LORD SMITH HAS NEVER HEARD OF GENERAL CUSTER, AND TAX REBATE SCAMMERS

BIBLICAL SMITH

The Environment Agency boss Lord Smith visited the Somerset Levels and whilst there refused to apologise saying “Call this bad, have you ever been to Venice, or Atlantis?”. Being, or at least looking like, some half man half toad thing he found the Somerset Levels to be his perfect habitat. 

And resembling what he does the kids who live in the Levels thought Mr Toad from Wind In The Willows had come to visit them. This kind of disappointed them though because they’d have much preferred Woody and Buzz Lightyear, or preferably any character who wasn’t in a very old book they’d never read. Smith could have at the very least turned up with a bucket, just to take the bad look off the accusations that he’s doing nothing. One thing he did do however was refuse to resign. He said he wasn’t resigning because he still has too much work to do to resolve the desperate situation. Much in the same that Hitler refused to resign in the spring of 1945 because he still had too much work to do to resolve the desperate situation of 2 million heavily armed Russians banging on every door in Berlin. The only difference being that Hitler had everyone who called from his resignation shot. Lord Smith can’t do that. I’ll bet he wishes he could though, starting with the angry farmers.

LORD SMITH

So Smith stood there surrounded by thousands of hostile people all wanting his scalp and there he was insisting that he was doing a great job and everything would be fine. Yet not one journalist asked him “Lord Smith, does the name General Custer mean anything to you?”.

David Cameron visited the Levels too and said the scene was biblical. So biblical that the scene even had what initially appeared to be Jesus up on a hill crucified to a cross. It turned out that it wasn’t our Lord Jesus at all, it was how the locals had dealt with the other Lord, Lord Smith. Jesus would be a great Environment Agency member of staff as he ability to walk on water. 

On the Andrew Marr Show Eric Pickles the Community Minister who looks like a thumb completely blamed the Environment Agency for giving the Government terrible advice. Pickles said “We thought we were dealing with experts” and signalled that Lord Smith should resign, and when I say signalled I mean that Pickles also said “Lord Smith should resign because everything is his fault, the flooding, the Hindenburg disaster, the Titanic disaster, and I heard that he even donated the sperm that produced Ed Miliband so he is Lord Smiths fault too”.

In response Lord Smith accused Ministers of playing politics, and then he sat in a corner sobbing “Why does everyone hate me?”.

LORDS SMITHS FAULT

The Army were called in and how the people rejoiced as if the Army were a panacea for the flooding. But unless the Army were planning on drinking all the floodwater away there really wasn’t much they could do other than help with sandbagging.

On that note, what would have helped would have been to mix a couple of gallons of whisky in with the floodwater and airlift Charles Kennedy and Gazza in and the problem would indeed have been solved. Why call the Army in?, the Navy would have been a much better idea because unlike the Army the Navy has submarines.

Labour are blaming Tory budget cuts for the flooding, the Tories are blaming Labour claiming the floods are caused by the tears of Ed Miliband who cries millions of gallons whenever he sees the results of a poll on his party leadership. Lord Smith blames the floods on anyone and anything that isn’t him, the UKIP Councillor David Silvester blames the floods on gay marriage and everyone who lives in the Levels blames a lack of dredging. Although the Environment Agency claim that dredging wouldn’t have made that much difference, adding “and we are sure about that because we have absolutely no idea what dredging is” .

The BBC have in no way used the floods to promote their weather app. No wait a minute they have. In completely bad taste the BBC after every weather report on the situation on the Levels plug their weather app saying “Stay ahead of the weather with the BBC weather app”.

Their argument being that this ad won’t upset the people of Somerset because they won’t see the ad as they don’t have any electricity to power their TV, and they have no power to charge up their mobile phones either. And anyway it’s far too late for them to stay ahead of the weather, that ship has sailed. Yes thanks to the floods that ship, or any ship with a low draught can now sail about anywhere in the Levels.

