DUFF & NONSENSE!

I haven't died, I've just melted!

Dammit, Your Majesty, can't you please do something about this weather?  All this heat and sunshine is so frightfully un-British!  I haven't experienced such sustained hot weather since I lived in a tent on the end of Runway #2 at Bahrein Airport!  Such miniscule amounts of energy that I possess have simply evaporated, thus, I lack the will to write anything on the subject of 'Good Ol' Joe Biden's second blunder in appointing some utter dipstick woman as his running mate.  The first blunder, of course, was to run himself!

Sorry, sorry, unable to write anymore, the sweat is literally running in rivulets down my body - not a pretty sight.  

Two ergos

So dear old Blighty has the worse Covid and excess death rates in the world, we knew.  And now we know dear old Blighty has the worst crash in GDP of any major nation in the world ...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/12/uk-economy-covid-19-plunges-into-deepest-slump-in-history 

After resisting the launch of lockdown until later than other countries around the world and relaxing controls at a slower pace, the ONS said the UK had plunged into the deepest decline of any G7 nation in the second quarter. The downturn is also deeper than any other country in the EU and surpassed a 12.1% quarterly drop in the eurozone.

A worse collapse than any EU country and even a worse collapse than the poor benighted Euro zone.  No wonder BoJo, Farage, and the Brexit mob are trying to distract the peeps attention onto some rubber dinghies in the channel.

There is no option to turn to within Blighty's constitution.  The government, all three main parties, the public sector, the civil service, and the rest:  not one bit of it offers any hopeful solution whatsoever.

Ergo, we need a new constitution.

And if the new constitution involves any of the above listed institutionalised failures owning and operating the means of production and distribution then you haven't understood the problem as elucidated by Ronnie Reagan.

Because I knew that a new constitution will never happen until collapse, disintegration, and civil war have ended the United Kingdom, I was not in favour of Brexit and handing unfettered "take back control" to the above listed institutionalised failures.

Do you get that argument now?  How many more multiples of 60,000 dead will it take before you do?  Home much more economic output decline will it take before you do?  In your case, Blue Socialist Brexiteers, no amount of death and destruction will change your statist Billy Britain minds.  It's OK if they die and we are poor, because at least we've "taken back control" - your words, not mine.

And for the rest of the Yellow and Red Socialist UK, no amount of death and destruction will change their state educated and BBC brainwashed statist minds.  The one saving grace, the last torch of reason, prosperity and success, was in the hands of foreigners because we couldn't be trusted with it:  Margaret Thatcher's legacy:  The single market and the four freedoms, shone back on Blighty from Brussels and kept us more prosperous and free in all our history since the Romans rocked up.  And you just switched off that one and only light at the end of the tunnel.

Ergo, oblivion it is then.

SoD

Did 'Mrs. McWhinge' just say 'sorry'?

It is difficult to be certain because trying to decipher the words that actually emanate through those razor-thin lips in an accent that sounds as though it was bottled on the Isle of Skye is exceedingly tricky!  However, the press seem to think it was an apology over some total 'cock-up' in the Scottish education system which, of course, used to be held up, rightly, as an example to us English in how to properly educate our 'little Herberts and Henriettas'!

How she must have writhed in discomfort as she tried to force the word "sorry" through that slit of a mouth!  According to The Mail, the exam results of individual pupils were altered in order to fit in with a pre-planned, over-all outcome.  Sorry, Nicola Sturgeon, you have been down-graded to  'D-' and removed to the 'Remedial Class'!

 

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 9/8/20

Do get a grip, America!   I read today that 84,000 mail ballots have been disqualified in an election in 'Noo Yawk'.  Why am I not surprised and as it is, so to speak, 'bleedin' obvious' that postal votes are always and forever open to abuse and malpractice, why do Americans persist with the practice?  If as an American citizen you can't actually 'haul yo' ass' to a voting centre then you lose your vote - end of!

 

So Brexit wasn't quite the end of the world after all!   According to a Dutch writer at The Spectator:

An article in the Dutch, left-leaning newspaper Het Parool led with the headline ‘Despite Brexit, multinationals prefer London over Amsterdam or Paris’ this week. The piece reports that ‘the feared exit [of companies] from Great Britain is not happening’ as expected, and highlights the fact that Unilever decided to:

“Become fully British, scrapping its dual [Anglo-Dutch] structure [which has been in place for 90 years]. Its headquarters will be London and not Rotterdam, despite the avid attempts of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

'Hoodathunkit?'  Er, well, me, actually!

 

That Borodin fella is driving me nuts!   By pure coincidence, I seem to have come across his rightly famous composition "In the Steppes of Central Asia" at least three times in the past few weeks and now that damned theme is firmly lodged in my mind.  I'm not really complaining because it is gorgeous but, in the words of my old Jewish accountant, "Enough is enough, my life already!"

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

Arise, Sir Jimmy of Glesga!

Well, look at this! ...

http://www.galway-ireland.ie/blake.htm 

It seems my ancestor on the little Memsahib's side, Sir Richard Caddell, was of British stock and in fact descended from Ap Lake - Son of the Lake - a Knight of the Round Table.  So not a second generation Viking / Froggie mongrel who bussed in after the battle of Hastings in search of a ripped off manor in the British Isles!

That's more like it!  The first history didn't exactly have me pining for the fjords, I must say.

But, but, but, look at the old family coat of arms in that link!  Do you see something?  Well two things, actually:

1. The shape of the emblem?  

Argent, a fret, gules.

Remind you of anything?  Remind you of this by any chance? ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart 

It's Nolan's chart!  And ...

2.  What's perched on the top pointy corner of the arms, purring down at you, as if through a window as you stagger off to wage slavery every morning? ...

A cat passant, gardant, proper.

The very creature of Liberty: the cat!  Abhors packing, anthillation, and beehivery!

It's a sign, I tell you, a sign!!! ...

 

... That I was instructed by God to lead you all, dwellers of the shores of the great Lake Atlantic, as my Knights of the Round Table, in search of the Holy Grail - the restoration of Liberty for all the peoples of the once Free World.

Son of Duff, Descendant of Ap-Lake, Son of the Lake, Knight of the Round Table

Mea culpa, mea maximima culpa and all that sort of thing!

Yes, sorry, sorry, sorry but I have had a touch of 'the idles' recently - waddya mean ya never noticed?  Anyway, I am determined to get a grip and start boring for Britain again - you have been warned!  

