, as one of those people who has gone through life with horrible handwriting (at school, I was always treated as if I was doing it deliberately, for some weird reason), I welcomed the arrival of the PC and its word processor as a more versatile replacement for my typewriter (once I left school and started earning, one of my first purchases was a Remington portable, followed, over the years, by a succession of office models blagged from employers), and these days I write almost nothing by hand, not even a shopping list, because ME has actually destroyed my muscle memory, and my hands can’t form the letters, not without major effort on my part. Though, at least, I do have the ability to do so, after a fashion, if all else fails.

Mind you, if that did happen I’d buy another typewriter.

For the young, however, now as always, actually learning how to write, by hand, and for possibly extended periods, is no bad thing. It is, in fact, a valuable skill that should be encouraged lest it be lost, and very few people should be 100% dependent on technology for written communication because, one fine day, it might well to go tits up if, for example, silicon-eating nanobots escape into the wild, or the petrochemical industry goes down the pan – then where would we be if people hadn’t learned to write? Or just sat around sucking their fingers and whingeing?