DUFF & NONSENSE!

Well done, the SBS ( he wrote through gritted teeth!)

Well, yes, that handful of Nigerian 'wannabe' immigrants to Britain who attempted to take over an oil-tanker in the Channel were not exactly, heavily-armed, foam-flecked, Islamist terrorists but even so, the SBS dealt with them swiftly and efficiently - and mercifully!  It says much for their skill and training that no-one was hurt.  It irks me, an ex-Para, to praise Marines but 'sometimes a man has to what a man has to do!'  

The Sunday Rumble: 25.10.20

Who messed with the clocks?   As if a shuffling, old, 81 year octogenarian wasn't confused enough, somebody's changed all the clocks!  I blame .................... (Fill in your choice!)

 

Brilliant news!   I'm reading again!  Well, it's brilliant for me but given that it is likely to provoke me to even more 'boring-snoring' commentary it may not be so good for you!  I don't know why a year or so ago I suddenly switched off from reading, any more than I know why, equally suddenly, yesterday I picked up a book and started again.  The book was simply the nearest to hand and it is a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Jan Morris.  He/she - yes, he/she is, or was, both despite fathering five children, is a well know writer but this is the first of her books that I have read.  So far I have only just reached Lincoln's 20th birthday but already, knowing (roughly) where he was to ascend, I am fascinated.  It helps that Ms. Morris writes impeccably clear English!

 

The real Boris, er, sort of:   And, unsurprisingly, he is simply ghastly!  That is according to Ms. Lynn Barber who has reviewed Tom Bower's just released, un-authorised biography of our very own 'Dear Leader':

Bower never quite states his own position on Boris, though he quotes zillions of his detractors. Max Hastings — perhaps regretting ever having launched Boris’s early success as a Brussels journalist — describes him as ‘a man of remarkable gifts, flawed by an absence of conscience, principle or scruple’. 

"There’s a pattern to Boris’s life: it’s the casual dishonesty, the cruelty, the betrayal, and beneath the betrayal the emptiness of real ambition: the ambition to do anything useful with office once it is attained."

What have we done to deserve such rat-bag, political leaders?

 

'Lord' Lewis Hamilton reaches the zenith:   Yes, I have promoted 'Lord' Hamilton from a mere Knighthood because today he has become the greatest racing-driver of all time - er, well, until some unknown lad who has barely learned to drive eventually reaches the F1 starting grid.  Whilst Lewis deserves his kudos, his Dad deserves his share.  It was his dedication to his son's early career that sent him on his way.

 

 

  No more Rumbles 

 

 

 

Words from on high - but worth reading!

They don't come much higher than Jonathan Sumption, author, medieval historian and former Supreme Court judge who is writing in this week's 'Speccie':

Italy is the only European country where Brexit is viewed with some sympathy and the British are not assumed to be off their heads. It is an odd state of affairs. The country benefited spectacularly from the EU. It transformed itself in a few years from a society of peasants and small craftsmen into an advanced, export-oriented economy based on engineering, cars, pharmaceuticals and consumer electrics, with an impressive standard of living. 

The Italians were insulted when Boris Johnson, then masquerading as a diplomat, cited prosecco as their emblematic export. Italy’s fatal mistake was to adopt the euro for reasons of prestige. It lumbered them with an artificially high implicit exchange rate, depressed growth and real earnings, and pushed them into a permanent recession. It is a warning of the danger of embarking on economic projects for political reasons. [My emphasis)  These days, you don’t hear much from knowledgeable Italians about the opportunities offered by Europe.

This article is an extract from Jonathan Sumption's Spectator diary, available in this week's magazine.

Once again, my pride in the wisdom and courage of the British 'Peeps' who decided to 'Brexit' against all the flannel from the  so-called 'clever Dicks' is increased.  Yes, we get plenty of things wrong but when we get it right, we're spot on!

 

 

 

Pay attention, America, I'm about to tell you how to vote - DON'T!

I understand and sympathise with the difficulty you face in choosing your next, er, 'Glorious Leader'.  Frankly, I wouldn't give a bent cent for either of them but, hey, this is the way your system works so you must do your duty.  

Given that both of them in their differing ways are quite ghastly it is necessary to look past them and try an weigh up the cabals that stand behind them.  Biden is a politician, or to put it more clearly, is a born-again, lying-liar!  Alas, he is also not very good at it!  There was a time when the Dems had some world-class 'lying liars', like Kennedy and Clinton pere but not these days.  One gains the distinct impression that Biden simply does not know when he is lying!

Trump, of course, is a buffoon, in fact, so much of a buffoon that that he is incapable of recognising his own innate buffoonery!  His ego is of such immense proportions that, like a black hole in space, no light is permitted to enter.  Behind both of them lurk gangs of crooks and con-men all eagerly rubbing their hands at the thought of the contraband to come their way.

Poor America, what have you done to deserve such an outcome?

 

 

Nothing like a pandemic for showing politicians at their worst!