Let me begin, albeit reluctantly, with the 'Jocks'!  I can pronounce on this subject being half 'Jock' myself.  Not, of course, that I am familiar with the details of the 'clan-like' imbroglio north of the border led by 'Mrs. McWhinge' but it is fairly obvious that she is yet another jumped-up and pumped-up little 'MacGauleiter' who closely resembles her nation's favourite musical (well, sort of musical!) instrument, the bagpipe, or in her case, a bag full of hot air!  Like so many 'ultras' from so many lands she has no interest in the economic and political future of her chosen nation, merely a driving ambition to be the leader of it at all costs.  I despair for the likes of my old e-pal, Jimmy, who is undoubtedly, and rightly, proud of his Scottish heritage but has the acumen to realise that government by a gang of nationalist rascals who will quickly sell out to Brussels will be a stupendous mistake.

Enough for the moment but "I shall return" as someone or other once said!

 

 

The Don makes Microsoft an offer they can't refuse!

Everyone's up in arms about the Don behaving like, err, a Don! ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53633315 

Mafia-like, expropriation, anti-market, anti-rule of law, etc. etc., blah blah.  The official Libertarian parties go for this nonsense too, not just the Left Axis.

For the Left Axis it's total hypocrisy because expropriation is their life blood, of course.  If the dosh was going to fund a fresh slurry of social workers and safe spaces for one-legged black Lesbians in a Dem state you can be sure it wouldn't be deemed expropriation, no sireee!

But for the official Libertarian parties, what they don't get is the great game has two parts, like all great team sports:  Home and Away.  What we want from a pol is "Libertarian at home and Machiavelli away", please.

Libertarianism is an act of Love, and the gifts of free trade, single markets and the four freedoms should be bestowed on worthy friends, not deadly enemies.  And the Chinese Communist Party is a deadly enemy, in case anyone hadn't noticed.

While we're on the subject of "worthy friends", there's some TLM (Tough Love & Machiavelli, the counterpart to TLC) should be heading towards the Jerries into the bargain PDFQ, as follows ...

1. The Jerries' annual GDP is just shy of $4 trillion.

2. They under-spend on NATO by 0.9% of GDP: 0.9% x $4 trillion equals $36 billion under-spend.

3. The Jerries' annual exports to the US stands at $118 billion.

4. A 30% tax on all Jerry imports to the US almost exactly covers the under-spend: 30% x $118 billion equals $35.4 billion.  It's a security matter and therefore justified under WTO free trade patterns and principles (a half decent lawyer backed by Uncle Sam shouldn't have much trouble making it stick).

5. The US armed forces get a windfall $35.4 billion to expand and re-enter Germany - filling the recently proposed exodus and void.

If the Jerries won't defend themselves then extort the cash and defend them yourself Uncle Sam!

I'm waiting for my green card from the Don together with an anteroom in the White House and concomitant remuneration package and expenses to while away my days thinking more beauuutiful thoughts and ideas like that.  But nothing seems to have dropped onto the doormat just yet?

Have a word will you, Whiters and JK?

SoD

The problem, not the solution

In the comments of my post "Springtime for Netflix and Reactionaries" Doonhammer pointed me at Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" as another example of mockery and satire directed at power.  Wonderful, I thought, how could I have missed that one!  So I went to add an image link in that post to a suitable scene from the film.  The final speech scene came up, which was so thought provoking it warrants its own post ...

Here's the text ...

https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator- 

The problem starts so soon, in the fourth sentence to be precise ...

I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white.

To quote a few old adages: That's what they all say, isn't it?  He would say that wouldn't he?  And as Malcolm Pollack reminded us recently ...

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis

Chaplin's tirade ends on ...

Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world ...

Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Oh those guns, bombs and machines are alright landing their payloads on the enemies of the majority, aren't they?  So where is Lady Liberty in all this?  She gets a look in, conflated with the tyranny of the majority and incitement to violence ...

And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Fight for liberty!

Sounds like a thousand years re-elected Reich to me.  Torment for our own good, indeed.

I leave it for you to decide for yourself which is the dog and the tail in Chaplin and his ilk's wag story:  Liberty or Democracy.

SoD

The service on this blog is atrocious!

Yes, it's true and I must 'fess up to my own idleness which is part of the problem.  Even so, you must admit that life at the moment is totally 'boring-snoring'.  For a start, 'The Donald' has not dropped any shockers, I mean real shockers not the little gaffes that has the pitiful 'Lefties' swooning in horror.  Similarly, Boris, on whom I had high hopes for a spell of, er, 'exciting times' is rapidly becoming even more boring than the eye-stabbingly tedious Mrs. May.  Yes, I know that 'it is a curse to live in exciting times' but even so I'm beginning to lose the will to live - and at 81 years that could be dangerous!

Eventually, of course, it will all kick off again and the interesting thing to ponder is where and why?  Naturally, China is a likely malefactor with the malignant 'Rooskies' aiding and abetting but it is a complicated world these days so it is necessary to keep looking over your shoulder for the unexpected.  I will leave you on that doleful note and remind you of old Bill's wise words:

“ When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions ”

And yes, you're right, 'it's being so cheerful as keeps me so young'!

 

 

 

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 2.8.20

My fav fab five films!  Alas, I have failed to give this tricky subject my full attention but on the other hand if the names just leap up at me from what passes for my memory they can't be far wrong.  Also, my thanks to some of you who volunteered some titles which I instantly endorse.  In no particular order:

M. Hulot's Holiday

Shakespeare in Love

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Lawrence of Arabia

Cabaret

I will almost certainly have changed my mind several times before the end of the day!

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

 

Take good care 'down under there'!  I gather that 'the deadly lurgi' has struck bigtime in parts of Australia.  If it could just confine its malignancy to their cricketers and rugby players that would be appreciated but, alas, it seems to be ripping through the general population.  Hang on in there,'mates'!

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

 

And lo, SoD descendeth!

Yesterday he steamed in full of the energy I totally lack these days and proceeded to tear through my computer as well as the 'Memsahib's whilst simultaneously programming my TV to something called 'NETFLIX' which appears to have copies of every film ever made anywhere!  I remain sceptical of all this 'whizzy-do' electronic stuff but I must admit that he has been far more advanced in the subject than me since he was about 12 years old!

I am particularly eager to get into this 'NETFLIX' lark because I have always had a fascination with films since I was a nipper and in these modern times they just keep on getting better - not all of them, of course - but at their best they are brilliant.  On this subject, I am going to suggest a little experiment for us all.  I want you y'all to choose your favourite FIVE films.  Yes, only five because 'like a hanging in the morning it concentrates the mind wonderfully'!

I'm off to bed now so I will ponder my picks overnight.

