• Bent Society - some good stuff on this relatively new internet blog. We particularly liked "Is Broxbourne Council undertaking an experiment on its people without their consent?" and his deeply satisfying correspondence with the TV licensing authority …
 
• Philip Atkinson's Our Civilisation is an extensive series of slightly lunatic philosophical rants. Interesting reading, but don't delve too deep - that way lies madness or, at best, mild eccentricity.
 
• Pigeon's Nest, a strange website, but one with plenty of interesting reading, some of it with a very high GQ ("Grumpy Quotient").
 
• Hell's Geriatrics is an entertaining and thoughtful website, well worth an hour's browsing.
 
• Empires Fall is a new blog from America. It has some very cogent things to say about American life and politics, and one or two film clips that really bear out our European prejudice that the USA is some sort of nuthouse - have a look at the items about the Phelps family - unbelievable (no, we take that back. We do believe it. We don't want to, but we do).
 
• The First Post is an excellent online magazine. Rather hard to navigate, we think, but well worth the effort.
 
• Angry Harry is a rather disreputable website with some very strongly expressed views - but it's a bloody good read. Big, too. Make sure you go all the way down to the bottom of the front page - there are dozens and dozens of worthwhile rants.
 
• The Turning Worm - a very well-written website on many of the topics that get The GOS so worked up. It'll never catch on, though - too much common-sense and not enough swearing.
 
• The Policeman's Blog - a really excellent site, very well written, that gives us ordinary mortals the real lowdown from Mr.Nipplehead's point of view. Highly recommended.
 
• Political columnist Stephen Pollard's website includes everything from complete newspaper articles to random musings - always pertinent, always well-written, always thought-provoking and usually pretty grumpy, too. He doesn't just confine himself to politics, either.
 
• Chris Longhurst doesn't like Britain much, so he moved to America. His sanity is certainly in doubt, therefore, but the acuteness of many of his observations is not.
 
• The Law West of Ealing Broadway is a blog by a serving magistrate. The GOS doesn't agree with everything he says (let's face it, blog or no blog, a magistrate is still a paid-up member of the Establishment) but it's interesting to see life from the other side of the ... er ... bench.
 
• The Grumpy Old Coot has a multitude of moans particularly pertinent to Australia where he ekes out his miserable existence. I hope you've got two or three weeks to spare.
 
• Brendan O'Neill has written an intelligent but basically wrong-headed article in the BBC News Magazine. He thinks we shouldn't moan, but lots of the replies set him straight, I'm pleased to see.
 
• Grumpy Old People is a well-written site with various contributors.
 
• Grumpy Old Git is a web forum with a colossal number of posts.
 
• Andrew Westcott says he was only born in 1962, so I'm not sure he qualifies as an Old Man though he's certainly Grumpy enough. A very satisfying web site, somehow, with all sorts of goodies like Manganese Mining in Doddiscombsleigh and a fascinating article on Gin Traps.
 

 

 
There are just so many websites about driving and about speed issues in particular - we couldn't possibly list them all. Must be a message in that, if only the authorities would listen! These are some of the best.
 
• Honest John is an excellent website and its FAQ page contains the answers to virtually all of the questions we've ever asked ourselves about cars and motoring law. Highly recommended.
 
• The A140 Campaign - the A140 is the worst road in Suffolk. It has been consistently ignored by those whose duty it is to provide us with safe and suitable roads on which to drive. It has hardly changed for the last fifty years - consequently it's dangerous, inadequate for the traffic that uses it, and an utter pain to those who live near it.
 
• PetrolTed's Rants - a website and a grumpy old sod after our own heart!
 
• Stand and Deliver details the working of the Tayside Speed Camera Conspiracy. This is a spoof website .... only, it sort of isn't ... if you see what we mean ...
 
• The Association of British Drivers offers one of the few sensible voices in the often insane debate about road safety, speed limits and so-called "safety cameras" (which are, judging from the statistics they quote, anything BUT!). We love this beautifully-written and highly informative site - do visit it, but allow plenty of time - it's big!
 
