No to selfies at polling booths

Staff at polling stations have been advised to stop people taking “selfies” inside voting booths to prevent them being prosecuted.

The Electoral Commission believe the latest craze of taking photos of yourself on a smartphone could inadvertently reveal how someone has voted in this week’s local and European elections.

It is a criminal offence to reveal how someone has voted or will vote.

While they the staff at polling stations may have been advised to tell people don’t take a selfie, if I was one of them and I saw someone about to do so I wouldn’t say anything, in fact I’d not only let them get on with it I’d make they were prosecuted for being such complete morons.

How up your own arse do you have to be that you can’t go a few minutes without taking a photo of yourself, in fact if you were one of those amoebas who were planning to take a selfie in a voting booth a) you don’t deserve the right to vote and b) please don’t you clearly have so little respect for the system that you’d be doing everyone a favour if you stayed at home, you self obsessed narcissists.    

French face red faces over trains that are ‘too wide’

The French train operator SNCF has discovered that 2,000 new trains it ordered at a cost of 15bn euros ($20.5bn; £12.1bn) are too wide for many regional platforms.

The embarrassing blunder has so far cost the rail operator over 50m euros ($68.4m; £40.6m).

How can such an obvious blunder have been made, who was in charge of providing the specifications of the trains size, Mr Bean!

Surely if you’re spending £12bn on 2,000 trains making sure they are the right size for the tracks you plan to use them on should be one of, if not the highest priority.

I could understand if when the trains were delivered SNCF weren’t happy with the design or there was a technical issue that meant that they needed to go back to the manufacturer and be repaired, but not bungling the width so your shiny new trains don’t fit the track. 

Moya Dodd says quotas are needed for boardroom diversity

One of the most high profile women in global football, FIFA executive committee member Maya Dodd, says quotas are a necessary evil to increase the level of diversity in sport boardrooms.

I understand the point being made but I really don’t think quotas are the way to go because then you start getting into grey areas and some individuals may be overlooked for jobs they’re better equipped to do simply because it’ll mean the quota target won’t be reached. 

And while Blatter and his cronies run FIFA and continue to perpetually damage the game day by day, the lack of diversity in boardrooms will be the least of the games problems.

Which is why it is imperative that he doesn’t serve another term and isn’t in charge after 2015, and I do feel sorry for the person who succeeds him because they’ll have one hell of a mess to clear up. 

Louis van Gaal confirmed as new Man United manager

Louis van Gaal has been named as Manchester United manager, with Ryan Giggs as his assistant.

Van Gaal, 62, has signed a three-year contract to succeed David Moyes.

The Dutchman, who has won titles with Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and AZ Alkmaar, will take charge at Old Trafford after leading the Netherlands at this summer's World Cup in Brazil.

Even though everybody knew he was going to be appointed last week at least now we can say it’s official.

Although waiting for the announcement was a bit tedious, what I have found interesting is some of the stories about Van Gaal and his style, in particular the fact that he’s strict.

There have been several stories about how strict he is and how the players will react to that, because it’s not like United have ever been coached by a disciplinarian, some might say tyrant, at any point in the last 30 years! 

Van Gaal has won a league title at every club he’s managed and has reached three Champions League finals and all people seem to be focused on is oh he’s a bit strict, he maybe but look at his CV his approach clearly works and he is exactly what United need.

I also find this appointment sad in a way because I was rather enjoying the sitcom Moyes had managed to turn United into this season, unfortunately it’s been cancelled and not been renewed for another year but it was fun while it lasted. 

Exam stress tackled by bubble wrap and puppies

University students have ordered hundreds of metres of bubble wrap to burst as a way of relieving exam stress.

The University of Leicester students' union is planning "bubble wrap stations" where students can relax by popping the packaging material.

Puppies will also be brought in to soothe stressed-out students.

I get that exams can be stressful but bubble wrap and puppies surely they’ll end up being more of a distraction than a relaxant.

Bubble wrap is fun to pop the first four or five times, then it just becomes irritating and it would only be made worse if you had a room full of people doing it, and puppies urinating everywhere and yapping incessantly how would that help in anyway?

If students at the University of Leicester want to relieve stress maybe they should actually take a medical relaxant because puppies and bubble wrap sound like good ideas until you think about it and then you realise they aren’t. 

Tottenham chairman not a football man – Clive Allen

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is “not a football man”, according to former Spurs player and coach Clive Allen.

Nine managers have left Spurs since Levy took over in 2001, the most recent being Tim Sherwood, who was sacked on Tuesday after five months in charge.

Allen, 52, described Levy as an “incredible” businessman but criticised his football-related decisions.

I think Allen has been kind, time and time again Levy has shown himself to be utterly clueless when you look at the way Tottenham is run, and if he is this ‘incredible businessman’ then surely after 13 years he’d have learned from his mistakes but clearly not.

Since Levy took over Tottenham have finished in the top four twice which is pitiful considering the money they’ve spent, and yet the reason why is so obvious.

Levy doesn’t let the manager sign the players they want instead he insists on letting a director of football sign players and then expects the manager to coach a bunch of players he didn’t even want.

Now that Sherwood has been sacked and there’s talk of all the potential candidates that could come in, if you were one of them why would you want the job? Where’s the incentive? You come in invariably your best player gets sold and you have no say over what to do with the money and are expected to finish in the top four straight away otherwise your sacked.

That sounds like a set-up put in place by an ‘incredible businessman’, not!

Sadly Levy is like a lot of chairman in football he has more money than sense.   

Calling teachers Sir and Miss ‘depressing and sexist’

Calling teachers “Sir” or “Miss” is depressing, sexist and gives women in schools a lower status than their male counterparts, an academic has said.

Prof Jennifer Coates told the Times Educational Supplement “Sir is a knight... but Miss is ridiculous - it doesn’t match Sir at all”.

She said she had been struck by the disparity while volunteering in a secondary school.

When idiots like Prof Coates come out with nonsense like this why are they given the time of day? Why can’t they just be ignored?  

Despite calling teachers Sir and Miss being a practice that has been widely used and accepted for many years now all of a sudden Prof Coates has an issue with it.

It’s sad and pathetic. 

Roy Hodgson names World Cup squad

Roy Hodgson has announced his 23-man squad for this summer's World Cup in Brazil, plus seven players on standby.

It was refreshing to see Hodgson pick a number of young players, but there were still a few questions marks.

For instance why on earth are Smalling and Jones going? They’ve both been average at best this season and neither of them has, since they moved to United, held down a regular first team place or had a run of games in their preferred position. In fact in Jones’ case what is his best position? From the outside looking in he seems to be jack of all trades master of fuck all, and yet he’s going to the World Cup!

Also why has Hodgson gone with nine midfielders and only one right back? Surely it would have made more sense to drop Lampard and take back up for Johnson. 

It’s so depressing to me that Johnson is the best right back we can muster he’s awful, every time I see Liverpool he’s always out of position and charging around like a headless chicken trying to make up for being too far up the pitch when he should be defending!

Anyway, all in all this is an exciting squad and hopefully the young players will:

a) get a chance 

b) replicate their club form at the tournament.

As Hodgson has promised to take risks, I hope he follows through on this and doesn’t play with Lampard and Gerrard in the middle and Welbeck out on the left; hopefully he’ll go for a starting XI more like this:

Hart

Johnson

Cahill

Jagielka

Baines

Gerrard

Henderson

Wilshere

Sterling

Rooney

Sturridge

I’ve gone for an XI set-up in the diamond Liverpool play but it can always be changed to a 4-3-3 and then Lallana or Oxlade-Chamberlain could replace Wilshere. 

If England did play this way and played at the pace Liverpool do then whatever happened we’d be a joy to watch, and Hodgson wouldn’t be as cavalier as Rodgers so if we were 2-0 up he’d go more defensive and see the result out.

I still think it will be a struggle to get out of the group but playing this way would give us a better chance than if we did the usual. 

UN to debate ‘killer robots’

Killer robots will be debated during an informal meeting of experts at the United Nations in Geneva.

Two robotics experts, Prof Ronald Arkin and Prof Noel Sharkey, will debate the efficacy and necessity of killer robots.

The meeting will be held during the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

And the award for the most pointless meeting and biggest waste of time ever goes to the UN for holding a meeting about killer robots.

I could just about understand the UN discussing the advancements in robot technology and its potential implications, but talking about the necessity, the necessity of killer robots. WTF!

Has anyone taking part in this meeting ever seen any Sci-Fi movie ever made? It never ends well for the humans when the killer robots show up and if that were to happen in the real world and not the fantasy of Hollywood, we wouldn't be able to have a one last stand battle and take back control of the planet again despite being slaughtered in massive numbers up to that point. We would all die.  

As I said earlier this is a ridiculous and pointless thing for the UN to be doing, which judging by their record is precisely why they’re doing it.

By having this meeting the norm of pointlessness in maintained. 

MPs raise concerns over new tax powers in budget

Plans to allow the tax authority to settle unpaid demands by taking money from people's bank accounts have been criticised by a group of MPs.

The Treasury Committee says it is very concerned because tax officials have a history of making mistakes.

Chancellor George Osborne unveiled the plan at this year's Budget.

I would like to know why this hasn’t been reported until now when Osborne unveiled his budget two months ago, didn’t anybody in the media think hmm this seems like an issue most people would quite like to hear about.

Allowing HMRC to simply reach into your account and taking what you owe, or what they think you owe, will no doubt lead to problems down the road.

I also wonder whether the same rules apply to companies that take full advantage of every loophole available to ensure they pay next to no tax, can HMRC reach in and take the billions owed in those cases? I highly doubt it!