Notice

It is with regret that the UK Broadcast Internet News Service must announce that, following a series of incidents involving potato-based alcohol, a goat and the head of the Albian Security Services, Albia correspondent Hugo Kent has been reassigned to the obituary pages at As A Dodo.

UKBINS must apologise again to its readers. It is hoped that our Albia service will resume in the near future ... or at least once the head of the Albian Security Services' wounds have healed.

Harriet Harkness, Head of News, United Kingdom Broadcast Internet News Service

Happy St Gozondor's Day

Happy St Gozondor's Day

Just time to post this before the chaps at UKBINS spot me. Happy St Gozondor's day to all!

Hugo.

PS Hugo Kent is innocent!

Official Notice

The UK Broadcast Internet News Service regrets to announce the temporary suspension of its Albia Correspondent, Hugo Kent, following his drunken rampage through St Gozondor's Square, Blizsta. While we here at UKBINS accept Mr Kent's statement that his behaviour was the product of "(a) the birth of my beautiful daughter Vlotara(1)and (b)Albia taking a 2-1 lead in the Dregz plokkij matches against Cobba" we have been driven to the unavoidable conclusion that the main cause was his decision to drink 29 pints of potato-based alcohol. Accordingly, Mr Kent will remain suspended pending further inquiry, which inquiry is expected to conclude in October.

UKBINS wishes to apologise to all those who have been caused distress or anxiety by Mr Kent's actions and in particular to the owner of the two small puppies he attempted to use as "comedy earmuffs".

Harriet Harkness, Head of News, United Kingdom Broadcast Internet News Service

(1)It is understood from Mr Kent that the events leading up to the birth of his daughter are set out in previous entries: Grounded Down, Wedded Bliss, On The Mend, Good News Everybody!

Grounded Down

The news dominating today's headlines here in Albia is the grounding of all AA(1) flights out of Sheecatch (Blizsta's major airport) following a strike related to - of all things - in-flight catering. It seems that the airline felt it had no choice but to ground all its craft flying from the capital after passengers - finally driven to desperation by years of spongy bread, foldable crisps, spiceless curry, lettuce leaves so limp they require crutches and assorted pale grey items masquerading variously as fish, meat or, as the case may be, dessert - decided to down suitcases and absolutely refuse to fly until some actual food was placed aboard. Given that Jammi Dikkins was apparently unavailable (doubtless either on another healthy-eating crusade or earning billions from a new Sharezbury advertisement) to whip up something tasty, I fear that the strike may well be a lengthy one.

Fortunately, I myself will not be among those staying put. The latest communication from young Vlotar (currently seeing to the needs of my dear wife Ylatea in her family home in Frelsveorthig(2)) indicates that the time is almost at hand for the birth of my firstborn and I must away to her side. As ever I would hope to be able to keep my readers up-to-date with goings on here in Albia (and, indeed, the details of the impending birth) during my time away, but given the state of the technological infrastructure out in the provinces, I would not advise anyone to expect a communication before the end of next week at the earliest. Until then, adieu.

(1) Ayrlijns Albiansk (Albian Airlines)- Albia's national air carrier. Its abbreviated title "AA" has led to confusion in the past. Indeed, a journalist pal did once turn up - admittedly somewhat the worse for wear - to a flight under the assumption that he was attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He refused to be deterred from this belief - whether by the air safety procedure being explained, being forced to strap himself into a seat of a size normally associated with the crating of veal calves, or by the vast amounts of alcohol he was offered (and freely accepted) during the flight - indeed it was only when he sobered up some three days later on the floor of a Kyrgyz yurt that he began to realise his error.
(2) see An Aside.
(3) see Wedded Bliss, On The Mend and Good News Everybody! &c.

