DUFF & NONSENSE!

To bomb or not to bomb, that is the question?

In history there are always a host of exquisitely painful moral dilemmas.  To be honest, I usually rush past them because I find that my mind, or what passes for it, usually seizes up if I attempt to answer them.  One of the most hideously difficult ones is the question as to whether or not we should have bombed Auschwitz during the war.

The Daily Mail has an excellent summary of the problem.  

A Professor of Jewish Studies has claimed that the Allied forces should have gone ahead with plans to bomb Auschwitz during World War II, as a symbol of moral outrage.

Speaking in the BBC Two documentary 1944: Should we Bomb Auschwitz? Professor Michael Berenbaum of The American Jewish University in LA, said that a strike should have gone ahead despite the inevitable death toll, arguing: 'Moral protest in the wake of genocide is much better than nothing. Much, much better than nothing.'

As far as I understand it, due to the range, the technical problem was that the Air Force would have to use traditional heavy/medium bombers whose accuracy was hopeless.  Unfortunately, the Mosquito which would have been able to slot a bomb down the chimney of the gas-chambers (not really, but you take my point!) lacked the ability to fly that far.

A raid by traditional bombers would have slaughtered thousands of prisoners.  Of course, in the chaos perhaps thousands might have made their escape but to where?  And would it have put a brake on the mass slaughter when the Germans realised that we knew exactly what they were doing?  'No answer' came the mournful reply!

An agonising decision and I thank God I was not one of those forced to answer it!

 

 

I can't read Cameron's book, I might throw up!

That being the case, I must rely on Mr. Fraser Nelson's opinion upon which I have relied for 'many a year and oft' given that he is editor of The Spectator.  Today, in The Telegraph, he reviews 'Dim' Dave's memoir and the first thing I learned was that my appellation of "Dim" was way below the reality.  The man is dim, dumb, deaf and daft beyond description.  Some of us might, after a heavy night down the pub, attempt to walk through a brick wall but not many of us would keep on trying over and over again even as the cuts and abrasions and injuries mount.  Nor would many of us - any of us? - urge others to do the same!  But Dim Dave did - and still does!

"For The Record" [the title of his memoir] was written as political tragedy, a 700-page apology to the nation for the former prime minister’s role in what he regards as a calamity.

But it’s also a candid account of how he pursued an idea – that the EU can be reformed – and tested it to (his) destruction. We see him making allies, drafting strategies, threatening and begging – but his story ends in failure. He expected diplomacy, but encountered a bureaucratic Death Star whose hunger for power is matched only by its intransigence. From the former Remainer-in-Chief, it’s quite a story.

I'm sure it is but I am not sure if I possess enough sick-bags to read it!  With my emphases throughout.

Once inside its inner circle, he was exposed to the horrors. The directives, the stitch-ups, the knives always out for the City of London. […]. The purpose of these meetings, he discovered, was to grind everyone into submission. Including, eventually, him.

He found the EU to be “peacenik” on security, unable to respond to threats on its doorstep. He vetoed one of the eurozone bailout packages that threatened to suck in Britain, only to see the rules changed so the UK veto would not count.  When the UK tried to go its own way, it “wasn’t simply a disagreement with the others, it was a heresy against the scripture”. He thought Angela Merkel nice, but unreliable. He refers to the “half-life of a Merkel promise”: the time taken between her making one and breaking it. In general, he found “Germany’s unfailing ability to get what it wants in the end.”

And he was surprised?!!!!!!!

Britain’s ability to get what it wants was, by contrast, pretty minimal. When the federalist Jean-Claude Juncker was put forward as European Commission president, Cameron was shocked to discover that just two of the 28 EU member states’ leaders wanted him.

There is a touch of Mr Smith Goes to Washington about what happened next: why, he asks then, go along with this stitch-up? He stays up late drinking wine with fellow leaders, and they promise to back him in stopping Juncker. Then Merkel decides it’s not worth the fight, so they all support a massive decision that they all know to be wrong.

Hello!  Earth to 'Planet SoD'!  Are you reading this?

Cameron goes home appalled. But as he was to find out, this is how things work. “‘Anyone who says that the EU is an organisation based on law and not politics has never seen it act under pressure,” he records. “Whenever there was pressure to transfer powers to Brussels, the lawyers always found a way, but when I wanted to take powers back, those same lawyers always opposed it.” It is a formula to trap democracies: use complex laws and regulation to suck powers in, but never give them back.

Never mind, chaps, 'Steady the Buffs' and all that sort of thing, let's try walking through that brick wall again!

Dealing with their officials, he says, was even worse. “To them, I was a dangerous heretic stamping on their sacred texts.” He records with amazement how the Germans (and others) saw the EU as the fount of democracy, where Brits only ever wanted a forum for economic co-operation.

And still he fails to see the 'bleedin' obvious':

There is almost nothing in those 700 pages to explain why EU membership is a good thing. There is not a single example of anything emanating from Brussels that benefits Britain. So why does he start to talk about Britain’s future being in the EU and about it being a fundamental part of who we are as a country?

Dim, he most certainly is given that he cannot see the truth of what he, himself, has written!

But the great value of Cameron’s book is its candour. He recorded his thoughts once a month, wrote each chapter from the perspective of what he felt at the time, and has not twisted the facts to suit his final conclusion. He regards Brexit as a disaster, but those who read his book would be tempted to see it as liberation. A great democracy was being squeezed inside an unaccountable bureaucracy, and no one else in Europe wanted to risk their career by challenging it – or giving voters the chance to escape it. But Cameron did. He might, one day, come to see it as the greatest single service he did his country.

Thank you, Mr. Nelson, you have just saved me from several weeks of bilious fury which would have accompanied any effort on my part to read 'Mr. Magoo's' nauseating memoir.  Given our long history, we have, er, 'enjoyed' the leadership of countless twits as Prime Ministers but I doubt that many of them could plumb the depths of stupidity reached by David Cameron!

 

 

'Aladdin' or 'Al Jolson' Trudeau gets caught with his make-up

Sometimes life is the gift that keeps on giving and today my cup over-floweth with hilarity at the sight of the impeccably - well, almost! - politically correct Justin Trudeau caught out by an old photo of him with a blacked-up face at a party celebrating the Arabian nights, or something like that.  Cue: howls of 'shlock-horror' from the PC Brigade who had formerly worshipped at his feet.

He 'sort of' deserves it because had it been anyone else, 'preachy-pratey' Justin would have been the first to cast a stone, or more like, several stones - and bricks - and scrap-metal or whatever else came to hand!  Now he is on the receiving end and I would dearly love to ask him 'how he likes them apples'?

To paraphrase 'old Will' (sorry, mate!), ' I come not to bury Justin, but to praise him.'  Painting your face black at a fancy-dress party is not an insult to anyone, or at least, anyone with a few remaining brain cells!  It no more proves, or even indicates, so-called 'racism' than when, in years past, I wore my red and white checked 'keffiyeh' (for which, I might add, I paid good money to a corporal in the Trucial Oman Scouts!) to a fancy-dress party.

Still 'n' all, if a preening PC 'poli' gets a taste of what he constantly dishes out to others, then 'give 'im one for me!'  

 

 

The corruption cancer inside China will one day kill it

As old, regular readers will know, I have been boring on for years about the cracks and fissures that lay behind the inscrutably smug mask of Chairman 'Xi-ping-a-ling'.  My suspicions were aroused years ago by the sight of all those brand new cities they built but which were occupied by no-one.  That shrieked 'crooked money' to me and it could only have happened with governmental connivance.

Today, Leo Austin (and no, me neither!) has an interesting article on the CAP-X site headed "China's economy runs on corruption - and the state is scared".  So it should be because, in the end, you cannot dodge the inevitable laws of economics. 

Small-scale corruption is endemic in China. Every time a company wins a tender, or an agency is retained, or a salesman selects a distributor, a deeper relationship is revealed than that which is shown in the contract.

The impact of corruption on China’s economy is much larger than its cost in cash. These choices distort the market. They make it hard for new entrants to get a first break. They lead to bad choices on government investments, to the sustained use of the wrong technology, to the wrong manager getting the job. They add costs to every single part of the economy.

Well, to a greater or lesser extent that could describe the internal mechanisms of many different countries but not many of them have the all-pervasive, governmental controls with which the Chinese Communist Party grips its people down to street level.

Where does this corruption come from? Part of it is driven by the unfairness of incomes and a lack of opportunity. The state system was designed to keep people in their place and the Chinese people have raged against it for decades.

China has had a ‘hukou’ (or similar) household registration system for a thousand years now, which identifies and determines the rightful home of each individual, the place where they enjoy state education and medical services. If you are very lucky this is Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Shenzhen. These days, any provincial city is a reasonable outcome. But for most people it is a rural county.

In the end, like dry rot in a basement, this inherent encouragement of corruption will bring the house down and it can't come quick enough in China!

 

 

Now, about this 'God thing' . . .

My e-pal Malcolm Pollack posted an interesting comment following my idle words on the subject of religious belief - and my total lack of it!  Anyway, it has provoked me into further thoughts on, er, well, the beginning of it all!

'In the beginning', to quote a phrase, there was nothing - or to put that more clearly, there was 'no thing' of any sort, either material or immaterial in the sense of forces such as energy, gravitation, heat and light, etc.

Then there was something, and again to make that clear, suddenly there was 'some thing', although exactly what it was I do not know, particle or energy, you choose!

Needless to say, it is impossible to define the prime cause for the sudden appearance of 'some thing' but obviously it must have been something of super-human power and once 'created' it was a case of "Hey-ho and off to the races!"