 

 

 

Springtime for Netflix and Reactionaries!

You've just gotta love this one! ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/comedys-fastest-cancellation-writer-hitler-sitcom-heil-honey/

Heil Honey I'm Home!  A sitcom about Adolf and Eva Hitler living next door to the Goldsteins in 1930's Germany! ...

For veteran comedy writer Geoff Atkinson, getting Heil Honey I’m Home! commissioned – a sitcom about Adolf Hitler (yes, that Adolf Hitler) – was “the easiest job ever”. Atkinson recalls pitching the idea at a lunch with people from Noel Gay Television, which had an open production slate with fledging satellite broadcaster BSB.

“I told them I’d been playing with this idea and people seemed quite excited,” says Atkinson. “I wrote up about half a script and everyone was very pleased. It was simple to get it commissioned. There was no push back.”

On paper – or even in reality, depending on your perspective – Heil Honey I’m Home! could be the most tasteless, offensive British comedy ever conceived: set in 1938 Berlin, it's a parody of 1950s-style American sitcoms, in which Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun live next door to a Jewish couple, the Goldensteins.

In 2020, with ever-growing sensitivities and a so-called culture war being fought over what can and can't be said, it seems outrageous that Heil Honey would even be considered. Never mind go into full series production. 

Here's the opening credits ...

What a beautiful toe-curling breath of fresh air: sending-up historical authoritarianism and blowing away the Zyklon-B cloud of today's bossy-booted woke regime with raw offence in one fell swoop!  Mockery is sooo much funnier when the irreverent middle finger is raised to today's bunch of little Hitlers into the bargain!

The potential for one-liners of legendary proportions is endless ...

“You may be big stuff in Germany," spits Eva, as she accuses Adolf of paying her less attention than Goebbels. "But I remember you when you were just a house painter!”

“By day he runs the country, by night she rules the nest!”

Has Netflix missed a trick here!  Could Heil Honey! reach the podium of cult status and vie for gold (or was that Goldstein!) with past classics?! ...

 

Come on Netflix, release Heil Honey! and invade our Lebensraums!  Show us some things we wouldn't believe in this day and age and let the tears of laughter flow again - lest they be lost in the rain! Pull us back to the ledge and make this not a time to die ...

SoD

Not "a naughty Tory" but a stupid, arrogant one!

I refer, of course, to Mr. Charles Elphicke, the former Tory MP for Dover and about to be resident of Wormwood Scrubs!

My instant re-action to seeing a hitherto successful man, in effect, drive headlong into a concrete wall, not once but several times, is a tiny dash of pity.  Alas, reading of Mr. Elphicke's trail of self-inflicted injuries as he constantly followed his erect penis into even greater trials (literally!) and tribulations, such pity as I might have faded rapidly.  Did he really and truly believe he was so irresistible to so many women?  The jail-time he will serve will be a severe punishment but the loss of his career and political power will be crushing.  How much grief the loss of his wife will be can only be answered by him.

 

 

 

So who is this Joe Biden fella?

It's all very odd because he's been around for what seems like forever but I, along I suspect with many Americans, know next to nothing about him.  This is a worry because there appears to be a very good chance of him becoming the next POTUS.  He seems to have slithered through the Washington swamp for decades barely leaving a trail behind him.  That must indicate that he is either bone idle or perhaps dead crafty!

Happily, for me as well as 'y'all over there', today Mr. Freddie Gray at The Spectator has a long article on the man which is somewhat illuminating:

Biden has been called a Teflon candidate, but that doesn’t quite do justice to his slipperiness. He’s almost sphinx-like. His low-visibility campaign means he can represent different things to different Americans. To working-class whites, he’s regular Joe, the Irish-Catholic boy from Scranton, Pennsylvania. To black voters, he’s Barack Obama’s loyal vice-president who’s always had that Clintonian knack of sounding empathetic. To suburban women, he’s the elder statesman who will bring back decorum to the Oval Office. To former Republicans and independents, he’s not Donald Trump. To tantrum-throwing revolutionaries, he’s a pushover-in-waiting. [My emphasis]  Biden’s campaign logo features his famous aviator sunglasses — and what could be more American? But those reflective shades are also quite a good metaphor for Biden’s candidacy: you see what you want. 

As Mr. Gray intimates in his article, it isn't so much the man himself we need to worry about but the hordes of 'loonie-Leftie' juveniles who have flocked to his banner, not least because they see a chance to seize it from his withered, old fingers and wave it in favour of their mostly lunatic ideas.

Talking of "withered,old fingers", am I alone in sensing the 'withered. old fingers' of that reptilian wizard, George Soros?

 

 

 

Blexit and the NOWS (New Old White Supremacists)

In Blighty it is possible to observe how the hard right downed tools on racism and white supremacy starting after WWII and completing the program somewhere in the late 80's early 90's.  The BBC recently scoured Blighty in search of evidence of burgeoning racism and white supremacists for a documentary, and only succeeded in demonstrating that those elements were somewhere between trace and way behind playing catch-up to other more pressing problems in the same space - here's the Graun on the subject ...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/10/islamist-extremism-remains-dominant-uk-terror-threat-say-experts

Since 2017, law enforcement agencies in the UK said there have been 25 foiled plots, at least 16 of which were Islamist.

In 2017-18, of the 7,318 individuals referred to the authorities, 3,197 or 44% were referred for concerns related to Islamist extremism and 1,312 or 18% were referred for concerns related to rightwing extremism.

There were 224 people held in custody for terrorism-related offences in the UK in the year to the end of September, the most up-to-date figures show, and the vast majority, 77% or 173, were described as holding Islamist-extremist views.

Which is good to know, so I guess we have the BBC / Graun to thank for something.  Shame they couldn't spend more time researching Blighty's 20,000 Islamists and their 100,000 supporters hiding in plain view.  The pandemic of Jimmy Savilitis seems to have transferred from super-spreader Auntie to the rest of the Left Axis, and no vaccine in sight.

But over the pond, things are a little different.  The white supremacist party came into being in spite of the first full and explicit instantiation of Liberty into a constitution in the history of mankind, and stayed firmly put ...

https://www.cerescourier.com/opinion/editorial/democrats-biden-still-trying-enslave-black-america/ 

Authoritarianism's astonishing survival skills saw the pol-gened aliens amongst us reanimate inside Liberty's side-kick called Democracy, muttering "We only need 51% and we can do exactly what we were doing in Europe over here too".

