DUFF & NONSENSE!

"After the Dance" by Terence Rattigan

What a wealth of meaning in that deceptively simple title.  Typically Rattigan, I would suggest.  At face value it sounds like so many plays of those inter-war years, a gay (in the old-fashioned sense of the word despite the fact that Rattigan was 'gay' in the contemporary sense), light-hearted romance, one might suppose, all pretty frocks, clipped British accents and everyone's emotions strictly laced up.  And indeed, that's how it begins, but slowly, with exquisite, one might almost say surgical, skill, Rattigan strips away his characters' masks and exposes their reality to our unmerciful gaze.

Set in the late '30s just prior to the outbreak of war the play features a collection of what had been, a decade before, 'the bright young things of society'.  Is there anything more pitiful than the sight and sound of the middle-aged clinging desperately to their youth?  David Scott-Fowler (Anton Rogers) is a historian whose early promise has drained away with every one of the considerable number of tumblers of scotch he drinks on a daily basis.  Self-absorbed, he has never committed himself to love in the fullest sense which demands giving as well as taking.  His wife Joan (Gemma Jones) loves him with all her being but accedes to the fashion of the times, and what she supposes is the expectation of her husband, by hiding her feelings behind a mask of make-up and brittle gaiety.  Like the self-absorbed juveniles they once were, they continue to prattle about nothing and party for anything.

Into this 'accident waiting to happen' situation bursts Helen, the sort of pseudo-smart, know-it-all, young woman who is supposed to be the girlfriend of David's young cousin to whom he is a sort of guardian employed as his secretary to help in his historical writing.  The young girl falls for the older man, which can be bad enough, but even worse, the older man falls for her, too.  Joan, the wife, remains watchful but passive behind her shield of  ultra-sophistication but in the end David tells her that he's leaving her and going to set up home with young Helen.  The mask is shattered and a deeply painful scene unsues when she breaks down and tells David's best friend what has occurred.  Later, during one of those interminable, 'jolly' parties which has been the very stuff of their existence for the last 15 years, she quietly steps out onto the balcony of their Mayfair appartment and throws herself off.  This act of frightful über-reality, much like the invasion of Poland which is about to happen, smashes into their false, self-regarding world, and everything is changed forever.  At last, the mirror into which they have all gazed, transfixed, for so long is shattered.

This play opened just a few months before the outbreak of war which brought it to an abrupt end after only 60 performances.  Consequently it was more or less forgotten.  It is, in my opinion, a very great play indeed and I am so delighted that after decades of modernist or post-modernist tripe, the British theatre has rediscovered Rattigan, a man who was not so cruelly comic as Coward, or as bitter and twisted as Maugham, but instead a very human man of his times whose gaze was unflinching when it came to examining human nature.

This play was performed last week on BBC4 and for some reason it is not available for replaying via BBC i-pod - whatever the hell that is when it's at home!  However, with a bit of luck they may repeat it on the terrestial channels and I would urge you all to watch it if they do.  It is not only a terrific play but displays acting of the very highest standard.  It is invidious to pick people out, but Anton Rogers's world-weary detachment was exactly right, and Gemma Jones as the wife was simply superb.  I could have brained Imogen Stubbs as Helen, the young girl who marches with total self-confidence verging on arrogance straight into the emotional minefield, and that is a sign of just how excellent her performace was.

Hurrah for Rattigan, the true chronicler of his age, but a playwright for all time.

 

I am now the South Somerset correspondent for Al-Arabiya News Network!

Er, well, it's all a bit unofficial at the moment, I mean, they don't actually know that I am their South Somerset correspondent yet, call it an internship, shall we? but once they see the quality of the flattering plugs insightful reports I give them on the trouble spots of South Somerset ("Road Work Closures in Charlton Horethorne!!!", "Escaped Cows Cause Chaos in Castle Carey!!!") it can only be a matter of time before I'm taken on and then some of that Arab oil money will come my way instead of me sending it their way every time I fill my car!  Now where was I . . . ?

Oh, yes, Al-Arabiya News.  I mentioned it yesterday because I had stumbled upon a funny but shrewd article by their European correspondent, Martin Jay.  I book-marked the news site and I have given it a cursory glance detailed examination and I like the look of it!  To be serious, it does provide an excellent review of news stories, chosen mostly but not entirely from an Arab viewpoint.  Of course, 'Arabia', like everywhere else in the world does not have a single view but this news site does provide a wide and comprehensive perspective in the stories it covers.  I place inverted commas around 'Arabia' to indicate what Al-Arabiya makes clear, that 'Arabia' stretches from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean with all the differing activities and opinions that entails.  In this day and age it is useful to have detailed stories, analysis and commentary covering this hugely important and complex area.

They also have a blog page and you can read the latest from the mischievous Martin Jay here.  I urge you to book mark this news site, it makes a change from the usual 'view from London/Washington (delete to taste)' you see in most of the MSM.

 

Is America "mad, bad and dangerous to know*"?

I ask because Andrew Alexander, a crusty Tory of the old school and a resident commentator at The Daily Mail, thinks so and he has written a book**, America And The Imperialism Of Ignorance: U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1945, in order to lay out his arguments.  I haven't read it yet but I am familiar with the general thrust of Alexander's views which appear frequently in his columns.  However, the gist can be examined in a review by Tony Rennell in The Mail.  Alexander follows in the footsteps of his beloved guru, Enoch Powell, a man sometimes described as the greatest politician never to be prime minister and whose anti-Americanism was aroused by his experiences working with Americans during WWII.  Powell recognised very quickly that one of the (mostly unspoken) war aims of the USA was the dismemberment of the British empire and its replacement by an American 'empire'.  Powell, an ardent British imperialist, took great exception to this and fumed that so few people in Britain, fogged as they were by 'hands-across-the-ocean' propaganda, failed to see what Roosevelt was up to.  However, what's done is done and both he and Alexander (and other Right-wingers of their anti-American bent) aim their most devastating criticism at what they see as the gross failures of American policy during the so-called 'cold war'.  In his review, Rennell paraphrases Alexander's conclusions thus:

The Cold War would not have happened — should not have happened — if it had not been for America’s profound ignorance of the rest of the world and what made it tick.  Between 1945 and 1991, Washington’s gigantic power coupled with  immense naivety made the world a much more dangerous place than it need have been.

What’s more, it’s still doing so. In  the Cold War’s successor, today’s so-called ‘war on terror’, only the enemy has changed. America’s skewed approach to international affairs remains the same.

History repeats itself. Just as the U.S. concocted the fantasy threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in 2003, so at the end of World War II it conjured up and exaggerated the menace of a rampant Soviet Union set on world domination.

For this monumental misinterpretation or just plain ignorance (according to Alexander) and all that flowed from it, Alexander blames Harry Truman:

It was the small-town politician Harry Truman, catapulted from vice-president to President on the death of the revered Franklin D. Roosevelt, who found himself facing — as he was assured by his excitable intelligence service — a communist red tide that would sweep over Europe and Asia unless he stopped it.

Afraid of being thought of as weak — a perennial paranoia of U.S. Presidents as they look over their shoulders at the rednecks in their electorate — he acted tough, hence his roughing up of Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister in 1945.

‘I am tired of babying the Soviets,’ he wrote. The only way to rein-in Russia was ‘with an iron fist and strong language’.

In 1945, the USSR was obviously a powerful force in the world but, according to Alexander, it was a battered and exhausted giant which, having secured its western frontiers by seizing control of eastern Europe, now only sought an accommodation with the great western powers, that is, the USA.

Yes, it was now a superpower to be taken seriously, and would be formidable if not downright obstructive in negotiations. And, yes, it wanted to secure its borders with a firm grip on the countries around it. But global conquest was not on Stalin’s agenda. 

Government papers from the Kremlin archive show that, at that crucial point in 1945, the Soviets were intent on finding a working relationship with the West, not fighting it.

If the Americans had been smarter, if they had grasped the intricacies of Moscow’s mindset, if they had ignored communist rhetoric and concentrated on realities, if they had stopped to think instead of rushing in like blind bulls in a china shop … 

Instead, the real possibility of a stable post-war settlement that would reduce tension in the world was blown out of the water by  Truman’s wholly unwarranted and ill-informed belligerence.  Moscow countered intransigence with intransigence. The descent began from mutual suspicion to outright rivalry and the brinksmanship of the Cold War.

Behind his Iron Curtain, Stalin — cut off from the world community and with no one to answer to — purged the last vestiges of democracy from those East European nations whose fate Truman had been so concerned about.

Not for the last time, American  foreign policy achieved the precise opposite.

This charge of culpable stupidity through ignorance against the world's leading democracy is not confined to Russo-American relations.  According to Alexander it pervades the whole of American foreign policy up to today!

At the heart of the problem was — and is — America’s deep-seated ignorance about the cultures of the countries it wants to change. The average American takes little real interest in the outside world.

On the eve of invading Iraq, for example, George W. Bush had to be briefed that its people were deeply divided. The words ‘Shia’ and ‘Sunni’ were new to him.

And yet, though Americans don’t really understand the outside world, they think it’s Washington’s role to run it and police it. Imbued with an overweening sense of destiny, Americans believe they must impose their own type of government and economy on everyone else.

Well, you might think, it's "all blood under the bridge" but I would remind you that the "rivers of blood", an infamous quote in a different context from Enoch Powell, himself, are still flowing - they never stop - and a rapidly weakening America is facing a real challenge to its world domination by a belligerent China, the new kid on the block, so to speak!  Handling this monster as it, too, blunders about trying out its strength here and there, is going to take a very high order of intellectual excellence to gauge prudent responses.  The question then is simple: is the American political establishment up to it?  Examining the current crop in Washington I'll take that as a 'no', shall I?

I should add that in my personal opinion, the views expressed by Alexander (and before him, Powell) have great merit and are mostly based on the facts, however, and here I confess my own unrepentent liking and admiration for America, I do not think they tell the whole story.  To give but one example, if the USA has indeed blindly blundered about the world since 1945, would we have been better off if, at war's end, they had returned to their pre-war isolation during which they ran down their armed services to the size of a small European state?  If in 1945 western Europe had been left to its own devices would we have been content to take Enoch Powell's words on faith that 'good ol' Uncle Joe' had absolutely no intention of shifting Soviet power even further westwards?  And, hey, who would have cared if they took over West Berlin anyway?  And if American aid to Europe had not been forthcoming would we have worried if communist penetration of France and Italy had succeeded - which it came close to doing anyway?  Well, I don't know about you but I would have been scared witless!  Rather a clumsy, clod-hopping America blundering around with its usual mixture of friendly generosity and sharply self-interested cupidity than the iron fist of massed Soviet tank divisions across the Channel in Calais!

I must buy Alexander's book because he is a shrewd observer but I will need to examine its entrails very, very carefully!

* Said of Lord Byron by Lady Caroline Lamb, and she would have known!

**Andrew Alexander’s America And The Imperialism Of Ignorance: U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1945 is published by Biteback at £20. To order a copy at £17 (p&p free), call 0843 382 0000.

An absolutely essential, not-to-be missed read - and that's an order!

Poor Richard North of EUReferendum, I desperately want to cover him in kisses!  A fate worse than death, I know, but this morning he pointed me in the direction of a piece by Martin Jay, a veteran foreign reporter hitherto unknown to me, which had me nearly falling off my chair with laughter - until I realised the seriousness underlying his humour at which point I burst into tears.  If, like me, you detest the EU, or even if you just have a teensy-weensy few doubts about it, then read Jay's essay and have your worst fears confirmed.

Does the vote veto violence?

Sorry to bore on - and on - but, as my astute readers will already have surmised, these posts on Breivik's massacre are really a means by which I am trying to sort out my own confused thoughts on the subject.  My e-pal Dom, in the comment which I republished in full in the post below, reminds me that I, like Breivik, live in a country which has, to all intents and purposes, banned guns, provided a democratic vote and allows emigration and, he asserts, that should nullify the use of force against the state.  It is a strong argument and emphasises the point I frequently make that in a democracy you get the government you deserve - 'you' being a generalised category meaning 'The People'.

However, I am tempted, and I surrender to the temptation, to remind myself that 'The People' voted in Adolph Hitler.  His was no coup de main, there was a proper election and he won.  So would a knowledgeable, thoughtful and therefore fearful German have been right to use violence to shake the Nazi party foundations?  Or, let me be more direct, if you had been a German in those days would you have been right to shoot the newly elected Adolph Hitler - long before we knew what we know now about him?

