Well, if you’re an Arsenal, Liverpool or Man U fan it’ll be yes, yes, yes. The Daily Telegraph is reporting that Inter have released Mancini, now I’m a bit forgetful but hasn’t Mancini failed to overcome Arsenal. Liverpool and Man U in the Champions league? My choice? I’d pick Roy Keane, he’s impressed me greatly me with his style of management and taking Sunderland from the bottom of the Championship to the top in one season was phenomenal.

No, don’t worry the Tories will be brining them back soon.

A future Conservative government will bring in “boot camps” for unemployed young people aged between 18 and 21 who refuse to take a job, says Chris Grayling, the party’s welfare spokesman. Source: The Guardian.

Christ, how many deluded people think the Tories won’t be that bad? For all Labours mistakes’ electing the Tories isn’t the answer for anybody who gives tuppence for the common good. Instead, get down to your local party headquarters and get involved.

Every May Bank holiday the people of Gloucestershire congregate at Cooper’s Hill to witness the annual cheese-rolling event, which sees contestants chasing a Double Gloucester cheese down the hill. Now the best way I can describe Cooper’s Hill is it’s the closest you can get to a cliff and still be called a hill. The BBC reports the winner of the first race, Christopher Anderson a 19-year-old local man, was stretchered off wearing a neck brace and taking oxygen. No, I’ve never witnessed the event; I’ve however been for many a pleasant walk around Cooper’s Hill.

Well that’s what the august red top The Daily Mirror reports, not that I place much faith in the veracity of these supposed newspapers. Still don’t say you haven’t been warned.

The Guardian reports

A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word “cult” to describe the Church of Scientology.

The unnamed youth was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion.

Officers confiscated a placard with the word “cult” on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.

A date has not yet been set for him to appear in court.

Since when did the City of London Police become defenders of Scientology?

It sure seems like that way as far as most of the press is concerned, for The Guardian reports some on some distinctly dodgy donations to Tory shadow cabinet members, which somehow the press seems all to happy to ignore – I guess it doesn’t fit with the story they want to run, namely Brown’s had it. Anyway, back to the donations:

Grant Shapps, the party’s housing spokesman, has taken tens of thousands of pounds of cash from five different companies associated with his portfolio – two online mortgage brokers, an estate agent, a commercial property developer and solicitors specialising in conveyancing and remortgaging.

They are Charcol Ltd and Edeus Creators, mortgages brokers; Goldsmith Williams, lawyers; Douglas & Gordon Ltd, estate agents, and the Sapcote Group, a construction company.

Alan Duncan, the shadow business, enterprise and regulatory reform secretary, is partly funded by Ian Taylor, the president and chief executive of Vitol oil company, a former work colleague of his who runs a company to which Duncan used to be a consultant.

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, has received funds from London Secure Services Ltd, a company that runs two secure children’s homes, and Julian Schild, owner until last year of a medical equipment company, Huntleigh Technology, the largest manufacturer of NHS beds.

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture, media and sport secretary, has received funds from John Lewis, the chairman of the Conservative Tourism Taskforce and former chairman of the British Tourist Authority. His brief includes tourism.

So this is the new face of the Tories under Cameron, he’s all to keen on Brown being straight with him, I want to know when Cameron’s going to be straight us.

I’ve never much understood the use of interest rates to control inflation, then economics isn’t my strong suit, a look at my bank account reveals my financial prowess. However, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner and professor of economics at Columbia University comes to my rescue with his article The Failure of Inflation Targeting. Stiglitz describes, “inflation targeting” simply – if price growth exceeds a target level then raise interest rates, regardless of the source of inflation. Stiglitz writes, “One hopes that most countries will have the good sense not to implement inflation targeting; my sympathies go to the unfortunate citizens of those that do”. As he points out inflation has nothing to do with economic mismanagement and everything to do with soaring international food and fuel prices.

Stiglitz ends his article.

Both developing and developed countries need to abandon inflation targeting. The struggle to meet rising food and energy prices is hard enough. The weaker economy and higher unemployment that inflation targeting brings won’t have much impact on inflation; it will only make the task of surviving in these conditions more difficult.

It’s daft I know, but I find the website Things Younger than McCain strangely amusing, and if you’re wondering John McCain was born 29th August 1936. Source: donpaskini.

For all you X-file obsessive’s The National Archive has released its archive covering the period 1978 to 1987. There’s some pretty hefty PDF’s involved, but even so it seems rather threadbare, then again how many people are going to admit to meeting little green men, you’d get locked up wouldn’t you. Before the site appeared to collapse under the weight of curiosity, you couldn’t help thinking that some of the drawings involved a class of primary school children.

This drawing of a UFO was made from a description given by a 78-year-old man, who claims he was taken on board an alien craft at Basingstoke Canal in Aldershot during 1983. Source: The BBC.

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995

The 1995 painting “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” by Lucian Freud a painting of Sue Tiley when she was a Jobcentre supervisor has set a new world record for the price for a work by a living artist a whooping $33.6 million (£17.2 million). I find it satisfying that the painting sold for considerably more than the £3.9 million his portrait of Kate Moss reached in 2005. Source: The BBC.

Photo of Sue Tiley