I'm sure the home nations of my international readership - all ten of you! - have their own domestic examples of politicians jumping centre stage to capture the headlines as they inflict us all with their their 'boring-snoring' and mostly useless tales from the 'Covid Front'!  Perhaps the most sick-inducing one I have seen - and which I only saw because I couldn't find the 'do-flicker-thingie' to eradicate him - was the ghastly Andy Burnham MP, whose pontificating, smug, self-serving and utterly useless address to the Prime Minister was allowed on my TV screen despite the fact that it was intended entirely for the 'Mancs' who were daft enough to elect him and that sad collection of sub-normals who constitute today's Labour party!

If you watched his performance and failed to see the 'bleedin' obvious' chicanery of it, then you deserve a Labour government and all that it will bring forth!

 

 

 

To my Aussie mates, sorry, but I'm not coming!

Who cheered?

Not, I must quickly confess, that I had any real intention to visit Australia.  At my age I would hesitate to even take a train to London!  Mind you, from sundry TV programmes I have watched over the years, I gather that there are some beautiful places to be seen 'down under there' but, alas, there is also the other 98% in the middle!  Those endless acres of nothingness would drive me bonkers!  

Then there are the crocodiles!  I never associated crocs with 'Oz' but according to a programme I watched this morning the place is teeming with them!  Oh, alright, perhaps "teeming" is a tad exaggerated but the people in the programme were pulling the ghastly creatures out of their river with ease.  And there is something 'neolithic' about crocs which gives me the 'willies'!  

So thanks, mates, for your invitation which I am sure is in the post but I think I will stay here where the most frightening thing you will catch in one of our streams is a tadpole!

 

Sleepy Joe and Crackhead Hunter

Crooked Hillary and Blowjob Bill just got shunted off the podium in the world "Crook and Dumbass" biathlon doubles competition.  This year, the father son combo of Sleepy Joe and Crackhead Hunter Biden have landed gold with consummate ease ...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-purported-hunter-biden-laptop-sources

In the Crooked competition, Hunter pocketed a shed-load of wonga from his Ukrainian clients in exchange for introducing them to his politician Father, Sleepy Joe, thereby profiting from the misallocation of federal resources and the diversion of US interests to his own.  A straight run of 10's from the judges put the Biden duo way ahead in this contest.

Then Crackhead Hunter, in a stunning solo performance, walked his laptop into a repair shop and abandoned it, with a full email trail of incriminating evidence about the corruption for all and sundry to discover - and pics and vids of himself at play with his crack-pipe and having sex.  Another straight run of 10's in the Dumbass contest closed the deal on gold for the Bidens in the competition.

The under-reporting and even silence from the MSM in the US and world is deafening.  One can only imagine the explosion in media time that would have been devoted to this if it had been the Don or anyone in his family.

Another boundary in the scope of criminal negligence and pols in the West has been pushed.

Lovely darts!

SoD

No wonder I'm confused!

Two headlines in the same edition of the Daily Telegraph:

UK coronavirus deaths hit highest level since June

############################################################

'No sign of second wave' as ONS data shows normal level of deaths for time of year

'Yer pays yer money an' yer takes yer choice!'

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 18.10.20

We bid farewell to bonny Scotland!   Well, there's no way we can force them to remain!  Mind you, if that's "the high road" they are determined to take, then all we can do is shut the door firmly - very firmly! - behind them and wish them good luck in the 'welcoming arms' of the European Union, a.k.a. the German racket!  It is patently obvious that nothing is more important to  'Mrs. MacWhinge' than, er, well, 'Mrs. MacWhinge', actually, and her place in Scottish history.  The fact that eventually it will sink lower than the Loch Ness monster has not yet dawned on 'the wee lassie' but it will, eventually, and I hope I will still be around to attempt my version of a Highland fling!

 

Fascinating book review in The Spectator:  The title of the book written by Catherine Grace Katz sums it up -  The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War.  I might just treat myself to a copy, after all, you can always depend on the ladies to to go to the secret heart of a meeting between men and as meetings go, they do not get much more crucial than Yalta!

 

California - here I do NOT, under any circs, come!   Well, I have just read Douglas Murray's report on the, er, 'golden' state and it stinks - literally!  

Anyone who has visited San Francisco in recent years will have noticed that one of the world’s most beautifully positioned cities has turned into an American dystopia. Nowhere in the first world is actual inequality more pronounced. The proximity of Silicon Valley has made property unaffordable to anyone below the millionaire class. And when that class comes down from their towers or ventures into the centre of the city they encounter sights rarely seen outside of a zombie movie.

The incentivisation of homelessness, dire provisions for the mentally ill and easy access to legal and illegal drugs have meant that even the city’s boutique shopping streets are crowded with people who have made the streets their home. A portion of the responsibility for this lies with Mayor Gavin Newsom who, having made such a success of San Francisco, became Governor of California, to see if he could make his policies fail on a larger canvas.

Needless to say, California is ruled ruthlessly by Left-wing 'Democrats' whose crass stupidity and corruption is obvious to all - well, all except those who actually live there and vote, apparently!

