DUFF & NONSENSE!

I'm dying - of boredom!

God!  Life sure is tedious, ain't it?  And yes, yes, I know all about the dangers of 'living in exciting times' but even so, this current existence is truly 'boring-snoring'!  Mind you, I suspect that the eventual outcome of this 'covid-virus-thingie' may well prove to be cataclysmic.  Not so much the virus itself but the eventual knock-on effect on the economy and the social life.  Those effects, of course, will eventually reverberate in the political arena.  The one small advantage to us Brits, of course, is that there is at least four years to go before another election which gives Boris the chance not to panic but to act sensibly.  Alas, 'over there' the election race is off and running.  Even so, I think, I hope, I even pray that 'The Donald' and the 'Repubs' have enough support to hold off the mad 'Lefties'.

We shall see what we shall see, er, and all that sort of thing!

 

 

A Sunday Rumble: 20.9.20

Sorry, Donald, but Daniel Hannan has it about right:  I will not attempt to paraphrase his impeccable English, so instead I will take the lazy way out and just paste and quote from his piece in today's Telegraph:

If I were an American, I’m not sure I could bring myself to vote for Donald Trump. It’s not that he lacks achievements. His tax cuts and deregulation worked: the US economy was booming pre-Covid, and unemployment was at a record low. His judges have the humility to recognise that the Constitution is bigger than they are. His success in reconciling Israel with a number of Arab states would have had the global commentariat demanding a Nobel Peace Prize had it come from any other president.

But I keep coming back to his character flaws: the childish lies; the inability to distinguish between public office and private interests; the mafia-like expectation that his supporters should follow him on his own account, changing their views whenever he does.

Yeeeeees, I think that about sums it up!  Even so, Mr. Hannan reminds us:

I don’t think I could vote for Joe Biden, either. I remember watching him at a conference two years ago, and it already seemed painfully clear that, to deal plainly, he was no longer in his perfect mind. With the world in its worst-ever recession, can Americans afford to have him at the helm?

From a British point of view, though, things are far clearer. Trump is unquestionably the more Anglophile candidate. He identifies strongly with his Scottish mother, and sometimes describes himself as half-British. 

'Nuff said!  I think we'll keep him on!

 

The real test for Boris:   Will he have the balls to flog off the BBC to the highest bidder?  It is now a self-inflated balloon filled with rancid anti-British, pro-socialist opinions and a provider of programmes, sport excepted, that hardly anyone watches or listens to!  It's your final test, Boris, just 'man-up' and do it!

 

This day 80-years ago:   Was the height of the most crucial battle fought by Britain since the Armada.  As has been well-expressed in most of the media, it was fought with the essential assistance of sundry Poles and Czechs and others who took to the skies and helped us defeat the Luftwaffe.  At the same time, we must NEVER forget the likes of the late Sir Robert Watson-Watt who was the force behind the construction of the radar defence system which was to prove critical.  Let us salute all of them, pilots and 'swots' alike!

 

Or could Boris 'do a runner'?   Patrick O'Flynn at The Coffee House seems to think it is quite likely:

Few would suggest that Boris Johnson, for all his gifts, ever had a Wilsonian concentration span or a Stakhanovite work ethic. So it requires no great leap of imagination to suppose that the not easy, not spacious, not socially-orientated days he is enduring right now are not what he had in mind for his premiership.

Throw in divorce, fatherhood again at 56, an impending further marriage and a touch-and-go spell in intensive care that may have left its mark on his own capacity and it's easy to see why the gossip has been building that Johnson may do a Wilson early in 2021, once the main loose ends of Brexit have been tied up.

Apparently, Michael Gove is reckoned as a favourite to take over and that would be interesting not least because I have always detected some considerable intelligence behind those owl-like specs of his.

 

 

No more rumbles

 

 

Farewell Justice Ginsberg, welcome Justice, er, who . . .?