It is no surprise then that the Democrat party was immediately host to the white supremacists and slavers who didn't need a PhD in maths to spot that whites outnumbered blacks by an order of magnitude let alone by 1%, and that these inhumans amongst us persisted into segregationism even as Lady Liberty hounded them from within the Republican party and the constitution.  Even in their spluttering so called change of heart the burning insincerity and fakery can be seen ...

By the 1960’s, Democrats like Governor George Wallace and Bull Conner fought against civil rights and turned hoses on black protesters.  Martin Luther King, a Republican, fought against Democrats and racism with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Democrats, wiretapping both King and his organizer, A. Phillip Randolph. King was then assassinated by James Earl Ray, a Democrat.

In the U.S. Senate, Democrat Majority Leader, Robert “KKK” Byrd, was a former Grand Kleagle, a recruiter, for the KKK and opposed every policy benefiting Black America.

By 1964, Democrats knew they were losing the battle against Black America.  President Lyndon B. Johnson sold them into the Democrat plantation stating, “These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppitiness.  Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”  Johnson continued, “I’ll have those ni**ers voting Democrat for the next 200 years.”

After Johnson successfully maneuvered Black America into the Democrat plantation, they became a strong voting bloc just as a young Joe Biden joined the U.S. Senate in 1973. Biden befriended Byrd and shared the same policies that shackled Black America. With Biden, Democrats had a friend whose policies oppressed Black America. Biden sought support from follow segregationists in the fight against desegregated busing. Biden authored a crime bill that forced more black males into prison.  Most black families lacked fathers with policies encouraging the breakdown of the family through welfare programs. Biden supported Planned Parenthood, whose founder, Margaret Sanger referred to blacks as “human weeds” and wanted abortions to exterminate the black population. She was also a guest speaker for the women’s branch of the KKK. Today, Planned Parenthood is predominately in the black community with half of all black pregnancies ending in an abortion.  For those lucky black children who weren’t aborted, Biden and the Democrats to this day block school choice for black families who want to take their children out of failing schools.

After Byrd, the racist recruiter for the KKK died in 2010, Biden did his eulogy and praised the former Grand Kleagle as his mentor and “dear friend.”

While Biden and the Democrats feel Black America is their voting plantation, if a black man or woman thinks for themselves, as Biden stated, “you ain’t black” as if their skin color has changed.  Even the reference of “ain’t” is racist as to say those in Black America are not educated.

And here they are today, the NOWS (New Old White Supremacists), exclaiming:  "If you don't vote for me, you ain't black", and you surely will vote for me, because: "I’ll have those ni**ers voting Democrat for the next 200 years."  The old kingly trait of privilege bribery in exchange for political agenda support and service, the very definition of Feudalism, ffs!  The exact antithesis of Enlightenment!

Thankfully many black folks are mindful of the NOWS and are dumping the democrats -  Viva Blexit:  the black Renaissance and Enlightenment! ...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/what-is-blexit-candace-owens-explains-plan-to-lead-black-exit-from-democratic-party-impact-2020

SoD

Yes, alright, alright, I HAVE been skiving!

Sorry for my absence - waddaya mean ya never noticed?! - and thanks to 'SoD' for 'filling in', as it were.  My reason for going a.w.o.l. is simple - I just felt dead lazy!  Also, the fact is that I couldn't think of a single thing to say to y'all - and I heard that!  At 81, my life is fairly boring but looking around me, so is the rest of the world!  A 'boring-snoring' world, of course, is not necessarily 'A Bad Thing' because compared to an, er, exciting world with all that that might entail it is much to be appreciated.  

The fact is that my, er, 'creative juices' (so to speak) appear to have dried up along with the minute amount of energy still hiding somewhere inside me!  To my amazement, the two prime sources of ludicrous behaviour on the world stage on whom I was relying for a steady stream of stories, Boris and 'The Donald', have turned out to be, on the whole, a pair of 'Steady Eddies' - hoodathunkit?  And, of course, the support act of 'Jezza the Clown' took early retirement and has been replaced by the most 'boring-snoring' politician in my lifetime, Keir Starmer!  

I haven't been doing nearly enough, or even any, reading just recently, particularly of my history books, so I think I need to get back to them and see if they will energise me.

 

 

 

Scorched earth policy

Has the Don been taking some lessons from Vlad, whose forefathers saw off the Froggies and Jerries with this time-honoured strategy? ...

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/dems_starting_to_panic_that_voters_will_blame_them_for_riots.html 

As America burns steadily through the sultry Summer nights, the Dems move deeper into the territory of the American people's resentment ...

Despite the best efforts of the propaganda media (aka, MSM) to sanitize  as “mostly peaceful” violent, property-destroying and federal agent-blinding demonstrations that have engulfed Portland, Seattle, and other cities, the American people are catching on that Antifa is the armed auxiliary street force of the Democrat party, just as the KKK was a century and more ago. While the Dems thought that their strategy of making conditions terrible so that voters would throw out the incumbent was sound, it turns out that the availability of dramatic footage of real violence on social media has put the lie to the media coverups.

So long as the weary foot-sloggers of law enforcement can avoid blowing away the BLM and Antifa scumbags that are torching their watches, the reckoning of a latter-day Borodino and Stalingrad will be their prize against the invader in November ...

The Democrats, including the Biden campaign, are riding a tiger. If they attempt to dismount, they will be eaten by the tiger, as Libby Schaaf discovered. Bernie Sanders’s most enthusiastic supporters are still smarting from the Dem establishment handing the nomination to Joe Biden as a front man, and significant numbers of them could peel off if Biden attempts to restrain the rioters, whom he has not even criticized to date. And the hysterically angry rioters, many of them white, college educated women in their twenties, could turn on Biden as with ample ammunition from his past career befriending KKK Kleagle Robert Byrd and enriching his family with his political connections.

President Trump, to their dismay, has played the riots perfectly, with his administration expressing resolve but refraining from oversteps that would hand a Kent State-like massacre, complete with martyrs, to the rioters and their political beneficiaries in the Democrat party.

K pobede, Tovarishch!

SoD

No Country for old Men

I hear Oz has made the first anti-woke inroads into the education system ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/26/australias-war-woke-university-degrees-inspiration/

If ever there was a place to sign up for a degree in surfing studies you might think it was Australia - but maybe not quite so much in future. The country is reforming funding of higher education so as to nudge students into subject areas where there is a shortage of graduates. Fees in those subjects will be lowered, and the change funded through increased fees for students following courses where there is a less obvious need for qualified people.

You want to read gender studies? From next year the government’s contribution towards your fees will fall from Aus$ 11,015 to Aus$1100 (£6050 to £605). If you want to study maths, on the other hand, the government’s contribution will rise from Aus$11,015 to Aus$13,500 (£6850 to £7420). Generally, student contributions for STEM subjects, teaching and nursing will fall, while contributions for humanities course will rise.

