Gnat Pee's off

Found time out from my busy schedule prancing round the Balkans to read the news that the government's Bogg Society adviser, Lord Gant Pee has err peed off. This whole issue reveals a basic contradiction at the heart of the government's thinking. Was he a Tsar or a Czar?

The fact he did this on the same day that Cameron relaunched Bogg Society for the 485th time (more failed reboots than a broken computer) was particularly well timed. It was all in all what Dom Blond might call a victory for Bogg Society. And it was nice to see Cameron try and add some substance and flesh to the concept's rhetorical bones by ramping up the rhetoric. But it was all overshadowed by an unnamed footballer who everyone knew the name of having his name named by an MP taking a very brave step forward in promoting the cause of John Hemming.

I am all for free speech myself and will silence anyone who says otherwise. I may be going out on a legal limb here, but I don't care. You people have the right to know. The footballer's name is

RYAN GIGGS

Anyway, back to Bogg Society. No one's listening Dave. You can't keep switching it off and back on again and hope it finally works. But then you know all about not listening, what with this NHS listening shambles. But if you listen to one thing, listen to this. I assume Lord Pee won't need his Lordship now so if there is a vacancy remember that I am ready to go and have already bought my ermine.

DISASTER (Drowning In Sodding Acronyms Started To Eliminate Reason)

SMELLING A SHAM (Suddenly My Entire Life Lies In Needlessly Generating Acronyms - Stop Health Acronym Mayhem)

Was furious to learn that Private Eye have suggested that the only reason I have been asked to echo Cameron's views on competition in the NHS is because I am fiercely pro-competition and therefore can be relied upon to echo Cameron's views on competition in the NHS.

At least I have learnt how to cut and paste in Word which will be handy as it will save me retyping what the government has already decided when I am writing my report.

I am taking a break from my 128 hour shifts at the hospital and heading off on a jaunt round former Yugoslavian states with the fun loving party animal Pepe Ohdearie of EuCLUTS (European Committee of Leadership in Umbrella Technology and Sophistication). Knowing what Pepe is like I may be gone awhile but will try and post some pictures that at least give the pretence that I not just sitting around in cafes but working hard and that this visit is good value for my members and that what they do with gamps in the Balkans has any relevance in the UK.

Bogging a dead horse

Have you noticed? Where has Bogg Society gone?

Last week marked the first anniversary of the coalition. They produced a paper listing all their achievements. I say paper, more like a post it note of the positive ones and a 1,500 page apology. But the term Boggsoc was strangely absent probably because all it has achieved is confusion.

Which is a shame really because BUBB launched its Commission on Bogg Society only yesterday. I love a commission , me. I am forever commissioning them. But I'd hate to think that all of the hard work we (members of my team) have put into this will result in nothing more than a launch and a lunch and then fall by the wayside as the government focuses on less hard to explain bullshit concepts.

The event went well. I took a break from my 114 hour shift at the hospital (snuck out when matron wasn't watching) to put in an appearance and spent most of the event blogging. I am a bit confused who exactly I am working for at the minute and cannot decide if I should offer poor value to the members who pay my wage or to the taxpayer who is funding my secondment to the NHS. Actually, I am being unfair to myself as I did spend all weekend working on NHS stuff by taking a break from bedpans and phoning the other people working on reports for Cameron screaming "Competition is crucial. And I'm going to produce my report first, you loser".

Even if Bogg Society does go down the pan and is flushed away, our initial report had some helpful stuff in it. By placing a huge focus on banks and social investment and lending brollies to damper communities it coincidentally ties in nicely with the stuff the Brolly Investment Business, which I chair, is involved in even though any suggestion that I am once again blurring my supposedly two distinct roles are of course merely mischief making.

It's back!

My packed lunch has returned. After a rigorous investigation, where I went round accusing all of my fellow workers of pinching my goodie laden tupperware box, it has reappeared in my locker. True, my Wagon Wheel has been eaten and my peperami half-nibbled but the couscous salad was intact.

It just goes to show that there is no such thing as a free lunch, or there won't be once McDonald's or some other paragon of healthy eating profiteering steps in to provide the catering in the brave new world of NHS competition.

I cannot say competition enough when waffling on about health reforms. Competitiveness is so important. No one has said that more than me. I have been working furiously on my report for Cameron and fully intend to be the first of my fellow patsies to complete their contribution to this sham of a listening exercise. Never mind the quality, it's about staying in front and winning the competition. After all, Cameron is only going to pretend to read it and then ignore any bits he doesn't like anyway.

Someone has pinched my packed lunch

It had couscous salad in it and everything. I bet this is some secret government plot to keep me on my toes and make me hungry as I continue putting in 98 hour shifts at the hospital. I am going to ask myself to conduct an independent review of my fellow workers' lockers.

