Longrider

Germany - along with other European Union countries - has been struggling with high unemployment for some while. With between 4million and 5million out of work, the economy has been suffering so the long term unemployed are “encouraged” to take jobs that they are offered by prospective employers or suffer a cut in their benefits. Something similar happens in the UK and for the most part, is not such a bad thing. After all, it is taxpayers’ money being handed out and if there is suitable employment out there and people turn down jobs because they don’t like them, then they must expect consequences. Certainly when going through a period of unemployment I took anything that brought a wage in - even if it was less than I had been earning and the job was of a menial nature. I looked upon it as a temporary solution.

Two years ago, prostitution was legalised in Germany. This has a number of benefits; it brings the sex industry out of the black economy and with it tax revenue. Also, STDs are more likely to be effectively managed with screening programmes for sex workers. All in all, it is probably a good thing. It works for Germany and it works for the Netherlands.

You can see where this is going, can’t you? This week a German job seeker was told that a prospective employer was interested in her profile . When she contacted them, she discovered that it was a brothel. An IT professional, she was prepared to take work in a bar (much as I once did). However, she was not happy about prostitution. When she sought redress, she discovered that the job centre was acting within the law - brothels are legal employers with the same rights of access to job seekers as any other employer. There is no exception on moral grounds because, as prostitution is now legal, it is by default, not immoral.

Now you can see how this happened - two streams of legislation have come together to produce an unexpected outcome. Unless the German legislators really meant to send unemployed women out on the game to get their unemployment figures down?

Beware of those who will try to part you from your hard earned cash. The Guardian has a handy list of the most popular scams.

Don’t get caught.

I see Julie Birchill is is having a go at the Royal Family. She joins the “Prince Harry in the Nazi uniform” debate discussed at some length over at Red Baron’s Blog last week. In a curious way, Julie Birchill is disagreeing with the Baron in that she was not upset by the event, while agreeing vigorously with him over the implications of it.

She makes some interesting points. Not least when she draws comparisons between the monarchy and the BNP (British National Party) as she lambasts those entertainers who claim on the one hand to be anti-establishment rebels yet trip over themselves to grovel and debase themselves at the feet of the House of Windsor:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - any entertainer who is not prepared to offer their support and/or services to the BNP shouldn’t offer it to a monarchy, for the simple reason that most monarchies believe that an EVEN SMALLER GENE POOL OF WHITE PEOPLE are fit to be above all others than the BNP does. You can work your way up in the BNP; under Nick Griffin, even being less than 100 per cent Wasp doesn’t rule you out any more. Neither of these is true of the House of Windsor.

Now I hadn’t thought of it like that before, but it’s a fair point - they are exclusive and that exclusion is based on birthright. I’ve never been impressed by our monarchy - they have always come across as ignorant and buffoonish, stumbling fluidly from one gaffe to the next with embarrassing regularity. Okay, so other countries have their embarrassing heads of state - step forward George - but at least the electorate get to choose. If they choose badly, well, they can only blame themselves. We in Britain have no such choice. Oh, we are told that the monarchy provides stability and that it is a good thing (tourism usually get trotted out with tiresome predictability at this point) and that they are the counterpoint to the excesses of the prime minister. Yeah, right. So why did we still engage in an illegal war?

However (and back to the point), as Julie Birchill points out, Harry’s forebears and the Nazis rubbed along pretty well. Indeed, these are the same people that in different circumstances would have been the head of a puppet government had the Nazis succeeded where Napoleon failed:

Because looking at his family history, we should be thanking our lucky stars that Harry wore only a toy Nazi uniform, not a real one. And that he wore it in public, for open japes, because then the chances are that he won’t be wearing it in private, for secret thrills. For the sad, surreal fact is that during the Second World War his grandfather had four sisters who were all married to Germans, at least one of them a rabid Nazi. Before the war, his great-grandfather considered Churchill a “warmonger” for standing up to the Nazis, and wanted to write a cosy, conciliatory letter to that nice Mr Hitler, “from one soldier to another”. His great-uncle, the kinky abdicator, was a fan of Adolf. And his father, Prince Charles, wrote That Letter about that clever young black lady, her utterly reasonable ambitions, and her refusal to know her place — picking cotton on the Highgrove estate, no doubt. With family like this, who needs bigots?

Long live the Republic.

So the French are getting their knickers in a knot over “Franglais” again. Or at least the Audiovisual Council is according to this piece in the Times. Nothing new here - the French passed a law in 1994 that attempted to conserve the French language by outlawing the dreaded Franglais in television, advertising and the workplace.

In the UK there has been similar (though not backed by legislation) hostility as new words creep into popular parlance changing the English language. However, it has ever been thus. We no longer use Middle English, nor do we readily slip into the language recognised by Shakespeare. Language evolves, changes and adopts foreign influences - English consists of a pot-purri of European languages (including French). So what’s the problem?

It seems to me that those who wish to hold back the tide of Franglais might want to do a quick history check - I recommend Canute as a starting point.