 

What's the Norwegian for "Jolly good show, chaps!"   Well, for once, at least, the Nobel Peace Prize officers managed to reach the correct decision for granting a Nobel Peace Prize, although, to be accurate, it's not so much to whom they gave the prize - it was "the World Food Programme for its efforts to combat hunger and to prevent it being used as a weapon of war" - but whom they ignored".  Thus, the ineffably smug and stupid, Greta Thunberg was passed by!  What can one say, except perhaps, 'Ohdearwhatapitynevermind!'

 

More rumbles later . . .

 

 

 

What's the French for, "Why am I not surprised?"

Or perhaps, a better question is, "What's the French for 'Bang him up!'?  I refer, au naturel, to that French pygmy - or should that be 'pigmy'? -  Nicolas Sarkozy, the former President of France and a leader - mais non, the leader! - of the European Union.  According to Zero Hedge, he has just been charged with taking back-handers from one of the most disgusting North African leaders of modern times:

Sarkozy - who was president of France from 2007 until 2012 - is said to have accepted around €50MM [my emphasis]from Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's overthrown leader, was captured and killed in 2011. As we noted, the amount was more than twice the legal spending limit in French elections for the time, which was €21MM. Gaddafi's alleged payments to Sarkozy also violated foreign financing laws and declares the source of campaign funds.

Rather shrewdly, Zero Hedge suggested that M. Le President should have followed the example of the Clintons:  

If Sarkozy were smart enough, maybe he should've opened up a foundation - like the Clinton's to accept foreign bribes donations.

They do that sort of thing so much better 'over there'!

 

 

Bend over, Jose!

I remember with great fondness the sniggers and giggles reading Viz magazine in my uni days, and in particular one bunch of characters called the "Bottom Inspectors".  A send-up of authoritarians everywhere, in the form of an inspection and correction agency tasked with examining the nation's buttholes and the meting out of vicious remedial action against any transgressors of the highest of the high in rectal standards! ...

http://viz.co.uk/category/bottom-inspectors/

Well George Orwell must have missed this one out as perhaps too implausible in his scribblings and predictions about the destiny of authority in making mankind's life a misery: "No," he ruminated, "Newspeak, doublethink, sexcrime, yes, but they'll never fiddle around with our arseholes on the basis of some cranky ideology to do with the weather".

Well, errr, sorry George 'n' that, but (no pun intended) ...

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/16/venezuelan-miracle-covid-19-cure-ozone-rectal-therapy/

Yep, the Socialists of Venezuela are packing a dose of ozone up their citizens' Bourneville Boulevards as a cure for Covid 19, and thereby ingeniously sorting the problem of climate change into the bargain.

Well, what can one say?  I guess compared to the connection between 5G and Covid it has more of a ring to it (sorry).

SoD

Now Boris knows what I felt like on my first parachute jump!

Once again, multi-apologies for my absence in recent days but, honestly, what is there to discuss these days?  Life and politics is (almost) totally 'boring-snoring'!  Even so, tomorrow is the beginning of a major 'Crash-Bang-Wallop'!  Tomorrow sees the end of the endless Brexit 'yadda-yadda' and Boris, like me 60+ years ago, has to shuffle to the edge of a cage suspended at 800' and step out into fresh air with all his fingers crossed!  I really never believed we would reach this point, my faith in our so-called 'leaders' being minimal.  He deserves some praise for sticking to his policy against all the odds but most of all it is the British 'Peeps' who deserve it the most.  Truly, under all the pressure from all directions, internal as well as external, I never thought that they would vote to leave but, by God, they did it, they really, really did it.  Yes, there will be problems, there always are, and we will once again find ourselves on our own but - hey! - been there, done that, its our entire history.

 

"V" is for Victory!

Sadly not for Blighty, but rather for the Jerries - here's the Economy Minister, Peter Altmaier, holding up the Fatherland's V-shaped GDP recovery ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.dw.com/en/germanys-pandemic-recovery-raises-age-old-questions-about-european-economy/a-55090733

Yet it is already clear that Germany's economy is faring much better than its closest European equivalents France, Britain, Italy and Spain. Its GDP fall for the lockdown quarters was substantially less than those countries while its recovery for the third quarter of the year is projected to be much better.

How did the Jerries manage to do an encore of their spectacular post-WWII 1950's recovery that saw Germany have its most prosperous two decades in history?

Firstly, an intelligent lockdown that zapped the virus but kept production going ...

According to Lars Feld, chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Germany's reasonably positive economic situation is driven by the fact that its lockdown was never as strict as elsewhere in Europe.

"Despite lockdown measures, an interruption of value chains or lower private consumption due to considerable uncertainty, the German economy continued a considerable part of its activity. For example, the construction industry had very low restrictions," he told DW.

And secondly, a full-fat 88mm Panzerschreck rather than Blighty's skinny 60mm Bazooka ...

Another major help is the massive financial support the German government has provided to businesses and citizens, something it was able to do after years of frugality in terms of its budget.

The "bazooka," as German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz called it back in March, amounted to close to €1 trillion ($1.16 trillion) in aid when everything from state-backed loans to the country's much-admired Kurzarbeit scheme is included.

