Lincoln 0 – 4 Shrewsbury 

Shrewsbury Town got off to an excellent start to the season giving Lincoln a good seeing to in the first match of the new season in their brand new stadium.

Lincoln were one of the teams Shrewsbury was competing against at the end of last season for the final play-off place.

Not only did Shrewsbury win 4-0 but Wrexscum lost, MK Dons lost and Bristol Rovers lost.

Derek Asamoah, one of Shrewsbury’s play-off star players, wasn’t in the squad against his old team today.  Swindon Town and French team, Nice, are both after him and Nice have had him on trial for the last few weeks.  It’s looking increasingly likely that Asamoah isn’t going to get to play a league match at the New Meadow, let’s just hope that the club get a decent price for him.

Shrewsbury are currently sitting at the top of the league and long may they remain there.

I have implemented Gravatars in the comments for Wonko’s World.

If you have a Gravatar account already, make sure you use the email address your Gravatar is registered to for it to appear in the comments.

A Gravatar is a Globally Recognised Avatar which, in laymans terms, means a picture that you can use on Gravatar-enabled websites.  They are most commonly used on blogs and forums where you get a picture against your name or posts.

If you haven’t got a Gravatar, just pop over to Gravatar.com, register your email address and upload a picture to join in the fun.

I’ve made a small change to the standard implementation of Gravatars so that it displays a thumbnail in the post which expands as you hover over it like the example on the right.

I used Gravatar’s WordPress plugin to keep it simple (there are instructions for most platforms on the same page) and used CSS to make the Gravatar display as a thumbnail.  I added the following code to the comments.php file in WordPress to display the Gravatar:

<div style="float: left; padding-right: 5px;">
<img src="<?php gravatar("R", 80, "http://www.wonkosworld.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/nograv.PNG"); ?>" class="gravimg" />
</div>

The parameters of the gravatar function are as follows:

Rating
This is the maximum rating of the image that you will allow to be displayed.  These can be “G”, “PG”, “R” or “X”.

“G” is globally acceptable
“PG” is pretty safe but parental guidance is advised
“R” is for grown ups
“X” is filth

Size
This is the size of the image that’s displayed.  The lowest size you can specify is 1 and the highest is 80.  Gravatars are usually created at 80 pixels so 80 is the safest bet for a decent quality image and 40 for a thumbnail.

Default Gravatar
This is the location to a default image to be used for a Gravatar.  This image will be used if the email address specified doesn’t have a Gravatar associated with it or if the Gravatar is of a higher rating than you will accept.

Border Colour
This is the hex value of the border you want around the Gravatar.  I haven’t used this because I don’t want a border but if you wanted to use it, an example would be #FFFFFF (white) or #000000 (black).

I gave the image a class of “gravimg” for the CSS thumbnail … thing.  I added the following lines to the stylesheet:

.gravimg{height: 40px;}
.gravimg:hover{height: auto;}

You’ll notice that I’ve used height rather than width and there’s a very good reason for that – to make the image appear square, Gravatars are wider than they are high.  What these two lines of CSS do is tell the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) to display any element with the class of “gravimg” with a height of 40 pixels.  When you set the height of an image, the width is automatically scaled to retain the same ratio so an 80×80 image with the height set to 40 pixels would also be displayed with a width of 40 pixels.  The important thing is, the image that the gravatar function called in the code above is still 80 pixels high by (roughly) 80 pixels wide because the second line of CSS tells the browser that when the mouse is hovered over an element with the class of “gravimg” (in this case the Gravatar) it will be resized to “auto”.  As I haven’t used any other CSS to set size properties for images elsewhere in the stylesheet, “auto” will set the image size displayed to its actual size producing a mouseover effect.

A 4 year old girl was tortured to death by her mum and her mum’s boyfriend.  When the paramedics turned up they found her with over 100 injuries including fag burns, bruises and bites that had been inflicted over the period of a month.

What sort of punishment is suitable for the kind of people who can torture a young child like that?  Personally, I’d pulls out all the stops – public humiliation, corporal punishment and then I’d have them executed.  They tortured and then killed a 4 year old child, no punishment can reflect what they did.

Alternatively, they could be given a life sentence with a minimum term of 23 years in prison.  What a fucking joke.

Edit:
I just can’t get this out of my head.  When Social Services were called by a neighbour they went to the house and noted that the girl never left the house and that she had no toys and all she had to play with were a cup and a hair bobble.  Social Services advised the mother to send the girl to nursery and closed the case.  A month later, the girl had been tortured to death.

A four year old child with no toys – that’s not normal.  A four year old child that never left the house – that’s not normal.  Why the hell was nothing done?  Alarm bells should have been ringing.

