BA, fish, and a lardy army

The morning news - BA are announcing how much money they've lost due to the heightened security policy enacted in August, according to the BBC their profits are down 8%, according to GMTV they're down 27%. That's terrible either way, all that money they've lost; all that vanished... wait a minute - profit? Profits are down? So they haven't actually lost any money at all then, it's just that they failed to make as much as they did the same time last year. So if the security alert wasn't in place they'd have made the same or more? Wow I wish I could predict the future like that. So what's the downside

BA Executive 1: "Oh no our profits are down and I'm not going to get my annual bonus, and I promised my daughter I'd buy her a pony for Christmas"
BA Executive 2: "Don't worry it's not our fault, we'll make sure our bonuses are paid. We'll find the money somehow, sack a few hundred staff or something"


The next story is we're losing our fish; quick go out and stock up , fill your freezers, at the rate we're fishing there won't be any about in 50 years time. Well that's not quite right, some species might not be around, in certain areas, perhaps; but it's gosh darn important we do something right now.

A minister being interviewed on the BBC said they're trying to push forward a bill to protect certain areas and are trying to persuade other countries, including the EU, to do the same. Oh yeah I can see what'll happen, we'll all sign up and the only country to actually enforce it will be us. The other EU countries will just carry on as normal as they do with every other EU law in place that doesn't directly benefit them. Our local fish prices will go up and the supermarkets in their eternal quest for more cash will start importing them from abroad leading to the collapse of our fishing industry.

The minister said that this was very important and would be addressed in Parliament. The interviewer, Bill Turnball of the BBC, then stated it couldn't be that important if it wasn't in the Queen's speech. The minister quite rightly stated we couldn't know that as she hasn't given it yet. Bill repeated that it wasn't in the Queen's speech, and again the minister had to remind the seasoned interviewer that, oddly enough, ministers aren't allowed to comment on the Queen's speech until it's been given. Take this with the ITN comments regarding parliamentary procedure I've already noted and one has to ask what is going on with television journalism.


Finally, apparently our army has been under strength by about 5,000 people for about 5 years. People are leaving (one way or another) at a faster rate then are being recruited. Lack of people wanting to be recruited? Nope, they're too fat. One in three fail to meet the minimum requirements. So sticking firmly to their principles, and following in the footsteps of the police force, the army are lowering the minimum requirements. Hopefully training will burn off all that excess blubber or at least give the army medics plenty of practice on heart-attack victims.

Is there a solution to all these problems? Sure is - the government contracts BA to transport the lardy troops to the training camps, with the new recruits being offered a (normally banned) fish-and-chip meal on the flight. Sorted!