The Bitter Bite

Once more it seems that I have started something of a trend. Only yesterday I was railing against the judiciary here in Albia and now I find others leaping to join the attack. The latest to climb on the bandwagon (an activity at which he has become more than adept over the years) is Nyesti Proti leader(1), Zavlov Nizder, who has launched a savage attack in a column in Da Pijjonpost on "unprecedented judicial activism" interfering with the will of parliament. It would seem that, notwithstanding the recent bombings(2), both Mr Nizder and Prime Minister Schlop(3) now see the judiciary as the greatest threat facing Albia. Indeed many Albians quiver abed at night, fearful of the men in silk stockings, red dressing-gowns and full-bottomed horsehair wigs who stalk the streets viciously insisting on upholding the rule of law and cruelly protecting the human rights of citizen and non-citizen alike. After all, if our judges insist on going around preventing people from, for instance, meteing out cruel and unusual punishments to others, what hope would there be for another series of Albia's version of Big Brother or the ever popular I'm A Nonentity Get Me Out of Here?

(1) for the time being at least.
(2) see A Meeting of Minds, The Police That Passeth All Understanding, Missing in Action, It Lives, Usafe from USAF and Blizsta Can Take It.
(3) who is, to judge from the tabloids, currently spending his holidays working on the urgent matter of increasing his risk of melanoma.

In the Drink

Not for the first time and likely not for the last, I find myself appalled at the front page of an Albian tabloid. For once this is not a piece in Da Dul comparing a minor sporting engagement between the Albian and German football teams with a major engagement in World War II, nor a headline screaming from the front page of Da Tytz that "asylum seekers are eating our Royal Family". Rather the cause of my outrage today is a piece in Da Heyt, claiming that senior members of the judiciary and chief police officers have attacked the government's move to license public houses to serve alcohol 24 hours a day. Their claim, as I understand it, is that this will lead to an unprecedented explosion of violent crime on our streets and in our homes.

I have to say that I find this suggestion from our legal authorities utterly outrageous. In my experience people drinking in public houses is only in the rarest of cirumstances the cause of violence. Knocking over somebody's drink, glancing at someone's female companion, possessing a funny face - these are all causes of violence, but drinking? No! Indeed I think it is fair to say that at the time the violence occurs drinking has almost always stopped. This is admittedly chiefly because it is extremely difficult to batter someone to a pulp whilst one has a pint in one's hand but nonetheless I feel the point holds. In the circumstances I would suggest that rather than seeking to limit our drinking time the authorities should instead insist that anyone who enters an Albian establishment where alcohol (potato-based or otherwise) is served should not be permitted to leave that establishment until they have drunk sufficient quanities to render themselves unconscious. This is certainly my usual practice and it is one that has kept me well away from any violence (though not, I have to admit, from falling asleep in gutters, dustbins, atop park benches or on the fast lane of motorways).

Traitors Gated

As I am sure you are all aware, the government here in Albia will stop at nothing (save that is for avoiding going to war with Islamic countries) to deal with the present terrorist threat facing the country. The latest move in this war on terror(1), is the threat to charge those who counsel potential suicide bombers with the crime of treason, a crime which had hitherto fallen into desuetude. This lack of use was perhaps because so many readers of tabloids such as Da Tytz, Da Zennofob and Da Heyt apparently believe betrayal of one's country to include such venial sins as being able to speak a foreign language, falling to expose ones buttocks at every opportunity when walking around any formerly picturesque Greek resort during the hours of darkness and failing to attempt to "glass" anyone with a non-Albian accent, with the result that almost anyone would be guilty of the crime of treason. In any event, the last person to be charged with the crime was Horz Ti Hi, the infamous wartime traitor who broadcast to Albia from his base in Germany for much of World War Two. Even today there are many for whom his Horzship's customary opening words "This is Schleswig-Holstein calling, this is Schleswig-Holstein calling" still cause a shiver to run down the spine.

***UPDATE***

A senior government figure has just announced that it is "extremely unlikely" that the government would seek to use treason charges against militants, further asserting that the idea is a "non-runner". a status which - judging by the girth of the average Albian - it shares with most of the country's population.

(1) A war incidentally, which certainly hasn't prevented successive Home Secretaries and other Ministers of State seeking to scare the shi ... the living daylights out of their citizens at every opportunity.