"The German economy has had more reserves than other European economies, be it with respect to fiscal space due to successful consolidation of public finances in the past or with respect to private firms which have a sound equity base in general," says Feld.

"Dank Gott" for Dave Cam and George Osborne and their Thatcherite austerity in the good times when Blighty was in the EU and leading the GDP stats of the developed world that she even has the skinny 60mm Bazooka of £350bn to aim at the problem!

And what about the rest of Europe?  Well apart from the €750bn EU Bazooka funded in large part by the Jerries - yes, that's in addition to their own €1tr! - the Jerry value chains of supply burrow deeply into Europe, meaning EU member states benefit from the Jerry €1tr as well ...

"A strong German economy could serve as an economic engine for other EU member countries, in particular regarding the strongly developed value chains in Europe," said Feld.

"The quick takeoff of the German economy triggers demand in other EU countries. It should also be kept in mind, that the high credit-worthiness of Germany is a strong backup for the EU budget and the ECB balance sheet, both allowing other countries in Europe to restart their economies without further turbulences, e.g., on financial markets."

Meanwhile, of course there will be one state not benefitting from the double Panzerschreck of Jerry and EU fiscal largesse, hidden behind the parapet of tariffs and differing standards rules and regs, cut off from supply value chains like an army encircled in a pincer movement.

Good call 23rd June 2016.

SoD

 

 

Is Dirty Erdy long for this world?

I ask the question because as pantomime villains go he's put in some performance, managing to piss off every block and player, major and minor, apart from Qatar, Somalia, half the government of Libya, and some Hairies in Azerbaijan ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/10/11/europe/turkey-analysis-erdogan-intl/index.html

The list of the pissed is quite astounding:  Vlad, Assad, all shades of camel-shaggers (excepting the above), the mad Mullahs, the EU, and Israel.

The only wise-guy who's played Dirty Erdy well is the Don.  If the West ever had the metaphorical equivalent of a dose of Novichok to dunk in Vlad's breakfast, lunch and dinner, it's Dirty Erdy!  In Syria, Libya, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, literally every place that Vlad has blown a shed-load of pol capital, Dirty Erdy has been there to spoil his day, leaving Vlad with the square root of bugger all for his efforts!  In Syria, for example, the Don coaxed him into fronting the Rooskies in Idlib territory and leaving the Kurds alone, in exchange for a slice of the border area of Rojava.  That left Uncle Sam holding Vlad and Dirty Erdy's coats with a mere armoured Brigade while they knock six bells out of each other, and his ally the Kurds with security! ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/features/2020/10/1/what-has-russia-gained-from-five-years-of-fighting-in-syria

And when Dirty Erdy finds himself on the right side of the law, as is the case in the Armenia-Azerbaijan ding-dong, where the disputed territory is legally Azerbaijan's under international law, he never fails to remind the Armenia backing Euros of their hypocrisy in holding international law and global rules and regs in such high esteem in one breath while supporting the law breaking Armenia in the next - too juicy!

And all this Dirty Erdy has managed with an economy that is tanking like a very tanking thing.

One might wonder how long this gravity defying act can go on before he's batted out if the air by some coalition or other.  But then we are reminded that Turkey is a top spender in NATO whose members are all required to fight for her if Vlad or anyone else not in NATO lays a hand on him!

We all Love the pantomime villain, and while Love isn't something one might feel toward Dirty Erdy, admiration of this accomplished player in the Great Game is deserved - and so entertaining into the bargain!

SoD

 

I took a few days off and, yes, I am a very naughty boy!

I apologise for my recent absence although I must point out that it was not due to my habitual idleness, merely the fact that I couldn't think of a single thing to say!  Well, you must notice it, too, the unending tedium of day after day with absolutely nothing much happening.  I know I am a well-honed 'honker 'n' hooter' but the sheer, eye-stabbing tedium of recent "non-events, dear boy, non-events" has stopped my inventiveness dead in its tracks!  Thank God for the likes of 'JK', Bob, 'SoD', 'BOE' et al for offering their contributions - I am very grateful.  Tomorrow, I promise, I will make a contribution to our discussions - I just hope I can think of something to say between now and then!

Still applauding the NHS super-spreader?

Blighy's self-imposed mini-Auschwitz completes its deathcamp status by becoming the country's top Covid super-spreader ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/09/government-urged-pause-new-restrictions-cases-covid-caught-hospital/

Imposing more new coronavirus restrictions would be "too hasty", scientists have said after figures revealed that up to a quarter of patients currently in hospital with Covid-19 caught the virus after being admitted.

Across England as a whole, 18 per cent of patients in hospital with Covid-19 tested positive for the virus for the first time seven days or more after admission. The proportion was highest – at 24 per cent – in the North-West, which is under imminent threat of further lockdown measures.

What that's saying is the restrictions we are experiencing and the ones we are considering applying are a waste of time, because the problem is not the ordinary folks going about their business following the rules dutifully.  But rather, the NHS staff - the ones you leant out of your window and applauded on a Thursday night - are the ones not following or implementing Covid security, so much so that up to a quarter of Covid sufferers in hospital acquired the disease while in hospital.