Eventually, after a few zillion-trillion years during which all those naughty particles were pushed and pulled this way and that by those damned restless energies, disaster struck - Mankind developed!

Almost immediately - well, not really "immediately" because nothing in this long-winded tale is immediate, Man began to fashion ideas to explain the apparent 'miracle' of it all.  These ideas stemmed partly from observation and experience, and partly from all sorts of other motives ineluctably linked to the exceedingly complex nature of Man.  Because so many of the facets of 'creation' seem magical, even today, then many of the theories put forward were, shall we say, highly imaginative.  

It also became very clear, very quickly, that these almost magical explanations for what seemed then, and now, to be miracles, seized the imaginations of people and those able to propagate such ideas quickly obtained real power over their fellow humans.  Frankly, I lack both the brains and the learning and, most of all, the inclination to work my way through all these theories and decide if one is a better explanation than another.

Suffice to say that 'I ha'e ma doots' about all of them!

 

 

An absolute 'MUST READ'!

I opened the Daily Mail this morning with drooling excitement but also some trepidation.  The main story was an article by their long-term commentator, Sarah Vine, a lady in the finest tradition of 'Fleet Street' who is more than capable of putting a hefty boot into anything or anyone who displeases her.  Today the target was David Cameron and his wife Samantha.  Of course, this was a response to Cameron's brutal attack on Michael Gove in his just published memoirs in which he accused his old friend of treachury for deciding to back 'Brexit' against Cameron's preferred 'Remain' stance.  Suffice to say that Sarah Vine and Michael Gove are man and wife!  Cue: incoming thunderclaps and lightning bolts!

Not so, actually!  Instead, Ms. Vine in her article creates an elegant  memorial to a past and very close friendship of shared pleasures and tragedy, and deep regret at the shattering end of the links between two families who, in the past, could not have been closer.  Her final paragraphs sum up her feelings:

And that, ultimately, and despite all that has been said and done, is how I will always remember Dave and Samantha. As dear friends who were there at key moments of my life. In the years before power and politics got in the way of those simple, happy, human connections.

Two incredibly kind, generous souls who overcame unspeakable loss with the death of their beloved Ivan, who always embraced life even in the face of tragedy, and who inspire love and admiration in all who truly know them.

Hard as these past few years have been, nothing will ever erase those memories. Because that is what really matters: people. Not politics, not power, not Brexit.

We make mistakes and we move on. Or we should at least try. And we remember the good times. Because, in the end, that is all that remains.

It was a kind and thoughtful lament and my admiration for Ms. Vine is enormous.  

 

Lest you doubt the sheer nastiness of the EU . . .

We Brits, in general, and our Prime Minister, in particular, now know from distasteful experience exactly the extremes of pig-ignorant vileness the 'Euros' will sink to at every chance to insult us.  The Prime Minister of the non-nation, Luxembourg, invites our PM to a news conference which he has carefully stuffed with a baying mob of anti-British yobs and yobettes primed to unleash a barrage of screaming insults.  And what is the response from the leadership of the two leading countries in this stitch-up of a German conglomeration?  A mild 'tut-tut' from Berlin and a hearty 'superbe, très bien fait' from the little squirt who struts around in France.

GET ME OUTTA HERE!

 

I'm gonna sue that Daily Mail!

Many years ago I re-named the Liberal Democrats as the 'il-Lib-non-Dems' because it was becoming ever more clear that beneath their, er, very nice, middle class, middle England camouflage, they were in fact a party of bullies and autocrats.  It was only the fact that their chances of ever seizing real power were minimal that most people simply dismissed them as 'also rans'.  Now, however, given the almighty political flux that has smashed our politics to bits, they perceive a chance through a hung Parliament, or a deal with Labour for them to reach the higher levels of government.

Instantly, their bossy, zealous leaderette, the deplorable Jo Swinson, lets the mask slip by proclaiming that were she to gain power then she would obliterate the majority choice of the British people and simply exterminate the Referendum result.  And lo, it was no more, it will cease to exist, that free Referendum is a dead Referendum!  As Mr. Stephen Glover puts it in today's Mail:

Having observed the party over the years, I'm not surprised. Most Lib Dems are doubtless thoroughly nice people. But their party is not very nice. It is surprisingly ruthless, and adept at twisting the rules. They might be more accurately described as the Illiberal non-Democrats.

We shouldn't forget how, during the 2010 election campaign, the party solemnly promised to abolish tuition fees. Then, having been tempted into coalition by the Tories, it promptly agreed to treble them. […]

Yet it turns out she is an unusually slippery operator. Not only is she happy to kill off the 2016 referendum result. There was a time, although she has chosen to forget it, when she was herself in favour of an EU referendum.  On Sunday, she declared sententiously that she couldn't 'forgive David Cameron for calling the referendum'. Yet in 2008 she proposed an In/Out poll from the Lib Dem benches, and criticised Brussels over its undemocratic procedures.

Perhaps my title for that bunch of rogues is a tad tricky to roll off the tongue so instead they should henceforth be known as the Lying-Liars party!

 

 

Yet more common thievery!

Yes, I have been at it again, and I cringe, m'Lud, I cringe, not only to you but even more so to the very witty, Mr. Robert Arvay, but also to the ever-excellent American Thinker site which published this superb 'chortle 'n' chuckle' essay.  Alas, I lack both the wit and the skill to summarise it so I will just republish it in its entirety.  Enjoy!

After years of secret shame, I must finally go public with the truth, or something resembling the truth — maybe. Here are the sordid details. Thirty years ago, if my memory is correct, I suspect that I may have possibly been sexually offended by someone who I suspect may possibly have been someone like Christine Blasey Ford. Maybe.

There were no witnesses, and I cannot remember the date or place, because I was unconscious the entire time. But immediately after the alleged possible incident, I went directly to the press and reported the matter — by the press, I mean a newspaper boy, or somebody resembling a newspaper boy. Maybe it wasn't immediately.

The next day, I was accosted by two men in black suits and fedora hats, who warned me that if I pursued the matter, my reputation would be ruined forever, and my family would be in personal danger. I asked them, is Christine really this important to the government? They seemed confused. Christine? Who is she? Oh! You're not the guy we're looking for. But just to be on the safe side, if you ever see a UFO, keep quiet about it.

This, by the way, explains my loss of memory over the alleged incidents. I have a vague recollection that, as someone who might possibly have been someone who looked something like Christine Blasey Ford stepped away from my ravaged, naked body strapped to the hood of her car in the middle of Rodeo Drive during rush hour, she held up a flashy thing, after which my memory went blank.

Maybe it wasn't during rush hour, but during the movie Rush Hour. And maybe it was at an actual rodeo. But the details do not matter. The seriousness of the allegations is what should drive the investigation and subsequent conviction, impeachment, and imprisonment of somebody resembling Justice Kavanaugh. After all, he may have something to do with all this.

It should not matter that my memory of these possible events is hazy. Nor should it matter that I have no evidence of them. Nor should it matter that I am making the entire thing up — the technical term for which is lying.

I should be believed. Period. End of story. (Well, not yet. There may be more.)

Robert Arvay

 

 

Why would anyone buy a copy of the New York Times?

I suppose if you were wrapping your crockery prior to a house-move, or perhaps rough-sleeping in Central Park, or best of all, if you had suddenly run out of toilet paper it might, just might, be worth the price.  The one thing it would not be worth paying for is the latest news!  The reason is straightforward, there is, apparently, very little news in it, and if by chance there is, then it is probably fabricated news.

As reported just about everywhere 'over there', the NYT published yet another - yes, another! - story - I use that word in the sense of a 'fairy story! - concerning 'Hizzoner' Bret Kavanaugh - yes him again, and again, and again!  Two utterly useless and incompetent and politically corrupt 'reporters' alleged that yet another woman had been sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh.  And yet again, it transpires that the woman concerned cannot remember the incident and refuses to corroborate the story.  Now tell me, where have I heard that before.  I need to know because I have that funny ‘déjà vu’ feeling all over again!

How long will the American Left go on flogging this dead horse?  It is beginning to resemble Monty Python's dead parrot:

This Kavanaugh horse is no more!

This Kavanaugh horse is dead!

This is an extinct Kavanaugh horse!

What is also dead is even an iota of decency and probity in the Democratic party whose very name is an even bigger joke than Monty Python could invent!

 

 

Your Monday Funnies: 16.9.19

Is it just me or are Mondays coming round faster and faster?

 

The teacher gave the class a bowl full of lifesavers and asked the children to identify the flavors by their color: And they did:

Red........................ Cherry
Yellow................... Lemon
Green................... Lime
Orange ...............  Orange

Finally the teacher gave them all HONEY lifesavers.

None of the children could identify the taste.

The teacher said, 'I will give you all a clue. It's what your Mother may sometimes call your father'

One little girl looked up in horror, spat her lifesaver out and yelled, 'Oh my God! They're ass-holes!

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An old drover walks into the barber shop in Black Stump Crossing, Northern Territory for a shave and a haircut. He tells the barber he can't get all his whiskers off because his cheeks are wrinkled from age.

The barber gets a little wooden ball from a cup on the shelf and tells the old drover to put it inside his cheek to spread out the skin. When he's finished, the old drover tells the barber that was the cleanest shave he'd had in years but, he asked, "Isn't it a bit dangerous? What would happen if I accidentally swallowed it? "

The barber replied, "No sweat mate, just bring it back in a couple of days like everyone else does."

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Two crows were flying along slowly minding their own business enjoying the scenery, when all of a sudden out of the blue an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet goes screaming past, barely missing the now somersaulting, and wildly flapping crows.