Compare and contrast that to the brainwashed woke "Wall of Moms" and "Wall of Vets" in the US ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/us/america-protests-violent-riots-expected-to-continue.amp

The huge crowd outside the courthouse included the Wall of Moms and the Wall of Vets. Meanwhile, a Portland resident told Fox News last week that Antifa also has been present at the protests.

Mums and Vets standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Antifa. And even the wrinklies are in on it ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/katu.com/amp/news/local/wall-of-vets-grandparents-support-black-lives-matter-movement-at-protest

The "wall of grandparents".

That's what happens when you leave the education and media industries in the hands of the Left Axis for 3 generations.

Where is the "next America"? The place we can all go to to escape this authoritarian leviathan? The US is obviously not fit for purpose any more.

Is it Australasia and South East Asia?

Has the caravan of humanity that traipsed over the frontiers of "civilisation", from Africa to Asia, to Russia, to Europe, to America, to escape the authoritarian death-grip of the pols, pols who pursued them relentlessly like that villain in the poignantly named film "No Country for Old Men", run out of space?

Or does the peripheral rim of South East Asia and the islands of Australasia, the forgotten corner of the swerve northwards of the caravan from Asia to Russia, offer the last breathing space for people who want to live free?

And there, of course, that reminds me of the last of the only three places that Lady Liberty manifests herself ...

1. Collapse
2. Motherland of empire
3. Over the frontier

SoD

The Sunday morning/afternoon/evening (delete as appropriate) Rumble!

Yes, I know, I know but it has taken me a while to engage the brain today - not of course because I was wrestling with the square root of -1, absolutely no chance of that, but merely because I am suffering with acute langour!  OK, OK, the fact is that I have been feeling dead idle all day - sorry!

 

Dear Meghan, just bugger 'orf'!   That is my message to the Lady who is currently playing the role of Duchess of Sussex.  It is clear beyond doubt that she is part of that 'yuuuuuuuuuuge' majority of people who do not like us Brits in general and our Royal family in particular.  That's OK but you've made your point, Darling, so please don't go on and on and on about it, just go back to Hollywood where you can mix with, er, real Ladies and Gentlemen!

 

Poor Harry!  I do realise that he is not 'the sharpest knife in the block' but he really has hit crass bottom with this marriage to Meghan.  Mind you, he will keep the ladies glued to their favourite tabloids so Fleet Street is happy.  The future, of course, is that the pair of them will end up like a re-run of the Windsors - two sad, old 'has-beens' that nobody cares much about.

 

Corbyn may well destroy the Labour Party utterly:  According to Nick Cohen at The Spectator, and he is a long-term, pro-Labour supporter, the virulence of the anti-Semitic virus that is racing the veins of the Party is now at truly dangerous levels.

On Thursday the supposedly resurgent Labour party lost control of Brighton and Hove, one of its few centres of power in southern England, because of the endemic anti-Semitism on the left. The fate of the local Labour group shows in microcosm the problem facing the Labour leadership nationally as it struggles to pull the party away from being the natural home for creeps and conspiracy theorists.

That's the problem for the fanatical Left in a Democracy, sooner or later they have to face the 'dreaded Peeps', at which point, they get a good, hard slap!  I wonder how they deal with the fact that Karl Marx was Jewish?

 

 

 

No more Rumbles

 

 

 

All is not lost, Donald!

Actually, as the furious caterwauling and hysterics have mounted over the past 3+ years the more I suspect that 'The Donald' will romp home in November.  The, er, scientific basis for that is simply 'the feeling in my water' - yeeeeeees, quite!  Even so, the behaviour of the 'anti-Trumpers' is so extremely imbecilic that it cannot have passed unnoticed by 'yuuuuuuge' swathes of potential voters.  Sure, 'The Donald' has his eccentricities but comparing his demeanour with the maniacal crackpots who oppose him must, surely raise his chances.

My favourite commentator, Douglas Murray, puts it this way in The Telegraph today:

That is the impression of Debbie Dingell, a member of the House of Representatives for Michigan and one of the few Democrats who saw the first Trump victory coming. Then, as now, the wise-guys wrote the Donald off. They laughed at him, derided him and could not believe that the general public would vote him in. And yet they did. And as Dingell said this week, “I don’t trust polling. I don’t believe that Biden is 16 points up in Michigan.”

I absolutely agree with the lady because I would not trust opinion polls, particularly political polls, as far as I could piss into a gale - often a sure-fire way to, er, 'get your own back'!  Actually, I would not bet a nickel on the result but I lean towards a Trump victory.

 

 

 

I felt a real prick yesterday!

No, no, no, I don't mean the obscene version of "prick", I mean the real thing, you know, that dreaded 'needle-thingie' that 'Nursie' has such delight in stabbing into your arm - or even more sensitive parts of your body!  So, yesterday, I had not one, not two but three pricks.  The first was inside my mouth - "Oh, the horror, the horror!" - as a Chinese lady dentist 'stuck it to me', so to speak, prior to yanking out one of my molars!  I know you will all be immensely proud of me because I didn't cry, honestly, Mummy!  Mind you, I never got a 'sweetie', either!  You just can't trust those Chinese!  Then it was off to 'Nursie' at my local doctor's surgery where for reasons I can't remember I received another two injections.  Again, no tears - and no sweetie either - typical NHS!

Actually, as an after-thought, isn't the hypodermic needle a superb invention.  We all take it for granted but who first dreamed it up?  And where would we be without it?

 

 

 

A gift for the Gaffer ...

 

 

... by a descendant of Zummerzet.

Maybe those Country-Bumpkins have got something after all?

SoD

"In our present crisis ..."

 

 

"... government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem".

SoD

How long do you give the European dis-Union?

My guess - hope? - is 10 years max!  Things were bad enough before but now that they have agreed - sort of! - that the Brussels' apparatchiks may be free to borrow as much as they want on the basis that every day is Christmas Day then it will only be a matter of time - very short time! - before the people and tax-payers of Germany, Holland, Denmark and Austria, aka: the frugal four, realise that it is them who will be paying to keep Italy and Greece and the rest in the style to which they are now well accustomed.

Each time I read about the crazy, out of control bus-ride the EU is taking, I close my eyes and offer a prayer of Thanksgiving to that frequently derided group, the British people.  Having finally been offered their chance of escape, they had the guts to take it.  The fact that it was offered by perhaps one of the biggest Euro-fanatical 'plonkers' of all time, David 'Dimwit' Cameron, who never imagined for a second that he would be outvoted, makes that event the second most pleasurable political event of my 81-year old life.  The first, of course, was VE Day in 1945 - another damned defeat for the Huns!