So what part of a mini-Auschwitz operating in plain view does this track record of abuse and criminal negligence not imply? ...

1.  The routine starvation and dehydration to death of 10,000 elderly and vulnerable people every year.

2.  The massacre of 60,000 people in excess deaths, topping the statistics of the developed world when Norway reduced excess deaths over the same time period, so much so that Norway's state had to bail out the funeral directors because not enough people were dying.

3.  £2.36bn in negligence claims and a £4bn budget in legal fees on a turnover of £129bn per annum, representing 4.9% of the work done by value in compensation and legal costs.

4.  The 5th largest employer in the world, after the Chinese People's Liberation Army, US Department of Defence, Walmart, and MacDonalds, with 1.3-1.5 million employees.  But it still doesn't have enough doctors and nurses, so people wait weeks to see a GP, months to see a consultant, and years to have an operation.

5.  A super-spreader of deadly diseases like MRSA and Covid 19, a modern mimicry of typhoid and cholera that took so many lives in all death camps.

The brainwashing that Blighty's state education and media has conducted on Brits to make them admire and worship this monster as it exterminates them is so consummate and complete that it must rank up there with Nazi Germany in the 1930's.

When it's all over we won't need a public enquiry to apportion the blame and dispense justice, we'll be needing something more like the Nuremberg trials.

SoD

Decline and Fall 2

Crikely, is Jeremy Warner on a one man mission to stick a rocket up Blighty's arse or what?! ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/10/06/nation-thought-good-stuff-turns-arent/

 We thought that, as a nation, we were good at stuff, even “world beating”.

So, apparently, did everyone else.

As recently as a year ago Britain was assessed by the Global Health Security Index to be second only to the United States both in its overall preparedness for an epidemic and in its rapid response and mitigation strategies.

That was then. The latest fiasco in test and trace, with 16,000 positive tests going missing, has heaped further ridicule on a growing catalogue of failings in the Government’s pandemic response.

This is particularly apparent in test and trace, which from the start has been dogged by wrong turns, shortages, laboratory and test centre inadequacies, technical difficulties, and poorly trained contact tracers.

Yet it is fair to say that these shortcomings are just a proxy for much wider failings in the Government’s Covid response, resulting in the worst per capita death rate of any major advanced economy, the worst hit to the economy, and the deepest impact on the public finances.

It’s been a profoundly humbling experience, much to the privately expressed delight of some of our Continental neighbours as we prepare finally to leave the EU single market. If Britain cannot respond competently to Covid, they say, what chance of making a success out of Brexit?

If ever there was a wake-up call, Covid is providing it in spades. A crisis that demands hard-headed professionalism has instead been met by the nonchalance of the gifted amateur, who delusionally imagines he can turn up on the day and win the Premier League without training or method.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister, with his references at the Conservative Party virtual conference this week to a bygone age of British maritime glory, seems determined to brush the realities aside. Indeed, it is this kind of cheerleading nonsense which is very much part of the problem. We can rightly be proud of our past, but too often it is used to anaesthetise the nation against the challenges and failures of the present.

So, hero to zero in just 4 years.  Beats the previous record 1945-79 by a substantial margin.

JW goes even further than I do and gives the private sector a dressing down equal to the public sector ...

If Britain’s inadequacies as an economy were entirely confined to public sector administration, then a determined government might in time stand some chance of correcting the problem.

Yet similar deficiencies also infect the private sector, which with some notable exceptions, does not perform well on international measures of productivity, customer service, innovation and investment in the future. We similarly delude ourselves about its strengths.

He then goes on to quote the financial crash and Dido Harding's (the bint in charge of re-organising the disasterous failure that is PHE) prior failures at TalkTalk as examples of private sector failure (note: only the public sector would hire a serial failure from the private sector).

The large monopolies in the private sector are indistinguishable in form to the licensed monopolies of the public sector, both have achieved damaging monopolistic status albeit by different means.

If politicians gave up on their incompetent "command economics" operation of the health, education, and social services industries, a task for which they have no track record or competency in doing and no other pols have succeeded in doing more favourably than the market anywhere ever in the history of mankind, they might revert to their true and proper role in which they have been AWOL and negligent and also thereby failed, and that is: providing rules, regulations and anti-trust governance to the private sector.

Perhaps there wouldn't have been a financial crash if the pols had had their eye on the ball and not been distracted thinking they were Richard Branson, Alan Sugar or Bill Gates.

Perhaps the private sector might have improved its productivity if the large monopolies of the banking, telecoms, energy, and other industries had been split into hundredths and obliged to compete again.

And perhaps Dido Harding might have found her true vocation as a hospital cleaner or flippin' burgers in Maccie Doo's.

SoD

'Only in America', er, well, mostly in America!

Look, we all have our 'foodie' likes and dislikes but even so, shooting and wounding your own brother and actually killing his girl friend when they brought home the wrong sort of fast-food order seems a tad O.T.T.!  I mean, I like my cheeseburgers to be 'just so' but murder is well out of order as a means of complaint!  If I felt that strongly about it, I would have murdered every waiter in MacDonald's by now.  Actually, years ago I simply learned that their burgers were rubbish and so I gave up using them.  But, hey, this was in America where they tend to do things differently.  Actually, it was in Arkansas which, of course, is my old e-pal, 'JK's home state - so why am I not surprised?  

