Every now and again comes a day when nothing much happens. Such occasions are a nightmare for serious newsblogs but and absolute gift for Boggart Blog as they throw up lots of bizarre little items.

Today for example we have a surfeit of riches. Our favourite paper led on the headline “ Schools may be judged on teenage pregnancies and drug problems.
What is all that about? Are they planning to start handing out GCSEs in getting up the duff and stonerology?

Meanwhile down at the Jobcentre staff are quite comfortable with the business aspects of debauching young women. Jobseekers can now respond to vacancies on display for women to work as strippers, pole dancers and “chat line operatives.” The ads specify a minimum age of 17 and list “good looks, an attractive figure and ability to discuss sexual fantasies” as desirable qualities.
Employers seeking to fill these vacancies specify female applicants only.
On one hand it shows The Government are at last taking a more enlightened line on the sex trade. On the other, we must ask should Jobcentres be encouraging such blatant sexism?

On the political front it is revealed that Gordon Brown, shaken by recent PR disasters is to respond to charges of being aloof, elitist and out of touch by instigating a new policy advisory body that will work with with grassroots Labour activists.
Boggart Blog welcomes this move, it is high time The Government did something about Lawn Order.

And finally our old friends the scientists, in their never ending quest to spend ever greater amounts of money on finding out what is glaringly obvious to everybody except scientists have one again surpassed themselves. A report out today announces that arsenic in baby rice is a very very bad idea. ’nuff said?

TODAY WE COMMENTED ON:

Labour exploit tributes to Gwyneth Dunwoody
How cynical can the Labour party get, how much lower can they go in their quest to hold onto power than exploiting the Gwynteth Dunwoody tribute website.

Mr. Eugenides praises the late Gwyneth Dunwoody
http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/2008/04/no-flowers-please.html
See the full post on this over at Little Nicky Machievelli or jump straight to the Eugenides blog

Great Britain: mocked by the New York Times

House prices drop for the first time since 1996

Off Target - counting teenage pregnancy when judging schoolsThe governments plan to look at social indicators such as teenage pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse seems just another cynical attempt to blame parents fro the failings of the education system

Book People Tonight Amanda Marcotte of Pandangon writes in praise of independent bookshops which are still plentiful in her hometown of Austin, Texas, but even there are being driven towards extinction by corporate chain outlets.