#17: Tales From Team Bahab

Before I get started, just a quick shoutout to all the people who came across and subsequently read my blogs via Google. We won’t dwell on what you were expecting to find when searching for ‘Fern Britton feet pics’ and ‘Bernard Cribbins porno movie’, but anyway….

This Thing Must Be 17 Stone

Right (said Fred), here we go. When I was about ten the local tough nuts and security guards all rocked alsations. They were fearsome enough to scare anyone looking to cause any trouble. I was advised that if I encountered one on the street or in the park to be confident and walk with no fear.
Little tip for you. Alsations haven’t seen Top Boy, so bowling along like you’re an extra in it towards one has little or no effect. Standing still and whimpering is only marginally more successful in warding them off.
Now look at the dog in this photo.

This is NOT Tony McCoy’s 4,000th winner by the way

Look at it again. Then the kid. Then the dog again.
Her mother got it from a rehoming centre. It was found stray in a park. Two months after moving into the one bedroom flat with the child and parent (naturally enough they were told it was great with kids) it suddenly turned and despite the mother stabbing it to death managed to inflict fatal injuries on the child.
Now let’s be charitable, and put knee jerk judgment aside for a second. Let’s just put this down to a one in a million tragedy that happens to unlucky families on rare occasions. A stray dog that turns is I suppose one thing, however when you have also spent time looking after this for a friend…

Nor is this

…you start to wonder how many throws of the Devil Dog Dice you want to throw before your kid gets fucking killed.
The mother has stated that she wanted the dog for company. Firstly, the estate she lives on prohibits dogs of any kind. But fuck that, her needs come first, ignore the rules, it's all about her. Secondly, it would be one thing if you wanted a dog for protection why not a Labrador or anything that doesn't look like Stephen King dreamt it up? Look at the photos again. If you live in a place where you feel you need a dog like that for protection then you need to stop gambling with your kid's life and move to a better fucking area.
Of course you're all now whining on about responsible owners and how people have the right to protect themselves and their property. Well here's an idea. How about if we decide we want people to be able to have something capable of killing around the house maybe we might like to ensure that the people who have them aren't just some randoms off the street and can prove they are responsible enough to be allowed to have them? Like maybe when someone gets a shotgun licence?
Just an idea….

May You Live In Interest Sting Times

Here’s another idea. Those payday loan companies. Shouldn’t we just make them illegal? I mean, they’re almost universally unpopular, the interest rates are punitive, and the way they’re advertised to children and promoted as… wait, something has just arrived. Have a look at this.

Well clearly the payday loans are the problem. You can clearly see that they’re not taking the bare piss out of their customers. Well, they are, just not to the extent the banks are. Where is the outrage about these usurious bank charges? Why isn’t Ed Miliband or either one of Milli Vanilli calling for a ban on their adverts and calling them glorified loan sharks?
The answer is the same as it’s always been. The people who use payday loan companies are deemed to be ‘vulnerable’, and we have to protect them at all costs. All it takes is a few sob stories in the tabloids from people who missed a payment and didn’t read the small print, and everyone runs to their aid.
Let me make it simple for you. Payday loans are fine if you need to borrow for a short time and don’t miss a payment. If you do you’re fucked.
‘Vulnerable’ people also need to be told how to do almost everything else in life. They get told not to drink too much, smoke at all, or gamble on any horse I’ve mentioned, backed myself, or written in a notebook (which is actually good advice to be fair). Essentially anything that’s fun is a mortal danger to them, and we have to suffer too. From a tsunami of well meaning drivel masquerading as advice from various quarters, who have completely missed the point.
That banks have found someone to make them look like relatively nice people, and they are saying wonderfully tight lipped about it.
While we’re wringing our hands wondering what’s to be done with Wonga and the like we’re forgetting that the mainstream banks caused this problem in the first place with their casino bullshit. Now they’re trying to look like they care really by tightening their lending criteria, which has led to the birth of these companies positioned midway between the loan sharks and the high street.
OK, so let’s rethink the idea. If we make them illegal and the high street doesn’t relax its conditions the customers will have no recourse but the loan sharks. So how about taking a leaf out of Ed’s idea to cap prices in the energy market.
Now that won’t work because the government can’t control an international commodity market unless it nationalises (and it won’t), but in a market bound by nationality why not cap the APR that can be charged to that of a credit card? If we topped it off at, say, 22% it would still build in the protection from risk that they would want to allow for the less favourable creditworthiness of their customers, while still allowing a decent profit margin over conventional personal loans.
Ok, so scratch the original idea, this one works better. it’s the best idea since David Cameron invented the Tory party, which according to the internet is May 2010. Which means there’s no more of labour’s mess to clean up and they can get on with shafting the Lib Dems.
It’s a goer. Print the flyers….