There is nothing, in my limited opinion, quite so fascinating as American constitutional 'brou-ha-has'!  The death of Justice Ginsberg and the resulting open seat on the Supreme Court right on the cusp of a Presidential election is mouth-watering!  'Back in the day', when Democrat Party politics were fairly sane, the matter would not have been quite so critical.  Today, alas, the Dems, like our Labour Party, are riddled with dribbling 'ultras' incapable of coherent political reasoning.  It is essential, in my opinion, that whilst 'The Donald' must operate within the law, he must also be ruthless in pushing a Right-wing candidate into the vacancy.  Another 'Ginsberg' would be a disaster!  To paraphrase on her demise, "There was nothing in her life that so became her as her leaving of it!"

Sorry, Boris, but your time is up!

There's no doubt about it, Boris has faced a fairly severe crisis with all this 'Covid-crap' but the fact is that he has been found wanting!  Let me make clear that I do not have any brilliant, fresh ideas on how it should be handled but the muddled response from Boris & Co. has been mostly desultory, occasionally heavy-handed and with hardly any of it looking very intelligent!  His own, personal re-action as Prime Minister makes Mrs. May look like 'Superwoman'!  At least Churchill made regular and public visits to the bombed ruins to show that he was involved.  At the very start, Boris's 'First Lieutenant', Cummings, 'did a runner' but apparently received no admonishments for it and remains in his job.  Early on in his 'reign', many of us quietly admired Boris for his bouncy, 'boing-boing' approach to public affairs but that disappeared faster than a Spring snowfall!

Do get a grip, Boris, you are making Keir Starmer look like 'Superman'!

 

 

I put my memory down somewhere but I can't remember where!

I do know that the many old codgers - and codgerettes! - who read this blog do not need a whinge from me on the many irritations that accompany old age.  Even so, as a fully qualified, old codger, myself, I do feel the need to moan about one really irritating facet of the condition - loss of memory!  It is, of course, irritating to others - especially, in my case, the 'Memsahib' who suspects that idleness may have more to do with my failure to remember instructions than loss of memory!

Whatever, it is a damned nuisance!  I can sometimes begin a trip upstairs in order to execute some task or other and by the time I reach the top - it's gone!  The rather sadder side of this condition is that people and events that had some impact on my life in earlier years are slowly disappearing into the mist and that truly is depressing.  I will give one example that has just shocked me somewhat.  The other day, some how, in some way (I forget exactly!) the title of Shakespeare's great(est?) play, Troilus and Cressida,  was mentioned.  Now, not only did I once act in a production of it but I also once directed it, but could I remember any of the plot details?  Not a chance!

'Still 'n' all', as I sit here typing this out, I noticed my old copy of the script on the bookshelf so I have hooked it out and will attempt to re-read it.  Perhaps, just perhaps, that will get me back into reading again, a habit I never thought I would lose!

Additional:  I almost forgot - see above! -  to express my thanks to 'SoD' for his contributions to this site in my feeble absence.

 

 

Repetitive Failure Syndrome

RFS is a condition first recognised in Socialism by Marx and Engels, and latterly by Lenin and Stalin, and in all genres of state ownership of the means production by Libertarians since the year dot.  It needs no explanation, it is what is says on the tin:  Repetitive.  Failure.  Syndrome.

Messer's MELS posited that the state would even go so far as to "wither away" as a consequence of RFS ...

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

Sadly the cries from reason and the third estate to "Bring it on already!" are going unheeded in a truly psychotic and psychopathic manner ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/15/scaling-testing-centralised-way-will-recipe-disaster/

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

To put politicians who are people with no track record of operating the means of production in charge of the means of production and expecting them to perform like some super-CEO, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson or Bill Gates, was obviously insane.  For these people called politicians to believe that, in spite of their total lack of any competence or track record, they should still be in charge of the means of production, that was psychotic arrogance.

And then, the pols, having just massacred 60,000 Brits in 3 months, 3 times the rate Adolf Hitler managed over the same period on average in WWII, for them to not resign, to not die of shame, or somewhere in between, demonstrates a psychopathic lack of empathy.

Now it might not seem possible to extend beyond these psychotic and psychopathic criminal negligences, the bringing of a micro-Auschwitz and mini-Gulag simultaneously to these shores in plain view - like the not in plain view institutionalised starvation and dehydration to death of 10,000 elderly and vulnerable people every year that went unnoticed for decades until the media discovered it, a crime against humanity also perpetrated by politicians and the state.

But actually it is possible.  By simply doing it again ...