That sounds like a tricky, or perhaps, a 'trick', question but there is a logical and honourable answer to it.  Yes, it would have been wrong to shoot Hitler when he was first elected but after a very short time his Nazi party had, in effect, subverted the democratic organs of the state and his thugs were inflicting violence on his people.  At that point, all bets are off!  The minute the state starts killing you - that is, you, 'The People', then the people are entitled to take up arms.  (After all, people have taken up arms and used extreme violence against the state before, and have done so on almost trivial grounds, like those middle-class businessmen in Massachusetts who took exception to the legal tax laws of their day!  How many were slaughtered for that 'great cause'?)

Anyway, to return to Breivik, it seems to me that none of the necessary conditions were in force to excuse his use of extreme violence.  Personally, whilst sympathising with his predicament, I would try him, and then hang him - pour encourager les autres!  As for my own 'direct action' against this government of poltroons and pox doctors' clerks, I think for the time being I will confine it to shouting,  "Show us your willy!" every time I see one of them.

 

Am I "crass and thoughtless"?

I ask the question because I stand so accused by my e-pal, Dom, in a spirited comment to my post on the Norwegian massacre.  It is worth reprinting his comment here:

When the unabomber published his manifesto, I was appalled but not surprised to find that some on the left read it approvingly. When Breivik published his manifesto, I thought, certainly no conservative will be so crass and thoughtless as to find something worthwhile (or non-insane) in this. Well, there goes that theory.

Why, in the world, would you write, "is it time for armed insurrection?" You live in a country that (a) has banned arms (why, I don't know, but it's your country), (b) has a vote, and (c) allows emigration. The last one is difficult for anyone who loves his country, but put emimgration in one hand, and insurrection in the other -- which is better?

Now Dom is a frequent and intelligent commenter here at D&N and his criticism deserves a full response.

If a man commits an atrocity because, he tells people afterwards, the moon was in the right (or wrong) quarter then it can be inferred that he is 'insane' in the sense that his explanation for mass murder lacks any basis in reason.  It is, so to speak, completely and utterly 'unreasonable' in the literal meaning of that word.  However, men have committed massacres of more or less 'innocent' people throughout the ages, in fact, since history was first recorded.  The particular reaons are several but all of them come under the general heading of 'political'.  Take a recent example - the slaughter of the Jews by the Germans under Hitler.  A truly monstrous act but not one that stands alone.  On the contrary, what Hitler did on the grand scale, other East Europeans, like the Russians, had committed many times before on a smaller scale - but only because they lacked the industrial capabilities of 20th century Germany.  I should add that in medieval times England indulged in the occasional pogrom, too.

So were they all 'insane'?  I think not because they all had reasons for doing what they did.  The reasons might have been mistaken and the acts were certainly immoral but there was a reasoned basis for their actions.  I have forgotten which particular one of my Napoleonic history books describes the advance into Russia and the way in which the Russian population fled but the Jewish money-lenders stayed and , for a price, were prepared to be helpful.  If you were born and bred in Eastern Europe the local Jewish money-lender was your bank manager and no-one loves their bank manager!  If, as most money-lenders do, your 'bank manager' held you in your desperation during a failed harvest to a usurious rate of interest and then turned you off your land to starve if you failed to pay, then a lack of love becomes hatred.  These conditions prevailed for centuries and thus was born a deep and abiding detetestation of Jews.  So one is forced to ask the question, were the regular pogroms carried out by madmen or by maddened men - a subtle difference.  In Germany in the 1930s the localised nature of Jewish moneylending was more or less over - but, as the old song has it, "The memory lingers on".  The massacre of the Jews was, of course, worse than immoral from a political point of view because it was also stupid beyond belief.  The Jews of Germany were the brains of Germany and lack of brainpower is all too apparent when one studies Nazi history and its downfall.  However, from the point of view of the politicians at the top of Nazi Germany, and the prejudices of so many of the general population below handed own through the generations, there was a reasoned case to be made for killing all the Jews!  They were wrong, they were immoral, they were dimwitted, but they were not insane.  And, if you were antogonistic towards the Germany of those days it would have been a folly to shrug their actions off to mere insanity.  Such policies, as and when they arise need to be faced up to and argued, or even fought, against and this is best done on the basis of a full understanding of your enemy's thinking.

So now I return to Anders Breivik and his single-handed atrocity.  I have not read his manifesto in full - my dear, simply too, too, tedious!  However, from the various extracts I have read it is quite clear to me that whatever you think of his actions, he was not insane.  His atrocity was not committed because the moon was in the wrong quarter but because he had studied his country's condition and come to the conclusion, based on the facts that he had accrued, that it was in a dire state of peril.  Now you can argue against that opinion - and there-in lies the proof that he was not insane because it is impossible to debate an argument with a loony.  I know virtually nothing of Norway so I can only take his template and apply it to the UK.  I do not think we are in peril of a Muslim takeover - yet!  In fact, I believe (hope?) that there are several factors operating against Islam in this country which will eventually bring about its downfall.  They are, amongst others, science, technology, culture and pornography.  They will work like acid on the religion of Islam in exactly the same way that they have eroded Christian belief.  The Muslim fanatics, in their hearts, recognise this and fear has turned to fury and provoked them into fighting.  They will not win - although the battle might be bloody - because the science, technology, culture and pornography are all-pervasive.  What they do cannot be undone!  Every Muslim girl who forsakes her veil for the 'freedom' of her western school friends is one more victory for secularism over religion.

However, Breivik came to the opposite but reasoned conclusion and with the facts and figures to support him decided to take violent action in defence of his homeland.  You may apply any epithets you like to him and his actions but I repeat, he was not insane.  I would also add a shrewd insight offered by Richard North today.  He notes the political fury, as opposed to any personal fury from relatives of the dead and injured, which has been engendered:

Another point of interest is how far the Norwegians and the other political establishments go down the line of branding Breivik "mad". For some - particularly the Right (as it is known) - this would be a convenient diagnosis. Then, everything he has done and represents can be dismissed as the frothing of a madman.  The issues raised can be ignored and the discussion shut down. [My emphasis]

He then adds yet another reason why the politicians are so eager to stamp on Breivik:

What offends, therefore, it not the deed itself, but the fact that it was not state sanctioned. The killing of men, women and children is perfectly acceptable, as long as it is ordered by grave men in suits, sitting at tables in the offices of government, and carried out by men in pretty uniforms with lots of badges.

It is even deemed admirable if done at a distance with high-tech toys. The deeds are applauded and the bodies quietly buried. The men (and indeed women) involved even get shiny new medals for their labours, promotions, more badges and pensions.

Thus, Breivik's great "crime" was to breach the state monopoly on killing. You have to get elected before you are allowed to order killing on this scale. And then, only state employees may carry out the orders even to the extent of indulging in mass, indiscriminate killing. But if an individual conducts targeted slaughter, on the basis of his own careful analysis, he must be mad. It is the only acceptable diagnosis.

Exactly so, and in precisely the same manner in which, as several recent cases illustrate, the establishment always comes down heavily on a property-owner who kills a burglar in defence of his own home.  It's OK for the state to take action but heaven help the individual - or you and me, as I like to think of him - who does!

My final comment in response to Dom is this, whenever you see and hear the entire political class all united and singing the same song - lock up your daughters and bury the spoons!

 

A 'must read'!

I always try to bring you succinct little tasters from the various items I read around the net but sometimes I come across an essay which, whilst it is possible to paraphrase it, it is simply too excellent for me to spoil it by picking and choosing from it.  So, on this occasion, just take my advice and pop over to The American Spectator and read this piece by Roger Scruton.  It is on the subject of aphorisms, their power and their misuse.  Needless to say, I would volunteer an arm, and possibly even a leg, to be able to write so clearly, so elegantly and so thoughtfully as Scruton does.

How did I miss this?

And even more to the point, how did our media miss it, too?  In the lead-up to the general election the ersatz-Tory leadership of David Cameron had earmarked Dominic Grieve as the new Home Secretary, he having already served as shadow Home Sec.  However, according to Alex Massie in The Coffee House, Rebekah Wade/Brooks of The Sun let it be known via Andy Coulsen, formerly of the 'News of the Screws' but then sitting as personal advisor to 'King-maker' Cameron, that in her and the paper's opinion Grieve was 'so wet you could shoot snipe off him' (to quote an old phrase from 'that woman') and that if he was chosen as Home Secretary The Sun would withdraw support in the run-up to the election.

So what did that splendid, Old Etonian leader of men do when faced with this direct interference with his authority?  Gave in, surrendered, waved a whole white bed sheet in the belief that a mere white flag was insufficient, that's what he did!  Grieve was shunted out and Chris Grayling was in.  Alas, subsequently Grayling dropped a bollock on something or other and was removed from the new cabinet entirely.

Gadhaffi's diplomats in London were exceedingly shrewd in their judgment of British weakness over the Lockerbie bomber and they certainly will have picked up this indicative piece of feeble behaviour by Cameron and drawn the obvious conclusion - the man is spineless.  No doubt their assessments will have been of comfort to the Colonel in Tripoli as he dodges the bombs with effortless ease and salutes Cameron with two fingers by being filmed in the company of the miraculously - praise be to Allah -  recovered al-Megrahi.

It is now clear beyond doubt that Cameron is gutless as well as stupid.

 

And another thing, 'Dave', about my Happiness Index . . .

On this, the first day of a twelve month countdown to the £9bn (and counting) Olympics could you and your minions please - STFU!  Every time I am reminded of that £9bn my Happiness Index sinks faster than the Titanic.  In fact, if you really want to know, it reaches the 'I Hate Those Sodding Politicians Trying To Bribe Me With Bread And Circuses With My Own Money And I'll Never Vote For Any Of Them Ever Again' level.  In fact, the next step in my spiralling un-Happiness Index is a resort to direct action.  I will personally lead tens of thousands of people up to Stonehenge where I will organise a mass rain dance which will result next year in the wettest August since records began.  We will be praying in aid of huge winds which, if there is a God, will blow out that wretched Olympic torch.  I will be making a personal appeal to my very dear friend Bob Crow (sorry, what did you say?) of the RMT Union and I feel sure that he will look kindly on my suggestion that he brings London transport to a complete halt, and in return I will never be rude about him earning gazzillions whilst living in a council house and ignoring the queue of poor people on the waiting list - it's the least he deserves!  I had planned to infiltrate my man into the drug testing organisation to spike all the test samples but I have it on very good authority that such a task is unnecessary these days, there being so many weird substances floating around those samples that the operators have to wear bio-nuclear suits!  My other good mate, 'Arfur' Daly, is poised to flood the country with phoney tickets which, with a bit of luck, will cause riots at the turnstiles.

Still, 'Dave', on the up-side, and I know you care deeply, I can tell you that if all that comes off according to plan, my Happiness Index will go through the roof.  In the meantime, remember this from another 'Grumpy Old Man':

I will do such things,

What they are yet I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth.      

                                                                         

A sideways glance at the Norwegian massacre

I have delayed writing anything on this subject until matters became a little clearer.  It is now obvious that Anders Breivik was not a loony in the sense of walking around with his arm in the front of his jacket and insisting that everyone call him l'empereur!  Quite the contrary, he appears to be an intelligent, well-read and studious man who has gone to considerable trouble to analyse current affairs in his country and his continent and came to some reasoned conclusions. 

I am obliged to Mr. Ken Ferguson at Anna Raccoon's site for this:

One of conservatism’s most important insights is that all ideologies are wrong. Ideology takes an intellectual system, a product of one or more philosophers, and says, “This system must be true.” Inevitably, reality ends up contradicting the system, usually on a growing number of points. But the ideology, by its nature, cannot adjust to reality; to do so would be to abandon the system. Therefore, reality must be suppressed.

If the ideology has power, it uses its power to undertake this suppression. It forbids writing or speaking certain facts. Its goal is to prevent not only expression of thoughts that contradict what “must be true,” but thinking such thoughts.

But what happens today to Europeans who suggest that there are differences among ethnic groups, or that the traditional social roles of men and women reflect their different natures, or that homosexuality is morally wrong? If they are public figures, they must grovel in the dirt in endless, canting apologies.

Actually, those were not Mr. Ferguson's words but those of Mr. Breivik and who, outside of the  Brussels autocracy, can disagree with them?  I repeat, whatever else he is, this man is not mad.

Hang on, I hear you cry, this man slaughtered some 70+ Norwegian civilians, his own country men and women.  Quite true, but I would refer you to another Norwegian 'patriot',  Knut Haukelid, who with deadly 'malice' aforethought placed a bomb in a ferry and blew it up killing a considerable number of his fellow Norwegians.   He, like Breivik, had analysed his country's position and come to the conclusion that it was overrun by malevolent foreigners aided and abetted by a 'quisling' government.  Quite right, of course, because the government of his day was indeed run by Vidkin Quisling, a Nazi sympathiser, and Haukelid was fighting in the Resistance.  For this, and other,  acts involving the deliberate killing of his fellow citizens he was showered with medals!