"Oh my God!" exclaims one crow in surprise. "He was sure moving!"
The other crow replies: "I reckon you would be too if you had two backsides and both of them were alight!"

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A Sergeant was addressing a squad of 25 and said: "I have a nice easy job for the laziest man here.

"Put up your hand if you are the laziest."

When 24 men raised their hands, the Sergeant asked the other man: "Why didn't you raise your hand?"

The man replied: "Too much trouble raising the hand, Sarge."

 

That's it, back to work - or bed - whichever!

 

 

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 15.9.19

I just don't get it!   I am referring to this 'religion thing'!  Every Sunday morning the bells peal from the Church outside my front door and in ones and twos but rarely more, the worshippers stroll past on their way to the service.  And every Sunday morning I wonder why?  Well, of course, it's because they believe but, alas and alack, I do not.  Even worse (I suppose), neither do I want to believe!  I should hasten to add that even so, I am, on the whole, exceedingly grateful to the moral code laid down by Jesus Christ (allegedly) which I think is as fine a guide to life as anyone could wish for but beyond that, I cannot go.

 

I want a sort of "Beam me up, Scotty" device:   Not that I wish to go anywhere - although a flash trip to the 'Arkie' mountains would be good! - no, what I want is a sort of 'Fast Forward' button that will whizz me past all this hideously shameful (and 'sham full') Parliamentary pantomime.  Actually, it would be even better if it could whizz forward twenty years so that the true nature of the European monster will began to show its hideous nature even to the dim, dumb Troglodytes who worship at its feet!

 

Why do I 'lurve' Victoria Beckham?   No, no, it's not because she is a mega-rich, attractive lady, at least, not entirely!  I think it is because, above and beyond all else, she generally keeps a low profile and (so far!) has avoided the sewers of depravity which swirl past all 'slebs'.  She appears to be a hard-working Mum who runs her own business and, by and large, minds her own business!  Yes, I wish that she would smile a little more often, particularly when she receives yet another proposal from me, but even so, I do still 'lurve' her!

 

 

At least there's a laugh on the 'telly' tonight:   On one of the film Channels they are re-running that 'Jack Reacher' film with that well-known midget, Mr. Tom Cruise, playing the lead!  How he ever got the part I do not know because 'Jack Reacher' he was not!  Mind you, writing that reminds me of an exceedingly tough guy called 'Tony' Fleming' I met years ago in the army who was born and raised in an exceedingly rough part of Liverpool.  When it came to street/pub fighting he knew where-of he spoke having been at it since he was 14 years old!  When I once asked him if he was scared of anyone, he replied in the negative but added the warning that you always had to be careful of the little guys!

 

So what happened to the Trump mega-disaster?   I remember being warned by sundry media sources, well, most media sources, actually, that the inauguration of Donald Trump as President inevitably meant the end of the world.  To be fair, even without the, er, assistance of those wailers 'n' moaners, I must confess that 'back in the day' I was fairly nervous of the prospect.  Even so, here we are nearly three years on and I'm still waiting!  The only outstanding question is, if 'HillBilly' had won would I have had to wait so long?  Don't bother replying, I think I know the answer.

 

Damn right!   There is a story - alright, a 'flyer' - in The Sunday Mail today indicating that there are moves afoot to earmark the hitherto empty plinth in Trafalgar Square for a statue of Prince Phillip.  Actually, they rather wittily describe him as "Plinth Phillip"!  Off hand, I cannot think of anyone more deserving of the honour.

 

 

No more Rumbles

 

It's the little things that give them away!

Take for example the Democratic party 'over there'.  As Patricia McCarthy points out at The American Thinker site, there have been three Democrat national debates between the herd of 'wannabe' candidates scrapping for the chance to take down 'The Donald' and yet . . . and yet . . . at none of them was there a single 'Stars and Stripes' flag on display!  Perhaps I should alter my title to this post and head it with:

By their non-deeds, shall you know them!

Of course, there is a tendency amongst politicians to wrap themselves in a flag at every opportunity.  Not always the national flag, alas, for example, 'Chairman Jezza' prefers a red flag with a hammer and sickle in the corner, I believe!  But, dammit - or should that be 'Goddammit'? - this is America where 'Stars and Stripes' in their multitude flutter at virtually any public occasion, er, except a Democratic party function, apparently.  I wonder why . . . ?

 

 

 

Re-enter, stage centre, a dim, dumb Mr. Magoo

In case any of you are bewildered by my heading, I will provide you with the 'Wiki' description of 'Mr. Magoo' as "a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of comical situations as a result of his extreme near-sightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem"!  Yeeeeeeees, well, I think that about sums up the Rt. Honourable David Cameron, former Prime Minister of this parish!  As Ms. Camilla Tominey summarises it in The Telegraph:

And his surprise at the notion that “non-voters voted” also appears to miss the point about Brexit being a protest vote against the Establishment - and over-privileged people like him. 

While he has the good grace to admit that he set expectations “far too high” on his own failed negotiations with the EU - that he was pleased to come back with a deal that was “dumped on” by the press is yet another revelation laying bare the catalogue of misjudgments at the heart of his premiership.

In insisting the referendum was ‘inevitable’, he tries to shift the blame from his own Project Fearmongery to the eurozone crisis and the “huge political pressure” - although denies Ukip played a part (yeah, right).

Personally, I am delighted that 'Dim Dave' was indeed so far out of touch with the real world as to be almost inhabiting another planet!  It was his dense stupidity that gave us the chance for freedom.  The fact is that the Metropolitan clique that always knows so very much better than us what is best for us received an enormous kick in the ballots and poor 'Dim Dave' is still weeping with the pain.  And still, with his European eyeballs swivelling, he doesn't even begin to understand why it happened.  Needless to say, this same gang that has honed its malpractices to razor-sharpness continues its trickery and crookery in ever more disgusting attempts to deny the right of the majority.

Lest you doubt the monumental stupidity of this Old Etonian, Oxford-educated, upper-class twit, 'there is nothing so became his premiership as his leaving of it':

Yet the former Prime Minister wants the book [his memoir] to dispel the idea that he just swanned off.

Many will question his claim that he wanted to be in Downing Street for a three to four-month period, helping with the transition to a new prime minister.

If that was the case, why on earth did he resign within hours of the 52/48 result?  [My emphasis]

The answer to that was provided years before by his predecessor, a woman with more courage and brains in her little finger than 'Dim Dave' possesses in his entire being - 'he was frit!'

 

 

Why, oh why, did he die so young?

I refer to the late, and absolutely and positively great, George Gershwin, who probably more than anyone cemented my affection for America which is odd given that he was of Ukrainian and Lithuanian Jewish descent - but, hey, that's America!

It is not often that you will see the 'WaPo' quoted in these august columns but I came across a review by Laurence Maslon of a biography of George Gershwin - not, mind you, that he praises the book fulsomely!  Even so, you 'just gotta lurve' a man who produced so much brilliant and moving music - his Rhapsody in Blue is superb and his 1st Piano Concerto even better.  Of course, it was his popular music that first caught me, especially the score for the film "An American in Paris" and the opera 'Porgy and Bess'.  An absolute genius and, dear God, why did have to die so young?

 

 

And I am still not feeling much better today!

However, there is one bright spot in my life.  Yesterday, in the depths of my depression I decided to treat myself to a new book on the history of two, er, 'giants' of the 19th century, Gladstone and Disraeli.  Of course, I know of them but not much about them.  I am learning fast as I devour Richard Aldous's book "The Lion and the Unicorn".  I know that I am prone to raving about sundry books on a fairly consistent basis but this truly is an absolute corker!  Yes, it covers the political shenanigans of the Victorian era which, though important, do not move us to passion these days - after all, we have our own problems!  However, what Mr. Aldous does bring out is the deep and abiding hatred between these two men.  'HOONOO'?  Not me, poor ignorant fellow that I am but I am learning fast!

I am also learning about their very different, in fact polar opposite, characters.  Gladstone the stern, stubborn Victorian and Disraeli the glamourous showman.  Both were highly intelligent but more important, and more entertaining,  was their shared viciousness in the political knife-fight that ensued as they both reached the heights of political power.  Simply too, too delicious!

 

 

 

I was ill yesterday

And today I am not much better!  What are my symptons?  Nausea, filled with bile and sick to my stomach.  Yesterday, I truly plumbed the depths of despair because for the first time in my 80 years I utterly despised my own country.  Having watched and listened to the capering monkeys in Parliament on Monday I almost vomited.  This collection of dis-Honourable Members, led by that unctuous, crap-filled chimp who sits in one of the highest, most venerable seats in the land could only have sunk lower in my estimation by actually pissing and shitting on the floor of the chamber.  Yesterday, I was truly depressed - and I still am!  Without ignoring the many frailties that beset any nation I truly believed that when a crisis arose, as they do both here and everywhere, the ranks of our leadership would, by and large, stand firm and do the honourable thing.  Three years ago this collection of crooks and liars voted roughly 5 to 1 to set Article 50 running because 'we, the People' had voted to leave the EU.  Ever since, and non-stop, they have used every device in the book, and several outside the book, to defy us.  There are ominous signs that that fine collection of kiddie-killers, the IRA, dearly beloved by the leaders of the Labour party, are winding up to a new campaign.  If so, Paddy, you can make a start by blowing up Parliament, er, but only when there is a full house!  And frankly, you can blow me up, too, because I am sick of it!

 

 

Well, well, the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case re-appears!