In April, the Government announced a huge expansion in testing. The Health Department took responsibility away from ill-fated Public Health England. They had failed to stop the outbreak after centralising testing and rebuffing offers from the charities, universities, animal labs and the private sector.

The problem: the Government has repeated PHE’s mistakes. Testing has remained highly centralised – to a small number of “Lighthouse” mega labs. They have shown scant interest in smaller local labs and facilitating new technologies.

Hospitals, care homes and schools are not getting the tests they need. Not to mention the tracing fiasco. Our world-beating test and trace regime is becoming a national embarrassment.

The backlog at the mega labs are holding up the entire testing process. They simply cannot handle the pressure. It would have been wiser to commission 100 smaller labs throughout the country to do 2,000 local tests a day for 200,000 daily tests. If one failed, it would barely impact the overall regime.

But rather than take responsibility for this mess, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock is blaming the public for ordering “frivolous tests”.

This is a self-inflicted disaster. It did not have to be this way – and nor does it have to be this way in future.

In early April, Professor John Newton was appointed “testing czar” – despite coming from the failing PHE. Newton explained their closed attitude: “That’s a very clear message: we are not relying on lots of people coming forward to help us to achieve what’s required,” Newton said.

The state has quite literally hired the same people in the same centralised model and done it again.

And incredibly it doesn't end there.  The pols and state are about to do it again ...

The Government is now pursuing Project Moonshot, another mass expansion of testing. This is visionary and worth the cost. If we could do tens of millions of tests each week we could go out socialising, working and being educated as normal with reassurance.

But if the Government takes the same centralised approach to testing for a third time it will be destined to fail like the other two. 

These new tests won’t require central labs and bureaucratic control; or even any machinery or expertise to administer. They just require a new way of thinking about testing. The Government would not be in charge. They need to deregulate: allow anyone, for any reason they like, to produce and order the necessary chemicals (reagents), DNA primers, antibodies, and tubes.

Testing is how we save lives, get our economy and schools back to normal, and avoid further lockdowns and restrictions on liberty. Let’s not screw it up again.

What is this?  Some weird social sciences experiment to understand the very worst periods of human history by re-enacting them?  In this case with a 3x greater death rate than the original, as if to heighten the sensation?

Insane.  Psychotic.  Psychopathic.

And there's no end in sight.  All X's in all boxes on all ballot papers lead to the same outcome.

British democracy has become re-elected totalitarianism.  British democracy has become the very "Boot stamping on a human face, forever" foreseen by Orwell.

How ironic.

SoD

Are you "Wake" yet?

Two fellas on the same wavelength ...

Wake:  An awareness of the illiberal, undemocratic, anti-enlightenment nature of woke and its danger to a free and equal society.

SoD

"So, who's a naughty boy then?" Er, me, actually!

Yes, sorry, sorry for going a.w.o.l. for the past couple of days or so but frankly what is there to write about?  Even 'The Donald' seems to have faded from the headlines and Boris appears to have put away his clown outfit and is trying his best to appear restrained and sensible - 'E for Effort', Boris!  Even so, it's all very boring even if I keep reminding myself that it is a curse to live in interesting times!

Talking of 'interesting times', there is a fictional program on the 'telly' tonight based on Singapore as war broke out.  I shall watch it because I am something of 'an old Singapore hand, don'cha know'! Happily - mega-happily! - my tour of duty was well after the Japanese invasion and the only invaders we feared was a visit by the US Far East Fleet - sheer hell, I tell you, sheer hell!  Well, just imagine several hundred 'JKs' let loose on the town!  I was amused to read that they had to film it up in Malaysia because there was no part of modern Singapore that looked the part!  Mostly, that was due to the late - and exceedingly great! -  Mr. Lee Kuan Yew who was ruler of Singapore when it was granted independence.  He is one of the exceedingly tiny group of politicians I truly admire.  I lived there during his first years in power and his intelligence was awesome!

Meanwhile, America - yet again! - demonstrates the 'stoopidity' of me moaning about English weather!  The scenes from the western side are truly horrifying.  I can hardly believe the colossal dimensions of the fires ravaging California.  On the whole Americans are a sturdy bunch of people but I do hope 'The Donald' has some imaginative and useful assistance he can offer them in this catastrophe.