So what is the Environment Agency doing? Agency is actually a good word because the Environment Agency staff have now all got themselves showbiz agents. They need them to handle the fee negotiations for all their appearances on the news and current affairs programmes. Some of them have been on the TV so much now that they their very own entourage. 

 

THE SOMERSET LEVELS

But are they doing anything about the flooding?. No,because they are far too busy getting their faces on the telly. This is paying off for many of them as they’ve been asked to appear on Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing on Ice and ironically Splash, live from the Somerset Levels.

GONE PHISHING

The number of phishing e-mails sent out by fraudsters rocketed 47 per cent in the last three months compared to the same period last year, HM Revenue and Customs has revealed.

The taxman has warned taxpayers not to be caught out by the rise in scammers targeting people via legitimate looking e-mails offering tax rebates in return for bank account or credit card details.

The taxman said “Especially watch out for Emails offering tax rebates, because there is no way we’d ever give anyone any money back”.

In the three month run-up to last Friday's tax return deadline, customers reported 23,247 phishing e-mails to HMRC. Overall, more than 91,000 phishing e-mails were unveiled last year.

HMRC says anyone responding to this type of e-mail risks opening their bank account to fraudsters and having their details sold on to other organised criminal gangs.

Bogus e-mails claiming to be from the taxman have also recently been circulated to employers containing zip file attachments or hyperlinks. These should not be opened because they include a virus. 

This is Money reported last year how a handful of businesses fell victim to these types of malware scams after opening e-mails claiming to be from the taxman, including a chain of bakeries which had £20k stolen by fraudsters.Customers forwarding phishing e-mails to HMRC, the department was last month able to close 178 websites which it found were the source – up from 65 in January 2013. 

During 2013, HMRC closed down 1,476 websites sending these types of scam e-mails. Its action led to websites being closed down around the world, including in the USA, Russia and elsewhere.

A record-breaking 8.48million tax returns were filed online by last week’s 31 January deadline, HMRC says.

Gareth Lloyd, head of digital security at HMRC, said: ‘HMRC never contacts customers who are due a tax refund via e-mail – we always send a letter through the post.

‘If you receive an e-mail claiming to be from HMRC which offers a tax rebate, please send it to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk and then delete it permanently.

‘We can, and do, close these websites down, and do all we can to ensure taxpayers stay safe online by working with law enforcement agencies around the world to target the criminals behind these scams.’

HMRC says scam e-mails often begin with sentences such as  ‘we have reviewed your tax return; according to our calculations of your last year’s accounts a tax refund of XXXX is due.’

Legitimate tax rebate forms (P800s) from HMRC will contain a payment order and will never ask for credit or debit card details.

Typical details requested in these scam e-mails include – name, address, date of birth, bank account number, sort code, credit card details, National Insurance number, passwords and mother’s maiden name.

As well as phishing scams, Jeff Prestridge from This is Money sister title the Financial Mail on Sunday, has urged Google to crackdown on tax return websites being allowed to top the rankings and tract custom when people could do it for free with HMRC. In response Google said “Yeh, like we care”

One culprit is taxreturngateway.com. It charges fees of up to £1,000 for the filing of a tax return that if done through the official HMRC site would cost nothing.

Google has continued to allow this copycat website to appear at the head of searches for key words such as ‘tax return deadline’.

The result is that hundreds of people a week – maybe more – are using this bogus website and are paying a processing fee as a result.

SOURCE:The Daily Mail.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2553813/Tax-rebate-phishing-e-mails-rocket-47-three-months.html#ixzz2suVTGVSj

LEGO

The new Lego movie has been criticised for being no more than a 2 hour advert for Lego. That isn’t true, it’s only 90 minutes. But a lot of movies are no more than very long adverts, including this coming summers big blockbusters Wonga, Cillit Cillit Bang Bang, and We Buy Any Cars Such As Lightning McQueen.com







SOCHI

The Sochi Winter Games are under way and the Russian Olympic village has been described as slightly better than a Gulag. The Russians dismissed this saying that the village is nothing like a Gulag “For a start the village doesn’t have quite as many sadistic guards as a Gulag, and the potatoes available on the village’s canteen are cooked”.

