No, Let Me Guess - ’For The Children!’, Right..?

Websites such as Facebook and Twitter are fuelling an epidemic of online bullying, it was claimed today.

Research has found one in three British children has been the victim of abuse on the internet.

The definition of ‘abuse’ used? Not forthcoming in this piece, naturally….

The poll of more than 2,000 11- to 18-year-olds, commissioned by charity Beatbullying, revealed that girls are up to four times more likely to face online bullying than boys.

Ah, a charity! With a nice primary-colour website for da kidz, and lots and lots of lovely publicity, awards, news releases, film sponsorship deals, etc.
In fact, it’s been so busy in the last few financial years, it’s been unable to file its returns on time for one of its limited companies.

And yeah. It’s looking like another fakecharity, getting most of its funding from the Association of London Councils, as well as gift aid donations from a sister company (Beatbullying Services Ltd).

And it’s growing – staff costs went up from £224k in 2006, to £353k in 2007. The annual accounts do assure us that ‘no employee received remuneration amounting to more than £60,000 in either year’. Nice work, if you can get it…

And in case the ‘for the kiddies!’ argument wasn’t compelling enough, the teachers are jumping on the same bandwagon:

A second survey, by the Teacher Support Network, also today revealed that one in seven teachers has been the victim of 'cyberbullying' by pupils.

The results were published to launch an anti-cyberbullying campaign, backed by Gordon Brown.

Dear God, is there nothing so trivial that this man won’t try to get some publicity for himself on the back of it? What next, he turns up at Jade Goody’s christening to hold her drip…?

Cyberbullying includes bombarding email accounts with abuse and sending text messages.

Some bullies have even set up Facebook groups allowing dozens of people to band together to abuse schoolmates or colleagues.

You mean, people are mean to each other..? On the Innernets, no less!?

Oh, how I wish I’d stuck to reading just about the human-faced fish. Now my whole worldview is crumbling….

As part of the CyberMentors scheme, advice groups will be set up in schools across the country to give pupils a 'friend' who has been through the same thing.

Volunteers will give up one lunchtime every two weeks to advise victims on how best to deal with the problem. They can either meet face to face, or online.

Well, I guess the schools have time for all this. They aren’t teaching them all that boring reading, writing or adding up, are they…?

But hark! The Great Clunking Fist speaketh:

Mr Brown said: "Just as we wouldn't let them go unsupervised in playgrounds or in youth clubs, so we must put in place the measures that we need to keep our children and young people safe online."

And what are those ‘measures’, Brown? Apart from those already available to anyone who wants them?

Like blocking incoming messages, not visiting ‘hate’ sites, etc? I mean, I’ve yet to see the app that can subject a child to ‘cyberbullying’ if he or she simply doesn’t turn on the PC.

But these moral panics can always rely on someone’s desire to be protected from anything that troubles them:

Georgia Woods, a 13-year-old from Bean in Dartford, signed up to the scheme after being bullied online for a year.

She was constantly sent abusive messages via instant message software, and bullies set up several pages on website Bebo, posting abusive text and commenting on her weight and appearance.

"There was just no getting away from it, and it really, really affected me," she said. "I felt I had nobody to turn to, so I hope this new scheme will give other people in the same situation a way to talk."

‘No getting away from it’? Look, Georgia, bullies are, sadly, a fact of life. But while you might not be able to always avoid the bully in your class, or on the street corner, bullying in cyberspace is actually easier to handle.

Don’t visit the sites that disturb you or write nasty things about you, block incoming messages from non-trusted sources, and job done! Didn’t your parents teach you to deal with your probl…

Oh:

Georgia's mother, Sarah-Jane Woods, said: "It was just horrible, there was no escape for Georgia. She was effectively being bullied in her own home, and every time she logged on she would see dozens of horrible messages. She got incredibly low, but we are now incredibly proud of what she is doing."

Oh, for pity’s sake! No wonder we are raising a generation of coddled morons who can’t do anything for themselves without a letter from government giving its permission!

