Two items in the British press caught my attention today and I just felt the urge to share them with you.

Having been accused of mixing politics with popular culture in the past :) I think this wee item should redress the balance!

Firstly we have a detailed report into the ineffectiveness and ridiculousness of the 529 government funded, nominally independent bodies known as 'quangos' which cost the British taxpayer shed loads each year. The report claims that many of these quangos could be disbanded without anyone really noticing - and when you realise they include the likes of The British Potato Council who "advertise and promote potatoes" I think I have to agree! Though maybe there's a point to the Milk Development Council who get excited by "the generic promotion of milk" or The Football Licensing Authority who make sure that even Arsenal supporters "are able to attend sports grounds in comfort." Who knows?

Please note, the above quotations are from the particular quango's own self-promoting websites, I could never make up such embarrassingly pathetic descriptions.

The second report is all about how British council workers, who have worked for years with the promise of a fixed pension and retirement at age 60 have had the goal posts moved and the carpet whipped out from under them by Tony Blair's government and who are seriously miffed about it.

Sure, the rest of us know we'll have to work until we drop of face starvation and poverty in retirement, but then we've never been promised anything better. These poor council workers had contracts and laws and rules and guarantees and government promises that to slightly reduce the misery of working for local government they would receive a fixed retirement pittance from the age of 60. But not any more it seems.

I guess the quangos have drained the last of the pension pot forcing these people to keep working until they die as well then. Rule Britannia!