Ifrogman ifrogman

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Doom: It's just around the corner

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seems to go right? Tough!! You must have brought it on yourself. I'll tell you a secret, it never happens in the animal kingdom, and why? Because you humans see us animals as being dumb and stupid. Well, if I haven't changed your opinion on this by the time you've finished reading my blog, then there's simply no hope for you, none at all...

Bob told me that way across the big pond in a land called america, I think it's where that mister Bush lives(?) they've been caught up in the beginnings of the ruination of their economy. Apparently, it has something to do with this crazy human desire to own your own homes. Now, I've spoken about this before, but as with most things I talk about, you humans have the nasty habit to ignore me. Look, I know I'm just a frog, but even you lot must recognize that I'm right? Anyway, pin yer ears back. In america, the poorest in their communities have been suckered into buying their own homes, signing up for mortgages that they can never hope to keep paying. The end result, their homes are repossessed and these nice people get thrown out on the streets. Things wouldn't be quite so bad, if I was just talking about a few hundred people, but no, it's hundreds of thousands!! Croak!!!

These unfortunate people were cheated into buying sub-prime mortgages, you know what I mean, it's a mortgage that's offered to those who would normally be refused a mortgage, and it's usually because of bad debts, or perhaps they simply don't earn enough. Anyway, those who lend the money in the first place, sold these mortgages to big business around the world. However, because those who bought their own houses can't keep up with the rising cost of their mortgage, and rise they did in leaps and bounds, the value of these properties has now plummeted, leaving businesses not only with negative equity, but also shares that are fast losing their value too. Remember, this is now happening on a world scale, including here in jolly old Great Britain. So, as I see it, you lot are only just an arms length away from going bust!! Croak!!! And all because of this obsession about owning your own homes. By the way, if you don't believe me, just watch the price of housing, it's already falling, oh! and the price of shares during the next few months. Bricks and mortar, Nah! I wouldn't touch them any more than I would one of those tatty furballs. You have been warned! Ribbit!!!

My goodness, Bob has just informed me of something that affects you all. And I thought that he was just trying to cheer me up! It's all about your love of giving to charity, yes, charity! I think that this is truly commendable. Ribbit!!! Bob says that your government is giving millions of your hard earned tax money away to help the poor in Africa. (Where's that, Bob?) Again, very commendable. Anyway, it has been recently discovered, that instead of this money going to help the very poor that need it the most, it's going instead, directly into the pockets and foreign bank accounts of many of the unscrupulous leaders of these countries within Africa. In short, it's giving them nice fat pensions to the tune of billions to retire on (nice one!), and all thanks to the amazing kindness of you lot here in Britain and many other western countries. Isn't that nice of them? I bet that old Bob Geldoff must be throwing a wobbly right now if he's heard about this, eh? It just goes to show you, no matter what your position is within such (caring) governments, there's always plenty of room for a nice spot of corruption. Now that's something we, in the animal kingdom, never do to each other. Ribbit!!! Oh hum.........

Well, it's getting a bit parky where the weather is concerned, so I'm off round the garden to look for somewhere to hibernate. Do you know what? I'm almost too afraid to hibernate this year, because I feel that you may not be here when I rise from my slumbers next year. Croak!!!

Ah well, never mind, stay safe and look after yourselves, Ribbit!!!

Froggy

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Froggy go a courting...

Nah! I was just kidding. It's just that I know you humans like your fun, games and practical jokes, so I thought I'd give you a small taste of froggy humour. :) Anyway, my next courting period is still months away, but I can wait. Ribbit!!!

Talking about games, Bob has been speaking to me about these Olympic games that you human hold so much in store about. However, I was quite shocked to learn just how far you lot will go, in order to hold such huge world-class events.

With the Chinese officials holding their Olympic games next year, 2008, I have to wonder why it is, that in order to host these games, the Chinese authorities have taken to violating the human rights of plain ordinary people, folks like Bob and the rest of you? Were you aware that these same people are having their precious homes destroyed, just so the Chinese Olympics have a prestigious site with which to be showcased to the outside world? Seems to me that you humans should be boycotting the Chinese Olympics, instead of giving their inhuman actions your full support. Croak!!! Have you all forgotten the Tiananmen Square revolt of 1989 already? Shame on you if you have. Croak!!!