Did you try, oh, I don’t know, parenting, perhaps, Mrs Woods, before running wailing to someone else to make it all better? You know, all the things outlined above, plus if that didn’t work, deleting the offending messages for your daughter before she saw them? Or perhaps encouraging her to read a book or play outdoors with RL friends instead of constantly tapping into cyberspace?

Trust me, the bullies will give up if they don’t get the response they are looking for, and move on to another victim. Eventually, they'll grow up. Probably to become politicians...

Still, the bandwagon is off and rolling now:

Emma-Jane Cross, chief executive of Beatbullying, which will operate the new scheme, said: "Cyberbullying is a growing problem affecting millions of children across the UK."

..and a very nice little earner for Emma-Jane, of course.

Signs of the Apocalypse…

The success of Ricky Gervais. The popularity of reality TV. Now, fish with human faces:

Both fish are females and more than three feet long. They appear to have distinctive human noses, eyes and lips.

So does Harriet Harman…

"My fish have been getting more and more human for the past couple of years," the owner said.

He added that he knows of other fish with similar features, and as they are both females it will be impossible for them to breed and have fish-faced offspring.

Don’t be such a quitter! Ship ‘em over here, they can probably get it on the NHS….

Sartre Was Right…

Hell really is ‘other people’:

A family forced to spend a year in a caravan outside their flood-damaged home are being sued by their next door neighbours who claim it ruined the view and intruded on their privacy.

But, you ask, weren’t they in the same boat as a result of this flood? Yes. Yes, they were. They had to move out too while repairs were made, while the Tysons stayed put, albeit in a caravan.

But that didn’t stop them chancing their arm to gain from the situation:

Steve and Michelle Tyson have received notice of a claim for £4,830 in compensation lodged with the county court by Michael Burton and Sarah Jagger.

So, what’s their beef?

Mr Burton and Miss Jagger had to leave their house in Willerby Road, Hull while repairs were carried out over nine months.

The Tysons moved into a caravan, provided by their insurers in the November, with their children Sarah, 22, Sam, 19, Robyn, 17, and Alan, 16, while work costing £50,000 was undertaken on their home.

Mr Burton and Miss Jagger gave permission for a boundary fence to be removed so the four-berth caravan could be sited in their neighbours garden.

They allege the Tysons agreed to pay them £138 a week through their insurers, Nationwide, to compensate for the interference to their views, light and privacy.

They say the caravan, which was not removed until the Tysons moved back into their home last November, encroached on their land.

Ah, I think I see the problem. Instead of approaching this in a neighbourly fashion, they saw a way to make money out of the deal.

Because everyone knows money that comes from ‘insurers’ isn’t real money, don’t they?

However, Mrs Tyson and her husband, a 46 year old machine operator, deny that any agreement was in place and intend contesting the action.

Good luck to them! As long as there was no such agreement (and surely such would have been in writing?) they should have no problems proving their case, though I dare say they’d rather not have the hassle…

But the neighbours are still having problems understanding quite what’s so bad about this:

Papers lodged with Hull county court state that Mr Burton and Miss Jagger were deprived of the use of their front garden and names Mr and Mrs Tyson as the defendants.

But Miss Jagger said: "The claim is against their insurance company, not them. They have been kept fully informed. This is not personal, we are not nasty people."

No, just greedy. And opportunistic. And, dare I say it, downright un-neighbourly….

And it won’t stop here:

Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said if the case was successful it could lead to similar claims being made by others.

Of course. They are giving away free money, aren’t they? Why should anyone get upset at that?

But who pays, when all’s said and done? The Tysons premiums will go up. And so will the premiums for everyone else, including those of the Burton/Jagger household, as insurance companies rightly start to guard against this kind of claim in future. And everyone will need to read even more small print to find out what their policy does or does not cover in future, because I bet insurance companies will be scrambling to insert a ‘greedy neighbour’ clause if they win.

So, the statement that this is only going to affect ‘the insurance company’ isn’t quite right, is it? But then, we seem to have raised a generation of people who regard money coming from an insurance company as somehow disconnected from real people…

I Guess Music Doesn't Soothe The Savage Beast After All...

