Wednesday, 24 November 2004 - 12:57 PM GMT

Oh how I miss UK television, not. The crap on RTE also helps me to find other things to do.

With the Queen's Speech over and done with, don't you think that you are living in an over-crowded cesspool?

TV garbage just reinforces the view.

Wednesday, 24 November 2004 - 5:54 PM GMT

Well I thought this country was overcrowded before the Queen's Speech and I'm not sure what the latter has to do with our population. Did she say she was increasing our intake of immigrants?

Is Britain a cesspool? No, I don't think so. But it could be a lot nicer. People here need to cheer up. For some reason we are relentlessly negative. Ask people what they think about preservatives in food or the state of our health and you'd think that our lifespans were declining. They're not though.

One thing that is wrong here is that it's far too hard to get planning permission to knock down old buildings and build new ones, with the result that parts of the country look run-down when there is no need for it.

For instance: Why hasn't anything been done with Battersea Power Station? It's on a huge site that could easily house a few thousand people, but it's been derelict for years. Why? It was declared a heritage site in 1980 and bugger all has been done with it. What a disgrace! Knock it down and build places for people to live for fucks' sake!

The Rainbow Casino in Birmingham is in old building that once housed monks many centuries ago. Its poker room was split in two parts, because of a listed fireplace that can't be removed. I can imagine someone being willing to buy the fireplace but why it has to stay in place is totally beyond me. The result was a lot of wasted space for no noticeable benefit. The public do not drop in to see it and players don't care. The only effect of the listing is to bugger up the card room.

Third example: A listed wall in the grounds of Stamford Bridge, the Chelsea Football ground. I live near this ground and once went to a very nice Irish restaurant in the grounds called Arkle's. It doesn't get a lot of trade and can't be seen from the road. The reason is that there is a listed wall in the way that makes it invisible. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever appealing about this wall. It's revolting, but some bastard has listed it.

I'm not a philistine really, but I do think that a bunch of do-gooders have slapped preservation orders and listings on things of no aesthetic, historical or cultural interest to anyone and have thereby contributed to a lack of investment in places where it's needed, damaging business and the needs of those who can't afford housing. It's a disgrace.

Thursday, 25 November 2004 - 9:20 AM GMT

What annoys me most about people in this country is their attitude to anyone who is successful...in America if you find out someone has done well for themselves Americans tend to say something like "Fantastic, well done. How did he do it and how can I do it even better?" In this country we tend to look at a successful person and say "Lucky bastard. Why did it happen to him and not to me?" In Britain the vast proportion of our population seem to me to be lazy, jealous and expect everything handed to them on a plate.