Kill now, talk later: Trigger-happy Yanks have the answer to burglars

IT’S not often that I praise the laws of God Bless America, but the fattest nation on earth have got at least one thing right.
If a lowlife breaks into your home, you are free to play The Terminator and save the cost of keeping him behind bars for a few years. (We’re talking heavy-handed Yanks here, not namby-pamby British wimps who’d send the villain on a luxury cruise on the QE2).
I’ve always been against free public ownership of firearms and America is testimony why. The evidence is overwhelming - countless massacres by nutters who can walk into a shop and buy a lethal weapon over the counter. That’s as mad as the archaic UK law that allows a homeowner only to use ‘‘reasonable force’’ to deter an intruder.
The fact the scumbag is trying to bludgeon you to death is merely coincidental. Just take your punishment like a good victim and the government will see you get a nice funeral.

Alan Duncan: Support for victims

I am told that Spain, surprisingly, has similar laws to the UK when it comes to burglars. Guardia officers from Guardamar advised members of my local Neighbourhood Watch this week NOT to take on robbers because the law favours them rather than their victims.
Just as it seems to have done with the Leicestershire couple arrested this week for firing a gun at four men who broke into their home in the middle of the night.
One of the villains called an ambulance, another went to hospital (nothing trivial, I hope) – and the husband and wife were arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm.
Although the intruders face prosecution for aggravated burglary, local MP Alan Duncan, a government minister, said: "The householder is the victim here and justice should support them and prosecute the burglars."
Problem is that Duncan and his cronies – the people who make the laws of the land – have yet to change the archaic legislation that burglars can treat their victims as if they were BBC TV’s Mrs Brown doing a head-hitter’s job on Grandad with her frying pan. Talk about a pain in the feck!
When TKO Radio disc jockey Rachel Angus confronted an intruder wearing  a balaclava in her living room here on the Costa Blanca recently, the villain was probably more frightened than she was.
But had he moved menacingly towards her, what was she supposed to do? Leaf swiftly through the law books for an explanation of ‘reasonable force’ before he landed the first blow?
No, she should have whacked him over the head with any available ‘weapon’ – and if it killed him, tough.
Fortunately, I suspect the joke they call political correctness (and which chokes anti-crime activity in the UK) is not always respected in Spanish Guardia circles – particularly when they catch these scumbags in the act.
A friend once asked an officer what she should do if she and her husband ever cornered an intruder.
“Just put him face down in the nearest river - we won’t be rushing to find him,’’ was the Guardia man’s reported answer.

A medium to rare talent - but how many clairvoyants are genuine?

I WAS probably 35 when an aunt told me that my late mother had been a medium with an enormous interest in the spirit world.
The news that Mum, who died in a polio epidemic when I was six years old, sent a shiver up my spine.
I wondered if she might have shuffled off all her psychic baggage along with her mortal coil - and dumped it all on me.
Basically, I was scared and I figured that if I steered clear of it all, just as I have always tried to avoid horror films, then I could live in peace.
There’s nothing I would like more than to hug the Mum I scarcely remember - and if there really is life after death (or should that be debt) maybe I will. But I do not believe that chucking euros at someone who purports to have a hotline to both Heaven and Hell will persuade my Mum or Dad to reveal even the tiniest secret. And certainly not to anyone outside the family.
Until a few months ago, I had an open mind on the psychic phenomenon. Now I believe most ‘mediums’ are gift-of-the-gab merchants who may think they have special powers but are more interested in cashing in on them.
Yes, money certainly plays a part. And in some cases big money.
The much-feted American psychic John Edward (yes, the Jedward of the West) charges 800 dollars for a private consultation. Don’t tell me he’s in it to help people - it’s all big business to him.

John Edward charges $800 for a reading

As for his ability to contact the departed, I can only go on the few minutes I watched of one of his TV shows the other day.
The guy supposedly builds bridges between the studio audience and their dead loved ones. But his lines of enquiry merely added to my growing reservations about the clairvoyancy business.
I’m certainly not convinced  by generalities such as ”Your Dad wants you to know he feels he could have been a better father’’. Just about every Dad on earth could say that.
So when Jedward (that’s him in the two pictures) fired the  opening line, ’’I’m getting a ‘D’ or it could be a ‘D A’ at a packed studio audience, he could have roped in any one of those punters. Who doesn’t know a David, for heaven’s sake?
Still, for all his unconvincing patter, at least the American Jedward provides decent entertainment. Like the moment he probed the studio audience, brow furrowed in concentration, and announcd: ”I’m getting the name Stacey. Is there a Stacey here?’’
‘’My name is Samantha,’’ came the instant, irrelevant reply from one overkeen onlooker, her mind seemingly lost in Stace.
I’m not being fair in doubting John Edward’s spiritual talents because I’ve only caught snippets of his show. But I have had my cards read by two ladies here on the Costa Blanca, one of whom is particularly highly-rated.
This very confident and assertive woman spent half an hour turning over Tarot cards and hitting me with vague generalities that revealed  nothing meaningful about my past, present or future.
I was waiting to be told something that only my eccentric Dad and I could know - like how he’d put sugar rather than salt on tomatoes.
Or how he would assure me I’d be quids in when he died - only for the Inland Revenue to clean up his entire estate in back taxes when he finally keeled over.
Eat your hearts out, Lester Piggott and Ken Dodd.
To those of you who do believe in mediums, clairvoyants, spiritualists or whatever, I am NOT suggesting you are being conned.
All I am saying is that I am not convinced. Having said that, I am also very nervous about delving too deeply into the subject. And that, I suppose, suggests that I don’t know what I believe.
Hell, I think I’ll leave it till Christmas and nip along with Ebenezer Scrooge for a reading from Marley’s Ghost.
Bah, humbug.

