Day off tomorrow: Just to warn you that I am on an 'away day' to morrow, back on Tuesday. Apart from seeing various old friends I will aslo be attending my theatre group's Christmas Party and without my presence, Darlings, it would be simply dire!
Kim Jong-Thug: Murderous little sod, ain't he? Mind you, you have to admire the way he has cocked a snook at the Chinese. Dear old uncle Jang was 'their man' in Pyongyang and yet inside 48 hours he was arrested publicly, dragged in front of a 'court' (do stop that sniggering!) and then shot dead with a "machine-gun" which seems a tad excessive but then perhaps North Korean marksmanship is not too great these days. Now, of course, there is only one question, how will the Chinese re-act to this 'loss of face', or perhaps, 'slap in the face' might be a better description. Worth watching, er, from round this side of the globe, anyway!
Never judge a man by who attends his funeral: Poor old Mandela, what a collection of murderers, crooks, frauds, gangsters and phonies turned up at his funeral to turn it into the non-event of the decade if not the century. Did it reach rock bottom when this man attended:
Or did this ripe, old pair of 'ghastlies' ruin the show:
Needless to say, Mark Steyn at National Review, following the delicious travesty of the non-signing signer, Mr Janjie, sums up that famous double-act, Obama & Jantjie (or should that be Jantjie & Obama - dunno! - their agents are still squabbling over it - but heh! - that's show business) better than anyone:
But how heartening, as one watches the viral video of Obama droning on while a
mere foot and a half away Mr. Jantjie rubs his belly and tickles his ear, to
think that the White House’s usual money-no-object security operation went to
the trouble of flying in Air Force One, plus the “decoy” Air Force One, plus
support aircraft, plus the 120-vehicle motorcade or whatever it’s up to by now,
plus a bazillion Secret Service agents with reflector shades and telephone wire
dangling from their ears, to shepherd POTUS into the secured venue and then
stand him onstage next to an $85-a-day violent schizophrenic. In the movie
version—In the 'Sign of Fire'—grizzled maverick Clint Eastwood will be the
only guy to figure it out at the last minute and hurl himself at John Malkovich,
as they roll into the orchestra pit with Malkovich furiously signing “Ow!” and
“Eek!” But in real life I expect they’ll just double the motorcade to 240
vehicles and order up even more expensive reflector shades.
Your way, José: Um, that's José, as in José Mujica and again, no, me, neither until this morning when Drudge pointed me to 'The Graun' (I know, 'the horror, the horror!') Anyway, Snr. Mujica is El Presidente of Uruguay and, allowing for 'Graun'-type hyperbole and general swooning at any Leftie pol, he seems to be a pretty damn good chap! He certainly suffered for his Marxist beliefs but two years living at the bottom of a well seems to have given him time, Mandela-like, to ponder on deeper political truths than Karl's old nonsense. Good man, I wish him well and when he's finished in Uruguay perhaps he'd like to come over here!
One the psychobabblers missed: I can't imagine how many trees it took to print the utterly useless Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric
Association but I feel their pain given that the whole exercise was more or less a total waste of effort. Not least because, as Dr. Theodore Dalrymple points out at Taki's Magazine, they have missed one huge piece of real psychobabble - Biblomania! As he puts it:
This is rather odd because the disorder has been known for at least two centuries, ever since the Reverend Thomas Dibdin published his great work in 1809, Bibliomania; or Book-Madness: containing some account of the history, symptom, and cure of this fatal illness.
The symptoms are as follows: The sufferer cannot pass a bookshop, or even an establishment that might have a few books for sale, without entering and buying a book. He spends far more on books than he ought or than his income can bear; he reads books arithmetically but accumulates them geometrically, so that there is a kind of Malthusian crisis in his house that will be solved only after his death, when his widow sells them en masse. (Practically all bibliomaniacs are men.)
Oh dear, that describes (one of) my mental illness exactly! Should I consult a psychobabbler? Probably not as the symptoms are not covered in their 'Psychobabble for Dummies' handbook.
No more rumbles today
Gerry (VOMIT MATERIEL)Adams, I am not a member of PIRA. Just liked attending funerals wearing a black berry. Did you know David that the Tory leader in the Scottish Parliament was censored for referring to Salmond as being a Pinnochio.
Posted by: Jimmy Glesga | Sunday, 15 December 2013 at 16:57
I expect that Mandela, being a politician, planned his own funeral. So it was probably his idea to have a gathering of the world criminal classes to wave goodbye. And what an ugly lot they were!
Posted by: backofanenvelope | Sunday, 15 December 2013 at 17:04
Remarkable, Jimmy, given that it was in a chamber full of Pinnochios!
What amused me, BOE, were the girths on those SA generals, admirals and air marshals who accompanied the casket. Looked as though they had all lunched well - for the last 20 years!
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 15 December 2013 at 17:36