Daily Referendum has been tinkering with the South Park Studio and created South Park characters for a few bloggers so here’s one for the gallery …

An outbreak of Foot and Mouth has occured in Surrey prompting a ban on moving sheep, goats and cattle across the UK.

A 3km exclusion zone has been established around the farm and all exports to Europe have been automatically banned under EU rules.

No Mandate Brown has cut his holiday short so he can look concerned at the TV cameras and the COBRA Committee, which is used to co-ordinate photo opportunities national emergencies has already met overnight.

So far the outbreak appears to be confined to only one farm but the farming industry will suffer heavily.  How heavily they suffer depends on whether the outbreak can be contained, how long it takes to convince our EU masters that it’s not a problem any more and how many times the French have to be hauled in front of a judge before they’ll lift the ban.

On a related note – why is the exclusion zone measured in kilometres?  Metric measurements are being used increasingly by the British government despite the fact that most people still use imperial.

A Welshman has been fined £200 for hunting with a dog in Wales.

The man was seen by an off-duty policeman who was out walking putting a terrier down a fox hole.  The dog flushed out the fox and the fox was shot dead with an air pistol.

From what I can gather, he wasn’t actually fined for the act of hunting with a dog but for failing to ensure that there was another hole for the fox to escape from, failing to shoot it with a shotgun and … this is the best bit … failing to give the fox a chance to escape.

It’s been a while since I lived out in the country but I’m pretty sure the point of hunting a fox is that you kill the damn thing, not give it a chance to escape!  Or does the Hunting Act require that the fox is allowed to escape so that a chase can take place?  Wasn’t that what upset the lentil eating, yurt dwelling, sandal wearing beardies in the first place?

According to the English Democrats, the entire West Dorset branch of UKIP has resigned and defected to them.

As a member of UKIP it’s obviously of interest to me if things like this happen but I’ve got my own branch to look after and as long as they don’t come poaching my members I won’t lose any sleep over it (I know where you live Uncles ;)).

However, when I asked for some more information on it I was told not to pay too much attention to it as they’d done that sort of thing before.  So I did a Google search and it appears that as well as resigning en-masse in 2004, they have defected to the EDP three times now in the last 12 months – quite an achievement!  The regional organiser for Dorset should be commended for his or her ability to establish a whole new branch in the space of a couple of months.

I don’t know what the whole story is here but it looks like somebody is playing games.

With the intermittent nice weather we’ve been getting more door-to-door salesmen than usual but they seem to be getting more and more transparent.

Take tonight for instance.  The doorbell just rang so I went to the door …

Salesman: “Hello mate, I’m calling from Sky.  We’re doing a quality survey”
Me: “Right”
Salesman: “Have you got Sky?”
Me: “Yes”
Salesman: “Right.  Erm, is the picture quality ok?”
Me: “Yes”
Salesman: “No problems?”
Me: “No”
Salesman: “Erm, ok.  Thanks”
Me: “Next door is on cable, you might want to try there”
Salesman: “Cheers mate” (big grin)

If he was doing a “quality check” for Sky then he’d know if I had Sky.  He’d also know it’s been in for less than a fortnight so I wouldn’t need any new equipment.  He also wouldn’t be dressed like a salesman and let’s face it, you can spot them a mile off!

Incidently, I’ve found the perfect answer to the gas and electric people – nPower, Powergen, etc.  When they start talking about your gas and electric tell them you’re on British Gas fixed price and have been for about 3 years.  The fixed price tariff from 3 years ago is unbelievably cheap compared to current prices and nine times out of ten they just turn around and walk away without even trying to convince you to change.

The Scouts is 100 years old today and the milestone is being marked with events up and down the country where Scouts will renew their promises.

I was never in the Scouts – by the time my hugely oversubscribed local branch had free places I’d lost interest.  However, my eldest has just joined and I took him down to Ironbridge at 7.30 this morning to join his Scout troop.  I was surprised at the number of Cubs, Scouts and Guides of various varieties that turned up, particularly when a similar number of local Scouts were hiking up the Wrekin (the highest point in Shropshire) and the super-camp the Scouts have going on at the moment in Scotland has over 40,000 attendees.

Listening to the Scout promise, I found myself wondering how many of these kids would end up going off the rails.  They promise to do their duty, to respect God and the Queen and to help other people.  The religious bit aside, that’s not a bad set of values to instill in kids and I don’t reckon you’d see many former Scouts ending up in prison for mugging grannies or stealing police cars.

As I mentioned above, when I was a kid the local Scout group was oversubscribed with a waiting list of several years.  By contrast, the group that my son has joined has only a handful of members.  Is this because the Scouts is seen as a bit naff by todays youth?  Is it because kids today don’t need to join something like the Scouts for entertainment and to see far off places because they’ve got the TV, Computers and the internet?  Or is it simply that the Scouts don’t advertise themselves much?