LIZ MISERABLE: A serious problem in the Smile End Road

DID you, like me, wonder why The Queen couldn’t raise a smile at the Olympic Games opening ceremony?
Now I am as loyal to our Monarch as anyone. But the poor soul was so expressionless that she looked like she’d just left a Botox salon. (No chance of that happening - the nation can’t afford to mint a complete new set of postage stamps).
Then I thought, maybe she’s disappointed that her favourite sport,  horseracing,  is not in the Games. Could it be that when she saw Sir Chris Hoy carrying the British flag, she muttered those immortal words, “Ah, Ascot’’?
HM’s impassive face suggested she might have been jockeyed off a night out at Les Miserables.
That’s perhaps not as ridiculous as it sounds – the show is currently running in the West End at, would you believe, the Queen’s Theatre.

We are not amused, Mr Cameron

Either way,  Liz the Miz seemed haunted by the PA system booming Olympic programme details in French. Did no one tell Danny Boyle and Co that French is no longer a major player in the Euro language stakes but Spanish is. Vale, amigo?
Of course, that  parachute descent into the Olympic stadium alongside James Bond must have taken its toll on our beloved 0086.
Mind you, I’ve heard that 0091 (Prince Philip to the un-Bonded) plans to bungee jump into his seat for the closing ceremony.
Seriously, though, no matter how bored she was with Boyle, Bond, Bean and Beckham, could Her Majesty  not have TRIED to look happy? Talk about having a B in her bonnet!
The following day came the competitive action…and confirmation that Britain’s team are not quite as invincible as some of us thought.
Tom Daley and Peter Waterfield led the world for three rounds in the 10m synchronised diving, then made a floppin’ mess of their next double plunge.
By Tuesday, it wasn’t so much a question of how many gold medals we’d clean up, as ‘at what point in each event will we mess up?’
Mind you, we’d have had a rapid bucketful of gold if they gave out awards for misleading commentaries.
Even highly-respected experts like cycling’s Hugh Porter and Chris Boardman showed themselves up.
No, guys, you can’t blame lack of information for assuring us that the British road race team were too clever for the rest and would usher Mark Cavendish to victory in Saturday’s big road race. (Gosh, it seems so long ago now!)
The Brits were too wise and experienced to let any of those foreign whippersnappers take advantage, they asserted. Unfortunately, they forgot to tell the might of Kyrgyzstan and Colombia - and their guys coasted to gold and silver while Cavendish and Co continued to meander along at the head of the peloton. (I think that’s cycling parlance for the massed ranks of no-hopers)..
By the time the women’s road race came on 24 hours later, I expected to see Messrs Porter and Boardman banished to the bike shed, where they couldn’t do our fingernails any more harm.
But for all their shortcomings, they do at least have a shedload of bicycle knowledge.
That’s more than can be said for the poor lost hacks who try to convince us they actually understand the technical intricacies of alien sports like handball and beach volleyball.
I can reveal that the latter is played somewhere near the sea and that the women’s version is colloquially known to male enthusiasts as ‘Corrlookaturr’.
I also suspect the rules state that participants must have auditioned unsuccessfully for Baywatch.
Personally, I’d rather stick to the two-and-a-half twisting fronts across the side - because our male gymnasts got a team medal for doing it.
Which is more than most of our other hopefuls managed over the first few days.
Right, that’s my Olympic grump over. I’m off to catch up the with the Queen - perhaps I’ll find her in the Smile End Road.

WHEN CHEERS TURN TO BOOZE: So Bradley Wiggins got ‘blind drunk’ after his golden road-race ride on Wednesday. Well, what a surprise.
Old Rideburns had just said ‘on yer bike’ to the world’s best cyclists for the second time in little more than a week. And since he is neither tee-total nor a practising Muslim, it was eminently predictable how Brad the Lad and his pals would celebrate that historic Tour de France/ Olympic double.
I’d have been more interested to know how the amazing Helen Glover and Heather Stanning celebrated winning Britain’s first EVER women’s rowing gold.
Because the cash-strapped PE teacher and her Army captain colleague don’t even have a sponsor to finance a binge.
The big question was what colour the ‘wasted’ Wiggo resembled yesterday morning (Thursday). Yellow, perhaps?
I’m just glad I didn’t see him up the creek without a saddle.

Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) August 3, 2012