On my headstone they can carve the words: 'He came in on a happy note and he went out even happier'!

 

 

 

 

 

For God's sake, Boris, don't wear a kilt!

I wish Boris well on his visit to Scotland.  It is a brave gesture given that his popularity north of the border is, I suspect, minimal.  Even so, he is Prime Minister of Britain and the last time I looked Scotland was part of it so it was his duty to do so.  I do hope he resists the temptation to wear a kilt because sight of those plump white thighs exposed to the press photographers would finish off such popularity as he possesses up in bonny Scotland.  Certainly such a sight would only increase the popularity of 'Mrs. MacWhinge'.

The breakdown in Anglo-Scottish relations is a very real shame but most of it is down to the rabid Scots-Nats and their fanatical drive for (so-called!) independence.  If any of them think that the EU-apparatchiks will treat Scotland better than the British already do then their swivelling eye-balls will shortly explode.  As for 'Mrs. MacWhinge', personal ambition long ago overtook any genuine feelings she had for the future of Scotland.  She is nothing more than a non-stop agitator with only a single aim in view - her place in Scottish history!

 

 

 

Ve haff veys of ... doing a U-turn!

Who put the pussy into Jerry these days then, eh? ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloombergquint.com/amp/gadfly/how-to-appease-germany-s-constitutional-court-on-ecb-s-qe 

There they were, aiming their legal-eagle PanzerSchreck at the Brussels apparat and threatening destruction of the Euro, and then, all of a sudden, "click"!  Nothing in the tube!

And there's the "Frugal Four" trying to do a Maggie ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/07/21/europes-750bn-recovery-fund-economic-pop-gun-political-howitzer/

... and not a handbag between the lot of  'em!

Yet two more European "crises" mown down by the relentless Spandau of Brussels.

How do they manage it, you might ask, making Ambrose Evans-Pritchard look like a serial tit into the bargain?

The greatest irony of modern Brit-European times:  The great gift of Margaret Thatcher to Blighty and Europe:  The Single Market.  The prosperity giver that keeps on giving.  Underwriting the debt.  Strengthening the core.

The ammo box with infinite link that sustains the voracious appetite of the Brussels Spandau; crises falling with the rapidity of the bullets!

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da!

SoD

Covid's global single market in services

Allister Heath in the DT gets it half right ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/22/home-working-revolution-will-derail-middle-class-gravy-train/

He points out that WFH (Working from Home) is a short term lottery win for White Collar Middle Class Office Workers: huge savings in daily expenses and crappy commutes.  Tick.  Relocation to lower cost exotic locations with occasional travel back to the motherland for meets.  Tick.  Lovely jubbly ...

Britain's upper-middle-class professionals can't believe their luck. They have, once again, emerged as the great winners from a crisis: ensconced in spare rooms, they are coping so well with the Zoom economy that they want to make it the new normal.

Working from home (or WFH in corporatese) is easier than they previously realised, allowing greater flexibility while saving time and money once wasted on commutes and overpriced sandwiches. No wonder that most bankers, lawyers, consultants, accountants, marketers, tech workers and other office staff don’t want to go back to the five-day commute, and many employers plan to save a fortune by obliging them.

He then goes on to say the longer term downside for said White Collar Middle Class Office Workers is the competition from cheaper offshore folks who can equally well do the job if location is now not an issue.  Cross ...

If London-based employers can hire people who live in Newcastle, Manchester or Sheffield, why not Australia, Bangalore or Poland? If workers no longer need to sit cheek-by-jowl in central office locations all of the time, legal and immigration barriers to recruiting foreign workers fall away. It becomes easier to employ Romanian-based IT staff rather than UK-based developers, even when the costs of occasional Ryanair flights and Travelodge stays to the office are accounted for.

This will spectacularly derail the middle-class gravy train. Until now, upper-middle-class professionals had remained shielded from one aspect of globalisation – production and jobs transferred to cheaper, lower-pay locations – while enjoying another – earning more by selling globally. This explains why City wages have shot up, while those of unskilled people have fallen. Working from home means that the great protective barrier cossetting office workers has been ripped away.

Suddenly, every office worker is competing with every other office worker in the world, at least those who speak adequate English.

Or is it a cross?

If everything is dirt cheap where I (oops, I mean White Collar Middle Class Office Workers) put down roots, dropping the day rate isn't a problem.  As I found out in the delightful spa town of Luhacovice in Czech Rep, where full board was £20 a night (the same as rental of a room in a shared property in Blighty with no meals included) and a round of four pints was less than 2 quid.  I could halve my day rate and still come out up.

Even-stevens I'd say.

AH then goes on to say Blue Collar workers and workplace-shackled jobbers, like plumbers and doctors, will be the beneficiaries because the house prices will drop as WCMCOW's quit and the reduced costs of WCMCOW services feed into Blighty's economy ...

In the short term, it’s lower-paid workers who will lose: Shore Capital estimates that up to a quarter of the time office workers were based in urban centres will now be spent in suburbs, meaning more home cooking and a 20-30 per cent decline in restaurants. But having a job that must be based in Britain will become an advantage. This is good for surgeons and plumbers, but not for bankers, HR personnel or architects

Can you see where his single brain cell ran out of steam to go the extra inch at that point?  The DT's solidarity-with-the-workers-Brexit-level-up-and-take-back-control posture was a sandwich short of a picnic? : -

Who's gonna need a plumber and doctor in Blighty if they're living in Luhacovice?

Doh!

You're gonna get the single market whether you like it or not.  Plus, the one you said goodbye to with its soft EU touches and fluffy-bunny ears is nothing like the brutal "global single market" Covid just dumped in your lap.

If you're a globally mobile WCMCOW you're used to this already, having been surrounded by colleagues from all around the world in your office or at the end of the wire.

But if you're a Blue Collar worker, how will it be for you when the high income earners disperse to the four corners of the earth taking their custom with them - the plumbers' and doctors' bread and butter - and the tax take vapourizes?  Fewer Blue Collar jobs, crappier NHS, state schools, and social services, and lower state benefits.

Suck it up, suckers.

SoD

That bloody Borodin is bugging me!