Another factor which has hitherto inhibited any commentary from me is my almost complete ignorance of contemporary Norwegian society.  Again, I am obliged to Mr. Ferguson and will quote him again in the hope that he does know where-0f he speaks:

Norway and Sweden are often held up as models of social democracy. They are countries with highly efficient commercial and industrial systems featuring a well cared for and highly educated work force. In terms of politics, the Social Democratic Workers Party in Sweden and the Labour Party in Norway have been dominant for almost 100 years. But although both countries have constitutional monarchies and left of centre governments, the real authority is invested in a ruling cabal of financiers and industrialists who make the decisions behind the scenes. It is a close knit ruling elite, the members of which tend to build their summer houses round the same lakes.  [My emphasis.]

So whilst there are elements of the Nordic societies that look, from the outside, like a form of socialism, it is actually more like corporate paternalism. This produces a very controlled environment and, whilst there is a general culture of deference to authority within all organisational structures, liberal and egalitarian values are dominant.  [My emphasis.]

Hmmmn!  I know the feeling!

I must add that although I know Scandinavia has a considerable Muslim immigrant population I have never understood why.  They have no history of empire and thus no 'obligation' to former members of it.  However, it must be stated clearly that Norway is not a dictatorship and that the people have had many chances to change the political scenery and consequently, as I frequently remind my British readers, they have the government they deserve!  But dictatorship comes in new forms these days.  As the Germans have discovered the hard way over the last century, there is more than one way to skin a cat!  Bullets and bayonets have their part but their staying power is limited.  Much better to bribe a population into slothful acceptance and, of course, once they have become accustomed to the bribes and the soft living which comes with them, they are hooked.  Thus, today is born the soft Left ascendency, or Blair's 'Third Way', as it used to be called and which continues in contemporary Britain under the 'benign' dictatorship of the "heir to Blair", aided by its principle agitprop organisation, the BBC, and the massed chorus of 'the Great and the Good'.  It is worth noting that Breivik did not attack Muslims.  Instead, he went for the leadership of the ruling socialist party which has more or less run Norway for the last 100 years, and their children.  This was shrewd of him because it indicates that (as seen from his point of view) he knew who constituted his true enemy.  The retards of the BNP here always seek confrontation with the Muslims thus demonstrating their idiocy by attacking the puppet instead of the puppet-master.

So the question arises: is it time for armed insurrection over here?  I simply do not know.  According to Pew Research, as of last year Muslims represented 4.6% of the population.  Via Wiki, Richard Kerbaj of The Sunday Times reckons that Muslims are breeding 10 times faster than all other groups. Also, it is imperative to realise that each and every time the government, any government, assures us that they are cutting down on immigration - they are lying!  Thus, a second question arises: what percentage figure would it take to convince a majority of people in the UK that they were about to be taken over?  Again, I do not know.  Obviously in Norway, one man at least came to the conclusion that a take-over was dangerously close.

Finally, let me leave you with a single and critical question.  If, at some time in the future, you reach the same conclusion that Mr. Breivik arrived at - what will you do?

 

My personal un-happiness index

This is directed at the Inspector-General of the Happiness Bureau, or whatever he, she or it, calls themselves.  Just to save you time I thought you would like to know that the one thing guaranteed to make me unhappy, no, not unhappy, more like eye-bulging, mouth-foaming, spittle-flecked lips furious is the thought that David Cameron, a man who is always and forever immensely pleased with himself, is spending my money sending you and your collection of half-wits around asking utterly daft questions to establish what makes us happy.  Please do not send your interrogators round to me, they could find their questionnaires deposited firmly where the sun don't shine! 

Freudian (k)ids and egos

There can be no paraphrasing by me of Matthew Norman's piece in The Telegraph on the subject of his old school chum, well, sort of chum, Matthew Freud.

Man in the middle: Matthew Freud with his wife Elisabeth, daughter of Rupert Murdoch              Photo: RICHARD YOUNG / Rex Features

 

It is vintage Norman stuff and well worth a read.

The 'Torpor de France'

Is there any sport more utterly, completely, eye-stabbingly tedious than the Tour de France?  Swimming comes close because, although it is a race, you can't really see the racers only their flailing arms.  Darts is utterly yawn-inducing, but then, I don't really think of it as a sport.  American football appears to be 95% stop and only 5% start - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!  Basketball is rather like one of those post-modernist plays during which you could enter or leave and then re-enter at any point in the production and find exactly the same thing going on.  Also, any sport that can have mutual 'goal' scores in the hundreds is obviously both too easy and too boring. 

But returning, reluctantly, to the Tour de France I have to ask if there is anyone who understands it?  All those different coloured jerseys they dish out for totally obscure reasons, does anyone know why and does anyone care?  Well, my e-pal e-aquaintance, Bryan (a hopeless old Leftie and I don't think he likes me very much, can't think why) over at Why Now, provides constant reports on the race but alas, I never quite finish reading them before my eyelids flutter shut.  Mind you, he is equally fascinated with sleigh races across Canada using huskies.  I mean, I would pay good money never, ever, to attend one of those!  Don't misunderstand, I do recognise and admire the physical and mental stamina those cyclists require but even so, one is entitled to ask, when they have finished huffing and puffing their way round France, what is the point?

Now, if you want a really exciting sport there's always beach volleyball which, in my list of favourite sports spectating, ranks next to ladies wrestling in mud.  And no, I don't understand the rules of either and who the hell cares anyway?!

 

Start the day well with a nice bit of Bacon!

I blame my e-pal, A. K. Haart, for getting me hooked on Bacon - er, that's Sir Francis of that ilk not the grilled rashers I regularly pop in between two slices of heavily buttered bread smothered in brown sauce, scrummy!  Oh God, rambling again, where the hell was I?  Oh, yes, Sir Francis Bacon, interesting chap, what they would call today a polymath, terrific brain, into everything.  Happily he had the knack of writing such tentative conclusions as he reached in clear, elegant English, albeit 15th/16th century English.  However, if you go to this link on Bartleby Books it takes you to the first of his essays.  As I am much ashamed of my failure over the years, despite the promises, to get to grips with Sir Francis I have decided to bookmark the site and read one of his essays per day - I should add that they are usually fairly short and to the point.  Also Bartlby provide useful footnotes to explain sources and translate archaic words into modern meanings.  The thing that already attracts me to him, although I have only read three of his essays so far, is that I sense immediately that he was a wise man.  I like that word 'wise' it has exactly the right connotations.  It indicates a man who is intelligent and open-minded but who recognises that he, too, is human and thus subject to frailties of mind, body and spirit. 

Go on, give him a try - 'a Bacon a day makes you work hard and play'!

 

Dead clever, those Jews, the way their enemies end up dead!

I just spotted this headline on Breitbart News:

Gunmen kill Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran

 

Hang on, I thought, surely that's the second, or is it the third, assassination of Iranian nuclear physicists in recent times?  This was a real James Bond operation with two men on a motorbike coming up alongside the target's car which also contained his wife and daughter and firing into the vehicle.  He was killed and his wife wounded.  No word on the daughter but I don't suppose the Israeli's care very much about her.  According to Breitbart last November there were two back-to-back bomb attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists killing one and wounding the other.  Two other killings have taken place in recent years.

 

I should make clear that I do not possess a scintilla of evidence, as m' learned friends put it, that it was the Israeli secret service which carried out the operations but I would bet the deeds of the house on it!  It seems to me that this is a very intelligent way of whittling down Iran's nuclear capabilities without the wholesale destruction and collateral damage of air raids.

 

Shrewd thinking, expert execution, well done Israel, keep up the good work!

That Peter Oborne has been peeking at my blog!

Here's the killer quote from yesterday's Telegraph:

Yesterday’s witching hour [the latest financial deal to save the euro] of the European Union means that Germany has come very close to realising Bismarck’s dream of an economic empire stretching from central Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Here's mine from a month ago:

During the late 20th c. Germany has pursued policy aims first set down at the beginning of the 20th c. and then repeated in the middle of the 20th c., that is, the formation of a mitteleurop under German control.  These aims were originally enforced by bayonets but having failed, twice, they have now seen the way to success by means of money-lending.  Thus, one by one the nations of Europe fall into the hands of their bankers, the Germans.  But, as the old saying goes, if you owe your bank £1 they have you by the short and curlies, but if you owe them, say, £100 billion, then you enter a scorpion and frog scenario.

So how come Oborne gets circa £350k a year and all I get is the devoted adoration of my six readers - er, you do adore me, don't you?  Yes, of course you do!

Oborne's piece is worth reading in full.

 

On golf: don't worry I'm not going to bore you rigid with how I missed the putt on the 13th!

Anyway, I couldn't bore you about my golf game even if I wanted to because my 'golf career', for want of a better expression, lasted, from beginning to ignominious end, exactly seven holes!  Even so, today I will, so to speak, 'carry the bag' for Bernie Reeves who in an essay in The American Thinker offers a fascinating side-glance at one particular aspect of the game.  I don't know about you but I rather like that big, bluff Ulsterman, Darren Clark, who won The Open last week.  (Note to to the uninitiated: it is not called the 'British' Open because we invented the game and were the first to have an open championship and so, unlike the late-comers to the game, we do not have to designate it, so yah-boo-sucks to all you Yanks who think you invented everything!)  Where was I?  Oh yes, Darren Clark who celebrated his win in true Ulster-style by staying up all night drinking pints of Guinness with his mates and then appeared on morning media interviews sounding, shall we say, slightly bemused!

What I didn't know, but Mr. Reeves tells us in his excellent article , is that as a young man of 18, Clark was offered a scholorship to Wake Forest University in North Carolina and invited to be a member of their very prestigious golf team which received the very best in detailed coaching.  Clark left after a month!  Missed his mum and dad, think you?  Wrong!  He couldn't stand the draconian, verging on totalitarian, American drinking laws which bring down severe penalties on the heads of youngsters under the age of 21 who are caught drinking by police forces all over 'The Land of the Free' who see this, much as our equivalents 'over here' see the speeding laws, as an easy way to throw their weight around and fool everyone into thinking they're doing a good job.

The other factor that drove Clark back to Britain was the anti-smoking regime at Wake Forest University which, had he been caught taking a crafty drag (as he did throughout his winning rounds at The Open) he would have suffered immediate dismissal from the golf team.  Needless to say I wouldn't be 'Boring for Britain' on this abstruse subject if there wasn't a truly delicious, mouth-watering dollop of irony on offer.  You see, Wake Forest University only exists in its present splendour due to the generosity of the Reynolds family - yes, that's right, R. J. Reynolds, perhaps the biggest tobacco company in the world!  Now, if that isn't worth a triple Whaa-Whaa-Whaa of a whinny, then nothing is.

Hands up ladies!

Ooops!  I missed a comma from my title which should not be misinterpreted!  If it is then I blame the indefatigable Julia M who 'custard pies' (a new verb coined in the wake of recent events) Lefties and dimwits (there's a difference?) with such regularity that I wonder where she finds the energy - and the stamina - to read the total tosh they produce.  Anyway, her latest post concerns an advertising campaign on, er, "a range of women's hygiene products".  At this point, being an elderly English gent at a total loss on the subject of anything proximate to female plumbing, I shift somewhat uneasily in my chair.  Julia, of course, is not so constrained and in her usual stringent style tell the story of an advertising campaign in which ladies of different races use their hands "to represent female genitalia".  So far, so normal, for contemporary TV fodder which so often makes you choke on your TV dinner as you crouch over it in your armchair.  Anyway, in this modern age no-one (except elderly English etc, etc) bothers about the depiction of female genitalia but according to Julia the voice overs have raised a maelstrom on Leftie blogs.  You see, this being advertising and thus driven by a desire to hit as many potential customers as possible, the, er, 'genitalia' are black, brown and white and the voices that go with them are indicative of negro, latina and white women.  Cue a mounting screech of outrage from the Lefties on the grounds that the voices are - yes, you guessed it - raaaacist!

I'm thinking of starting an ad campaign using part of my anatomy to represent Leftie brains.  Unfortunately at my age it is somewhat difficult to bend round far enough to get a good photo of it.  Would anyone care to volunteer to take the picture, it wouldn't take long because I can only remain bent over for a few seconds these days!

In the meantime, thanks - yet again - to Julia for starting my day with a smile.

 

Haart brings home the Bacon!