• Got a parking ticket? Appeal Now can help you fight it!
 
• Pepipoo - helping the motorist to get justice. This site concentrates on the law - what it says, how it's supposed to work, how it actually does work, and what you should do if you fall foul of it.
 
• SpeedCam has lots of information about types of speed trap and how they are used, all illustrated with very clear photographs.
 
• UK Speed Traps is mostly about the equipment used to catch you and the equipment you can use to counter it. Explains clearly the different types of speed camera.
 
• Speed Cameras. A quote from their front page says it all, really: "More people die unnecessarily in hospitals from poor hygiene than in road traffic accidents. Yet the government's response to prevent 5000 unnecessary deaths a year in hospitals is to tell staff how to wash their hands. Meanwhile, poorly located speed cameras fail to prevent accidents (deaths were up 2% in 2003) and according to police data exceeding the speed limit is the cause of only 4% of accidents."
 
• Sod U Ken! is all about Ken Livingstone's London congestion charge and the terrible effect it is having on, among others, the Royal Mail, nurses, local business, The Samaritans etc. A good site, albeit with an irritating popup at the start but I suppose that helps them make ends meet.
 
• Not only is SpeedLIMIT an excellent source of information and comment about British road safety, it's a well-designed, neat-looking site too.
 
• Safe Speed is probably the most authoritative website about road safety - genuine road safety, that is, not the politically-correct Trendy Green Save-the-Foxy Fascist kind. Three hundred pages, would you believe?
 
• Bogush offers an incredible number of links on all aspects of road transport.
 
• Fuel Protest - we weren't sure whether this link belonged under "Driving" or "Politics" as it's about taxes - so we've put it in both!
 
• Feel like a good laugh? This website will give you hours of innocent amusement as you boggle at the loony tree-huggers' view of the world ...
 
• And some good American and Canadian sites on road safety: Reasonable Drivers Unanimous, Overlawyered, The National Motorists' Association, The Highway Robbery Record and AATC.
 
• And one more road safety site from Canada, SENSE. We've given this one a link to itself because of the fascinating graph on the "Is speed killing us?" page which shows that, in British Columbia at least, people have more accidents the slower they drive!
 

 

 
• The Bruges Group website is the home of the campaign to take Britain out of the EU.
 
• Check out the voting record of your MP - is he or she doing the job properly?
 
• Statewatch and Magna Carta Plus are two busy websites that chronicle the assault on civil liberty in the UK.
 
• Not easy to navigate and written in rather eccentric English, Winds of Jihad nevertheless has some provoking things to say about Islam, anti-Semitism and what it calls "Kuffurisation".
 
• The Daddy of science websites, Sense about Science is a serious, well-organised and professional account of the real truth behind the science we take for granted.
 
• Ben Goldacre's Bad Science website exposes the frauds and charlatans of the scientific world - fascinating stuff, and plenty of it. Highly recommended.
 
• Thinking is Dangerous, like BadScience and Sense About Science, exposes the absurd and untruthful assumptions society, business and the media make about science. Particularly hot on homeopathy.
 
• Frank Furedi is that almost unique phenomenon, a sociologist who actually talks sense and addresses real issues in education, politics and society. Highly recommended.
 
• The Campaign Against Political Correctness website includes some incredible (using the word in its correct meaning, "un-believable") stories sent in by members of the public.
 
• Strange Justice is an excellent website that exposes the odd, the unfair and the totally outrageous things that happen in courts here and abroad. Highly recommended.
 
• Migration Watch is a serious, authoritative website about immigration into the UK and the problems it is causing our society. A "must-read", in our view. Especially look at the page "What you can do".
 
• Write to Them is a useful website which will tell you, based on your post code, exactly who your local councillors, county councillors, MP and MEPs are and lets you send any of them a message free of charge.
 