"When troubles come, they come not single spies"

As troubled America is learning the hard way!  (Apologies, by the way, to 'old Will' for slightly misquoting him!) No-one is entirely to blame for America's woes, it's just those damned "events, dear boy, events!"  Even so, Mr. Matt Purple asks a critical question in The Spectator this week - "What if no one accepts the election result?"  Gulp!  Well, given the ferment in American affairs these days plus the abundance of personal weaponry and the fervid state of public opinion, a disputed election will be the equivalent of lighting up a cigar in an ammunition depot!

Good luck with that one, Uncle Sam!

I lunched not wisely but too well!

Well, it is our wedding anniversary after all, thus the boat, so to speak, had to be pushed out!  Happily, in this 'Zummerzet' backwater of Milborne Port, we have been blessed with a superb restaurant, The Clock Spire, in what used to be the village school.  The setting might be somewhat eccentric - you keep expecting the Head Master to come striding through! - but the food and the service is top class.  Alas, so are the prices but, what the hell, it's only once a year and it earns me mega-brownie points with the Memsahib!

Poor, old Bill, why can't they leave him alone?

According to Ben Lawrence in The Telegraph, poor, old Bill Shakespeare is under attack again from the usual collection of ideologues and ignoramuses.  The reason, as far as I can tell, is that the wretched scribe from Stratford failed to fall into line on 21st century opinion/prejudice, er, that is, the 'opinion/prejudice' of 21st century buffoons who seem not to understand that Shakespeare speaks for all centuries and almost all people - everywhere!

But it is not just universities which are proving to be a barrier to Shakespeare. The insular, sometimes toxic world of the theatre Twitterati has become a breeding ground for those who shout the loudest to effectively cancel him. The result is that it sometimes feels as if the default status is to tackle him as if he is a bad thing. Take the Globe, set up by the great Sam Wanamaker, to increase our understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare. The Globe (when fully functioning) should be a joyous celebration of his work, but there is a danger that it is very much becoming a place where the craft of production is playing second fiddle to ideology; where a recent production of Richard II became a statement about post-Empire attitudes as we left the European Union.  [My emphasis]

Many years ago I directed a production of Othello and I was forced through lack of an alternative to cast a white man as the black, tragic hero.  It wasn't satisfactory but then again, theatre is all about pretense - so what the hell? 

I really do not think that Shakespeare's plays will ever be totally exterminated but the repellant activities of the PC fanatics needs to be watched.

 

Decline and Fall

Jeremy Warner paints the high level picture of Blighty outside the EU thus far ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/10/02/cover-covid-bigger-shift-taking-place/

Throughout the pandemic, we have also seen another alarming plunge in business investment, far worse than anything witnessed on the Continent or in America. This may be related to Britain’s pending departure from the EU single market, but again it is something of an ongoing failing which has seen poor levels of investment in the UK economy over decades. The precise reasons for this deficiency are many and complex, but it is hard to resist the conclusion that at least some part of the immediate problem is the Government’s failure to articulate any kind of a plausible economic narrative for the UK’s post-Brexit future.

So all that Brexiteer talk: "It's far worse on the continent than here in Blighty" and "They're far more likely to go down than us", is BS.

After even 4 years of Brexit, Blighty still doesn't know what it wants to be: Entrepreneurial Economy and Liberty Society or Big State? ...

Amid today’s extreme levels of economic uncertainty, there are nevertheless at least two things we know for sure: one is that we are leaving the single market at the end of this year and the other is that in a year or two’s time the pandemic will be over. Both these certainties demand a response. Yet ministers – and firms – are still flailing around in a fog of unknowing. Are we to be a low-tax, lightly regulated, entrepreneurially led economy, or a big-state construct where much of the heavy lifting of economic growth is done via Keynesian-style public spending?

... And that's why investment is avoiding Blighty like the plague, according to Warner.

I think he's too generous.  I think capital knows exactly which way Blighty is going already before any formal announcements are made Jan 1st 2021 or after any "deal" that's done with the EU.

Exactly as I predicted Blighty has returned to type: that regressive blend of Captain Mainwaring and VI Lenin: Back to the 1970's.

Rishi Sunak is an implausible hope now, there's no light at the end of the tunnel.  The bumbling decline party of Captain Mainwarings will hand over to the BLM / Antifa party of VI Lenin's for the final fall.  My exact prophecy is near complete.

And the Brit peeps know it.  They've known it since Theresa May was elected and they've voted Remain in every poll bar one ever since - just look at the stats in those tables ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_the_United_Kingdom%27s_membership_of_the_European_Union_(2016%E2%80%932020)

Since then [Theresa May's election], opinion polls tended to show a plurality of support for remaining in the EU or for the view that Brexit was a mistake, with the estimated margin increasing until a small decrease in 2019 (to 53% Remain : 47% Leave, as of October 2019).