Standby, take cover, the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case is about to resurrect!  According to the American Thinker site, someone called Joel Gilbert is poised to unveil a TV/film documentary on the subject.  Don't ask me why but that case back in 2012 utterly fascinated me.  It sort of encapsulated the essence of American society riven as it was, and still is, with racial differences.  Also, and more to the point, it showed up the American Left for the utter set of lying liars they were - and probably still are. Happily, in this case, an American jury of 'jes' ordinary folks', saw through the machinations of the prosecution trickery and found Zimmerman 'Not Guilty'.  

Now I am waiting for another book and Hollywood film along the lines of "To Kill a Mocking Bird", er, but given the hopelessly 'woke' rot that permeates the film industry I will definitely not be holding my breath!

 

 

Your Monday Funnies: 9.9.19

A fine selection, thanks to my Aussie contributors - again!

An angelic little boy or a cheeky little sod - you choose:

A delightful angelic little boy was waiting for his mother outside the ladies room of the gas station. As he stood there, he was approached by a man who asked,

"Sonny, can you tell me where the Post Office is?”

The little boy replied, "Sure! Just go straight down this street two blocks and turn to your right. It's on the left.”

The man thanked the boy kindly, complimented him on how bright he was and said, "I'm the new pastor in town. If you and your mommy come to church on Sunday, I'll show you how to get to Heaven.”

The little boy replied with a chuckle; "You're kidding me, right? You can't even find the Post Office.

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The pastor asked if anyone in the congregation would like to express praise for answered prayers.

Suzie Smith stood and walked to the podium. She said, "I have a praise. Two months ago, my husband, Phil, had a terrible bicycle wreck and his scrotum was completely crushed. The pain was excruciating and the doctors didn't know if they could help him."

You could hear a muffled gasp from the men in the congregation as they imagined the pain that poor Phil must have experienced.

"Phil was unable to hold me or the children," she went on, "and every move caused him terrible pain. We prayed as the doctors performed a delicate operation, and it turned out they were able to piece together the crushed remnants of Phil's scrotum and wrap wire around it to hold it in place."

Again, the men in the congregation cringed and squirmed uncomfortably as they imagined the horrible surgery performed on Phil.

"Now," she announced in a quivering voice, "thank the Lord, Phil is out of the hospital, and the doctors say that with time his scrotum should recover completely."

All the men sighed with unified relief. The pastor rose and tentatively asked if anyone else had something to say.

A man stood up and walked slowly to the podium. He said, "I'm Phil."

The entire congregation held its breath. "I just want to tell my wife the word is sternum."

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Patrick O'Reilly hoisted his beer and said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, between the legs of me wife !"

That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night !

He went home and told his wife, Colleen, "I won the prize for the best toast of the night."

She said, "Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?"

Patrick said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church beside me wife."

"Oh, that is very nice indeed, Pat," said Herself.

The next day, Colleen ran into one of Pat's drinking buddies on the street corner. The man chuckled leeringly and said, "Patrick won the prize the other night at the pub with a toast about you, Colleen."

She said, "Aye, Himself told me, and I was a bit surprised myself. You
know, he's only been in there twice in the last ten years. "Once I had to pull him by the ears to make him come, and the other time he fell asleep".

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Snake for sale :

I'm selling my pet Python on eBay.

A bloke just rang me up and asked if it was big.

I said, "It's massive."

He said, "How many feet?"

I said "None! It's a snake, you moron!!”

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Yes, this has a slightly familiar feel to it but I can't be arsed to check back!

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have been with a loose girl."

The priest asks, "Is that you, little Joey Pagano?"

"Yes, Father, it is."

"And who was the girl you were with?"

"I can't tell you, Father. I don't want to ruin her reputation."

"Well, Joey, I'm sure to find out her name sooner or later so you may as
well tell me now. Was it Tina Minetti?"

"I cannot say."

"Was it Teresa Mazzarelli?"

"I'll never tell."

"Was it Nina Capelli?"

"I'm sorry, but I cannot name her."

"Was it Cathy Piriano?"

"My lips are sealed."

"Was it Rosa DiAngelo, then?"

"Please, Father! I cannot tell you."

The priest sighs in frustration. "You're very tight lipped, and I admire
that. But you've sinned and have to atone. You cannot be an altar boy
now for 4 months. Now you go and behave yourself."

Joey walks back to his pew, and his friend Franco slides over and
whispers, "What'd you get?"

"Four months vacation and five good leads..."

That's your lot for this week - God, I'm good to you!

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 8.9.19

One for 'SoD' and Jimmy:  There is a review in this week's 'Speccie' of a biography of the late General Sir Thomas Graham who fought with distinction in the Peninsular war and ended up as Wellington's second-in-command.  He founded the Perthshire Volunteers, later the 90th Foot which eventually amalgamated with the 26th Foot to form the Cameronians.  The reviewer makes a somewhat obscure reference to more modern times when the Cameronians were stationed in Germany and referred to by the locals as "giftzwerge — ‘poison dwarfs’, the Cameronians being tough if generally diminutive men of Glasgow and Lanarkshire."  Surely not, such a calumny!

 

And now one for my American pals:   The name rang a very distant bell but for the life of me I could not recall anything concerning the life and (well deserved) death of Huey P. Long who was, according to Ellen Carmichael at the National Review quoting the historian Arthur Schlesinger, "the closest thing to a dictator the U.S. has ever seen." 

 

Huey P. Long in 1935 (Harris & Ewing/Library of Congress)

Long was the utterly corrupt governor of Louisiana and a US senator and was shot dead, almost certainly by his bodyguards who, er, 'defended' him when he was punched by a young doctor, Carl Weiss for remarks Long had made about his parents.  I cannot precis the story so go read Ms. Carmichael's article which is fascinating.  It was prompted by the very recent death of the son of the man who punched Huey P. Long.

 

'Downton Abbey' - hoodathunkit?   If, in these proletarian times, 1o years ago someone had asked you to invest money into a TV series based on the lives, the triumphs, the vicissitudes, the loves and the disputes of a frightfully posh and wealthy family in Yorkshire and their 'below stairs' servants, would the second word of your reply been "off"?  If so, you would have missed a goldmine!  Now the film is due out shortly and even more 'dosh' will roll in.  The team deserve every bit of it.  It is superbly written, filmed and acted.

 

Snort/snigger of the year:  'MM', I refuse to spell out her full name lest I lose even more readers, dumps her new baby Archie on 'Harry the Hubby' and dashes over to 'Noo Yawk' to, er, support her best friend, Serena Williams, in the tennis championship final - who promptly loses to some unknown teen-ager!  Simply too, too delicious!

 

Those damned Aussie ruffians!   They should jolly well give us back our 'Ashes' because, er, well, you know, we, sort of, deserve it, don't we?  Oh, take that as a 'NO' shall I?

 

Two women sharing the steering wheel:   A frightening prospect in any situation but absolutely terrifying when the vehicle concerned is the US of A and the women concerned are 'Fauxcahontas' Warren and her 'lyin' liar' friend (allegedly), Hillary Clinton.  Actually, it is reported that they both detest each other but, hey, when it comes to a Presidential election anything is possible.  As Ms. Monica Showalter puts it at the American Thinker site:

"Warren may still not be able to stand Clinton, but Clinton is useful to Warren for rigging the Democratic nomination"

'Over here' and 'over there', politics sure is a dirty business. 

 

"The king is dead, long live the King!"   I refer, of course, to the King of the F1 racing circuits, (Sir) Lewis Hamilton who ran second to young Charles Leclerc for most of the race but due to tyre problems finished third.  Snidey spoilsports, er, like me, might complain about some of the stewards' decisions on one or two of Leclerc's driving 'manoeuvres', including his driving straight over the chicane and thus, technically going 'off circuit'.  However, this was Monza and he was driving a Ferrari so what else would you expect?  Even so, it is now very clear that Leclerc is a superb driver and destined to win several world championships.  Alas, poor Vettel, he is heading for the 'knacker's yard' and I wonder if he will drive again next year.  In the meantime, (Sir) Lewis has a fight on his hands but there are many more races to be run.

And so to bed . . .

 

No more rumbles

 

 

Worried about the planet? FAGGETABOUTIT!

This blog is deeply concerned about the future of our planet and so we have not one, but two, climate advisors from both ends of the earth.  In no order of preference we have Andra from Australia and 'JK' from deep in 'them thar hills' in Arkansas.  Industrious little beavers that they are, they never cease to bring us the latest despatches from the Global Climate wars.

First there is this from Andra quoting Prof. Ian Rutherford Plimer who is:

An Australian geologist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide and the director of multiple mineral exploration and mining companies. He has published 130 scientific papers, six books and edited the Encyclopaedia of Geology.

So, presumably he knows where-of he writes and here are a few extracts:

"Okay, here's the bombshell. The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland... since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you.

Of course, you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress - it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for all humans and all animal life.

I know... it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kids "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle and replacing all of your 90 cent light bulbs with $9 light bulbs... well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.

[…]

I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.

And here is something that this blog noticed and mentioned some time ago:

Hey, isn’t it interesting how they don’t mention 'Global Warming' anymore, but just 'Climate Change' - you know why? It’s because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past few years and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.

'JK', my other environmental adviser who always takes immense care to recycle his empty bottles after each tasting of Barney Magroo's 'Fine Wine and Spirits', was 'yuuuuugely' upset by this picture of discarded turbine blades dumped by one of those 'cuddly' wind farm operators who really, really care about the environment!

From a site called "Powerline" the rank hypocrisy of those wind farm con-artists who warm the hearts of 'tree huggers' everywhere but then dump their unwanted industrial equipment anywhere is shown up for what it is.

Thank you Andra and 'JK' for confirming my worst suspicions.