The loggers were attacked in their forest hut on Sunday night in the third such incident since late January, according to a conservation official in Jambi province on the island of Sumatra.

"They were playing guitar and singing in their temporary hut in the forest when a tiger suddenly attacked one of them," said the official, Didi Wuryanto.

I Fancy A Paid Holiday From Work…

…what can I steal, I wonder?

British Transport Police spent £200,000 investigating their own officers for "stealing" five bottles of Vimto which they had found.

That’s outrageous!

It shouldn’t have cost anything like that much to punish these thieves:

Transport officers Rob Mitchell, 40, and Kris Catterall, 38, found the soft drink cordial in a cardboard box beside a railway line, The Sun reported.

Police rules say they should have booked it in as lost or stolen property but they decided to share it with colleagues instead.

But of course, being public sector workers, they aren’t subject to the summary dismissal that would have greeted any other worker who stole items for their own consumption.

And the disciplinary procedure that finally hands out a slapped wrist is long, cumbersome and fraught with potential danger for their management, hence the cost. That’s the real injustice here:

When it was spotted in a mess room cupboard the constables were suspended on full pay for 18 months.

The case was later dropped but they were then fined four days' wages, £400 each, for a minor breach of police rules.

That’s right – steal items from members of the public and you get a 18 month paid holiday!

Who pays in the end? We do:

Insiders told The Sun that the case, in Stockport, Manchester, had cost taxpayers £200,000 in wages and legal fees.

A source told the newspaper: "These guys and their families were put through hell for something trivial."

No, they weren’t. They should have considered themselves lucky not to be summarily dismissed. Instead, they get to put their feet up for 18 months on the taxpayer’s purse.

‘Hell’…? We should all go to hell if that’s the only ‘punishment’:

Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "This is an absurd and shocking waste of taxpayers' money and utter incompetence on behalf of the senior officers involved.

"If disciplinary action needed to be taken it should have been done quickly and without wasting money. The police chiefs who oversaw this episode should be held accountable to taxpayers."

I’d agree, Matthew, but frankly, I don’t think I can afford another 18 month holiday for them too. Do you…?

And of course, the public sector union that represents them thinks they are the ones hard done by:

Alex Robertson, chairman of the British Transport Police Federation which represented both men, told The Sun: "To be suspended for so long over something so trivial will have put the officers and their families under great stress."

Quite apart from the point that yes, your members are thieves, according to the police regulations, Alex, did it ever occur to you or anyone else that drinking items purporting to be Vimto left out on a station platform might not be the wisest course of action…?

Maybe they should have prosecuted them for a breach of Health and Safety instead. It might have been quicker, if not cheaper!

Tell Us Something We Don’t Know…

The credibility of community sentences is at stake because offenders who breach the orders are not dealt with firmly enough, a study says.

Experts from King's College London examined Community Orders and Suspended Sentence Orders, which were introduced in England and Wales four years ago.

They require offenders to do unpaid work or undergo rehabilitation.

But a probation officer interviewed for the study said those under the orders left court "laughing their heads off".

Really? Well, you could knock me down with a feather...

One probation officer said breaches were not dealt with seriously enough and "that gives completely the wrong message.

"You go to court for a breach and you don't get sent to prison, you go back on the van next week and all your mates tell everybody else about it. It doesn't have the deterrent effect that it's meant to have."

That’s because virtually nothing is a ‘deterrent’ anymore.

The criminal justice system is working for itself (the lawyers, judges, public sector support staff, etc) and not for the public.

The most commonly suggested improvement to SSOs was that offenders who breached them should be sent to prison.
One officer said: "I know prisons are full, but they're full with the wrong people. We need to send out the message that if you've got a suspended sentence and you breach it, you go to prison."

The wrong people…? I wonder who he means….

Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London, said as the rise in prison numbers coincided with increased use of community sentences, there was little evidence to suggest the latter was a solution to the former.