That is possibly one of the worst jokes I have ever perpetrated on this blog - and the competition for such a dismal honour is intense.  However, to the point, my e-pal, A. K. Haart, has found a quote from Sir Francis Bacon on the subject of politicians.  I was tempted to swipe and paste the whole thing here but that would have been a "scurvy politician's" trick, so instead I urge you all to pop over and read it, it's quite short so it will not take up too much of your time.  It poses the paradox of being a politician and follows on from my ill-typed post below - sorry for the typos, I was pressed for time and couldn't be arsed to go back and correct it.

It also prods my armour-encased conscience in that I have been promising, and re-promising, myself for years to read more of and about Sir Francis Bacon, a contemporary of Shakespeare, an equal genius and a man who is often referred to as the father of modern science.  His ending is suffused with an irony that one likes to think he, himself, would have relished despite its unfortunate outcome: "He famously died of pneumonia contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat"!

OK, so I was wrong!

Some time ago I repeated with approval the opinion of Harold Bloom, the deservedly distinguished American critic and writer, who suggested that just two characters arose from the fertile imagination of WilliamShakespeare to stand head and shoulders above the rest.  They were Falstaff and Hamlet.  I agreed with him, not only because I am a forelock-tugging peasant by nature, but also because these two gigantic figures stand, in the final analysis, for the two great features of existence - life and death.

However, since I read his magisterial book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human I have had the temerity to form an opinion of my own.  I think Lear deserves a place on the rostrum and, in consideration of the hideous importance of politics and politicians in our lives, Henry V absolutely must be up there with the other three.  I am prodded to these thoughts because last night I woke up about 3 o'clock and could not get back to sleep.  I went downstairs and flicking idly through Sky Films I came across Kenneth Brannagh's Henry V.  I remember seeing him on stage at Stratford for the first time when he played Henry.  A very good performance, I thought at the time, but not quite brilliant in what might be called 'the Olivier mode'.  Similarly, his film is very good and in the battle scenes recalls the mud and blood of Flanders' fields.

But it is the character of Henry that fascinates me.  He is, I think, the only major character to appear in three of WS's plays.  We see him as a very young man in Henry IV Part I, then as a slightly maturer figure in Part II, and tfinally as the political-military king in Henry V.   In these three plays you will learn, as Henry himself does, everything you need to know and understand about political power and its application, in particular, the necessity for "The Prince" (a la Machiavelli) to differentiate between the personal and the political.  In his film, Branagh points this up more deliberately than WS does in the play with the execution of his former, simple-minded companion from his roistering youth, Bardolph, one of the Falstaff gang.  Against orders this rogue in true 'squaddie' fashion steals from a church.  Henry, desirous of quick and unhindered passage to Calais cannot afford to have the locals up in outraged arms and does not hesitate to confirm the execution.  It reminds us of the cruel, but crucial, rejection of his boon companion Falstaff immediately following his coronation:

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.

This is a painful exchange because, despite his villainy, we have come to love Falstaff but Shakespeare wants to teach us a lesson - charming but corrupt villains do not make good Chancellors!  And, if you read or listen carefully, this cold-blooded, deliberate act of policy is explicitly foretold in one of those apparently casual sentences with which WS ends his scenes and which the unwary migth easily miss.  Act II, scene iv of the first part is a typical piece of comic knockabout in which first Falstaff and the Prince Hal take turns to play the part of Hal's father, Henry IV.  The scene ends with Falstaff in mock humility pleading the reasons why he should not be banished and Hal end it with a cryptic and ambiguous comment, particularly the last two words:

No, my good lord; banish Peto,
banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack
Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,
valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant,
being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him
thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's
company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
PRINCE HENRY

I do, I will.

Perhaps Cameron could have learned something from Prince Hal in his dealings with Coulsen!

"Der Morgige Tag ist mein"

'SoD' (Son of Duff for the uninitiated) is 'a very naughty boy' and 've vill haf to punish him'!  This morning, having read the carefully orchestrated bulletins from Berlin/Brussels he sent me a YouTube clip which was not only spot on as current commentary but also one of those scenes from a film which once seen remains seared in the memory for ever.  I think, for example, of the scene from Lawrence of Arabia in which Omar Sharif rides towards the camera beginning as a tiny dot in the distance desert lanscape and then slowly, very slowly, takes shape through the heat waves.  Brilliant film-making and editing.  The scene 'SoD' sent me is equally riveting and is taken from one of my favourite top ten films ever made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMVql9RLP34&feature=youtu.be

Das neue fränkische Reich has applied increasingly larger and longer sticking plasters to the Greek, Irish and Portuguese wounds but now the sticky tape has reached such a size than it can be considered effectively as a permanent binding keeping the 'patients' prisoner.  This has been done without even a token question to 'The People', an entity that normally drops from the lips of politicians twice per sentence!  Well, I have previously remarked on the literally 'bloody' irony for the Irish who spilled blood and treasure for centuries fighting for independence from Britain only to rush headlong into the prison that is Europe today.

Well, we cannot waste our sympathy on suckers who allowed cupidity to equal stupidity in deciding their political actions, we must now concentrate our minds on how to take ruthless advantage of what is to come.  Sooner or later, this latest bandage will begin to unravel and at that point the final padlocks will be applied to the prison doors in the form of changes to the fundamental European 'constitution'.  That will be our chance, in fact, our last chance.  So the question arises, are we ready for it?  Have we thought it through, not just the aims but the methods?  Has Cameron an ideological template from which to plan the way ahead?  Have the second-raters in our 'Ministry for Foreigners' advised him on the path to take which will lead us to enjoying a friendly trade arrangement with Europe whilst avoiding all political entanglements? 

Oh, take that as a 'no', shall I?

What do Tony, Barack, Rahm and the fat, black clown all have in common?

They all enjoy a taste for humbuggery! 

"Hang on," you shout, "for a start, who's the fat, black clown?"  For goodness sake pay attention, I wrote about her back in June last year (surely you cannot have forgotten my golden words!) and provided a link to Guido which offers a YouTube of the FBC in question, Ms. Diane Abbot - who else?  As I described it at the time, Andrew Neil with almost sadistic pleasure eviscerates her to the delight and applause of, well, me, at any rate.  Amongst her many other handicaps, like terminal stupidity, greed and pomposity, Ms. Abbot is an A1 hypocrite of considerable magnitude because, like so many wealthy socialists, she refuses to practice what she preaches to the great unwashed.  As is well-known now, she sends her children to private schools which puts her in the less than distinguished company of Tony Blair and Barack Obama.  They have now been joined by yet another prize humbug, the little thug to be found deep in the arsehole of Chicago politics, Rahm Emanuel, former consigliori to Obama himself.  This prize specimen flew into a temper tantrum, walked out of a one-on-one interview and then returned almost immediately in a rage to stick his face inches away from the female reporter and wag his finger in her face.  What sort of lèse-majesté offence had this importunate woman had the effrontery to commit?  She asked him which school he intended to send his children to!  Do I need to tell you that it is one of the richest, smartest and most exclusive private schools in Chicago?  Thought not!

Who votes for these vermin?

 

Hanging and flogging is too good for this lot!

In the comments to my previous post, my sadistic son, pursuing vengeance for me having stopped his pocket money, circa 1979, for one of his many misdemeanors, forced into my view the stitch-up agreement between the 'Kaiserin' and the Hungarian dwarf which, they would have us believe, is going to 'save the euro'.  And there was me just beginning to cheer up after my bout of melancholy and in an instant all was gloom again.  But then, despondency turned to anger and I decided to go in search of some of the villains of yesteryear.  Courtesy of Google I instantly came across a frightfully learn-ed paper entitled "WHY BRITAIN SHOULD JOIN THE EURO" authored by some of the finest minds in Britain just 9 short years ago.  Allow me to outline the targets for you so that will have no difficulty in recognising them instantly and thus be able to pelt them accurately with rotten veg.

Richard Layard: Old Etonian, King's College Cambridge and the London School of Economics (the well-known recipient of Gadhaffi sponsorship).  He was on the Robbins Committee of years ago which expanded 'university' education to its current bloated and thus devalued state.  And by the way, don't call him Richard, he's Baron Layard to the likes of me and you!  According to Wiki, he has specialised in, er, "Happiness economics".  (I say, Rich, old lad, ooops, sorry, your lordship, they don't seem awfully happy in the Euro zone these days, don'cha think?)

Willem Buiter:  Another whopping big economics genius who served on Gordon Brown's collection of poodles the Bank of England Monetary Committee and then joined, yes, you guessed it, the London School of Economics (prop. Col. Gadhaffi).  This far-thinking genius wrote in April 2009 that Citigroup was "a conglomeration of worst practice from across the financial spectrum".  In November 2009 he joined them as Chief Economist!

The Lesbian Straightener, oops, sorry, Christopher Huhne:  Regular readers of this blog will know of 'Hunky' Huhne's exploits in which he managed - don't ask! - to straighten out a lesbian lady and introduce her to the joys of heterosexuality - what a man!  Alas, his brains appear to dangle below his waistline with his other assets.  Whilst serving as a Euro MP he served on "the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, concerned with economic and financial policy including regulation of the financial sector."  Sorry, Chris, baby, you're obviously a helluva lover boy but when it comes to "economic and financial policy including regulation of the financial sector" you suck, er, that's as in the American meaning of the word, of course!

Will Hutton:  What can one say about this economic genius that hasn't already been written on lavatory walls the length and breadth of Britain?  Perhaps it is sufficient to remind you, dear reader, that this man who bores writes constantly on the subject of business actually ran The Work Foundation which, alas, did not work because after eight years of his stewardship it went broke!

Peter Kenen: Another huge brainbox on the subject of economics in general and currencies in particular.  This elderly gent is a 'good ol' boy WASP' to his well-manicured fingertips - Princeton, Columbia, you name it, he's been there and has the car stickers all over his fender!  Back in 1969 "He was one of the first to advocate floating exchange rates for small countries" but in this recent paper he's telling us that we should join a fixed-rate currency system in company with a large number of small countries!

Adair Turner: Another baron - when did they give up just robbing us?  (Perhaps they never did - dread thought!)  He, of course, was chief honcho for the Confederation of British Business - God help them!  Some idea of his business acumen may be found in the fact that he was vice-chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe which went belly-up in the great 'tsunami' of 2008/9.  Need I bother to tell you that he lectures at the 'Ghadaffi School of Economics in London'?

So, there you have the distinguished authors of this crapola intellectually rigorous paper advocating that Britain should join the euro system. What does it say?  I dunno, I mean, there's only so much shit I can trawl through on behalf of you lot, so read it yourself.  The title and the authors were enough for me.  However, lest I stand accused of idleness and dereliction of duty I did skim-read the pompously named "Executive Summary".  I have just picked some of the sentences which the authors themselves high-lighted:

If we join, we shall over time achieve higher living standards. [You mean like the Irish, the Greeks and the Portuguese?  Er, thanks, but no thanks!]

Seperate currencies, fluctuating against each other, are a real barrier to trade and thus to efficient levels of production. [You would have to go a long day's march to come across economic and business illiteracy of that level!]

In this great process of restructuring we shall be increasingly on the sidelines.  For we are now in a new, more exposed position than before the euro was launched. [Pheeew, thank God for that!]

Well, you get the picture.  All those euro fanatics were both stupid and wrong and it only remains for us to dig up the body of Edward Heath and drive a stake through his heart!

 

A touch of the glums

Look, I knew intellectually, and have known for decades, that our politicians are not up to much.  However, reading about them in the prints and catching the occasional sound-bite on the 'telly' because you can't find the 'do-flicker-thingie' quick enough to silence them, is one thing.  Watching them in action for several long hours over three days, as I have just done, is the equivalent of my cat having its nose rubbed in its own poo for depositing it on my carpet, and it is altogether another thing.  It was truly dispiriting.

But then, I reminded myself that these are 'ordinary' men and women, not unlike my circle of personal friends and I asked myself how I would feel if those friends of mine helped run the country.  I had almost finished packing ready for the fast boat to China when I pulled myself together and asked another question: how would my friends feel if I ran the country?  I won't bother asking because I think I know the answer!  Then I pondered a little longer and reminded myself that absolutely none of my friends would even dream of trying to run the country - and nor would I.  It really does take a certain type of mentality to seek political power, even the extremely limited power (thank God) of being an MP.  Auberon Waugh, years ago, had them typed exactly - psychopathic, social and political disasters.