 

 

We don't need no stinking badges!

Covid marshals on £30k a year by a Conservative government, eh? ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/11/covid-marshals-deeply-alarming-notion/

For those outside the DT paywall ...

It’s a classic case of rewarding bad behaviour. Those with the most time on their hands, causing the most nuisance have now been given a formalised role if they wish to put themselves forward. And it may not just feed their desire to snitch and stir, but could prove extremely lucrative as well, with reports that marshals could be paid up to £30,000 per year – more than some junior doctors. The details of how the marshals will be deployed and paid are being left to local authorities to decide, but the push from the centre to dish out the badges and cash reveals some stark revelations about the coming months: the Government is serious about rolling back liberties again, and it’s increasingly uninterested in the extent to which the public consents.

Well what can one say but: if that's the Tories, just imagine what Labour would do?  Woke marshals?

And soon there will be no escape.

Welcome to Gulag Blighty, courtesy YOU 23rd June 2016.

SoD

Break or BRINO?

Here's the must-read best roadmap analysis of the Withdrawal Agreement / International Law debacle, written by died-in-the-wool Brexiteer Sherelle Jacobs of the DT ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/10/no-10-must-stand-firm-flouting-international-law-face-eu-expansionism/

BoJo must either walk away from the Withdrawal Agreement or do BRINO covered with subterfuge: "major British capitulations as minor tweaks, and minor EU concessions as major climbdowns."

By 31/12/2020 we will know for sure what Dombo's gov is truly made of. Is it weakness shrouded in the faux strength of a bully, or is there a deep and enduring strength of principled power? From this light of revealing truth there can be no more retreat.

Break or BRINO, which will it be?

What do you think?

SoD

Ach aye the noo, or something like that!

As my surname indicates, I am actually half Scottish although my time spent up in, er, 'bonny Scotland' has been minimal.  The only exceptions were courtesy of the Ministry of Defence who sent me - and several hundred others - up there to play soldiers.  My abiding memory is that it was exceedingly hilly, cold, wet and windy!  So, just like Yorkshire and the Lake District, really!  Anyway, the Jocks, under the leadership of the mighty midget, Nicola Sturgeon, are poised to depart the so-called 'United Kingdom'.  Why do I feel a tiny bit relieved?

Actually, it is nothing to do with Scotland or the Scots whom I mostly admire but it is all to do with the scoundrels who infest the Scottish National Party, particularly the atrocious, wee Nicola!  She knows full well that any divorce from Britain would inflict enormous hardships and problems on the Scottish people but, of course, she 'disnae give a flying fig' for that because it will give her a platform to strut her stuff, not just in Edinburgh but, more importantly, in Brussels.

For God's sake, 'Jockland', get a grip and kick the silly woman off the stage and stick with the English whose history you share and who admire you immensely.  Do you seriously believe that Brussels is going to treat you better than London?

 

 

'Buddy, can you spare a dime?'

That, according to Freddy Gray in The Spectator, is now the main message emanating from the Trump re-election campaign!  Yes, poor - and I do mean 'poor' - old Donald is in need of a few 'readies' to help his re-election:

You can tell something about a campaign by the desperation-levels of its fundraising emails. In recent weeks, Team Trump’s digital team has started to resemble a company on the verge of bankruptcy. My inbox is full of emails purporting to be from various members of the Trump family, telling ME in CAPITAL LETTERS how important it is that I STEP UP and PAY THEM.

Heavens to Betsy, hoodathunkit?!  

 

 

 

Breakin' the law, breakin' the law!

Remember that old Judas Priest belter?! ...

https://youtu.be/L397TWLwrUU

The new national anthem for Brexit Blighty under the Dombo crime syndicate, perhaps? ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/09/08/uk/uk-brexit-legislation-international-law-intl/index.html

I wonder if the lads pushing up daisies in some corner of a European field would be proud?

We gave, for the kleptocracy

Makes ya praad to be British, don't it!

SoD

Total shambles @ D&N - sorry!

I am suffering with CM (computer malfunctions), or, to be more accurate, I think it is actually DDM (David Duff malfunctions).  A tad busy this morning but I hope to apply my legendary brain power to the problem later on today - who snorted in derision?