 

 

Hurrah, more 'Mossies'!

For those of you confused, or just plain bored, by my post below on the famous Mosquito aircraft of WWII, the Daily Mail has just published an excellent story on the history of that amazing aircraft because some 'wizard prang chaps/nut jobs' (delete to taste) are about to start building a new one using the original plans.  Of course, one of the terrific advantages of the 'Mossie' was that it was built almost entirely of wood and canvas which was dead cheap back then.  Despite that, it could fly at around 400 miles per hour!

I would give my right arm for a chance to see that fly and I would give my other arm for a chance to fly in it!

 

 

 

Johnson, Boris: Lower Sixth: Could do better

I confess to having misgivings concerning Boris.  I do not blame him in any way for the despicable treachery of his Tory 'Remainers'.  Anyone who can vote for a Brexit process, for a referendum, then promise to abide by the result of the people's choice and then use every Machiavellian trick in the book to destroy it, deserves far worse than being booted out of the Tory party.  Tied, naked, to a stake in the centre of their constituency towns and pelted with offal would be more suitable!

However, given that, I have to say that I have been less than impressed with Boris's performances in public.  I watched his first PMQs and he came across as a stuttering, stammering toff straight out of a tale by P. G. Wodehouse!  The main thrust of what he was saying was excellent but his way of saying it was appalling.  He has been compared by some silly people to Churchill but that great man was a politician who was never short of an elegant and cutting phrase delivered with the precision of a guided missile.  He is obviously not a man who can think and talk fast on his feet.  Happily, his main opponent, 'Jezza', looks and sounds like an escapee from an old folks home.

As to the current impasse, there is only one possible solution and that is a general election.  I have no firm idea how that would work out but I can only hope that the dreaded 'Peeps' turn in fury against the despicable cheats and liars who have deceived them.  A man may hope, may he not? 

 

 

'Mad Max' bombs the 'dambusters'!

According to a review in this week's 'Speccie', Max Hastings has written a history of the (in)famous 'dambuster raid' of 1943.  In these modern, effete times, the telling of that story is tricky given that the courageous leader of it had a dearly beloved black Labrador as a pet whose name was, er, well, "Nigger", actually!  I have always sympathised with that because the couple who took me in as an evacuee during the war had a similarly black dog with the same name.  The times they are a-changin'!

More important is the fact, apparently, that Hastings takes a dim view of the entire enterprise.  If so, he confirms my own doubts about the raid which, whilst requiring great skill and courage from the airmen concerned, actually achieved very little.  For example the 'Mohne' dam was repaired within 18 weeks and the vast majority of the people killed were civilians, many of them, according to the review, foreign women used for slave labour by the Nazis.  Well, of course, it is so easy to be 'wise' after the event but you have to wonder at the technical advice given as this enterprise took shape.  Also, as the reviewer reminds us, it raises yet again the very many questions that remain unanswered as to the entire efficacy of the allied bombing strategy during WWII, quite apart from the morality.  

I don't know why but this old poem leaps to mind:

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

 

There are no words . . .

The ructions in Westminster are almost beyond description although our 'meeja' are making every effort to do so as they swathe through the equivalent of half a Brazilian rain forest to print their editions, er, well, if there are any Brazilian rain forests left, of course!  The default mode appears to be that the nation is hopelessly divided but that is to assume that our, er, 'representative' Parliament actually does represent us!  No one can be sure of that and the only way to prove or disprove it is to have an election, or in other words, let the People speak.  It is interesting that the politicians most reluctant to face the People are the ones who have used every trick in the book to ensure that the majority views of the People, as expressed in the referendum, are now ducking and diving to avoid any chance of having to go face to face with the electorate.  Even, and this is truly extraordinary, the Labour opposition party who would in normal times be gagging for any chance to bring down the government via a general election and who have maintained, up until this week, non-stop agitation for it to happen, have now totally 'chickened out' and refused the means for it to occur.  I wonder why?

Even so, my feeling is that, by one means or another, an election will occur very soon.  And "then shall we see what our seemers be!"  As an entrenched 'Leaver' ever since the first referendum which I thought then and continue to think now, with even greater certainty, was a gigantic error of judgment, I still have no idea of how a general election would turn out.  My 'gut feeling', never to be relied upon, is that the dreaded 'Peeps' will exact a huge revenge on those who, having asked for and received our opinion in the second referendum, then, in effect, pissed on us and deployed every 'tricksy' device possible to thwart our majority opinion.

An election?  Bring it on!

 

 

Patrick J. Buchanan is a total tit!

I have just read an article by this leading Republican politician on the subject of WWII that is so stupid as to worry me that this buffoon has any influence on American foreign policy!  Using the perfect vision binoculars of hindsight, this less than great historian condemns the British for their decision to go to war over Poland in 1939.  Pointing to the end result in which Poland, along with most of Eastern Europe, was swallowed whole by the Soviet Union he accuses the Brits of rank stupidity and, by implication, the Americans of strategic genius when they twiddled their thumbs doing nothing whilst the Japs sneaked in and came within a whisker of sinking the entire US fleet in Hawaii.

Britain decided to go to war because they realised that war with Germany was inevitable.  It was only a matter of 'when', not 'if'!  Chamberlain fudged our chance when Germany attacked Czechoslovakia but at least it sealed the belief that it was only a matter of time - and a useful excuse - before we would be forced to go to war. No-one at the time could have foreseen how events would develop - what a pity we did not have the services of that great American prophet, Patrick J. Buchanan!  The British government knew, and Churchill knew more than most, that we were almost totally unprepared for war and it came as something of a surprise to us, and the Germans, that we actually won the Battle of Britain!  In those circs, the British decision to go to war anyway was not without some courage as well as acknowledging the inevitable.

But Buchanan will not have it so!  According to him it was all our fault that the Soviets over-ran Eastern Europe!  This anti-Semitic buffoon made numerous efforts to run for the Presidency but happily the American public rejected him over and over again.  God bless America!

 

 

Standby, I may have an orgasm approaching on the 25th!

I keep putting my memory down and then forgetting where!  For example, today, completely out of the blue yonder, I suddenly remembered that I had booked tickets for a classical concert.  Could I remember when or even what the programme was. let alone where I had put the tickets?  Not a chance!  Happily, with the help of my two best friends - the 'Memsahib' and my computer! -  I found the tickets and rediscovered the programme - and it is an absolute corker, Sibelius: Finlandia, Elgar: Cello concerto and Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5.  Who could ask for anything more sublime?  Of course, I am a man who couldn't tell the difference between a chord and a crotchet, so do not expect an expert analysis after the event - and I heard that cheer!  Suffice to say that, as my country's politicians go mad, this happy reminder has cheered me up enormously.

 

 

Dammit, missed again!

I keep having these, er, 'original thoughts' but through a combination of idleness and distractions I never quite get around to expressing them - story of my life, I suppose.  Anyway, for some time the impression has grown in me that if you are a white, middle-class, reasonably intelligent member of society who tends to the centre of what can be called traditional opinion - your end is fast approaching!  Desperately trying to form square ready to defend the middle-ground it has dawned on me that we are surrounded.  The loonies, the radicals from both ends of the political spectrum, the fanatics, the mouth-dribbling 'thickoes' who have to share their meagre supply of brain cells are closing in on us from all directions.

All of the above is a generalised description but thanks to Mr. David Cole at Taki's Mag we have a more specific analysis aimed at the state of American society today.  His opening paragraphs set the scene:

In a season 3 episode of NYPD Blue, profoundly un-PC detective Andy Sipowicz (played by Dennis Franz) gives his son, a newly minted beat cop, a lesson in street patrol. Sipowicz points to a group of young black guys standing on a corner. He tells his son that the men, while not technically doing anything illegal, nevertheless have to be chased off, because a klatch like that can only mean trouble.

“Right now they own that corner,” Sipowicz says. “A good cop’s gonna take it back.”

And there, in that one scene, is an inadvertent depiction of what’s happening in America today. Leftists are Sipowicz, and they’ve decided that wherever and whenever “too many” whites gather, they gotta be run off. How many times do we see the media slam a movie, a TV show, an editorial board, a slate of candidates, or a roomful of people merely for being “too white”? It’s simply taken for granted that anything deemed “too white” is bad and in need of dispersal. It’s not that the actions of the whites who gather are necessarily wrong; the people are wrong. They’re wrong for being white and “owning” a corner.

"As any fule do no", what happens 'over there' soon ends up 'over here'.  In fact examples of the ferocity of anti-white, anti-middle class, anti-middle of the road politics are manifold.  Happily, at 80 years of age I am on my last few laps so, with a bit of luck and a following wind, I may dodge the bullets - and yes, that is an image I am happy to use!  

 

 

So now it begins . . .

And as far as I am concerned, it cannot happen quickly enough!  Of course, I refer to the coming general election which is as near a certainty as anything is in politics.  The Boris/Cummings alliance is working a treat.  It has smoked out all the serious 'Remainers' lurking in the Tory party although, given Boris's promise to boot them out of the Tory party, it remains to be seen how many of them go down with their European ship!  Across the aisle, there are numerous Labour party MPs whose own constituency voters made it clear in the referendum that they wanted 'OUT!'  If the Tories are somewhat split, it is nothing compared to the Labour party whose utterly useless leader was once vocal for Brexit but has now been forced to trim his ragged sails to the point where no-one can be sure which course he will follow.

