Air traffic chaos is the latest proof that the UK doesn’t work anymore
ALL they wanted was a short break abroad in the sun with the kids before the holidays end. And look what happened!
They’d been so careful.
Chose a place which wasn’t in the middle of a raging wildfire.
Or where they hate British tourists.
Made sure it was on a date that the train drivers weren’t striking.
Or when those oil-obsessed middle-class ninnies weren’t glued to the road.
Picked a route to avoid the stupid Ulez charge.
Checked to make sure the baggage handlers weren’t on strike.
Paid the full amount upfront and, feeling quite smug, turned up at the airport.
Only to find no flights, because our air traffic control system was buggered.
They had tried turning it off and on again, didn’t work.
At least a thousand flights cancelled and more to come.
Delays stretching into days.
People stranded in terrifying places, such as Spain.
Do you ever get the feeling that this country is coming apart at every nail?
That almost nothing works properly any more?
Now we have thousands horribly out of pocket in the middle of a nasty cost-of-living crisis.
And some very disappointed holidaymakers.
What happened, exactly, to cause this utter chaos?
The boss of our National Air Traffic Services reckoned that some airline had entered “unreliable flight data”.
If in doubt, blame the frogs
Martin Rolfe said the computer “didn’t understand” the stuff it was being told.
Sheesh, and we’re worried about Artificial Intelligence taking over the world with its malevolent brilliance.
But right now we have a computer controlling our skies which has the IQ of a small rock.
It’s claimed a French airline was to blame.
If in doubt, blame the frogs.
I don’t object to that as a motto — it’s served me well.
But if that’s all it takes to bring our systems down, then shouldn’t they be looking at maybe improving the system?
I am a very great distance from being a computer expert.
But surely they can design a system which, when it comes across one piece of indecipherable data, doesn’t close down the entire system.
It left the air traffic controllers doing everything by hand. Yikes.
“Got a couple of planes coming into land at Sarfend at exactly the same time. But I’m sure it will be absolutely OK.”
Of course, this is assuming that the officials are telling the whole truth.
They were very quick to say that this was nothing to do with a cyber attack.
Trouble is, the more they deny it, the more people will suspect the worst.
After all, it was Bank Holiday in August, one of the busiest days of the year.
When they’re poking around in that computer to find out what went wrong and catch the distinct whiff of vodka fumes, we’ll know for sure.
In the meantime we’re left floundering around in a country where nothing seems to work terribly well.
Where the prices go up every day and yet everything seems to get worse and worse.
I don’t know who is to blame.
But the sense of dissatisfaction makes me suspect we won’t have a Conservative government for very much longer.
What a joker
HERE’S a silly joke for you.
It was told to me by a social media mate.
But by private message, in case they got into trouble.
But I can’t see anything offensive about it.
Here goes.
Why did the trans man eat salad?
Because he was a herbivore.
Geddit?
Not a law to sniff at, Chris
TERRIBLE news.
The brilliant naturalist Chris Packham has been reported to the police for . . . sniffing a goshawk.
He did it on telly and someone snitched on him.
If I had known that sniffing a goshawk was illegal I would do it far less often.
I always ask their permission first, of course.
But I don’t think that matters.
It’s just verboten. I don’t know if this extends to other birds.
It might be illegal to whisper things to a heron, for example.
There are lots of strange and stupid laws in this country, mind.
Did you know it was illegal to carry a plank of wood down the street, for example?
Or that cab drivers must, by law, ask if their passengers have got smallpox or the plague?
If they ever do ask you, deny it.
But then start sneezing and coughing up blood.
Nottin’ to stab here
THE annual Notting Hill stabfest ended the way it usually does.
Gang fights, thugs wielding machetes and eight people stabbed.
There were 275 arrests over the two days.
Chaos and misery for local residents.
Politicians won’t take any action for politically correct reasons.
Retired coppers have called for it to be “moved”.
As a potential site, I suggest the island of Rockall in the North Atlantic Ocean.
It’ll annoy the gannets, but it might save people from being shanked.
Out of this world
ON the game show Tipping Point, hosted by Ben Shephard, a contestant was asked which of the seven continents comes last alphabetically.
Know what she answered?
With great confidence, she said: “Venus.”
I don’t wish to be cruel, but why do people like that decide to go on quiz shows?
Khan’s misery
LONDON Mayor Sadiq Khan has become the Conservative Party’s secret weapon.
His Ulez charge has caused misery and now mayhem in London.
People are in open revolt.
And I don’t blame them because the charge is grotesquely disproportionate.
And it hurts the poor a lot more than it hurts the well-off.
But it’s not just that.
Up and down the country, councils are imposing truly awful traffic schemes on local people.
Banning them from driving to their local supermarket, for example.
It often seems to be Labour or Lib Dem councils doing this.
So people are getting an early insight into what life might be like under a Labour government . . .
Dogflation station
SO now we’re in the grip of Dogflation.
The cost of keeping a mutt has increased by more than 12 per cent in the last year, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
They can now cost as much as £28,000 across their lifespans.
I suspect my dog, Jessie, will cost even more than that.
She gets better and more expensive treatment for her arthritis than I get for mine.
And how does she thank me? By lying under my desk all day farting like a wizard.
When she kicks the bucket I’m getting a pet crab instead.
Worse than Putin?
THE Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has been buried.
Following his incredibly surprising death when his plane mysteriously blew up.
“Goodness me, what shocking news,” Putin must have muttered to himself.
Prigozhin’s supporters have praised him as being the second Nelson Mandela.
Only in Russia could a semi-literate psychopathic gangster be compared to old Nelson.
And this is one of the West’s big problems.
An awful lot of the people who might succeed Vladimir Putin are even more deranged and dangerous than even he is.
Christ alive!
SOME three-quarters of Church of England priests think the UK is not a Christian country any more.
They’re probably right.
And it is partly their fault.
They have turned our established Church into a woke joke.
Which loses worshippers every year without fail.
You may or may not believe in God.
But the tenets of Christianity are about human morality and right and wrong.
Take them away and replace them with nothing and you have a recipe for a greedy, selfish, amoral society.