Back later . . .

Boris is rubbish!

Read this opening line carefully.  Boris is a pricked balloon!  (See why I urged care in reading?)  He came into play like the bouncing balloon he resembles and I for one thought this was the beginning of "interesting times".  Instead it has been totally turgid times!  Boris appears to have no original thoughts about anything.  He could have indulged himself - and us! - by some original negativity, like calling a halt to that ridiculous HS2 project which will, allegedly, get us from London to Manchester ten minutes quicker than now even if it does bankrupt us!  Or he could have cheered us all up by sacking that total 'plonker', Gavin Williamson, who masquerades as the Minister for Education!  And what, if anything, is that supposed 'live-wire', Dominic Cummings, doing to earn his crust?  Sweet F.A., by the look of it!

Get a grip, Boris, or get lost!

 

 

 

This blog site is rubbish - and I'm to blame!

Sorry, sorry, sorry but I admit to being guilty of gross dereliction of duty!  Don't ask me why!  Mostly, I put it down to that unstoppable and dreaded old age creeping in and taking me unawares.  Suddenly - or at least it seems sudden to me! - I lack all energy, both physical and mental.  I still pay attention to the news which continues to contain the usual percentage of cant and claptrap but where-as before it would have sent me to my computor and had my fingers dancing across the keyboard with one of my usual tirades, now, I just shrug and mutter 'Same-old-same-old'.

It may be that 'back in the day', when I had yet to enter my 80s, I felt that the daily news might reverberate inside my own existence.  It was, so to speak, personal, even if it was all kicking off on the other side of the world.  Now, at the age of 81, I am less than interested.  I have heard all those lying-liars so many times it is utterly boring and tedious.  Actually, I become more aroused by the politics of past times.  Alas, such is my old-age lethargy that I can hardly be bothered to open a book and that's even if my arthitic, old hands could hold the bloody thing!

Even so, as far as this blog is concerned, I have over the years made some good friends, even if, alas, they remain 'e-friends'.  I am conscious of my debt to them and their numerous contributions to this site so I really must get a grip and then get the fingers tapping again.  Needless to say, although I promise some more material, alas, I cannot confirm its quality - so no change there then!

 

 

Do get a grip, America, I'm beginning to worry!

Of course, like anywhere and everywhere, America has, from time to time, been subject to splits and divisions which once even reached civil war but, somehow, in some way, today's divisions seem to be of a deeper and even more serious nature. There is what appears to be a genuine and serious political, even philosophical, divide down and across civil society.  The idea, or the ideal, of America is no more.  In fact, the ideal that was, is now hated and detested by an enormous segment of the populace.  They strive by all means to destroy it and replace it with the very worst and most ludicrous and most dangerous of political philosophies - state socialism.  Actually, to describe that as a 'political philosophy' is the equivalent of believing that Fascism was more than just a gangster's dribble!

I sense, or at least, I hope - and even pray, God help me! - that sitting quietly in the background there is an enormous - and growing! - mass of Americans imbued with solid traditions and common-sense, prepared to take on these hysterical poltroons and send them packing.  Their chance to strike - and strike decisively - is coming in just a few weeks at the next elections.  Get out and vote - and vote 'yuuuuuuuugely'! - and rid your great nation of these hucksters who have slithered into your body-politic!

 

 

That Shakespeare fella', very tricky, you know!

I have given 'old Bill' a bit of a rest in recent times, mostly because I have been taking a bit of a rest, too!  However, I am prodded into action by an interesting article by the highly intelligent Daniel Hannan in The Telegraph.  In it, he points to the probability, or in his opinion, the certainty, that Shakespeare was bisexual.  Well, that's OK with me.  Old Bill was, or at least, appears to be from his writings, all things to all Men.  I would not be so quick to accept his actual homosexuality because, dammit, of that "all things to all men" characteristic!  His imagination took him inside the minds of heroes, cowards, kings, murderers, rebels, refined ladies, tarts and so on and on.  However:

Harold Bloom, after a lifetime of studying and teaching the plays, concluded only that “by reading Shakespeare, I can gather that he did not like lawyers, preferred drinking to eating, and evidently lusted after both genders.” To that list, I would tentatively add that he distrusted crowds, had suffered a painful betrayal and hated hedgehogs.

You will need to read Mr. Hannan's original article for an explanation of Shakespeare's alleged dislike of hedgehogs!  As for me, I do not give a flying hedgehog whether he was queer or not.  I simply remain in awestruck gratitude for him writing those plays which added so much to my life.

 

 

 

Greeks vs. Turks

It looks as though they are seriously squaring up to each other in the Eastern Mediterranean.  To be honest, I haven't a clue who is running Greece these days.  I do remember years back when the Regiment was posted to Greece for an exercise, being picked - dammit! - to form an honour guard for some Greek General who was about 5'-3" tall with an enormous cap covered in 'scrambled egg' and who could barely carry the weight of medals he wore!  Mind you, the Greeks were great hosts and I 'lurve' them!

But, alas, there is no getting away from the monster mobster who is (for the moment!) Lord of all he surveys in Turkey.  I am reluctant to criticise Turkey because I still have memories, albeit somewhat dim, of the admiration their soldiers evoked for their courage in battle in the Korean war.  Alas, their current pompous leader is an embarrassment to Turks everywhere.

I do very sincerely hope that both sides can cope with this self inflicted 'brou-ha-ha' without recourse to arms.

 

 

 

 

Blue Socialism through-and-through

So Blighty has discovered where the productivity gap resides, that vast chasm of inefficiency and wastage that has defied economists' investigation for decades, estimated as us being 10, 20, and 30 percent behind the Froggies, Jerries and Yanks respectively.  Halleluja!

The rip-off public transport system, commercial properties, bars and restaurants, gyms, and the wasted 2-3 hours a day travelling to work (if you're lucky).  All ramping up the cost of inputs and reducing the output of operations, private and public, the length and breadth of Blighty.  Exposed and destroyed in one fell swoop by Covid, a silver lining like no other.

And into the bargain, the chance to smash the unions that have leeched off the transport industry and driven up costs, to redevelop commercial properties into housing and reduce the cost thereof through increased supply, to learn to make a decent breakfast, lunch as well as dinner, to get out and go for a run or cycle instead of sweating inside a stuffy gym, to work an extra 2-3 hours a day or enjoy some quality time to yourself.  All cost reducing, revenue boosting productivity gains, destruction of undesirable power, and lifestyle progress towards a more prosperous and freer world.

And what does DomBo make of this?  The party of business, the safe hands on the economy, the descendants of Margaret Thatcher?   "Go back to the low productivity, unionised, stifling, unsafe, sweat shop of the past - RIGHT NOW!" they say ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/27/go-back-work-risk-losing-job-major-drive-launched-get-people/ 

Here's some quotes for those outside the DT paywall ...

'Go back to work or risk losing your job': Major drive launched to get people returning to the office

Absolute bullshit!  If you're more productive the business is more likely to keep you on, expand, and hire more people!  Where do they get this ludicrousness from?

A publicity campaign to begin next week will extol the virtues of returning to the workplace, making the “emotional case” for mixing with colleagues and highlighting the benefits to mental health.

What?  The "emotional case"?  Is that an admission of the fact there is no economic case?  And where on earth can you be more emotionally secure if not in your own home?

The relationships between colleagues have become more civil, less stressed, and easier by only meeting online on a need-to basis, compared to sitting next to them like battery hens.

When Dark Ages man was ploughing up and down his fields, was he afflicted by every neighbour in the village squashed up against him, talking crap, posturing, trying to look busy and important et al?  No he wasn't, and he was happier for it.  Only once a week, when he worked the lord's plot of land, were his fellow churls foisted upon him, and after that dawn-to-dusk session he was sated with company and ready for another six days of contact on a need-to-only basis!  That's uncannily about the exactly right proportion needed for visits to the office today.

One Government source said: “People need to understand that working from home is not the benign option it seems. We need workers to be alert to what decisions their bosses may take in the weeks ahead. If they are only seeing workers once a fortnight then that could prove problematic for some employees in the future.

“We want employees to be careful what working arrangements they accept. Suddenly the word ‘restructure’ is bandied about and people who have been working from home find themselves in the most vulnerable position.”