My son didn’t bug us about joining the Scouts – it wasn’t something he really thought about.  We happened to be at a local “fun day” and the Scouts were there so we asked him if he wanted to join.  I offered to help try and secure free parking for people attending the event today at Ironbridge using my contacts at the council, I spoke to a councillor who said he’d take the matter up but needed to know who the officer was that had been dragging his heels over it.  I thought it would be easy to contact the local Scout group but it proved to be impossible – they weren’t listed in the phone book or on the internet.  So perhaps the problem is with promoting themselves?

I think the Scouts would be a very useful organisation for helping our kids stay on the right path and to make sure we don’t end up breeding a society of wannabe gangsters, muggers, joyriders and hoodies.  As well as teaching kids discipline and respect, it also teaches them practical skills.  Certainly more should be done to promote the Scouts and to do this effectively they need money.  We’re not talking about piddling amounts of money from car-boot sales and car washing, it needs a multi-million pound advertising and marketing campaign and for that they either need a very wealthy backer or government money.  The trouble is, government money comes with strings attached and they come in the form of diversity targets, ethnic quotas and “reform” which is a byword for buggering about with things until they’re broken.

More effort certainly needs to be made by the Scouts to promote themselves but the “establishment” also needs to do its part.  There are very few organisations left that haven’t succumbed to the lefty liberal, multi-culty way of doing things under Liebour’s oppresively PC regime and are still preapred to instill traditional values into children.  The Scouts could be just the thing that is needed to reverse the trend of kids getting into drugs, crime and anti-social habits but they can’t do it by themselves.

The results of the Witan blog awards have been officially announced today and yours truly has a couple of mentions.

Wonko’s World was voted third best English nationalist blog and joint third English political blog with Guido Fawkes (I’m not worthy, etc).

Congratulations to Iain Dale who came first in most categories, including blogger most likely to vote for a donkey if it had the right colour rosette.  Congratulations also to our glorious leader, Gareth, who picked up a couple of awards both for his own blog and the CEP blog and also bagged the most shaggable blogger.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me.  I’d like to thank my mum, my dad, my wife, my kids, my agent, every corrupt politician for providing such excellent material for me to take advantage of …

Seriously though, thanks for the votes and don’t forget the blogger most likely to vote for a donkey if it had the right colour rosette is looking for nominations for his new book.

No Mandate Brown has been making all the right noises to George Bush during his taxpayer-funded jolly to the States.

The other day he said that the world owed the US a debt for what it has done during the illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

He told NBC yesterday that “It is a war.  We have had to fight a very big campaign”.  The phrase “war on terror” has been used throught Operation “Steal Iraqi Oil” but it’s not actually a war is it?  The dictionary defines war as “A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties”.  But, despite the insistance of the American and British governments, there isn’t a vast, organised terrorist organisation for them to fight against.  Millitants carry out terrorist attacks in Al’Qaeda’s name but then you or I could do the same, it doesn’t mean we’d be members of Al’Qaeda!  Referring to this whole military campaign as a war just dignifies what were illegal invasions under the false pretext of international security.  Invading Afghanistan was a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11 because the American government had to be seen to be doing something.  The Taliban were an insular group – they had no interest in the outside world.  Invading Iraq was an opportunity for Georgy Porgy to put right his dad’s failed attempt to take the country over in the first Gulf War.  The “weapons of mass destruction” that were used as an excuse to invade Iraq without a UN resolution and against international law never turned up – the British government admitted to “sexing up” the intelligence to give the impression we were at risk from Iraq when we weren’t.

There was some suggestion that No Mandate Brown might start to pull troops out of Iraq, especially with him being a traditional Scotsman and therefore tight as a duck’s arse.  No such luck though: “It’s a struggle for the soul of the 21st Century”.  Traitor Bliar would have been proud of such a meaningless quote – what does it mean exactly?  He doesn’t elaborate but goes on to say “We know a large number of people would, if they could, destroy life and put at risk our infrastructure and we have got to be vigilant”.  But what’s the solution Gordo?  Give Muslim groups a bigger role in running our country?  Pour millions of pounds into Islamic teaching?  Taking away the liberties and freedoms that the terrorists want to take off us?  None of them are working so far are they?

Whilst British troops remain in Iraq and Afghanistan we are a target.  We are at greater risk of terrorism since the “war on terror” than we were before it.  It’s time to stop telling Georgy Porgy what he wants to hear and start telling him what he needs to hear – pull out of Afghanistan, pull out of Iraq and shut down the internment camp at Guantanamo Bay.