The Sunday Rumble: 24.11.13

The quality of the English cricket team: 

 

 

My 'flabber' is well and truly 'gasted':  The bottomless pit that is named 'You Couldn't Make It Up' has just sunk a further foot deeper into the ground.  According to The Mail, three female RAF recruits have just successfully sued the MoD and won £100,000 each.  'I say, old gel, bit of a wizard prang, was it?' No, actually it was because during their recruit training they were made to march with men who took longer strides than these poor little girlies could manage and in stretching their legs they damaged their, er, pelvises!  This was £10k more than others would have received for injuries likely to reduce their life expectancy by more than five years.

 

Inflow of migrants means overflow of toilets at No. 10:  Well, it's not as though 'Dim Dave' didn't know they were coming!  And from January 1st they will be coming en masse from Romania and Bulgaria.  Many of them, of course, should be made very welcome because they intend to work, probably harder than most Brits, but a good proportion of them will be here for the handouts and, given their historical traditions, the Roma will flood in to practice their ancient, er, skills!  One result is absolutely certain, and we had a taste of it this week in The Mail, there will be a non-stop stream of effluent in the form of 'SHLOCK-HORROR' headlines in the prints, all blaming 'Dim Dave' for his cowardice in not standing up to 'Rumpey-Pumpey' and the other 'Euro-Kommissars'.

 

Will it get nasty?  I do hope so!  An interesting piece by Matthew d' Ancona in The Telegraph today.  Particularly interesting in the light of a pathetic, cry-baby whimper from Ed 'Milipede' in The Independent in which he runs to 'Mummy Public' and sobs that that horrid bully, David Cameron, is being nasty to him.  He whines that Cameron is smearing him and his best chums with innuendoes about the monstrous, queer, dope-addict, 'Rev.' Flowers, just because once they were all mates together and Flowers loaned them a few quid, er, well, several tens of thousands actually plus, of course, £1.5 mill to the Party!  Considering this comes from a man who leads a party which once employed Damian McBride, Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, and which never ceases to remind the public of the Dave 'n' George's Bullingdon Club goings-on, the stench of humbuggery is overwhelming.  But d' Ancona frets that in this new turmoil with the brown stuff hitting several fans at once, there will be a break-down in the unspoken truce between the leaderships of all the main political parties not to dredge up private peccadilloes indulged in by various individuals before they entered parliament.  Well, I'm all for it, bring it on, I say, let them all get 'down and dirty' and let us be the judge!

 

Two 'Must Reads' - and that's an order!  Well, anything's better than reading the sort of rubbish you get here!  I have already drawn your attention to a gloomy but, alas, I suspect, all too accurate assessment of the future of American conservatism written by James Hurth for the American Foreign Policy Research Institute.  I am going to have to read it again because it has been niggling away at the back of my brain all week.  The implications are somewhat grim.  Then, I recommend another excellent read, a piece by Daniel Hannan for The WSJ in which he describes the growth of what might be called 'Anglophone exceptionalism'.  He ends his piece by pointing up the geo-political importance in Asia of whether or not India casts its lot in with the "loose Anglosphere network".  As always with Mr. Hannan, a thought-provoking essay.  I am grateful to my e-pals, JK and Michael Adams, respectively, for providing the links.

 

A quite exceptional lady:  As always, the Telegraph Obits provide one with examples of lives well-led, of men and women of exceptional intelligence and ability and courage, as well, of course, as the rogues and rascals at the other end of the scale!  However, I was deeply impressed with the obit of Mavis Batey who died on November 12th at the age of 92.  In 1940, as a German-speaker, she was recruited into British intelligence at the tender age of 19 and ended up as an assistant to 'Dilly' Knox, then the maestro of British code-breakers.  The story of her work on breaking the Italian 'enigma' machine which led to a catastrophe for the Italian navy at Matapan is fascinating.  Even more so, and with history-changing results, was her work with Knox and others on breaking the 'enigma' machine used by the German Abwehr, their secret service.  Their success allowed them to confirm that the false intelligence fed back to the Germans via double-agents was being accepted as gospel!  The result, in effect, was that Hitler kept two armoured divisions back at the Pas de Calais instead of releasing them to defend in Normandy.  A splendid lady and I salute her memory.

 

As always, Boudreaux puts it better than I can:  I refer, of course, to Donald Boudreaux, the patron of the Cafe Hayek, who wrote this some time ago but republished it at the request of one of his readers:

I’m appalled by everyone who called in today expressing hopes that one day one of their children ”might become President of the United States.”

My son, Thomas, is ten.  I hope that he graduates from college and has a satisfying and lucrative career.  But I’d much rather that he be even a janitor or a used-car salesman than become a successful politician.  To succeed at politics - especially at the national level – requires duplicity and shamelessness rivaled only by arrogance.  For my son to become President he would have to abandon nearly every moral precept that his mother and I try hard now to impart to him: honesty, forthrightness, decency, respect for others, and modesty.  We emphatically do not want our son to yearn for power, for to do so would inevitably corrode his humanity.

And, yes, I did notice that he equated a "used-car salesman" with a "janitor" which, frankly, I feel is a bit of slap to janitors!  Even so, his summary of the prerequisites for becoming President (or Prime Minister) is spot on and rather appropriate as we contemplate the anniversary of Kennedy's death.