If your job is fake your job is fake.  Get rid, move on.  Let the neural network of the real economy rewire you into where you have a positive value.  Conserving someone in a fake job is undignified and humiliating, as well as an unproductive drain on everyone else.

If automation and productivity has reached the giddy heights where a handful of people can produce all the output and the rest of us can "feet up, cuppa tea" all day, then even better!  Give us all UBI and let the IT people sweat their cobs off making all the stuff - or more to the point: let the IT people work at home in a less stressful environment making all the stuff.

“People need company … especially those living on their own or with a limited support network.

If you really do feel the need to be crammed together like battery hens, talking crap, posturing, and trying to look busy and important, then why not go to your local internet cafe or pub, connect to the WiFi, and unload the contents of your wallet (freshly packed with the savings from your season ticket) into the landlord's cash till on lattes and cheese and bacon croissants?  (OK, I do admit, I miss those two, but I've mastered the art of the "microwave latte and cheese and bacon croissant" so consummately I can do it in my sleep!)

“There will be some economic consequences of shutdown. Companies will realise some people weren’t working as hard as they thought … There is going to be a review of how productive people are.”

Once again, that's good news.  If Tories don't understand productivity is a good thing then who else does?  Keir ruddy Starmer FFS?!

Another minister said: “Once the schools go back we will be switching our attention to getting people back to their workplaces. It will be a call to arms to the nation.”

"Call to arms to the nation", oh puh-lease?!

But there's the rub.  After the peeps were conned and shafted by the Brexiteer pols in the referendum, let's hope they're sharper tools in the box these days and give this "call to arms" a right royal Agincourt Archer's V-sign and stay put in that home of every Englishman, his castle.

SoD

Donald's really 'yuuuuuuuge' test is looming in the South China Sea

Every day the tension mounts - according to news reports.  America is determined to sail its ships where international law allows.  China is equally determined to stop anyone sailing in seas which over which it claims ownership.  With an election looming this would be the very worst time for China to test 'The Donald's' resolve!  Equally, it would be an electoral disaster for the President to be seen as weak-kneed.  China seems determined to throw its weight around in the Pacific and it is critical for the West, led by America, to stand firm and call their bluff.

Don't mention the weather!

Just as I see and hear lightening flashes and thunder, I was going to produce yet another dirge concerning the 'bloody-bloody' weather 'over here' but somehow, having just viewed reports from 'over there' on my TV, I think a polite silence is called for!  Crikey, I know they always do things bigger and better 'over there' but those storms blasting Louisiana are something else!  Instead of my usual Limey whinges I will keep 'schtum' and wish everybody 'over there' well as they face those incredible, battering winds and rain.  I was thinking of offering a food parcel but one from me would probably only contain a couple of empty Scotch bottles and I suspect that my old buddy, JK, has more than enough of them!

Or perhaps I could entertain my neighbours by going out onto our communal lawn and giving them some full on Lear:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once

That make ingrateful man!

Dammit, why did I never get that part?!

 

 

 

Donald or Boris - who shall I start with?

Why give myself hard choices, I'll deal with both of them.  Mind you, that gives me a problem because I am wracking what passes for my brain to try and remember what either of them have actually done!  Needless to say, the fact that both of them have more or less 'gone with the flow' is actually praise-worthy.  Usually, whenever politicians decide to 'do things' the results are disastrous!  That is why it is imperative that both the Labour and Democratic party are kept well away from those damned 'levers of power' because they always have long lists of things to be done - aaaaaaaaargh!

Donald does nothing much but does it very well by providing some unintentional humour with it.  Most of all, apart from a few brown-skinned rascals in the Middle East, he has not bombed anyone.  Who was the last POTUS who never bombed anyone?  Similarly, Boris is surprisingly peaceful for a full-blooded Tory of the 'old school'!  Also, he has shown - so far! -  no inclination to kiss and make up with Michel Barnier, the EU apparatchik responsible for tricking/negotiating (you choose!) us back into that den of thieves aka the EU!

Well done, chaps, just keep on doing nothing much and we will 'lurve' you!

 

 

Sorry and all that but I'm back!