• The GOS never thought he'd find himself recommending a political party's website, but Conservative Home is actually rather good. It's also quite subversive: Inigo Wilson was suspended from his job at Orange for contributing to it. Good for him.
 
• We have highlighted several times the clandestine and arbitrary doings of the social services. The forthright Forced Adoption website is essential (though sometimes harrowing) reading for all of us who are parents or grandparents.
 
• ... and the same applies to the excellent FASSIT (Families Anti-Social Services Investigation Team).
 
• This FASSIT article describes the inner workings of the secretive Family Courts - or perhaps "kangaroo courts" would be more accurate!
 
• Please visit this site to sign the online petition calling for reform of the iniquitous Family Court system.
 
• Do you want to know what your legal rights are? It's all here.
 
• Australian blogger John Ray, mentioned below, has started yet another website, this time concentrating on the daft, the annoying and the downright reprehensible in Great Britain. It's called Eye on Britain and it's excellent.
 
• All too often the people who complain about "political correctness" issues don't really understand what the hell it is they're complaining about. Here's an example from Tongue Tied 3: Australian leftist comedian Steve Hughes made the following joke at an arts festival; "I grew up playing Cowboys and Indians, which as an adult I can see is very strange - that you market the genocide of an indigenous people as a game for kids. Australians are far from perfect - I've never played Cops and Aboriginals, and you wouldn't play Nazis and Jews!" It's not a great joke and equating the settlement of America with the holocaust is obnoxious but the comedian was attacked on the grounds that the joke was antisemitic! Er .... what? Great site.
 
• John Ray who runs the excellent Australian Politics website (see below) has started Food & Health Skeptic, monitoring food and health news with particular attention to fads, fallacies and the "obesity" war. Fascinating stuff.
 
• Is It Fair? Did you know that while avarage earnings have increased by 50% since 1995 and the state pension has increased by 38%, Council Tax has risen by over 100%? An excellent site of protest against this iniquitous system, with some practical ideas for action we can all take. Useful Links page, too.
 
• Australian Politics is a highly articulate and well-organised blog which highlights the ridiculous, the unfair and the plain dishonest in modern Australia - and elsewhere. It's amazing to see the many similarities between Australia and Britain. The links list is colossal - if only there was time to look at them all!
 
• This man was arrested for wearing the wrong sort of jacket in the London Underground. He was locked in a cell, his flat was searched and many belongings taken, he now has a permanent record despite being released without charge, he can't get his belongings back and can't even get hold of most of the documents about his case. All for having ... er ... unfortunate dress-sense. I suppose he was lucky - he is French. If he'd been Brazilian, he'd be dead. Do you remember the TV comedy sketch where Rowan Atkinson played a policeman, and one of his constables arrested a man for "looking at me in a funny way ...."?
 
• If, like the GOS, you're seriously worried about the prospect of compulsory Identity Cards, you need to visit The Identity Corner, a heavyweight site with many pages of report and discussion on all aspects of this sinister piece of Big Brotherhood. You should also look at Identity Cards Bill 2004 where you can read the actual legislation.
 
• Nanny Knows Best - all the ridiculous lunacy of the modern Nanny State. Entertaining but ... well, depressing, really ...
 
• Political Correctness Watch, an intelligent site with articles by some quite big names. Do follow the link at the top to "the ultimate example of Political Correctness from the Unhinged Kingdom" - it's priceless!
 
• Baggage Reclaim - the forum for everyone who has a vagina. Predictably it's all about sex and relationships. On the other hand it is pretty grumpy!
 
• White Rose describes itself as the "thorn in the side of Big Brother". A brilliant website - frankly, this is what GrumpyOldSod.com ought to be like if the GOS wasn't so old, grumpy, lazy and downright unreasonable. Highly recommended.
 
• Rip-Off Britain - all the ways they cheat us!
 
• Privacy International is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations. PI is based in London, England, and has an office in Washington, D.C. PI has conducted campaigns and research throughout the world on issues ranging from wiretapping and national security, to ID cards, video surveillance, data matching, medical privacy, and freedom of information and expression. Pretty heavy stuff.
 
• You know those patronising, nanny-knows-best health warnings on cigarette packets? You don't have to put up with them any more! The wonderfully subversive FakeFags website has amusing messages ("smoking makes you look big and clever", and "non-smokers may cause irritation" for instance) you can stick over them. Also lighters, t-shirts, a wide range of ash-trays (would you believe an ashtray with Jesus on it?) and other goodies.
 
• Fuel Protest - we weren't sure whether this link belonged under "Driving" or "Politics" as it's about taxes - so we've put it in both!
 
• The Pub Philosopher - the drinking man's thinker. Or should that be the thinking man's drinker? Check out the "Bloggers" on this intelligent website - lots of good reading there!
 
• The Militant Moderate - well-written and provocative.
 
• The English PEN has launched a campaign to stop the British Government introducing legislation that could make it illegal to express provocative views on people’s religion. A vital issue which should be dear to heart of every GOS.
 
• Love this site to bits! No2ID is all about the campaign of opposition to Identity Cards - essential reading about an essential campaign.
 
• This website is all about Tony Blair - what more do we need to say?
 
• They work for you - find out how your MP votes, how many times he's been in parliament, whether he replies to messages from constituents, what his financial interests and expenses are, and even send him a fax.
 
• Hunt Facts tells it how it is - the campaign against undemocratic anti-hunting legislation.
 
• None of the Above, a delightfully pointless website for the electorally dispossessed.
 

 

 
• Country Guardian, the campaign to stop our countryside being vandalised with windfarms on every hilltop.
 
• New Zealand Climate Science is an exhaustive and authoritative website that gives the real science of climate change. See particularly its long and fascinating list of links at the foot of the page.
 
• Icecap is a similar site to New Zealand Climate Science - the facts, not the envirospin beloved of politicians and campaigners with an axe to grind.
 
• Viscount Monckton has found no less than 35 errors, distortions and just plain porkies in Al Gore's disgusting propaganda film "An Inconvenient Truth".
 
• Meanwhile, 15-year-old American schoolgirl Kristen Byrnes has been doing the same. Well done, her.
 
• While veteran British scientist David Bellamy explains that he's not been fooled either ...
 
• EnviroSpin Watch. Common sense about environmental issues? Now there's a first.
 
• A heavyweight article on the phenomenon of environmentalism.
 
• Don't like the weather? Don't blame it on global warming!
 
• Bogush has lots of interesting links about what Captain Grumpy insists on calling "The Alleged Global Warming".
 

 

 
• Fed up with paying through to nose to use all those 0870 telephone numbers? There is a way to get round it - say "No" to 0870 …
 
• Well, how about this? A government website that's actually useful! Consumer Direct has information about problems with home shopping and doorstep selling, what to do if you're unhappy with goods or services, how to stand up for yourself and your rights, making complaints and online shopping.
 
• If the worst comes to the worst, you may one day need Sentdown, a complete guide to life in prison. Yes, I know, but read it anyway. You never know ...
 
• CCTV cameras - Great Britain leads the world in the use of this technology, we are told. It protects us from crime, but may also infringe our Human Rights. How do we know if it's being used properly?
 
• Number Watch charts the use of spurious statistics to mislead us about many issues, particularly the environment. You should read this site regularly, especially if you pride yourself on being enquiring and impartial. Click on the "index" link to get in. Junk Science does the same thing from a transatlantic perspective.
 

 

 
• This website isn't grumpy at all, but we're listing it here just because we think it's so brilliant. Whether you're a sailor, a climber, a fisherman, a boy scout or just a handyman around the house, everyone needs to tie a knot at some time or other, and Animated Knots shows you how each one is made in the clearest way we've ever seen. Fantastic. When The GOS finally decides to top himself, he'll know just where to go to find the perfect noose …