In the future history of the decline and fall of Blighty you, the Brexiteers, will be fingered as the cause.  The ones on the wrong side of Blighty's history.

SoD

For God's sake, America, get a grip!

I am happy - nay, delighted! -  to say that I have not viewed any of yesterday's 'shout-fest' between Trump and Biden.  However, from all reports I would suggest that the only thing the American people learned yesterday was that neither candidate is fit to be the mayor of 'Hicksville', let alone President of the United States!  Hitherto, despite my doubts, I have been sparing in my criticism of Trump.  Not any more!  The man is an ignorant and arrogant pig with an ego the size of Texas and a brain no bigger than his titchy, little 'willy'!  Alas and alack, Biden simply demonstrated his utter stupidity by falling in with Trump's gross game-plan.

God help America and, hopefully, us as well who depend on the USA for so much!

 

 

Now this is bonny news!

According to Stephen Daisley at The Spectator there are fissures appearing in the ranks of the Scottish National Party (SNP) - ohdearwhatapitynevermind'.  Daisely, I should add, has long been a shrewd observer of all things Scottish.  According to him:

The Sturgeon-Murrell reign has gone largely unchallenged in the ultra-disciplined SNP — but that is changing. The Sunday Timesreports that party activists are plotting a vote of no confidence in Murrell at the next SNP conference. The move stems from one of those intricate vendettas in which Scottish politics and the Sicilian mafia specialise. 

I should make clear that Mr. Murrel is the husband of 'Mrs. McWhinge' for which he surely deserves an enormous medal from 'Her Maj'!  Mr. Daisley provides this succinct summary of Scottish politics:

The four families of this drama are the Sturgeonistas, the Salmondites, the Wokes and the Sensibles, and although some belong to more than one outfit, all are soldiers in the two main feuds that divide the SNP today.

I will not attempt to summarise Mr. Daisley's analysis but if peripheral politics is your thing then I urge you to check it out.  Suffice to say that once again it is proven that the smaller the politics the more vicious they become!

 

 

A deal with the EU! Oh dear, that's not good news!

I trust our civil servants about as far as I could piss into a gale!  And as for 'Team Boris', with one or two exceptions, I rate them no higher.  Thus, rumours of a deal being struck with the autocrats in Brussels fill me with dread.  I wanted 'OUT' with no 'ifs, buts or maybes' - end of!  Yes, it might have been painful in the short term but long-term it would have concentrated minds in the business world and opened up prospects elsewhere.  "As any fule do no", except the 'fules' in our government and civil service, within minutes of any agreement being signed, the French, quietly assisted by 'Hausfrau' Merkel, will begin to pick holes in it and insist on interpretations never contemplated in Whitehall.

Once, I was looking forward to 'Brexit'.  Now all we have is faux-Brexit and an endless fart of hot air from Boris telling us 'it's all 'a jolly good show'!  Someone pass the sick-bag!

 

 

A Sunday Rumble

God and Donald move in mysterious ways their wonders to perform!   Yes, yes, of course there is a difference between God and Donald although the latter may doubt it!  Anyway, God, for reasons unknown to me, has unleashed the dreaded 'Covid-lurgi' on us all probably because we have all been very naughty boys and girls!  Donald, on the other hand (well, he sits on the right-hand of God!) has taken swift advantage of the death of that old 'Leftie' harridan who occupied a seat on the Supreme Court and swiftly appointed another lady to the post but this one comes with impeccable Right-wing views.  Apparently, this will clinch a Right-wing majority at the Supreme Court for years.  Jolly good show, Donald!

 

Labour lead in poll:  Not, I hasten to add, that I place that much confidence in political polls.  Even so, I would rather not read of a 3% Labour lead over the Tories!  Surely, the Tory 'grandees' must see that Boris is a dead loss as a leader and that Rishi is the man for the job.  So, just get on with it, chaps, and don't think that Boris will be hurt because, according to reports, he is feeling a severe financial pinch as PM and he would earn 'zillions' more in the private sector.

 

An apology to my American friends:  As I have reported some time ago, this bloody-bloody 'fatigue syndrome' with which I am plagued virtually destroyed my vociferous reading habit.  However, just as it occurred, I pulled an old, un-read, paper-back book from my shelf and placed it on my desk as a reminder!  It is a fairly slim volume but, I suspect, the subject is 'yuuuuuuuuuge'!  I'm not too sure how it will go down but I am determined to try!  It is a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Jan Morris about whom, I am ashamed to say, I know very little.  I will post reports as I go.

 

No more Rumbles 

 

 

 

I love you long time, Vietnam!

Plucky little Vietnam, eh?!  Well not so little actually, the population of Vietnam is 95 million, but at the time of writing, Vietnam has had total cases of 1069 and the death toll from both peaks of the pandemic is 35!

In the first spike of the pandemic Vietnam went head-to-head with Covid, full-on linear war with a nationwide lockdown, closed borders, social distancing, masks, all done early and had zero deaths.  People said it was weird, a fluke maybe, or lies.  But the truth was their intelligent leaders and disciplined people just did it better than us ...