The Boris/Cummings alliance has obviously worked exceedingly hard to chart a course through the swirling, murky waters of Westminster.  I see signs of real intelligence applied to the myriad possibilities that are available to the loons, fanatics, egotists and the seriously mentally impaired who swarm the corridors of Parliament of whom the detestable 'Squeaker' Bercow is but one example.  So far, for them, it has been one long parade of monstrous egotism but now they are but weeks or even days away from facing their enemy - the dreaded 'Peeps'!  If you doubt me, just pause and imagine how the soppingly wet Mrs. May would have coped!  In the meantime the equally fearsome Boris/Cummings political machine has started its engine and is ready to advance against them.  Time, methinks, for those ladies and gentlemen to concentrate their minds and seriously contemplate their future as non-persons!  

Heroics, of course, are to be admired but I would remind them that the death rate is enormous!

 

A jolly decent German Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, er, and Britain!

I refer, of course, to the late Prince Albert, loving husband of Queen Victoria, of whom it might be said given her portraits, that 'he should have gone to Spec-Savers'!  I must instantly confess to my almost total ignorance of this man and his life but the other day whilst in my default mode of slumped in front of the 'telly' with my 'do-flicker-thingie' to hand, I came across a programme providing details of his life as a 'British' prince.

Part of the reason for my ignorance of him is that he quickly learned that under the British system there was no room for Royal interference in politics.  He was shrewd enough not only to learn that but take heed of it.  Consequently, he does not figure largely in the political history of the period.  However, being a man of extraordinary energy and drive, he threw himself into what only can be described as a multitude of 'good works', culminating in the 'Great Exhibition of 1851' which to the surprise of many of his contemporaries was a success of global proportions. Thanks to him, a hundred years later I was able to visit the 'Great Exhibition of 1951' where, amongst other things, I remember seeing the 'Skylon'.

Anyway, whilst it is not high on the list of my reading priorities, I really must try and find a biography of the man.  In the meantime, what can I say except, "Vielen Dank, Ihre Königliche Hoheit!"

 

 

Your Monday Funnies: 2.9.19

Bright and early - for a change!

 

A blond has become dreadfully overweight. She goes to the doctor and he decides to put her on a diet.

"I want you to eat normally for two days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for 2 weeks. Next time I see you, you'll probably be 5 pounds lighter."

The blonde returns after 2 weeks, but upon weighing her it turns out she lost 20 pounds.

"That's amazing!" Said the doctor, "and you followed my instructions?"

The blond nods, tiredly. "I'll tell you, I thought I was going to drop dead that third day."

"From hunger, you mean?" Asked her doctor.

"No, silly, from the skipping!"

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

Life in the Australian Army 
Text of a letter from a kid from Eromanga to Mum and Dad. (For those of you not in the know, Eromanga is a small town west of Quilpie in the far south west of Queensland )

Dear Mum & Dad,
I am well. Hope youse are too. Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil that the Army is better than workin' on the farm - tell them to get in bloody quick smart before the jobs are all gone! I wuz a bit slow in settling down at first, because ya don't hafta get outta bed until 6 am. But I like sleeping in now, cuz all ya gotta do before brekky is make ya bed and shine ya boots and clean ya uniform. No bloody cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack - nothin'!! Ya haz gotta shower though, but its not so bad, coz there's lotsa hot water and even a light to see what ya doing!

At brekky ya get cereal, fruit and eggs but there's no kangaroo steaks or platoon's got, and I've only been beaten by this one bloke from the Engineers - he's 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pick handles across the shoulders and as ya know I'm only 5 foot 7 and eight stone wringin' wet, but I fought him till the other blokes carried me off to the boozer.

I can't complain about the Army - tell the boys to get in quick before word gets around how bloody good it is.

Your loving daughter,

Sheila

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One day an Irishman, who had been stranded on a deserted island for over 10 years, saw a speck on the horizon. He thought to himself, "It's certainly not a ship."

As the speck got closer and closer, he began to rule out even the
possibilities of a small boat or a raft. Suddenly there strode from the surf a figure clad in a black wet suit. Putting aside the scuba tanks and mask, and zipping down the top of the wet suit, there stood a drop-dead gorgeous blonde! She walked up to the stunned Irishman and said to him, "Tell me, how long has it been since you've had a good cigar?"

"Ten years!" replied the amazed Irishman.

With that, she reached over and unzipped a waterproof pocket on the left sleeve of her wet suit and pulled out a fresh package of cigars and a lighter. He took a cigar, slowly lit it, and took a long drag.

"Faith and begorrah!" said the castaway. "Ah, that is so good! I'd
forgotten how great a smoke can be!"

"And how long has it been since you've had a drop of good Bushmill's Irish Whiskey?" asked the blonde.

Trembling, the castaway replied, "Ten years!"

Hearing that, the blonde reached over to her right sleeve, unzipped a
pocket there and removed a flask and handed it to him. He opened the flask and took a long drink.

"'Tis nectar of the gods!" shouted the Irishman. "'Tis truly fantastic!!!"
At this point, the gorgeous blonde started to slowly unzip the long front of her wet suit, right down the middle. She looked at the trembling man and asked,

"And how long has it been since you've played around?"

With tears in his eyes, the Irishman fell to his knees and sobbed, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Don't tell me that you've got golf clubs in there too!"

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

The woman asked the pharmacist, "Do you have Viagra?"

"Yes," he answered.

She asked, "Does it work?"

"Yes," he answered.

She said, "Can you get it over the counter?"

"I can, if I take two," he replied.

 

That's it, I'm exhausted and may have to take to my bed again!



 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 1.9.19

Dammit, I lost - again!   The Memsahib and I have a little game, er, well, actually it is so ruthless and deadly it comes close to warfare, in which on the first day of each month we both try to be the first to deliver, before midday, mind, the ancient line, "Pinch, punch, first day of the month, no return, white rabbit".  Yet again she cheated today because I came downstairs and was sitting on the patio enjoying my usual glass of orange juice when the bedroom window flew open and out she popped, like Punch's wife, and shouted out the winning words.  God knows what the neighbours think!

 

I'm glad Dan Hodges is back:   He has been on holiday/skiving (you decide) from the Mail on Sunday for weeks.  Happily, he does not seem to have lost his commonsense:

It was Parliament that voted to grant the British people a referendum on our membership of the EU. It was Parliament that voted to trigger Article 50 when a majority of those people voted to leave. Five hundred and sixty-eight of our 650 current MPs were elected on manifestos pledging to respect the referendum result.

It was Parliament that voted on three separate occasions to prevent Britain leaving the European Union with a deal. And it was Parliament that voted on March 26, 2019, to take control of the Brexit process, held a succession of votes on its preferred Brexit model and spectacularly failed to find a majority for any of them.

All the haughty expressions of democratic outrage we have heard over the past few days ignore a single, simple fact. The people of Britain voted to leave the European Union in the biggest expression of popular will ever seen in this country since the introduction of the universal franchise. And, more than three years later, our politicians persistently and pig-headedly refuse to respect and implement that democratic instruction.  [My emphasese]

 

 

Perhaps he's only half a tit:   As opposed to being a 'total tit' which is where I consigned the Archbishop of Canterbury until this morning.  Much to my surprise, he is reported in Her Maj's Daily Telegraph today as saying:

In remarks reported by the Church Times, he added: “We have to take seriously the fact that the majority voted Leave. We may not like it, but that is democracy; and that means we have to stop whingeing about it and do something about reuniting the country.” 

Jolly well said, 'Bish', old boy!  Next time I pass the collecting box at St. John's church, just outside my front door, I must remember to drop a few 'bob' in!

 

Control yourselves, ladies, this do be Dorset man:

My word, you would not want to mix it with the Cerne Abbas giant!  According to the Telegraph, he is getting a 'make-over' because that damned grass will keep on growing.  According to the delightfully named Ms. Boudica Fox-Leonard who is one of many volunteers helping to give him a 'make-over', "The left nipple on the Cerne Abbas Giant is looking a bit grassy!"  Well, we can't have that, can we?

Even so, I trust dear Boudica will keep well clear of his naughty bits!

 

Not quite as sexy as the Cerne Abbas giant:   Same technique though, this time just outside Salisbury where there is a collection of Regimental badges carved into the chalk hillside.

Known as the Fovant Badges, most of them were done during WWI by troops waiting to go over to France.  They include the Australian Forces badge, second from left, because many of the men involved were from Australia.

 

Alan Dershowitz tells it the way it is:   Beware, America, it is not China or Russia, let alone Iran, who are your greatest threat; it is your very own, internal, hard Left who are the real danger to everything you hold dear:

I make the controversial claim that today the "woke" hard-left is more dangerous to civil liberties than the right. To be sure there are hard right extremists who would use — and have used — violence to silence those with whom they disagree. They are indeed dangerous. But they have far less influence on our future leaders than their counterparts on the hard-left. They are not teaching our college age children and grandchildren. They are marginalized academically, politically and in the media. The opposite is true of hard-left Stalinists. Many have no idea who Stalin even was, but they are emulating his disdain for free speech and due process in the interests of achieving the unrealizable utopia they both sought. They also have in common the attitude that noble ends justify ignoble means.

I cannot speak for Americans but in my trembling British opinion the next Presidential election is absolutely crucial.  If the Dems win then the fabled 'city upon a hill' will be shaken to its foundations.

 

The winds, or slipstreams, of change are blowing in F1:   The new kid on the Ferrari block, Charles Leclerc, beat his team-mate, Sebastian Vettel, into 4th place as he took the chequered flag at the Belgium Grand Prix today.  (Sir) Lewis Hamilton chased him down but could only finish second.  The other 'new kid on the block', (mad)Max Verstappen lived up (or down!) to his reputation by hitting another car in an audacious over-taking manouvre and thus wrecking his car.  Things are hotting up in F1 racing!

