December in full swing. Pans, knives etc. Will be more coherent in new year promise. Though whilst I am here I will point out this: the incumbent government made a big hoohah upon arrival of their bonfire of the quangos because they are "unelected and not answerable". Today Eric Pickles pushes through his localism bill, devolving power to local citizens. Who are also, I cannot help but note, unelected, and not answrable. Just saying. Also just saying that docking Pickles' Pie Allowance may go some way towards making a dent in the deficit. Okay, fair enough, mocking his corpulence is cheap and petty. I'll just have to stick to mocking his smalltown, pettifogging, mean, nickelfucking bill, the upshot of which is that a few people in a jolly nice conservation area will form a community group to clear the odd footpath in their vast acreage of free time and councils will use that as an excuse to sack a couple of maintenance staff. Meanwhile council tax rises at a flat rate