Of course, partly it is my fault because, as I have told y'all before, I have developed the practice of going to bed with my radio earpiece stuck in my ear tuned to Classic FM.  I 'zonk' off quite easily but when I awake - four times a night for a piddle! - I do so with, usually, some superb music playing.  Just recently, I seem to come across Borodin and his gorgeous symphony "In the Steppes of Central Asia".  If you have never heard it before - go and buy the disc NOW!  It defies description and simply adds to that great question mark in my mind - how the hell do these great composers dream up such stupendously beautiful music?

And the other morning I managed to catch the theme music from the old - but truly excellent TV series - The Onedin Line.  It comes from Khachaturian and his Adagio from Spartacus.  Who ever chose that as the musical theme for a series based on 19th century sailing ventures is a genius.  What is it with those bloody Russians that they keep producing musical geniuses?

 

 

 

It's true, I am now a fully qualified 'old geezer'!

I have suspected it for some time, you know, what with sundry aches and pains, forgetfulness, ability to nap at the drop of a hat (mind you, I've been good at that for years!) but yesterday the final proof was forthcoming - I fell over!  It took the skin off my knee and I regret to say that sundry obscenities flowed along with the blood!  That's irritating enough but, truth be told, it's the forgetfulness that drives me 'bonkers'!  If I say something at 1.00 o'clock, by five past I may well have forgotten it!

Of course, it's possible I am blaming my old age for my tumble yesterday when in fact it is more likely to have been my old-fashioned sandals which I have been wearing during this heatwave.  They are the traditional 'floppy' sandals 'old geezers like me' tend to wear.  They are just that tad bigger in the soles so that it is easy to miss a kerb which is what I did yesterday.

Needless to say, that old Bill Shakespeare had it dead right when he said:

When troubles come, they come not single spies but in battalions"!

So, I was bleeding a bit from my skinless knee and, of course, I slapped a fairly large plaster over it and forgot about it!  Alas, I woke this morning to find I had bled all over the sheets and duvet!  Let me just say that the 'Memsahib' was not amused!  I think I'm on cold rations for the rest of the week!

 

 

The easiest job in the world

The utter fecklessness of the state seems to know no bounds ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/19/potential-covid-19-cluster-being-tracked-in-north-lanarkshire 

The NHS call centre that tracks and traces Covid has itself gone down with a dose of Covid.

Do you laugh?  Or cry?  Or slash your wrists?

According to staff, social distancing wasn't being observed during breaks ...

A worker at the Sitel centre reportedly told Monica Lennon, the Labour MSP for Central Scotland, that physical distancing had not been maintained by employees in shared spaces and during work breaks.

 

“I asked if they felt the working environment was safe. They answered no,” Lennon tweeted. Sitel has been approached for further comment in relation to these claims.

And then the NHS proudly states that the operation continues with the staff working at home ...

“Everyone at the site is currently working from home while a deep clean takes place, and will be offered a test within the next 24 hours.”

If the staff are continuing to work from home then why weren't they working from home in the first place? Why were they in a dangerous and expensive call centre office instead of at a safe and lower cost desk at home?  Every other business has discovered that office workers are not only safer but also more productive at home ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.itpro.co.uk/business-strategy/flexible-working/356468/research-says-63-of-employees-are-more-productive-working%3famp

Why can't the NHS procure or operate a service that simply follows the success of market operators?

In highlighting the incompetence, negligence and abuse of the state you might think some effort would be required, that there might be some strata of success to have to dig past to get to the dirt.  But it's literally everywhere you look.

If you want to know the easiest job in the world it's being a Libertarian blogger and criticizing the failures of the state.  No matter the productivity tools employed, even if you engaged all 65m Brits in the task you'd never cover it all off.

SoD

Like Saturn ...

So the Brexiteers argued the single market was the worst thing ever (even though many of them worship the inventor and implementor of the single market, one Margaret Thatcher).

And the devolved power Remainers (Scots Nats etc.) argued it was the best thing since sliced bread.

But now that the post-Brexit world is hurtling towards us, the Brexiteers think the single market is the best thing since sliced bread and the devolved power Remainers think it sucks! ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/53456419 

The double standards and hypocrisy is breathtaking.

It's just another example of the utter bottom feeders that constitute the political class at all levels of Blighty in action again - negligence here, abuse there, double standards and hypocrisy everywhere.

Why on earth would anyone want to be alone with these people and their "take back control" feeding frenzy?

And will there be anything left of Blighty when the "take back control" freaks have finished their feeding frenzy?

"Like Saturn, the revolution devours its own children"

SoD

Don't say I don't do you any favours!

Alas, on this occasion you need to live in the UK to take advantage of the favours I am about to offer you, er, sorry y'all 'over there'!  Anyway, hoovering my way through the papers this morning - well, that's what Saturday mornings are for! - I checked out the movies scheduled on TV for the next seven days and there are four absolute 'corkers' coming up. 

Tonight at 9.15pm on Channel4 they are showing the superb film "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" - and yes, you're right, I have raved about this film before but only about six times!  Best of all, it stars one of my favourite actresses, Frances McDormand - need I say more?  Then, on Monday on Sony Movie Classics at 6.05pm there is a showing of the German war film, "Das Boot".  I have never seen the film before, only the truly excellent TV version, so I do not intend to miss the original.

On Tuesday, at 10.00pm, they are showing the delightful and very witty film, "Love Actually", middle-class English humour at its best with - natch! - the ultra languid Bill Nighy.  Finally, a double treat on Wednesday at 11.45pm on ITV4 because the superb Frances McDormand stars again for the Coen brothers in "Fargo".

What a week to look forward to, er, although blogging might be on the quiet side!

 

 

 

Is she the most deeply unpleasant woman in British politics?

 

 

 

 

 

 

icola Sturgeon, SNP

 

 

Well, I think so and have done ever since the raucous, wee lassie first appeared on the political stage.  Of course, her politics are detestable and typical of the sort of jumped-up nationalist tripe spewed forth by every 'wannabe', power-mad leader who ever climbed on a soap-box wrapped in a flag!  Needless to say - because she makes it clear every-time she opens her wee gob - she loathes and detests the English.  In doing so, she joins a large club mostly made up of the very worst and most stupid people in the world.  Happily, for me, at any rate, most of those spittle-flecked 'ranters' do their shouting in foreign languages but she, alas, speaks English.

It is no surprise, of course, that a majority of Scots support her, not least I guess, because it is now frequently reported that the previously excellent education standard of the 'Jocks' has sunk down to English levels, if not lower!  The Scots have much of which to be exceedingly proud, their influence is felt in all corners of the globe but they would do well to remember that it was done in partnership with the English!  

There is a very small but naughty part of me that secretly hopes the wretched woman succeeds in breaking away from England - then the Jocks will find out the hard way just how benign and friendly all those Europeans really are!