Given the problem which has been demonstrated so clearly to us by the utter inadequacy of our politicians over recent days, one is tempted to seek for a Nietszchean Superman - or Woman - to take total control over our affairs, but even three nanoseconds of thought and one remembers that these so-called 'Supermen' always come out of exactly the same pack of third-raters who constitute the political class and, let's face it, their record, as and when they have appeared on the world's stage, has usually been abysmal verging on catastrophic!  The only advantage to our system of electoral democracy is that at least we have the chance to turn the rascals out, even if, alas, we send in a more or less similar bunch of third-raters.  It's rather like trying to deal yourself an aces-high full house, it is very unlikely to occur and for it to happen it is necessary to constantly shuffle the pack.

So, note to self: do cheer up!

An additional burp or three from me on the current tempest in a teacup

Reflecting on yesterday's events one thing stands out bright and clear before us all - select committees of the House of Commons are just about the worst way to find out the truth about anything.  Quite apart from the inherent windbaggery and political point scoring, the system by which each member is allotted time to ask questions means that several questions are repeated ad nauseum.  Is it beyond the wit of Man and MPs to pre-arrange a sensible series of questions aimed in a pertinent direction before the matter is thrown open and an opportunity provided for them to indulge in their nonsense after we have heard the key answers?  Perhaps they should have a lawyer to do that for them.

Listening and reading re-actions to the hearings it is amazing how much people want desperately to hear and see what they wish to hear and see.  Thus, last night on Sky News some cove from the Guardian thought that the Murdochs had been very poor and weak in their performances before the committee.  Nick Ferrari from LBC (and a former hack) thought they were superb.  The Guardian man showed his naïveté by giving us his opinion that Murdoch senior was an old man past his prime who was slow and unable to keep up.  This impression was gained, of course, by 'Rupe' taking his time to consider the question fully before answering.  I was driving around the day before yesterday and thinking how I would conduct myself were I ever to be called before these buffoons and the one definite conclusion I came to was that I would take a good, long pause before I answered any question.  The clue that this was 'Rupe's deliberative method was given by those occasions on which certain questions were answered almost immediately with a quick-fire 'no'!

James Murdoch came across very well, smooth as a dagger's blade and twice as deadly, was my impression.  Similarly, Rebekah Brooks (why can't she spell her name right?!) was as sleek as one of Beatty's 'Big Cat' battlecruisers and whilst, on this occasion, she kept her guns muzzled, I would not wish to be inside her range should she ever decide to open fire!  The comparison between these three and most of the collection of third-raters facing them was embarrassing and worrying.  I mean, these people actually run our country and yet it is patently obvious that virtually none of them could run a whelk stall.  I make an exception of Mrs. Louise Mensch MP who is not only very 'hot', I use an Americanism and hope I do so correctly, but also very bright and capable of forming and asking pertinent questions:

The Murdochs have more worldly experience, guile and intelligence in their little fingers than this lot of Westminster dummies.  As for Mrs. Brooks, she began work at the News of the World as a secretary in 1989 and in just over 20 years she has risen to being Chief Executive of the entire news group under the no doubt beady eye of 'Rupe' who is not, I imagine, a man to suffer fools gladly - or even for more than five minutes!

Today I watched the question and answer session in the House itself after Cameron had made his statement.  Miliband, true to his reputation as an adenoidal prat, chose to unleash the toothless puppies of war against Cameron in a futile effort to bring him down.  It was like watching snipers shooting at the smooth front glacis of a tank.  In the recent past I have likened Cameron to an old WWI Field Marshall, but 'Milibrain' outdid him in obtusity by sending in wave after wave of his troops without thought of the casualty rates.  It is indicative that Sky News kept a running poll asking viewers if they thought Cameron was damaged by this whole imbroglio.  First off, 60% plus thought so, but by midway through this had turned into a 53% advantage to Cameron.  Again and again, rather like the Somme, the Labour rank and file threw themselves against the Cameron stronghold and were left for dead.  How much better if 'Milibrain' had adopted a lofty 'hands across the chamber' approach, whilst still slipping in the occasional pointed aside, and thus taken the moral high ground.  In that way he would have avoided the constant and embarrassing reminders by Cameron and his supporters of the huge number of motes and beams in Labour's eyes!

Anyway, the whole cack-handed lot of them can now bugger off on their hols where they can limit damage to themselves.  In the interregnum, I hope Cameron and his ministers forego their vacations and stick hard to their jobs because there is, in my opinion, a series of mighty waves likely to crash ashore on this 'septic isle' during the coming months.  Suffice to say that today I have sold all of my shares!

 

Obviously they read this blog!

It is now quite clear that those gesticulating, honking and hooting baboons in parliament have read my strictures concerning their ridiculous bombast last week and have decided to mend their manners!  Unfortunately, whilst so far today they have been much more polite, it is now even more embarrassingly obvious that these political windbags simply have no conception of real life.  A week or two back Richard North over at EU Referendum suggested, in effect, that parliament was filled with 'little Englanders' incapable of looking beyond their own cabbage patch.  It was a shrewd comment and made me realise that the term, beloved of insiders who are unaware of the irony, "the Westminster village" was all too accurate.  That so much energy and hot air has been expended on this trivial subject is beyond belief.  Of course, I recognise that much of the propulsion behind it comes from those with deeply embedded malice determined for either political or commercial reasons to drive a dagger deep into the heart of the Murdoch business conglomeration.  This attitude is exemplified by Polly 'Parrot' Toynbee of The Guardian who practically slavers at the delicious prospect of more newspapers closing down, especially The Mail - and this from a newspaper woman, herself, and a supposed 'liberal'.  The BBC, needless to say, is experiencing as near to an orgasm as that effete organisation can ever reach and takes every opportunity to keep the story rolling in the vain hope that the scandal will eventually do down Sky News.

Today, the MPs dealt with the two senior policemen, Stephenson and Yates.  Needless to say, mostly they ignored the one thing of which Stephenson was guilty, that is, accepting £12k's worth of hospitality.  He might, as he claimed, have recorded it in his Scotland Yard 'hospitality received register' but did so in the blithe knowledge (wrong, as it happens) that no-one would ever read it.  It never occurred to this booby bobby to ask himself how it would look if published in a tabloid.  That surely is the acid test for anyone in a position requiring absolute probity.  And before his resignation he had set in foot a fierce investigation into various ordinary coppers who are alleged to have accepted a few quid from hacks for inside information.  So in his view a hundred quid bung is not to be equated with a £12k freebie.

One thing is now clear to me, at any rate, that we have lost the services of an excellent policeman following the resignation of 'Yates of the Yard'.  This man strikes me as a superb senior officer with a keen sense of priorities.  As he made clear today, a brief 'Shlock-Horror' story in The Guardian containing absolutely no new information concerning the 'phone hacking saga which had already been successfully prosecuted was not sufficiently detailed or important enough to divert resources from the dozens of truly serious terrorism investigations with which his department was swamped.  To the political class - today - nothing was more important than the possibility that some people had their voice mails listened to, not even the possibility, verging on probability, that several airliners could have been blown out of the sky but for the efforts of Yates and his teams.  You see, that is 'the village' point of view!

Some lumpen cove heading the Met's 'Office of Public Affairs' was deeply unimpressive.  Apparently the Met employs 45 press officers!  45!!!?  Why?  Well, according to this 'public relations' genius, if they didn't employ all these press officers then investigating policemen would have to give up their time to deal with the press.  Again, I ask why?  Why not just tell the press to fuck off and find their stories for themselves.  It's not the business of the police to hold their grubby little hands.  If it is an emergency situation then a team of, say, a dozen press officers should be sufficient to keep the public informed.

Then I watched about half an hour of another committee interrogating Murdoch, père et fils.  Again, with their 'little village' outlook they displayed all of their sublime ignorance of how a global conglomeration works.  When Rupe, himself, pointed out gently that the News of the World constituted about 1% of his group interests is it any wonder that he was unable to answer virtually any of their questions.  However, these preening peacocks and hens were not going to miss the chance of 'doing down the Digger'.  Well, up until I became bored and left the TV to come up here and write this, they hadn't landed a single punch.  If they were really interested in getting at the truth they should have started at the bottom, picked the bones off the lesser mortals and, like a good copper (Yates could have told them how!), built a case before going for the main man - or men.  But no, the lure of prime-time TV was too great for these ego trippers.

What a waste of oxygen they all are!

 

The Rocky Horror Show

I shall probably watch more TV today than I normally watch in a month as I view the Murdoch mafia along with sundry ex-police chiefs dragged into the House of ill-Repute in Westminster where the inmates will doubtless throw the furniture around like the gaggle of apes and baboons that they so closely resemble.  What a zoo!  If, as is likely, it all proves too nauseating I shall retire up here to my garret and spit out the odd commentary.

Do not read this on a full stomach!

I just heard the 'Honourable' Member for Rhondda, Chris Bryant MP, utter the following words on the BBC in reference to the behaviour of senior police officers and employees of News International and I think I quote him word for word:

People seem to have lost their sense of decency.

This is the very same Chris Bryant who photographed himself wearing nothing but his Y-fronts as a means of advertsing himself for a homosexual liaison via the internet.  Speaking of the incident later:

Bryant later reflected upon his photograph scandal, saying "It was a wound but it's a rather charming scar now. I had a period when I barely slept and it was horrible, but I'm very lucky in having a supportive set of friends – MP friends and others – and they looked after me."  [My emphasis]

This is also the same Chris Bryant who claimed £92k over 5 years for expenses.  In addition:

During that time he flipped his second-home expenses twice, claimed mortgage interest expenses that started at £7,800 per year before rising (after flipping) to £12,000 per year. He also claimed £6,400 in stamp duty and other fees on his most recent purchase, and £6,000 per year in service charges. A claim that he made for £58,493.26, almost three times the annual maximum, in 2004, was disallowed.

He began adult life as a Tory and as a priest in the Anglican Church.  Obviously he found both activities too testing for his frail faith.  The difference between the 'Honourable' Chris Bryant and some hack from the News of the World is precisely and exactly the difference between a louse and a flea, to quote the great Doctor of yesteryear.  That the people of Rhondda returned this nasty, a1, hypocritical, little shit to parliament speaks volumes for the inherent stupidity of the Welsh.

I have mentioned before the advice of the late Auberon Waugh that when faced with a politician on a soap-box it is necessary to shout, "Show us your willy!"  Given Mr. Bryant's history perhaps, "Cover up your willy!" might be more appropriate.  In any event, he should always and forever be treated with the utter, sneering contempt he so richly deserves.

Quotes from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Bryant

 ADDITIONAL:  I have simply run out of vituperation so, and I hope he will forgive me for quoting him at length in the unlikely event that he ever reads this, but Andrew Pierce in The Daily Mail has listed the previous form of Keith 'Vazeline' Vaz MP, the oily greaser who chairs the committee investigating the ex-Commissioner of the Yard:

But then Mr Vaz is no stranger  to controversy. To give but three examples ... In March 2001, he was censured by the Commons standards and privileges committee after an investigation into financial wrongdoing. Elizabeth Filkin, standards watchdog at the time, accused Vaz of obstructing her inquiries into a significant number of allegations.

The former minister for Europe was investigated again by the Commons authorities over his links to the billionaire Indian Hinduja brothers — linked with a corruption probe in India — after they had secured UK passports.

In December 2001, he was again criticised by Filkin for preventing her from ‘obtaining accurate  information about his possible financial relationship with the  Hinduja family’.

In February 2002, he was finally suspended from the Commons for one month — one of the longest suspensions — by the standards and privileges committee for  ‘serious breaches’ of the code of conduct of MPs. He had made untrue allegations about a former policewoman.

Just the man, then, to take the moral high ground if the embattled copper turns up tomorrow — as long as our Keith can put aside the thorny issue of their mutual friend. [A reference to the fact that in 2009, 'Vazeline', too, was a guest at the champagne wedding of Stephen Purdew, the MD of Champneys Health Club and one of the causes of the Commissioner's resignation.  Another guest, according to Pierce, was Rebekah Brooks - who'da thunk it?]

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2015842/Why-Keith-Vaz-makes-unlikely-moral-crusader.html#ixzz1STy9UL1l

So, who will replace Cameron?

It can only be a matter of time.  He has to go.  I mean, it's not as though he has just kick-started a committed, free market, libertarian (small 'l') revolution a la 'Thatch'.  The 'heir to Blair' is precisely that and what it says on his tin can head is what you get and that is statism writ small, empty anti-Euro boasting without cojones, stumblebum strategic thinking which has led us into a useless war and a so-called 'assault' on the public services which has all the ferocity of a slap with a limp wrist.  As so often it is the little things which show these politicians up and Cameron's refusal, a mixture of petulance and arrogance according to most reports, to listen to all the warnings he received concerning Coulsen shows a prime minister who is not fit for purpose.  So who can replace him?