I don't know about you, but this smacks very much like those who lost their homes, businesses and allotments recently, just so the 2012 Olympics could be staged in the east end of London. I bet the authorities here wouldn't be so quick off the mark to move in the bulldozers, if it had been the west end of London that had been chosen as the Olympic site? I can just picture it: The bulldozers are rumbling along The Mall and have just knocked the Victoria Memorial down. HRH glances out of her front window, "Oi! Philip dahling, there are some nasty little oiks coming through our gates, and they have just shoved one's car out of the way with this whacking great bulldozer thingy." Says she. "Fothergill," Says he, "fetch my brace of Purdey's and some boxes of ammunition. One has got a spot of rough shooting to do." "Bags I the one with the bowler hat sitting at a jaunty angle, and the silly grin on his face, dear." Says she.

The Olympics, I'm told, are held to bring people together, to build the spirit of competitiveness between nations. All I see is blood money, greed and the selfish attitudes of a self-righteous few, none of whom I would ever care to call my friends. Croak!!!

Well, I'm off round the garden, stay safe and look after yourselves, Ribbit!!!


Froggy

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Honest froggy

Have you noticed the colours that are here with the onset of autumn? Such beauty, I never tire of looking around the garden when nature decides to paint everything in such captivating hues. Damn it! I'm going all soft on you. Ribbit!!!

Well, I've noticed that during the past week, Bob has been busy planting bulbs in the garden. I haven't the heart to tell him that those juicy fat slugs enjoy eating them. Anyway, he says that he wants to welcome in the spring with a riot of colour, bless him. Ribbit!!! He told me that he keeps on having to step lightly when he's working. Apparently, my off-spring have been enjoying the weather lately because it's providing them with lots and lots to eat. You see, they're all getting ready to hibernate, and quite frankly I don't blame them. As small as they are, they need fattening up to ward off the cold temperatures of winter when it comes. I'll have to do likewise this time around.

This presents a bit of a problem where I'm concerned. Who is going to watch over you humans if I'm tucked up somewhere snug and warm? Croak!!! The thought sends shivers through my skin. Yes, I know that you lot think you're capable of looking after yourselves, but honestly, have you stepped back and taken a good look at what you're doing, lately? I didn't think so, Croak!!!

I spend a lot of my time listening to what Bob has to tell me about you humans, believe me, a frog like me can get all choked up when he hears it. Honest froggy, I do care about you, but your lives, well it beholds me to tell you so, you're all going to the dogs! You continue to put so much faith in material things, I'm both shocked and hurt too. Croak!!! It's like I once told you all, you can't take it with you when you croak it.

I have learned that even your postal workers seem to have ignored the signs in front of them. Striking is the very last thing that any of you wants to do. Bob wonders why it is that it's always the union leaders who want to strike, yet it's rarely them who actually do the postal work anyway. He says that more often than not, they sit in their warm offices drinking countless mugs of coffee most of the time, then just come out to picket when there's a threat of a strike. You know, members would much rather work. Oh yes, Bob is talking from experience... Ribbit!!!

Humans, being what they are, rarely give a damn about each other. It's a toad eat toad world out there, which means that if the post office doesn't get its workers back where they should be, delivering the mail, people are going to find other means to send their precious packets, etc. Compared with the pre PC era, everyone now sends their messages via email, so, the PO is already feeling the effects of this happening. It's time to sack that mister Crozier. I take it that he's still got his job? Croak!!!

Did you know? I've been having problems of my own just lately. Yes, really! It's those tatty furballs. Right when you think that it's safe to come out from under a leaf and enjoy your life, suddenly there's one of those mangy furballs spitting, hissing and grinning at you. It's simply not fair! Croak!!!

Well, that's all for now, stay safe, look after yourselves and I'll be back with you all again real soon, Ribbit!!!

Froggy

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

When it's not right to be wrong

For more than a year now, I've tried very hard, with the very able assistance of Bob, to understand the way you humans act and think. Sadly, and probably because I'm a frog and therefore, not human, I'm fighting an incredible losing battle. Croak!!!

Bob told me that during his younger years, life was frequently made all the more harsh by the actions of a few selfish groups of people. Those were, he assures me, the days when strikes in the workplace were all too numerous and quite often frequent. Although many years have passed since that time, a time when humans should have learned by their mistakes, some of you are at it yet again. Croak!!!