Incidentally, you will guess from my surname that I possess more than my fair share of Scottish blood and should you doubt it, let me tell you that my Mother's full name was Jean Ann Mary Mackay Campbell Duff!  She, incidentally, told me that she couldn't get out of Scotland fast enough but then I suspect that as a young lassie she was a tad naughty.  'Nuff said, I feel!

 

 

 

"Nigger" bites the dust

Another tidbit of history airbrushed by the Left Axis ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-53436447 

Another step forward into the new Dark Age.

SoD

The eccentric political genius of the British

I try not to write in praise of my countrymen too often because, alas, there is all too much evidence to contradict it.  Even so, the event of 1215 in which King John signed, under intense pressure, the Magna Carta, was an event of world-wide and historic importance.  It was the foundation stone for the concept of democracy, although if any of the participants had known the long-term outcome, I suspect they would have agreed to tear it up on the spot!

Romantics (like me, I'm afraid to say) would dearly love to claim this as the first step to democracy.  Well, it was - sort of - but actually, in itself, it was just another roughly-hewn deal between two groups of powerful men trying to hang on to their riches without the risky business of going to war.  Even so, one damned thing led to another and then to another and then to yet another and - 'hey-ho!' - we were off on the democratic hurdle race.

For myriad reasons way beyond my educational 'ken', gradually, despite occasional setbacks, this democratic lark actually ascended until it became the icon for other nations to try and emulate it.  Not, of course, that it is political perfection, not least because it is operated by human beings - yeeeeees, quite!  Even so, where it has worked it has, by and large, been incredibly beneficial to people of all classes.

So, all I can say is, jolly good show, Britain!

 

 

 

I despair of Whitehall and their useless idiots!

I doubt anyone in Whitehall understands the word 'Strategy', let alone 'Grand Strategy'!  So dim are they that I suspect they might have difficulty spelling the words!  Having blissfully floated along for some 20+ years in a blissful romance with the murderous thugs who run the Chinese concentration camp, they suddenly stub their toes on the concrete reality exhibited in Hong Kong.  At which point they throw a hissy-fit and kick the major Chinese company/government, Huawei, out of our budding/shrivelling (you choose!) 5G system.  Quite right but does anyone in Whitehall have the remotest idea what the next move should be?  Has anyone been working on alternatives to what was obviously about to happen?  Of course not, but I bet they are already forming a committee to, er, work out some sort of a plan.  Ah yes, the British answer for everything - form a committee!

 

 

A dose of clap for the NHS

Don't always agree with her, but here's the DT's Allison Pearson telling how it is with the NHS ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/telegraph-readers-agree-nhs-abandoned-many-patients-need/ 

This, from poor Eric, was typical: “I was diagnosed with Parkinsons’s disease in December by my GP and booked in to see a specialist in April. That appointment was cancelled because of Covid-19 and as yet I have not seen anyone. I was informed that the sooner I started on the appropriate drug the better my chance of delaying the symptoms. I now have difficulty walking and am not on any medication because the first medication prescribed over the phone didn’t help and, therefore, I have to wait to see another doctor.”

A disturbing picture quickly built up of very unwell people, many in considerable pain, managing as best they could after being rebuffed by elusive GPs or turned away by local hospitals, many of which now stand virtually empty.

Several readers drew my attention to incredibly sad cases where deaths could have been avoided. “We lost a good friend,” says Pam, “He suffered peritonitis as a result of a strangulated colon. His daughter spoke on the phone to his GP who prescribed medication for constipation! Despite the fact that a previously-arranged appointment for a colonoscopy was postponed. A face-to-face consultation with a doctor would have had a very different result.”

Rita points out that her husband’s cancer treatment, which was clearly keeping him alive, “was withdrawn on the basis that coming to hospital would expose him to Covid and it would likely kill him. The sheer hypocrisy of their approach left me speechless and convinced my family that the real danger was not Covid but their lack of concern for a 75-year-old man with terminal cancer.” 

Many of you were both angry and incredulous that your local surgery appeared to think it was acceptable not to see sick people for the duration. “I call mine Fort Laramie,” jibed Christopher, “because it is closed and hatches battened down. The purpose is to keep patients out. It even looks like a fort because of narrow slit windows just big enough for the defenders to fire their Winchester 73s.”

One husband and wife team, both NHS consultants, said: “We have both had to deliver devastating diagnoses via phone and tried to support families who could not be with their dying loved ones. I don’t know a single doctor who finds this lack of human contact acceptable. It is clear the managers are seizing on this to make remote consultation the new normal – it’s much cheaper although the health costs of missed diagnoses have not been quantified. I have never joined the clapping as it’s a poor substitute for proper funding, accurate information and PPE. Someone needs to start listening to doctors whose fears and frustrations are not reflected in the media.”

60,000 dead in 3 months.  10,000 starved and dehydrated to death every year for decades.

A latter-day Auschwitz hiding in plain view.

SoD

“Sumorsǣte ealle”

As 'Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph' reports this morning:

An Old English phrase, it translates to, “all the people of Somerset”, and refers to the support that locals gave to King Alfred in his struggle against Viking invaders in the 8th century.

Ah yes, good, old King Alfred - wasn't he the one who burnt the cakes?  Anyway, the story confirms what I have been telling y'all for 'yonks' that 'Zummerzet' is the 'go to' county of England.

Whether fashion designer, media mogul, acting royalty or tech entrepreneur [or retired second-hand car dealer!] – if you have money, power, influence and – ideally – a slight bohemian side, it is not the eastern Cotswolds counties of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire you look to conquer from London in 2020, but the genteel land of milk and cider a little further west.

The article goes on and on and on some more, listing the various 'slebs' who have followed me 'down 'ere to zunny Zummerzet'.  You see, I told you, where I go others follow!  Mind you, haven't seen too many of them in The Tippling Philosopher' - thank God!  Incidentally, me and my neighbour have arranged to resume our weekly Wednesday evening visit to 'The Tippling' after this bloody-bloody lock-down!

 

 

 

The bamboo veil has been ripped down - hurrah!

Thanks, Boris - or Dominic - or Rishi - or who-ever it was who finally took the axe to it!  The Chinese menace has been swelling before our very eyes for decades but their bribery and corruption of key 'puppets 'n' muppets' in the establishment has hidden the threat for too long.  Mind you, the Chinese themselves were mostly responsible for their own exposure because of their arrogant, heavy-handed tactics.  Confucius would be hanging his head in shame!  What's the Chinese for "DUH!"?

Thanks to Matt at The telegraph today: