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5th March 10: Suffolk Social Services. Bastards, bastards, bastards ...
5th March 10: Perhaps Captain Grumpy isn't as clever as he thought ...
26th February 10: Government snoopers are at it again ...
26th February 10: The BBC lying through its teeth again. How stupid do they think we are?
25th February 10: ... give some people a uniform and a day-glo jacket ...
21st February 10: ... all kicking off in sunny Suffolk ...
21st February 10: There's nothing sexy about being wicked, Ms.Harman...
21st February 10: When politicians talk glibly in billions ...
29th January 10: Jumping on the racial bandwagon ...
24th January 10: Good to think positively for a change ...
8th January 10: What are weather forecasters FOR, exactly?
3rd January 10: George Moonbat has finally lost his mind. Shame.
23rd December 09: You know that feeling that they're all out to get you?
16th December 09: Greenpeace hoist with their own petard ...
15th December 09: ... the most overweening, arrogant piece of self aggrandisement humankind has ever had the nerve to perpetrate ...
13th December 09: We're all paedophiles now, because the government says so ...
12th December 09: The BBC is not impartial or neutral - Andrew Marr
1st December 09: Not like those soft Southern bastards, then ...
1st December 09: Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?
1st December 09: ClimateGate. Oh, good!
27th November 09: MP's blunt attack on social service kidnap
25th November 09: Ommbudsmen - whose side are they on, exactly?
19th November 09: The spies looking over your shoulder - RIGHT NOW!
19th November 09: We all need protection from the child protectors ...
11th November 09: A sense of proportion? No, not much!
9th November 09: Shock! Horror! Is the GOS a gay-basher?
31st October 09: Whose side are they on? Bloody good question!
23rd October 09: A sad day for democracy and free speech
21st October 09: The law is already an ass. Why make it worse?
20th October 09: But who are we to criticise? I mean, Brains R'n't Us, exactly, are they?
17th October 09: Here's looking at you, kid ...
14th October 09: What I did on my holiday, by an MP
9th October 09: Hollywood gets science wrong ...
9th October 09: Stick to arresting old ladies - it's safer
6th October 09: Cheer up, it could be worse. You could be American ...
4th October 09: Just what did the Irish electorate thing they were voting for?
30th September 09: Two new campaigns we think you should support - we do
30th September 09: Pandas - useless, boring and suicidal ...
25th September 09: It is for the state to define who may speak and who must be silent
22nd September 09: Two wheels good. Four wheels ba-a-a-a-ad!
18th September 09: It's official - we're all paedophiles now ...
18th September 09: So can private carparking contractors really enforce their tickets?
13th September 09: How nice to know there are experts tirelessly looking out for us ...
12th September 09: Our brave new Britain: speak your mind and lose your children ...
9th September 09: You mark my words, no good'll come of it. Far too sensible ...
9th September 09: GOS - a bit slow on the uptake, to be honest ...
9th September 09: Not a lot of people know this ...

 

 
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The papers and television have been full today of Ellen MacArthur's triumphant arrival after beating the record for sailing single-handed around the world. We are all very proud of her, I'm sure. I sail myself in an amateur sort of way, and I get the willies when I get more than a mile from shore or if the wind gets much over Force 3. She is a remarkable young woman, and has done something few people would dare to try.
 

My pleasure was rather blunted when the newsreader on the radio said that a listener had emailed to complain that the lives of other people might have been put at risk if Ellen had got into trouble and needed rescue. So I'd like to address this little rant to that anonymous person …
 
If mankind had thought like you, we'd still be living in caves and eating our meat raw, if indeed we ever dared to try and kill anything. The first man to use fire took a risk. The first man to put wheels on a chariot and tie it to the back of a horse took a risk. The brave people who rode the first steam-train took a risk - many believed that they would suffocate when it reached 30 m.p.h. It's risky going for a swim. It's certainly risky crossing the road.
 
Marco Polo took risks. Vasco de Gama took risks. Columbus took risks. Nelson took risks. The entire nation took a bloody great risk when it stood up to Hitler in World War 2. What would you have done? Hid under the bed, probably. Much safer there.
 
Everything worthwhile involves risk, of failure, of embarrassment, of injury, of death. That's what mankind is for, to take a chance, to walk another mile, to peer over the top of the next hill. The hills have got a bit higher lately - we've been almost everywhere there is to go, we've even started to investigate other worlds (and I suppose the first landing on the moon wasn't risky at all, was it?) so now we have to try a little harder.
 
Yes, something might have gone wrong. Yes, she might have needed rescue. If she had, there would have been no shortage of volunteers, not because she's a woman (which she is), not because she's young (which she is) and not because she's attractive (which she is) but because that's what normal human beings do. If someone's in trouble, we help them. We don't make moral judgements from the comfort of our armchair, we get on our horse or our boat or our ambulance or our fire-engine and we go and see if we can help.
 
The armed forces in particular are full of young men whose dearest wish is to get involved with some risky rescue - that's what they joined for. Our emergency services are careful, dedicated and professional, but I never yet heard any of them complain about having to rescue someone - that's why they joined. For hundreds of years it has been normal for seamen to try to rescue anyone in trouble if they could, whether they knew them or not. When I'm out sailing in my little boat I make a point of waving to other yachtsmen, to the harbourmaster, to men on fishing-boats, to almost everyone I meet (I draw the line at jet-skis of course) because I never know whether one day I might need their help in an emergency, or they mine. They wave back, too. Trust me, that's normal behaviour for normal people.
 
But not you, apparently. You know better. You're so secure in your nice little, tight little, smug little world that you think you can tell the rest of us how to behave, even an incredible girl who has four times as many balls as I have - and I reckon I must have twice as many as you.
 
Perhaps you don't have any at all? Perhaps you're going to be our next Wanker of the Week? You are a sad, pathetic, lame-brained excuse for a human being. You are a mealy-mouthed tight-arse. I hope you wall yourself up in your room to avoid the risk of accidents. I hope that after several miserable, boring years you fall off the bed and hurt yourself, and then I hope you die because nobody comes to help you.
 
But they probably will.
 

 
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