Oh and a blog post I wrote about going on the Today programme and waffling on about competition not being a disease (I learnt this from a doctor - they are experts on diseases) and some other shite has disappeared from the internet. Or perhaps I never actually wrote it but just rehearsed in my head in the middle of the night what I would have written about coming over all coherent and vaguely authoritative on the radio had I actually been coherent and vaguely authoritative on the radio.

But I am not afraid to say that competition is essential to the long term future of the NHS. As in, you'll only get free treatment for a hernia if you win it in a spot the ball contest or get a hip replacement if your completed crossword is first out of the hat.

OK, some proper evidence

Here is some proper evidence of my donation. One thing I wasn't happy about on Comic Relief's website was that there is no option to put "Sir" when entering one's title under personal details. I had to enter Mr. This is highly insulting and as such I will be considering very carefully future donations to them, good work or not. Especially as this will be even more demeaning when I become a Lord.

You will note as well that I generously rounded up my £29.99 pledge to a whopping thirty English. Apparently this is enough to buy so much something or other for x needy people. I am not entirely happy with this as I would much rather my donation went to something important like administration costs but no matter.

Red Brolly Day donation of £29.99 - the evidence

Red Brolly Day - part 5 - the brolly Knights go into combat

Here at last is the final installment of the Red Brolly Day trove of umbrella pictures. I have been so busy working in the hospital (I am now up to 64 hour shifts) that I haven't had time to post them let alone blog every last conversation I have with a harassed doctor about my piles. But I am unstinting in my devotion to single-handedly saving the NHS (while getting a free vanity transplant at the taxpayers' expense) and would not seek to prove how hard I am working by blogging about it every 5 minutes.

I am sure my reward for my devotion to the government will come with a peerage, especially after I supported Cameron and single-handedly swung the AV referendum his way with my ill-judged-and-still-not-apologised-for-inaccurate-borderline-in-breach-of-regulations-political-campaigning blog post. Anyway, enough of this, on with the pictures.

First up is someone who many people have described as my nemesis - Sir Hubert Carrington of NCVO. Nemesis? How stupid. Folk do like to make more of things than is necessary. To call him a nemesis glamorises our relationship to an implausible level. Our mutual mistrust and dislike goes much deeper than that.

And secondly, here is a picture of my spoofer Sir Stephen Bubb, peering nervously around him before heading out into the rain, looking for all the world like a man who has never seen or used an umbrella before.

Although there is no truth to the accusation that this is the first time these 2 people have appeared together for the common good, as promised I will be donating a sum of cash (£29.99) to Gampic Relief (via Comic Relief) for these (and the earlier) photos I have been sent.

My problem is that I was going to try and squeeze it through BUBB expenses so I wouldn't actually have to pay for it but as I am not technically working there at the minute I am not sure I can get away with it.

I can't really add it to the NHS budget as such a sum on top of what they are paying me to legitimise Cameron's pre-determined butchery of the NHS could bankrupt it long before the private sector vultures start circling around the profitable bits.

I suppose I will have to pay the sum myself. Do my beloved readers need proof of my philanthropy? A picture of me holding a large cheque perhaps? If there is any positives from the cessation of cheques in 2018 it will be that such cliched photographs will thankfully be a thing of the past.

Or do you trust me? It's not as if I have been over defensive about expenses and payments in the past after all.

AV fears

After misrepresenting how AV works when talking about tomorrow's referendum for how people choose umbrellas, I hope no one gets the idea that by using my blog yesterday to promote a political opinion I am in contravention of the Umbrella Commission's rules on campaigning. You know what they're like, especially after all of the fuss over the trade union thing.

Heaven forbid some pesky journalist at Canopy Finance or Brolly Weekly (I am less worried about Canopy Times) gets hold of this. Nobody breathe a word to the Umbrella Commission OK? We don't want the regulator to waste its time regulating.

It was only a personal opinion in my personal blog which I in no way ever use to promote my professional role, the views of BUBB or as a way of communicating with members.

I hope that is clear.

Unfairly influencing the coming vote

The whole country is quite beside itself with apathy over the upcoming referendum on how we select umbrellas. Some people want to change from a system where people simply choose their favourite umbrella to a complicated system where second preferences have an influence if no brolly receives an overall majority meaning that we may end up with gamps that nobody wants. Or something like that, I haven't actually bothered to check it properly.

I get a message from my good friend in Australia about the Alternative Vote. I think I'm allowed to blog it even if I don't actually bother to check first whether it is true or not. Though it would be terribly embarrassing if it was found to be a highly misleading tale about someone called Robyn Holding (any relation to Donald I wonder) whose brolly gained an unfair advantage through PR not AV.

But you will make up your own mind I'm sure! After all it would be wrong of me to try and influence my members, especially by using dodgy evidence through a work blog. Though it will come as no surprise that I want to retain FPTP, solely on the basis of loving tradition and all that. It is only by clinging on to systems that don't work for reasons of sentimentality that I have any chance at all of making the House of Lords.