In considering this, the Tories should not pay the least heed to the 'il-Lib-non-Dems' who are facing annihilation at the next election and will, in their usual spineless, unprincipled manner do anything to avoid facing the electorate just now.  None of the current crop of ministers leaps out to me as an outstanding possibility - except possibly that big, fat chap, Pickles, but alas, I think in these PR days he lacks appeal on the 'telly'.  Personally, I would like to see Redwood at the top if only for the strange experience of seeing and hearing an intelligent prime minister. No chance of that, of course, so I wonder if there is some potential lurking on the back benches.  I have always liked David Davis, a man who has risen from very humble beginnings (not unlike my own) and who saw through the incoherent nonsense that is socialism at an early age.  Also he was an SAS reservist which tells me that he is probably ruthless and bit mad, as well!  Another name which I see from time to time and whose words usually strike me as exceedingly sensible is Douglas Carswell.  Virulently anti-European, a man who called for the system that governs MPs expenses to be changed before the scandal broke, and a constant trouble-maker in his party and in parliament - in other words, a man who thinks for himself.

But frankly, you could put the No. 10 cat in charge of the country and he'd probably show better judgment than Cameron.

MPs downgraded to -CCC status

Of course, like everyone else on Tuesday I shall be watching our Tribunes of the People prance and caper, huff and puff, swagger and boast, as they gather like a mob outside a pub on Saturday night ready to put the boot in - now that the enemy is prostrate and helpless, of course.  Yes, yes, I know, amongst this gang of cowards and poltroons there is the odd honourable gentleman but you could count them on the fingers of one hand even if two or three of them were missing!  Still, at least in one respect they are maintaining the high standards we have grown to expect of parliament and its occupants - they are wasting our time and our money at a rate hardly ever achieved before.

Thus, they spend their unused energy beating up Murdoch et al whose supposed powers now resemble Prospero's:

These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.

So now, like the Hun described so well by Churchill as being either at your feet or at your throat, our brave MPs find the courage they lacked up until two weeks ago.  To be fair their less-than-glorious leaders never showed much backbone either, and none of them remembered the dear old 'Duke of Boot' who, when caught out in a bit of extra-marital naughtiness by a 'Grub Street' scribbler, simply said, "Publish and be damned!"

But what irks, putting it ultra-mildly, is what an enormous, colossal waste of time it all is.  The law courts and the judge-led enquiry will winkle out most of the truth of the matter so who needs these jumped-up Jacks-in-Office as they try desperately to win the latest Westminster game show? -  'The Apprentice MP', or, 'Westminster Has Talent?!', or, 'Come Ranting'.  Meanwhile , matters of considerable moment are occurring whilst these buffoons caper on their shaky stage.  Europe, to whom we send around 40% of our exports is about to disintegrate with a banking crisis that make the 2007 one seem like a ripple.  As the commissars and apparatchiks in Berlin-Brussels panic, they are desperately seeking means to weld the whole thing together in unbreakable chains - a carefully chosen metaphor.  Are our MPs raising the rafters over this? - not a bit of it, indeed, they have just (with a few honourable exceptions) voted to hand over even more of our money to support this crumbling edifice.

Meanwhile, 'over there' the great American engine is about to seize-up solid.  Despised chickens sent flying off with a disdainful flick of Obama's limp wrist are now coming home to roost with a vengeance!  Hard decisions which should have been taken years ago are now ramming their way back into the political and economic list of priorities.  The only good news is that Obama now has absolutely no chance of winning re-election, almost despite the congenital stupidity of the Republican party when it comes to picking candidates.  Even I could run against Obama and win!

Back home, of course, Osborne's feeble impersonation of the utterly feeble Alistair Darling is producing exactly what I expected, a feeble recovery and no real effort to cut our debt.  For the moment the bond dealers have other fish to fry but it can only be a matter of time before they turn their attention to us.  If they do so at a time when Europe is gurgling down the toilet hand in hand with America you can expect them to pull the chain on us too.  Osborne needs his own party, those Tory MPs who are even now wasting their time interrogating the Murdoch gang, to get behind him and boot him in the arse, or better still, in front of him and boot him in the balls, where it really hurts.  We need to have VAT returned to 17.5%, tax cuts for the poorest and a real - and I do mean real - bonfire of the regulations.  Along with that he should be privatising just about everything the government owns.

Meanwhile, back in cloud cuckoo-land you can watch the clowns on Tuesday and earmark which ones you intend to string up from the nearest lampost when the shit hits the fan!

 

"Im Laufschritt MARSCH! HALT! Über DREHEN!"

Roughly translated that's German for "Quick MARCH!  HALT!  About TURN!"  If any of you clever-clog German language swots spot an error, don't tell me, tell Google Translate - verstehen?  Right!

I fall into Germanic mode because they always seem so tremendously organised and efficient compared to this shambolic 'septic Isle'.  So (or zo, if you prefer) it is always such a comfort when, from time to time, it becomes obvious that they are ruled by utter dimwits just as we are.  Do you remember a few months ago when the Jap nuclear station starting fizzing and everyone ran around in circles crying that the endof the world is nigh but practically no-one died as a result?  Well, 'Kaiserin' Merkel was one of them and in her panic she made a grand announcement that all of Germany's nuclear power stations would be closed down and phased out and that energy needs would be supplied by (Russian!!) natural gas together with windmills and solar-panel farms.  The existing coal-fired power stations would also be phased out gradually over time.

Guess what, or, erraten was, as we German-speakers say (God, I love that Google translator), now that the experts have looked at the likely outcome it appears almost certain that at least one, and possibly two, nuclear stations will have to be switched on again in the winter.  You see, no-one told the 'Kaiserin' that when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine none of those useless contrivances actually work.  In addition, die Experten have decreed that a huge dollop of the tax-payers' money set aside to build all those devices that don't work, because no-one would lift a screw driver to make one without a government subsidy, has had to be diverted to build some new coal-fired stations.  Mein Gott!  I am reliably informed that the German Green party first turned red, then purple and moved into such a critical condition that they had to be switched off to avoid danger to their fellow citizens! 

May I say clearly to my German friends that I commiserate with them in their difficulties without the least hint of triumphalism.  You have the 'Kaiserin', we have the 'lesbian straightener', both as utterly useless as the stupid machines they think will save the planet.

Read all about it here, and here.

 

Good riddance, then, Jamie Oliver!

I heard out of the corner of my ear (well, if you can see out of the corner of your eye, why not?) that Jamie Oliver has decided to cease his commercial relationship with Sainsbury.  For the benefit of my non-Brit readers, Mr. Oliver is a celebrity chef of considerable repute 'over here' and Sainsbury is a giant supermarket.  Together they have succeeded in marketing various food stuffs.  I should make clear that my slightly rude title does not indicate any personal animus against young Jamie, a man who is an example to other youngsters in that he came from nowhere and has made an enormous success of his commercial life, and for that I admire him immensely.  It is more what he and his ilk have done to cooking that irritates me.  To be fair, I am not aiming my axe at his particular head but the whole collection of 'celebrity chefs' who, in my opinion, have ruined the harmless pleasure of eating out.

Today it is almost impossible to go to a restaurant and be served a straightforward meal.  Even pubs, formerly the last refuge for the plain eater, have succumbed to this pernicious habit of buggering about with grub!  Now they have all become 'gastro pubs' and instead of serving up a nice plate of sausages and mash, or a decent, straightforward steak and kidney pie, you are offered a selection of weird and wonderful dishes which take two and a half lines on the menu to list all the ingredients.  A particular dish might start with something simple and tasty like a pork fillet or lamb cutlets but then as you read on - and on - you find that it comes with this, with that, or the other plus something else and then a dash of that and soupçon of this . . . and given this comprehensive list of 'add ons' there will undoubtedly be one or even two amongst them that you, personally, find disgusting.  Thus, your meal is ruined!

I, for example, cannot bear the taste of garlic, curry, spices and herbs!  I loathe peppers of every description and can't stand most of these new-fangled vegetables which seem to have appeared from nowhere.  Salads, for example, used to be good, old-fashioned, crispy, British lettuce with tomatoes, cucumber and a bit of radish.  Now they are a concoction of peculiar 'greenery' which, apart from being impossible to get on your fork, remind me of the sort of vegetation we'd pluck from hedgerows to use as camouflage when I was a squaddie.

Happily for me, there is one exception to this general rule, a pub about 15 minutes drive from here where they serve simply the best, all day, Sunday lunch carvery - anywhere!  To give you an indication of its excellence I can tell you that amongst the meat selection you can choose from either a well-done joint of beef or a pink one, and the quality is beyond even my hyperbolic descriptive powers.  Needless to say, I cannot divulge the name and location of this gastronomic nirvana, nothing would induce me to betray this closely guarded secret, er, except, of course, the usual, er, 'readies' in the usual plain brown envelope - 'know wot I mean?'!

I trod in some Vaz yesterday!

I was in severe trouble with the 'Memsahib' yesterday because I should have been shifting furniture back to its original position and fetching and carrying boxes of books and bits and pieces so that they could be returned to their usual places.  Instead, I was caught, and then riveted, by the Commons Home Affairs Committee interrogating sundry coppers caught up in the hacking affair.  It was so appalling, so beyond my worst imagined horrors, that like watching a motorway smash it was impossible to tear myself away.

First, last and always was the 'chairman' of this inquisition, that ghastly, oleaginous creep and born-again liar, Keith 'Vazeline' Vaz MP, and when one of the muppets who surrounded him accused a police officer of sounding like "a dodgy geezer" I assumed for a moment she was talking about 'Vazeline'.  Most of the rest of this committee of useless MPs came across as puffed-up, pompous, hectoring  prats much more concerned with cutting a dash on the 'telly' for the benefit of their constituents rather than any real effort to understand what had gone on.  It was obvious that virtually all of them had found these police officers guilty as charged before they asked a single question!  And when they did begin to question them it was quite clear that most of them simply do not have a clue as to how the real world works.  To them, this 'phone hacking lark was the be all and end all, the single most important issue that should have been placed at the very top of the coppers' list of priorities, not, I hasten to add, because the original suspicion was that members of the royal family were being hacked and thus their security threatened, oh no, all they were worried about was that MPs might have been hacked and they simply couldn't understand why the coppers hadn't put it top of their priorities.  One of the officers, a former head of the anti-Terrorist Unit reminded them gently that at the time he had 70 - repeat 70 - seperate investigations going on into activities which if not concentrated on could have resulted in mass atrocities on British streets.  Did that give the MPs pause - not for a second?

'Vazeline' began his interrogation of 'Yates of the Yard', a man who at least had the courage to come out and admit he had not done as well as he should (when did 'Vazeline' or any of his cronies ever do that?), by in effect calling him a liar before he said a word.  'Vazeline' warned him that he was under oath and that any lies told to a parliamentary committee would result in dire legal consequences, and at the end of the questioning this greasy wog pronounced from his position of sanctimonious hypocrisy that Yates's evidence was "unconvincing", or as you and I might interpret it, Yates was a liar.  Well, it takes one to know one!

I didn't think it was possible for my low opinion of MPs to sink even further but 'Vazeline' achieved it - effortlessly!

ADDITIONAL:  I forgot to add that sitting on the sidelines of this travesty of a 'court', cheering on his chums as they as they slow-roasted the policemen, was Chris 'Y-fronts' Bryant.  Presumably he was there to add some moral backbone to the proceedings but, alas, despite being a former curate (please stop sniggering!) that was not easy coming from a man who advertised himself on the internet wearing only his underpants, and who claimed £92,000 in expenses over the 5 years leading up to the exposure (no pun intended) of MPs' swinish greed.

 

Two and twelve noughts!

That, in pound sterling, is what you owe, or at least, you do if you're a Brit.  Here's what it looks like:

£2,000,000,000,000

(If you're a Yank there isn't enough room on the page to print the noughts!)

Courtesy of 'SoD', for which many thanks, the full story can be seen at The Daily Telegraph.  At last we have a government prepared to show the full extent of public (ie, me and you) debt, not the hooky accounts of Brown & Balls, the well-known financial shysters, who kept a huge amount of debt 'off the books' which, had they been company directors, would have seen them spending time as guests of Her Maj.

Off topic but for your information following my previous post, the carpets are now fitted but replacing all the furniture and the hundred one 'knick-knacks' is going to take time.  However, I hope to be back posting a bit more tomorrow.

 

'Der Tag' has arrived!