 

Call me Mr. Worryguts but:  Why do I feel so very uneasy when I see on my 'telly' a bunch of Iranian thugs looking exceedingly smug, John Kerry looking as though he has just enjoyed a dish of strawberries and cream and in his enthusiasm actually managing to kiss that dim and ghastly Labour 'apparatchik' woman who runs - don't laugh! - EU foreign affairs, and all that followed by the Prince of Lying Liars, His Royal Aloofness, Barack Obama, telling us that an historic deal has been made over Iranian nuclear capabilities.  Start digging now  . . .

 

China vs. Japan - and it ain't football!  News this weekend that China has unilaterally placed an air defence zone over a sector of the South China Sea which just happens to contain some titchy islands owned by Japan.  Cue: lots of small, slit-eyed, bow-legged men leaping 10' in the air, swishing curved swords around and spitting out, "Ha!", "Kai!", "Sho!" and so forth.  Quite what it will come to in the long run I do not know.  However, if the Japanese are relying for support on their American ally then they should have a word with the Israelis!  And if as a result, 'good', old, Japanese militarism rises again, sun-like in the East, then all I can say is that I am delighted it's all on the other side of the globe! 

 

No more rumbles today!

  

Related articles

Female RAF recruits get £100,000 compensation each... because they were made to march like men

Miliband Accuses PM Of 'Reaching A New Low'

PM has reached new low - Miliband

Comments

[Michael Adams]

Both links bring me to the same WSJ piece.

[dearieme]

"monstrous, queer, dope-addict, 'Rev.' Flowers": oh Duffers, you omitted the suspicion of expenses fraud.

And, oh horror, you referred to the Rev Flowers instead of the Rev Paul Flowers: there's no need to let standards of propriety drop just because of the context.

[dearieme]

Oh, by the by, we've been told that though our car remains safe to drive, it will not get through its "MoT" test next summer. Any advice on car-buying will be gratefully accepted, yer 'onour, yer 'ighness, etc.

[David Duff]

Sorry, DM, I'm not to up on the finer points of Church propriety, or any sort of propriety, come to that!

As to your car problem, I think that first of all you should give your car to an enemy! But, no, let me try to be serious. First of all decide what sort of car your need - big/medium/small; 2-door,/4-door/5-door/estate/4x4; manual/auto; and perhaps most important - petrol/diesel? I mention the 'bleedin' obvious' because I used to be constantly surprised at how many people bought cars because they loved the style/colour/leather upholstery, etc, which somehow I don't see impressing you too much!

Don't buy a NEW car! You 'do your brains in' the moment you drive it out of the showroom and the value drops by several grand! Best of allis something late-ish, low mileage and, MOST IMPORTANT, with full makers service history all stamped up, *genuinely*, in the service book. If you buy from a main-dealer you should be quite safe because I am amazed these days, now that they are all plc companies how prim and proper they are! If you buy from an independent dealer make sure he shows you his HPI report - this is a check on the car's history as to whether or not there is money owing on it, or whether is had had any accidental damage repairs - also it should include the MoT history which will give you a mileage check! If you buy an older car make sure the dealer MoTs it before you take it. (It might have 6-months MoT but they are only good for the day on which they are done - after that anything could have happened to it!)

As to the type or make of car, that is a personal decision. My main pre-occupation when it comes to cars these days is the fuel consumption. Up until recently I was driving a Merc 'A'-class, petrol auto. Nice enough car but I could only get 38 mpg from it which gave me severe indigestion! I chopped it in for a slightly *older* and not such a good quality car (a Toyota Yaris auto) which gives me 63 mpg even if it is on the more expensive diesel. I kiss its little bonnet every day which is giving me something of a reputation with the neighbours!

I forgot to add, always get one those warranty insurances from the dealer for as long as possible - I have one for three years which takes some of the worry out of things.

[dearieme]

Thanks, Duffers. We don't much care about the mpg because we drive few miles anyway. We want a high driving position, with ease of getting in and out too. Must be plenty of headroom and legroom in the front, and room for three old dears in the back. So maybe a 4x4. We want petrol (because diesel's no use for low mileage duties), automatic gearbox, 5 doors, and NO stop-start system. As you say, we'd really like young second-hand, and from a reliable make.

Budget isn't too tight, but does rule out Range Rover madness and the like.

[dearieme]

P.S. Your Hurth link took me straight to Hannan.

[dearieme]

The Donald Boudreaux piece: it reminds me of the time that my father told me that he'd been pressed several times to stand for the Town Council, and his revulsion from the very thought of it.

[David Duff]

Too long out of the game to recommend any one make but by and large - a Jap job - Honda are pretty good! But if you frequently have elderly passengers, as you say, check the ease of getting them in and out!

Link fixed - thanks.

Your Dad was quite right, apart from anything else at local council level there's not enough money in it! Now, at POTUS-level, you're talking . . .

[Lawrence Duff]

Not like the Brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I do so wish there was some free place left on this planet where immigrants could go to prove, for the second time, because it seems that some people take more than one go to get it, that immigrants, like all human beings, create something from nothing, and for every job they take, they make one and a bit more.

SoD

[Andra]

I have had great success with Toyotas over the years.

[dearieme]

Do you know the RAV 4, Andra? Any good?

[Andra]

No, DM, not the RAV4. I'm not a 4-wheel drive sort of person, I'm more your Celica/Corolla type of lady (and I use the term loosely).
I am currently driving a Holden Astra (your Vauxhall Vectra or something) and it's OK but pretty ordinary.
I am looking at a little 4 door Yaris for my next car, they seem to be pretty good.