Falling apart - by Pete... Thursday, May 19, 2011

Falling apart - by Pete... Thursday, May 19, 2011

Readers will be stunned to learn that North Senior is actually away from his desk and taking a holiday of sorts. Flying pigs will shortly emerge from a rift in the fabric of time-space, shooting lasers from their eyes and breathing fire. It is the apocalypse. Though we do not expect this will in any way prevent him from blogging later on.

Meanwhile, all is not well abroad. Following the recent crisis on the Italian borders we now find the Danes following suit:

Last week Denmark announced that it was resuming checks along its frontiers with Germany and Sweden - having suspended them in 2001 when it joined the Schengen agreement, which allows passport-free travel throughout 22 of the EU's 27 member states, plus four others.

The Danish government says the resumption of border checks is needed to help prevent cross-border crime, illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Soren Pind, Denmark's integration minister, said that the EU needed a frank discussion about the "dark side" of open frontiers.

If this is the side effect of a global economic meltdown, pour on the coals! The byline of The Great Deception was "Can the European Union survive?". Now we know it cannot. It must die. It is dying. We just wish it would hurry up.

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Political Inertia. - by Pete...

It wasn't new then and it's not new now.

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They're all at it - by Richard...

The Wall Street Journal is relaying a report that a unit of German insurer Munich Re hired about 20 prostitutes for a 2007 party in Budapest as a reward for some of its top salesmen. The news was broken in the German newspaperHandelsblatt, but has also been confirmed by company representatives. The party for about 100 insurance agents was held at Budapest's historic Gellert spa.

Prostitutes hired for the event were designated with armbands, and escorted party attendees to beds set up near the spa's thermal baths. They would earn a stamp on their forearm upon their return to keep a running tally of their services.

The company is huffing and puffing about this not being in character, but the reality is otherwise. The company is so used to hiring prostitutes of all descriptions that one finds this even entirely unremarkable. In fact, for a company that has a statue of DSK coming from his bathroom outside one of its offices (pictured above), we should expect this as normal practice.

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Strike first, strike hardest - by Richard...

You can see why The Boy is so keen to get the troops back from Afghanistan. He is going to need them the put out the fires and empty the dustbins. Interestingly, the court staff are also thinking of bailing out, so to speak – they and the teachers, lecturers and other public sector workers.

This is after delegates at the annual conference of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) agreed to a strike ballot of more than 250,000 civil servants for industrial action, with the result due next month. Add a financial collapse to that and we could be in for an interesting time.