Well, by 'der Tag', I mean the carpet-fitters, and actually they haven't arrived quite yet but are due any moment.  The house is a complete shambles with furniture stacked inside bathrooms in order to 'clear the decks' as much as possible.  The 'Memsahib' is fleeing for the day with a friend towards the nearest shopping mall - oh God, the expense! - and I have been left alone to deal with the onslaught.  I'm not sure if that means if I will be kept busy all day and thus unable to blog, or whether I will be despatched upstairs to the garret and told to keep my incompetent nose out of it whilst the experts get on with it, inwhich case I will be able to attend to my blog.  I'll let you know in due course, or not, as the case may be!

Were they truly that stupid, or is there something else?

In this instance I am referring to 'Dim' Dave and 'Yates of the Yard' although there are plenty of others involved in 'The Great Hacking Mystery' who would qualify.  Personally, I would demand a place in the front line of those prepared to accept that most of our leading politicians are stupid beyond belief and only outdone in this sad lack of intelligence by the seriously retarded grunts who run our police service.  But even my beliefs in this regard are being stretched to incredulity.

Take 'Dave' for starters.  Even I, about as far removed from the hallowed halls of Westminster as you can get, blinked in surprise when he appointed an ex-'Screws of the World' scribbler as his communications chief.  Don't get me wrong, I am second to none in my admiration for these scurvy fellows who spend their lives grubbing about in the sewers of our society and reporting on who they find but, as anyone with half a brain would ask, would you want one of them to marry your daughter, or, hold a highly important position in your government?  Now that sort of thought process should have passed through 'Dave's three brain cells before several important movers and shakers on the parliamentary scene, Ashdown and Clegg amongst them, didn't so much whisper in his ear as bellow a warning that Coulsen was potential dynamite.  And yet . . . and yet . . . he still went ahead.  It defies commonsense and also goes way beyond stupidity.  Even two days ago at his press conference Cameron stuck by his 'friend'.  My suspicious question is quite simple, what is it that Coulsen has over Cameron?

Then we turn to 'Yates of the Yard', merely the latest in a long line of utterly brain-dead incompetents who have smarmed their way up the greasy pole of promotion for all the wrong reasons, like attending endless and useless courses on community hugging, non-discriminatory kiss-ins, equal opportunity hand-holding, and the like.  Asked, as he was a couple of years back, to investigate if the hacking by a 'Screws of the World' journalist went any further than the activities of just one rogue reporter, he ignored totally several sacks full of evidence taken from the hacker himself and after asking his equally high-ranking and low-brow mates in the senior officers' mess at Scotland Yard if they were happy - they were, apparently - in just eight hours he closed the whole 'investigation' down! Eh?  What the . . . ?  I mean, everyone in the country knew this 'smoking gun' which had already led to two convictions was capable of turning into a machine-gun aimed at the highest in the land and yet this senior police officer dismissed the whole thing between breakfast time and teatime!  Why?  Was he really and truly that stupid?  I don't think so.

Will we ever find out?  Not unless you live to be a 150 which, as I told you earlier, I am destined to do.  So, I'll let you know later!

 

"Send in the clowns"? They're already in charge!

This headline from The Daily Telegraph says it all:

Soldiers told not to shoot Taliban bomb layers

British soldiers who spot Taliban fighters planting roadside bombs are told not to shoot them because they do not pose an immediate threat, the Ministry of Defence has admitted.

This news was disclosed by an inquest into the death of Sgt Peter Rayner, 34, a soldier from the 2nd Batallion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment who was killed in October last year by an improvised explosive device as he led a patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.  According to The Telegraph story:

One officer who has recently served in Afghanistan said that if a soldier wanted to ascertain if an insurgent was an immediate threat, he would have to approach him and expose himself to greater risk.

He said: “A British soldier manning a checkpoint at night might watch a man digging a hole for an IED 100 metres away and would not try to shoot at him. It’s a ludicrous situation.

“There has to be an immediate threat to life and that’s a hard thing to prove. An IED does not count as an immediate threat.

“The Americans are different – their Rules of Engagement are pretty liberal. If they even suspect someone of laying a bomb, they can shoot them.”

The clowns are in command of the circus and if it wasn't for the endless procession of the dead and the mutilated we might risk dying of laughter!

 

If you do nothing else today - READ THIS!

That is a misleading title, sorry, what I mean is that you should, you absolutely MUST, read this article in Der Spiegel by Herfried Münkler who is described by others as a 'political scientist'.  I always snigger at that job description given that there is absolutely nothing scientific about politics despite the spurious claims of the Marxists!  Even so, Herr Münkler is both a Professor and a Doctor of political theory in Berlin.  He is also a tremendous brain-box, albeit, in that ultra-logical, dare I say, Prussian, way of starting with a conclusion and then spelling out the steps required to reach it.  It is what I might call, mischievously, the von Schlieffen method!

In his article (which I INSIST you must read!), Herr Münkler analyses the causes of the great rifts which threaten to bring down the columns of the European citadel.  The antics of the fringe nations, according to him, are merely symptoms not causes.  The fault lies in the basic design of the European Union and the weakness, or ineptness, of the ruling class.  With impeccable clarity of thought he marches (notice that I avoided the cheap shot of 'goose-steps'!) to the logical conclusion, the European Treaty of Union must be changed and the ruling elites thereby strengthened.  Any notion that what Europe needs is more democracy must be crushed, well, he didn't put it quite like that but certainly he thinks that the current democratic mandate (which is pitiful, in my view) should be severely curtailed and the central High Command (ooops!) government of Europe given greater powers.  One specific target for severe pruning, in his view, would be the habit of some European countries to give their populations plebiscites on important European decisions.  He sums it up thus:

Hence, the central theme for the rebuilding of Europe is that the centrifugal forces arising from the ongoing sovereignty claims of the member states and the socioeconomic and cultural differences among the individual regions will not only be curbed, but will also be transformed into centripetal forces. In other words, Europe needs a strong and powerful center -- or it will fail.

Now, let me be clear.  Herr Doktor Professor Münkler is absolutely dead right if, that is, you believe a centralised European nation-state in which all previous national traits, traditions and loyalties are ruthlessly crushed is, in the words of Sellers & Yeatman, "A Good Thing".  But do you believe it?  If you do not, and you find the idea abhorrent and frightening, as I do, then I advise you to pay very great attention to the good professor's words because where he leads the Berlin-Brussels elite will be eager to follow, in fact, you could be killed in the rush!

So, go and read him, instantly, this minute, NOW, and that's an order - verstanden!

Thanks to Richard North for the pointer.

No, no, I need TWO sickbags!

Yesterday, as the current brouhaha developed there were two fairly nauseas items that I accidentally trod in.  First was Max Mosley, a man whose married and family life was exposed as a lie when the NoW caught him cavorting with prostitutes in a sado-masochistic orgy, on the media demanding that truth be told concerning the hacking scandal.  No sooner had I filled one sickbag when former drunk and porno writer, Alistair Campbell, slithered onto the airwaves to demand honesty over this affair.  Campbell is a man whose veracity was once doubted by a High Court judge and whose reputation is forever enslimed by his 'dodgy dossier' prior to the second Iraq war.  The Left-wing Guardian, no less, reckoned that:

Campbell sent a memo to John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, in which Campbell directed that the British dossier be "one that complements rather than conflicts with" the U.S. claims.[*]

In the words of the late, great Terry Thomas - "What an absolute shower!"

*From Wiki: Ames, Chris; Norton-Taylor, Richard (10 January 2010), "Alastair Campbell had Iraq dossier changed to fit US claims", The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/10/alastair-campbell-iraq-dossier-inquiry, retrieved 2010-01-12 

 

Cameron and Miliband: could you put a fag paper between them?

So 'Cain' Miliband rushes from studio to studio this morning attempting to stab Cameron in the back, an activity of which he has 'previous', by accusing him of personally choosing and inviting in to the heart of government an ex-Murdoch employee as Press Officer who is obviously, well, obviously to 'Ed' who appears to have little regard for due process of law, a rat and a rogue up to his armpits in criminal activities.  Well, all's fair in love, war and politics but, in choosing to launch these vitriolic attacks which includes casting doubts on Cameron's judgment (seconded!) it is usually wise to check your own backyard.

Carefully timed to co-incide with Ed's demolition exercise, up pops m' Lord Ashcroft to let rip with a counter-blast from a multiple rocket launcher aimed at, yes, Ed's own Press Officer:

Might I perhaps suggest though that Mr Miliband delivers similar advice to all those in public life who are former News International journalists and who themselves have been involved in the commissioning of unlawful acts in pursuit of stories.

In fact, the Labour leader need look no further than his own office, for there sits Tom Baldwin who, unusual recreational habits notwithstanding, was employed by News International for more than a decade prior to his appointment as Mr Miliband’s Director of Communications, and whose hands are far from clean.

I know of a number of infringements of the law of which Mr Baldwin has been guilty but, for the purposes of this blog, I will limit consideration to the commissioning of a private detective to break into a bank account.  This took place in 1999, when Mr Baldwin was a senior journalist at The Times, News International’s flagship daily, a position he held until his appointment by Mr Miliband.

You can read all of it here and thanks to Guido for pointing me in the right direction.  Guido also provides a twitter quote from that great brain of British politics, Mrs. Sally Bercow:

Oh God, *please* don't say we're throwing stones from a glass house…. #TomBaldwin

Well done, Mrs. B., you might have the intellect of a dead Dodo but that still puts you streets ahead of your inglorious leader.

Meanwhile, Cameron comes on this morning sounding like a social worker's wet dream as he continually repeated his claim to have only given young Coulsen a second chance - oh, and probably a comforting cuddle, as well.  Like so many lads these days, 'Dave' muses, Andy was misled and it's the duty of a caring society to give young hooligans a chance to redeem themselves.

My only question is, why didn't Cameron join the il-Lib-non-Dems from the start?  They are made up of equal parts of soppiness and daftness and he would have felt right at home instead of wriggling uncomfortably in close proximity to all those rough boys in the Tory party.

 

The Pearly Gates

On my e-mail I receive a steady stream of jokes and 'funnies' which I normally pass on to friends.  In the nature of things, some are unfunny, some I've seen before and just the odd one or two nearly cause me to fall off my chair with laughter.  This is such a one and I thought you would like to start your day with a laugh:

The Pearly Gates

40 Gypsies arrive at the Pearly Gates in their Transit vans and caravans.

St Peter goes into the gatehouse and phones up God, saying. 'I've got 40 travellers here. Can I let them in?'

God says 'We are over quota on Pikeys . Go out to the Pearly Gates and tell them to choose the 12 most worthy, and I will let in just a dozen.'

Less than a minute later St Peter is on the phone to God again. 'They've gone', he tells God.

'What?' says God, 'All 40 of them?'

'No, the Pearly Gates'.

 

British liberty takes another hit

Let me be clear from the start.  It appears to be, that is, subject to due process, almost certain that some News of the World (NoW) reporters and management conducted illegal operations.  As an aside, my own view is that telephone conversations delivered over the airwaves are the equivalent of speaking too loudly in a public place and, as far as I know, it is not illegal to report someone's private conversation if you overhear it - see an example at Guido's place.  Even so, the law states otherwise and so that ends the matter.  So, before I lay into sundry other murky characters caught up in the disaster that is the demise of the NoW, let me lay the blame fairly and squarely on the heads of the 'stoopids' in the newsroom, the editorial board and the overall management who knew and condoned what was going on.  Exactly who they are will not be known until all the court cases come to an end.  Their greatest crime is that they have brought about the death of a splendid British institution dating back to Victorian times.  The 'Screws of the World' has titillated and informed the British public for well over a century.  They have amused us as well as doing a public service in, so to speak, exposing and thus clearing the clogged shit from the sewers of public life.

The political class, of course, are jubilant.  On Sky News just now 'Lord' Prescott looked and sounded as excited as he must have done when he was shagging his secretary over his ministerial desk five years ago.  To obtain the full, rank measure of this fat, useless, immoral, old has-been, or perhaps never-was, is a better designation, let me tell you that he sneered at the British press for wanting to follow the American way of being allowed to print anything, which they do, of course, because it is enshrined in their constitution, freedom of speech being considered crucial to a civil society by the Founding Fathers.  Prescott speaks for virtually all the political class and you can expect a raft of new regulations designed to limit the ability of the press to investigate anyone, particularly if they are important.  They will be aided in this endeavor by establishment judges sucking up to European law by strict interpretations of the law of so-called 'Human Rights'.  The death of the NoW is merely the beginning.  That's one down, they are thinking, now we can go for the rest of the rat-pack, starting with The Sun. 

So now we, the people, must open a new front against these despicable rascals who seek to flaunt their power over us.  Now the bloggers and the tweeters must arise, especially those who are, or were, journalists, and use their skills and their knowledge and their contacts to maintain, like the skirmishers of the Napoleonic era, a constant barrage of sniper fire aimed at the massed ranks of the trough-swillers set above us.  Never mind the bloody Arabs, it's time for a British Spring!