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

 

 

 

"Oh for the gift that God would gi'e us ..." and all that sort of thing!

All round the world people are watching, or, to be absolutely accurate, being forced to watch because their 'meeja' will permit no escape, the British wrestling with the conundrum of 'to Brexit or not to Brexit?'  All I can offer by way of sympathy is that although it might be eye-stabbingly tedious for you lot overseas, just imagine the shrieking tedium of it over here on 'this our septic Isle!'  As y'all do know, I like Grand Prix racing not least because it is all over in under two hours but nothing would induce me to watch the 24 hour Le Mans race - let alone that ghastly French bicycle race that seems to go on and on and on for half a lifetime!  I prefer my pleasures to be enjoyed in as short a time scale as possible, a bit like my sex life, as the 'Memsahib' would no doubt confirm, er, if she can remember that far back!

Anyway, back to Brexit which, as it enters its last few laps, we can now see the chequered flag being prepared for October 31st.  However, the 'Remoaners' have now switched into full-on, shrieky-hissy-fit mode and given their rank stupidity and vile temperaments, plus the malignancy of the ultra-Left who are dribbling at the possibility of violence on the streets, not because they care a toss over Brexit (which most of them would prefer) but because they see opportunities for overthrowing the entire system. 

What a difference 40-odd years makes in the life of a nation.  Back then, those of us who were adamant nay-sayers in the referendum to decide whether or not we should join the EU, simply accepted the decision of the majority of our fellow subjects and went on about our business - whilst quietly ruminating that "There may be troubles ahead".  Compare that civilised, dare I say, adult, approach to the mass hysteria of today.  What has made the difference, I wonder, and then I saw (and read!) the obvious answer.  It has been the influx of the 'kiddie-winkies' onto the voting registers, those who were barely out of nappies back then but are now honking, hooting, ill-educated yobs and yobettes with barely a grain of historical knowledge or appreciation of their own country.

Of course, I hope that Boris will get us over the threshold and into freedom but a tiny, wicked part of me secretly wishes that the 'screechers' get their way and that I live long enough to relish the gradually dawning realisation on the part of the 'kiddie-winkies' that they have locked us into German rule for ever!

 

 

 

Old battles are never won, or lost, they just keep on re-fighting!

I enjoyed a snigger at a story in today's Mail that informs us all that the French have opened a new museum close to the battlefield at Agincourt.  Apparently, its purpose is to correct all that totally false (and mostly British!) corruption of history which has led people to believe that the British actually won the battle!  Oh, mes enfants, you have been sadly misled by those perfidious Albion-ites!  To add gravitarse, oops, sorry, gravitas to cette nouvelle histoire, the museum was actually opened by a distinguished lady nearly old enough to qualify as an exhibit, Mde. Brigitte Macron, no less.  I am only surprised that her son, ooops sorry, husband failed to attend!

To be fair, 'our 'Enery', the Fifth of that ilk, was not exactly a military genius and his campaign in France began with massive losses in his army due to dysentery, thus indicating that the 'Army Catering Corps' of those days was even worse than today's!  Anyway, it doesn't matter what the French have to say on the subject because we have the greatest propogandist of all time on our side:

WESTMORLAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmorland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Dammit, that fella' was a great scribbler - he should go far!

 

 

Tell Miss 'Thingamy' she can fly back home on Concorde!

Sorry about the "Miss Thingamy" in my title but for a moment I simply could not recall the name of that peculiar-looking Scandie gal who sailed across the Atlantic, rather than fly, to warn all you 'Yankee-doodles' that you are on the tip of extinction from global warming!  However, now I remember her name - Miss Greta Thunberg, of course.  How could I forget?

Anyway, dear Ms. Thunberg, I bring thee glad tidings of great joy, although to be honest, I don't think you will appreciate it, but the fact is, there has been no warming in the good, ol' US of A since 1985:

 

Temperature readings from 2005 (far left) to the present (far right) show absolutely no warming.

 

In fact, the chances are that there has been no warming since the 1930s.  The phony stats touted by the 'Warmers', as Anthony Watts proved years ago, are as bent as Michael E. Mann's 'hockey stick' graph!  Today we have a set of clean and un-interfered with measurements taken from a wide collection of weather recording sites across America which were set up specifically in locations clear of any local interferences such as concrete or tarmac or massive reflective windows which bent all the results from the older weather sites.  

These new results conform closely to satellite readings which indicate a warming of merely:

0.15 degrees Celsius since 2005, which is less than half the pace predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate models. [My emphasis]

So, dear Miss Thunberg, you can fly home on a gas-guzzling aircraft without troubling your precious conscience but, please, do us all a favour and just shut up and keep your 'hot air' to yourself!  Tack så mycket!

 

 

 

Does anyone give a flying fig that Prince Andrew bonked a few birds?

Yes, you may call me out for raising the utterly tedious subject of the late, unlamented Jeffrey Epstein only a few days after telling y'all that I automatically skip any news report bearing his name!  Alas, now his sorry tale has been supplanted by Prince Andrew who, being a 'Royal' and all that sort of thing, is now the lead story in all the 'meeja' including, for all I know, the Church Times!  Mind you, I suppose that if he drives off the front pages all that 'screechy-weechy' hysteria from the anti-Brexit loons who are currently swinging from their own petards (too, too delicious!) then in my view that makes him "A Good Thing"!

So, here we have a wealthy, single, middle-aged man with time on his hands and a bulge in his trousers who pals up with a mega-rich, sex-obsessed bachelor who possesses an endless list of young 'fillies' eager to do whatever it takes to move in these, er, luxurious circles.  It is claimed that some of these young women were under-age although in this era of non-stop shagging I'm not sure that age limits apply!  Equally, I suspect that were you able to stop these young women on the threshold of Mr. Epstein's 'palace' and suggest to them that given their juvenile status perhaps they might like to think again, my best guess is that you would be side-swiped with a hefty handbag and told to get out the way and get lost!

If ever there was a 'typical man of our times', or of any times actually, then Prince Andrew is it.  Served his country 'up the sharp end' in the Falklands war, failed marriage, no ambition, plenty of money, a Royal title, time on his hands - what else would he do other than 'Bonk for Britain'?  In a way, sad and possibly a waste of talent but who cares?  And who the hell wants it plastered across their newspaper day after day after day?

Not me!

 

 

'Boing-Boing' drops a bomb!

You will have heard that Boris has decided to prorogue Parliament and you may well, just like me, wonder what that means.  The minutiae of parliamentary procedures are always a mystery so allow me to offer you some guidance.  The effect of Boris's action will be, in no particular order, 'Squeaker' Bercow's eye-balls will swivel at high speed as flecks of foam fly off his lips, 'Grievous' Grieve MP will clench his jaw until his jawbones crack, the smug smirk will be instantly wiped off the fat, self-satisfied face of Kenneth Clark MP, wee Mrs. 'McWhinge' up in 'Jockland' will self-elevate in fury and 'SoD' will launch a four-letter storm but happily he's in Czechia so no-one will understand him!  Needless to say, all of these things are, without a doubt, in the distinguished words of Sellars & Yeatman, "A Good Thing!"

Whilst the hysterical 'Remoaners' screech "Treason!", whilst simultaneously forgetting all the diabolical tricks they were intending to pull to stop Boris from reaching the Brexit date of 31st October, it is worth noting Guido's reminder that Boris's plan will result in just four lost Parliamentary days as compared to the six weeks lost by John Major back in '97 when he pulled the same trick, and that this particular Parliamentary session is the longest since 1653!

So just go, Boris, go!

 

 

An irony that is almost orgasmic!

I gave myself a break from Fischer's monumental history of Germany, not because it is anything less than brilliant but because it is so bloody heavy for my poor old arthritic hands!  Instead I switched back to Stuart Sweeney's "The Europe Illusion" which is on my Kindle and therefor 'easy-peasy' to handle.  I was rewarded with a dollop of the most delicious irony I have enjoyed for years.  Describing the immediate post-war period, Mr. Sweeney points out that war-shattered Britain was in receipt of 'yuuuuuuuge' amounts of American dollars to assist its recovery - which, under a Labour government, was immediately spent on building a socialist state!  Not exactly an American dream, then!  Mind you, the Dems were in power then so perhaps they didn't mind too much.

At the same time, 'just over there', the equally exhausted French and Germans fell into each others arms and more or less pooled their American 'dosh' in order to resuscitate their coal and steel industries in a joint venture which they hoped would lead to an equally pooled sovereignty.  This enterprise, the Schuman Plan, would eventually lead to the European Union.  Happily, dear old 'Ernie' Bevin, for all his socialist fervour, remained a 'true blue red' Brit and insisted on British independence from what he could see would eventually be a European behemoth.  Needless to say, the Europhile Economist of the time deplored this policy - so no change there, then!

Good old Ernie!  (Never thought I would write that!)

 

 

Bank Holiday Monday

Sorry, sorry but no posts today because it is festeringly hot and it's a Bank Holiday and I lack the energy to think of a single thing to say!  See y'all tomorrow!

The Sunday Rumble: 25.8.19

Uncork the 'Champers' and celebrate!   My 'recce patrol leader' (aka: JK) informed me yesterday in comments below that the odious Michael Mann, he of the infamous 'hockey stick' graph which purports to prove global warming, has just lost his case against Dr. Tim Ball whom he sued over the good doctor's refutation of Mann's dodgy statistics.  (Actually, JK, I had picked up the news but I was too 'knacked' yesterday to post a triumphant 'Hoorah'.)  Mann and his lawyers, ducked and dived to put off the court hearing for 8 years but eventually, "Truth will out".  In the meantime, Mann's case against Mark Steyn remains mired in the US court system - with more than little help from Mann's lawyers.  Can't wait for the truth to come out in that court case!  (I should live so long my life already!)