First of all, a 'yuuuuuuuge' 'thank you' to y'all for your messages of concern.  It has not been serious, merely an attack of SOA, er, that's 'Shufflin' Old Age' and, of course, the incumbent 'fatigue syndrome' that goes with it from time to time.  By the way, I love that word 'syndrome' which makes the condition sound that much more serious and fascinating.  Well, it's better than being written of as a lazy, old git!

I will return to posting later on today but first I need to catch up with things.

Auftragstaktik vs Normaltaktiker

On a warry thread at the moment, World War II in particular, and being driven along by James Holland and Al Murray's awesome podcast series "We have ways of making you talk" ...

https://play.acast.com/s/wehaveways

Came across this gem, which, like so much of the infinite space and time of WWII, I had missed - ignorance is bliss, not least because it preserves some morsels for later life! ...

Auftragstaktik

In trying to understand why the Jerries were just so good at warfare, the usual old suspects have been well chewed over in the years since:  Blitzkrieg - combined arms training, the German General Staff - planning on steroids, Jerry hyper-engineering - the incredible MG34/42, Tigers, Panthers, the dreaded 88, et al.

For me it was all enough to explain why when the Gaffer and I used to play those ingenious hexagon grid board games, like this ...

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22509/four-battles-army-group-south 

... the Jerry counters always had more attack strength, defence strength, and movement points than the equivalent Rooskie, Brit or Yankee counters of the same organisational size: regiment, brigade, division or whatever.  Unit for unit, they were just better for those reasons.

For those who haven't wargamed WWII and seen this astonishing "positive handicap" required for the Jerries to represent their historical capabilities, this little gem will suffice ...

Eastory - Ostfront 1941

Freeze the animation at some points and count the units of the same level on each side.  Overwhelmingly the Jerries were attacking, surrounding, and annihilating Rooskies in the 100's of thousands with less Jerry troops than were facing them in the cut-off pockets!

The missing link (for me, anyway, in my vast ignorance) in the Jerry chain mail of military supremacy is "Auftragstaktik".  And within that wiki article the clincher being ...

This has significant implications for any army considering the adoption of Auftragstaktik. To clarify, the classic German approach called for every commander to be trained to function effectively at two levels of command above his appointment; a platoon commander—an appointment that was, and is, an NCO one in the German Army—would be expected to control battalion actions, if need be.

What a stroke of simple genius - if that isn't a contradiction in terms!  (Well apparently it isn't, Von Clausewitz said "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult").

The tendency of everyone who is promoted is to lord it over his subordinates and dwell on micro-managing them with detailed steps and plans, because the leader is well steeped in those jobs he once did before he was promoted, and well within his comfort zone working them.

In the "Normaltaktiker" - as the opposite way of doing things was termed compared to "Auftragstaktik" - with the command hierarchy behaving like this there is no scope for quick reactions, flexibility or initiative.  Everyone waits for "Mr Know-it-all" the boss to issue step instructions down the hierarchy, from the very beginning and including all changes.

And since "No plan survives first contact with the enemy" (Von Moltke the elder this time) that's a lot of waiting.  Meanwhile your enemy has run rings around you - quite literally as the Eastory animation illustrates!

Training people two levels higher than their current position is the key means of getting subordinates to get the gist and meaning of the superior's mission, enabling the junior to do the planning himself with very little detail required from on high.  He can fill in the blanks himself, before and after first contact.

My thought is why isn't this instigated more thoroughly in non-war operators?  Why aren't middle managers trained as CEO's?

The missions would flow down the hierarchy much more easily if everyone knew the job two levels up.

And two specific problems of management with "Normaltaktiker" would be resolved: -

(1) The good old Peter principle, whereby it is observed that everyone gets promoted one level above their competence, because it would become apparent two levels below before the damage is done that an individual was no longer capable of going higher.

(2) Passing the buck, because no-one could say "I was simply obeying my step instructions".

And now Blighty's insanely negligent and painfully slow-to-react state, from DomBo right down through the civil service, SAGE, PHE, NHSX and the NHS, is explicable.  Too much centralised, await your orders from on high, "Normaltaktik", and zero "Auftragstaktik"!

A pyramid of Peter principle and buck-passing hiding in plain sight and in desperate need of some "Auftragstaktik"!

SoD