On July 24, Vietnam was enjoying its 99th straight day without any known transmission of the novel coronavirus.

Second time round, this time in plain view so no-one can dispute the stats, the veteran Vietnamese wheeled out the same old weapons but this time augmented the assault with some extra kit and a non-linear strategy, all of which still eludes BoJo and Co: targeted lockdown and test, track and trace: non-linear warfare ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/27/vietnam-crushed-second-coronavirus-wave/

In the ensuing days, infections were discovered in 15 other cities and provinces, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the capital and largest city, respectively.

Unlike in March, however, when Vietnam faced its first major outbreak and implemented nationwide social distancing regulations, the government decided to take a more local approach in order to avoid large-scale economic damage.

Da Nang was placed under the strictest lockdown yet seen in the country, with transport to and from the city shut down and almost all businesses ordered closed, but regions remained relatively open.

Bars, karaoke parlors and nightclubs were closed in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, while gatherings of more than 30 people were banned and masks were made mandatory in public again. However, other aspects of daily were allowed to carry on normally.

Meanwhile, massive Covid-19 testing was rolled out for anyone returning to these cities from Da Nang before its lockdown began, which included tens of thousands of people, and any new patients were isolated while rapid, detailed contact tracing was conducted.

These were the same tactics that the Vietnamese government deployed earlier in the year when the virus first broke out, and they were extremely effective.

And the results speak for themselves, Covid's arse was kicked into touch for an encore ...

By the end of August, the Da Nang lockdown and aggressive testing and tracing elsewhere in the country had slowed the outbreak to a crawl, and Vietnam has now gone over three weeks without any detected community transmission, ending this wave.

Domestic travel to and from the outbreak epicenter has resumed, and businesses in other major cities have returned to normal operations. Vietnam went from 417 total cases before July 24 to 1,069 at the time of writing, according to health ministry figures, indicating the size of the Da Nang outbreak, though a number of those are imported and quarantined infections.

Only 40 cases remain active nationwide, and an air of confidence has returned to the streets. After successfully containing its first outbreak in March and April, Vietnam can now take pride in defeating the coronavirus twice.

Clikey O'Leilly!  With leadership skills and people discipline like that, who'd ever want to have a go on the field of honour with them, eh?

Oh, err, yes, well um ...

SoD

 

 

Tic, tac, toe

First there was Dishy-Rishi with his "Thatcherite" pronouncements ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/24/sunaks-thatcherite-confession-compelling-audition-head-boy/

Yet buried within the reassurances of wage support and loan extensions were several topics painfully absent from recent political discussions – trade-offs, balancing risks, quality of life and the limits of Government.

“I cannot save every business”, he emoted, “I cannot save every job. No Chancellor could.” It may be the poverty of low expectations, but in these universally statist times, this bland confession sounded positively Thatcherite.

When was the last time you heard a pol  referred to by a hack as "positively Thatcherite"?

Secondly there's Laurence Fox and his new right wing political party "Reclaim" ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/26/laurence-fox-launching-new-political-party-fight-culture-wars/amp/

The actor Laurence Fox is launching a political party to fight the culture wars after raising over £1 million, including substantial sums from former Tory donors, the Telegraph can disclose.

Fox hopes to stand dozens of candidates for his new party at the next general election to provide a political movement for people who are "tired of being told that we represent the very thing we have, in history, stood together against".

And thirdly, last but not least, there's GB News, a right leaning news channel coming soon ...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/470cf7f4-59e6-47c1-9efa-ce634b7980d7

Andrew Neil to lead new right-leaning UK TV news channel

Veteran broadcaster will launch GB News next year with backing of Discovery

Three right wing fight backs in a row.

Is reaction to the Left Axis taking shape?

And will it come to prove me wrong in saying we should have stayed in Maggie's single market, four freedoms and state aid rules, the missing parts of Blighty's constitution that fettered the otherwise criminally negligent and incompetent re-elected authoritarianism that is Blighty's democracy without them - as evidenced in 1945-75 and since 2016?

Will regular doses of this kind of broadcasting feistiness ...

... rally the Right into a cohesive challenge against the Left Axis?

Or is it just too little too late?  Will the trident assault fizzle out, leaving Blighty to fade into blue, yellow and red socialist oblivion?

Dunno.  But it sure feels like last orders in the last chance saloon.

SoD

I loathe the National Trust

Apologies for my absence this week but the simple fact of the matter is that I had nothing to say - who cheered? - however, today I do have some bile to extrude so take cover.  I have detested the National Trust for decades, even back in those halcyon days when the 'Memsahib' and sundry friends would suggest trips to various glorious properties steeped in history.  In my usual 'old grump' mode I would reluctantly tag along but I hated every minute of it.  In my opinion, those magnificent homes should have remained as the private property of their original owners, not ripped off them by a greedy, socialist State in lieu of outrageous taxes.  Most of them would have been opened to public view by their owners who would have been happy to have the money to keep their properties in good shape.  Needless to say, the State take-over of many of these fine buildings means they have degenerated into empty, dusty museums without soul or spirit.

God rot the National Trust!