President Putin made a small speech at the opening ceremony. He said “The Olympic Torch will be kept lit using my body oil”. He didn’t need it his body oil because he didn’t go topless at the opening ceremony. Team GB beat the Russians team in the male curling event even though the Russian team were playing as though their lives depended on it. And if rumours are to be believed in how Putin deals with failures who embarrass Russia they are all now buried in shallow snow covered graves in one of the hills surrounding Sochi.







HAIRY?

TV presenter Davina McColl had to be helped out of the water after completing a 1.5 mile swim in freezing cold Lake Windermere for Sports Relief. She was so limp that she had to be carried to a nearby hotel. The BBC reported that before the swim she was in tears saying “I’m quite nervous about it because I know it’s life threatening”. Life threatening?. Apparently someone has told her that Lake Windermere was full of giant octopuses and those things can eat you”.

As she was being carried along to the hotel no one recognized her and they were disbelieving when they were told “That’s Davina McColl” replying “No it isn’t it, because if that was Davina McColl she be mugging for the camera and making stupid face like Davina does all the time”.

She was later pictured with a hot drink and tweeted “That was hairy” Eh? Did we really want to know that she noticed she needed a bikini wax when she took her wet suit off and had it landscaped by the hotels beautician. No we didn’t.

THE SOCHI OLYMPICS AND TOOTHPASTE, AND LLOYDS PPI CLAIMS

THE PPI MISSELLING POT 

More than £2bn was wiped from the value of Lloyd’s shares yesterday as investors baulked at another huge provision for PPI mis-selling and the delay of dividend payments.

In a pre-emptive move ahead of its full-year results next week, the state-backed lender said it expected to post a £6.2bn profit for 2013, before the write-offs.

But it also revealed it has been forced to set aside another £1.8bn to compensate customers mis-sold payment protection insurance.

The huge PPI provision, which takes Lloyds’ total bill so far to £9.8bn, is far bigger than had been predicted.

The bank, which also revealed it had set aside another £130m for mis-selling complex interest rate swaps to small firms, could give no assurances that this provision would be its last.

PPI claim back at http://www.consumerkings.co.uk/#!how-to-claim-ppi/c1xo4



Source; The Daily Mail.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2551077/Lloyds-shares-dive-investors-baulk-PPI-provision.html#ixzz2sX4Yz4Tv

TOOTHPASTE?

The US has warned the Russians that terrorists could sneak explosives inside toothpaste tubes on to flights bound for the winter games. The terrorists were apparently going to try hiding explosives inside shaving foam containers but standing there at airport security with a big mad fundamentalist beard WITH a small can of shaving foam would have been a bit of a giveaway. Generally speaking terrorists are pretty stupid people because only a ridiculous moron would believe that killing themselves in a bombing leads to getting 72 virgins in heaven, but even terrorists aren’t stupid enough to think that a security officer won’t notice that can of shaving foam is superfluous to needs for a big mad bearded fundamentalist lunatic.

Their latest “we hate everyone who isn’t us” means that toothpaste will be added to the long list of items you aren’t allowed to take on an aircraft. This will indeed lead to problems, especially for long haul passengers. There they’ll be arriving in Australia for instance and meeting relatives they haven’t seen in ages at the arrival hall. And when they go to greet their relatives with a big kiss they’ll be told “Wow, your breath is stinking, here have some Tic Tacs and we’ll try that again”.

The US and the Russians really aren’t the best of mates but the US authorities have been quite straight with their warnings. For a laugh they could have told the Russians that gay people are explosive. But they didn’t, probably because they might have used that fact to justify their anti gay laws. Of course the Russians have had to relax the laws in Sochi for the games because what would a winter Olympics be without figure skating, which President Putting loves to watch while topless with one eye on the TV and the other eye watching himself flex his muscles in a full length mirror. Make of that what you will. In protest as Russia’s anti gay laws the German team’s uniform is rainbow coloured. How bad must the Russians be if Germans think they are a bit discriminatory?