 

So it's war!   And, of course, like all wars the collateral damage to bystanders will be enormous.  I refer, of course, to the US/China trade war.  I am simply - because I am simple! - unable to comment with any authority on the pros and cons of it except to say that I suspect that an increasingly belligerent and powerful China has been using underhand tactics in furtherance of its trade/political ambitions.  No other western politician would dare to call them on it except the equally belligerent Trump.  I just hope that he can fight the good fight as well as talk it!

 

MDJ writes excellent sense today:   Well, actually, My Darling Jane (Daley) writes excellent sense every Sunday in The Telegraph and today she attempts to search and make sense of the swirling, contrary tides beneath the surface of Anglo-European discussions.  On the whole she is hopeful which is more than I am - but what the hell do I know?

 

Now this will shake the rafters 'over there'!   I refer to the sad news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (86) of the US Supreme Court has been re-admitted to hospital for pancreatic cancer treatment.  I would not wish that upon anyone, er, well, maybe a few, but certainly not her who, despite her silly political views, appears to have led an honourable life.  Even so, the fact is that she is a hopeless old Leftie and her retirement would provide 'The Donald' with a gift to his presidential record.  No doubt RBG will cling on for absolutely as long as possible but were she to fall off the twig, hopefully 'The Donald' will have the chance, against a sea of opposition - remember Kavanaugh? - to choose an 'originalist' Justice, that is, a judge who bases his rulings on the original constitution. 

 

In which I worry about Brigitte Macron:   Of course, the lady is in a dire situation being, at 66, some 25 years older than her 41-year old squirt of a husband and, even worse, being constantly in the publicity eye of the world.  Thus, such are her Herculanial efforts to appear as young as her husband that she is in danger of appearing mummified!  Show your age, dear, and don't pay any attention to him!

 

But, Barack-baby, what about all that rising sea level you promised?  Apparently, rumours that President Obama is actually President Canute are true!  This is the new multi-multi-zillion palace country cottage that Mr. ex-President is thinking of buying in Martha's Vineyard.

  

Mind you, I'm sure he is only thinking of it as a chance to invite some boys from the Chicago 'hood' over which he ruled all those years ago to enjoy a Summer vacation!

It was the best of cricket, it was the worst of cricket:  Very, very sorry, my Aussie friends - er, we are still friends, aren't we? - but this must rank as the most incredible Test Match of all time.  In their first innings, England were skittered out for a truly embarrassing 67 runs!  They went in for their second innings facing a monstrously 'yuuuuuuge' Australian lead which most people doubted they would even reach halfway.  But they did it, by Jove, they did it, so now it is one each and two more matches to play.

 

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

Late on parade - again!

But it's not my fault, honestly!  I have been doing my 'Nurse Ratchet' duties by accompanying the 'Memsahib' to our local hospital where she underwent a second eye procedure to sort out (hopefully!) her cataract condition.  We arrived at 9.15am and did not get away until nearly 1.00pm.  The 'op' itself only took about 20 minutes!  Anyway, it's all done and hopefully done well.  I, of course, am now chief cook and bottle-washer - such fun!

Talking of fun - of a sort! - it will be fascinating to watch, from the side-lines now, how La Belle France deals with a swollen Deutschland now that it finds itself all alone on a German-dominated Europe.  Of course, it has been a constant problem for France to deal with since 1871 and, alas, usually it has not worked out well!  Once again, Britain will become semi-detached!  All the smaller nations of the EU will be eager to click their heels to German orders which will leave France on its own trying to balance power on the Continent - just like old times, really!  Needless to say, there will be sundry 'soppies' who will tell us that Germany is no longer a threat, which of course it will not be, er, up until the time some European nation has the effrontery to say "Nein" to German orders!

We shall see what we shall see!

John Keiger is worth reading over at The Coffee House

 

 

 

What the 'Pell' is going on 'down under there'?

Sorry for the heavy-handed humour in my title but the Pell case in Australia is somewhat ominous - particularly if you are Australian!  For those unaware of the details, it concerns Cardinal Pell, an exceedingly high-ranked Australian Catholic priest who has been charged and found guilty of sexually assaulting two young boys in the sacristy of  St. Paul's cathedral in Melbourne in the 1990s.  Neither of the boys made any complaint at the time and in fact one of them died later from a drug overdose.  It was then, or shortly after, that the remaining boy, now an adult, made a complaint to the police.

Somewhat disturbing is the fact that:

In March 2013, more than a year before any complaints were filed [My emphases] against Pell, Victoria police began their “Operation Tethering,” soliciting any “information” regarding inappropriate contact with minors at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne. No crime had been reported. Requests for information were advertised in the local press.

In early 2017, the police told Pell that there were, as yet, no allegations. A few months later, they alerted him to forthcoming charges. Of his own volition, Pell travelled from the Vatican back to Australia to defend his innocence.

A trial took place in 2018 and on a majority verdict of 10-2, the Cardinal was found 'Not Guilty'.  Technically, that constituted a 'hung jury' and so the prosecution insisted on a second trial in which on that occasion he was found guilty.  Pell appealed against the result but the three appeal judges confirmed his guilt on a 2-1 basis.  The odd man/judge out, Justice Mark Weinberg, wrote this:

[From] the complainant’s evidence, it can be seen that there was ample material upon which his account could be legitimately subject to criticism. There were inconsistencies, and discrepancies, and a number of his answers simply made no sense. . . .

An unusual feature of this case was that it depended entirely upon the complainant being accepted, beyond reasonable doubt, as a credible and reliable witness. Yet the jury were invited to accept his evidence without there being any independent support for it.

In other words, it was one man's totally unsupported accusation against another.  To paraphrase 'old Bill': Something is rotten in the state of Australia!

 

 

 

For goodness sake, Donald, get a grip!

It's no use you throwing a hissy fit because the prime minister of Denmark sends you off with a flea in your ear because of your ludicrous offer to buy Greenland!    If that sort of loudmouthed, or twitter-fingered, behaviour is acceptable to you then try this on for size.  I hereby offer to buy Arkansas, not just for a 'pony', not even for a 'ton' but, wait for it, a 'monkey'!  Yes, a whole 'monkey', Don, me old mate!  And all in 'folding stuff', natch, don't want the taxman getting wind of it, do we?

If the above is somewhat tricky for you to translate, all is made clear here.

The New York Times is not worth wiping your arse with!

As usual, I am indebted to 'MDA' (My Darling Anne - Coulter) - natch! - who takes up both a surgical scalpel and an electric chain saw to dismember the rotten, stinking edifice of that political pamphlet a.k.a. the New York Times.  I am left asking the usual question - do Americans actually part with their money to purchase propaganda leaflets?  Apparently, they do.

'MDA' takes up the story of a certain late but mostly unlamented Antwon Rose II from East Pittsburgh.  He was a 17-year old black kid shot dead by a policemen.  In Ms. Coulter's precise summary of the NYT's report:

Here’s what you would learn from the Times:

-- Antwon was unarmed.

-- Antwon “was in his high school’s honors program.”

-- Antwon “played basketball and the saxophone.”

-- Antwon “volunteered for a local charity.”

-- In 2016, Antwon wrote a poem titled, “I Am Not What You Think!” which included these lines:

I see mothers bury their sons
I want my Mom to never feel that pain.

-- A policeman stopped the gold Chevy Cruze Antwon “was riding in” because it “matched the description” of a car “involved” in a drive-by shooting minutes earlier.

-- The jury consisted of nine whites and three African Americans.

If you read the Times piece, all you would know is that an honor student who loved his mom ... was KILLED for the crime of riding in a car similar to one that had just been used in a crime.

Cue: the usual wailing lament from the usual suspects!  But, alas for them, in rides Ms. Coulter armed with facts - yes, FACTS, pesky damn things!  [With my emphases]

-- The gold Chevy Cruze Antwon fled did not merely “match the description of” a car used in a drive-by shooting: It was the car used in the drive-by shooting, as proved by surveillance video posted online days after the shooting and shown to the jury.

-- The video shows 13 shots being fired from the back seat of that exact car, with -- according to the prosecutor -- Antwon riding in the front seat.

-- The backseat passenger, Zaijuan Hester, later pleaded guilty to the drive-by shooting.

-- One of the victims of the drive-by shooting told police it was Antwon who shot him. "The beef was between me and him,” William Ross told a Pennsylvania State Police officer. “That car came by, he shot me, I ran to the store."

-- The jitney driver told police that, right before the shooting started, he heard the backseat passenger ask, “Is that him?”

-- The gun used in the drive-by was recovered in the back seat of the car.

-- A stolen gun was found under Antwon’s seat, an empty magazine in Antwon’s pants pocket, and there was gunpowder residue on Antwon’s hands.

-- The car stopped by the officer was riddled with bullet holes.

-- The jury that unanimously acquitted the officer was led by an African American foreman, who stoutly defended the verdict.

Ms. Coulter reminds us that "None of that made it into the Times story on the trial’s conclusion".  She goes on to accuse:

The Times has told wild lies about the racist shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri (false), the racist arrest of Freddie Grey in Baltimore (false), the racist shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida (false), the racist gang-rape of a black stripper by a Duke lacrosse team (false) and so on.

Given all of that and the fact that some of my 'Yankee-doodle' friends actually part with money to read crap in the NYT, I am thinking seriously of charging for entry in to these hallowed columns in D&N!  Er, cash only, mind, no cheques!