This time, the postal workers are up in arms trying to get a better, and perhaps more fairer deal, from those who call themselves their bosses. Now, whilst I understand what they are trying to achieve for themselves, history has shown and proven time and time again that strike action simply doesn't work. The media tells everyone that the post office is losing millions, which is probably another way of saying that it has a crap service.(I bet this sounds familiar?) Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand it right, bosses who can't make a business work for itself, well... they don't deserve their jobs. After all, would you employ someone like Adam Crozier, the PO's Chief Exec, if that person was losing your business millions? Too damned right you wouldn't! It's time that the PO got someone who can do the job properly. Croak!!!

Further, those postal workers who are on strike, are they really sorry for disrupting your lives? After all, it's the customer who pays their wages, so why do these PO workers persecute everyone else just to get their revenge on their bosses? Perhaps it's that they think it's great to ruin other people's lives, just because their own is quickly going down the pan? Let me tell you this: when you had your first strike early this year, Bob, along with thousands of others, switched their ability to draw their pensions from the PO, and now quite happily draw it from their bank accounts instead. You do something to the innocent customer and, like many people who are fed up with strikes that go nowhere except to inflict a lot of suffering, they have now retaliated by taking their custom elsewhere. Ribbit!!!

Bob says that he lives in the world of the computer and electronic mail, and since it's far quicker to send an email message than a message in an envelope via the PO, you lot can strike all you want. You don't care about what happens to his way of life, so, he doesn't give a toad's backside about yours either. Ribbit!!!

Don't forget what I've said, it's the customer and who pays your wages. If the PO loses its customers, and it is doing if the media has it right, it is you who will lose in the long run, not only your wages, but also your jobs. It'll cost you more to go on strike than you'll ever get back once it's all settled. Croak!!!

Look before you leap, stay safe and I'll be back with you all again real soon, Ribbit!!!

Froggy

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Come, said the spider to the fly

I'll begin this week in saying that once again autumn is now well and truly upon us, albeit slowly but surely. It doesn't take much of an attempt by the wind to knock all those faded leaves from the trees, everything is beginning to shut down once more, however, this doesn't mean that gardens are going to lose all of their colour, far from it in fact.

For Bob, the garden is approaching a period of tidying, clearing away all the detritus of summer and putting in new bulbs for the spring to come. If the weather is as warm as last winter, I shall be spending some of my time in just watching him. There's nothing more pleasing to a frog like me, than to watch you humans hard at work. Ribbit!!!

Bob has been in a happy frame of mind this last week, happy that is until he heard that your Tory party have been making lacklustre promises, that is should you lot be foolish enough to vote them back into power at the next general election. Croak!!!

Now hold on there a minute... I'm well aware, despite my being a frog, that you lot generally aspire to being middle class, but let's face it, you're not!! The middle and upper classes of your society think of nobody but themselves because they're greedy, selfish and a miserable lot of toads. As I understand it, the Tories made a statement this week saying that they are appealing to the middle class citizen, so don't go around thinking that you're one of these, because if you do, then you're just about as caring as the jackal taunting its prey while it lays dying on the ground. Croak!!!

Bob says that the Tories have promised to take away the insipid inheritance tax, Toad's crap!!! They, like every other single lying MP, will tell you anything just so they can get into power. My goodness, have you lot already forgotten what life was like under the Thatcher regime? Yes, the middle and upper classes did very well out of them, but for the first time in your history, several millions lost their jobs and more than a thousand small businesses went to the wall every single week. This is how caring the Tories really are about you lot. Croak!!!

Their promises are as hollow as a thousand year old oak tree that's been dead for a very long time. Think not? Let me tell you, their financial plans simply do not add up. Take their plan to do away with ID cards, and so they should, cos it's an infringement of your civil rights as humans. Anyway, they promise to do away with ID cards so they can finance new prisons. Really? And where will this money come from, when the money for ID cards was going to be paid for by you lot? Are you getting it yet? From higher taxation, that's where. Croak!!!

You know what, it's easier for governments to hike up your taxes, simply because there isn't a sodding thing you can do about it, but moan. Well, moan away, because they won't care a fig leaf for your feelings anyway. As you should know by now, I like you humans a lot, you're strange, yes, but you're also cute, but for goodness sake, start using your brain and stop acting like idiots. Believe in what you see. Trust in what has happened in the past. There, you see, it works. Ribbit!!!

Remember this: Voting, or not voting, as I pointed out recently, it's the only power you have over people like these, men and women who are there to feather their own nests, and who incidentally, couldn't care less about you as citizens of this fair land... You lot are just a means to making them wealthy. Croak!!!

Well, I'm off to hunt around the garden for a spot of dinner, so, stay safe and I'll be back with you all again real soon, Ribbit!!!

Froggy