He also said there was some confusion over non-custodial sentences, as on the one hand there are community orders, which are not an alternative to custody, and suspended sentencing orders which are.

Mr Garside said the government had introduced a raft of new sentencing rules and that it was up to them to take the lead in how these are put into practice.
He told the BBC: "There is some evidence to suggest that some magistrates are confused about the different types of sentence and how they should be used.

We’ve often heard from this chap about how it’s all the government’s fault for meddling with the system and making it more complex (and he does have a point).

But it transpires that even he doesn’t know what happens on these alternatives to punishment. Credit where it’s due, he’s asked to find out, if any of his regulars can arrange it.

But how many more are like this, oblivious of the effectiveness of the sentence, and simply going through the motions of doling out government-mandated orders each day?

It seems the criminals have the measure of the useless Probation ‘Service’ too:

Offenders who were interviewed reported a good relationship with probation officers with one describing them as like a "police officer, Jobcentre worker and social worker" rolled into one. Another said their role was "a bit like a guardian angel".

But not for the people that actually pay their wages. Oh, no.

Only for those who provide them with employment; the criminals. Let’s face it, it isn’t in their interests, really, to ensure that they go straight, is it?

A Brave Man…

A businessman has stepped in to save a St George's Day parade in the West Midlands after a local council pulled its funding over racism fears.

Yup, that’ll be this parade.

Last month Sandwell Council said it would not pay for the event on 23 April through West Bromwich.

It said it had seen footage of last year's event which showed it had been "infiltrated" by the far right.

Local truck company director Chris Kelly has now pledged £10,000 to allow the parade to go ahead.

Oh, dear. I really hope his site licenses and H&S procedures are all up to date. The Righteous aren’t going to take this lying down, I’ll bet…

Mr Kelly, of the Keltruck company, said he came forward after seeing the issue highlighted on the BBC's Politics Show.

He said: "If people want to unite behind the English flag then so be it, as far as I'm concerned.

"It's not for a council to decide that."

Bravo, Mr Kelly!

The council had funded the parade for the past five years.

Leaders at the authority said they had made the decision based on advice from a watchdog.

Which watchdog?

The council's scrutiny committee is meeting later to finalise health and safety details for the parade.

Thousands of people are expected to turn up for the event.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this one…

Big Business, Charity...What's The Difference?

Imagine a company director told his staff that they'd all have to work an extra two-and-a-half hours a week for no extra pay. And if they didn't like it, they'd be issued dismissal papers. Imagine the workforce went on strike for weeks. Imagine that company then spent over £500,000 refurbishing its head office.

Do you think there'd be anguished columns in the 'Guardian' and other left-wing papers? Screams of 'fat cat'? Oh, of course there would.

So, why is it different when a charity does it? Because I don't recall seeing anything on it at the time...

Oh, and it's looking a lot like a fakecharity too, whose boss is about to worm his way even deeper into the taxpayer's colon:

Mr Sampson spoke to The Mail on Sunday yesterday amid reports that he is poised to be appointed to a major new legal post at the Ministry of Justice, which gives Shelter £4million a year.

You know, I'm beginning to remember that line from 'Animal Farm':"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

The Fight Against MRSA - Not Going So Well...

The 'Telegraph' reports on a setback for the NHS's new hygene initiative; they are having to remove the alcohol gel dispensers due to theft:

Two hospitals in Staffordshire have decided to remove the dispensers from their wards, with the NHS so concerned about the thefts they have issued a Patient Safety Alert to all hospitals and clinics across the UK.

The reason for the theft?

The cleanser, which has been in the NHS for more than four years and is used to tackle hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA, contains 75 per cent proof alcohol, nearly twice the strength of whisky.

The gel is supposedly undrinkable thanks to the foul tasting chemical additive bitrex but paramedics who have treated patients found with the dispensers say addicts will simply "drink through" the taste.

This will not come as a surprise to anyone reading emergency service blogs, however. Particularly this one.

Sunday Funnies...

From the 'Cracked' team, the email inbox from Hell.

Related: Famous villains and their email inboxes.