 

"The Killing" - quick, quick, set your recorders!

A few months ago I raved/bored (you choose) on the subject of the Danish crime series called The Killing.  Well, so good was it that the Americans have remade it and set it in Seattle.  According to The Mail TV guide it is absolutely faithful to the original in plot and playing, indeed, some of the American actors closely resemble their Danish counterparts.  I will be fascinated to see if it lives up to the original, especially the main character, a policewoman who hardly says a word and whose dogged, single-minded pursuit of an answer to the murder mystery is un-nerving.  It's on Channel 4 TONIGHT AT 9.00PM. Also, a second series from Denmark is due on BBC4 in the Autumn.

The case of Casey Anthony: Two side-views

Some of my Brit and other non-US readers may not have heard of the Casey Anthony trial in the States in which this young woman stood accused of the murder of her 2-year old toddler daughter.  Because I watch Fox News from time to time I picked up the bare essentials but I make no claim to knowledge of the details.  The impression given by the American and liberal MSM was that this young woman was no better than 'trailor trash' hailing from a totally dysfunctional family and that she 'offed' her daughter in order to 'party' and that she thoroughly deserved the death penalty that would undoubtedly follow the expected 'Guilty' verdict.  The media pack were led in this mob rampage by some blonde bimbo of a TV hostess called Nancy Grace who was screeching 'guilty as hell' from day one.  Imagine, then, the 'Shlock-Horror' when the jury, after sitting for a mere 11 hours, pronounced Ms. Anthony 'Not Guilty'!  How could they?  How dare they?  Didn't they realise that the MSM, you know, the people who tell you how to think, particularly in the person of Ms. Nancy Grace, had already decided the case, as the Vancouver Sun tells us:

The most pointed criticism was aimed at HLN's Nancy Grace, a former prosecutor whose nightly attacks on the woman she scornfully referred to as Tot Mom almost single-handedly inflated the Anthony case from a routine local murder into a national obsession. Grace made no attempt to hide her rage at Anthony's acquittal. "Tot Mom's lies seem to have worked," she exclaimed moments after the jury announced its verdict. "The devil is dancing tonight."

Grace's campaign against Anthony made her network (owned by CNN and formerly known as Headline News) the go-to spot for trial addicts.

The aspect that provided me with some wry humour was the re-action of the American Left-liberal blogs I read (see, the things I do for you!) who all pronounced her guilty before, during and after the jury deliberations.  None of the ones I read stood up for the concept of trial by a jury of your peers.  It was much the same sort of programmed re-action that you can read about on the Left-liberal sites here who are slavering for more attacks on Murdoch's press without a thought for the concept of Press freeedom.  But show these morons the film of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and they will weep tears in favour of due process.

But it is the ineffable  Rush Limbaugh who has an even sharper glance at this liberal-Leftie hypocrisy:

"I think that while it may be uncomfortable to hear one of the reasons its uncomfortable to hear is there is an element of truth in it. If they, if you people the media really really think she's guilty and you want to feel better about this just tell yourselves that she just waited a couple of years to get an abortion and you'll feel better."

Spot on!  As I have said before, tedious old fellow that I am, timing, as in sex and drumming, is everything.  You can now add child murder to those two examples.  If Casey Anthony had killed 'her little sweetheart' inside her womb the likes of Nancy Grace would not have turned a single strand of her well-bleeched, blonde hair.

Incidentally, one of the reserve jurors spoke to the press afterwards and explained to these dunderheads that it is the duty of the prosecution to expunge any doubts in the minds of the jury.  As was explained to me, many times, when I spent several weekends engaged in an analytical study of what makes juries tick, if you have well-founded doubts about a person's guilt you must vote for aquittal.  In this case, it was fairly obvious that the prosecution failed to quell or extinguish those doubts and the jury, quite rightly and properly, threw the case out.

"The first person to reach 150 is already alive"

Thus spake a headline in The Daily Mail, and of course, modesty not withstanding, they were obviously referring to me.  Oh yes, dread thought, I know, but at the ripe, some would say 'over-ripe', age of 72 I haven't yet reached my halfway point.  Just think, you lucky people, you can look forward to another 78 years of Duff & Nonsense.  I know, I know, the mere thought of it leaves you speechless.  Even so, I can't help wondering whether I would really like to live for another 78 years.  In some ways life has improved immeasurably over the last 72 years but in others it has been a sad disappointment.  Will it be any different in the next 78 years?  Well of course it won't, that's what life is all about - ups and downs, positives and negatives, shit and roses, so to speak.  The trick of it is to come out of the casino of life with slightly more than you went in - and I don't mean just money.  So far I have, and if you ask me how I managed it I will tell you - pure, unadulterated, flukey - LUCK!  No brains, no intelligence, no foresight - just Lady Luck.  But now I do have a problem - what the hell am I going to write about for the next 78 years?

'SoD' comments upon the 'Neu Fränkisch Reich'

Son of Duff has contributed this post:

Isn’t it chilling the relish with which the Carolingian political class (a) evades a democratic constitution and (b) invades a foreign country’s sovereignty? : -

“De facto, we have changed the treaty.”

-          Pierre Lellouche, France’s Europe Minister, reference the summit deal on Greece last year when EU leaders carried out a constitutional coup.

“The sovereignty of Greece will be massively limited”.

-          Jean-Claude Juncker, Eurogroup chairman.

Evading a democratic constitution and invading a foreign country.  Hmmm, heard this somewhere before in the recent history of Europe?

Consider the statement: -

“The French and German political classes created the EU with the sole purpose of achieving together with economics what they haven’t been able to achieve individually with military force:  the political domination of Europe.”

Is there anyone who will seriously dispute this now?

Son of Duff

P.S. Juicy quotes in the Telegraph article: “shrinks to a Carolingian core”, “fiscal transfer union”.

I can only add to 'SoD's post the thought that "Juncker" is an unfortunate name in the circs!

 

Look out - here comes a herd of rampaging politicians!

Truly the most frightening sight in the world - a herd of slavering politicians all charging in the same direction.  If you ever see that - take cover!  And you will see it today when the House of Cun Commons 'debates' the 'phone-hacking 'Shlock-Horror'.  Did they debate this 'crucial' matter when Prince Charles had his 'phone hacked and his, er, sweet endearments to Camilla were broadcast round the globe?  Nah!  But now, on the back of a murdered child about whom they couldn't care less, they see the chance to put the boot in to their hated enemy - the free press.  'Squeaker' Bercow practically had a hard on when he leapt from his chair to his full 5'-2" and urged on the Labour hordes to vote for an emergency debate.  In the finest traditions of mobs everywhere the enraged bovines, normally as placid as cows in a meadow, will charge off in completely the wrong direction and do far worse damage.  Just remember, they only have one interest in what passes for their collective mind - their own!  They will try and use this incident to pass laws to muzzle the press so that they can once again wallow in luxury and corruption without the fear of exposure.  The scrofulous hacks of Wapping, never a pretty sight with their dandruff, their down-at-heel, brothel-creeper shoes, their 3-day-old shirts and their tape recorders, are all that stands between you and those unmitigated shits in parliament.  Don't follow the herd!

So farewell George Ballas, your plinth in the pantheon of world heroes awaits you

George who, you ask?  Well, I did when I first heard of him this morning via the good offices of Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek.  Incidentally, it's a good thing Boudreaux isn't my bank manager because my overdraft would be enormous as I am forever borrowing from him!  Anyway, poor old George Ballas is no more.  Mind you, he had a good innings, 85 when his number came up - 'I should live so long my life already'!  And he was a true world hero and every male reader of this post should hang their head in shame for not knowing of him.  He was, of course (as I learned about 7 hours ago!) the inventor of the 'strimmer'!  If you are a man you must have suffered our common fate, particularly at this time of the year, to be nagged constantly by 'er indoors' about the poor state of the lawn, especially the edges.  If only to override the noise of the nagging you turn with relief to the noise of the strimmer, that handy little device which whirls a piece of tough nylon around and around using the power of centrifugal forces to destroy all those irritating tufty bits on the edge of your lawn.  Those of a certain age will remember the back-breaking, arm-aching tediousness of doing this task with old-fashioned clippers.

Of course, Don Boudreaux, who is a fearfully huge, economic brain-box, draws our attention to some rather more important distinctions in the late Mr. Ballas's life.  He asks:

Question: who has done more good for humanity?  George Ballas and his weed-wacker, or [name any one of the many the politicians who 'creatively' figured out a new way to spend person A's money to help (or 'help') person B]?

Well, let us remember that Mr. Ballas must have created a fair number of jobs at his own factory and considerably more at the factories of his competitors who quickly jumped on his gravey train.  Then there are all the ancillary 'knock-ons', from the truck drivers delivering these devices to garden centres, the staff at those centres who sell them and service them, and finally, but certainly not minimally, there is my back and arm muscles to be taken into consideration. 

Let us compare the humble Mr. Ballas's contribution to the American economy to that High Priest of economic miracle producers, Barack Obama.  According to his own White House Council of Economic Advisors every job, er, created by his stimulus package cost . . . wait for it . . . if you're a Yank fetch a large whisky now . . . are you sitting comfortably?  . . . $278,000 per job.  As The Weekly Sadist Standard points out, that is a grand total of $666 billion - of your money!  Hello, hello, are you still there - oh, thank goodness, just for a minute I thought you'd followed old George!  Even so, if you are American please read no further because this comes with a Government Health Warning:

Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now.  In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs.

Please, my American friends, do not think I gloat.  It is much the same 'over here' only you always manage to do everything bigger and better 'over there'.  And if you have any whisky left in the bottle, raise a glass in memory of a True Hero who actually left this world a slightly better place than when he found it - I give you - George Ballas.

 

Tragi-Comedy

Well, today you have had two helpings of comedy and then one of deep tragedy.  Now, I give you the stuff of truly great theatre - Tragi-Comedy.  I will simply let the report speak for itself:

ONONDAGA, N.Y. (AP) — A man riding bareheaded on one of about 550 motorcycles in an anti-helmet law rally lost control of his cycle, went over his handlebars, hit his head on the pavement and died, police said Sunday.

The motorcyclist, 55-year-old Philip A. Contos, likely would have survived the accident if he'd been wearing a helmet, state troopers said.

The accident happened Saturday afternoon in Onondaga, a town in central New York near Syracuse.

Contos was driving a 1983 Harley-Davidson on a helmet protest ride organized by the Onondaga chapter of American Bikers Aimed Towards Education, or ABATE, troopers said. The organization states that it encourages the voluntary use of helmets but opposes mandatory helmet laws.

Contos, of Parish, hit his brakes, and his motorcycle fishtailed and went out of control, flipping him over the handlebars, police said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

What can one say?  And what can one do?  Weep, or fall to the floor shrieking with laughter?  I dunno!

Thanks to Yahoo News via Drudge.

 

Kipling said it best

News today that a British soldier is missing in Afghanistan.  As of now the circumstances are unclear but it is a golden rule that 'the Toms' will do anything, absolutely anything, to ensure that one of their own does not fall into Afghan hands.  The reasons are obvious and not to be dwelt upon.  Kipling said it all a hundred years ago - particularly the last stanza!

The Young British Soldier by Rudyard Kipling

When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East

'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,

An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased

    Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.

Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,

Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,

Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,

    So-oldier of the Queen!

 

Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day,

You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,

An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:

    A soldier what's fit for a soldier.

Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .

 

First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts,

For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts --

Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts --

    An' it's bad for the young British soldier.

Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .

 

When the cholera comes -- as it will past a doubt --

Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout,

For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,

    An' it crumples the young British soldier.

Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .

 

But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead:

You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said:

If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead,

    An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.

Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .

 

If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,

Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;

Be handy and civil, and then you will find

    That it's beer for the young British soldier.

Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .

 

Now, if you must marry, take care she is old --

A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told,

For beauty won't help if your rations is cold,

    Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.

'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . .

 

If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath

To shoot when you catch 'em -- you'll swing, on my oath! --

Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both,

    An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.

Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .

 

When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,

Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,

Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck

    And march to your front like a soldier.

Front, front, front like a soldier . . .

 

When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,

Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;

She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich,

    An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.

Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .

 

When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine,

The guns o' the enemy wheel into line,

Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine,

    For noise never startles the soldier.

Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .

 

If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,

Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:

So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,

    And wait for supports like a soldier.

Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .

 

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

    An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Go, go, go like a soldier,

Go, go, go like a soldier,

Go, go, go like a soldier,

    So-oldier of the Queen!