There is a way round the toothpaste thing as all the security officials have to do is check the teeth of anyone carrying toothpaste. If they have bad or discoloured teeth there is no way that they’ll will have used the Rembrandt Plus Toothwhitening Formula they have in their bag. Plus there will be the awkward question of “Right mate, you’ve got a tube of toothpaste, but where’s your toothbrush?”.

Toothpaste though, if they’d tried it with a small 500ml bottle of L’Oreal Big Mad Fundamentalist Beard Conditioner they might have got away with it. They could explain the conditioner by claiming “Because I’m worth it” adding “And I want my beard to look luxurious when I meet my 72 virgins”.

That’s another thing. If you were nuts enough to actually believe that you’ll get 72 virgins, wouldn’t you want to see them first. After all there could be a reason that they are virgins. They could all look like Susan Boyle.

Then it’s case of “I can’t believe I wasted £1.99 on a tube of toothpaste”

          NOT SO FANTASTIC PLASTIC.

The Daily Mirror today featured pictures of Sly Stallones 92 year old mother as a warning to anyone who is contemplating cosmetic surgery. She is 92 though so I’m guessing she really wouldn’t have looked any different if she hadn’t had any plastic surgery. Yes but there’s plastic surgery and there’s plastic surgery. It can enhance some peoples looks, obviously not in Mrs Sly’s case, but it’s when people take it too far and they end up looking like their face has melted, then it’s a problem. At least I suppose Mrs Sly still has a face. If Michael Jackson had reached 92 there would just be a big hole where his face used to be. On the subject of disfiguring yourself.

The law states that giving a tattoo to anyone under the age of 18 is illegal under the 1969 Tattooing on Minors Act. The police in Wales are investigating a complaint against a tattoo artist after he gave a 16 year old a tattoo across her backside that read “100% Welsh Lamb”.

The Mother is furious, as are Welsh Sheep farmers. The latter’s anger is because the tattoo suggests that their lamb chops taste like bums.

People like David Beckham have a lot to answer for. How many tattoos can a man have without looking weird? The answer is none. Luckily for him he’ll have the money to have his tattoos removed before he’s a pensioner. Those who don’t have the money and have emulated Beckham are going to look pretty silly standing in the Post Office queue in their 70’s with arms and a neck full of wrinkly faded ink.

People will tattoos are a bit scary. For instance they can bang into people in pubs and knock drinks over without any repercussions. The reason being that people take one look at them and think “I’m not saying a word, if he’s willing to do that to himself, what the hell would he do to me if I remonstrate with him”.

Do people think of the consequences of a tattoo? Some do.

There was a case of a man who went to a tattoo artist and told him “I want the Union Jack tattooed around my neck, on one cheek I want the St George’s Cross, on the other cheek I want a tattoo of the Queen, down my nose I want the numbers 1966 to signify when England won the World Cup, on my top lip I want the words I Love and on my chin I want the word Mum”

The tattoo artist asked him “What about your forehead” and he said “Well I was thinking of having that tattooed with a tattoo of England World Cup Winners 2014, but

I wouldn’t want to get a tattoo that I might regret in later life”



CROW

After causing travel misery for London commuters with the strike over the closure of ticket offices Bob Crow admitted that he never uses ticket offices. He doesn’t have to because he goes everywhere in a union funded luxury limo.

Closing the ticket offices means the loss of 950 jobs. That’s Crow’s argument, which falls a bit flat when 1000 of his “members” have applied for voluntary redundancy. He’s even managed to be militant about that and plans more strikes until TFL agrees to his demands to give a payment to the 50 of his “members” as compensation for the disappointment of not being made voluntarily redundant.

Crow just adores the limelight; something he got used to in the 70’s when he was a “member” of the Rubettes. He can’t give being in the limelight up, nor can he give up wearing his stupid Rubettes bunnet.