After for more than five years I’ve reluctantly decided to abandon this blog.

It is a pity because it was my first taste of blogging and I’ve enjoyed it here.

It hasn’t cost me a penny and I’ll always be grateful to 20Six for introducing me into this world.

The problem is that I have had increasing technical problems simply posting on here. The problem is not constant but intermittent, which makes it more frustrating.

Fairly frequently and I will write the post, write the headline, load up the picture and then hit “blog” and the machine freezes for a bit and then crashes, or tries to open the file as a Dreamweaver file, or both.

IT support here suggested using IE instead of Firefox, but that didn’t seem to work either and neither did Safari. I’ve had the same problems on PCs and Macs.

So it is goodbye from me. Thanks for reading and commenting.

And if you want to continue to read my pungent comment on UK and world affairs you can find me here

The media collectively had a fit of the vapours when Bank of England governor Mervyn King gave a speech to business leaders in Leeds this week.

What caused the excitement – close to hysteria in some quarters – was King’s mention of the R-word – recession – the first major policymaker to do so.

But I’m told by friends who attended the event that King’s message, although making clear the severity of the economic downturn, was far more subtle, and even optimistic, than the headlines suggest.

He did indeed say recession was likely and added the banking sector had come closer to collapse than at any time since World War 1.

But he also pointed to good news amidst the gloom – specifically the recapitalisation of the banks and the significant fall in oil prices, which should help combat inflation.

“The long march back to boredom and stability has started”, he said.

Let’s hope so. As for the top correspondents of the London-based media, if they want the real story next time perhaps they should venture outside the M25.

The media collectively had a fit of the vapours when Bank of England governor Mervyn King gave a speech to business leaders in Leeds this week.

What caused the excitement – close to hysteria in some quarters – was King’s mention of the R-word – recession – the first major policymaker to do so.

But I’m told by friends who attended the event that King’s message, although making clear the severity of the economic downturn, was far more subtle, and even optimistic, than the headlines suggest.

He did indeed say recession was likely and added the banking sector had come closer to collapse than at any time since World War 1.

But he also pointed to good news amidst the gloom – specifically the recapitalisation of the banks and the significant fall in oil prices, which should help combat inflation.

“The long march back to boredom and stability has started”, he said.

Let’s hope so. As for the top correspondents of the London-based media, if they want the real story next time perhaps they should venture outside the M25.

The media collectively had a fit of the vapours when Bank of England governor Mervyn King gave a speech to business leaders in Leeds this week.

What caused the excitement – close to hysteria in some quarters – was King’s mention of the R-word – recession – the first major policymaker to do so.

But I’m told by friends who attended the event that King’s message, although making clear the severity of the economic downturn, was far more subtle, and even optimistic, than the headlines suggest.

He did indeed say recession was likely and added the banking sector had come closer to collapse than at any time since World War 1.

But he also pointed to good news amidst the gloom – specifically the recapitalisation of the banks and the significant fall in oil prices, which should help combat inflation.

“The long march back to boredom and stability has started”, he said.

Let’s hope so. As for the top correspondents of the London-based media, if they want the real story next time perhaps they should venture outside the M25.

The media collectively had a fit of the vapours when Bank of England governor Mervyn King gave a speech to business leaders in Leeds this week.

What caused the excitement – close to hysteria in some quarters – was King’s mention of the R-word – recession – the first major policymaker to do so.

But I’m told by friends who attended the event that King’s message, although making clear the severity of the economic downturn, was far more subtle, and even optimistic, than the headlines suggest.

He did indeed say recession was likely and added the banking sector had come closer to collapse than at any time since World War 1.

But he also pointed to good news amidst the gloom – specifically the recapitalisation of the banks and the significant fall in oil prices, which should help combat inflation.

“The long march back to boredom and stability has started”, he said.

Let’s hope so. As for the top correspondents of the London-based media, if they want the real story next time perhaps they should venture outside the M25.

Fancy a career in the public sector? Cushy number, 9 -5, six weeks’ holiday, lavish pension?

Well, try this little quiz to see if you are suitable.

Question: You are an NHS manager and suddenly discover you have £500,000 surplus to requirements. Do you:

(a)    Buy cancer drugs for desperately ill people who are normally denied treatment on the grounds of cost?

(b)   Order an immediate deep clean of all wards to cut down on the scandalous number of deaths resulting from hospital-acquired infections?

(c)    Buy an ocean going yacht in order to give unemployed youths “something to do”.

If you answered (c) congratulations – you’re a shoo-in for the Hull Teaching Primary Care Trust where common sense is an impediment, but reckless abandon with taxpayers’ money an absolute requirement.

The idea, according to the PCT, is that if you recruit a few scallies from the streets of Bransholme and take them on a jolly cruise aboard the HMS Extravagance, you may persuade them to lead healthy lives and stop mugging old ladies and sniffing glue.

What this astonishing episode demonstrates is that there is no recession in the public sector, where the gushing spigot of cash – your cash - remains in full flood.

We are faced with three million unemployed within 12 months, pension funds that are plummeting in value and even the city slickers have been forced to tighten their belts – but the nation’s pen pushers continue to spend money like it is going out of fashion.

Consider some recent examples: Peter Mandelson’s extraordinary £1million pay-off – for voluntarily leaving his EU job, or the £170,000 a year in benefits paid to enable an Afghan family to live in a seven-bedroom £1.2 million mansion.

The common thread is that it is all paid for by the taxpayer – and when you work in the public sector, money is no object.

Since 1997 Labour has recruited at least 800,000 new state employees, plus thousands more quangocrats and various hangers on. The cost of the gold-plated pensions fund alone is enough to bankrupt the country.

It simply can’t go on like this. The least we can expect is an immediate, non-negotiable freeze on all public sector recruitment. Even better would be wholesale sackings of thousands of people in non-jobs.

And the best place to start is with the yacht-buying idiots of the Hull PCT, who should be given a black plastic bin bag and ten minutes to clear their desks (that’s what happens when you make a crass error in the private sector folks!).

And if the unemployed youths of Hull still want to go away to sea, they can always join the Royal Navy.

SNP Leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond recently opined that an independent Scotland would join an “arc of prosperity” stretching from Iceland to Ireland.

Luckily for him his fantasy was never realised. Thanks to the financial crash Iceland is now bankrupt and Ireland an economic basket case.

The only reason the “arc of prosperity” didn’t come crashing down on the Scots’ heads was thanks to a massive injection of cash provided by English taxpayers.

The notion of an independent Scotland has been exposed as a laughable delusion – the £32 billion bail out for HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland alone was more than the total budget of the Scottish government.

Salmond’s reaction to this is to demand another £1 billion in subsidy from the hated English. He reminds me of a truculent teenager who keeps whining about independence but who can’t last five minutes without asking for yet another hand out from mum and dad.

If the Scots want to join the ranks of independent, grown up nations, they are going to have to learn to pay their way – and that means working harder and paying more in tax.

But I doubt if our friends north of the border can ever be weaned from the teat of public subsidy.